The new iPad dominated the Apple news this week, and Macworld had as good a review as anybody. In brief: amazing screen, bit bigger, big heavier and a bit faster.
Also of interest, at least for the techies, is that a Wi-Fi tethering application for the iPhone has managed to bypass Apple’s restrictions on such apps by doing the whole thing in HTML5. Tether did pop up in the Apple store briefly; it was available for about 20 minutes before Cupertino spotted the app was allowing iPhone users to share their mobile data connections over Wi-Fi, a breach of many operator contracts. But now the author has managed to bodge the functionality into HTML5, making Apple’s store redundant and its restrictions irrelevant.
Also for the techies, Safari 5.1.14 was released with patches for Snow Leopard, Lion and Windows versions. Among the fixes packed into the update are improved JavaScript performance, better search field responsiveness, and interface fixes when viewing Flash content after zooming.
On the gossip front a Samsung official has claimed Apple are going to release a 7.85″ iPad, which certainly wouldn’t have happened in Steve’s day, nor I suspect would the awarding of the contract to make the new iPad screens to Samsung.
Elsewhere in the Apple stories: corporations prefer the iPad 10 to 1 over its rivals, eBay has launched a Watch With eBay iPad app, Tim Cook has just converted some of his stock options, pocketing $11m at the same time, and Apple’s stock market value, or market cap, of $506bn makes it worth more than Poland, whose Gross Domestic Product is about $470bn!
The main Android news this week was arguably that Android developers can now hack code on the move with the beta release of AIDE, the Android developer kit which runs on an Android device to create Android applications, although the more attractive news was that Android tables took a very (very) small percentage of the market off the iPad. For those interesting in comparing the two tablets Macworld have a good article.
Google have put their name to the debate for improved fixed and mobile internet access in the UK. They also gave their Google+ mobile site a “better” UI and at the same time updates it with photo album organizer, batch delete and sorting functionality.
Best Android rumour? That Samsung are considering an Android based digital camera!
Sticking with Samsung they continue to dominate the smartphone market in the world’s largest market, China. Although Apple is number one globally, the gap between it and Samsung in the biggest market in the world actually doubled since the third quarter.
They have also started to roll out the Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade to the GT-I9000 Galaxy S II which is going to excite a lot of people.
A new patent from RIM describes a method of manufacture that sandwiches a fuel cell assembly between the keyboard and printed circuit board, wherein the fuel cell ventilates through the keyboard, all of which means future phones may be able to re-charge themselves.
In the “‘best of the rest”, this article in The Telegraph reported that according to research, 41 per cent of the British online population claim to be getting bored with social media and say they will use it less.
MEPs have voted for a significant cut in the price companies can charge for calls and texts and for the first time ever to introduce a maximum fee for data usage.
Brits bought more computer kit during the past Christmas and New Year period than they did in the same period a year before.
Mitchells & Butlers in the UK have signed a deal with O2 to install free WiFi into 1600 of their restaurants and bars.
Everything Everwhere, the owners of Orange and T-Mobile, has applied to Ofcom to be allowed to reuse its existing mobile phone spectrum for the new, faster mobile broadband services.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica is finally going out of print.
The BBC are to release an iTunes competing video on demand store.
And, last but by no means least, The Telegraph will soon be releasing a new mobile app for iPhone and Android
Chris runs the expat blog Almerimar Life covering subjects like expat finance, expat insurance and general advice for expats. He blogs about his life in Spain with his wife Sands, five cats, two Harley Davidsons and (far too often) a glass of red wine. A monthly columnist with the Telegraph Expat he is a regular contributor on a number of local and national papers and radio stations.
