Hasta La Gadget!

You can’t deny, it’s pretty metaphysically silly to be playing a board game your parents bought at a yard sale for $2 on a $500+ iPad, in conjunction with two or more $200+ iPhones. Mix in service plans, accessories, the price of the app ($10), and the bribes you’ll have to pay your friends to join in on something so embarrassing, and you’re really pushing the limits of common sense with Scrabble for the iPad. But we will say this: it is pretty cool. We just paired up a couple iPhones (running the free Tile Rack app) and joined in with the iPad over Bluetooth or WiFi (the app makes it unclear as to which particular wireless tech is doing the honors at the moment, but both work) and in moments we were swiping tiles up to the iPad with the best of them.

Surprisingly, it makes a game of scrabble go much faster, since the computer does all those difficult maths for you, but the experience isn’t without its shortcomings. If you exit the Scrabble app to the home screen, or accidentally brush the “Menu” button on the iPad app, your game is completely gone. There isn’t even a helpful warning like “are you sure you want to end this game you just invested an hour of your life into without even saving or something?” There not even an option to save a game and resume at later date. The app is more forgiving if you drop a connection with your iPhone, or lock the screen on the iPad for a moment, but we’d really appreciate it if EA rounded off some of these rough edges before we chuck the iPad across the room in a Scrabble-induced rage. Check out video playthrough after the break.

Continue reading Scrabble for the iPad: stir in some iPhones and it’s the best $1,000 you ever spent on a board game

Scrabble for the iPad: stir in some iPhones and it’s the best $1,000 you ever spent on a board game originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Up until now, a shroud of mystery has surrounded Apple’s custom engineered A4 system-on-chip; we know it’s clocked at 1GHz, likely tied to Apple’s prior acquisition of P.A. Semi and manufactured by Samsung. Outside of that, the only other knowledge we’ve gained has come not from the mouth of Cupertino, but from the extracting wizards over at iFixit. The A4 contains at least three layers of circuitry layered on top of each other, though it’s packaged just like the iPhone processor: microprocessor in one package and two memory modules in the other package. We also learned that the iPad RAM is actually inside of the A4 processor package, and we’re expecting to learn even more from those folks in the coming days. All that said, there’s still much debate on whether Apple’s own silicon can stand up to Qualcomm’s heralded 1GHz Snapdragon, the chip powering Google’s Nexus One among other things. AnandTech pitted their iPad against the iPhone 3GS (600MHz ARM Cortex A8) and the aforesaid Nexus One (1GHz Snapdragon QSD8250), using a number of website loads as the primary benchmark. Overall, the A4 proved to be around 10 to 30 percent faster, though it’s impossible to say what effect the operating system has on things. Have a gander at that source link for more — we get the feeling the competitions have just begun.

Apple’s A4 SoC faces Qualcomm Snapdragon in knock-down-drag-out benchmarking test originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Apr 2010 01:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, well — what have we here? A little digging into the mainframe that lies beneath Apple’s freshly launched iPad has uncovered a few telltale signs of next-generation hardware, and while this is obviously in no way confirmation that new wares are on the way from Cupertino, this kind of stuff has led to similar reveals in the past. If we’re seeing this right, we’re looking at not one, but two new mentions of future iPhones (iPhone 3,2 and iPhone 3,3), alongside a new iPod touch (iPod 4,1) and… a future iPad (iProd 4,1). ‘Course, none of this gives us any indication of the all-important whos or whens, but at least this confirms that mythical creatures still exist in the hearts of those who believe.

iPad OS digging reveals hints of future iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Nessie originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 03 Apr 2010 14:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You finally have your iPad in hand. But wait! You can’t just plug it in and dump every app, song, and video you’ve ever downloaded. Here’s how to get things set up and curate your iPad’s collection. More »

The Apple iPad. The name is a killing word — more than a product — it’s a statement, an idea, and potentially a prime mover in the world of consumer electronics. Before iPad it was called the Apple Tablet, the Slate, Canvas, and a handful of other guesses — but what was little more than rumor and speculation for nearly ten years is now very much a reality. Announced on January 27th to a middling response, Apple has been readying itself for what could be the most significant product launch in its history; the making (or breaking) of an entirely new class of computer for the company. The iPad is something in between its monumental iPhone and wildly successful MacBook line — a usurper to the netbook throne, and possibly a sign of things to come for the entire personal computer market… if Apple delivers on its promises. And those are some big promises; the company has been tossing around words like “magical” and “revolutionary” to describe what many have dismissed as nothing more than a larger version of its iPod touch. But is that all there is to this device? Is the hope that Apple promises for this new computing experience nothing more than marketing fluff and strategic hyperbole? Or is this a different beast altogether — a true sign that change has come to the world of the PC? We have the definitive answers to those questions (and many more) right here, so read on for our full review of the Apple iPad!

Continue reading Apple iPad review

Apple iPad review originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 03 Apr 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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