Hasta La Gadget!

Today Google has been so kind as bump up their official Google+ app for iPhone (and iPad) that’ll allow people around the world to explore the social network with great ease. This version of Google+ is made for iPhone, but is perfectly suited for the iPad‘s larger display as well. Graphics come through sharp and well-tuned for the most part, with only a few bits and pieces left for a future version to clean up – gray borders around small images, and other such small matters.

This version of Google+ is the first made for iPad AND iPhone and takes on a form not unlike what we saw at Google I/O 2012 when we got our first look at the updated Android mobile version of the environment. We’ve got circles for icons, large and separated blocks for updates and shares, and even access to Hangouts, too! Have a peek first at the newsfeed as it appears on the iPad – for the iPhone you’ve got a similar setup, only with one column instead of two.

Then there’s the Hangouts situation – you certainly can hang out with your friends using your own front facing (or back facing) camera on your iPhone or iPad, but that’s about it. You wont be watching YouTube videos or editing documents from this app in this iteration. It’s also rather plain looking if you’ve got no friends to chat with – awww:

You can share photos to Events, turn on instant upload to instantly upload photos from your iPad or iPhone to Google+ automatically, and check out your Nearby stream to see which contacts of yours are physically near to you – and what they’re doing at the moment. You’ll be able to check this app out right this minute, if you do so please, in the iTunes App Store. It’s there for free, of course, and is up for download starting today.

Google+ released for iPad, we go hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In a relatively unheard of – or unspoken of move, at least, on Apple‘s part, the iPad has been reported as making some changes to the current hardware that makes up the iPad 3. This 3rd generation iPad (with Retina display) will supposedly be getting a slightly thinner chassis as well as a lighter design overall. It will also be getting a larger camera lens hole, though no word has been spread quite yet on if the actual camera will be affected.

These reports come from DigiTimes who have let it be known that their sources, leaking information first to a Taiwanese tech journal then to them, come from an Apple manufacturing plant of some sort, and also have a bit to say about the batteries in the current generation iPad. These sources are reporting that some of the reported heat issues present in the current iPad will be all but erased with the new build as the batteries are getting both smaller and more energy efficient.

It’s highly doubtful that Apple would release another iPad this year with the 3rd generation iPad still so fresh in everyone’s minds, but you never know. There’s also always the possibility that Apple could release a software update that would replicate the “fixes” that the sources speaking above are implicating, with the hardware changes adding to future possibilities of long-lasting units.

Have a peek in the timeline below to see all the most recent iPad news bits, and notice how it’s not the standard model iPad that’s getting all the press, it’s a much smaller “iPad Mini” model instead. Which will cross the finish line first – a smaller model, or just a slightly thinner model?

iPad reportedly getting hardware tweaks but no new model is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Apple’s iPad Mini is the rumor that refuses to die, with several high-profile sites lending their support to speculation that a “tweener” iOS tablet is indeed in the pipeline. Such a slate would presumably instantly help Apple better compete with the Kindle Fire juggernaut, as well as the freshly announced Nexus 7, but that’s assuming it can keep up its end of the bargain. Namely, does Apple – and its suppliers – have the technical capabilities to deliver a screen good enough to bear the Retina Display branding?

According to the rumors, Apple has turned to Sharp for its display panels in the iPad Mini. On the face of it that makes sense; long-standing Apple production partner Foxconn already holds a significant number of shares in Sharp, a fact which has seen links drawn between the companies and the possibility of an Apple television set.

For the iPad mini, though, it would be Sharp’s smaller panels that are of interest: namely, the IGZO technology screens that went into production back in April. That tech produces thinner, better-quality displays than we’ve seen before, which would allow Apple to create a small, thin tablet without sacrificing all-important usability.

Question is, can Sharp’s screen deliver on what is gradually becoming a selling point across Apple’s range? Retina Display may be a marketing term rather than a specific standard, but Apple has taken the idea of pixels too small to differentiate between at average user-distance and run with it in the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and, most recently, the top-tier version of the 2012 MacBook Pro. True, there are iOS devices still on sale without Retina support, but they’re the older iPhone 3GS and iPad 2, legacies of yesterday’s tech kept on to keep the entry-level price points catered for.

Could Apple launch a non-Retina iPad Mini? And what would such a tablet entail? With the iPhone 4S having a pixel density of 326ppi and the new iPad coming in at 264ppi, the iPad mini would presumably have to slot in somewhere around the latter end of those numbers; that, and keeping roughly the same aspect ratio as both existing devices, would call for at least a 1600 x 12800 UXGA panel, which would deliver 261ppi for the speculated 7.85-inch screen.

Ah, but does Sharp have such a panel, remains the question. According to the April announcement, the company has three IGZO screens: a 32-inch panel running at 3840 x 2160, a 10-inch at 2560 x 1600, and finally a 7-inch at 1280 x 800 for a 217ppi count.

Not quite Retina then, and not 7.85-inches, though of course Sharp could well be playing some Apple-specific cards close to its chest. Given the emphasis Apple has placed on Retina Display branding and technology as the future of its pixel-rich devices, the iPad Mini will need to shape up, resolution-wise, if it wants to join the iOS club.

[Update: John Gruber suggests Apple may well stick with iPhone 3GS technology, cutting the displays into 1024 x 768 7.85-inch chunks]

[Image credit: Ciccaresedesign]

Does an iPad Mini add up, Retina style? is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

For a device that’s so extremely popular that the rest of the tablet market is inevitably compared to it first and foremost, it seems that the iPad is undeniably inexpensive when it comes to cash needed to charge it up. The iPad has an internal battery – a rather large one, at that – and according to Electric Power Research Institute, it’s only costing you an average of $1.36 USD a year to keep the device on. This study also included several other devices and electronic items you’ve got around the house as well, with the most expensive item being a refrigerator at $65.72 per year.

This study showed a desktop PC to be costing you $28.21 USD a year on average to keep powered up, while a 60-watt compact fluorescent lightbulb costs users $1.61 a year (surely not constantly running that whole time, of course.) The EPRI focused on the iPad in this study since it is without a doubt the most talked-about device on their list, and they’ve come up with a few other interesting points as well.

An average desktop computer uses 20 times more power than an iPad, said the study, and if the number of iPads tripled instantly to 67 million, we’d only need one small power plant operating at full strength to provide enough power for them each to be charged up whenever necessary.

These iPad tests were done by EPRI researcher Baskar Vairmohan, who studied the effects of a possible switch from the current notebook and gaming console culture of many to a one-tablet household (one tablet per person, that is.) What he’s found is that with the trend of tablets replacing notebooks and desktops at a rather large rate, we could be looking at a big decrease in power consumption in the near future.

Of course there’s also the iPhone, which Vairmohan calculated to cost just 38 cents per year to keep charged up. Imagine if the only device anyone had was that – cash in!

[via Jonathan Fahey]

iPad power costs $1.36 a year is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Chrome for iOS, announced at Google IO just a few hours ago, has already begun to hit the App Store, though there’s a sting if you’re expecting the full Google browser experience. The new browser is the latest iteration of Chrome, bringing features like tab sync to iPhone and iPad; however, it’s not built on the speedy underlying engine of Chrome on other platforms, such as Android.

In fact, it’s more like a reskin of what Apple is already offering in iOS, dressing up the existing WebKit engine with a shiny new Chrome UI. One of Apple’s limits for iOS apps is that they’re unable to change those underlying components:

“It’s not the Chrome rendering or JavaScript engines — the App Store rules forbid that. It’s the iOS system version of WebKit wrapped in Google’s own browser UI. The pressure for Apple to allow users to specify a third-party app as their default browser is going to increase significantly after this. (As I type this, it’s not yet in the App Store.)” John Gruber

There’s also no support for setting anything other than Mobile Safari on the iPhone or iPad as the default browser. That means every time you click a link in an email or app, Safari will leap up to load it rather than Chrome for iOS.

It’s unclear whether the inevitable increase of pressure on Apple to change its policies will have any impact in the long run. The company has proved reluctant to allow other browsers to occupy the space that Safari currently does, rightly assuming that controlling the web experience is an important aspect of the “walled garden” ecosystem.

You can download Chrome for iOS here [iTunes link].

Chrome for iOS hits US App Store is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.