Hasta La Gadget!

As we begin 2013, we’re stuck in a kind of tablet limbo. Most companies rushed to get devices out for the fall, while the models we saw at CES 2013 aren’t yet shipping. As such, it’s a mostly familiar deck, with Apple, Google and Microsoft once again striving for the top spot. That said, there are new entries from Amazon and ASUS, and many of us who didn’t score some sweet loot this holiday season have a slate-sized pile of cash to spend. If you’re in that situation, continue on for our first tablet guide of 2013.

Note: If you’re looking for tablets with an Atom or Core i5 CPU, you’ll find those in our forthcoming laptop buyer’s guide, since they have the same guts as notebooks (or netbooks, in some cases). For the purposes of this tablet guide, we define tablets as slate-type devices with low-power ARM processors.

Filed under: Tablets, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, ASUS, Google, Amazon

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If you’ve been thinking of getting an iPad mini, it would seem that now’s the time. Apple has updated its iPad mini listings on the US online store to reflect new shipping times: 1-3 days business days. Previously, Apple said it wouldn’t be shipping out iPad minis until 3-5 business days after orders were placed, so this is something of an improvement.

Of course, there isn’t that much of a difference between 1-3 business days and 3-5 business days, but the important takeaway here is that it seems the stock issues Apple has been facing are getting better. Apple has been struggling to meet the demand for the iPad mini, but Tim Cook seemed hopeful that these stock issues could be resolved quickly when the company delivered its financial results for Q1 2013.

With those quarterly earnings, Apple reported record iPhone and iPad sales, but there were some things about the report investors didn’t like. It wasn’t long after the quarterly earnings report landed that Apple’s stock was taking a tumble, and though its price has been fluctuating since then, it hasn’t come close to making up the ground it lost. Perhaps Apple’s stock will get a boost if these improved shipping times do indeed mean an end to the supply constraints?

In any case, the iPad mini seems to be selling well, even though we don’t have hard numbers. We imagine it was responsible for quite a few iPad sales in Apple’s record-setting quarter, and Apple said that it moved 3 million units in its first weekend. Are you going to pick one up now that shipping times have improved?

[via AppleInsider]

iPad mini US listings updated with better shipping times is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Baltimore Ravens have launched themselves into the future with a massive chop-down of the traditional binder full of plays for this Super Bowl Sunday, relying instead on the Apple iPad and the Gameplan mobile playbook environment. While this isn’t the first time an NFL team has adopted the iPad specifically as their new locker room go-to device for time-out planning, tonight the developers at Global Apptitude LCC will be put to the test: it’s Gameplan to the rescue!

With Gameplan, the Ravens are able to take their iPads and view their entire book of plays in both shorthand and with video demonstrations from previous games. Coaches are able to play back events the same game in which they happened, review the first half of the game before the second begins, and transmit any and all information they’ve got to the whole of the team with a tap.

This system has been in use for quite a while – according to the Wall Street Journal, former Baltimore Ravens man Chuch Pagano asked that his new team (the Indianapolis Colts) begin using digital playbooks immediately after joining up with them in 2012. Director of football information systems for the Colts Ryan Fannin let it be known that 90 iPads were handed to players and 20 iPads were given to coaches at the start of this season.

One must assume the system works for at least one team as the Ravens and none other than linebacker Ray Lewis hit the Mercedes-Benz Superdome tonight. And it’s not just Gameplan (by Global Apptitude) that’s been used this year – according to ESPN, the group known as PlayerLync is currently providing iPad-based digital playbook services to the Denver Broncos, Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals, and San Diego Chargers. For the Ravens, it’s all about Gameplan.

As Co-Founder and CTO of Global Apptitude Jeff Teles lets us know, a quarter of the NFL is currently using GamePlan. These teams are as follows: Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins, Seattle Seahawks, St. Louis Rams, Carolina Panthers, Detroit Lions, and the Indianapolis Colts. Teles also made note that the Baltimore Ravens were, in fact, the first team in the NFL to implement iPads.

We also had a brief chat with Co-founder of Global Apptitude Randy Fusee this weekend where he made clear that, “the Baltimore Ravens user our Gameplan technology to prepare their players to play each week.” He went on to note that their app “brigs scouting reports, game plans, playbooks, and film study to each players’ iPad and allows for real time communications and collaboration between coaches and players.” Below you’ll see a report from FoxNashville where the app can be seen in-use.

Now we wait to see if the 49ers reveal any usage of digital solutions such as these in the Big Game as well. While you’re waiting for that answer, get pumped up and prepared for tonight with our lovely Super Bowl 2013 streaming video sources guide, including a fabulous set of iPad apps, if that’s what you’re all about.

Super Bowl XLVII: Tonight the Ravens’ playbook is an iPad is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

An official iOS 6.1 untethered jailbreak is just around the corner. Come Super Bowl Sunday, iOS users will once again be able to jailbreak the latest firmware in order to open up a world of customization on their iOS devices. However, we haven’t seen an untethered jailbreak since Apple released iOS 5.1.1 back in May 2012, so it’s definitely been awhile since avid jailbreakers have had anything to do. With that said, we’ve decided to refresh your brain and help get you on the right track towards a successful jailbreak before it officially releases on Sunday. Here are a few things you should do before you dive in.

First off, make sure your iOS device is compatible with the iOS 6.1 jailbreak before you go any further. By this point, you might already know, but if not, a majority of iOS devices will be compatible. The ones that won’t be supported are the iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, first- through third-generation iPod Touch, first-generation iPad, and the third-generation Apple TV.

If you’re still running iOS 5.1 and are jailbroken, it’s a good idea to make sure all of your Cydia tweaks are compatible with iOS 6.1 before you upgrade. Open up the Cydia app and start listing out the tweaks that you use, skimming through each tweak’s description to see if it’s compatible with iOS 6.1. Most of the time, the developer will mention some sort of warning if it’s not compatible.

Once you know which tweaks will and won’t work, decide at that point whether or not it’s worth it to upgrade, and be sure to keep in mind if iOS 6’s new features are also worth it. If any of the new features introduced in iOS 6 aren’t personally pleasing to you, it might be a good idea to just stick with iOS 5.1 anyway if you have an older iOS device.

If you’ve made it this far, then we’re assuming you’re ready to upgrade to iOS 6.1 and jailbreak your device. Go ahead and update through iTunes — DO NOT update OTA. One of the dev team members confirmed that the OTA iOS 6.1 update will have some issues with jailbreaking. Once you’re updated, you’ll then want to make sure you have an up-to-date backup using iCloud or iTunes. Not only will this backup save your butt when the jailbreak goes wrong, but it’ll also be useful when you need to restore apps and settings back to your device after you jailbreak. You’ll also want a backup of all your Cydia packages if you’re currently jailbroken, for which OpenBackup is perfect for this. Make sure you backup these Cydia tweaks before you upgrade to iOS 6.1, because you’ll lose your jailbreak once you update.

Once the iOS 6.1 jailbreak hits, you’ll then want to decide whether to do a clean jailbreak install, or jailbreak your device while keeping all your apps and settings intact. A fresh install will be quicker, and it’s a great way to start with a clean slate if you have a ton of clutter, but you can also use those backups to restore apps, settings, and Cydia tweaks. On the other hand, jailbreaking with your apps and settings intact takes longer, but you won’t need to restore any backups if everything goes smoothly. Be sure to decide which route you want to go before you start the process.

The Evad3rs dev team plans to release the iOS 6.1 untethered jailbreak sometime on Sunday. We’re not sure what time exactly the jailbreak will become available, but we’ll make an announcement when the time comes. You can head to the dev team’s website now and read through the FAQ and other notices they have posted. Hopefully, we’ll see the jailbreak earlier in the day before the Super Bowl, that way we can enjoy the game with our brand-new jailbroken devices, but we’ll simply have to wait and see. However, thanks to your preparations, you’ll be ready to go right away.

iOS 6.1 jailbreak arriving Sunday, here’s how to prepare is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The BlackBerry PlayBook as it was released back in April of 2011 was a mess, but the first BlackBerry 10 tablet certainly doesn’t have to be. Have a look back at our original BlackBerry PlayBook Review and you’ll find that right out of the gate the machine was far too “rough around the edges” to be a real competitor with the likes of the iPad or even the first big Android release with the Motorola XOOM. The direction the company is going with BlackBerry 10 presents a unique opportunity to take the tablet market by storm by hitting several specific arenas at once.

1. Brand Power

Back when RIM introduced BBX, the system seemed like an exciting enterprise to BlackBerry users across the board. Fast forward to 2013 and the company formerly known as RIM is now called BlackBerry and the mobile operating system is called BlackBerry 10. The brand name BlackBerry is the most valuable asset the company has, and if they decide to create a new tablet, they need to call it the BlackBerry Tablet.

If BlackBerry decides to call a new tablet something fun and new and unique, it will fail. The name BlackBerry PlayBook implied that there was a built-in audience for the device, people who loved BlackBerry and would therefor, inside that brand awareness, purchase a tablet called PlayBook. I can say iPad and you know that Apple made it. To a lesser degree I can say Galaxy Note or Galaxy Tab and you know Samsung made it.

If I say to a random stranger “hey, do you own a PlayBook?” They’ll think I’m speaking about a book of plays. If I ask that same stranger if they have a BlackBerry tablet, they may not know what that device looks like (yet) but they’ll understand what I mean. The BlackBerry Tablet must be the direction the company goes with the name.

2. Near-impossible ease of use in connecting with PCs and Macs

Two trends exist with tablets today regarding how they connect to larger, more powerful computers. The first is that a tablet will be powerful enough in and of itself that it does not appear to need to connect to any other computer, all of its connections appearing between itself and the internet. The second is a tablet that connects to a keyboard, becoming a laptop in the process.

The BlackBerry Tablet needs to skip the keyboard dock altogether, first of all. BlackBerry creating a keyboard dock implies that they don’t feel the basic unit is awesome enough on its own, and it has to be. The BlackBerry Tablet should be able to exist with an on-screen keyboard alone at all times. If users want to use a keyboard, they’ve got hundreds of Bluetooth keyboards on the market already (most of them made for the iPad, at the moment) that’ll work just great.

With the BlackBerry tablet you need to be able to work with a PC as if it were a folder. This functionality has been lost as a secondary function with essentially every modern tablet because it’s assumed that users want to work with apps like iTunes. Business users need to be able to plug the BlackBerry Tablet in to their computer with a USB cord and have it appear as a folder where they can add or take files easily.

If I plug an Android tablet into my computer, the reaction my computer has depends solely on the version of Android I’ve got running on the tablet and the USB connection status I’ve selected in the software. This cannot be so with the BlackBerry Tablet. If I plug an iPad into my computer, iTunes pops up. This leads us into the third and most important insane step BlackBerry must take with the BlackBerry tablet:

3. A User-Developed User-Experience

Though I’m not entirely sold on the “UDUX” shortening of that term, a user experience as user-dependent as possible is what BlackBerry needs to create for the BlackBerry Tablet. They’ve hinted at this – in a way – with the BlackBerry Android toolset we’ve just posted about again today regarding apps. With this toolset you – as a developer – are able to rapidly and easily convert an APK (the file type for an Android application) into a BlackBerry-ready app for submission to BlackBerry for consideration in their official app store.

This toolset has the right feeling – it’s a good step in the right direction as far as being open to the developers of the world who have already done a lot of work for operating systems that aren’t BlackBerry 10. Now this drive needs to be pushed to the actual operating system itself. The BlackBerry Tablet needs to have BlackBerry 10 existing as an experience for the user that never stops being open to changes and open to modifications.

The BlackBerry Tablet running BlackBerry 10 must be able to work for anyone and it has to be irresistible to not just business users, but all users. If a 5 year old has a BlackBerry Tablet in their backpack, a 35 year old should be jealous, and ready to find a way to save up the three $50 bills it’ll cost them to buy one of their own.

The BlackBerry Tablet: Available This Summer

Do you think we’ll see this magical unicorn of a tablet appearing this summer? What do you think it’d take for BlackBerry to bust out a device that’s so potentially valuable to every man woman and child in the world that they have trouble producing them fast enough to keep up with demand? And perhaps most important of all – does BlackBerry have enough steam right this minute to keep itself alive long enough to create the BlackBerry Tablet?

BlackBerry 10 tablet: three insane steps for success is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.