Hasta La Gadget!

Stepping into one of Apple’s retail locations is barely comparable to stepping into any other store, and the Genius Bar is just one of those things that is truly unique to the whole experience. Be prepared now to potentially see a few changes in stores soon, because Apple has been testing a new layout that adds more stools and accommodates more customers with the hopes of increasing overall efficiency.

The new layout being tested involves the Genius Bar table being in a position where it’s perpendicular to the store’s back wall with an added emphasis of more iPad use for managing customer service records, so get ready to see more touchscreens in action. Since the new positioning takes up more room, the kids’ tables and seats need to be eliminated.

At this point, it’s not known whether or not Apple will go ahead with this particular Genius Bar layout tweak or if it will just be incorporated in select stores. The changes are said to be well-suited for stores that are narrow and don’t have as much room to work with in certain shopping malls.

[via Apple Insider]

Apple may be changing its in-store Genius Bar layout is written by Elise Moreau & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Your precious iPad is used to being touched lovingly, with swipes happening from time to time as you turn the page on a digital book over and over. As for games, those gyroscopic and accelerometer-enhanced titles see you tilt your iPad all over the place, and perhaps might even involve a furious tapping on select areas of the display. However, how many of you actually scratch your iPad’s screen? I guess the answer would be close to zero, but there is a possibility this might happen with the $12.99 iPieces iPad Air Hockey.

The iPieces iPad Air Hockey will do away with the need for traditional air hockey tables, and no air will pump out from your iPad’s display, but through an app, you can have a mini air hockey session with your friends and family, complete with capacitive strikers. Better get a decent screen protector before you give this a go though.

[ iPieces iPad Air Hockey copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

We don’t have any more details yet on the 10-disc Marvel Cinematic Universe set that popped up on Amazon a month ago, but Disney and Marvel have revealed we can expect Marvel’s The Avengers on Blu-ray September 25th. It will be shipping in the usual assortment of combo packs: four disc with Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital copy and digital download or two disc Blu-ray and DVD combo for $50 / $40 MSRP (respectively, Amazon currently lists the four disc set for $35). What will arrive first this month however, is The Avengers Initiative: A Marvel Second Screen App, available on iPad and, for the first time for one of Disney’s second screen apps, iPhone. Marvel is promising bi-weekly content updates until September when it moves up to weekly updates of character profiles, interactive comic books and more before the movie even arrives. Extras on disc will include 7.1 DTS-HD MA audio, a gag reel, behind the scenes looks with director Joss Whedon and cast, deleted scenes and more. Check the press release after the break for the full list, plus a new trailer for the Blu-ray.

Continue reading Marvel’s The Avengers Blu-ray hits September 25th, iOS second screen app this month (video)

Marvel’s The Avengers Blu-ray hits September 25th, iOS second screen app this month (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Jul 2012 04:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Earlier this year, iPads were flying off the shelves in China — but not for the expected reasons. The slates were being removed from stores following an injunction granted to Shenzhen Proview Technology, a local firm that had laid claim to the iPad trademark. The injunction would later be rebuffed by a Shanghai court, resuming tablet sales while the dispute raged on. Today, Apple and Proview have come to a resolution, putting $60 million in Proview’s coffers and the matter to rest.

Feeling lost? Let us catch you up. Way back at the turn of the century, Proview’s Taiwan branch registered the “iPad” trademark for its Internet Personal Access Device — an all-in-one PC that wasn’t unlike Apple’s own iMac. Later on, Apple would purchase the worldwide rights to the name from the Taiwan branch, which presumably included Shenzhen Proview Technology’s claim — though the Chinese vice minister for the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) would later declare Proview the trademark’s rightful owner. Fast forward to today, and the two firms are finally settling.

According to The New York Times, Proview had originally sought as much as $400 million, but has agreed to settle for a lesser amount to help it pay its debts. Either way, Apple seems to have already transferred the sum, according to the Guangdong High People’s Court, apparently eager to put the dispute behind them.

Apple pays $60 million in iPad trademark dispute, makes peace with Proview originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Jul 2012 01:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s the iPhone’s five-year anniversary, and I’m proud to say I was there from the start. In fact, I was number eight in the line outside the New York Cube Apple Store, camping out for nearly five days to be one of the first to get my hands on the new smartphone. Spending that time wasn’t just about recording history from the front line, but also taking part in an historical event. The iPhone has long been treated as a watershed moment in smartphones, and it’s fair to say that in its shadow just about all of the devices that came before it fell well short in more than a few ways. I knew, after handling a whole lot of smartphones prior to the iPhone, that this one device would change the entire mobile industry for the better.

As far as I know, that excitable queue was the first of its kind, and possibly the largest “iCamp” for any single device. It certainly changed the way gadget anticipation was perceived in the industry. Apple always gets credit for the quality of its hardware and design, and the ease of use of its software, but the company’s strategy with the iPhone has arguably been the most significant diversion from the industry status-quo.

One device in the line-up; one device per year. “One size fits all” in some ways, but – with the advent of the App Store – a near-infinite number of ways to personalize your iPhone. Developers, carriers and consumers flocked to it, more so when the iPhone spawned the iPad and spread its dominance to the tablet market.

The iPhone hasn’t had it easy, though, and Apple has fought hard to maintain its ease of use amid advancing features, to streamline its industrial design, and to variously lead and react to the evolutions of the mobile marketplace. Along the way more than 315 million iOS devices sold of which nearly 220m iPhones of five generations have been sold worldwide.

Through the years, we’ve continued to track and report on the iPhone as well as iOS, as they’ve matured into a platform that has forced competitors like Microsoft, RIM and Nokia into reinventing their businesses. For RIM, it’s obvious that they’re in trouble, while five years on Microsoft is still trying to get Windows for phones into the mainstream. Think for a moment about Palm: gone. Nokia, once the dominant force: given up on Symbian and thrown in, with no small degree of desperation, with Microsoft.

In the end, though, it doesn’t so much matter whether you’re a fan of the iPhone or of another platform. Strong competition and innovation in the mobile space – new features, refining those we have to make them more flexible and more usable, and delivering advanced technology in a way that makes it approachable and unintimidating – is something that benefits everybody with a mobile device. The smartphone segment five years ago was naive and lacked direction; iPhone shook that complacency to its core, and we’re still seeing the repercussions today.

Now iOS 6 is nearly upon us, and the rumors around the iPhone 5 are coming thick and fast. It’s bound to be contentious and, if I were a betting man, I’d put money on it being a sales success too. Each year Apple manages to do something which has the industry smacking its head, wondering why it didn’t collectively spot that possibility. For 2012, the talk is of bringing mobile payments to the mainstream, and a deepening of Siri’s potential as the voice-control system steps up to take equal place next to the touchscreen paradigm Apple revolutionized.

Knowing what I know now, would I have camped out for nearly a week just to be among the first to get my hands on the iPhone? Hell yes, and I wouldn’t even think twice about it. Happy anniversary iPhone; here’s to the next five years. http://slashgear.com/apple/

Happy anniversary iPhone; here’s to the next five years! is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.