Hasta La Gadget!

Okay, so we’re currently holding our breath while the developer preview of iPhone OS 4 installs on our 3GS — a process that seems to be, uh, not going so well, but we wanted to share these quick shots we took from the simulator in the meantime. The dock is now 3D, like the one in Snow Leopard and on the iPad, multitasking works just like you’d expect — you can swipe left and right to see more open apps — and the Game Center app is present, although not functional. There’s also Events and Faces in the Photos app, which you’d expect after the iPad version got them. We’ve got our fingers crossed that our latest restore attempt is going to work, so check back in a few for a video walkthrough, but hit the gallery below in the meantime!

Update: Wonder of wonders, we actually got the bugger working! We’re doing video right now, let us know what you want to see — and check out some on-device shots below.

Update 2: Video time! We also added some impressions, it’s all after the break.

Continue reading iPhone OS 4 hands-on (updated with video!)

iPhone OS 4 hands-on (updated with video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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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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Having ABC’s entire catalog of programming stowed away in your iPad is a great trick that gets you within earshot of Hulu-level awesomeness. Granted, that’s not quite what the free ABC Player provides — we’re only finding a handful of episodes for most shows — but it’s a start, especially considering how great the content looks. Flipping the iPad on its side automatically takes you to a full-screen view that streams almost instantaneously over a fast WiFi connection, though we’ve found one annoying bug — triggering the orientation lock immediately pops it back to portrait, effectively rendering the lock useless within the app. Connected to a Verizon MiFi with good EV-DO Rev. A signal strength, we were pretty blown away by how good the video still looked; it took only a few seconds longer to start streaming, but otherwise, it’s a fantastic option (of course, your 5GB monthly cap might be bruised and battered to a pulp within a few days if you’re a heavy user).

Netflix looked great, too, though the interface isn’t as slick as ABC’s — it’s clear that these guys threw the app together in a hurry. The first thing you see when you open it, for instance, is the company’s standard web-based login — it’s literally just the Netflix website. Don’t get us wrong, it works just fine, but there were definitely plenty of opportunities for iPad-specific customization here. The trend continues after you log in, where you see the same view you’re already familiar with when you peep your queue and Watch Instantly selections from a browser on a PC. Streaming worked quite well in both orientations; it appears to just use the iPad’s in-built video player, and that’s fine with us. We noticed some stuttering over 3G after we stopped filming our demo, but the good news is that it only happened once, and the footage looked just as good over the MiFi as it did connected to our cable modem. Follow the break for video of both ABC and Netflix in action.

Continue reading iPad Netflix and ABC Player hands-on over MiFi 3G and WiFi (with video)

iPad Netflix and ABC Player hands-on over MiFi 3G and WiFi (with video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 03 Apr 2010 13:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yes, the iPad has fewer features than a comparably priced netbook. Yes, it’s tied to an app store controlled by a single company that has proven to be both capricious and prudish in the kinds of content it approves. And yes, it won’t run Adobe Flash, instantly crippling many websites.

But the iPad is an important device just the same, because it’s simple and it’s fast.

Early reviews of the iPad confirm my experience using the device during Apple’s press event two months ago: there’s something seriously different about Apple’s tablet.

That difference can be summarized in two words: It disappears.

It’s basically a screen. There’s a home button, and some buttons on the side that you don’t pay much attention to while you’re using it.

On the iPad, websites look pretty much the same as they do on my computer display, with one important exception: They fill the screen. Instead of living inside a box with a URL bar and a bunch of buttons alongside other boxes and applications, content takes over the device. There’s almost no noticeable interface.

On top of that, the screen is the most responsive touchscreen display I’ve ever had my hands on. Put your finger down on a page and wiggle it around, and the page follows your finger exactly, and instantly.

Those two facts — the lack of interface and the instant responsiveness — lend a psychological concreteness to whatever you’re looking at. You’re not just looking at Wired.com through a browser, you’re holding Wired.com in your hands.

Ditto for photos, calendar entries, e-mail messages and even video: You feel as though you’re holding the actual pictures, calendar pages, messages and movies.

It’s a subtle difference and, rationally speaking, it is irrelevant to the content that appears beneath the glass face of the LCD. You get exactly the same words and pictures (but not, of course, any Flash video or animations.) But it’s a profoundly different feeling for the human on this side of the glass. It makes the content feel more immediate, more real and more “in the world.”

Over time, that’s going to make profound changes to THE way web designers create and deploy their sites, to the way we think about “online content,” and to the way we think about computers.

In fact, it’s the beginning of the end for computers as technology. Technology, after all, is stuff that doesn’t work yet, as Douglas Adams observed a decade ago. Once it starts working all the time — like chairs or electricity — you stop thinking about it as technology and start taking it for granted.

The iPad promises much, and we have yet to find out if it lives up to its expectations. Make no mistake: Once we have unfettered access to the device, we will be testing the iPad thoroughly to find out where, and how, it breaks down, and we’ll report the results here.

But if it works as well as promised, the iPad could be the first computer that people will be able to take for granted. And that’s why, like many people who live and breathe technology, we’re both excited by it — and a little bit scared of it.

Photo: Jonathan Snyder/Wired.com

Wired tech in real time: Follow Dylan Tweney and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

See Also:

• The New Media Mall: What I’ll Be Expecting From the Apple iPad
• Wired.com Buyer’s Guide: Choose the Right iPad
• Five Essential iPad Accessories
• How the Tablet Will Change the World
• 13 of the Brightest Tech Minds Sound Off on the Rise of the Tablet
• Hands-On With the Apple iPad
• What the iPad Means for the Future of Computing

Admittedly, we were a bit hesitant when Cisco contacted us with jubilation over a router, but now we can kind of see why. The company has pulled in design experts from its recently-acquired Flip for what it’s banking on is a much simpler and friendlier user experience, from the packaging to the set up and maintenance menus, with a new lineup of routers it’s calling Valet. The hardware itself is not too shabby — it’d probably be quite inconspicuous in a Tomorrowland exhibit — but the internals are nothing mind-blowing. Both the Valet and Valet Plus offer 2.4GHz Wireless N, while the latter model boasts a longer range and a quartet of Gigabit ports (the standard only uses 10/100).

Eschewing the usual CD installation key is what Cisco’s calling the USB Easy Setup Key. Similar idea to the other routers, just plug in and install the software. After two clicks of the menu, it auto-located our Valet and connected to a newly-minted, protected wireless service (in this case “BusyFish”) with the password saved in our keychain. Adjusting guest access and parental controls are easy enough, and nice part of the USB key is that you can write the settings onto it, letting you simply plug it into another computer and auto-load the settings. Manual controls are still available and should be fine for most readers. Nothing mind-blowing, but for the audience Cisco’s targeting, it’s definitely a step in the right direction. According to Cisco, availability is “immediately” and prices are $100 for Valet and $150 for Valet Plus. Press release and oodles (yes, oodles) more pictures after the break.

Continue reading Cisco’s Valet routers take a cue from Flip’s design department

Cisco’s Valet routers take a cue from Flip’s design department originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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