Hasta La Gadget!

There’s not much you can do to spice up speaker docks at this point — they’re pretty much old hat. But what if that dock allowed you to plug in your iPad and iPhone, or iPod simultaneously? Ah, now we have your attention. Slated to hit the land that begot Kurosawa in mid-summer, the JVC UX-VJ3 and UX-VJ5 make their iOS connectivity a folie à deux. Sporting an AM / FM tuner, video out and a PC input, these sleek connectors don’t appear to part much from the typical feature set. It’s the VJ5 that’s the real standout here, with its six apartment-blending color options, USB port and ability to rip MP3s from a built-in CD drive. Sound swanky enough for you? We thought so, but with no announcement on North American availability, lusting audiophiles on these shores have a bit of a wait ahead of them. Check the source to get a glimpse of these iOS displays in their full color spectrum.

JVC’s UX-VJ3 and UX-VJ5 speaker docks play (elegant) host to iPad and iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is surely the sort of thing Apple likes to see — it might not be the prettiest graph in the world, but it certainly drives home the fairly consistent growth of the iPad’s global web browsing share. Back in April of last year, we reported that the company’s “magical” tablet had nabbed 0.03 percent of global web traffic in its first week. The decimal point has moved a couple of places, according to NetMarketShare, with the device now making up more than one percent of worldwide web browsing. That number is even higher in the US, at 2.1 percent, with the iPhone and Android devices pulling in 2.9 and 2.6 percent, respectively. As for Apple’s share of tablet traffic — well, there’s not a heck of a lot to report on that front.

[Thanks, Alan]

iPad makes up one percent of global web browsing, magic originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This sleek aluminum keyboard case makes the iPad look like a MacBook Air

Keyboards all come down to feel. Buying one without trying it first — unless there is a good returns policy — is probably foolish. But that doesn’t stop me wanting to send $50 to the M.I.C Store right this minute.

The keyboard in question is the Aluminum Keyboard Buddy Case for iPad 2, a keyboard very similar in concept to the ZaggMate case. It is similarly shaped to the iPad 2 itself, with a curved aluminum back, but instead of a screen there is an almost full-sized QWERTY keyboard, complete with keys to control iPad functions like media playback and brightness. When you place the iPad and keyboard face-to-face, magnets put the iPad’s screen to sleep and you have yourself a protective cover.

In keyboard mode, the iPad slips into a slot where it is held at an angle. Respect is due to the folks at M.I.C: When they review their own case on their Gadgets blog, they call out the design for only holding the iPad at one fixed angle.

The keyboard has its own lithium-polymer battery, rechargeable via USB, and has its own sleep mode to conserve power.

If the actual keyboard on this thing is as good as a proper MacBook Air keyboard (which it resembles in miniature), the $50 is a great deal, especially considering that Apple’s own Bluetooth Aluminum keyboard costs $70.

Aluminum Keyboard Buddy Case [M.I.C Store]

See Also:

• Writer, an iPad Keyboard Case for Pros
• ThinkGeek Joins iPad Keyboard Case Cavalcade
• Aluminum Shell Hides iPad Keyboard
• Leather Case Turns iPad into Netbook
• ClamCase Turns iPad into Laptop
• IKeyboard, A Slap-On Rubber Keyboard for iPad

We just mashed our refresh button about a million times to get the screenshot you see above, but it was worth it. JailbreakMe 3.0 with support for the iPad 2 is finally live, and we’re already getting word from tipsters who claim to have successfully jailbroken their iPad 2s running iOS 4.3.3, as evidenced by the pseudo-blurry jailbroken Verizon model below. Thankfully, all of this suggests we’re not dealing with the dodgy release that was leaked previously, but let us know in the comments how it’s working for you this time around and hit the break for another screenshot.

Update: Austin wrote in to tell us about a new jailbreaking tutorial from YouTube user Duncan33303 — head past the break to watch it for yourself.

Continue reading JailbreakMe for the iPad 2 is finally live / not live, just keep refreshing (update: video)

JailbreakMe for the iPad 2 is finally live / not live, just keep refreshing (update: video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jul 2011 03:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Photoforge 2 is my new favorite iPad editing app. Photo Charlie Sorrel

IPad-owning photographers should stop reading right now (well, not right now, or you won’t know what to do next) and go download PhotoForge 2, a rather splendid update to the already decent photo-editing app. Better still, if you already bought the iPhone version, the update is free — the app is now universal.

The biggest differences are in interface design. Once you load a photo from your camera roll, you see nothing but a row of six icons across the bottom of the screen. These access the different editing sections. Press one and up pops a row of big, finger-friendly icons for special effects, image tweaks and adjustments, metadata, cropping and history.

All of these are presented like the magnified Mac OS X dock: as you scroll through, the central icons grow bigger and labels show above them. And once all the icons have scrolled across, they wrap around and come back in as if they were on a wheel. This makes it quick to navigate.

Hit the button and you are taken to the relevant controls. Everything is a lot smoother than it was in the previous version.

Under the hood, a lot has changed. That speed is everywhere, and renders of effects happen almost immediately. You can also work in full-resolution, zooming 1:1 with a double tap, and things like the crop tool and curves dialog have been made easier to use with the fingers.

Biggest of all, though, is the addition of layers. And not just any layers. You can pick blending modes, adjust opacity and even add layer masks. Coupled with a stylus, this last makes a very powerful tool.

Finally, an iOS image editor wouldn’t be complete without retro-style film effects. While you get a lot of built-in effects, you can also opt for the $2 in-app purchase of Pop!Cam, a whole new set of FX which emulate films, add filters, simulate flash effects and even adds frames and grungy paper backgrounds. You can test many of these out before buying, too.

Right now, PhotoForge 2 is $2. If you haven’t already, go get it now. You’ll get $2 worth of entertainment out of it in the first ten minutes.

PhotoForge2 [iTunes]

See Also:

• Photogene 2.0 for iPad: A Desktop Photo Editor on a Tablet …
• FX Photo Studio for iPad: Amazing Filters, Amazing Facts
• Photoshop Crashes onto iPad