Hasta La Gadget!

Apple's new iPad makes the old one look fat and ugly. Photo Jon Snyder / Wired.com

Owners of the first-gen iPad are rushing to sell their tablets, according to online gadget-buyer Gazelle. In the hour after the new iPad 2 was announced yesterday, the company bought more than 2,000 used iPads. This compares to 1,200 iPhones that Gazelle bought during the entire first day after the iPhone 4 was announced last summer.

Clearly the new iPad’s features –- a thinner, lighter body and a pair of cameras — are enough to make people want to ditch their ugly, fat old iPads and upgrade to the newer model.

Gazelle buys pretty much any used gadget. You answer a few questions on the site about its condition, and whether it still has its cables and charger, and Gazelle will give you a price. If you agree, the company sends you a box, and you send it back with the gadget inside. Your gadget is checked, and you get the money. Gazelle sells stuff on its Ebay store.

Yesterday, before the gold rush, these were the iPad prices, which I received in an e-mail from Gazelle:

16-GB Wi-Fi: $375

16-GB Wi-Fi+3G: $446

32-GB Wi-Fi: $437

32-GB Wi-Fi+3G: $522

64-GB Wi-Fi: $463

64-GB Wi-Fi+3G: $595

Now, thanks to a glut of sellers, those prices have dropped. Today, your 16-GB Wi-Fi iPad will get you just $300. I ran my 64-GB Wi-Fi+3G through the Gazelle estimate-ometer and it will get me $510. These drops are made worse by the fact that Apple has knocked $100 off the price of the original iPad to keep them selling until the new models ship.

Will I be buying the new iPad? Probably. I’m rather taken by the fancy new magnetic case, and the cameras, despite being less than a single measly megapixel, are going to be great for taking notes and calling my parents. It’s just a shame that the Boston-based Gazelle won’t accept items from overseas.

Gazelle [Gazelle]

See Also:

• Gazelle
• Hands-On With Apple's Skinnier, Faster iPad 2
• Live Blog: Apple Unveils Thinner, Lighter iPad 2
• Gallery: Apple's Jobs Unveils Upgraded, More Colorful iPad 2 …

Essay rich text editor for iPad adds some clever keyboard shortcuts

Essay, the only rich text editor on the iPad, has gotten a pretty big update. You may remember our first look at the app back in January, when we found it to be good-looking, easy to use and very nicely designed. It also lacked many external keyboard shortcuts, which made it all but useless for its intended purpose.

That problem has been fixed, in a rather clever way.

The reason there are so many plain text editors in the app store is because plain text support is built in to iOS. If you write an app, text-editing comes free. This is not so with rich text, which meant that the developer, Dirk Holtwick, had to do the hard work himself. Further, shortcuts like control-b for bold and control-i for italics don’t work in iOS, so Dirk had to come up with something else. Here’s how it works:

If you hit alt-space, a little box pops up waiting for your command. Hit “i” for italics, “b” for bold, “u” for underline and so on. You can also toggle full-screen mode, switch zoom levels and change to paragraph, header and block-quote text.

It works surprisingly well, and if you’re used to a desktop app launcher like Quicksilver or LaunchBar, then you’re halfway there already.

V1.2 of Essay also adds undo and redo support, and enables auto-correction. Auto-correction is nice, but undo is essential, especially when you just selected an entire paragraph and accidentally overtyped it.

The app still has the same Dropbox support, handles markdown, TXT and HTML files and uses gestures to control the interface, and costs the same $4. Check it out.

Essay [iTunes]

Essay 1.2 with Keyboard Shortcuts [Essay blog]

See Also:

• Essay: iPad Rich Text Editor Shows Promise, Needs Work
• Elements for iPad, a Dropbox-Syncing Text Editor
• PlainText: iPad Text-Editor from the Makers of WriteRoom

Apple’s Digital AV Adapter is compatible with all last-gen iOS devices

Yesterday’s Apple event wasn’t all about the iPad 2. If you have any of Apple’s existing iOS devices, there’s something for you, too.

First, there’s iOS 4.3, which brings some goodies for all iDevices. Really though, this release feels more like a bug-fix release, and adds in the features — like full AirPlay support — that were supposed to be in iOS 4 all along.

Hardware-wise, though, everyone can use the new Apple Digital AV Adapter, the rather clunky adapter that lets the iPad 2 output a 1080p signal to ant HDMI-compatible display. If you own a fourth-gen iPod Touch, and iPhone 4 or an iPad 1, then you can use the adapter, too, although as these devices can’t output 1080p, you’re limited to a 720p signal. Neither will you be able to mirror the on-screen display like you can with the iPad 2.

And that clunkiness? The adapter has two sockets in one little white brick. One is the HDMI port (with digital audio for displays that support it), and the other is a pass-through dock-connector, for keeping the iPad charged as you use it or, presumably, hooking up other accessories like the camera connection kit.

A welcome addition, especially for those who hook their iPads up to watch movies. The price? As usual, it’s too high for a cable, at $39.

Apple Digital AV Adapter [Apple]

See Also:

• IPad Camera Connection Kit Supports External Hard Drives
• IPad Camera Connection Kit Sells for $187.50 on Ebay
• iPad USB Camera Connector Works With Keyboards, Audio In-Out …

Right on cue, the three radio variants of the iPad 2 — that’s the WiFi A1395, GSM A1396, and CDMA A1397 — have arrived at the FCC’s labs for stringent testing. We’re sure Uncle Sam’s testers will stay on task checking up on RF interference and not just spend their time melting faces with Photo Booth, but we understand the temptation.

[Thanks, Laura]

iPad 2 arrives at the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Mar 2011 17:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In case you’re wondering whether Apple’s forthcoming Digital AV Adapter is worth your $39, you might be pleased to know that said HDMI dongle is also compatible with the latest crop of iOS devices before the iPad 2. This includes the iPhone 4, fourth-generation iPod touch, and even the first-generation iPad. Alas, both movies and slideshows will be capped at 720p output from these older devices, whereas the iPad 2 goes a little further with screen mirroring of up to 1080p — we’re guessing the beastly dual-core A5 chip is what makes the magic happen here, though movie output’s also limited to 720p. And hey, we’re only a few months away from finding out if the next iPhone will also get some 1080p love, so no pressure on buying this dongle just yet.

Apple’s Digital AV Adapter also works with iPhone 4, fourth-gen iPod touch, and first-gen iPad originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Mar 2011 16:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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