Hasta La Gadget!

A new application called Air Display will let you use your iPad as an external display for your Mac. Coupled with a 13-inch MacBook, this adds around half the screen again to your work area. The connection is made over Wi-Fi, and you need a small helper application on your Mac. How well does it work? I tested it out.

The app costs $10, which is either expensive (it does just one thing) or incredibly cheap ($10 for a monitor). Once downloaded, you follow the on-screen instructions for installing the helper app on the Mac, a simple and standard process. One reboot later and you’re ready.

To use it, you just launch Air Display on the iPad and then choose it in a drop down list that is now in your Mac’s menubar. It shows up as a normal external monitor in the Display’s section of the Mac’s system preferences, and you can drag it around in the “arrangement” tab just like you could with a real monitor. Here’s my setup (the iPad is the little one at the bottom):

Because this works over the air (both machines need to be on the same Wi-Fi network), there is some lag. Watching videos on the iPad screen is choppy, and if you drag a window across it then there is a delay and the image pixellates somewhat. Once it is settled, though, after a second or so, the image is as clear as you’d expect. Better, in fact, as the iPad has a pretty high-resolution screen.

The touch screen works, although you can mouse into the space as well. Touching is a little freaky, as multi-touch gestures don’t work. If you quit the app to do something else, the Mac resets back to a single screen, but if you get push-notifications they pop up on the iPad as normal, and you can tap to dismiss as normal. It’s pretty neat.

You wouldn’t want to use this for anything motion-intensive, but as a place to keep your Twitter and IM clients, or even as an extra screen for something like Photoshop Lightroom, it is ideal. Plus, if you have you Mac laptop with you, you probably have the iPad too, and you don’t even have to pack a cable. Available now, Windows version coming soon.

Air Display [iTunes]

Introducing Air Display [Avatron]

There’s been rumors that Apple had ended its long-running of “Get a Mac” ad campaign ever since Justin “Mac” Long said he thought they might be done last month, and it looks like that’s now finally been confirmed by Apple — the company has pulled all the ads from its site and is instead redirecting folks to its new “Why You’ll Love a Mac” page. Of course, the move doesn’t exactly come as a huge surprise considering that Apple hasn’t produced a new one since its Windows 7-challenging ads last October, and Apple has certainly had plenty of prime material since then. Head on past the break for look at one of the more recent highlights, and hit up the more coverage links below if you feel like reminiscing a bit more. As for what’s next for Apple, we can only guess. A triumphant return of Jeff Goldblum, perhaps?

Continue reading Apple pulls the plug on ‘Get a Mac’ ad campaign

Apple pulls the plug on ‘Get a Mac’ ad campaign originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 May 2010 11:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whoa there, vaquero — don’t get too excited just yet. As with just about every other gratis backup service on the web, there’s a catch you should know about with mSpot‘s latest endeavor. The free limit is right around 2GB (exact size is TBD), so if you’ve got more than a second generation iPod’s worth of audio, this here service will only serve as a tease. For those who fall under that threshold, there’s plenty to love, and if you’re down for ponying up, you’ll be able to secure 10GB for $2.99 per month or 20GB for $4.99 per month. Launched today at Google I/O, this “freemium” music cloud service essentially syncs your entire music library (either in iTunes or a user-designated arrangement of folders) with mSpot’s servers — provided your library is less than 20GB, of course — and then makes it available anywhere. Phones and other computers should have no issue tapping in (though only Android will be supported out of the gate), and the app itself runs quietly in the background in order to check for new additions / subtractions and mirror said changes in your online library. For now, the service is available by invitation only through mspot.com, with public availability slated for next month. Size limits aside, the service worked well for us in our limited testing, though that first 20GB upload is a real pain over Time Warner Cable’s obviously capped Road Runner internet. Oh, and if you’re bummed about not being guaranteed an invite today, you shouldn’t be. Hit that source link and enter “engadget” as the password — the first 500 get immediate access, but once they’re gone, they’re gone.

*20GB tops, buster!
**Only on Android, Macs and PCs at first, chief!

Continue reading mSpot stores your music* in the cloud, makes it available anywhere**

mSpot stores your music* in the cloud, makes it available anywhere** originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 May 2010 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As promised by yesterday’s leak from Vietnam, Apple has updated the plastic unibody MacBook. The new model, which appears on Apple’s traditional new hardware day – Tuesday – gets the NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor and the new aluminum MagSafe power-cord. It also gets another feature not revealed in the inexplicably leaked Vietnamese MacBook: a claimed ten-hour battery-life.

The battery life estimates keep on growing as Apple squeezes better power management out of its machines, but the biggie for buyers of the $1,000 MacBook is the new graphics chip, which is made by NVIDIA exclusively for Apple and also found in the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The 320M shares system memory and uses PureVideo HD to decode hi-def video within the GPU, helping to keep the fans from spinning up when watching video with compatible apps.

The new MacBook is available now, in Vietnam and elsewhere.

MacBook [Apple]

See Also:

• New, Faster, Unreleased MacBook Shows up in Vietnam
• New MacBook Pro: 10-Hour Battery, Hi-Res Screen, i7 CPU
• Chinese MacBook Air Knockoffs Actually Look Awesome

See Also:

• Stanza v2.0: The iPhone's Best E-Reader Just Got Better
• IPhone Stanza Downloads May Top Kindle Sales
• Gadget Lab Guide: How to Un-Cripple Your International Kindle …
• iBooks Store Loaded with Project Gutenberg Titles at Launch …
• Apple's Tablet E-Book App Rips off Indie Dev's Creation

We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Dan Murphy [great name!], who needs to know which ultraportable on the market today is best equipped to roll both ways… if you know what we’re sayin’. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“Real simple: what’s the best Core i5 or Core i7 13-inch laptop (with discrete graphics) for running both Windows 7 and Mac OS X? I’m a video and photo guy who does marketing work for a university, and while I’ve been using a Dell M1330 to operate on both sides of the fence, I’m in dire need of a hardware upgrade. I’m not fussed by the Windows vs. Mac debate and use both on a daily basis, but I need as much power as possible in an ultraportable form factor in order to handle both of these operating systems (sorry, 13-inch MacBook Pro, but you aren’t cutting it). Here’s hoping your readers can help out!”

We’d sure the master Hackintoshers out there would love to help out, and we’re sure Apple will weep when realizing they’d have a sale if they would’ve crammed a Core i5 into their 13-inch MBP while refreshing the other guys last month. Go on, folks — let this guy in on your secrets in comments below.

Ask Engadget: what’s the best 13-inch Core i5 / i7 Wintel ultraportable for running OS X? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 May 2010 23:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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