SlashGear for iPad and iPhone
RSS Feed

Columns

Google’s Nexus 7 and the iPad dedication effect

, Aug 7th 2012 Discuss [0]

When Apple decided to put a tablet into the market, they made it clear that, at least at first, they’d only have one model – this “hero” strategy is now working for Google’s Nexus 7 tablet as well. With the iPad being the single most popular tablet device in the world – with no contenders to speak of as far as sales go – you’ve got to wonder why no company has stuck to their guns with a single product name (with slight variations in each generation’s upgrade) like Apple has. Google isn’t exactly taking this strategy to heart with the Nexus 7, but the fact that it’s popping up in the news so often with headlines like “sold out” attached to it has got us thinking: has Android finally got a hit?

Read The Full Story

You don’t want Apple’s YouTube anyway

, Aug 6th 2012 Discuss [0]

This afternoon it became apparent to sharp-eyed developers working with the newest beta release of iOS 6 that Apple’s mobile operating system was about to drop YouTube from its ranks of built-in apps. As the press picked up the story and Apple replied with what essentially added up to, ‘yes, we’re done with Google’s YouTube now, you can download it yourself once Google puts the app out themselves”, there was a bit of an uproar on the part of next-generation iPhone customer hopefuls. But here’s the truth, ladies and gentlemen: it’s better this way, much better.

Read The Full Story

Has functionality finally caught up with the Android spec race?

, Aug 6th 2012 Discuss [0]

Samsung has woken up to context: the Galaxy Note 10.1 has a fast quadcore processor and twice as much memory as most rivals, but listen to Samsung’s pitch and you’d hardly know it. Instead of the usual breathless glee over hardware and technical abilities, the Note 10.1 tells you exactly what it can do with all that’s under the hood. Namely, bring the stylus back in style, and create a compellingly different approach to tableteering, distinct to what Apple’s iPad offers.

Read The Full Story

Countdown to Mars: Thoughts from a NASA Curiosity engineer

, Aug 5th 2012 Discuss [0]

This weekend we will see Curiosity attempt a dramatic Mars landing inside of Gale Crater. Its mission will be to study the Martian rocks to determine how they were formed and try to answer whether conditions on Mars once could have supported life in its most simple form – tiny, microbial cells. The rover’s intended destination after landing is a series of layered rock outcrops on the slopes of Mount Sharp. These layers were spied from orbit only a few years ago and appear to provide a geological record of Mars spanning hundreds of millions of years that Curiosity can spend months touring and reading back to us on Earth. With Curiosity’s hypersonic entry guidance, this is the first Mars rover that could safely land inside Gale and reach these layers.

Read The Full Story

Stop Whining and Subscribe to HBO

, Aug 4th 2012 Discuss [0]

I love the show Game of Thrones on HBO. The show is fantastic. It’s one of the best shows to come along in a while. It’s exciting, sexy, complicated, and it has just a touch of fantasy thrown in, mainly to keep you guessing about the possibilities of what’s to come. In the first episodes of the first season, did you really expect to see dragons? But then that platinum blond Khaleesi woman steps out of the fire completely naked with a dragon on her shoulder and it was the probably the coolest thing I have ever seen on television. Wait, have you seen Game of Thrones? If you haven’t, you should subscribe to HBO right now so you can start watching.

Read The Full Story

Nintendo Wii U’s Biggest Challenge: Keeping Us Interested

, Aug 3rd 2012 Discuss [0]

When the Wii U launches later this year, I’ll be one of many people getting into line to get my hands on the latest console. Although I’m not so sure I’ll enjoy it over a long period and I still believe that the Wii U is coming out too soon and with lesser components than it should, I’m a gaming fanatic. And as a gaming fanatic, I can’t help but get my hands on the latest console.

Read The Full Story

Windows 8 final build leaks instantly: should we have simply expected it?

, Aug 3rd 2012 Discuss [0]

It’s a scene right out of Tron: right upon the release of the final version of Microsoft’s new operating system Windows 8, it’s leaked to the web. Is it a sign of the times that an illegal download of one of the most widely anticipated operating systems in recent memory is available almost as quickly as someone could have accessed and uploaded it? Or should we be dismayed that in an age where information security is as much a hot topic as sharing is that we’ve got an immediate break?

Read The Full Story

Why DVD And Blu-Ray Should Finally Die

, Jul 31st 2012 Discuss [0]

Over the past week, I’ve spent most of my entertainment time watching movies and television shows either on demand, through Netflix and Hulu Plus, or streaming over my home network. And along the way, it got me thinking: why do I really need discs?

Read The Full Story

Grammar Police, Arrest This Man

, Jul 30th 2012 Discuss [0]

There is an alternate universe somewhere in which I am a lexicographer. I write dictionaries for a living. This is not the pipe dream of a grammar-obsessed former English teacher. Right out of grad school (Master’s in English), I turned down an opportunity to work for the Oxford English Dictionary. The job was for a specialist in Caribbean dialects of English. It sounded fantastic. The OED recruiters made clear this was not a stepping stone job for editors and writers. Being a lexicographer leads only to being a better, more experienced lexicographer. Instead, I took a job that involved writing and technology and pop culture, and my life was set on its course. But in an alternate world, I made a different choice and took the dictionary job, and now I sit in a dark apartment in Manhattan mumbling to myself about the horror of language on the Internet.

Read The Full Story

If this is the iPhone 5, Android has a problem

, Jul 29th 2012 Discuss [0]

Apple isn’t due to show us the new iPhone 5 for another few months, but a purported leak of the next-gen smartphone could well indicate the extent of the headache Android has fast approaching. Taller and thinner, with a more engineered, structured design than the delicate glass and metal sandwich of the current model, if the leaked shots are to be believed then this could be the most significant outward evolution of the iPhone to-date. Nonetheless, there’ll undoubtedly be those that look at the slightly larger display and aesthetic tweaks, and dismiss the iPhone 5 as “more of the same.” In some ways, the spec-sheet arms race of Android devices has left us spoiled overall. If it hasn’t got twice as many cores as before, a vast display, and more megapixels than the latest Canon DSLR, then it’s hardly worth us paying attention to, right?

Read The Full Story

How Big of A Role Will Kinect Play in the Xbox 720?

, Jul 26th 2012 Discuss [0]

When Microsoft announced the Kinect, the motion-gaming peripheral that requires no controller to work, it was celebrated by the mainstream and hardcore alike for its unique functionality.

Since then, Microsoft has delivered enhanced features, but for the vast majority of gamers, it has become a bit of a novelty. Sure, it’s a neat way to command the Xbox or shout some orders in games, but beyond that, it delivers little value to the average person trying to sit down, relax, and enjoy a title.

Read The Full Story

Define Failure: 26m iPhones, good or bad?

, Jul 24th 2012 Discuss [0]

26m iPhones in a three month period. Apple’s Q3 2012 results are out, and while the huge year-on-year growth for iPad is an eye-catcher, it’s the shifting sales of the company’s flagship smartphone that have split opinion. For many – Nokia, for instance, or HTC – 26m sales would be the very definition of “a good problem to have”, but for Apple it’s not so straightforward. While the company has seen 28-percent year-on-year growth for the iPhone, its also seen a 26-percent drop quarter-on-quarter. So, is the iPhone stumbling, or is this all entirely understandable?

Read The Full Story
Pages: Prev 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next