Posts Tagged
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Last week we gave you some advice on how to keep your data, email, contacts and calendar perfectly synced between your Android phone or tablet and an iOS device. Although these are essential elements to synchronize between your devices, replicating media from your iPad or iPhone to your Android device — and vice-versa — can also prove very useful.
Indeed, whether you run out of battery, lose your phone or prefer to use a larger screen, you shouldn’t have to worry about manually transferring your content to every single device you have. To make this chore seamless and transparent for you, we’ve selected a handful of apps and tools that will automate the process.
Many of us have devices that run on different operating systems, for example a work iPhone and a personal Android device. Looking at my specific case, I use a Samsung Galaxy Note II as my everyday phone and recently bought an iPad mini, which led me to explore ways of keeping the two in perfect sync.
In an always-connected world, it’s relevant for the two devices to communicate with each other and share data. Most importantly, having your emails, contacts and calendars synchronize from one device to the other is essential. This process should be seamless and transparent to you, so that all your content can be updated on both devices with no hassle. That’s what I will explore in the first part of this series.
Last Friday, Apple began shipping the 7.9″ iPad mini, a new addition to the iOS family and a device set to rival with Google’s Nexus 7. An interesting product, the iPad mini will compete with seven-inch Android tablets but has attracted a lot of discussion regarding its entry price set at a higher $130 premium.
I stood outside an Apple Store and queued for the launch with a Nexus 7 in tow. Now, in this article, we’re going to take a look at the iPad mini, comparing it to Google’s device and seeing what it means for the market landscape of smaller tablets.
Last week, we asked you whether you would go for Microsoft’s Surface or an Android tablet. This week, the debate seems to have also been steered towards tablets, by Apple’s own Phil Schiller. During his announcement of the iPad Mini, Phil decided to tackle the Nexus 7 heads-on by looking at both devices’ processors, screens, build and app catalogues.
Leaving aside the direct comparison for a second, the iPad Mini is definitely an interesting piece of technology. It carries almost the same specifications as the 2nd-generation iPad in a smaller and thinner body adapted to fit a 7.9″ screen. However, the main advantage is that it offers access to Apple’s growing ecosystem, which includes 250000 apps tailored for the iPad, and a huge number of accessory makers ready to build cases, keyboards, docks, and a myriad of other gadgets just for it. That argument alone can be enough to win over a lot of enthusiasts.
But on the other side, the smaller resolution screen, the higher entry-point price, the older-generation processor, and the lack of “openness” in Apple’s ecosystem might tip the balance towards the Nexus 7. That’s also helped by the recent surge of applications dedicated for Android tablets, which might level the ecosystem-argument a bit. For instance, we’ve already covered 50 must-have apps, 10 social apps, 40 news apps, all tailored for Android tablets and we even looked at 10 specific apps that you wouldn’t find on the iPad.
Personally, I’ve long been convinced that 7″ tablets cater to a different market than the regular 9.7″ iPad. These smaller tablets are more portable, more practical, and all-around more useful than ~10″ devices. A year ago, when I bought my Iconia A100, there wasn’t much competition in this space, and the decision was relatively easy to make. However, if I was to choose right now, it would be a lot more complicated. Both the Nexus 7 and the iPad Mini offer their own advantages so it’ll be interesting to watch how the market will react when given the option to go for Android or iOS.
Apple took to the stage yesterday to make a variety of announcements prior to the holiday-buying season, including the anticipated launch of their Nexus 7/Kindle Fire rival, the iPad Mini. Ever since 2010, Apple has led the tablet movement with iOS strongly posed as the dominant tablet platform. It seems that the Cupertino company is set on keeping their position by crushing any competition and covering all the markets.
In this article, we’re going to take a look at some of the announcements Apple made at it’s special event and discuss whether they might have an impact on Android and its third-party offerings.
It’s no secret to anyone that Android tablets’ major competition is the iPad, which keeps outselling them worldwide. Despite the better specifications, innovative form factors, and recently improved Jelly Bean experience, the one area that seems to hold back Android tablets is the lack of optimised apps – that’s a field where Apple’s ecosystem excels. By comparison, the Play Store still lacks a dedicated tablet section to make it easier for users to find apps tailored for bigger touch screens.
However, due to the openness of Android, a few specific categories of apps exist for it that can’t make it onto the iPad in its regular state. Some would require a jailbreak to work, others wouldn’t even be technically possible. I have picked ten of these to showcase a small, albeit important, advantage of Android tablets.
Over seven months ago, I decided that I was finally ready to have a tablet in my life, justifying the price versus its added benefit in between my iMacs, Macbook, iPod Touch and multiple Android and Symbian smartphones. As a person quite invested in the Apple ecosystem, it was rather surprising to my friends that I didn’t even consider getting an iPad. Instead, I spent a few hours searching online for the perfect blend of features and compromises, and ended up with an Acer Iconia A100, a 7″ tablet. Why? Simply because there is no place in my life for a ~10″ tablet. And I am not alone.
7 months later, with a 7″ tablet, I’m more convinced every day that they’re a totally different beast compared to 9.7″-10″. There’s a place for both sizes in the tablet market, as they each target divergent audiences and distinctively separate needs. I will share with you below my findings in terms of the 7″ tablet usability and why I think Google made a perfect choice when it comes to its new Nexus 7 tablet.
In a keynote that opened with Siri telling the audience a bunch of jokes by video (including “Have any of you been working on Ice Cream Sandwich? Or Jellybean? Who comes up with these codenames, Ben and Jerry’s?”), Apple announced iOS 6, the next iteration of their mobile operating system that powers the iPhone and iPad.
In this article, we’re going to take a look at the announcements and see how they stack up to what Android has on offer. (more…)
As someone who is a little less than three years out of grad school – and after doing 20 years of school straight – I still like to look at how technology can affect education. (It might also help that I am employed by my alma mater.) I’ve been thinking a lot about the ebook market lately and how it can change the way students learn – or at least how they buy textbooks.
Ebooks and self-publishing are making it easier than ever to get information out there very affordably, for both the publisher and the customer. Kindles and iPads alike are great tools for students, and Apple even released a tool called iBooks Author, which aims to make it easier to produce interactive textbooks for the iPad. However, I think the Kindle Fire (and entire Kindle family) is better poised to take over the e-textbook market.
If you haven’t heard already, Apple just introduced the new iPad, the third-generation tablet the company will be offering. With a “Retina Display” (that’s a 2048x1536px resolution for a 10-inch screen), a 5-megapixel camera, 4G LTE and a new processor with quad-core graphics, the new iPad is no doubt a significant upgrade from the iPad 2, and is almost guaranteed to sell millions and attract many to Apple stores when it launches next week.
This announcement comes just a short while after the Android tablet landscape got a reboot at CES and MWC with new flagship products like the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and the updated lineup of Transformer Pads. With Ice Cream Sandwich making its way onto the larger screens, it’s an exciting time for Android too.
However, in a market that’s still dominated by Apple, what does the new iPad mean for Android?
