گذشتہ روز سان فرانسسکو میں منعقد ہونے والی ایپل کی ایک تقریب میں کمپنی کے چیف ایگزیکٹیو آفیسر ٹم کک نے ایپل کے مشہور ٹیبلیٹ کمپیوٹر آئی پیڈ کا نیا ورژن متعارف کروایا۔ گو کہ اس سے قبل آئی پیڈ کو نمبر کے حوالے سے جانا جاتا تھا جیسے آئی پیڈ ، آئی پیڈ 2 ۔ لیکن اس بار کمپنی نے آئی پیڈ 3 کی بجائے اسے “نیا آئی پیڈ” کا نام دیا۔

اس نئے آئی پیڈ میں جہاں بہت سے چیزیں نئی ہیں وہیں بہت سی پرانی بھی ہیں۔  لیکن ایپل کی جانب سےاپنی ہر نئی پراڈکٹ کو اس انداز سے متعارف کروایا جاتا ہے کہ ایپل کے مداح اس بات پر مجبور ہوجاتے ہیں کہ وہ اسے ضرور خریدیں۔ ہم یہاں پر نئی چیزوں کا ایک مختصر جائزہ لیتے ہیں:

ریٹینا ڈسپلے:
سب سے پہلے تو یہ جاننا ہوگا کہ ریٹینا ڈسپلے کیا ہوتا ہے؟ ایپل کی مطابق   ریٹینا ڈسپلے ایک بہت اچھی کوالٹی کی سکرین کو کہا جاتا ہے جسکی ریزولیوشن 326   پکزل فی انچ ہوتی ہے۔ یہ سکرین آئی فون 4 اور آئی فون 4S میں استعمال کی گئ ہے۔ نئے آئی پیڈ میں یہ ریزولیوشن 264 پکزل فی انچ ہے۔ اسکی ایک وجہ یہ ہے کہ فون کے مقابلے میں آئی پیڈ کو آنکھوں سے تھوڑا دور رکھ کر استعمال کیا جاتا ہے۔ 3.1 ملین پکزلز کے بدولت اب آئی پیڈ کی سکرین ہائی ڈیفینیشن ٹی وی سے بھی زیادہ بہتر ہوگئ ہے۔

سکرین سائز:
نئے آئی پیڈ میں سکرین سائز کو تبدیل نہیں کیا گیا اور اسے 9.7 انچ ہی رکھا گیا ہے۔ جبکہ سکرین ریزولیوشن ریٹینا ڈسپلے کی بدولت 768×1024 سے بڑھ کر 1536×2048 ہوگئی ہے۔ زیادہ سکرین ریزولیوشن کی بدولت اب سکرین صاف اور اس پر تصاویر اور دیگر فائلز مزید بہتر  اور رنگوں سے بھر پورنظر آئیں گی۔ یہاں یہ بات قابل ذکر ہے کہ ایپل کے نئے آئی پیڈ کے ریزولیوشن مارکیٹ میں موجود تمام ٹیبلیٹ کمپیوٹرز سے زیادہ ہے۔

کیمرہ:
نئے آئی پیڈ میں سامنے کی جانب نصب کیمرہ میں تو کوئی تبدیلی نہیں کی گئ ، لیکن پشت پر نصب کیمرہ کو 0.7میگا پکزل سے بڑھا کر 5 میگا پکزل کر دیا گیا ہے۔ گو کہ اگر نوکیا کی جانب سے حال ہی میں متعارف کروائے گئے 41 میگا پکزل کیمرہ فون کو دیکھا جائے تو 5 میگا پکزل کچھ بھی نہیں لیکن نئے آئی پیڈ کی اچھی سکرین کی بدولت تصاویر یقیناً جاذب نظر بن جائیں گی۔
اس کیمرہ میں 5-elements لینز اور Back-side Illumination ٹیکنالوجی کا استعمال کیا گیا ہے جسکی بدولت کم روشنی میں اچھی تصاویر لی جاسکیں گی۔ یہ کیمرہ ہائی ڈیفینیشن ویڈیوز بنانے کی صلاحیت بھی رکھتا ہے۔

پراسیسر اور گرافکس:
نئے آئی پیڈ میں ایپل کی A5X چپ کا استعمال کیا گیا ہے۔ جو ایک ڈؤل کور سسٹم ہے۔ اس سے قبل آئی فون میں بھی A5 چپ کا استعمال کیا گیا تھا۔
اسی طرح آئی پیڈ میں کواڈ کور گرافکس سسٹم نصب کیا گیا ہے۔ ایپل کے مطابق انکا نیا آئی پیڈ مارکیٹ میں موجود نئی ٹیبلیٹس سے چار گنا زیادہ تیز رفتار  ہے۔

 انٹرنیٹ اور  کنیکٹیویٹی:
ایپل کا نیا آئی پیڈ  تھری جی ، ایل ٹی ای ، ایچ ایس پی ڈی اے  اور ای وی ڈی او ٹیکنالوجی سے مزین ہے ۔ جسکی بدولت اسے کم و بیش دنیا کی ہر ملک میں استعمال کیا جاسکتا ہے۔  ایپل کی جانب سے آئی پیڈ کا وائی فائی اور فور جی ماڈل بھی متعارف کروایا جائے گا۔ نیا آئی پیڈ بلیوٹوتھ 4.0 سے مزین ہے۔ ان جدید ٹیکنالوجیز کی بدولت آپ کو آئی پیڈ پر تیز رفتار انٹرنیٹ مہیا کیا جاسکے گا۔

بیٹری:
آئی پیڈ کی نئی ریٹینا سکرین اور فور جی ایل ٹی ای ٹیکنالوجی کی بدولت زیادہ پاور کی ضرورت ہوگی۔ لہذا آئی پیڈ 2 کی نسبت نئے آئی پیڈ میں 25 کی بجائے 45 واٹ آور کی بیٹری کا استعمال کیا گیا ہے جسکی مدد سے آپ آئی پیڈ پر 10 گھنٹے سے زیادہ کام یا ویڈیوز دیکھ سکتے ہیں۔

کمپنی کے اعلان کے مطابق نیا آئی پیڈ امریکہ، کینڈا ، برطانیہ ،فرانس ، جرمنی ، سوئزرلینڈ ،جاپان ،ہانگ کانگ ، سنگاپور اور آسٹریلیا  میں 16 مارچ سے دستیاب ہوگا ، 16GB وائی ماڈل کی قیمت 499 ڈالر مقرر کی گئ ہے جبکہ 64GB فور جی ماڈل 829 ڈالر میں دستیاب ہوگا۔
دنیا کے باقی ممالک میں نئے آئی پیڈ کے لیے 23 مارچ کے بعد آرڈر دیے جاسکیں گے۔

اپنی ان نئی خصوصیات کی بناء پر نیا آئی پیڈ پہلے سے زیادہ موٹا اور زیادہ بھاری ہے۔ لیکن امید ہے کہ نیا آئی پیڈ ایپل کے مداحوں کے دل جیتنے میں کامیاب رہا ہے۔

مزید دلچسپ تحاریر

1. ایپل کی جانب سے جنوری 2012 میں دو نئے آئی پیڈ متعارف کروائے جانے کا امکان
2. ایپل سری کے مقابلے پر اب گوگل اسسٹنٹ
3. ایپل کمپنی کے بانی سٹیو جوبز انتقال کر گئے

Whether you are an app developer building cool apps or games for the mobile platform or a tech blogger who likes to review such apps, what you definitely want is a screencasting tool that will help you easily record movies of your mobile app.

Now there are tons of screencasting apps available for your Windows or Mac desktop but if you wish to capture the screen of your iPad or iPhone, the scene is very disappointing. A search for “screen recorder” or “screencasting” shows zero results in the iTunes app store.

That said, there are ways, or rather workarounds, by which you can capture the screen activity of your iPad or iPhone and convert that into a movie.  Let’s take a look:

Option 1. Create a Screencast Video using Screenshot Images

This is the quick solution. You can capture multiple screenshot images of an app (here’s how) and then stitch them together in one video either using Windows Live Movie Maker or iMovie on your Mac. This is how I created the following video screencast of an iPad.

If you would like to make your screencasting appear more natural, put all these different screenshot images in a PowerPoint slideshow, run it in Full-screen mode and then use Camtasia or any other screencasting software to record that slideshow. The advantage here is that the cursor will also be captured so people will find it easier to follow your video tours or game walkthroughs.

Option 2: Use Display Recorder to Capture your iPhone /iPad Screen

If you have jailbroken your iPad (or iPhone), you can use the Display Recorder utility to record the onscreen activity of your iOS device and save the video as an AVI or MP4 file. The app can also upload your recorded screencast to YouTube directly.

I haven’t tried this Cydia app myself but here’s a move of an iPad screen recorded using Display Recorder. The app doesn’t record system sounds though but you can run another app in parallel for that purpose.

Option 3: Create Screencasts using a Dedicated Video Capture Card

You can easily connect your iPhone or iPad to an external monitor – be it a TV screen or a computer monitor or a projector – using either the HDMI Adapter or the VGA Adapter.

Now instead of connecting the iOS device output directly to an external screen, you can connect it to a capture card and it will then automatically record your iPhone /iPad screen.

AverTV HD and Blackmagic Design are some of the available graphic capture cards that can be used in this kind of setup. The following video by Kelly Rush will walk you through the entire process of recording screencasts on tablets – Android, iPads or anything else – with the help of a capture card.

Also, if you do not wish to open to chassis of your computer to install an internal graphics card, there are other options like Epiphan and UltraStudio 3D. These are external capture devices though you would require a much higher budget for them.

Option 4: Record Screencasts using Whiteboard Apps

If you wish to create simple whiteboard style screencasts where your audio and all you activity on a whiteboard is recorded as a movie, you have some good options including Screenchomp, Explain Everything, ShowMe, Replay Note, Doodlecast Pro and Educreations.

ScreenChomp, Educreations and ShowMe are free apps for the iPad that will help you record Khan Academly style videos. You can create freehand drawings, write text, annotate pictures, and all your activity (including voice) will be recorded in one video.

Explain Everything goes one step further. It has a built-in web browser and anything you do inside that browser is also captured in the video so you be more creative here. You can also import PDF files, PowerPoint slides and other documents into Explain Everything through Dropbox, add voice narrations or annotations and publish them into a movie.

Option 5: Use a Digital Camera to Record App Demos

The trouble with all the above workarounds is that none of them would record your hand gestures.

To get around the problem, the developers of the Denso App recorded their interaction video with the iPad using the iPhone camera (see details). They placed the iPad on a white sheet of paper (picture), added enough lights to get rid of all the shadows and they also placed paper on the lamps to diffuse the harsh light.

It’s an easy setup and end result is much like the various iPad /iPhone demos that you see on Apple website. The following video from the DoodleCast team explains a similar setup that also uses an iPhone camera to record iPad videos – the key here is good lighting.

Option 6: Record Screencasts of your iPad or iPhone using AirPlay

I saved the best option for the last. If you have an Mac, just download the Reflection app and it will wirelessly mirror your iPhone or iPad screen  on your Mac desktop live. You don’t have to install any additional software on your iOS device, no cables are involved and there’s no jailbreaking required either.

Once the iPad or iPhone screen is beamed on your Mac desktop, you can use any of existing screencasting utilities – like Camtasia Studio, ScreenFlow  or Jing which is free – to automatically capture a video while you work on the iPhone or iPad. That’s easy and very convenient.

It’s time for a demo so here’s a screencast video of an iPad that I recorded using the Reflection app on Mac. This is what you have been waiting for!

Also see: How To Record your Comptuer Video Games

This story, How to Record Screencasts on your iPad or iPhone, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 02/03/2012 under IPad, IPhone, Screencasting, Software.

Like it or not, Apple is dropping a bomb on March 7 and we expect the iPad 3 to be announced at the upcoming Apple Event. There are lots of expectations in terms of making a lot of improvements. Some of these include improving the Retina Display Resolution by twice the existing one. Other than it will also feature a quad core processor, LTE connectivity to name a few.

Continue Reading

Nokia has unveiled a 41 megapixel camera-phone – designed so phone users can ‘zoom in’ without a bulky lens.

The 41-megapixel sensor is around three times more powerful than the ones in any existing handsets.

A Nokia executive says, ‘It shows what we can do.’

The phone will be launched in May and cost 480 Euros.

Nokia says the technology is designed so users can zoom in quickly and easily without losing picture quality.

Most smartphones use digital zoom functions where the picture quality drops when users ‘zoom in’ – in practice, the zoom functions are rarely used.

PureView’s huge 41-megapixel sensor lets users zoom in up to six times simply by ‘selecting’ an area – and because of the super-high resolution of the PureView, images still come out at five megapixels, the same as many normal smartphone cameras.

With video, users can zoom in up to four times and still shoot in 1080p Full HD.

‘When you zoom with the Nokia 808 PureView, in effect you are just selecting the relevant area of the sensor,’ says the Finnish company. ‘With no zoom, you simply use the full area of the sensor.’

The phone is bulkier than normal camera phones, according to reports from Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress, where it was unveiled, but even on full resolution, it shoots instantly.

The phone has been in development for years, Nokia said, and produces pictures that can be blown up to ‘poster size’.

Tech site Pocket-Lint said, ‘What it shows us though is that Nokia can create amazing technology in a device that is small and compact – relatively speaking.

‘We’re also told it will come to other handsets in the future. The reason you don’t want it is that, beside the amazing camera tech, it runs the company’s Symbian operating system, which is basically winding down.’

By Chris Brummitt for The Associated Press

Inside a high-security air force complex that builds jet fighters and weapons systems, Pakistan’s military is working on the latest addition to its sprawling commercial empire: a homegrown version of the iPad.

It’s a venture that bundles together Pakistani engineering and Chinese hardware, and shines a light on the military’s controversial foothold in the consumer market. Supporters say it will boost the economy as well as a troubled nation’s self-esteem. It all comes together at an air force base in Kamra in northern Pakistan, where avionics engineers — when they’re not working on defense projects — assemble the PACPAD 1.

“The original is the iPad, the copy is the PACPAD,” said Mohammad Imran, who stocks the product at his small computer and cell phone shop in a mall in Rawalpindi, a city not far from Kamra and the home of the Pakistani army.

The device runs on Android 2.3, an operating system made by Google and given away for free. At around $200, it’s less than half the price of Apple or Samsung devices and cheaper than other low-end Chinese tablets on the market, with the bonus of a local, one-year guarantee.

The PAC in the name stands for the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, where it is made. The PAC also makes an e-reader and small laptop.
Such endeavors are still at the pilot stage and represent just a sliver of the military’s business portfolio, which encompasses massive land holdings, flour and sugar mills, hotels, travel agents, even a brand of breakfast cereal.

The military is powerful, its businesses are rarely subject to civilian scrutiny, and it has staged three coups since Pakistan became a state in 1947. Many Pakistanis find its economic activities corrupting and say it should focus on entirely on defense.

“I just can’t figure it out,” said Jehan Ara, head of Pakistan’s Software Houses Association, said of the PACPAD. “Even if they could sell a billion units, I can’t see the point. The air force is supposed to be protecting the air space and borders of the country.”

Supporters say the foray into information technology is a boost to national pride for a country vastly overshadowed by archrival India in the high-tech field. Tech websites in the country have shown curiosity or cautious enthusiasm, but say it’s too early to predict how the device will perform. Skeptics claim it’s a vanity project that will never see mass production.

Only a few hundred of each products has been made so far, though a new batch will be completed in the next three months. “The defense industry is trying to justify its presence by doing more than just produce weapons,” said Ayesha Siddiqa, author of Military Inc., a critical study of military businesses. “Some smart aleck must have thought we can make some money here.”

PAC’s website at http://www.cpmc.pk says the goal is “strengthening the national economy through commercialization” and lauds the collaboration with China — something that likely resonates among nationalists.

China is regarded as a firm ally by Pakistan’s security establishment, whereas the U.S., despite pouring billions of dollars in aid into the country, is seen as fickle and increasingly as an enemy.

These perceptions have heightened as the U.S. intensifies drone attacks on militants based in the Pakistani borderlands. But the military is also a target of those militants. In 2007 the base at Kamra, home to 12,000 workers and their families, nine people died when a cyclist blew himself up at the entrance.

PAC officials suggested the program that produces the PACPAD was modeled in part on the Chinese military’s entry into commercial industry, which lasted two decades until it was ordered to cut back lest it become corrupted and lose sight of its core mission.

The tablet and other devices are made in a low-slung facility, daubed in camouflage paint, near, a factory that produces J-17 Thunder fighter jets with Chinese help.

“It’s about using spare capacity. There are 24 hours in a day, do we waste them or use them to make something?” said Sohail Kalim, PAC’s sales director. “The profits go to the welfare of the people here. There are lots of auditors. They don’t let us do any hanky-panky here.”

PAC builds the PACPAD with a company called Innavtek in a Hong Kong-registered partnership that also builds high-tech parts for the warplanes.
But basic questions go unanswered. Maqsood Arshad, a retired air force officer who is one of the directors, couldn’t say how much money had been invested, how many units the venture hoped to sell and what the profit from each sale was likely to be.

The market for low-cost Android tablets is expanding quickly around the world, with factories in China filling most of the demand. Last year, an Indian company produced the “Aakash” tablet, priced at $50, and sold largely to schoolchildren and students.

Arshad said a second-generation PACPAD would be launched in the next three months, able to connect to the Internet via cell phone networks and other improved features. He said the Kamra facility could produce up to 1,000 devices a day.

During a brief test, The tablet with its 7-inch screen appeared to run well and the screen responsiveness was sharp. “It seems good, but operation-wise I have to look into it,” said Mohammad Akmal, who had come to the store in Rawalpindi to check the product out. “Within a month or so, we will know.”

Filed under: China, India, Nuclear, Pakistan, Pakistan Army, Pakistanis, United States Tagged: Apple, China, Chinese, iPad, PAC, PACPAD, Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, Pakistan Air Force, Pakistan Army, Pakistan’s Software Houses Association, Samsung

Amazon has released a new video commercial for the $79 Kindle that targets the one flaw (or limitation) of the iPad – it is nearly impossible to read books on your iPad while you are out in the sun because of the reflective glass screen.

The other point that Amazon is trying to highlight in the video is that Kindle is more value for money – you can get a bundle of two Kindle Fire units and one Kindle 5 unit for less than the price of an iPad.

Here’s the original Kindle ad that Amazon released about an year ago. It uses the same setting – a girl sunbathing near the pool and reading on her Kindle – and they have even hired the same actress – Anna Zielinski – to do the sequel.

On a related note, I have an iPad 2 and the new Kindle 5 (see setup) and I almost always prefer reading long form content on the Kindle. The iPad is good for flipping through PDFs or for watching multimedia content but Kindle is much better for reading text whether you are indoors or outside in direct sunlight.

The Kindle “Pool” Ad [Original]

This story, The New Amazon Kindle Ad Targets the iPad, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 10/02/2012 under Amazon Kindle, IPad, Internet.

You may also like:

1. Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle – What Would You Pick
2. Buy Books for Kindle from Amazon Store without a US Billing Address
3. Video Demo of Amazon Kindle Book Reader
4. Amazon Chart Compares Kindle Fire with the iPad
5. The Kindle App for iPad

TechSmith has released a new iPad app called Fast Track that will help you learn the Camtasia Stuidio program at your leisure on your iPad.

The app has a collection of video tutorials, or screencasts, that cover almost every feature of the Camtasia screencasting program and whether you use Camtasia for screen recording or for recording PowerPoint presentations, you may learn something new through these tutorials. All videos tutorials have text transcripts as well though they are only available in the portrait mode.

TechSmith’s YouTube Channel (@ChannelTechSmith) also contains a good collection of screencasting related tutorials but the advantage with the new Fast Track app is that it also works offline – you don’t need an Internet connection to watch any of the tutorials. And it’s free.

I think, going forward, TechSmith will extend this app beyond Camtasia Studio and include tutorials for other products as well including SnagIt, Jing and Camtasia for Mac.

This story, Camtasia Studio Tutorials Available on your iPad, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 06/02/2012 under Camtasia Studio, IPad, Software.

You may also like:

1. Download Camtasia Studio with Registration Key for Free
2. TechSmith Camtasia Studio, SnagIt for Mac
3. TechSmith Camtasia Studio 5 – Full Motion Recording Tool
4. Camtasia Studio Recorder for Mac – Screenshots
5. SnagIt & Camtasia Studio – Discount Coupon Codes

Not only how you earn, is monitored by Islam, the way you spend, where you spend & how you spend is also being monitored by the great book. It is not only that your earnings are ‘Halal’ and now you … Continue reading →

Dustin Dwyer’s latest story on Apple brings up in detail 3 points we all knew at the back of our heads as to why Apple will not manufacture its products in the USA. Excerpt from the article: 1. Cheap labor Apple executives may not want to admit it, but Liker says one of the biggest [...]

3 Obvious Reasons Apple Will Never Produce in USA is a post from: PakMediaBlog All Rights Reserved.

The marketing team of Pakistan Cables decided to copy ads from Apple, hoping that their target audience has never seen an Apple commercial in their lives. Here are 15 “Im a Mac, I’m a PC” commercials: Here is the Pakistan Cables ad: We do not have an absence of creative people, rather a surplus of [...]

Pakistan Cables Targets Customers Unaware of Apple is a post from: PakMediaBlog All Rights Reserved.

I own a Nokia E72 mobile phone. While I have not owned mobile phones longer than five years, I have in that time span been through two mobile brands. My very first mobile phone, gifted to me by father when I was early on in the University, properly convinced that I didn’t need a mobile phone, was a Sony Ericsson. It was a small mobile phone, the name of which escapes me now. I may still have it, somewhere, in some drawers, lost but not forgotten. I used it until it nearly died out. The engravings on the buttons grew muddled, colour on the handset faded out, the battery dead, replaced and dead again, etc. It would be safe to say, in hindsight, that I used it heavily.

My second mobile phone was another Sony Ericsson. It was the first mobile phone I bought. I was immensely excited the night I bought it, on way from work. The excitement of buying a new gadget is one that doesn’t ever diminish in its intensity, never goes away, no matter how many gadgets you buy. It is there right around the time you decide to buy a new gadget, and lasts well until after you’ve bought it. That was my second Sony Ericsson phone, and would be my last.

After I had made heavy use of it, I slowly moved away from it over to Nokia. I had a mammoth but reliable Nokia E61 lying around, which I was using for testing Symbian applications. Yes, this was roughly the time when I worked on Symbian application development. And that is all I am going to say of it.

My fourth and current mobile phone is a successor to E61: Nokia E72. I loved that phone when I bought it. I still love it in some ways. While E61 could be said to be too, E72 is what you would call a proper smart-phone. It features a lot of things that could help you do all sorts of things on the Internet, besides the usual functions of phone. It also has a full QWERTY keyboard. While I had owned an iPod Touch, I’d not been a big fan of touch screen and touch phones. I strongly believed that I could never be able to reliably use a phone with touch screen as the only form of input. This bias was in part due to my reliance on and affinity for physical QWERTY keyboards on phones.

Over the past couple of months, I was growing a little frustrated with my E72. While it worked as anyone would expect of it, I found that as far as applications that let me run wild on the Internet were concerned, it was severely limited. Sure, there were applications to do anything from using Facebook to Twitter to Foursquare. But I felt stifled. There were browsers but I didn’t feel the urge to browse anything on my mobile, unless it was an absolute emergency. I could post tweets on Twitter, but I didn’t enjoy interacting with others’ tweets. The same could be said of my experiences with Facebook (as far as I can tell, there is no native, official application for Facebook from Facebook for Symbian S60) or Foursquare applications. It just wasn’t fun, or even comfortable.

So for the past couple of months, I had been strictly debating getting an iPhone. iPhone 4S was out by then and it made no sense to get anything below that model. Some friends suggested time and again to go for the iPad instead. Where I was almost convinced that iPhone 4S would be my fifth phone, the recommendations for iPad threw my mind back in a state of confusion. Naturally, I compared the pros and contrasted the cons of both devices. Of course, one is a phone, the other a tablet, but when I compared the iPhone to the iPad, I actually compared it with iPad and my E72. That is, if I were to get an iPad, I would continue to use my E72 for the phone needs. There was a big difference in price as well, with a factory unlocked iPhone 4S coming at an exorbitant 67k PKR locally, while an iPad2 with WiFi cost only 48k PKR.

I still remember clearly the night I was at the club on the courts, playing tennis with my partner. He had finally bought the iPhone 4 a day before, after having looked for the white one for under a week. That night, I came home, and finally made up my mind.

The next afternoon, I was at the Apple Store I regularly buy from, purchasing an iPad2 WiFi with 16GB disk space. I had decided it. As I would find out, it was one of the best decisions I had made in my life in a while.

Those familiar with the different iPad2 models available will know that there’s a WiFi + 3G one available. Apart from having to pay under 10k PKR more, the main reason why I decided against getting the 3G model was the unavailability of 3G in the country. I know that you don’t necessarily have to have 3G to be able to use the connection, because any type of data-plan from your provider, such as GPRS or EDGE, will work. However, as I will explain, iPad is a content consumption device. When I say that it is a content consumption device, I mean it in a massive way. It has been designed for consuming a lot of content, including in the form of video, audio, and text. When I decided to buy it, I imagined myself using the iPad like I do my laptop. And I can’t ever imagine using my laptop over EDGE/GPRS in a way that satisfies me. Similarly, I didn’t think the iPad would shine on an EDGE/GPRS connection.

In the next post, I will explain exactly how the arrival of iPad has changed my life, how it has affected it, how I use it, where and when I use it. I will also list down the wonderful apps I use frequently, and make an argument for iPad being an awesome device for reading books/content in particular.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGWQBjt95AY

When you double-tap the home button of your iPad or iPhone, the dock will show a list of all the recently used apps and some of them could still be running in the background.

You tap and hold your finger on the app icon until it begins to jiggle and you can then press the red “minus” sign (screenshot) to close one or more of these background apps. If a particular app is not running, this action will simply remove its listing from the multitasking bar.

Close All Background Apps at Once

If you would like to close all the background apps at once, here’s a free app for iPhone and iPad that can help. You don’t even have to jailbreak your device.

Launch the app and then shake your iPhone / iPad to terminate every single app that could be running in the background. Alternatively, you can just pull and release the processes list (see video) to close all the background running apps at once.

Should You Quit Background Apps Manually?

If you are on Windows or Mac, you always quit applications that you are not using so that more memory (RAM) becomes available to front-running apps. However, you many not see any improvement in performance by closing background iOS apps.

Here’s an excerpt from a Q&A that Engadget had with Steve Jobs:

Engadget: How do you close applications when multitasking?
Jobs: In multitasking, if you see a task manager, they blew it. Users shouldn’t ever have to think about it.

John Gruber explains why closing background apps isn’t required:

The iOS multitasking bar is not like the command tab switcher on Mac or Windows. It is not a list of currently “running” applications. It is simply a list of your most recently used applications, whether they’re running in the background, suspended in memory, or completely inactive.

Exception – Kill the Misbehaving Apps

In the past, I have seem apps, especially games, that became unresponsive (freeze) and force-quit was the only way to get them working again. The Process Killer app mentioned above might be helpful in such situations though else you need not worry about shutting down suspended background apps.

This story, How to Close All Background iOS Apps at Once, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 06/01/2012 under IPad, IPhone, Software.

Rumors never end and we’ve witnessed that over and over again. Interestingly, the rumors spread even more when it comes to Apple products. DigiTimes has confirmed from sources that the Cupertino Company is looking to release a smaller version of the iPad sometime late in the years 2012. DigiTimes is an online newspaper based in [...]