Apple has just released a new update for iOS devices, and that includes the iPad, iPhone and the iPod touch. The update is barely incremental from iOS 5.1 to 5.1.1 but you might want to get it sooner than later since it comes with a number of fixes.

The update brings among other things:
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It’s pretty hard to get excited about an iPod, iPhone and iPad speaker dock anymore but this one is special, as special as the man who is behind the company that makes them.

The AeroPad Two is a massive 86 x 30 cm (33.9 x 11.8 inches) machine that can pump out your tunes through four 30-watt speakers, with the speakers in each pair positioned across each other, and an 80-watt subwoofer; that’s a lot of air-moving power!

It has a 30-pin dock connector and enough space to dock your iPad, or otherwise it would be willing to dwarf your iPod, iPod Touch and iPhone.
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The two hottest Android smartphones right now are the new 4.7-inch HTC One X and the incumbent 4.65-inch Galaxy Nexus that we have reviewed in-depth here. A key hardware distinction between the two is the use of different display technologies. Both have a 720p resolution, but the Samsung Galaxy Nexus features a PenTile Matrix Super AMOLED display while the HTC One X has a standard RGB Super IPS LCD2 screen. You can read more about the differences between Samsung’s PenTile Matrix technology and standard RGB here.

Now, we can easily argue that the display is probably the single most important hardware feature of any mobile device so we’ll be taking an in-depth look between the two Android smartphones. We also have a 3rd generation iPad handy with its amazingly sharp and most importantly color accurate display, so we’ll occasionally be throwing it in our comparison for good measure.
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Sharp has just announced that it’s ramping up production of the world’s first LCD panels using advanced indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) semiconductors at its Kameyama Plant No. 2 in order to meet increased demand. Production of the panels began in March 2012 and the IGZO technology allows Sharp to produce LCDs with high pixel density but lower energy consumption because of the smaller thin-film transistors and increased pixel transparency.

Sharp was long rumored as an Apple partner providing the retina displays in the 3rd generation iPad. However as the IGZO technology was too young, the company couldn’t yet mass-produce the 10-inch 2048×1536 panels required for the new iPad. Apple finally went with the same IPS LCD amorphous silicon panel technology as in the iPad 2, but the new iPad retina panel now consumes 2.5-times the power at the same brightness. To compensate Apple has loaded the new iPad with almost double the amount of battery, meaning that it takes much longer to recharge the iPad 3, and it’s also slightly thicker and heavier.
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A survey done by ChangeWave Research on the new 3rd generation iPad has revealed some interesting tidbits, though we have to foreword this by saying that the company has polled a mere 200 new iPad owners, which is a pretty small sample if you consider that Apple has sold more than three million new iPads in the initial release weekend.

According to the survey more than four out of five people polled (82% to be exact) have said that they are very satisfied with the new iPad, compared to 74% for the iPad 2. Only 2%, or four people, have said they are somewhat dissatisfied.
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Do you remember that amazing interactive (and multitouch) version of Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” by Petros Vrellis? Well it has now become an iPad app, so that you can literally interact with the paintings brushstrokes and watch them flow and whirl around.

The app is compatible with the iPad 2 and the new 3rd generation iPad. It’s $1.99 from the App Store and was created using openframeworks, similar to the original PC version that was demonstrated earlier. The app allows you to change the music and the animation speed and touching the painting not only affects the particle animation but also the music.
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The incredible retina display of the 3rd generation iPad deserves some incredible wallpaper and we think we just stumbled on them. This set of seven colorful geometric designs was created by graphic designer Simon C Page specifically for the new iPad. They are each 2,048×2,048 at 264dpi so they work both in portrait and landscape.

We’ve loaded them up on our iPad and they look absolutely awesome, fan and playful with an air of sophistication. The easiest way to get them on your 3rd generation iPad is to click each download link from Safari on the iPad and then press-and-hold to save.
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A reminder to all: glass shatters, even fancy fortified glass like Corning’s Gorilla Glass. If that glass happens to be attached to the screen of your favorite gadget, then an unfortunate mess ensues.

Take the iPad, a 9.7-inch screen dominates the tablet’s front, which in turn is covered by glass. The iPad 2′s screen was protected by Gorilla Glass, while it has been rumored that the 3rd generation iPad would feature the latest Gorilla Glass technology that we saw this year at CES. So is the new iPad more impervious to drops compared to the iPad 2?
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You know how it goes, Apple releases new iOS hardware and the chase to jailbreak the device begins. With the third-generation iPad running iOS 5.1 barely out, developers are showing off their skills having been able to to jailbreak the tablet within a few hours.

What’s amazing is that so far there have been three different developers/teams showing off jailbreaks that they claim have been done using different methods. There’s no public release of a jailbreak just yet, but you should expect one to be out before too long.
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Some of the initial coverage on the new 3rd generation iPad suggested that Apple somehow increased the power density of the Lithium-ion battery cells inside the new iPad in order to achieve the jump from 25Whr, in the iPad 2, to 43Whr — that’s more than a 70% increase in battery capacity. The reasoning behind this was that while there was this huge increase in battery capacity the new iPad is only very slightly thicker (just 0.6mm) and heavier than the iPad 2.

Now, the iPad 2 was practically all battery already, so somehow it made sense that Apple had magically created a new battery technology without anyone catching wind on it.

That would be some awesome news for the entire consumer electronics industry and you know how much we deplore mobile devices that don’t offer full-day battery life and how we are always on the lookout on ways to keep us powered on the go. However, if you knew anything about the evolution of battery technology you’d know how slowly and incrementally power density has improved.
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The guys at iFixit are really committed to what they do, and what they do is dissect all your favorite gadgets piece by piece and document every step of the way. Well, the 3rd generation iPad may not be out yet but the iFixit crew managed to grab one from a store in Australia and promptly brought it in for surgery.

First task was to separate the new stunning retina display from the rest of the iPad’s body and here we get the first revelation. The screen is probably made by Samsung rather than LG as it was initially rumored.
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Although Apple is keeping the new 3rd generation iPad (a.k.a. iPad 3) under lock and key until the official March 16 release date, a pair of Vietnamese tech journalists managed to snatch an early copy.

As normally happens in these cases, the pair has duly unboxed the new iPad, which is a 16GB 4G model by the way, in front of a camera and also ran a quick benchmark. No surprises with the unboxing, the new iPad comes in pretty much the same box as the iPad 2, and you still get a power adapter and a USB to 30 pin connector cable. But anyone anxious for some early retina display action is welcome to the 4 minute video just below, and we’re sure you won’t mind that it’s in Vietnamese.
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Apple has been progressively bringing Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity to its mobile devices and personal computers. The mid-2011 MacBook Air (full review here) and Mac mini were the first to get Bluetooth 4.0 and were followed suit by the iPhone 4S, which was the first smartphone ever to get Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity.

All the above are Bluetooth Smart Ready devices, i.e. they can connect to every legacy Bluetooth device out there, like Bluetooth mice and keyboards, and new Bluetooth 4.0 Smart Ready and low power Bluetooth 4.0 Smart devices, like body monitors and watches. Here’s a table below of what can connect with what:
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So the well published Apple event is under way and the company has finally come clean with its updated tablet. The third-generation iPad is called just that, iPad — Apple chose not to name it iPad 3 or iPad HD as was previously rumored.

The new iPad comes with a very high resolution 2048 x 1536 display, with four times the number of pixels found in the iPad 2. Apple is calling its 264 pixels-per-inch density display, retina worthy.

To drive such a high resolution one needs a powerful graphics unit and the third-generation iPad comes with a new A5X chipset featuring quad-core graphics that’s two times as potent as the one found in the iPad 2. Apple is also claiming that the A5X graphics unit is four times as fast as the quad-core Tegra 3, a pretty bold statement.
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Stuff-Review was the first to consider that the iPad HD (a.k.a. iPad 3) could have some form of advanced haptic feedback. Our speculation was based on the iPad event invite, which calls for something new to see and touch. Apple is no stranger to this technology since it has been doing its own research, and it would just really make sense to have tactile feedback technology in the iPad.

Advanced haptics would enrich the iPad experience by bringing the sense of touch to the mix. It would make typing on the iPad akin to typing on a physical keyboard, provide tactile feedback on user interface interactions and it would bring gaming to a whole different level. Then you never know what else might come up from enterpreneuring app developers.
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The iPad has already demonstrated that it does indeed have the chops for some serious content creation. While a touch interface may not be suited for some tasks, it’s perfect for others, and video editing would be one of them. Avid, a name synonymous with prosumer video and audio production, has just released an iPad version of its Avid Studio application, which will now go head-to-head against Apple’s own iMovie.
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Behringer is a big name when it comes to audio and particularly mixers. The German company has announced three new small format mixers that can use the iPad as their brains. The XENYX series iX1642USB, iX2442USB, and iX3242USB mixers can also draw music from the iPad and record to it. You can also connect the mixers directly to a Mac or Windows computer via USB to record audio digitally.

The three mixers only vary in the number of input channels, 16, 24 and 32. All feature 32 editable presets, such as reverb, chorus, flange, delay and pitch shifter. Using the iPad to control the mixers’ FX Processor gives the user a full spectrum analyser and deep control of the EQ — of course turning virtual knobs can never beat the satisfaction of real ones. The mixers feature 130 dB dynamic range mic preamps and using the iPad’s video out capability, you can also sync performances to video.
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As we are coming closer to a potential launch of the iPad 3, there’s increasing speculation on the potential specs of Apple’s next tablet. One of longest standing rumors is that the iPad 3 will have a “retina” display with a resolution of 2048×1536 — that is double the 1024×768 resolution of the iPad 2 on each axis or four times the number of pixels.

Well, some developers have dissected the files contained within iBooks 2 and iTunes U that were released yesterday, and found a number of graphics files appended as ‘iPad@2x’. One of these images is the bookmark graphic and as then name suggests it’s double the size of the graphic for the normal iPad.
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