Inside the iPad 2: chip brings 50% browsing boost

Wondering what makes that iPad 2 you just got tick and how much faster it is than the original iPad? Anandtech, iFixit, iosnoops, and UBM TechInsights have provided some answers.

Processor performance: Let's address this first--for obvious reasons. Apple has already been very public about the dual-core 1GHz A5 processor--a step up from the single-core chip in the original iPad--and the chip's "up to 9X faster" graphics" (Apple's ad copy).

And the verdict from an independent review? "CPU [Central Processing Unit] performance...we found to be a healthy 50 percent faster than the A4 in the original iPad--at least in Web browsing," said Anandtech in a "performance preview" of the iPad 2. (More detailed benchmarks here.)

But a boost in raw "clock" speed is not the reason, according to iosnoops. "The new Apple A5 processor...may offer twice as many cores as the Apple A4 processor featured in the first generation iPad [but] it appears that each processing core is actually clocked at a slower speed," said the review site.

iosnoops continues. "While doing some early iPad 2 benchmarks, the team discovered by chance an interesting tidbit: the A5 doesn't run at 1GHz like the Apple A4, but is instead clocked around 890MHz (the speed of the A5 does not seem to be constant, and varies depending on the apps running on the iPad 2)."

Whatever the case, the iPad 2's performance is considerably better than the original iPad. "The iPad 2 is much faster. Web pages load quicker, the OS is more responsive, and applications even launch faster," said Anand Shimpi, who heads up Anandtech, responding to an e-mail query.

That said, it should be noted that the Motorola Xoom (with an Nvidia processor and graphics) surpasses the iPad 2 in some browser benchmarks, according to Anandtech.

Graphics-specific performance: And the new Imagination Technologies' PowerVR SGX 543MP2 graphics processor? On certain benchmarks, an increase ranging from 3X to 5X, according to Anandtech. Here's what that review site said about one benchmark--the so-called "fragment lit triangle test": "While the PowerVR SGX 535 in the A4 (original iPad) could barely break 4 million triangles per second in this test, the PowerVR SGX 543MP2 in the A5 manages just under 20 million. There's just no competition here." Gamers rejoice!

Source : News CNET | By Brooke Crothers
Original Content : Inside the iPad 2: chip brings 50% browsing boost

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Japan quake and tsunami puts Apple iPad in perspective

Sometimes it takes a disaster for reality orientation and life’s priorities to set in.

This week, at least for those of us reporting in the New Media and other technical publications that cover computers and the consumer electronics industry, all eyes were on Friday, the 11th of March, 2011. The day that the iPad 2 went on sale.

Some of us became completely obsessed with the notion of buying an iPad 2 and wrote about the anticipation and lengths one would go through in order to obtain it. include myself in this shameless group — I woke up that Friday morning to find out there was now a 2 or 3 week shipping lag instead of a 2 or 3 day estimated time until I’d receive one if I placed an order with Apple’s web site that day.

Massive lines at the local Apple stores in Northern New Jersey and New York City were forming as early as 9 or 10am, seven hours before they were supposed to go on sale. My chances of getting one on launch day or even in the next week were pretty much shot.

I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to test it out and write up my impressions of it for the following week on ZDNet. I recall I may have even cursed and yelled at my computer screen a few times, feeling sorry for myself that I wasn’t one of the selected few technology journalists who had earlier access to the device for review.

That disappointment and my own personal selfishness ended a whole five minutes later, when I received a shower of incoming Twitter messages alerting me to current events in Japan.

I turned on the TV to watch the morning news, where my screen was filled with images of destruction the likes of which we haven’t seen since Christmas of 2004, when an destructive tsunami originating in the Indian Ocean from a massive earthquake killed hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and in other countries within reach of the wave.

Indeed, Hurricane Katrina which followed in our own country in August of 2005 caused untold billions of dollars of damage and displaced the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in New Orleans all over the Gulf states, but the loss of life, while tragic, paled in comparison to the Indian Ocean tsunami.

We hoped we’d never see anything like those two disasters ever again.

In the early hours of Friday morning, when many of us had just gone to bed on the West coast of the United States, history repeated itself. A massive earthquake, estimated to be between magnitude 8.9 and 9.1 on the Richter scale, struck 81 miles off the coast of Japan’s Tōhoku region.

The resulting tsunami wave created by that earthquake has now caused vast and untold amounts of destruction in the Japanese city of Sendai, and has displaced at least 200,000 people now living in temporary shelters, with a death toll that is already estimated to be in the thousands.

The number of dead will likely rise very sharply over the next several weeks once the full extent of the damage from this event has been completely assessed. Many thousands of people are also reported as missing.

On top of this natural tragedy, the specter of a nuclear disaster has also emerged. One of Japan’s reactors, located in the prefecture of Fukushima, has been heavily damaged and is leaking radiation. A second reactor in the same complex is apparently experiencing problems with a failed emergency cooling system.

Eleven of the country’s fifty-five nuclear plants were completely shut down yesterday, leaving many areas without power and working telecommunications infrastructure. The damaged reactor in question, Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1, is part of a complex of six reactors, built by Tokyo Electric in 1971.

Current reports coming out of the country and the Fukushima area are sketchy and conflicting, but we know that as a result of the earthquake and the tsunami, a massive explosion at one of the buildings at the plant housing two of the six reactor cores has caused critical emergency cooling systems on two to fail.

Radiation in the contaminated steam from the damaged cooling turbine pumps has been determined to be leaking due to detection of cesium-137 isotopes taken from samples from the air of the surrounding area and the measurement of the radiation in the immediate vicinity of the reactor facility which is at eight times normal levels.

Currently, the first of the two damaged reactors is leaking approximately the amount of radiation in one hour that a typical human being receives in one year,

The entire population of 51,000 people living in a six mile radius surrounding the reactor is being evacuated.

Japanese workers are now feverishly pouring in sea water to try to keep the reactor fuel cool in order to avoid a meltdown similar to theChernobyl event in the Ukraine in 1986.

However, since the reactor cores themselves have not been exposed, it is unlikely that they will ever go critical and have a complete fuel meltown. According to various nuclear experts that have been recently interviewed on the subject, it would most likely be similar in scope to theThree Mile Island incident in 1979, which was rated a 4 out of 7 in terms of its severity and environmental impact on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

A INE of 4 has serious local consequences. The Fukushima event will probably ending up being rated by the IAEA as a 4 or a 5, with wider consequences for the surrounding area.

[UPDATE, Saturday March 12 2011: Japan's nuclear regulatory and safety agency, NISA, has rated the accident a 4 on the INES scale in itsupdates to the IAEA. The IAEA itself has not yet assigned a rating.]

[UPDATE, Saturday March 12 2011, 5PM EST: A second reactor's emergency cooling system at the Fukushima plant has also failed, prompting additional efforts to supply seawater for cooling. Article copy has been updated]

However, If either of the affected Fukushima reactors undergo a complete fuel meltdown and it they cannot be quickly contained, resulting in an INE of 7 (the equivalent to a Chernobyl event, the worst nuclear accident in human history) the contamination from airborne radiation could be devastating for Japan, the entire pacific region and for the Western United States.

Such an event would potentially sicken and result in the deaths of tens of thousands of people, and causing severe environmental damage, not to mention tremendous negative economic impact to Japan and the entire affected region.

While this worst case-scenario is unlikely since the situation is not a “fast reaction” like Chernobyl (in that case, the entire reactor exploded, blowing the roof off the building and the containment vessel, exposing the raw, melted fuel to the open air and sending a huge cloud of radioactive material into the atmosphere) even a INE of a 5 or a 6 is still within the realm of possibility.

All of this puts life in perspective and makes you think about what is important. Human lives are important. Being obsessed with high-tech gadgets is not.

While my wife did end up standing on line at Target for me at 5PM yesterday, and I did eventually end up getting my iPad 2, I primarily used it on Friday night to watch the horrible scenes of destruction and live videos that kept rolling in from Japan. The gift was bittersweet.

It becomes very difficult to enjoy technology and a device as fun as the iPad when you know so many people are dying, or will die as a result of this incredible tragedy.

Whether you got your iPad or not on Friday, I urge you to donate to either the American Red Cross or the Salvation Army which are two of the larger BBB accredited charities assisting in the relief efforts.

Donors can text “Japan” to 80888 from their cell phones to donate $10 to Salvation Army efforts.  They can visit mobilecause.com for terms and conditions and should respond “Yes” to a “Thank you” message they receive.

Donors can text “Redcross” from their cell phones to 90999 to donate the same amount to that organization.

Larger donations can always be made online via the Red Cross websiteor Salvation Army website.

Source: ZDNet | By Jason Perlow
Original Content: Japan quake and tsunami puts Apple iPad in perspective

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Top 5 Things to do When You Get Your iPad 2 [Setup and Security]

There are a few things to do as soon as you get your iPad 2 home and out of the box. Today we are going to cover security, protection and a few other things to do right now.

Top 5 Things to do When you get Your iPad 2:

These steps are free, and should only take about 10 minutes, though the initial sync may take longer if you have a lot of apps and media.

Set up Find My iPad – 3 minutes

If you skipped past this when you first connected your iPad to iTunes, make sure you enable the free Find My iPad feature. This requires you to set oil a MobileMe account, but is completely free and will help you find your iPad if it is lost or stolen.

1. To setup Find My iPad, tap the settings icon on your iPad 2.
2. Tap on Mail, contacts and Calendars.
3. Add a MobileMe account.
4. Enter your Apple user ID, the same one you use to buy in iTunes. If you do not have an account the tool will walk you through creating one for free.
5. Verify your email by clicking on the link Apple sends you.
6. Go back to the MobileMe screen in Settings, and click the switch to “ON”

Set a Passcode – 1 Minute

Setting up a Passcode, or security lock, on your iPad is a good way to protect your important data and email accounts. By turning on a Passcode the iPad cannot be unlocked without a 4 digit code which keeps your data secure. You can even wipe the iPad, erasing all data if the Passcode is entered wrong ten times straight.

To set up a Passcode:

1. Tap Settings.
2. Choose Passcode Lock form the right side menu.
3. Tap turn Passcode on.
4. Enter a 4 digit Passcode that you will remember, ,but not something as simple as 1234. For help, use the letters to spell out a four letter word.
5. Enter the Passcode a second time to verify.
6. Choose how long you want the iPad 2 to wait before the Passcode turns on and locks the device.
7. When you turn your iPad on next, you will be prompted to enter your Passcode.

Put it in a Case – 1 minute

The quickest way to devalue your new iPad 2 is to leave it open to the elements. If you didn’t get the Smart Cover from Apple, look for a third party case or even a sleeve to keep your iPad 2 from being scratched. Within a month or two there will be many more case options available for purchase. You may also want to get a Zaggmate invisible shield or similar wrap to protect the back and screen from scratches.

Create an If Found Lockscreen Message – 1 minute

If you are prone to leaving your iPad 2 laying around, you should change the locksreen so that it has your contact information on it. This will make it easy to get your iPad back if it is lost. You may also have better luck with this tip if you add a reward.

How to Setup an If Found Message on the iPad 2:

1. Open the iPad Notes app.
2. Type a short message with your phone number and email including reward info.
3. Take a screenshot of it by holding the power button and home button at the same time.
4. Open the Photo app.
5. Open the screenshot you just took.
6. Tap on the image, choose the action icon in the upper right.
7. Choose use as wallpaper
8. Zoom in or out and move the image until it is where you want it to be.
9. Tap Use as Lockscreen.

If you want to get more advanced you could upload an image to a free photo editor like Picnik and add your information to a picture.

Sync your iPad – 3 minutes (to start may take longer to complete)

After you’ve prepared your iPad for the hazards of daily use, the last thing to do is to sync it up with your computer. If you are upgrading, you can restore form a backup of your previous iPad to get exactly what you had on the old device. If you are upgrading, but want to use. Anew computer, you can transfer the apps from your old iPad to the computer and then sync those apps to your iPad 2. Finally, if you are a new user, you can plug in and sync your music and movies over by simply plugging in and opening iTunes.

If you want to control what movies and other media are synced, visit the settings of your iPad when it is plugged in by clicking on the iPad name on the right menu bar and hen clicking on the tabs across the top to choose how many moves to transfer, what episodes of a TV show to transfer and what iPhoto albums to transfer to your iPad 2.

Stay tuned for more iPad 2 tips and guides.

Source : GottaBeMobile
Original Content : Top 5 Things to do When You Get Your iPad 2 [Setup and Security]

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Strong demand pushes new iPad 2 shipments from Apple back to 3-4 weeks

Shipping times for new iPad orders continue to slip, with orders placed as of Saturday evening estimated to ship within 3 to 4 weeks.

Demand for the iPad 2 has been so strong in its first 24 hours of availability that Apple has been forced to push back estimated ship times yet again. While initial orders placed in Apple's online store began shipping Saturday for a March 17 delivery, those who hesitated to buy will be forced to wait longer.

Initial orders were scheduled to ship in two to three days, but that estimate was quickly pushed back on Friday as orders continued to flood in. By later Friday morning, new orders were estimated to ship within 2 to 3 weeks.

But orders placed late Saturday may not ship for up to a month. And many retail locations, which began selling the iPad 2 in person Friday evening, have already sold out of their initial stock.

Analysts expect Apple to sell more than a half million of the iPad 2 in its first weekend of availability, besting the debut of the first-generation iPad last year. On the bullish end, one analyst has said that Apple could sell as many as a million of the iPad 2 at launch, thanks to expanded retail availability of the device and greater consumer interest.


Source : Apple Insider
Original Content : Strong demand pushes new iPad 2 shipments from Apple back to 3-4 weeks

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IOS Brainstorming Apps

Mind-mapping on a small-screened iOS device is not much fun and best avoided. True, all three of the apps reviewed here are designed for the small screen, but the small size of the iPhone/iPod touch screen and the expanse that even a basic mind mapped brainstorming session can become are two things that don't go great together.

Of these three apps, only two offer native iPad versions--SimpleMind and iThoughtsHD--and neither of those apps is Universal, which means that if you want to use them on all your iOS devices you'll have to purchase both versions.

Tenero Software's iBlueSky is the only non-iPad app in the mix (in the sense that there's no iPad-optimized version), while you can run it in 2x-mode on your tablet, it doesn't scale well. The app offers a limited set of features, but they work well and, with a few small exceptions, make creating your mind map an easy process.

New iBlueSky projects open to a blank page with a single main heading bubble in the center. When you type a title in that bubble, your project takes on the same name; any time you edit the bubble, the name of your project will change as well. You add new sub-ideas by selecting the bubble that you want your new idea to branch off of and then tapping the small (+) button that appears at the bottom right-hand side of the screen. This marks iBlueSky's first shortcoming--New branches added to your map are placed about an inch away from the bubble they're linked to. This may not sound significant, but as your map grows, you'll end up doing a fair amount of scrolling, or squeezing and pinching to navigate around the screen as the map expands well beyond what you can see.

iBlueSky does offer nice drag, copy, cut, and paste options for moving and copying branches and placing them in other locations on your map. Customization is limited to changing colors and adding notes, but you can only make these changes by tapping a bubble, then tapping an edit button, and then selecting a menu for what you want to change. Overall, I found the entire process to be a bit clunky.

XPT Software & Consulting'sSimpleMind represents a collection of iOS, Windows and Mac mind-mapping applications that all sport a common interface and which seamlessly share your maps across all of those platforms. All the features available on the iPad version of the app are the same as those you'll find on the iPhone and iPod touch, though they suffer from the limitations of a smaller screen as I mentioned earlier.

As with iBlueSky, a new document created in SimpleMind takes on the name of your central idea, and new branches for subsequent ideas are added by touching a small plus sign that appears on right-hand-side of a selected bubble or by tapping twice on the screen. Once you've created a sub-idea, the left-hand side of the bubble above it displays a small arrow that, when toggled, hides or reveals all the sub-ideas linked to it.

One of the things that makes SimpleMind a pleasure to use--and I'm including the smaller version in this praise--is the way that your mind map realigns itself as your map gets larger. Creating a new sub-idea centers that idea on your screen so you can type its name and change the way it looks. Once you're done the app realigns the screen so that you can see your new idea, but it is also aligned so most of the rest of your map is visible as well.

In addition to easy map creation, SimpleMind offers undo and redo buttons, eight pre-defined styles so that you can quickly change the way your map looks, and a tool that appears when you tap any branch for easily changing that branch's color. That tool also lets you cut, copy, duplicate, and create a new sub-branch off of what you've selected. Finally, using the $53SimpleMind Desktop application (available for both the Mac and PC), you can easily share all your maps between your computer and your iOS devices. One of the benefits of this application is that, unlike many other computer-based applications that link to your iOS device, SimpleMind Desktop can be linked to several iOS devices at the same time.

There's a free version of SimpleMind--SimpleMind XPress--that lets you open, view, and edit mind maps, though it lacks the sharing and exporting features you'll find in the paid version.

CMS'siThoughts and iThoughtsHD are by far the most sophisticated of the three mind mapping apps reviewed here and they both offer features that rival or exceed features found in similar desktop applications.

Unlike SimpleMind, the iPad and iPhone/iPod touch versions of iThoughts sport completely different interfaces. The HD version's use of the large screen allows for onscreen menus and map options that you can see all the time. The smaller version allows you to hide these menus, only displaying small triangles in three of the four corners of your device, which you tap to hide or reveal the app's assorted tools. Once you get past the way the apps look and how they handle menus, though, map creation is exactly the same.

To create a new iThoughts map, you tap a small plus sign that appears in the app's map menu. You can name this map anything you want, select an icon to represent the map, choose the folder you'd like to save it to, and use an existing map as a template to start your map. The map's central idea is the same as what you named the map, but you are able to change the name of the central idea without changing the mind map's name.

iThoughts offers a number of ways for you to manipulate and add new ideas to your map, including keyboard shortcuts so that you can keep your fingers on the keys while adding new ideas. You can also hold and drag ideas that you've already added to your map to link them with other ideas or set them apart as floating ideas. iThoughts also offers multiple levels of undo and excellent integration with Dropbox, MobileMe, Box.net, and any WebDAV server. You'll also find that you can open files created by most every mind-mapping application available for the Mac or PC. Finally, you can copy a text outline you've created using any iOS app and paste it into your map--iThoughts will create an appropriately organized map from that outline. In short, I found iThoughts to be stupendous.

iThoughts is, hands down, the best mind mapping app that I've had the pleasure to use on an iOS device and it may be the best I've used on any platform. While SimpleMind is quite good, when compared side-by-side to iThoughts, it falls short. But, because there's also a desktop version of the app available and because it syncs so well with a multitude of iOS devices, SimpleMind is still a compelling choice. Because iBlueSky offers too few features and because it's limited to use on smaller iOS devices, the app doesn't make sense as practical iOS mind-mapping offering.

Jeffery Battersby is an Apple Certified Trainer, (very) smalltime actor, and regular contributor to Macworld. He writes about Macs and more at his blog.

Source: PC World
Original Content : IOS Brainstorming Apps

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Survey says 70% of first iPad 2 buyers own original iPad

A small survey of customers waiting in line to buy the iPad 2 on Friday revealed that 70 percent of those surveyed already own the first-generation iPad, while 20 percent of respondents planned to purchase the 3G model.

Mobile ad network Mobclix surveyed 50 of the 250 customers waiting in line at Apple's Palo Alto, Calif., retail store. According to the survey, 70 percent of respondents were upgrading from the original iPad.

It should be noted, however, the results should be taken with a grain of salt, as Silicon Valley residents are likely skewed toward early adopters.

20 percent of those surveyed indicated they would purchase a 3G-capable iPad 2. Customers favored the AT&T network, with 68 percent planning to purchase the AT&T iPad 2 and 32 percent planning to buy the Verizon model.

The survey also found that the top three new features users are excited about are the device's cameras, faster speed and FaceTime video chat.

The Palo Alto Apple Store has historically been a busy site on product launch days, as it is located just 20 minutes from Apple's campus in Cupertino. Last April, Apple CEO Steve Jobs made an appearance at the store for the launch of the original iPad.

For its part, Apple is hoping for lightning to strike twice with the iPad. During the media event announcing the second-generation tablet, Apple declared 2010 the "Year of the iPad," before pronouncing 2011 the "Year of the iPad 2."

Jobs also highlighted the iPad as Apple's "third post-PC blockbuster product." Following the launch of the original iPad last year, Jobs hailed the tablet as the leader of an "uncomfortable" transition to the post-PC era.

Early indicators suggest Apple does have another hit on its hands. Checks to several Apple Stores by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster revealed that lines were, on average, 104 percent longer than last year's launch, with over a thousand prospective buyers in line at the 5th Avenue Apple Store in New York.

Munster predicts that Apple could sell as many as 400,000-500,000 units of the iPad 2 in its first day of availability. According to one analyst, Apple could sell as many as 1 million units in the first weekend of iPad 2 sales.




Source : Apple Insider
Original Content : Survey says 70% of first iPad 2 buyers own original iPad

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