According to iLounge, People Magazine will start offering subscribers free access to the iPad equivalent as a benefit.  This capability will expand to all other magazines in the group, including Time (of which I’m a print subscriber).  This is FREAKING awesome and about damn time.  There was no way I was going to pay for both a paper and electronic copy.  The article says that other magazine publishers are expected to follow suit, so there’s hope that my Business Week subscription will soon be wonderfully binary as well.  Apparently, the mags are claiming they wanted to do this from the start but Apple limitations prevented this.  I take that with a grain of salt.

Now, mag publishers – can you PLEASE make the digital versions less expensive than the paper equivalents?  I’d gladly subscribe to a cheaper digital version.  If you can make money on a subscriber who pays $0.79/paper issue, surely you can make money on a subscriber who pays $0.50 or (shockingly) $0.25 an electronic issue?  I’d even be willing to commit to three years plus to get this price.

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/ipad-digital-magazine-apps-gain-print-subscription-option/

Following the tablet footsteps laid by Apple, Google has built a Chrome OS tablet with help from HTC, and the device will launch on Verizon Wireless’ network come November 26th, 2010 — a date known otherwise as “Black Friday” in 2010.

The tablet is speculated to sport a 1280×720 display, 2GB of RAM, a 32GB solid-state drive, and WiFI/Bluetooth/3G wireless connectivity. Not bad. No word on front face or back camera yet though.

As for now, we would advise you to take the above information in with a grain of salt, at least until some more information on this so-called tablet is made available.

What are your thoughts? You want one?

Top 5 Useful and Free iPhone Apps

There are thousands of apps available to use on your iPhone, iPod and now your iPad as well and, surprisingly, many of the best are free to download.

The following list shows 5 of the very best free apps that also happen to be extremely useful as well.  There are loads of apps out there that can help make your life that bit easier so it’s well worth going through them to find the ones that will apply to you and your life.

Here are a few of the best useful apps out there that are well-worth a look.

Thetrainline – For those of you who commute to work by train, Thetrainline is a free transport app that outshines all of the others – and it’s free. The app can help you to plan your journey, obtain offline results and timetables and also has a location-aware ‘next train home’ option.  All of these features are available on Thetrianline’s clear and streamlined interface. There are of course other train apps available but many will cost you upwards of £5 and when you can get this one for free and it does the job – why look elsewhere?

Skype – This is a great money-saving app and allows you and your friends to chat to each other for free via your Skype app. The interface is simple and usable, enabling anyone with a Skype account to make free calls to other Skype users and also offers you the ability to make cheap calls to anywhere in the world. Pay as you Go users will find this app particularly useful but so will iPod touch owners as this app also allows them to make calls to other Skype users.

Dropbox – There are many apps out there that transfer content between your computer and your device but this one is free and actually a lot easier to use than many of the paid ones out there.  Any files you want to sync up – just drop them in to a folder on your computer and Dropbox will enable you to access them.

Around Me – Around Me is a great app for when you’re out and about.  It works out where you are and then shows you all the local banks, bars, petrol stations and restaurants etc that are in your vicinity.  The app is really useful when you happen to be in unfamiliar surroundings and the ‘augmented reality’ landscape mode is great for getting to know the area, just be aware that this new technology isn’t completely there yet so expect that you may come across a few little errors.

Moneysupermarket.com Voucher App – No matter what you’re looking for, moneysupermarket.com will no doubt have a voucher for it that will help make savings on your purchases. There are thousands of free discount codes and vouchers on this iPhone app that can help all UK shoppers save money on whatever they want to buy.

Apple iTunes Cloud Lala Very Cloudy

Many people expected that Apple would offer your iTunes music and movies over the cloud after it acquired Lala.com last December. That is of course after Apple obtained the appropriate music licenses to do so. Lala, the music serviced, shut down after being acquired by Apple this past May.

The Lala team leadership that went to Apple after the acquisition seems to leaving. Bill Nguyen, Lala’s founder, is known to be press friendly and against Apple’s culture of secrecy. Another founding member has left the company leaving Apple’s media cloud plans in a haze.

Google, on the other hand, hired Elizabeth Moody, an attorney with deep experience negotiating digital-music deals. Record executives expect Moody will help cut the first cloud music licensing agreement. Google has told label managers that it wants to launch a music service this year.

Apple is not worried though since it is still the #1 online and offline music store and jukebox.

However, in this fast pacing media game, tables can turn very quickly.

InnoPocket have launched HexaPose Stand for Apple iPad. The HexaPose Stand is made of solid aluminum and tough polycarbonate with a chic design tailor-made for the Apple iPad. It comes with a rotatable pivot which can allow you to freely rotate your iPad horizontally or vertically. The pivot can also be adjusted 3 ways for different viewing angles for surfing, reading, gaming or movie viewing. HexaPose Stand is the perfect gadget for your iPad if you use iPad at home just as your PC. It makes your iPad look like an iMac.

Features

• Clip-on, sleek looking table and desktop stand for your iPad
• Solid and strong aluminum base
• Precision molded polycarbonate frame to hold the iPad securely
• Hold iPad in both landscape and portrait orientation
• Multiple viewing angles for surfing, reading or movie viewing
• Cutout gives access to iPad’s dock connector for charging and syncing

MSRP: US$49.99

About InnoPocket

Founded in 1999, InnoPocket designs and manufactures a complete line of custom cases for laptop, PDA, smartphones, MP3 players and gaming devices.

GadgetMETER’s Take

This would be great for a keyboard and desktop solution as well.

Contact
InnoPocket
Website: http://www.innopocket.com

After years of rumors, Apple will finally open an Apple Store in Philadelphia on Walnut Street! I walk by here almost every day. It’s amazing how Apple can keep its store openings and product releases so secret.

Apple will hold the grand opening celebration for Apple Store Walnut Street in Philadelphia on Friday, July 30, 2010 at 5pm ED

Address: Apple Store Walnut Street
1607 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103

The Apple Store Walnut Street is the best place to learn about all the latest products from Apple, including the new iPhone 4 featuring FaceTime, which makes the dream of video calling a reality, and Apple’s stunning new Retina display, the highest resolution display ever built into a phone. Customers can experience Apple’s entire product line hands-on including the magical new iPad that lets users browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more. Visitors to the store can also try the updated MacBook and MacBook Pro with the NVIDIA processor for up to 80 percent faster graphics, and the incredibly popular iPod touch with access to more than 225,000 apps offered on the revolutionary App Store.

Every Apple Retail Store offers a range of free services designed to help customers get the most out of their Apple products, including face-to-face support and advice at the Genius Bar, hands-on workshops and special programs for kids. Customers who buy a Mac®at the Apple Retail Store or Apple’s Online Store can also join the popular One to One program. For just $99, owners of a new Mac get Personal Setup to customize their computer and transfer files from their old Mac or PC, plus a year of Personal Training sessions and Personal Project support on a wide range of topics, from getting started on a Mac to advancing their digital photography or moviemaking skills.

Read more…

Jaybird is one of my favorite companies and not just because they send me free stuff to try out.  If you recall, I had written a review of the Jaybird SB1 Bluetooth headphones a while ago.  The SB1’s had been purchased with my own funds so I felt free to be as critical as I wanted to be.  However, I found few flaws with the SB1’s and they have been my day-to-day headphones ever since.  I use them on average at least 2 hours a day Monday thru Friday during my commute, so I think I can say fairly that I’d have had a chance to find any flaws in them by now, and I really haven’t.

Well Jaybird recently released the SB2’s, the next generation of the SB1’s and they were kind enough to send me a pair to review.  I want to make clear that these phones were provided gratis, so keep that in mind while you read my review.  I like to believe that I’m objective enough to say a product sucks even if they send me a free evaluation unit, but I haven’t really faced that situation yet.  (I have been given free iPhone/iPad apps for review and I’ve passed up writing reviews in some cases where I thought the app was just bad, but even those cases are few and far between).

I received the headphones on a Friday (delivered in person by the lovely young lady in the packaging, naturally) and I’ve been using them ever since to really try them out in comparison to the SB1’s.  The headphones come in (relatively speaking) minimal packaging and the box it was shipped in was big enough to hold the headphones but not a lot bigger.  I’ve gotten a bit sensitive to companies that ship their products in way oversized boxes and/or packaging (Amazon, I’m looking at YOU), so it was nice to see some attention paid to minimizing waste.  In fact, one of my complaints about the SB1’s was the large amount of packaging that surrounded the headphones themselves.  Jaybird addressed this nicely in the SB2.

The headphones come with a minimum amount of accessories – a set of very simple instructions, the USB-based charging plug, and two pairs of replacement foam pads arrived along with the bright red (and I mean BRIGHT) SB2’s.  It was really nice to see the extra foam pads included – one of my dings on the SB1’s was the fact that those foam pads looked like they could wear with time, and without them, the headphones are kind of painful to wear.  I haven’t had any issues with them in all my wearings, but I tend to be very gentle on my equipment.  They’ve fallen off a couple times but I just re-seated them and they were fine.  Still, it’s good to see companies thinking about the long term use of their products.

I did a quick size comparison between the SB1’s and the SB2’s as well.  They are identically sized, in both thickness and shape.  In fact you really can’t tell them apart.  The big improvements come on the inside in the Bluetooth firmware, specifically the addition of apt-X.  apt-X, when paired with a compatible transmitter, provides CD-quality audio via the Bluetooth stream.  Since I am not an audiophile and since the iPhone 4 does not have apt-X built in (heck, we can’t even get Apple to give us skip forward/back controls via Bluetooth), I wasn’t able to test this part of the SB2’s.  Jaybird does sell a slim dongle that plugs into the dock port of the iPhone that will provide the transmission portion of the apt-X signal, but I don’t like adding dongles to the iPhone.  They almost always don’t work well with the wide variety of cases and protective gear, and the new iPhone is not a device I want to leave naked.

In terms of sound, the SB2’s sound just as good as the SB1’s.  I did notice that Jaybird made a slight tweak to the volume controls, because I was able to drop the volume down to a level lower than I had experienced on the SB1’s.  This was the other minor ding I had for Jaybird concerning the SB1’s – they didn’t seem to have a low volume that was really low.

I wasn’t able to test the microphone capabilities of the SB2 vs. the SB1.  I know with the SB1 I had some slight issues with pickup under windy conditions, but I have yet to use a set of Bluetooth headphones that didn’t have this problem, so that’s not something I would necessarily ding Jaybird for anyways.

The other improvement that I was able to find, and one I’ll be keeping an eye on for the longer term, is that the earpads are much stiffer when extending or retracting.  This is good – in my SB1’s, the right earpad was starting to become very loose through the daily wear and tear of extending and retracting it to fit my head.  I am hoping the SB2’s will not suffer that issue.  The SB2’s seem to be a bit “stickier” to my head as well, though I’m not sure if that’s actual or if it’s just perception because they’re new.  I will have to see what happens when the SB2’s are on my head as I am on the weight bench.

Overall, I strongly recommend the Jaybird SB2.  They’ve addressed the few minor shortcomings I had with the SB1’s, and the inclusion of apt-X will mean better sound for apt-X equipped devices.  At $99, they are in the middle range for Bluetooth headphones, and I’m sure that you will be able to find them for less online.  I’m planning to switch to the SB2’s for my day-to-day use, and am looking forward to the many stares I’m going to get as I walk to work in my business suit sporting a set of cherry red headphones shining off the reflected light of my shaved head.

By the way, all these pics were taken using the iPhone 4’s camera.  Note the significant yellowing in the bottom two pictures?  That’s a beige surface I’m shooting down onto.  Part of the issue might be bounceback of light from that surface, since the yellowing isn’t apparent in the top two pictures.  Interesting…

Jaybird SB2 Bluetooth Headphones