John Mark
iPad: What we should expect from iPad 3
Apple is now preparing to launch a new model of the tablet and analysts are now making suppositions about what we should expect from iPad 3. CNET News has made a compilation with some of the features that are more likely to be incorporated on the device.
Since the IT giant did not reveal many pieces of information in relation to their next generation iPad, tech lovers have to limit themselves to making wild guesses when it comes to the new iPad. Apple announced that they will release their new device on March 7 2012, so expect to hear many suppositions until then.
Judging by the photos that have been released until now, analysts believe that the iPad 3 will incorporate a souped-up dual-core chip. This news comes to contradict the previous rumors saying that the tablet will be endowed with an A6, that is, a quad-core chip.
The display of the device is one of the major assets of the next iPad. According to the speculations that have been made so far, Apple plans to leave customers mouth-watering with its 2,048-by-1,536-pixel display, thus concentrating more on the graphics side. If this news turns out true, it means that great part of the chip will be dedicated to the graphics engine and specialized cores instead of being symmetrically shaped.
The interior of the tablet is not the only one that has suffered modifications. Those who have seen the purported photo of the new device claim that the iPad 3 case will have a more beveled look. Their declaration is based on the fact that the corners look much slimmer than the ones of the previous tablets. The rear lenses might also be larger than the ones we have seen so far and the connectivity will be much faster thanks to the 4G LTE technology.
If the battery of the former tablet gave you headaches, you’ll be happy to hear that Apple plans to replace it with a slimmer, lighter and better one. There is, however, a drawback because the costs of the new battery will be bigger, as well. Apple did not make any comments in relation to all these rumors.
Siri tells boy to shut up
Charlie Le Quesne, a 12 year old boy, was playing with an iPhone 4S at a Tesco store in Coventry when the phone suddenly told him: “Shut the f*** up, you ugly t***.”
The boy had been fiddling with the phone’s Siri system which answers to spoken questions. Charlie had just asked “How many people are there in the world?” when he received the astounding answer.
His 39 year old mother, Kim, who is a nursery worker, explained the situation for the Sun:”The phone was a demo version and was low enough on the shelf for Charlie to have a go with it. He asked it a simple question and we couldn’t believe the filth it came out with. I thought I must be hearing things. So we asked again and the same four-letter stuff blared out. I asked for the manager and after staff heard it they agreed to unplug it. I couldn’t see the funny side.”
The staff of the store told the woman that someone had tempered with the phone’s set-up instructions. The Siri system is made so that is addresses the user by name. The feature uses the information entered in the contact system. Someone had entered the phrase as the user’s name therefore the phone blurted it out when asked a question.
Tesco said: “We have launched an investigation. The handset will be going back to Apple for diagnostic tests.”
It remains to be seen what kind of results the investigation will bring and whether the culprits will be revealed.
Flaw found in the iOS 5 software
A flaw has been found in Apple’s location services system in the news iOS 5 software. This particular problem may have caused several of the iPhone 4S to have their batteries drained faster than they should have. Many users have pointed that the “Setting Time Zone” option is working even when the user is not moving to a different location or time zone. It is known that the location services drain any smartphone’s battery.
On iDownloadBlog, Oliver Haslam suggested a temporary solution to the problem: “it appears that iOS 5′s GM release introduced a bug that causes the Setting Time Zone function to keep the location tracking circuitry running constantly, draining battery power considerably. Switching it off may mean that your iPhone will no longer set its own time zone when you travel, but that’s a small price to pay for having your iPhone last more than 12 hours on a full charge… We have tested this method on 4 different iPhone 4s handsets, including an iPhone 4 and an iPhone 3GS. All have reported drastically improved battery life after switching ‘Setting Time Zone’ off.”
Even though some users pointed out they had not noticed the difference, the icon is on and that means the service has been working continuously 24 hours a day.
Users believe that Apple’s use of location consumes too much battery power. “Two years working with dedicated GPS units taught me to be extremely careful with GPS settings: it kills battery very fast,” David Hamilton, a web and Java consultant pointed out on Twitter
Eric Schmidt talks about Siri on iPhone 4S
Eric Schmidt released a statement as a response to a Senate subcommittee where he claimed that Google was not monopolistic. Among these responses one of them also touched the subject of Apple’s new software, Siri.
“[H]istory shows that popular technology is often supplanted by entirely new models. Even in the few weeks since the hearing, Apple has launched an entirely new approach to search technology with Siri, its voice-activated search and task-completion service built into the iPhone 4S. As one respected technology site reported: “Everyone keeps insisting that Apple will eventually get into the search engine business. Well they have. But not in the way that everyone was thinking. Siri is their entry point.” Another commentator has described Siri more simply as intended to be a “Google killer,” he wrote.
Eric Schmidt fought hard to convince the committee that Google is not monopolistic even though it controls two-thirds of the market share. These statements he released were meant to build up his case.
In April, Google’s CFO, Patrick Pichett, said that “everybody that uses Chrom is a guaranteed locked-in user for us…” Talking about this statement, Eric Schmidt said: “Mr. Pichette’s comment is not correct. Chrome users are not in any way “locked-in” for Google. Chrome users can easily change the browswer’s default search engine to any competing search engine. It is as easy as selecting the “Preference” menu in Chrome and selecting your desired search engine from the drop-down menu. In addition, a user who downloads Chrome actually has to select the search engine he or she wants; Google is not set as the default.”
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