From the Blog
“People shouldn’t be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” – V (V for Vendetta)
Well, Apple’s certainly been busy. Just after its new MacBook Pro update, the iPad 2 has been announced. In fact, Steve Jobs personally hosted the keynote.
Yeah, it’s that important.
The iPad 2 includes some really great innovations that many were asking for in the 1st generation iPad. Some of these features include a front-facing FaceTime camera, a rear 720p video camera, a slimmer profile (1/3 the thickness of the first iPad), a dual-core 1GHz processor (with 9x graphics processing speed), and the option to choose a white or black iPad 2.
To accommodate all of this new power, new apps have been developed. Most notably, GarageBand is now available for the iPad 2.
Now, with the appropriate adapters, you can attach your favorite instrument directly to the iPad, while mixing tracks and adding software effects and accompaniment.
If you don’t have an instrument, there are many built-in software instruments that can be played right on the iPad, and feature pressure sensitivity and multitouch capability.
Another app that has been designed for iPad is iMovie. iMovie for iPad 2 has been redesigned so that more advanced edits can be made on the large 1024×768 display.
The next feature is really cool. Many users of the 1st generation iPad complained that if they got a case, the slim profile of the iPad would no longer matter. The iPad 2 implements a magnetic cover connection. Apple calls it the iPad Smart Cover.
These covers come in many different colors with both Polyurethane and Leather material options. Underneath that optional material is a microfiber cloth to keep the iPad 2’s screen clean and shiny. On one side of the Smart Cover is a magnetic clip that, you guessed it, connects directly to the iPad. The video on the iPad’s website can explain more about the cover, like how it can be turned into both a keyboard stand and a movie stand.
That’s about it for the amazing new features on the iPad 2. I will most definitely be putting this on my wish list now.
It’s that time of year again. The temperature gets warmer, and grass and leaves start to grow back. That’s right, it’s time for Apple to update their products.
Just today, Apple unveiled its new line of MacBook Pro computers, which now include the new Intel Sandy Bridge processors, a High-Definition webcam, and a new I/O system called Thunderbolt, which promises to provide up to 10 Gb/Second.
In addition, it seems that Apple is switching its graphics providers from NVidia to AMD. This is interesting, as NVidia has been the provider of GPUs to Apple since they started using dedicated graphics processors.
Courtesy of xkcd
Well, it’s been awhile since I posted. Now that school is over I can be more frequent in my posts.
Anyway, I found this amazing iPhone app that I will probably be using for my future website transactions. It’s called Square.
Square is a new company to the US that offers a free card swiping program for the iPhone. Sign up, and if your register your bank account, Square will send you a free card swiper that you connect to your auxiliary audio jack.
That’s right, I said audio jack. I was surprised when I saw that too, but that’s apparently how it works. It’s also quite small.
All you do is install the free app on your iPhone, plug in this little free peripheral, and the rest is automatic. The software includes several different security features, including a signature pad.
I thought that was weird, because you would have to ask your client to write on your iPhone with his/her finger. I suppose that’s when an iPhone stylus would come in handy.
The iPhone app also includes receipt generation. After the transaction, you can choose to send an email receipt. I hope that when the rumored iPhone network printing feature is available, the app will be updated so you can print a receipt.
For card processing, however, Square does take a small percentage of your earnings. For a swiped card, it’s 2.75% + 15¢.
If you don’t have the swiper, you can still enter the card info manually, but the percentage goes up to 3.5% + 15¢.
The best thing about this app has to be that no contract is required, there’s no setup fee, no monthly fee, no monthly minimum, and no merchant account required.
I think this program is a great asset for freelancers like myself, because it brings payment processing completely mobile. I have already downloaded the app, and I plan to order my free mobile card reader soon.
Well, I just tried Adobe Lab’s latest project, Flash Catalyst. This program is very cool, and I feel can be expanded upon in so many ways.
Basically, Adobe Flash Catalyst is a flash application designer that does not incorporate any coding in the design process. Buttons, scrollbars, scroll areas, animations, and other dynamic items are all controlled by what Adobe calls Interactions.
These allow buttons to control other items, such as pages, states, and other components.
Adobe Flash Catalyst also includes some other very interesting features, one of which is called Wireframing.
Flash Catalyst works mainly around graphics, where you can import a graphic designed in Adobe Photoshop or Fireworks, and different layers can be assigned as either components or artwork. However, if you plan to work out the functionality of the product bef0re designing the artwork, Adobe Flash Catalyst supplies you with simple components to use, many of which are found in Adobe Flash CS4 and the soon-to-be-released Flash CS5. Wireframing makes it quick and easy to explain a user interface to a client, without having to go through the struggle of making the graphics beforehand.
If I make anything interesting with Adobe Flash Catalyst, I will most likely post it on this website, but for now, I will be experimenting with it.
Since Adobe Flash Catalyst is in public beta (currently on Beta 2), it is free to download from labs.adobe.com.