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Ginger's spellchecking keyboard comes to iOS 8, but don't expect perfect prose
Sometimes we all need a second pair of eyes on something we're writing, even if it's curt replies on WhatsApp or a lengthy email response that you had to compose from your phone. Ginger's custom keyboard, now out on iOS, offers a way to proofread your typing with a press. The Android version has been around for a while, but it's the new version of iOS (and the ability to add keyboards), that's allowed Ginger to offer the same thing for iPhones. Once you've installed the keyboard, pressing the G button will launch out of wherever you're typing and into the Ginger app, with the ability to spell (and grammar) check what you've written, rephrase, translate and even suggest synonyms if you need to spice up that invitation to go for a coffee.
Ginger Page, keyboard offer a wealth of text, keyboard options
I collect text editors the way other people collect stamps. Do people still collect stamps? Let's assume they do, and in great abundance. When a new editor comes out I've got to see what it does. This week I played with Ginger Page for iOS (free, universal). This handy little app offers several features to make writing easier and more fun, including a built-in alternate keyboard for iOS 8. Here's my look at Ginger Page and keyboard. Ginger Page, the text editor, does several things. It corrects mistakes. It translates text. It can read your text aloud and share what you've written in several ways. There's a lot more, which I'll get to, but for now I want to emphasize how efficiently all of this functionality is packaged into the app. When first launched, Ginger Page presents a keyboard, writing area, toolbar and a button for reaching the advanced tools. The six options across the main toolbar are rather useful. You get: 1. Rephrase a sentence 2. Speak 3. "Star," or mark as a favorite 4. Copy to the clipboard 5. Clear 6. Send as a text. I'll go over these in a moment, but first a complaint. While helpful, these tools are not customizable. As you'll see, there are additional functions that do not appear in the toolbar, like translate and define. It would be nice to be able to customize which six functions appear in the toolbar, but that's not an option. For example, if I intend to use Ginger Page for a lot of translation, it's a hassle to leave the writing area and open the hidden tool preferences repeatedly. Now, let's look at the default tools. The rephrase option is interesting. Once you've typed a sentence or a series of sentences, you can use Ginger Page to suggest alternate wordings. In my experience, this was hit or miss. When I wrote intentionally convoluted sentences, Ginger Page did a good job of suggesting more efficient alternatives. However, when I wrote brief sentences, it offered questionable variations, some of which changed the meaning of the original. For example, I wrote: "I'm going to the market with Martha to buy ingredients for dinner. We'll be back around 4:00. See you then." Suggestions for the first sentence included "I'm traveling to the market with Martha to buy ingredients for dinner," which is fine. It also suggested "I'm conking to the market..." and "I'm blending to the market...", which don't make sense, unless it's using colloquialisms I'm unfamiliar with. If your writing tends to be verbose, Ginger Page can help. Otherwise, it just gets weird. The other default tools work as you'd expect. Starred items are stored in a list and can be reused. This is handy if you want a database of boilerplate text messages, for example. The speak function does what it says on the tin, as does copy and clear, which deletes everything you've typed in the current session. Finally, the text option opens a text window with your words all ready to go. Ginger Page also offers real-time, contextual spelling and grammar checking. Spell checking works great and has at least one benefit over Apple's solution, in that it lets you correct an error that occurred several words ago. For example, if I write, "I'm giong to the market with Martha," it'll recognize "giong" as wrong and keep the suggestion "going" available as I type the rest of the sentence. A single tap fixes it. The grammatical suggestions work well for the most part. I made several errors and it caught the vast majority, offering acceptable fixes. A few errors did slip past, but I was satisfied with the performance overall. Now for the additional tools. I was impressed with the translate function. To test it I busted out my best high school French and Ginger Page translated every lengthy, marginally useful phrase without a problem. The app's dictionaries are quite useful, especially the customizable personal dictionary, which you can fill with your commonly used, non-standard words. You can also search for synonyms of a given word and theme the keyboard to match your aesthetic leanings... which brings me to the keyboard. The Ginger keyboard features a tiny "G" key in the lower right. Tapping it brings up all of the tools I mentioned before in a non-obtrusive display. I like this a whole lot and plan to keep it installed for quite some time. Despite a few complaints, I'm happy with Ginger Page and keyboard. They truly do add to the experience of writing on the iPhone.
Ginger is a new app for creating presentations, somehow tied to Adobe
Ginger isn't available yet, but it is already generating buzz. Not for its marketing video, nor for its simple website, but for its potential tie to a massive company in the software world: Adobe. Ginger promises to enable users to "show your story to the world in minutes" via its upcoming mobile application -- you can create slides with audio and visual components and then push them to various social media. It sounds a lot like PowerPoint for mobile, albeit with fewer options (no mention of video, for instance) -- not exactly Adobe's first foray into mobile, but another interesting step for the company. The Adobe tie-in pops up when signing up for Ginger's "keep me in the loop" email newsletter. A confirmation email from gingerfeedback@adobe.com arrives as confirmation, which tells us that either Adobe's involved or the company's been kind enough to Ginger to offer up free email hosting space (an unlikely scenario, we'd say). Of course, we've reached out to Adobe for further details and will let you know if we hear back. Update: Adobe issued the following statement to Engadget regarding its connection to Ginger: "Adobe is constantly evaluating new ideas and market testing new innovative products. Ginger is one of many explorations in our product pipeline. We'll update you should Ginger, or any other exploration, become an important part of our product offering."
Tonino Lamborghini launches 'luxury' phones for low-spec loving Russians with deep pockets
Much like Porsche Design before it, this isn't strictly the auto-maker (in this case it's the son of the famous sports car mogul) releasing a phone. However, these are devices (three phones and a tablet) which bear the family name. Russian site Hi-Tech Mail got a good look at two feature phones (which look remarkably familiar,) the TL688 and TL820, sporting 2- and 2.4-inch displays, along with 3- and 5-megapixel cameras and 4GB and 1GB (expandable) storage respectively. Their main selling point evidently being the hand made gold plate and leather finish. There is a TL700 smartphone, too, which runs on not-so-sporty Android Gingerbread, with an unspecified Qualcomm processor, 3.7-inch 800 x 480 display and 5-megapixel shooter. This one ups the flash-factor some, boasting diamond processed metal and "elements" of crocodile skin. The tablet is known as the Lamborghini L2800 and has a 9.7-inch 1024 x 768 resolution screen, 1.2GHz Qualcomm processor, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB onboard storage (expandable). How much does all this sense-defying technology cost? Well, the feature phones start at 60,000 rubles, (about $1,829) or you can snap up the Android for 30,000 more (about $2,743) and treat yourself to the L2800 tablet for a reasonable 75,000 rubles (about $2,286). Of course, you'll have to drive to Russia to get your hands on them, sometime in late August, but we're guessing if you're in the market for one of these, that'll barely dent the plastic anyway.%Gallery-157782%
LG Marquee for Sprint hands-on (video)
Sprint shone some light on the latest mystery handset from LG earlier today -- and what a bright light it is indeed. The Marquee's four-inch NOVA display is one of the brightest on the market -- it's a sort "we can't technically say it's the brightest, but it's certainly up there" situation. Screen aside, this is a slick and skinny Gingerbread handset. It's got a large display, but it feels nice in the hand. There's a 1GHz processor inside, so it's certainly not the most powerful phone we seen, but it felt quite zippy during our time with it. The carrier will be offering the phone up for pre-sale on September 20th -- those who get in early will start receiving their phones on September 29th. Everyone else will have to wait for October 2nd. The handset will run $100 with a two-year contract. Check out a hands-on video after the jump.%Gallery-133816%
