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TUAW's Daily Mac App: Mactracker
If you're an Apple fan and you've owned several Macs over the years, but can't quite remember what specs that Power Mac G4 Cube had, or whether the late-2006 MacBook Pro came with a Core 2 Duo or the previous generation Core Duo? You need Mactracker. The ultimate in Apple product reference, Mactracker, which is also available for iOS, is a searchable database of specifications, prices, configurations, names and OS versions that covers everything Apple since the Macintosh XL from 1983. You've got all the Apple desktops, laptops, servers and OS iterations from System Software 2.0.1 to OS X, each with detailed entries recording their introduction, history and specifications. Each device has an icon showing you want they looked like too, just incase you've never seen one. Mactracker doesn't stop there though, all the hardware Apple has ever created is listed, from the humble iPod to cameras, scanners, mice, keyboards and more are listed. Want to know the dimensions of the Apple MessagePad 110? Or how long the Apple Color OneScanner 600/27 took to scan a page? Mactracker has you covered (that's 20 seconds per scan for those who are interested). You can browse listings by device, model and age, or using a timeline from 1983 through till the present. If you're looking for a particular strata of devices you can use Smart Categories using search terms like all models with a G5 processor. You can also set up a list of all the models you own or have owned, helping you keep track of AppleCare, serials, purchase dates and networks. Mactracker is available for free from the Mac App Store and is a must have for any Mac fan.
NVIDIA Kal-El reference tablet hands-on (video)
As if showing up in two of the first four reference devices for Windows on ARM wasn't enough of an achievement for NVIDIA's quad-core Kal-El superchip, it decided to visit us in person here at Computex to demonstrate its splendid graphical prowess. Running Android 3.1 on a 10-inch, 1280 x 800 screen, it gave us a first-hand look at the Glow Ball demo that wowed us in video form just a couple of days ago. What we saw on the dev tablet before us was no less impressive; lighting was being rendered in real time and scattered over a multiplicity of surfaces, while the cloth simulation was, to use a terrible pun, silky smooth. NVIDIA also ran us through a sightseeing tour of the Unreal Development Kit and Lost Planet 2, noting that the PC game took only a couple of months to port over to work on the Kal-El architecture. Unfortunately, no new details were forthcoming about when Kal-El devices might be coming or what developers we should expect to see coding games and other content to exploit the platform's evidently mighty capabilities. For now, we'll just have to sate ourselves with the video after the break. %Gallery-125085%
Intel's convertible Keeley Lake concept laptop shows off Cedar Trail, we go hands-on (update: video)
Just before Intel's keynote at Computex, we decided to stop by at the chip maker's busy booth to see what it has up its sleeves. Luckily, we spotted a couple of Keeley Lake proof-of-concept convertible laptops, which are here to demonstrate what can be achieved using Cedar Trail processors. As you can see, the 12.1-inch screen sits on a swivel hinge, thus allowing users transform this fairly slim laptop into a tablet within seconds. Oh, you can also use the built-in Wireless Display technology to stream some sweet HD action over the air, provided that you have compatible devices. Alas, Intel says there are no commercial plans for this particular device, so hopefully someone will pick up this design. Update: We now have a quick video of Keeley Lake after the break. Enjoy! %Gallery-124834%
ZiiLabs unveils Jaguar family of Honeycomb tablets for OEMs to devour
Just a few weeks after unveiling its ZMS-20 and ZMS-40 StemCell processors, ZiiLabs has now designed a new family of slates to house them. Developed with the OEM market in mind, the company's new Jaguar Honeycomb tablets come in two breeds -- one with a seven-inch, 1024x600 LCD and another with a ten-inch 1280x800 display. Unlike their ZiiO predecessors, these 64GB siamese twins call for both capacitive and resistive touchscreen capabilities, support OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics and, as you can see in the image above, feature front- and rear-facing five-megapixel cameras. And, of course, there's a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 ZMS-20 or quad-core ZMS-40 helping them purr right along, both clocking in at 1.5 GHz. The two Jaguars will be uncaged at next week's Computex tradeshow in Taiwan, but you can find more information in the PR that awaits you after the break.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary now available on iPad for free
You could argue that there's not much need for a separate dictionary app any more. With dictionary services built into nearly every interface and Google and Wikipedia searches just a tap away, it's not hard to find out what a word means or how it's spelled any more. But sometimes you may just want to browse around or look a word up for yourself, and for those times, there's the Merriam-Webster Dictionary app, which is now available on the iPad for free. It's certainly not the only dictionary app available, and the renowned Oxford English Dictionary has its own edition available for the iPad already. But that one costs US$54.99, and the ad-supported Webster dictionary benefits not only from a lack of initial cost, but features like voice search, audio pronunciations, a search history and a browse mode that lets you search and learn new words as you like. It's a solid dictionary app from an old name in the word-indexing game, and even if you only use it occasionally, it's probably worth having around on your iPad.
Qualcomm shows off MSM8660's slick video performance on development kit (video)
If you've been closely tracking the development of Qualcomm's 1.5GHz dual-core MSM8660, you would've already seen AnandTech's impressive set of benchmark results back in early April. But of course, it'd be more convincing to actually see this chipset in action, so Qualcomm's latest videos of its Mobile Development Platform should satisfy your curiosity. As demoed after the break, this Snapdragon's Adreno 220 is seen effortlessly handling in-page HTML5 video streaming, Flash video streaming, and 1080p playback. And as a sideshow, Qualcomm even put its current-gen single-core QSD8255 head-to-head with a rival dual-core chipset -- no doubt a Tegra 2 in an LG Optimus 2x -- and easily won the Flash video contest. All of this might lure you into getting the MDP as your next everyday phone, but here's the bad news: this professional kit will cost you a dear $1,350. So unless you're feeling very generous, you'd probably want to wait for the consumer devices to arrive in the summer -- think EVO 3D, Sensation (with GSM-flavored MSM8260, naturally), and TouchPad.
Ultimate Dinopedia brings dinosaurs to life on your iPad
The Ultimate Dinopedia (US$5.99) from National Geographic is a wonderful reference app that will quickly become the go-to source for kids who want to find out everything about dinosaurs. There are other dinosaur apps in the store, but this is by far the most complete and expansive. It started as a hardcover book last year and has since been turned into a terrific iPad app for kids four and older. The app is broken down into three parts: Discovering Dinosaurs, Meat Eaters and Plant Eaters. It's chock full of paintings of many dinosaurs by Franco Tempsesta, and the text was written by "Dino" Don Lessem, just as in the book. (Don even has a dinosaur named after him.) The app covers about 700 dinosaurs. Each dinosaur comes with a button to play a sound of the correct pronunciation of its name, plus much more information. For many dinosaurs, that's all you get, but others have full-page paintings, Dino Stats (which give you info from the overview page) and a paragraph on the story of the dinosaur, which you can either read yourself or have read to you in a slightly sinister sounding narration paired with nice sound effects. Each of these pages have Fun Facts like "Riojasaurus had only five teeth in the front of its top jaw and 24 more behind them. So chances are it gulped down its food and digested plants in its stomach." There's also Picture Info, such as "Riojasaurus fed in the southern forests of Pangea, the single landmark that stretched across the middle of the earth". Along with this, there are 13 very short CGI videos showing a number of dinosaurs in action. The videos certainly aren't up to the quality of Pixar, but they get the job done. The videos are the only part of the app that works in landscape mode. %Gallery-118554%
ODROID-A tablet fits 1366 x 768 res on a 10-inch screen, dual-core Exynos inside transparent shell
Samsung might not have quite enough Exynos 4210 processors to sell a tablet of its own based on that Cortex-A9 dual-core beastie, but it's found a few to hand over to Korean partner Hardkernel for this here ODROID-A reference platform. It's strictly a dev kit, and as such is unlikely to find its way to your local Best Buy any time soon, but we have to admire the specs on offer. First up is the delightfully dense 1366 x 768 resolution, a rare sight on a 10-inch display, followed by a transparent rear panel that bests anything out on the market right now in terms of sheer sex appeal, and then there are also two MicroSD slots, a HSPA+ modem, HDMI output, a USB 2.0 port, cameras on the front and rear, and a crazy 9000mAh battery. How all this is supposed to only cost $750, we don't know, but then we also don't know how to qualify to get one when it becomes available later this month. So many mysteries. Jump past the break for some hands-on and benchmarking video action.
Visualized: the state of the smartphone wars
As AT&T's iPhone exclusivity reluctantly teeters on the brink of oblivion, it seems a good time to take one last look at the smartphone playground, the way it is before V-Day. The New York Times has handily done that job for us with the above chart, which simultaneously gives us a sense of scale when comparing US carriers and lays out the concentration of Android devices across those networks. It also shows a big fat bump of iOS on AT&T, making it the biggest carrier in terms of combined iPhone and Android users -- nothing shocking there, but the real fun will be in taking a look at this same data a few months from now. Will the iPhone fragment itself all over the four major networks? Will AT&T's Android stable ever be respectable? Tune in to your next installment of "fun, but mostly irrelevant statistics" to find out.
$1,000 bar exam prep BarMax app now available on iPad
BarMax, the US$1000 iPhone app to help law students pass the bar exam, has made its way to the iPad. The California edition of the popular bar exam prep software is now available on the App Store. BarMax for the iPad is designed to take advantage of the larger screen real estate of the iPad by offering an outline layout of course content, a redesigned multiple choice section and the ability to highlight text, add notes and bookmark pages. The BarMax app may cost a pricey $999.99, but its 1 GB of data softens the financial blow. Customers receive two months of lecture material, thousands of pages of documentation in electronic format, sample MBE questions, sample essay exams, flash cards and a built-in calendar and task list to help them study. Once a student purchases the app, he or she has lifetime access to the course materials and a direct connection with Harvard-educated lawyers who will field any questions. The primary competitor to BarMax is BARBRI, another bar exam preparatory company that lets customers add a $295 iPhone option to its $3,000-$4,000 traditional paper and computer-based course.
TUAW's Daily App: Roget's Thesaurus
After a few weeks of games, we're going with more practical apps for a little while here, so here's an iOS version of the famous thesaurus reference book. Roget's Thesaurus is pretty much the name in finding words that can work in the place of other words, and a company called Mobifusion has worked with the real thing to bring it to the iPhone in a searchable form. The app lets you browse through 30,000 words and all of their synonyms, change text sizes on the fly or just flip through if you want to browse that way. You may argue that there are free thesauri (?) available online, and you'd be right, but it's nice, especially if you use one often, to have it available and ready to go on the iPhone whenever you want. The official Roget's Thesaurus app is US$2.99 on the App Store. And if you don't want to pay a few bucks (just consider how much a paper copy of the book would cost -- it's worth it anyway), there's always the FreeSaurus. That works well, but there are ads in it, and as you should know by now, there's no such thing as a free banquet dinner luncheon lunch.
Hyper Facts for iOS: A powerful and fun database query app
It's amazing what you can find with your iOS device. With the whole internet in your hands, vast databases are yours to explore with a couple of taps. Hyper Facts is a new way to more easily manage these searches, and overall it works pretty well. You type in a search term, a name, or an event (like a historical event) and off goes the app to do a search. The app searches 4 different databases, although the ones used aren't specified, and there are also links to Wikipedia. If you click the 'nearby' icon, the app gets your location via GPS and tells you interesting things around you, with links to articles. %Gallery-111988%
DC Universe Online releases the commentary edition of the cinematic trailer
DC Universe Online is entering a crowded field, but it's aiming to enter said field with both guns firing. The cinematic trailer alone is the sort of thing to make any long-time DC fan happy, showing a large-scale battle between heroes and villains in the vein of the best comic crossovers. In the new director's cut variant, however, Jim Lee and Tim Miller sit down to examine and discuss the trailer, from the large-scale goals of the video to the easter eggs that tie everything together. It's clear from watching the trailer and the commentary that the people involved adore the work they're doing and the source material, with everything from an homage to Kingdom Come to Batman's role mirroring the end of The Dark Knight Returns. Click past the break to see the full trailer with commentary, which is certain to point out pieces that you missed. If, on the other hand, you haven't seen the original DC Universe Online trailer, it's available on the official site.
Next edition of Oxford English Dictionary may be online-only
Video killed the radio star and the internet, it seems, is about to obviate printed reference tomes. Oxford University Press, the publisher of the 20-volume authoritative text on the English language, has said it might not publish a printed version of the next edition. The OUP cites 2 million monthly hits on its subscription-based ($295 per annum) web lookup service, which compares rather favorably to the 30,000 total print sales since the current (Second) edition's publication back in 1989. The complete Oxford English Dictionary hardback set costs $1,165 and weighs in at a whopping 130 pounds altogether, so perhaps Oxford would be doing Ma Earth a favor as well by going paperless. Of course, we're talking about the somewhat distant future here; the next OED isn't expected to be completed for another decade, by which time we could have all sorts of magical devices, maybe even a color Kindle!
Eight ways the iPhone pwns the iPad
We love our iPads. We wouldn't dream of giving them up. And yet, there are ways and situations where the iPhone simply works better. Without taking potshots at our beloved iPad, here is TUAW's respectful list of mega-win scenarios where the iPhone takes first place in usability. Making phone calls. Yes, you can use line2 to convert your iPad into a quasi-phone that accepts incoming calls, or fire up the Skype app, but for real-world use, nothing beats a device that you can stick into your pocket and then forget about. It rings, you answer, you talk, you hang up. It's a lot easier to use an iPhone than an iPad to make phone calls. Grocery lists. I don't know if you've tried hauling around an iPad in your shopping cart at SuperTarget or Publix, but it doesn't work very well. It's the pocket size, again. The iPhone form factor provides a better match to tracking your chores with on-the-go use than the iPad can. Small wins for this one. Read on for more of our list...
iPad use case: Pro blogger
Over the past few weeks, we've heard many people say, "The iPad is cool, but what would I do with it?" This new series aims to answer that question. We'll examine one user case per post, from couch surfer to mobile professional, and describe just how that person uses his or her iPad. As a professional blogger, there are 5 things I need to do my job: A comfortable, reliable keyboard A text editor RSS feeds Web access A reference tool for compiling research The iPad lets me get nearly all of that accomplished. Let's start with what works. The keyboard The iPad's software keyboard is more usable that I expected. It's forced me to develop a hybrid typing method that's part hunt-and-peck and part touch typing. Years ago, I learned to keep my fingers in the home position, lightly touching the keys. On the iPad, "lightly touching" means "pressing," so now I hover just above the keys. The landscape keyboard is just a bit smaller than a standard keyboard, so I can't keep my hands in the true home position. However, knowing each key's location without having to look is tremendously helpful. With a bit of practice, my muscle memory has adapted to the smaller keyboard. The real key, as with the iPhone, is to be fearless and type. The iPad will correct the vast majority of your mistakes. That being said, I don't want to write more than a few hundred words with it. Even with the above accommodations, I still make more errors than I do with a physical keyboard. Therefore, Apple's Bluetooth keyboard is essential. It's a breeze to set up, fits squarely in a bag and is barely wider than the iPad itself. With the iPad docked and the keyboard in place, I'm ready to write.
iPad apps: for your reference
Sure, you've got an iPad, fancypants -- but do you know the boiling point of cobalt? No? Then what good are you, really? Fortunately, we're here to offer you an exciting opportunity to combine your love of 9.7-inch tablets with your thirst for knowledge by hooking you up with a list of some the best, brightest, and coolest reference apps available for the iPad today. You'll spend a few bucks to file most of these away in your 64GB (or 32GB, or 16GB) of memory, but you never know when you're going to be unexpectedly called upon to recite eight widely-spoken languages in South Africa, now, do you? Follow the break for the rundown!
BarMax offers bar prep on the iPhone for $1000
News is going around about yet another expensive app bucking the trend on the App Store, but here's the twist: this one actually has a good reason for such a high price. BarMax CA [iTunes link] is an app currently out that costs $999.99 -- that's right, while most developers are haggling with customers over 99 cents, this one's selling for a full $1000. But there's actually a good reason for that. It's a bar prep app, designed to help would-be lawyers pass their bar exams. Comparable services cost up to three or four times the price of this one, so if you have an iPhone and are planning to take the bar, this could actually be a "bar"gain (sorry, please don't sue us). The app is over a gig in size and brags about squeezing 50 lbs of books into the palm of your hand -- there are test questions, reference guides, audio lectures, and practice cards all included in the app's purchase. Of course, if you really do want to buy something like this, just getting it for your iPhone probably isn't the best way to do it -- you should probably do the research and see what other bar prep programs are out there before you jump into this one. And the app description in iTunes even says they'll ship you an iPod touch just to use the program, so even if you go with BarMax, you might as well see how you can get an iPod touch with it, right? But an app like this may show that there is a market for super-expensive apps, even if they have to fit very strongly into a specialty niche. Of course, to learn whether anyone actually buys it, we'll probably have to wait and see.
First Look: iFlex trainer for Bowflex
As the owner of a new Bowflex system, I was excited to be able to try the $1.99 iFlex app from Redkab Creative [iTunes link]. For the new system owner, this app is really helpful. It provides a video reference library that shows you how to use the equipment to perform a wide range of exercises for every part of the body. Each movement is categorized into an area of your anatomy, including shoulders, chest, arms, legs, and so forth. Within each category are a dozen or more individual exercises. Each unit contains both a video overview and a starting and ending position -- very helpful when trying to understand exactly how to perform the exercise. In addition to the reference material, iFlex offers a virtual trainer. This section of the app includes suggested workout routines for gaining muscle, losing weight, and toning. You can track your sets, report the number of pounds lifted and your reps. Days 6 and 7 instruct you to "take the day off." I did not find any graphing tools or any way to track progress otherwise, nor can you create your own workouts. To wrap up the program, a simple fitness calculator figures out your BMI (Body-Mass Index, the same index used by Wii Fit), BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate), and your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). It's a nice enough feature, but something of an afterthought. iFlex was nicely designed and for just two bucks, it's a great accessory to a Bowflex-style system. My personal unit is different from the one used in the videos, but it wasn't hard to adapt the instructions to the realities of the equipment in use. I'm looking forward to using iFlex over the next few weeks to add to my workout vocabulary.TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page.
iTunes 8.2 to include Blu-ray support?
Update: Our bad... the date on the MacRumors comment was in late April, and this recycled up into our queue due to an editing mixup. Apologies –Ed.There's a new iTunes beta version out in developers' hands straight from Apple, and a forum poster over at Mac Rumors found a little something fun in the About screen: a reference to Gracenote's ability to identify Blu-ray discs. Gracenote is the service that IDs your CDs when you import them into iTunes, so you don't have to sit there and type all the track names and artist information in. Apparently Apple is mentioning that not only CDs and DVDs, but also Blu-ray discs, will get information from Gracenote in the latest version of iTunes.This doesn't mean that Apple will adapt Blu-ray as a standard (though it would probably be about time, don't you think?). But it should mean that the future version of iTunes will include Blu-ray support, so if you happen to have a Blu-ray drive hooked up to your Mac, you'll be able to read or play the discs via iTunes.It could just mean that Apple has upgraded the Gracenote version in their app, however, and that they have no plans to actually use it -- the text in the About screen could just be a boilerplate cut-and-paste from some required Gracenote documentation that happens to include "Blu-ray." We'll have to wait and see just what shows up in 8.2 when it eventually releases to the public.
