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Google brings 'intelligent search' to business users
Google's new Springboard search may be aimed at companies, but it's just the kind of AI-powered tech that can trickle down to consumers. The search giant describes it as a sort of digital assistant that helps employees search through piles of documents in Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Drive, Contacts and other apps. Much like Google Now, it also "assists you throughout your workday by proactively providing useful and actionable information and recommendations," according to the company.
Engadget's tablet buyer's guide: spring 2012 edition
As spring reaches full blossom, it's not just the flowers that are beginning to show -- so are the new slates heavy hitters teased back at CES. So, what does that mean? It means it's high-time that we cast a fresh glance over the tablet landscape, took in a deep breath of slate-infused air and exhaled a hearty Engadget tablet buyer's guide. We've been running the smartphone equivalent for a little while now, so we thought it only fair to give the now-mature tablet category one of its own. We're going to look at the main categories of fondleslabbery and carve out what we think are the finest offerings on the market right now. It doesn't matter if you're looking for something big, small, just good enough or so powerful that it could replace your laptop: we've collected our favorites and shepherded them safely into this one humble guide. Of course, if you want to cast your net a little wider, you can always check out our tablet review hub, but if you struggle with indecision, head on past the break to see what's hot right now in Tablet Land.
How would you change the T-Mobile Springboard?
What's in a name? That which we call a T-Mobile Springboard by any other name, like the Huawei Mediapad, would smell as sweet. Multiple names aside, the Honeycomb slate was teasingly cheap as it coaxed you to a two year marriage with the pinky/purple (magenta, okay) mobile network. It had some great build quality but our issue stemmed more from the pricey contract you had to sign up to alongside it -- but we figure thousands of you picked one of these up and you've had a couple of months happy or horrible surfing under your belt. You've gotten under the skin of the device, you know what its foibles are, it's strengths and weaknesses, what do you love, what do you hate and most importantly, what would you change?
T-Mobile Springboard review
T-Mobile Springboard and Galaxy Tab 10.1 finally get official launch dates T-Mobile to carry Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus with 4G, available November 16th for $250 Sprint files suit to stop AT&T / T-Mobile merger When the Huawei MediaPad was first announced in June, it was notable for being the first tablet we'd heard of to run Android 3.2. Since then, the Acer Iconia Tab A100 and others have beat it to market, but its arrival in the US is timely nonetheless: it joins the petite tablet party at about the same time as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus and forthcoming Toshiba Thrive 7", to name a couple. We already knew that when the MediaPad landed here in the States it would be known as the T-Mobile Springboard, but the carrier just announced some key pricing and availability details: it'll go on sale November 16th for $430 off contract, or $180 with a two-year agreement and $50 mail-in rebate -- not surprising, given that we've been hearing this would cost less than $200 on contract. In addition to running on T-Mobile's 14.4Mbps HSPA+ network, it has WiFi and GPS radios, a dual-core 1.2GHz chip made by Qualcomm, 227 pixels-per-inch IPS display, 5 megapixel rear-facing camera, a 1.3 shooter up front, 8GB of internal storage, a microSD slot and support for 1080p playback. We'll return to all those specs in detail after the break, but nonetheless, it's important to get them out of the way from the get-go. After all, there's soon to be a glut of Android 3.2 tablets, and it's worth asking if this one is worth the slightly high price -- or maybe even a two-year marriage to Big Magenta. %Gallery-138087%
T-Mobile Springboard and Galaxy Tab 10.1 finally get official launch dates
Clutching at its chest and panting as it nears the finish line, T-Mobile has finally announced the release date for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 on its not-quite-4G network. You can write November 2nd in your diaries as you struggle to remember which century it was that you decided to wait for the as yet unpriced magenta version of the tablet. T-Mobile's Springboard will be arriving five days later, on November 7th. The Huawei Mediapad-with-shiner-shoes packs a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU, 5 megapixels in the rear, 1.3 up front and has a crunchy Honeycomb center. Inexplicably, the company still won't 'fess up about pricing for this guy either, so we'll just repeat what we've heard a hundred times before -- it'll be under $200 on contract. [Thanks, Cliff]
T-Mobile Springboard hands-on at CTIA E&A 2011 (video)
HTC Flyer touches down at T-Mobile, Scribe pen not included T-Mobile Springboard and Galaxy Tab 10.1 finally get official launch dates Developer does the math: only 3.4 million Honeycomb tablets in the wild? CTIA Enterprise & Applications 2011 has blessed us with a 7-inch tablet by the name of the T-Mobile Springboard. Similar in look and feel to the HTC Flyer, this Huawei-made slate is just as easy to hold, though it's completely sans a fancy pen. The device has a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU, runs on the latest version of Honeycomb (Android 3.2), and offers a 5MP rear camera with a 1.3MP front-facing shooter. We couldn't get any confirmation on pricing or availability, aside from being told to expect the Springboard sometime during the holiday season. That may not narrow the timeframe down as much as we'd like, but at least you know it's an idea for that holiday wish list you've been trying to put together. Head below for a full smorgasbord of pictures and a hands-on video. %Gallery-136312% Update: We were informed by T-Mobile at this evening's media event that the Springboard will debut for under $200, though no additional solid information is available yet.
T-Mobile unveils Galaxy Tab 10.1 and SpringBoard, combines 4G talk with HSPA+ walk
Sure, rumors and scuttlebutt clued is in that T-Mobile might be seeing a pair of slates landing sometime this year, but we loves us some confirmation. The magenta network just announced that the T-Mobile SpringBoard with Google and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 are primed to launch just soon enough for you to shove some HSPA+ holiday cheer into your relatives' oversized stockings. The SpringBoard looks very much like the dressed up MediaPad we expected, replete with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 5 megapixel rear-facing 720p camera and an SD card slot for up to 32GB of expandable memory -- not to mention a 7-inch capacitive touch display, and a 1.3 megapixel camera upfront. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the same Samsung slate we already know and love, but dressed in T-Mobile's not-quite-4G HSPA+ style. In fact, both tablets sport HSPA+ compatibility and run Android 3.2. There's no official word on price yet (although that MediaPad was rumored to hover at about $200 on contract), but the press release promises these slabs will drop sometime before the holiday season. Oh, that PR? Just hit the "read more" button below.
Starting from zero on the iPhone home screen
This is what my iPhone looks like right now. No, it's not because iTunes went crazy and deleted all my apps. I'm trying to figure out which apps I actually use. I've downloaded over 150 apps from the App Store. Of those 150, I have roughly 100 of them still in iTunes. I've tried grouping them using springboard pages, but I find it frustrating because I don't usually have 12 related apps. (I'm really looking forward to Folders in iPhone OS 4.) Here's how I have been organizing my pages: Page 1 and 2: anything app I use a lot or that may pop up a "badge" that I want to see. Everything else: launch using search. Here's the thing: I've gotten used to putting some apps on page 1 or 2 because I think I'm going to use them. The Phone app? I finally moved it off my Dock, but I left it on Page 1, even though I bet it's one of the apps that I actually use far less frequently than others. Read on for more... Update: A hat tip to Patrick Rhone's MinimalMac, where a version of this experiment appeared in January.
Found Footage: iTunes-based App management concept
One of my biggest annoyances with my iPhone involves the difficulty of managing my applications. Springboard, the iPhone application that actually displays the different pages of apps, clearly wasn't designed with the intention of managing so many apps. I've long thought, like with other aspects of organizing content on the iPhone, that app management should be possible in iTunes.Apparently I'm not alone, because this video by svdomer9 shows a nice mockup of how such an iTunes-based app management scheme might work. I really like the idea in general, though I would suggest that there also ought to be a kind of well at the bottom which would hold the applications until they've been assigned to a specific page. Naturally, it would be nice to see a bit more sophistication on the iPhone side as well so that it would be easy to go directly to a given screen (via the roller interface, perhaps) as well as directly send Apps to a given page (e.g. a pop-up menu that would appear when you hold your finger on an App for a few seconds). Whatever the particulars, it seems that we need something like this on the iPhone going forward. If you had Apple's ear, how would you do it?[via @pogue]
Gameboy theme for iPhone
We love mods, and this one is on our short list. iGameboy is a theme mod for jailbroken iPhones. There's both a button and a full-screen version (I'm partial to the button theme myself). As of this writing, the author, Rob Sheridan, has produced 45 icons to accompany the theme, so chances are your apps are included.The full download even includes instructions and basic files for making your own icons. Nice work, Rob! We love it.While we're on the topic, here are some other iPhone mods we liked. Black TiAlN Glowing Apple logo Macro shots with the camera The iPhone-powered Lego mobile Finally, how to jailbreak your iPhone.
iPhone Safe Mode: Who knew?
What happens when you set your jailbroken iPhone to "fast respring" (that is, turn on one of the SpringBoard relaunching options) via BossTool, and SpringBoard crashes? Safe mode, apparently. Who knew that Safe Mode even existed on the iPhone? I certainly didn't until TUAW reader Max S. sent in the pictures below. Safe Mode apparently disables certain system extensions. You can get out of safe mode by rebooting. So let's see, a blue screen of doom and safe mode. Hmmm. I thought this phone was manufactured by Apple. Where's Seinfeld? Anyway, this isn't the first time the topic of iPhone's Safe Mode has come up. I googled up this Austrian page and a few other hits -- most of which seemed to appear in September of 2008, after the recent firmware upgrade. Know anything about Safe Mode and the iPhone? Drop a comment and tell us more. %Gallery-32276%Update: Readers do know more! They point out that this is a Winterboard feature and not part of Apple's firmware.
TUAW Hack: Mess with your iPhone Settings screens
A little while back, I posted about some undocumented SpringBoard settings on the iPhone. Many readers seemed to enjoy learning about these settings, but they wanted to avoid performing the esoteric property list edits needed to adjust them. In response, I give you the following: controls that actually show up in your Settings application and allow direct manipulation. Here's what you need to do. You will need secure shell access to your iPhone's command line (ssh). Start by backing up your /Applications/ Preferences.app/ Settings-iPhone.plist file. Make sure you copy the file to a safe place so you can recover it if needed. Replace that file with http://pastie.textmate.org/124408. Copy the entire property list from the field at the bottom of the screen and paste it into a new text file. Rename that file to Settings-iPhone.plist and place it in /Applications/Preferences.app. Run settings, and voila! I divided the settings into two groups. The first group works instantly and you can immediately see their results. For the second group, you must restart SpringBoard (my restart utility may help) for the settings to take effect.
A half dozen fun undocumented iPhone preferences
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/apple/Six_fun_undocumented_iPhone_preferences'; Not all preferences appear in your iPhone Settings application. As I discussed rather thoroughly in my Modding Mac OS X book, it's not that hard to dig through applications and discover undocumented--or in this case unpromoted--preferences that add spice to your Mac or iPhone. I decided to put the iPhone's SpringBoard to the test. That's the app that runs your main home page. This core application contained over a dozen user-settable preferences. I tested them all and selected my six favorites. If you have access to the command line, you can start having fun with these settings yourself. This post shows you how.
Call Home with Open URL
I was talking to iPhone Developer NerveGas earlier today and he was thinking about what it would take to put a one-touch call button in with your other iPhone Applications. I reminded him that OpenURL could open phone numbers as well as web pages, and that I already had a "Call Home" button on my iPhone. Of course, he virtually smacked his head and said: "Oh yes, iPhone Apper". Whether using iPhone Apper or OpenURL, just use the tel prefix and your phone number, e.g. tel:212-555-1212.Update: By reader request, here's my dreadful icon.Update 2: TUAW reader orijinal offers a really good point: the iPhone Apper page publishes "recently built apps", complete with Call Home instances that reveal your phone numbers in the URL. You may just want to use Open URL instead.
Put TUAW on your iPhone or iPod touch home page
If you want to run lots of Apps on your 1.1.1 iPhone or iPod touch but don't want to install SummerBoard, you can download this SpringBoard patcher that provides you with multi-page support. Copy off Springboard, patch it, put it back onto your device and reboot. It's what I'm running on my iPhone and touch right now and it works beautifully. Of course, once you have all that space available to work with, what are you going to do with it? I put together a TUAW webpage launcher using the OpenURL kit I posted about a few weeks ago. Now I just tap to launch TUAW. If you'd like to download your own TUAW launcher, you can grab a copy from the Samples folder in my OpenURL kit. You'll also find instructions there for creating your own website launchers. Over at website "Jon's Thoughts on Everything", you can find a web-based equivalent of OpenURL. I actually found it harder to use. For me, it involved more work than just adding an icon and editing two lines of text but you might enjoy using it.
1.1.1 iPhone Multipage SpringBoard Hack
%Gallery-8306% Although the iPhone/iTouch Dev team hasn't published a general jailbreak yet, the developer community is working hard and furious to make sure that your arrival will be pleasant when you get there. Today brings this marvelous SpringBoard patch from Nicholas "Drudge" Penree, NerveGas and Pumpkin. It allows you to add as many 3rd party applications to SpringBoard as you'd like and offers a kicking-new paging feature; notice the paging dots at the bottom of SpringBoard. The trip1pogostick patch is available from Drudge's beta repository. To access it, you must jailbreak your iPhone and access this link from Mobile Safari.
Third Party Apps ported to iPhone 1.1.1
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/apple/Third_party_apps_running_on_iPhone_1_1_1'; This morning, we were having a lot of trouble getting third-party iPhone apps to show up properly and run on the home screen. Despite the fact that Apple has added extra protections to SpringBoard and created a list of approved identifiers, iPhone hacker asap18 has managed to port several applications to the iPhone and gotten them to appear properly on the home screen. For now, only 15 icons can be added this way--the last spot appears to be reserved for iTunes. The apps have been tested and are working fine. He has also tracked down an option for International capabilities in SpringBoard, which may lead to foreign language Application support. This will be needed in countries like Germany and France, where the iPhone will shortly debut. This is a developing story, and we'll be keeping an eye on it but remember this success is only in regards to running apps on the 1.1.1 firmware. Unlocked iPhones still run the danger of being bricked when upgraded to the 1.1.1 firmware, so if you have an unlocked iPhone do not upgrade to the latest firmware.
Hackapalooza: making the iPhone main screen scroll!
All the buzz this evening is about developer "lg" and his wild plunge into customizing SpringBoard, the home screen application you see every time you power on your iPhone. Turns out he figured out how to burrow inside SpringBoard and get it to scroll so users don't have to use cumbersome application launchers and dock extenders. SummerBoard currently extends SpringBoard to add scrolling and wallpaper, with further features promised in future releases. The secret seems to lie in tricking SpringBoard into loading custom routines and seizing control of the application through the back door. Lg calls his modified system "SummerBoard", a name I find especially droll--although I think "SpringRoll" might have better described the software. The new software is currently available using Installer.app, which we have discussed in previous posts. Now to the down and gritty. This is a first release. It's pretty cool but it's still a first release. I ended up rebooting my phone 5 times before I got it working. I had to launch an app, and then force-quit it by pressing Home about 4-8 seconds. Then it worked really well. So keep looking for updates. It's still getting debugged. Lg says the software works by loading items into memory after launch. I took a look around and found /Library/SummerBoard.framework. This contains an alternate com.apple.springboard property list, a short dynamic library and a framework file. This seems to be what gets loaded upon launch on top of SpringBoard. Congrats to lg for this clever hack.
Brando's WeDock: A $19 box
If you've ever considered yourself a person of class, a member of the gaming bourgeoisie if you will, you'd turn your nose up at the idea of keeping your controllers in a plastic bin or wicker basket. That's the sort of practice you'd rather leave to those of lesser fortune and breeding, right?No, your discriminating tastes demand more sophisticated storage solutions. You require something like Brando's WeDock, a product that does very little for its $19 price tag, but does it quite stylishly. The small locker's clean, white design matches your Nintendo Wii along with any Apple sensibilities you might have. Its one-touch, "springboard" slots fit up to two remotes and nunchucks.When guests ask if the WeDock recharges your remotes' batteries, you'll laugh in their faces until they bow their heads in shame. Of course it doesn't. Jump past the post break for more product shots.
