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Apple News

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News

iOS 4.2 Software Update Released Today: The Breakdown

If you’ve been to the Apple website recently, you may have noticed the “iOS 4.2 is here” button under the huge Beatles sign. This seemingly insignificant link is actually a major, much anticipated update for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.

What’s so great about this update?

Well, for iPad users, this update is the long awaited entry into the features introduced the the iPhone with the release of iOS 4.0.

Multitasking

That’s right: Multitasking on the iPad. This popular iPhone feature finally makes it way to the iPad and, I have to say, I’m impressed. I have been waiting for this feature to appear on my iPad for a long time, and the wait is finally over. As I do not own an iPhone, I was unfamiliar with this feature, and was surprised at how quickly I learned how to use it and how helpful it really is.

Folders

Folders, another popular iPhone feature, is also making its debut on the iPad. This allows iPad users to keep their apps organized in simple to use folders on the Home screen. This makes it easy to find your favorite apps, as well as prevents you from having to look through 5 pages of apps to find a calculator.

Game Center

Game Center, the iPhone/iPod Touch service that allows you to compete with your friends and see their scores on select applications finally makes its way to the iPad. Now you can finally prove that you are better at Real Racing HD or Flight Control HD than your friends!

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Sure, this is great for iPad users, but what about my iPhone? Well, there are also a couple cool new cross-platform features.

AirPrint

The first of these is AirPrint, the new feature, integrated into specific apps, which allows you to print to any printer shared by a Mac computer. For example, to print a webpage in Safari, all you have to do is touch the button button, then touch print. This feature first requires you to turn on printer sharing on a Mac computer, so it is pretty much useless for Windows users, but it’s still a pretty neat feature.

AirPlay

A second new feature introduced in iOS 4.2 is AirPlay. This feature allows you to stream digital media wirelessly to your Apple TV. This means that you can instantly switch a movie you are watching on your iPad to your Apple TV when you return home from a trip, or blast your music from your iPod Touch out of your TV’s speakers from any room in the house. It also allows you to play movies and TV shows rented on your iPad or iPhone on your Apple TV, which was impossible to do before. This feature could boost sales of the Apple TV before and during the holiday season, as it adds new and helpful features and ties the Apple TV to Apple’s more successful products.

Find My Device

Find My Device, a cool feature that used to be bundled with the MobileMe suite (which requires a $100 dollar per year subscription), is now offered on the app store for free if you update to iOS 4.2. Although this is incompatible with the iPhone 3GS, this app is very helpful if you misplace your iPhone 4 or iPad.
Find Text

Now you can search for text within Mobile Safari. This feature, although minor, is very helpful and I’m surprised it was not offered on previous versions of iOS.

Overall, this was a very important update for the iPad, and added many new, long awaited features to every Apple iDevice such as printing and streaming to an Apple TV.

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AAPL was up 6.63 points today to close at $313.36 per share.

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News Reviews

iLife ’11

Apple has recently upgraded its iLife package in the new iLife 11. This new package allows for many new options. Inside the package are the upgraded forms of iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand. These upgrades include full-screen views and a multitude of other improvements. For example, in iPhoto, you can now see all your works in an easy to use display, as well as a one click editor for photos. Also, in iMovie, you can create movie trailers out of home videos, and only have to drag and drop to make a movie and edit audio. In GarageBand, you can use GrooveMatching and FlexTime to create new music and you can test your skills while you are learning how to play an instrument. All of these features come together to create the new and improved iLife. Basically, this years update is well worth the money because of all of these new features.

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News

It’s light, durable, fast, and thin? What is it? A Mac??

The new MacBook Air is proof of Apple’s advanced technology. Released on October 20, 2010, it is designed around all-flash storage for more reliability and faster speed. The MacBook Air features a trackpad with full Multi-Touch support. Even though it is extremely light, it has the battery power to last for hours on a single charge. The MacBook Air is Apple’s most mobile notebook ever. It is light, thin, durable, and performs quickly. The MacBook Air uses flash storage instead of a hard drive. Usually, the flash chips are enclosed in a hard drive sized enclosure, even though the flash chips themselves are very small. In the new MacBook Air, only the flash chips are put into the computer, leaving space for a bigger battery. Apple’s trackpad also provides the most optimal way to experience Multi-Touch on a notebook. The MacBook Air’s unibody enclosure is made from a single piece of aluminum, which makes it extremely light and durable. The new MacBook Air display is only 4.86 millimeters thin, but it features a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio. The MacBook Air also has a FaceTime camera that is so thin you barely see it, but it is extremely high quality.

The new MacBook Air features the NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor with 48 processing cores. The graphics processor is more than two times faster than the previous MacBook Air. The new MacBook Air also features an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. The new MacBook Air comes with Mac OS X Snow Leopard. The new MacBook Air comes with tons of applications right out of the box compared to PCs. Unlike PCs, Macs do not get Trojan horses, worms, or email viruses. That is a big step up compared to PCs, which are so vulnerable and susceptible to intruders and attack. In general, I think the MacBook Air is fast, efficient, sleek, and full of various features.

What do you think?

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News

Engraving your iPod

Here is just an example of what you can write.

Recently, Apple has added a new feature to their portable devices. On any new Ipod Touch, or IPad, you can engrave a personal message on the back, free of charge. Sample messages range from anything like “Happy Birthday” to “Who needs a Mistletoe”. This service is only available at the Apple Online Store. The link to that site is <http://www.apple.com/>. To fully access this service online, I have included a step by step tutorial if you wanted to write “Real Mac Genius” on a brand new iPad.  From the homepage of apple.com, look at the toolbar at the top of the screen and click on “Store”. From there, many pictures show up in the middle of the screen. Click on the one labeled “iPad”. Then another page opens with different GB options. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will want a 16GB iPad with 3G access. It will then open up to a very confusing page with all the options. DO NOT spend time here looking for your personalized message. Choose which accessories you would like, and then hit continue, which will be in a toolbar on the right side of the screen under the title “Summary”. Here, you can enter your two line engraving and then have it shipped to you within 24 hours. In Conclusion, this new feature allows you to have some way of knowing that it is truly, your iPad or iPhone.

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News

Google Docs optimized for iOS Viewing

After yesterday’s announcement of the official Google Voice application for iPhone, Google has kept iOS fans on the edge. The official Google Docs blog announced a updated version of the Google Docs interface for mobile devices, particularly the iPhone. By pointing your mobile browser to http://docs.google.com/m, you have access to the “mobile-optimized versions” of your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. However, these features will only be accessible from the iPhone for now with read-only privileges. Bummer!

Hopefully, Google will implement editing on the iPhone and bring these features to the rest of the iOS family. For any regular Google Doc user, like us at The Real Mac Genius.com comes in handy!