The Great Tablet War Of 2012

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via businessinsider.com

Make no mistake: There’s a full-blown battle on for the future of computing.

Forget all the fragmentary skirmishes for your pocket, for your set-top, for your living room, and for your desk.

It’s become increasingly clear that the tablet is the defining device of the next couple decades of computing, as the PC was in the ’80s.

Handheld touchscreen devices are the key way we’ll consume content and buy things.

So that’s extremely interesting to anyone who makes devices, serves up content, or sells things.

Here’s What the New Kindle Fire Will Look Like

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Along with one or more new Kindle Fires, we’re expecting refreshed E Ink models in Amazon’s e-reader line at the company’s Los Angeles event next week as well. One of those appears to be a refreshed Kindle Touch — the button below the display is gone, and the bezel has changed from light to very dark gray. The overall shape of the product and the location of the USB port and power switch appear to be essentially unchanged. From the images we have, it looks like Amazon will be touting the unit with “higher contrast, high resolution, integrated lighting, and eight weeks of battery life,” even when using the light. The retail name for this unit is unclear — Amazon could simply call it the Kindle Touch again, but “Paperwhite” might factor in as well.

Ten Things To Think About When Designing Your iPad App

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via uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com

Like most well-designed things, the magic of an iPad app comes from a union of usefulness, usability and meaning. Games aside, the app must be useful by solving a problem that people actually have through the right set of functionality at the right time. It must be easy to use and, just as importantly, easy to get started using, without a lot of pesky setup and learning steps. And it must hold meaning for the user through visual beauty, an emotional connection, personal insights, etc. In this article, we won’t outline the entire design process for creating an iPad app, but we will explore 10 of the key things to think about when designing your app (and planning the design process).

Collection Of 25 Useful iPad Apps

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The iPad may just be the world’s best way to read the Web on the couch, watch movies on the train, and read in total darkness, but with apps, it also takes on thousands of other uses. There are hundreds of thousands of apps available for the iPad. Some apps have a creative approach and tend to make things differently so that they stand out and be liked not only for their functions and usability, but also for their design.

Maybe Photoshop Can Really Work On The iPad

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Many photographers already use a tablet like the Wacom Intuos to work in Photoshop. You would think that an iPad would be even better because you can touch the very screen that you work is on but it’s not that simple. Due to a number of issues like lack of pressure control and the fact that your hand itself will “select” parts of the screen, the iPad never took off as a professional tool. That is until I saw this video.

Will Microsoft’s Surface Tablet Float or Sink?

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via pcmag.com

Since heading home from the hospital and catching up on the news I had missed, I have formed some opinions on Microsoft’s new hardware.

I believe Microsoft was inspired to develop its Surface tablet when it began to notice the large number of people buying external keyboards for the iPad. In fact, external keyboards are the second best-selling iPad accessory behind protective cases. Also, Asus’ Transformer has shown that there is interest in a tablet/keyboard combo device for Android, another product that underlines consumer demand.

How People Actually Use The iPad: Results From Our Exclusive Survey

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via businessinsider.com

We wanted to see how people are using the iPad, and how that use has evolved over the last three years.

So we ran a reader survey. We got 2,242 responses which we have gathered here as a series of charts.

This is the third time we’ve run this survey (first here, second here).

Surprisingly, the way people use the iPad hasn’t evolved significantly. The use case for the first iPad remains the same as the new iPad.

What does that mean? Apple nailed the iPad on the first try. It knew what it was doing. It also means developers have an opportunity to develop new applications that can change how and why we use an iPad.

Behold! The Early-2000s iPad Prototype That Started It All

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Prototype 035: it sounds like a nail-biting action RPG but it’s actually one of the first iPad prototypes, built years before the iPhone, and laid by the wayside as Apple kept experimenting with new form factors. The iPad in question, according to a great bit of digging by Yoni Heisler at NetworkWorld, is the one that Jonathan Ive remembers as being the true precursor to the first iPad model.

In December 2011, Samsung deposed Ive in relation to a patent case. The deposition is a goldmine of interesting facts about the growth of the iPad and its slow metamorphosis over the years. He recalled, in the deposition, that he had seen iPad prototypes as early as 2002…

Amazon reportedly aims to compete against iPad with larger screen Kindle Fire

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via technologytell.com

There is definitely going to be a successor to the Kindle Fire, but whether Amazon launches another seven inch device, ten inch device, or both devices remains to be seen.

A recent report from the New York Times citing a source close to Amazon claims the retail giant is planning to launch a tablet that can compete directly with the iPad. Given the iPad’s large, 9.7 inch display, it would make sense for Amazon’s upcoming Kindle Fire to contain a screen around that size. Of course, with a larger screen comes a larger price point, so it would also make sense for Amazon to continue with another 7 inch device, with upgraded specs, to compete with the Nexus 7 and other 7 inch tablets.