Apple Reveals New iPad With 4G LTE, 5MP Camera And Better Display

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The New iPadApple on Wednesday unveiled the iPad 3, although at this time it’s just called the “new iPad.”

For the first time the tablet based iOS system will feature a 4G LTE data connection and users will be greeted with a 9.7-inch Retina display.

Also up for grabs starting at $499 is a 5 megapixel camera that uses the same optics sensor as the iPhone 4S which also means 1080p video recording.

Speaking about the new display Phil Schiller, Apple’s SVP of worldwide marketing revealed:

“[It has] text sharper than a newspaper. Photos will look incredible. Fonts look amazing. [It has] the best mobile display that has ever shipped.” [Read more…]

Amazon Can Now Stream Music To iOS Devices

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Two months after its release, Amazon slipped in a small update to its cloud based music player adding adds iOS compatibility. The update allows users visiting the player from their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to stream music through Safari. However, it’s not without bugs.

Accessing Amazon’s cloud player through an iOS device required the use of a third-party browser but recently gained native Safari support. However, there are some interface issues that you need to be aware of:

[Read more…]

Twitter Drops QuickBar, Laments It’s Loss

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Users loathing Twitter’s QuickBar (which occasionally featured Promoted Trends) will be glad to hear that Twitter will be removing the feature via an upcoming iOS update today.

While iPhone and iPad users will no longer be bothered by the feature, apparently Twitter had future plans for Quickbar that they never had the chance to test out.

The QuickBar was originally conceived to help users discover what’s happening in the broader world beyond people they already follow. The bar was also seen as a potential means of in-app notifications for new @mentions, DMs, and other important activity. […]

Rather than continue to make changes to the QuickBar as it exists, we removed the bar from the update appearing in the App Store today. (Official Twitter Blog)

Although I personally wasn’t bothered by the QuickBar (since the app is free), it’s good to see the company listening and responding to the demands of users.

While the QuickBar was useful for trend spotting, most users probably want to focus on what is happening in their tweet stream than what’s the hot topic of the day.

If Twitter ever decides to resurrect the QuickBar in the future, they may want to make it optional (or at least opt out), that way users can turn off the feature if it begins to irritate them.

Did you like the QuickBar? Or are you glad Twitter is removing it from their official iOS app?

18 Million WordPress Blogs Are Now iPad Friendly

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WordPress, one of the largest Blogging platforms on the web, has announced that 18 million of its self-hosted Blogs will be iPad friendly. Frankly, iPad users everywhere should be excited.

Automattic which owns WordPress.com, flipped the switch on its iPad optimized interface allowing Bloggers to create a custom mobile experience that doesn’t sacrifice content and formatting because a mobile device is accessing the Blog.

[Read more…]

Flickr Gets Cozy With The iPad, Adds Expanded Lightbox Support

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Photo sharing site Flickr has been on a roll in its support of mobile operating systems and their accompanying browsers. A Windows 7 App that fully integrates in to the OS and presents a clean interface was released recently. Shortly after Flickr turned its sights to iOS and released an iPad optimized version of the site.

The new iPad friendly addition is a change to the light box. When browsing the site on your iPad you’ll be able to access a full screen photo viewer and initiate a slideshow:

We’re happy to announce some big improvements to the photo light box for iPad users! The light box is a handy, full browser photo viewer available from any photo page. From a photo page on Flickr, simply tap on a photo to view it larger (if available) and on a clean, dark background.

While Flickr has a native iPhone App that taps in to the power of iOS and the hardware, no native iPad exists yet. Flickr may opt to focus on its site and continue improving it for iPad users instead of releasing an official App. As fellow Blog Herald author Darnell Clayton mused, Yahoo’s growing commitment to the service and expanding features to mobile devices hints Yahoo! doesn’t want to shutdown the service like it’s doing with Delicious.