Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Kim Kardashian

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Shhhhhh..

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Two LEGENDS

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4 Apps to Help You with What to Wear

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Ever stood looking into your closet and felt like you have nothing to wear?Inspiration can come from a reorganization of your closet–I’ve found sorting by color can be an eye-opening experience–and tapping into one of the following apps. They’ll help you put together great outfits, even taking the day’s weather report into consideration.

Cloth

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Cloth
The idea for this iPhone and iPod touch app came from a fashionista who had more than 1,000 items in her closet and wanted to catalog the seemingly endless combinations she could put together. Cloth lets you add Instagram-like effects to your photos and encourages you to share photos of your favorite outfits with friends on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr; the more you share, the more badges and points you receive.
You can also tag outfits with descriptors such as “vacation,” “everyday” or “events” so as to pull up all related looks in one place. And, with a $0.99 in-app purchase, you can tag outfits with weather conditions, such as “Freezing” or “Rain,” so you’re automatically presented with outfits appropriate for the day’s weather conditions.
Price: Free at iTunes

Stylebook

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Stylebook
People who enjoy planning their outfits will appreciateStylebook’s powerful features. Not only can you use your iPhone, iPod or iPad to snap photos of individual items in your closet, you can remove the image backgrounds and then pull the images onto a white canvas several items at once to see how they’ll look together. If an item you pull into the ensemble appears out of proportion on the canvas, the resizing tool lets you scale it down to the appropriate size.
Stylebook lets you shop for new items and even has a calendar so you can commit to wearing a particular outfit days, weeks or months in advance. Want inspiration about low-tech gear that can help you organize your closet? Stylebook has some ideas.
Price: $3.99 at iTunes

Stylicious

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Stylicious
Stylicious has many of the same features as Cloth and Stylebook but for Android users. It lets you snap photos of your clothes, shoes and accessories and tag and categorize them to let you pull up similar items together. It includes a calendar to help you plan outfits and keep track of what you wore when.
Stylicious is highly geared toward shopping and includes a copious fashion ideas, a tab in which you can see which items are most wished for in a handful of countries, and a handy feature that lets you bookmark particular brands and show you only items that are on sale. You can also share images you have stored in Stylicious on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr.
Price: Free at Google Play

Houzz

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Houzz
If you’re thinking about going further than just reorganizing your closet and looking into remodeling, Houzz is a web platform and mobile app you absolutely must try. It features more than 2 million photos uploaded by remodeling and design pros that you can save to idea books. At the moment, for example, a search for the term “closet” returns nearly 50,000 photos. If for example you wanted to see only photos of shoe racks, Houzz offers more than 1,300 unique ideas.
If you need professional help with your project, Houzz lets you filter its community of professionals according to location and type of service you need as well as which services have been recently reviewed or most reviewed.
Price: Free for the web or at iTunes or Google Play
Of course, when organizing your wardrobe, there’s bound to be a few things you don’t wear anymore. For your designer clothes, a quick and easy way to turn your clothes into cash is the Sold app. For other items, you can always go the eBay route.
This article was written by Christina DesMarais and originally appeared on Techlicious.
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4 Reasons You Need the iPhone 5S and 5 Reasons You Don’t

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For those of you keeping score, that's nine total reasons
iphone-5s-colors
Welcome to the bifurcated future of Apple smartphones: aluminum vs. polycarbonate, gilded vs. candy-colored, fingerprint scanner vs. fingerprint magnet, 64 bit vs. 32 bit, high end vs. low end, expensive vs. slightly less expensive, iPhone 5S vs. iPhone 5C. Post–Steve Jobs Apple clearly recognizes the one-size-fits-all approach is a losing proposition; add the company’s perpetuation of its now free (with contract) iPhone 4S to the parade, and you’ve got the Cupertino trifecta.
Or do you? The iPhone 5C, basically an iPhone 5 wrapped in colorized plastic, while cheaper when viewed as a core iPhone, isn’t as budget-priced as most predicted (predictedbeing punditry’s euphemism for wishfully projected). And the 3.5-inch (8.9 cm) iPhone 4S, while still competent in the performance department, looks pretty squeezed in 2013 contrasted with the 4-in. (10.2 cm) iPhone 5 family and embiggened phones from competitors like HTC and Samsung.
Which leaves the souped-up iPhone 5S. Time to spring for one? Here’s the pros angle:
Your contract’s up.
Bullet point, meet Captain Obvious. If you’re due for an upgrade, you can get your foot in the door with a 16-GB iPhone 5S for just $199, same as I did when I bought my 16-GB iPhone 5 a year ago. If you’re thinking the $99 16-GB iPhone 5C looks tastier, price-wise, think again — the iPhone 5S’s feature and performance leaps are probably worth at least the $100 gulf. Were I off contract, I’d buy the iPhone 5S in a heartbeat, no ifs, ands or buts.
You want to play the most graphically advanced games as smoothly as possible.
The A7 processor beating at the core of Apple’s iPhone 5S sounds like a mobile beast. According to Apple, it’s up to twice as fast as the already peppy A6 processor found in the iPhone 5 and utilizes over a billion transistors (without getting any bigger). I’d just be guessing about Infinity Blade III’s performance iPhone to iPhone, since no one’s benchmarked it yet, but doubtless more advanced games are on the way, and if you plan to hold on to the 5S for a full two-year contract cycle, you won’t be as far behind the curve if you choose to skip the iPhone 6.
You need a better low-light camera.
This one’s a stretch, because the physical improvements are more like tweaks, but for optics wonks, the iPhone 5S’s iSight camera (rear facing) is slightly larger than the iPhone 5’s, its f-number dropping from f/2.4 to f/2.2 (lower is better), which basically means it’ll outperform the iPhone 5 in low-light situations. It’ll also do auto image stabilization, allowing you to take multiple photos at once and combine the sharpest parts of each. It has a more nuanced flash, and you can access a new burst mode (hold the shutter to snap up to 10 frames per second) or use a SloMo camera app that lets you shoot video at up to 120 frames per second at 720p.
You desperately want a gold (or silver, or — uh — “space gray”) iPhone.
Hey, some people still buy jewelry, so I guess having an iPhone in bling colors is important for someone out there.
And now, the dimmer view:
You already own an iPhone 5.
This one’s a rule of thumb: never buy the phone that comes after the one you last bought. If you have an iPhone 5, the iPhone 5C is pointless, while the iPhone 5S is to your phone what the iPhone 4S was to the iPhone 4. The faster processor, the better low-light camera, the fingerprint scanner — all modest improvements, not must-haves like a leap to AMOLED-screen tech might be, or a width bump to hit a 5-in. (12.7 cm) diagonal.
Unless you’re carelessly wealthy, in other words, there aren’t enough reasons — especially if you’re on contract, which you probably are, since the iPhone 5’s only been with us since September 2012 — to make the incremental switch.
64 bit is meaningless right now.
People still conflate memory address and data-path widths with metrics like processor speed, seeing the bigger numbers and assuming they mean faster in terms of raw integer or floating-point performance. I blame the Nintendo 64, sporting a number mostly designed to p.r.-hassle Sony’s 32-bit PlayStation and Sega’s dual 32-bit processor Saturn.
A 64-bit processor offers significant benefits if you want to address more memory, but applications have to be written to take advantage of its architecture. Don’t fall for the marketing hype: the A7 processor’s 64-bit-ness is about future-proofing, which is an argument for waiting and giving developers a chance to catch up.
Battery life’s probably no better.
All Apple’s said about the iPhone 5S’s battery life so far is that the A7 processor delivers more without draining the lithium-ion pond any faster. Translation: battery life’s probably about the same as the iPhone 5’s.
Secure fingerprint scanners aren’t necessarily secure.
When I was with a Fortune 500 transportation company in the early 2000s (and post-9/11), I worked with a security team looking into biometric authentication tools (consumer-grade fingerprint-scanning technology has been around for over a decade in consumer tech — it’s hardly as “innovative” as Apple’s Phil Schiller suggests). When I left in 2004, the company was still looking for something secure enough. As security analyst Bruce Schneier aptly puts it in an op-ed for Wired, “Your fingerprint isn’t a secret; you leave it everywhere you touch.”
I’m not saying a fingerprint scanner on a smartphone can’t be interesting or cool or a smidgen more convenient (or safer while driving) for authentication than tapping out a pass code, but don’t kid yourself: fingerprint scanners are eminently hackable, and buying an iPhone 5S for this feature alone, mistaking it for Batman- or James Bond–caliber tech, is a bad idea.
Your contract isn’t up.
Have $649, $749 or $849 burning a hole in your pocket to pay the out-of-contract full price for the 16-GB, 32-GB or 64-GB iPhone 5S respectively? Me neither.
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New Nexus 7? Here Are 25 Great-Looking Android Tablet Apps

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Celebrating apps that take full advantage of the larger screen.

Down With Stretched-Out, Blown-Up Apps

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If you just purchased Google’s second-generation Nexus 7, you’ll soon discover that not all tablet apps are created equal. Some developers haven’t put in the work to make their apps look good on larger screens, which is too bad, because when they do, it’s a wonderful thing. In the interest of positive reinforcement, here are 25 apps that look terrific on the Nexus 7, making full use of the 7-inch display.
Oh, and just to be clear, we’re not going to include games (because they all generally look fine on tablets) and Google apps like Chrome and Drive, which are pre-loaded on the Nexus 7. 

AccuWeather

Accuweather
Don’t laugh; although Accuweather’s website is a cluttered mess, its Android app is a great example of sharp design.
What’s in it for tablets: Each column fills the screen with useful information in portrait mode, and in landscape you get a handy sidebar for switching between sections.

Bacon Reader for Reddit


OneLouder Apps

iMDb Movies & TV

iMDb

Umano

SoThree Inc.
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The 25 Best Bloggers, 2013 Edition

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Our honorees include everyone from one of the people who invented blogging back in the 1990s to a clever creator of animated GIFs who launched his Tumblr blog in May.
For years now, pundits have been knowingly declaring that blogging is dead, rendered irrelevant by alternative means of personal publishing such as Facebook and Twitter. The best way to quash that silly notion is to read scads of blogs, as we did to compile this story. Gifted bloggers are busy everywhere from their own hand-crafted sites to sites operated by major corporations, and their best work is at least as good as anything from the era when blogging was trendy rather than tried-and-true.
Our honorees this year include everyone from one of the people who invented blogging back in the 1990s to a clever creator of animated GIFs who launched his Tumblr blog in May. Read all about ‘em — then let us know about your favorites in the comments.
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25 Games to Watch for Summer 2013

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Summer's most anticipated PC, console and handheld video games are nearly here.
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More Couples Saying ‘I Do’ to Wedding Apps

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Noel Sutherland / Getty Images

Two years ago, when several of Jess Levin’s friends started getting engaged and searching for wedding food, vendors, and DJs, they realized that, shockingly, there was not an app for any of that. “It was a running joke in my group of friends that the brides thought the hard part was getting the ring,” says Levin, 29, “until they realized it was way more challenging to plan the wedding.”
That thought led Levin to found Carats & Cake, a Pinterest-like platform that allows couples to browse photos from real, local weddings, and connect with the vendors that produced them. Roughly eight months after its launch, the site touts more than 2,000 images from 300 weddings—and counting.
The Carats & Cake narrative is becoming increasingly familiar. In the last two years or so, entrepreneurs—many of them female and under 30—have launched at least a dozen wedding-centric web and smartphone apps, hoping to lure a new generation of “I do”-ers (and echo the success of The Knot, the web’s current wedding-planning hub). “We got Facebook in college, we got the first iPhones,” says Ajay Kamat, 27, who co-founded the photo-timeline app Wedding Party. “We have an expectation that when we travel or shop or do anything, there are services and apps that will help make that experience better for us.” Adds Joanne Wilson, an angel investor who has funded two wedding startups, “Brides are using the Internet to do everything now.”
To be sure, it’s not like all recent weddings were analog. Services like Paperless Post and Amazon have been streamlining invitations and gift registries, respectively, for years. What sets this generation of apps apart is that they’re designed specifically for weddings—everything from aesthetics (Lover.ly‘s Pinterest-like homepage is filled with images of bridal gowns, wedding cakes, and grooms’ ties) to interface (Wedding Party’s Instagram-like photo stream includes a slot for a couples bio) to privacy settings (most apps are invite-only for guests).
But will these startups be viable? It’s tough to say. Although there’s a lot of money to be made on weddings—they’re a $53.3 billion annual industry in the U.S., according to Wedding Report—many of these services aren’t charging, choosing instead to focus on raising venture capital, growing their userbase, and, most importantly, getting great recommendations. After all, unlike food-delivery or even dating apps, wedding services are, ideally, for one-time users.
Here’s a look at six of the most promising.
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Appy Couple
Launch: Private beta – May 2012; public – January 2013
Pitch: Lets users create stylish custom apps for different groups of wedding guests—say, bridesmaids, relatives, and friends—that they can download onto their smartphones. That way, details like transportation and hotel information, dress codes, and registry information can be updated for everyone in realtime. There are also privacy settings to keep, say, the raunchier bridesmaids’ plans secret from Grandma.
Payoff: Co-Founder and CEO Sharmeen Mitha-Sehgal was mum on how many couples have actually used the service, which costs $28 to set up, but did share that it has helped more than 700,000 wedding guests.
Unknown
Carats & Cake
Launch: November 2012
Pitch: Helps brides and grooms to connect directly with trusted local vendors. The site hosts pictures from real weddings, all accompanied by lists of the various vendors used at each event. If a couple sees something they like, they can contact the newlyweds who posted the photos, or reach out to the vendors directly.
Payoff: There are already 5,000 images from 300 weddings, and 2,000 vendors tagged on the site. It’s free to use for now, but CEO Jess Levin says she has plans to launch some sort of paid service for vendors.
WeddingParty_notext
Wedding Party
Launch: August 2012
Pitch: Guests can upload photos from various wedding events—the shower, the rehearsal dinner, the big day itself—to an interactive photo stream that all attendees can see. It’s like a custom Instagram hashtag, only more curated.
Payoff: Wedding Party is free to use and doesn’t have a concrete business model yet. But it has raised $1 million in VC funding.
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Wanderable
Launch: Site – December 2011; App – August 2012
Pitch: Helps couples crowdsource funding for their honeymoon activities. It also logs donor information so couples can send thank-you notes in the mail—often with photos of them using the gift.
Payoff: Guests have given couples “tens of thousands” of gifts using both the Wanderable app and site, says cofounder Marcela Miyazawa. Wanderable takes a 2.5% fee from each transaction, which is cheaper than similar sites like Honeyfund.com (3%) and UponOurStar.com (2.5% for the couple + 6% for guests).
RegistryLove_img
Registry Love
Launch: August 2012
Pitch: Aggregates registries from all over the Web into a single portal. The site also includes items of its own, mostly from little boutique shops in San Francisco. Although there are now others, they were the first.
Payoff: Co-Founders Marika and Sophia Chen say the site has close to 10,000 users, and makes money by taking a cut of all site sales.
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Lover.ly
Launch Date: February 2012
Pitch: Brides can browse images of products and decor (all selected by Loverly) by theme, color and brand, among other tags, and save things they like in “bundles” to share with friends, family or even wedding planners. It’s a lot like a bridal Pintrest, except highly curated.
Payoff: The site receives about 40 million image views per month. The corresponding mobile app, which launched 8 weeks ago, has already been downloaded 50,000 times. Lover.ly mostly draws revenue from ads and paid collaborations with brands like J. Crew and Saks Fifth Avenue.
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OS X Mavericks Will Be Free and It’s Available Today Along with New Retina MacBook Pros

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The tenth version of Apple's tenth operating system, OS X Mavericks, will be totally free and it's available today.

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The tenth version of Apple’s tenth operating system, OS X Mavericks, will be totally free and it’s available today, Apple software engineering honcho Craig Federighi revealed after demonstrating the software during Apple’s “Special Event” Tuesday afternoon.
Apple also updated both its 13- and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros, adding new processors, extending the battery life and significantly dropping the starting prices, indicating all models would be available to order from Apple’s online store immediately (a quick check with my local Apple Store indicates the models have already shipped and should be available to purchase at retail by the end of the week).
And last but not least, the company took the lid off the long-anticipated Mac Pro‘s hardware particulars and pricing, though Apple remained mum on a release date — marketing VP Phil Schiller teased the audience with a vague “before the end of the year” promise.
Interestingly, Apple CEO Tim Cook went out of his way at the outset to extol the company’s attention to the traditional PC market, saying:
Our competition is different, they’re confused. They chased after netbooks. Now they’re trying to make PCs into tablets and tablets into PCs. Who knows what they’ll do next. Well, I can’t answer that question, but what I can tell you is we have a very clear direction and a very ambitious goal. We still believe deeply in this category and we’re not slowing down on our innovation.
Federighi’s Mavericks demo was all retread, no surprise, since Apple’s been touting the OS X update’s new features for months. Federighi explained that Apple’s goal was to “fundamentally upgrade your hardware,” allowing you to get more from a Mac device’s battery and memory, as well as squeeze a little more out of the GPU. Federighi said that with a 13-inch MacBook Air, you’ll see up to an hour longer battery life when web browsing, and an hour-and-a-half more watching iTunes video. Mavericks can also compress memory instantly, said Federighi, referring to the OS’s ability to juggle apps more efficiently.
The most significant feature, of course, turned out to be Apple’s move to make point updates to OS X like Mavericks completely free (whether this applies to future versions, say Apple made another leap tantamount to the shift from OS 9 to OS X, remains to be seen). By making software as well as several of its core apps free, Apple seems to be drawing a we-design-hardware line in the sand.
Turning to the new Retina MacBook Pros, Schiller said the 13-inch Retina Pro is lighter as well as thinner, clocking in at 0.71-inches (the prior model was 0.75-inches, so the difference is slight). The entry-level configuration includes an Intel 2.4 GHz dual-core i5 Haswell processor, 4GB of DRAM, Iris integrated graphics, a 128GB solid state drive, 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Thunderbolt 2. Apple says it’ll deliver up to nine hours of battery life (that’s including using it for iTunes movie playback). And in keeping with the event’s price-reduction theme, whereas the prior 13-inch Retina Pros started at $1,499, the new 13-inch Retina Pro clocks in at just $1,299.
The 15-inch Retina Pro, by comparison, starts with an Intel 2 GHz quad-core i7 Crystal Well processor, 8GB of DRAM, Iris Pro integrated graphics (don’t worry, gamers: Nvidia’s discrete GeForce GT 750M GPU with 2GB of video memory — a bump up from the prior model’s GT 650M — is optional), a 256GB solid state drive, 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Thunderbolt 2. Apple says this model will deliver up to eight hours of battery life. And where the prior 15-inch Retina Pro started at $2,199, the new 15-inch Retina Pro will be priced at $1,999.
Finally, the Mac Pro: Apple unveiled its ebony, trashcan-shaped, server-class Mac refresh back in June, then put up a teaser page with design info, but kept specifics — including pricing — under its hat. No more. While we still don’t know when the Mac Pro will be available this year (that’s all we know — “this year”), Apple finally talked specs and pricing.
The Mac Pro will ship with an Intel Xeon E5 processor, available in quad-, 6-, 8- or 12-core configurations with up to 30MB of L3 cache and 40 lanes of PCI Express gen 3. Memory-wise, it’ll include up to 64GB of user accessible 1866 MHz DDR ECC, with a four-channel controller and up to 60GB/s bandwidth. The dual-workstation GPUs will be AMD FirePro graphics with up to 4096 stream processors, dual 384-bit memory buses and up to 12GB of GDDR5 VRAM for performance metrics like 528GB/s of total bandwidth and crunch power of up to 7 teraflops.
Schiller said the up to 1TB of user accessible flash storage (via PCIe controller) will offer up to 1.2GB/s reads and 1GB/s writes. And rounding out the spec sheet, the systems will come with Thunderbolt 2, “next-gen” video support for up to three 4K displays, Bluetooth 4, 802.11ac, HDMI 1.4, Ethernet and four USB 3 ports.
How much? Schiller listed a 3.7GHz quad-core Xeon, 12GB DRAM, Dual FirePro D300 video with 2GB of memory each and a 256GB solid state drive starting at $2,999.
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iOS 7.0.3 Update Arrives, Nixes Allegedly Vertigo-Inducing Animations

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Apple makes a necessary aesthetic concession.
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Rejoice, iOS 7 naysayers (or iOS 7 lovers-but-animation-haters): Apple just stealth-dropped iOS 7.0.3, bringing with it a host of bug fixes and feature updates, including the option to disable thosepurportedly vertigo-inducing animations.
Among the improvements this round, Apple lists iCloud Keychain support (this optionally stores your account names, passwords and credit card numbers across all of your sanctioned devices), a new password generator in Safari that’ll pitch ideas for unguessable phrases at you, a lock screen update that delays the display of “slide to unlock” if you’re using Touch ID, Wikipedia and web support from Spotlight search, and nearly a dozen bug fixes, including one for the glitch that allowed people to bypass the Lock Screen passcode.
But the thing I’m guessing most are going to want this for is the option to eliminate all those icon swoops and zooms (as much for aesthetic as hypothetical motion sickness reasons). In prior versions, you could slip into General > Accessibility and enable “Reduce Motion” to disable the parallax effect, but it didn’t transform icon animations.
Apple design maverick Jony Ive apparently felt this was too holy-holy to make optional. No more: Disabling “Reduce Motion” now knocks out the icon animations, too.
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Nokia Tries a Phablet and a Windows RT Tablet

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The Lumia 1520 and Lumia 2520 are coming later this year.
nokialumia2520

Nokia’s all about niches with its Lumia 1520 and Lumia 2520, respectively the company’s first jumbo phone and Windows RT tablet.
The Nokia Lumia 1520 (pictured below) has a 6-inch, 1080p display. It also has a 20-megapixel camera, a 2.2 GHz quad-core processor, 2 GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage, a microSD card slot and a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera. The phone supports wireless charging, and there’s a 3400 mAh battery built in.
Nokia has also put together a much cheaper variant, called the Lumia 1320. The screen size is the same 6 inches, but all the specs are a step or two down, with a 1.7 GHz dual-core processor, 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage, 5-megapixel rear camera, 0.3 megapixel front camera, and microSD card slot.
nokialumia1520
Nokia
Not long ago, Windows Phone makers couldn’t produce devices like the Nokia Lumia 1520, because Microsoft’s operating system didn’t support larger hardware. But a recent update to Windows Phone was specifically designed to be phablet-friendly. Microsoft tweaked the Start screen to offer an extra column of Live Tiles on larger devices, and added 1080p resolution and quad-core processor support. Third party apps will also be able to cram more information onto the screen. (The update includes some other general tweaks, such as an orientation lock option and an easier way to close apps from the multitasking menu.)
Unlike Samsung’s popular Galaxy Note line of oversized phones, Nokia isn’t throwing a stylus in with the Lumia 1520, but that feature has been somewhat gimmicky. It’d be nice, however, to see larger Windows Phones gain more tablet-like features, such as the Snap view in Windows 8.
Speaking of tablets, Nokia is trying its hand at one with the Lumia 2520. It’s a 10.1-inch tablet with a 1080p display, and it runs Windows RT, just like Microsoft’s Surface 2. That means you can’t install traditional Windows apps like Photoshop on it — all apps must come from the Windows Store — but it does include Microsoft Office.
Other specs include a 2.2 GHz quad-core processor, 2 GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage, a Micro-SD card slot, a Micro-USB jack, a 6.7-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel front camera. Nokia is really pushing the camera aspect of the Lumia 2520, touting its Carl Zeiss optics and f1.9 aperture for low-light photography, so you can excel at being that guy. Nokia’s also selling a Power Keyboard cover, which wraps around the tablet and props it up like a laptop with a keyboard and trackpad. The cover includes its own battery for an extra five hours of power, plus two full-sized USB ports.
Nokia hasn’t given specific release dates for any of these devices, but says they’ll all be available this quarter. The Lumia 1520 phablet will cost $750 unlocked, but it’ll be available on AT&T for much less with a two-year contract. The Lumia 1320 will be much cheaper, at $339, but Nokia hasn’t announced any U.S. launch plans. The Lumia 2520 tablet will cost $500, plus another $150 for the Power Keyboard. AT&T and Verizon will both sell the tablet if you’re looking for LTE connectivity.
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Apple Announces Thinner and Lighter iPad Air, iPad Mini with Retina Display

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The new full-sized iPad weighs just one pound. The revamped Mini gets a price bump.
ipadfamily


Apple’s giving a new name and a new look to its fifth-generation iPad, dubbedthe iPad Air, and has stuffed a Retina display into its latest iPad Mini.
The iPad Air is 20 percent thinner than the fourth-generation iPad, at just under 0.3 inches thick, and it has a 43 percent narrower bezel when held in portrait mode. The iPad Air is also much lighter, weighing just 1 pound, compared to 1.4 pounds for the previous 9.7-inch iPad.
Inside, Apple’s using the same A7 chip that appears inside the iPhone 5s, along with the same M7 motion co-processor. Other specs include a 5-megapixel iSight camera with 1080p video capture, a Facetime HD front-facing camera and dual microphones. Those are similar internals to the fourth-generation iPad; the Air is really all about the thinner, lighter design and the faster processor.
Pricing for the iPad Air is unchanged from previous full-sized IPads. It’ll cost $499 for the 16 GB model with Wi-Fi, and $629 with 4G LTE, and as always, 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB of storage will be available in $100 increments. The iPad Air goes on sale November 1.
Apple also announced a new iPad Mini with a Retina display. It includes the same 2048-by-1536 display resolution as its larger sibling, but crammed into a 7.9-inch screen. The processor also gets a big upgrade to Apple’s A7 chip, compared to the A5 processor inside the current Mini. On the downside, the iPad Mini with Retina display is about 0.05 pounds heavier than the non-Retina version, weighing 0.73 pounds with Wi-Fi and 0.75 pounds with 4G LTE. All other tech specs are unchanged from last year’s model, including up to 10 hours of battery life while browsing the web.
Unfortunately, the high-resolution display comes at a price: It’s $70 more expensive, at $399 for the 16 GB model and $529 for one with 4G LTE. The iPad Mini with Retina display ships in November, but Apple didn’t give a specific release date.
Apple will continue to sell the 16 GB iPad 2 at the same $399 price tag as before. So if you want a Retina display in a full-sized iPad, you’ll have to get the high-end model. The original iPad Mini is sticking around as well, but with a price drop to $299 for a 16 GB Wi-Fi model.
Apple spent much of its press event focusing on software and services. Most notably, Apple’s iWork suite (Pages, Numbers and Keynote) and iLife suite (iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand) will be free with the purchase of any new iOS device or Mac. Apple is clearly pushing the idea that iPads can be productivity and creativity devices, despite what rival Microsoft has implied.
Along that line, rumors leading up to the event suggested that Apple would launch a keyboard cover for the iPad as an answer to Microsoft’s Surface tablets. However, the only new covers from Apple were revamps of the existing Smart Cover, priced at $39 for polyurethane and $69 to $79 for leather, depending on iPad size. Rumors that Apple would add its Touch ID fingerprint sensor to one or both of its new iPads also didn’t pan out.
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50 Best Android Apps for 2013

1:18 PM    No comments
A Google Android figurine sits on the welcome desk as employee McNeilly smiles at the new Google office in Toronto



From high-end Android handsets like the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 down to low-cost prepaid phones, you’re not getting the full value unless you load up your phone with some great apps. We’re here to help with 50 app recommendations, from news and weather to productivity and task management. Everything’s in order of price, starting with free apps and moving from lowest to highest.
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