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Posts tagged with "video"

Amazon Takes Another Swing at Apple with New Kindle Commercial

Amazon released another Kindle commercial today, titled “The book lives on”, which is – again – clearly targeting the issues with the iPad as an eBook reader. Just like in the first commercial posted months ago, Amazon points out you can’t read books in direct sunlight on the iPad because of screen glare – something the Kindle addresses with its digital ink paper-like technology.

The latest commercial, however, showcases more features than direct-sunlight reading. The Kindle is touted as a lighter device with battery life “up to a month”, is being used by people in their mid twenties / thirties (Apple’s typical userbase) and has access to more than 800,000 books available in the Kindle Store. Last, the commercial is backed up by a catchy pop song that’s very similar to Apple’s usual commercial strategy. It’s a very nice commercial if you ask me, but I do see a trend here.

Check out the video below. In the meantime, Apple is rumored to introduce a Kindle-like display technology for a better reading experience in the iPad 2. [via TechCrunch] Read more

Video of the Day: Grandparents Using Photo Booth

Here’s a video for a bit of Thursday evening fun. Remember Photo Booth? The app that ships by default with every Mac and allows you to take funny snapshots of yourself through the iSight camera using effects like squeeze, fisheye, dent and many others. Well, now imagine if your grandparents, not exactly the usual Mac geeks, discovered Photo Booth and started recording videos with it.

That’s exactly what the video below (via Thought Catalog) is all about. Grandparents using Photo Booth. It’s genuinely funny, and made me fire up Photo Booth to take some photos with my dad right away. Check it out after the break. Read more

iPhone Nano Concept: Squeeze To Close Apps

Max Rudberg of Max Themes has tried to imagine a smaller iPhone with, as according to recent speculation, an “edge-to-edge” screen. While the WSJ report doesn’t give many details about the nature of such a screen (is it “edge-to-edge” vertically, or horizontally?), it admittedly plays very well with previous rumors of future iPhones lacking a home button. So what Max did, and you can check out in the video below, is think about a phone that’s really just a screen, but that you can “squeeze” to close apps and go back to the Springboard.

A more intuitive way could be to equip the phone with a pressure-sensitive body. The phone could then be squeezed and the current app would shrink and return the user to the Home screen.

This could be a real wow effect. Seeing how the phone reacts to your grip and then having the app vanish in the palm of your hand.

To avoid ‘squeeze to go Home’ from happening by accident, a visual cue could show that pressure is being applied. In this concept, the app begins to shrink to reflect the pressure that is being applied. When the pressure goes over a defined threshold, the user is returned to the Home screen.

It sounds very futuristic, we know, but it could be a good idea for when the iPhone will eventually lose the Home button. What do you think? Read more

Steve Jobs Kicked In The Face In LG Optimus Pad Promotion

The LG Optimus Pad promo was just another boring tablet video that was more effects than awesome product showcase. At about a minute in, however, any morning coffee drinker would have instantly rewound the tape only to ask, “Did I just see get Steve Jobs get pummeled in the face?” We’re not kidding: In a mock game of Street Fighter (apparently called Spec Fighter), Optimus starts the match with a swift flying kick and stomach punch to none other than Apad, modeled after Steve Jobs. Tasteless? Of course. I mean, they didn’t even show the part where Jobs used his Hadouken. Video from CrunchGear after the break.

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OmniOutliner for iPad Sneak Peek

We’ve already covered the plans of the Omni Group for 2011: a huge update to OmniFocus and OmniPlan, deeper cloud integration with the deployment of the Omni Sync Server in multiple applications and the arrival of outlining and text editing app OmniOutliner on the iPad. A few minutes ago, the Omni Group updated its official Vimeo channel to give a sneak peek of the work-in-progress build of OmniOutliner for iOS, which was demoed at Macworld a few weeks ago.

OmniOutliner for iPad, just like the Mac version, will make it easy to capture ideas and structure them hierarchically with drag & drop, multitouch integration and the possibility to nest as many levels as you need with gestures. Users will be able to apply custom styles to text through a popover menu, or styles to entire rows and multiple rows at the once. It sounds very intriguing. OmniOutliner for iPad, according to the Omni Group, will bridge the gap between a word processor and a spreadsheet app.

Frankly, we can’t wait to try out the app and see if the Omni Group manages to pull out a complete reinvention of OmniOutliner like they did with OmniFocus on the iPad. Check out the video below in its HD glory. Read more

BBC iPlayer For iPad Now Available In UK Store

As previously reported, the official BBC iPlayer app for the iPad has launched today in the App Store. Sadly, iPlayer is only out in the UK for now, and it looks like it will stay there for a while until BBC figures out a subscription method for users outside the United Kingdom.

iPlayer for iPad puts BBC’s TV and Radio programs directly on your iPad for easy access and consumption. The app has been entirely written with Apple’s API and Cocoa Touch technology – it’s a native port of the iPlayer experience for the iPad. You can watch TV and listen to radio, manage your favorite shows and episodes through a Favorite list, browse upcoming programs from BBC. The design is really clean and elegant.

BBC iPlayer is available here, for free. [iTunes via 9to5mac]

What Happens When Twitter for iPad Meets Youtube? YouPad

Call it a ripoff or “design inspiration”, an iPad app called YouPad, available in the App Store at $1.99, takes the experience and design elements seen in Twitter’s official iPad client and mixes them with Youtube. The result, as you can see from the screenshots, is quite…curious.

The FalconsApp developers claim that the app has been featured in Apple’s “New & Awesome” category, and while we still have to see such a section show up in the App Store, we do believe them when they say YouPad provides a revolutionary way to browse Youtube. Twitter for iPad was very innovative, too. The app seems to feature the same stacking panels navigation, the same background, the same sidebar with icons to browse different sections of Loren Brichter’s application. We can’t judge on stability and animations, but these developers sure have a thing for this kind of interface.

But hey – perhaps it really is a revolutionary app. If you dare to go ahead and purchase YouPad, it’s only $1.99 in the App Store. If you, however, don’t like Twitter for iPad at all, then you should stay away from this one.

Found Footage: Young Steve Jobs’ First TV Appearance

Before the “Stevenotes”, the “magical” and “wonderful” products announced at conferences streamed live worldwide, there was a kid amazed to see himself on a TV monitor for the first time. In the video below, courtesy of Electricpig, you can see Steve Jobs in his twenties getting ready for an interview on national television.

It turns out – surprise – Jobs wasn’t always confident and “arrogant” as you’ve seen him in the past few years. He’s nervous, asks for some water before the show, people adjust his hair and microphone before the interview.

Ah, the good times. Check out the video below. Fascinating. Read more

“Death Hug” Impossible Grip Affects Verizon iPhone Antennas, Third Hand Rumored To Enable Secret Features

Antennagate is over, right? Steve Jobs told everyone that just about any phone suffers from signal attenuation if you cover the antenna with your skin, and people who had issues with their iPhone 4s got a free Bumper case to resolve the “Death Grip” problem. And Apple’s 2010 numbers tell us Antennagate wasn’t really a problem for iPhone sales.

Still, someone is saying Death Grip is still alive, kicking and affecting the mythical Verizon iPhone’s antennas. Not just the 3G radio antenna, the WiFi one as well. How’s that possible? That’s the magic of the Death Hug, a new kind of grip that can be activated with two hands wrapped around the phone and its screen. Look at the video below. It’s a full-phone hand hug.  iLounge reports:

The problem with Wi-Fi reception appears when the device is held snugly in landscape orientation with two hands, a position common when playing games or using the widescreen keyboard. Prior to the Verizon iPhone 4’s launch, sources told iLounge to be on the lookout for the issue, which was being referred to as the death hug.

We’re just going to leave you with the Youtube video after the break. But let me say that, frankly, that’s one kind of grip that requires some serious skills. Honestly, we at MacStories don’t hold our phones like that. But then again, we don’t disdain hugs either. Read more