Category: I-phone

Dear Aunt TUAW,

I’ve been trying to figure out if there is a way to add a URL to Reading List from outside of Safari, i.g. right-clicking a link in a Twitter post and using an Automator action from the services menu, etc… I don’t see ANYTHING in Automator or AppleScript about Reading List. This seems very stupid to me being that the only way Reading List has a chance of getting used instead of Instapaper is to throw things into it from every possible browsing location. Have you come across anything yet?

Your loving nephew,

Dan B

Dear Dan,

Auntie hasn’t had much opportunity to explore the new Reading List under the hood but she did find that the standard Safari bookmarks property list has been expanded. In ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist, Auntie found references like this:

ReadingList = {
DateLastFetched = 2011-07-12 23:21:06 +0000;
PreviewText = “SCHEDULES RTD SYSTEM INFO RIDER TOOLS FARES & PASSES BUSINESS CENTER INSIDE RTD SEARCH View the entire RTD system at a glanc”;
};
URIDictionary = {
title = “http://www3.rtd-denver.com/elbert/SystemMap/”;
};
URLString = “http://www3.rtd-denver.com/elbert/SystemMap/”;
WebBookmarkType = WebBookmarkTypeLeaf;
WebBookmarkUUID = “EBC18578-DF36-46B3-86A5-561DBCB0D7AC”;
},

She hasn’t had much luck discovering where the local files are cached yet, but surely one of her many TUAW nieces and nephews may be able to help out here in the comments, possibly explaining if setting items in the ReadingList here is alone sufficient to make them cache out.

Hugs,

Aunt TUAW

Dear Aunt TUAW: How do I edit that Reading List thing? originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since Amazon acquiesced to Apple’s onerous rules and removed the one-click buy button from the Kindle apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, a couple of mainstream websites have whined that it’s “too hard to buy ebooks on your iPad now.” Yes, it is horribly difficult — you now have to click or tap twice to buy and download a book instead of just once. I’m going to take you through this back-breaking and time-consuming process, just to show you how hard Apple has made it for us to buy ebooks from anywhere but the iBookstore.

To start, launch Safari on your device and navigate to the Kindle bookstore. To keep from wearing yourself out doing this in the future, add a button to your iPad or iPhone home screen by tapping the Share button in Safari and then tapping the “Add to Home Screen” button. Make sure you’re logged in with the account that you use for your Kindle purchases, and then find the book you want to purchase in the Kindle Store.

Now, here comes the hard part, so be sure to pay attention. Over on the right side of the screen is a button marked “Buy now with 1-click.” Just below it is a drop-down menu listing all of your Kindle devices, which in my case consists of the Kindle app on two Macs, an iPad 2, and an iPhone 4.

Select the first device you want to have the ebook delivered to, and then click (or tap) the Buy now button — that’s the first tap, and in the old days before Apple made our lives difficult with their burdensome rules, that would be the only tap you’d have to make. Instead, now a new page appears thanking you for your purchase. In my example, I picked my iPad 2 as the target for the book, and the web page asked if I wanted to open Kindle for iPad to begin downloading the book.

With a tap of the “Go to Kindle for iPad” button, the Kindle app launches and the ebook is downloaded. What??? I have to make a second tap to download my book? I demand that Apple make retribution for this oppressive over-control of my life!

It’s not as easy as just tapping one button in the Kindle app and having the ebook automagically appear on your bookshelf, but once you’ve found the book, it just takes two taps for it to show up. And yes, I am being totally sarcastic with this post.

Kindle ebooks: How to buy and install them now that the store is gone originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Most fake Apple products make us roll our eyes, but this one is cute. Mostly because it’s not trying to be an iPhone. The “shockingly thick” device is actually a personal cooling device, or “fan.”

To use it, slide off the real panel and remove the thin blue sponge inside. Get it wet, wring it out and put it back inside. Replace the back cover and then press the Home Button. The fan whirrs into action, providing the user with a cool, refreshing breeze. Keep the wind blowing by recharging the internal Lithium-ion battery by connecting to your Mac’s USB port.

Pro tip: add a little perfume to the sponge for scented refreshment.

White “iPhone 4” Air Cooler from M.I.C. Gadget on Vimeo.

Cool off with an “iPhone 4” fan originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Affinity Labs has sued both Apple and car audio maker AAMP over audio technology patents. Affinity accuses the companies of violating two U.S. patents, one for a “Content Delivery System and Method” and the other for a “Method for Managing Media.” Affinity contends that the iPhone violates both patents, while the iPhone and iPod touch allegedly violates the first patent only.

Apple has not yet commented on the suit. You can read the full complaint here.

Affinity Labs sues Apple over iPods, iPhone originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After installing OS X Lion last week, one of the things I’ve noticed is that Safari tends to run away with enormous amounts of RAM over time. A subprocess called “Safari Web Content” will sometimes use over a gigabyte of RAM. Since my Mac maxes out at 4 GB, and since it’s a rare day that I’m only using Safari and nothing else, having so much of my system’s RAM gobbled up by one process was bogging everything down.

Safari Web Content is a sandboxed subprocess of Safari that runs all webpage rendering. If you’ve got several dozen tabs open at once, it might make sense for the subprocess to use up that much RAM; however, I was seeing huge amounts of RAM usage even with only three or four tabs open. Four webpages shouldn’t be consuming over a gigabyte of RAM. Many people’s knee-jerk reaction has been to blame Flash for the excessive memory consumption, but that’s not the case here; Flash runs as its own separate process and has nothing to do with the “Safari Web Content” process or its runaway RAM usage.

A few people have recommended disabling any Safari extensions you may have running to reclaim a big chunk of the RAM used up by Safari Web Content. Whether it’s a bug in Safari 5.1 or incompatibility with older extensions, the theory goes that one or more of the extensions I’ve been running was the cause for Safari’s excessive RAM usage. Disabling all but a handful of my Safari extensions brought the Safari Web Content subprocess’s RAM usage down from 1.06 GB or more down to a much more manageable 300 – 320 MB with five tabs opened, but over time usage climbed to over 600 MB again, so it’s possible one of my enabled extensions is the culprit.

As I write this, it’s been around ten minutes since I restarted Safari the last time. I have only three extensions running — Better Facebook, Rapportive, and ClickToFlash — and I’ve browsed about ten pages between three tabs since relaunching Safari. Already Safari Web Content has consumed nearly 300 MB of RAM.

A subsequent test with all extensions disabled has caused Safari Web Content to go from its initial 148 MB all the way up to 251 MB of RAM after browsing 39 webpages — most of them on Wikipedia, which isn’t exactly known for data-heavy content. This doesn’t seem normal to me.

This bug definitely seems to have been introduced in OS X Lion or Safari 5.1, and hopefully it’s one we’ll see addressed in a forthcoming update.

OS X Lion Bug: Safari guzzling massive amounts of RAM originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You’re in for a treat with this one — Bit Pilot is a dual-stick shooter without any actual shooting. You guide a tiny little ship around a screen while asteroids and various obstacles float past you, and try to stay away from trouble for as long as you can. Shield powerups also float by, but over time, of course, things get tougher and tougher, until you’re frantically trying to dodge everything the game tosses your way.

The ambient feeling of this one is where the real brilliance comes in — some awesome music and really amazing pixelated graphics sell the concept perfectly, and I love how the game basically unlocks itself as you play it. Like Tiny Wings, another really solid one-man title, different modes and goals open up the more you play, so there’s always something new to find, unlock, or aim for.

Zach Gage’s Bit Pilot is an excellent title, and well worth the buck. It’s universal with Game Center integration. I’m going to say this one is a must-have, no matter what kind of games you enjoy on Apple’s touchscreen devices.

TUAW’s Daily iPhone App: Bit Pilot originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For some time the free Augmented Reality SDK from Qualcomm – QCAR – has been available for Android devices.   The SDK offers some great capabilities and can track 3D objects, images, and frame markers.  Many commercial apps are already available on Android that utilize the QCAR SDK.

Today the beta version for iOS of QCAR was released for both the iOS SDK from Apple, and the Unity 3D game engine for iOS devices.

You can find the download the SDK here:
QCAR For iOS Download

You will need to register to download.

Included are five different demo projects, here’s a video of the Dominoes example in action:

A great day if you want to do some AR programming on iOS devices.

©2011 iPhone, iOS 4, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.

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There are so many useful open source libraries available for iOS devices.   I haven’t seen one with such a wide variety of uses as this toolkit.

With this toolkit there are over 40 useful open source (Apache licensed) libraries that you can use in your iOS apps.  All are useful, and the library is designed so that you won’t need to clutter your app by including a massive number of files – in most cases you only need to add a single class to your app in order to add the functionality.   You just need to add what you want to use within your app.

The open source project is known as the Cooliris-Toolkit from Cooliris, and has already been used in several apps by Cooliris including their fantastic Discover Wikipedia In Magazine app.

Here’s a listing of the classes within the toolkit taken from the project homepage:

• ApplicationDelegate: This classes offers numerous built-in functionalities for a UIApplication delegate in cooperation with the Logging and Task classes. Your application delegate class should subclass this class instead of NSObject to benefit automatically from all these features.
• AutoresizingView: UIView subclass that automatically resizes a content subview using a “center”, “resize”, “aspect-fit” or “aspect-fill” method.
• BasicAnimation: Simple CABasicAnimation subclass that allows to specify per-instance delegate and callbacks on animation completion.
• CameraViewController: UIViewController subclass to replace UIImagePickerController to take photos with customizable user interface, image scaling and EXIF metadata (including GPS location) inclusion.
• Crypto: Provides C function wrappers for MD5 and SHA2-256 hash computations.
• Database: Implements a powerful SQLite Objectice-C wrapper with automatic schema creation from class properties.
• DataWrapper: Simple NSData subclass that allows to wrap a block of memory and provide a custom C callback for release.
• DiskCache: Manages a cache on disk of NSCoding compatible objects or raw data files which can be purged to a maximum size.
• DocumentView: Displays and manages layout and user interaction of a set of “page-type” subviews arranged horizontally.
• ExtendedPageControl: Implements a page control like the one on the home screen of iOS.
• Extensions_AmazonS3: Category on NSMutableURLRequest to sign HTTP requests for Amazon S3.
• Extensions_CoreAnimation: Categories on Core Animation classes to implement various convenience features.
• Extensions_Foundation: Categories on Foundation classes to implement various convenience features.
• Extensions_UIKit: Categories on UIKit classes to implement various convenience features.
• FileSystemView: Subclass of GridView that displays the contents of a directory.
• FormTableController: UITableView subclass that implements a form with text, password or checkbox fields.
• GridView: Displays and manages layout and user interaction with a grid of subviews.
• HTTPURLConnection: Subclass of NSURLConnection that implements synchronous HTTP operations and offers features like downloading to disk or resuming downloads.
• ImageCell: UITableViewCell subclass to display images.
• ImageUtilities: Low-level C functions to perform graphic operations on CGImages.
• InfiniteView: Displays and manages layout and user interaction of a set of “page-type” subviews arranged both horizontally and vertically in an infinite presentation.
• Keychain: Objective-C wrapper to store and retrieve passwords from the Keychain.
• LibXMLParser: Objective-C wrapper for LibXML.
• Logging: Powerful logging facility with history recording and playback, and well as remote logging over Telnet.
• MapAnnotation: Basic MKAnnotation conforming class to use with MapKit.
• MovieView: Loads and displays a movie from a URL.
• NavigationControl: Implements a navigation control with customizable markers and thumb.
• NetReachability: Objective-C wrapper for the System Configuration reachability APIs.
• OverlayView: Displays a simple pop-over view with an arrow at a given location.
• PubNub: Clean and simple Objective-C interface for http://www.pubnub.com/.
• RemoteUpdater: Allows one-way synchronization of “extra content”, typically Zip archives which get decompressed on arrival, from a remote server to the application.
• RichString: Basic replacement for NSAttributedString that allows archiving of itself and its attachments.
• ServerConnection: Provides an abstract state-machine for applications that needs to be continuously connected to a server and automatically reconnect / disconnect depending on network conditions.
• ShakeMotion: Wrapper around UIAccelerometer to detect shake motions.
• SliderControl: Implements a slider control with customizable graphic assets.
• SmartDescription: Replacement for NSObject’s -description that automatically prints the values of the object’s properties.
• SwitchCell: UITableViewCell subclass to display switches.
• Task: Implements a powerful background tasks management system for your application: task dependencies, task groups, independent completion delegates… Works on iOS 3.2 using threads and GCD on iOS 4.0 and later.
• TextFieldCell: UITableViewCell subclass to display text fields.
• TextIndex: Offers a simple text indexer for Western languages.
• UnitTest: Base class to implement unit tests.
• WebViewController: UIViewController subclass that displays a UIWebView along with back and forward buttons.
• WorkerThread: Allows to start and wait for completion of background threads in an atomic way.
• ZoomView: Displays a content subview (typically a UIImageView) with automatic pan and zoom behavior.

You can find the checkout page here:
http://code.google.com/p/cooliris-toolkit/source/checkout

This is definitely a toolkit that I will be using again and again.

©2011 iPhone, iOS 4, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.

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In Victor’s recent reviews of iOS universal remotes, most of the products’ focus was on helping you control your entertainment devices. Only one system (the Peel) delivered program recommendations in a new way, helping you decide what to watch.

The approach behind Buddy TV Guide is a bit different. Launched by the team behind the comprehensive buddytv.com site, this free iPhone app (a software-only solution, no paired hardware to buy — with a catch) fronts a recommendation engine that does its best to learn what you want to watch based on your preferences and selections, getting better and closer to the mark over time.

Since it asks about your favorite channels and the types of things you like to watch, you can save time on finding the programs that interest you (and bypass the ones that probably don’t). Company execs told me their goal is getting the ‘discovery time’ down to 20 seconds, from the moment you start the app to the time you find the show you want.

Behind the scenes, Buddy TV is doing some heavy data lifting to aggregate and normalize the various provider listings; not all channels or cable/satellite systems list shows in a uniform way, so the data mining is necessary to eliminate repeats and keep track of similarly-named episodes.

The guide and recommendation engine are impressive, and if you’re a Netflix subscriber the app will integrate available streaming movies into its ‘what you want to watch’ lineup. With a single tap, you can tune into live TV, a Netflix movie or recorded content on your DVR… and there’s that catch I mentioned earlier. Since Buddy TV Guide doesn’t pair with an IR blaster or other remote control hardware, it does the next best thing: talks to addressable receivers over the network. Specifically, the app will control the Sony Internet TV with Google TV, Google TV Logitech Revue, TiVo Series 3, and any devices controlled by Google TV — making TiVo or the big G’s home entertainment platform the middleman.

Even if you don’t own a Google TV or TiVo Series 3, it’s worth checking out the app’s recommendation and grid features; they’re free to use. If you do have an addressable device, you definitely should try out Buddy TV and see if it speeds up your couch-to-viewing search routine.

BuddyTV Guide for iPhone delivers TV recommendations, TiVo/GoogleTV controls originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today, the TUAW backchannels were having a fine old time exploring all the new options built into Finder. Most of the features are pretty obvious in what they do.

For example, hold down the Shift key while opening the Go menu to discover the Select Startup Disk on Desktop option. Hold down the Option key to force the Library folder to appear.

Pretty straightforward, right?

So what was option shown below all about? In Finder, when you select a file and view Option-Shift-File Menu, about halfway down the menu is a curious choice. Duplicate exactly.

It took quite a bit of work to track down what it did. Whatever it was, it required you to authenticate as an administrator to use it.

At first, the TUAW hive mind thought it might have something to do with copying pre-existing versions along with files. So we created a simple file and started versioning it. Then we duplicated it and duplicated it exactly. In neither case did the version information transfer.

So then we turned to Dtrace at the suggestion of @rylin on Twitter. It turns out that although the duplicate option is executed by Finder, the duplicate exactly version uses Locum to perform file writes.

If you’re not familiar with Locum, it’s a built-in part of OS X (has been around for a few years) that handles privilege escalation. You use it whenever you try to delete items that are owned by other users or by the system.

That led to some new tests. While we had originally discounted Emanuele Vulcano’s hypothesis that the option “kept permissions intact”, his guess was far more right than wrong. Simple duplication did retain permissions in our tests, just as they did with duplicate exactly.

What we didn’t find out for a while is that duplicate exactly also retains file ownership, in addition to permissions.

We went ahead and created two files at the command line. We used chown to change the owner of the first file to root.

Then we went ahead and used first duplicate and then duplicate exactly from the finder on both these files. The copy version for each file is from duplicate, and the copy 2 version from duplicate exactly.

What you can see here is this. While the permissions remain for each copy, what changed was the owner. A simple copy of foo changed the ownership from root to me. An exact copy using the authenticated Locum process preserved the ownership as well.

There you have it. One mystery solved.

Hackinations: Figuring out “Duplicate Exactly” originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cigarette packages will soon get their much-needed updated warning labels, but that doesn’t mean smokers have to keep their cigarettes in the new packages. They can always opt for carrying them in their own cases like this custom-made iPod cigarette case.

Marianne Wilson gutted her iPod after if broke and found that it was the perfect size for the cancer sticks. Now there’s one more place for parents to check when they suspect their kids of smoking.

Cigarette case made from an iPod originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 04:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We already know based on Apple’s latest quarterly earnings report that the iPad is pretty much eating the PC industry’s lunch. Writing for Forbes, Bob Evans points out that as impressive as the iPad’s effect on the industry has been thus far, we’ve only begun to see the sea change Apple’s tablet device is triggering.

Evans offers five reasons why the iPad seems to be taking over the industry, and in each case he believes the iPad’s real disruptive potential has yet to be realized. First, he repeats Apple COO Tim Cook’s remarks from the last financial call, where he stated that while Apple was seeing slight cannibalization of Mac sales because of the iPad, the effect was relatively small compared to the devastation present in the rest of the PC industry. Mac sales were up 14 percent last quarter, but growth in the rest of the industry is a far smaller 2.6 percent.

It’s not just everyday consumers driving the iPad’s growth, either. Multiple studies have come out showing how eagerly businesses are adopting the iPad for enterprise applications, and the recent launch of Apple’s B2B volume purchasing program is likely to drive even greater adoption of the iOS platform. As Evans points out, part of the reason enterprise adoption of the iPad is so high is that businesses are finding uses for the device that Apple never expected.

Apple’s retail stores are another reason Evans offers for the iPad’s success. Apple Stores arguably made the Mac, iPod, and iPhone more successful than they would have been otherwise, and it’s no stretch to say the same is true of the iPad.

Perhaps the most important predictor of the iPad’s future success is iPad use by children. Young kids in particular are growing up in a world where touchscreen tablets are a fact of life. I grew up with the Apple II already part of the toolset in my kindergarten, so it’s almost impossible for me to comprehend a world without personal computers. Will today’s kindergarteners feel the same way about hardware like the iPad? It’s entirely possible.

As Evans says, the iPad has been on the market for less than a year and a half. We’re only seeing the beginning of its effects on the industry. Think back to the mid-80s, when the Mac first came out, and consider how long it took before GUI-based computers became a home appliance every bit as “necessary” as the T.V. Or think back to the early 2000s, and how many years it took before the iPod supplanted both CD players and other mp3 players as the king of the portable music player industry. The iPad has already had a huge impact, but it’s only the beginning.

The iPad’s incredible effect on the PC industry is only beginning originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 01:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I’m always intrigued when TwelveSouth‘s Andrew Green sends me an email telling me that something new is coming out. Sure enough, he warned me yesterday that something very cool was in the works, and this morning an email arrived touting the new BookBook for iPhone (US$59.99). By early this afternoon the FedEx guy brought one to the door, so I was able to try it out and write a review.

If you’re familiar with the BookBook for iPad, MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, you’ll know that I’m talking about a distressed leather faux book that protects the outside of your device while looking very swanky. The new BookBook for iPhone takes care of your iPhone and also acts as a wallet, so you carry one beautiful leather case in your pocket instead of an iPhone and a wallet.

Design

Like most TwelveSouth products, the BookBook for iPhone shows a lot of design smarts. I was happy to see that unlike the bigger BookBooks for iPad, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, the iPhone version doesn’t have a zipped enclosure. When I reach into my pocket to answer a phone or grab a credit card, the last thing I want to do is unzip a case — here I just pull out the BookBook and flip it open, and answer a call or grab some cash.

The distressed leather exterior of the BookBook is beautiful, and should keep you from being concerned about scratching it. Any bumps, scratches, and stains will only add to the charm of the case.

If you like leather, you’ll love the smell of the BookBook when you pull it out of the box. It’s that nice tanned leather smell, and the warm distressed leather feel that make this such a delightful iPhone case.

Functionality

Concerned about taking photos in a case like this? Don’t be. With a pull on the bright red “bookmark” you can nudge the phone out just far enough to snap a quick photo and then push it back into the case. One feature that TwelveSouth doesn’t advertise is that the BookBook brings “Find My Wallet” to life, since you’d be able to ping your iPhone and know exactly where it and your money are.

You have immediate access to the Dock connector, the speakers are wide open to the world, and all of the other buttons and ports are easy to get to. For the volume toggle, there are actually + and – “buttons” embossed into the leather covering the switch.

I have a lot of cards in my wallet — mainly things like membership and “frequent flier” cards — so I was worried that the BookBook wouldn’t have the capacity for my collection of plastic and paper. I was right. I had to leave a lot of cards out of the wallet side of the BookBook, and even with eight cards (driver’s license, medical card, credit cards, ATM card, etc…) the left side of the BookBook was bulging by the time I was done. I tried to slip some money into the slot allotted for it, and found that it doing that really made the BookBook swell up.

I guess I’m one of those kids who “can’t have anything nice,” since I noticed after putting my cards into the wallet side that the seam between the leather card holders and the material lining the cash slot was pulling apart. The moral of the story? If you are going to use a BookBook for iPhone as your only wallet, don’t carry a lot of cards.

Conclusion

If you have just a few credit or ID cards to carry and don’t have a huge wad of cash in your wallet, then the BookBook for iPhone is an elegant and unique case for your phone. I love the look and feel of this, and it will certainly be a conversation starter. In fact, according to the promotional movie below, the BookBook is apparently quite useful in “getting lucky.” Enjoy the fantasy!

TwelveSouth BookBook for iPhone: Wallet and case in one little leather-bound book originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 26 Jul 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New York’s PIX11 has a report up about the new Apple Store that was just confirmed to be installed right in the middle of Grand Central Terminal. While most are excited about the idea, some are not. One Grand Central visitor complains that the place is already too crowded (it is, after all, Grand Central), while the other worries that putting an Apple Store in such a historic, classic place “will take away from it all.”

Of course, that’s two people out of the 500,000 who pass through the commuter hub daily. We’ll presume that — especially if Apple got the paperwork done — most New Yorkers won’t mind having yet another Apple Store in their fair city.

As for the guy who thinks an Apple Store would ugly up the place, is that really a concern? Apple retail spots are about as beautiful as a store can get, and this one’s meant to be designed all out of glass, in order to fit right in with the rest of the building. Would you rather have yet another big orange-and-yellow Jamba Juice in there?

(Two) Grand Central locals worry about an Apple Store originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 26 Jul 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The big message from a Retrovo survey released today of 1000 consumers carried out last month indicates competitors to the iPad will have to compete with a large price difference.

With rumors about an Amazon tablet circulating, 55% of survey respondents said They’d look at an Amazon tablet first. 38% cited Dell and Samsung, and 31% cited HP and Motorola. The key finding is that when asked to decide on a tablet other than a $499 base iPad, 79% of the consumers said they would go with Android only if it was less than $250. The same survey group members who said they planned to buy a tablet in the next year favored an iPad. 50% would choose one, while 21% favored an Android flavored device.

It seems Apple remains dominant, and for the rest of potential buyers it’s really all about cost, an area that Apple traditionally doesn’t play in. Of course you never know what a future Apple product might bring. If you’d like to read the whole survey, you can get it here. To our readers, if you don’t have an iPad yet, would a cheaper tablet from Apple get you to the Apple Store? And if not, would an Android tablet and $250-$300 tempt you to try one?

iPad competitors will need to be a lot cheaper to capture market share originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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