Michael Dell is bullish on Android tablets [registration required]. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published today, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Dell Inc. predicted Android tablets would one day overtake Apple’s iPad as the leading platform in the tablet market. Dell cited Android’s success in the smartphone market to support his theory.

“If you look at 18 months ago, Android phones were like, ‘What is that?’ And now there are more Android phones than iPhones,” Dell said. “I don’t see any reason why the same won’t occur with Android tablets.”

At the moment, Android faces the Herculean task of catching up to the device that defined a new class of consumer electronic. Unlike the iPhone, which entered an already healthy mobile phone marketplace with well-established rivals, the iPad set the benchmark for tablet computing. A recent report from IDC suggests the iPad represents 83% of the rapidly growing tablet market. IDC expects Apple to continue its dominance by winning up to 80% of tablet sales in 2011.

The iPad’s most well-reviewed rival, the Motorola Xoom, has done little to sink Apple’s staggering dominance despite its flashy marketing campaign and tablet-specific flavor of Android. One estimate from Deutsche Bank suggests Motorola has sold only 100,000 units of its flagship tablet. Similarly, Samsung has been disappointed with sales of its Galaxy Tab and its sales of about 2 million units.

Dell, of course, offers its own family of tablets called the Streak. The five and seven-inch tablets, powered by Android, were met with generally negative reviews and are widely considered flops. Dell is expected to release its 10-inch Streak Pro, in both Windows and Android varieties, later this year. Although Dell claims to be doubling down on Android, the CEO, who also expressed being surprised by the sudden rise of the iPad, may also be hedging his bets by releasing tablets on two competing software platforms.

[via CNET]

Michael Dell: Android tablets will overtake iPad originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I find the Civil War to be one of the most fascinating periods of American history. The struggle that tore our nation apart 150 years ago occurred during a time of great social upheaval, continued westward expansion, and technological changes that shaped the next century.

When I saw that HISTORY had released The Civil War Today for iPad (US$7.99), I glanced at a description of the app and then bought it immediately. What I’ve been enjoying since April 12, 2011 is a well-designed interactive daily trip into the events that happened exactly 150 years ago. It’s as if my iPad has become a time machine taking me back into the past, and as the war heats up and comes to its inevitable conclusion over the next four years, I’ll be experiencing the battles, the tragedies, and the personal stories of the people who lived through the Civil War.

Read more to see my review of The Civil War Today, and be sure to check out the gallery below.

Continue reading The Civil War Today: An elegant interactive trip into American history via iPad

The Civil War Today: An elegant interactive trip into American history via iPad originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Good news for the jailbreak community as Cydia is now back up and running. Along with many other companies, the alternative app store for iOS devices has been down for several days due to Amazon’s highly-publicized E2C Cloudfront server outage.

During this downtime, Cydia suspended all downloads, purchases and updates. Users of the jailbreak app store were greeted with a notice that all activities were down. The app repository came back to life last night and everything is back to business as usual. Woohoo!

[Via Razorianfly]

Cydia back up after multi-day outage originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has apparently decided to abandon its trademark application for the term “POD”. Apple filed for the trademark in Canada on July 2004. After a series of changes required by the Canadian government and extensions that span seven years, Apple has decided to abandon the patent. The abandonment procedure began on December 2010 and was finalized on April 13, 2011.

The term “iPOD” is still covered by an Apple trademark, but the word “POD” is now up for grabs. Look for the next ePOD eReader or aPOD mp3 player to hit the market in the coming months.

Apple abandons effort to secure “POD” trademark originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Companies like G-Form enjoy wowing people with their products that protect your device under the most extreme conditions. This time around the team took an iPad, slipped it into their Extreme Sleeve and dropped it from an ultralight airplane.

Similar to the iPhone which plummeted from a plane, the iPad fell over 500 feet, flipping through the air and landed with a resounding thud in a grassy field. After retrieval, the iPad emerged from the sleeve fully functional with nary a scratch. The helmet cam attached to the outside the Extreme Sleeve did not fare so well and unfortunately, broke on impact.

Unlike the Otter Box which is a rigid and bulky case, the G-Form Extreme Sleeve uses PORON XRD, a flexible and thin material known for its ability to absorb impacts. The sleeve is lightweight and flexible, yet protects your iPad 1 and iPad 2 from harsh falls and impacts. The Extreme Sleeve comes with a life-time guarantee and is available in black and yellow. Folks can pre-order one now for $59.95 and they will begin shipping on May 2.

Read on to watch the falling iPad and the reactions of the enthusiastic team at G-Form.

[Via ZDNet]

Continue reading iPad survives 500 foot fall from airplane thanks to G-Form Extreme Sleeve

iPad survives 500 foot fall from airplane thanks to G-Form Extreme Sleeve originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome to Ask TUAW, your favorite weekly question-and-answer column. Now, we can never have too many questions, so please, go to the comments of this post and ask away. To get fabulous answers, we need your fabulous questions. You can also email your questions directly to ask [at] tuaw.com, or ping us on Twitter.

Now, off to the questions! Muhammad asks:

Is there any way to set up a mode in my iPhone that’s exactly like airplane mode but still allow phone calls to be received? When I sleep, I want everything like texts, email, push notifications, etc. to be off, but I still need to be available in case of an emergency.

Continue reading Ask TUAW: Where is the new Mac mini?, turning off iPhone noises and more

Ask TUAW: Where is the new Mac mini?, turning off iPhone noises and more originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last week’s news that relatively imprecise cell phone tower location data from iPhones is stored in a file that is backed up onto your computer seems to be gathering a lot of attention. It was even the main topic of discussion on last night’s TUAW Talkcast.

“Locationgate” began when two researchers released a Mac app (iPhone Tracker) that not only finds the file on your computer, but also displays that information. The iPhone Tracker plot of my location information seen above shows that I seem to spend a lot of time in the Denver area. That’s not surprising, since that’s where I live.

Bloomberg reported that the South Korean government has contacted Apple for information about location information collection. In South Korea, the collection of GPS coordinates violates privacy laws, so the government wants to know how the information is stored and whether users can choose to turn off the storage of location data. The Korea Communications Commission also wants to know why Apple captures the information and if it is stored on the company’s servers.

South Korea isn’t the only country in which privacy advocates are up in arms — French, American, German, and Italian regulators also want to know why Apple collects the information. Razorian Fly notes that Apple has already explained why they collect and store this data in a letter to the U.S. Congress last year. Basically, it’s done so Apple has its own location services and is not dependent on Google or Skyhook for that information. It’s this location data that your iPhone queries when it initially tries to figure out where it is, before the device locks onto the GPS satellite constellation.

Continue reading A roundup of today’s “Locationgate” news

A roundup of today’s “Locationgate” news originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We get purported product leak pics sent to us all the time, and of course, the vast majority of them are fake. In an era when anyone with free time and a copy of Photoshop can slap together something that’s convincing at first glance, we’re sort of jaded when we look at these Blurrycam photos. In fact, even Gizmodo’s epic iPhone 4 leak last year had me and half my TUAW colleagues saying, “Fake, fake, fakedy faaaaaake,” right up until Apple demanded the device be returned.

It’s only the truly spectacular pics that warrant us firing up our CSI rigs (Zoom. Enhance. Zoom. Enhance) in an attempt to prove if the pic’s been faked or not. Then, at the other end of the spectrum, there’s the monstrosity pictured here, which sent the entire TUAW team into paroxysms of laughter when we saw it.

A reader sent us this image after a friendly email where he said he had a line on the next iPod classic. “Contrary to what some people believe there will be a new one,” he said. “It will have an option for either a 256GB or 320GB hard drive. It will feature the interface of the iPod Nano all while keeping the clickwheel. Also, the screen size will increase by nearly eliminating the bezel. This device is catered to serious music lovers who still love keeping with the times.”

Sounded reasonable to us, so we requested pics. And the iPod wasn’t the only thing about this that was classic. “Worst. Photoshop. EVER,” one member of our team replied, and we didn’t even have to Zoom or Enhance to make that call. Check out some detail on the full-sized image, as it was sent to us:

All too easy.

I’ll forgive the pic’s blurriness, especially since the metadata (which our tipster forgot to scrub out) says the original pic was taken with an iPod touch. I’ll also forgive our photo prankster for neglecting to strip out the Adobe Photoshop CS3 markers from the metadata (P.S. to the sender: your GPS data is still embedded in the image you sent us, too. Nice house!). The pic’s onscreen icons are crooked with respect to the device itself, but I’ll even give that a pass. It’s that corner detail in the pic above, where the layered-on image from an iPod nano screen extends beyond the iPod classic in the background layer, that elevates this from your everyday Blurrycam photo to the high art of the Fakes Hall of Fame.

Blurrycam Theatre Presents: The classically fake iPod classic originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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US President Barack Obama has been well-known for his love of RIM’s BlackBerry, at least until last year when he admitted that the device is now “no fun” because of the security strictures he faces as Commander-in-Chief. The President has also said that technology in the White House is “30 years behind,” with a lack of “really cool phones and stuff.” The President recently admitted he got an iPad, but until a recent photo, it wasn’t clear whether he got the old model or the new iPad 2. Consider this mystery solved, because based on this photo of him boarding Marine One it’s clear the President is toting around a brand-new iPad 2, complete with a Smart Cover.

The iPad-in-Chief

We’re still not sure what the President uses his iPad for, though it’s funny to picture the world’s most powerful politician playing Angry Birds on Air Force One while the “football” sits nearby. It seems Apple’s device has been cleared by White House security, which typically is not an easy feat — the President reportedly had trouble getting clearance for his BlackBerry. If you work for a company whose IT department has been reticent about letting the iPad in, you’ve now got some potent ammunition for your counterargument.

Thanks for the tip, Alex!

Barack Obama and the iPad-in-Chief originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Have you ever wished that you could fade out non-active windows in the background, leaving you to focus on the task at hand? HazeOver does just that in a simple and Mac-like fashion.

A small utility that runs in the background, HazeOver dims any non-active windows automatically in a smooth ramp down to darkness. The amount of dimming is adjustable, from 10 to 80 percent, with an option to have a menu bar icon for quick access to settings. When you switch to a new window it is instantly thrust into the light, but when you switch away from it, HazeOver will fade it out smoothly into the background darkness.

It’s a really nice little utility that creates a very Mac-like effect and helps you focus on one window at a time. For US$0.99, HazeOver is worth a buck to add a little spice to your desktop and help you focus in on the task at hand. Hit the break to see HazeOver in action.

Continue reading HazeOver dims background windows to help you focus

HazeOver dims background windows to help you focus originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gameloft has earned a reputation for, ahem, “borrowing” some game ideas for the App Store. A lot of the company’s (very popular) games are more or less copies of popular titles on other platforms. One of Gameloft’s latest games, Starfront Collision, is no different; it’s basically a clone of StarCraft.

But here’s the thing: Who cares? Blizzard hasn’t actually put out a version of StarCraft for iOS, and to be honest, the RTS options are pretty limited. So if Gameloft wants to “borrow” the genre and even some of its various factions and units, that doesn’t bother us one bit.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite have the polish of StarCraft (what does?), but it’s a working RTS, built from the ground up for the iPhone. While it would be nice to see some official Blizzard games on iOS, we don’t have those yet. In the meantime, fans of the genre and Blizzard’s classic can check out Starfront Collision, either as a free version with in-app purchases for content, or by buying the app at US$2.99.

TUAW’s Daily App: Starfront Collision originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When it comes to European royalty, Americans go crazy. Beyond the garden-variety obsession with royalty, British royalty in particular is like Yank catnip. The ultimate bonkers-maker, however, is British royal weddings.

When there’s a royal wedding across the pond, Americans absolutely seem to lose their marbles. There’s just no getting around it. You can’t listen to the radio or turn on the TV without hearing about Prince William and Kate Middleton. Seriously, right now those two are bigger than Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez, which I didn’t think was even possible.

And don’t even think about browsing a newsstand. Close to half of the magazines have the royal and royal-to-be on the cover. Maybe it’s the romanticism of it all or the fact that we Americans tend to mix fantasy with aspiration, but whatever the cause, I’m happy to contribute to the hysteria. Without further ado, here is a list of four iOS apps that allow you to live out the royal wedding on your iPhone and iPad. Best of all, all the apps are free, so you can hold onto the family jewels.

The Royal Wedding by Hello! — This app, brought to you by one of the trashiest gossip magazines in the UK, is little more than a photo scrapbook of the fairytale romance between Wills and Kate. It’s got dedicated albums for the bride and groom, along with albums dedicated to royal wedding rings, wedding dresses and gifts. One of the cooler albums shows images from past royal weddings.

Continue reading Four apps for the Royal Wedding

Four apps for the Royal Wedding originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AirPlay is a very cool technology, but it’s limited to the second generation Apple TV and a few receivers. Sonos, as I reported last week, has come up with its own way to integrate AirPlay into a multi-room music system, and the company was nice enough to lend me an Apple AirPort Express to try it out.

Since I already had a Sonos music system, the AirPort Express was the only missing piece. You plug AirPort Express in, connect it to one of your Sonos ZonePlayers with an Ethernet cable, and run a stereo mini-plug to stereo RCA cable from the AirPort Express to your Sonos unit.

From there, you open the AirPort Utility (it ships with OS X, and you can download a Windows version) and configure it in a couple of easy steps. You then move to your updated free ZonePlayer software version 3.4 to let the Sonos system know that the AirPort Express is there. That’s it.

From that point on you can wirelessly stream audio from your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad into your Sonos system. The Sonos is smart enough to auto switch to the correct input, and then you can hear the music on any individual ZonePlayer or on all of them at the same time. Of course, since the playlists on my iPhone and iPad are subsets of the music that Sonos normally has access to from my Mac, there’s not much advantage there. On the other hand, I went out running yesterday listening to a podcast, and when I got back to the house, I was just a couple of taps away from hearing it on any or every audio system I had in the house. When the audio switched, not even a word was dropped.

Continue reading Testing the Sonos-AirPlay solution

Testing the Sonos-AirPlay solution originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s talkcast time again, and since it’s also Easter Sunday we expect that some of our usual gang of chatterboxes may be tied up with religious or family obligations (and possibly sleeping off an overdose of Peeps).

With that in mind, we’re not going to worry too much about polishing the agenda or sorting out our topics of conversation ahead of time; if you show up, and there’s something you want to talk about, we’ll talk about it. Rumored MacBook Air refresh? iPhone finally turning white? iOS location leaks and privacy concerns? Apple grabbing the lion’s share of wireless profits? You name it, we’ll tawk.

To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the TalkShoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 PM EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (yay for free cell phone weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 — during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8.

If you’ve got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free Blink or X-Lite SIP clients; basic instructions are here (if you like Blink, the pro version is available in the Mac App Store). Talk to you tonight.

Talkcast reminder: Holiday edition, 10 PM ET Sunday originally appeared on TUAW on Sun, 24 Apr 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You can jailbreak iPad 4.3.2 iOS untethered with PwnageTool 4.3.2. These are the steps to jailbreak iPad 4.3.2 firmware with PwnageTool 4.3.2. Staps to jailbreak iPad 1, iPhone 4, 3GS, iPod Touch 4G, 3G with PwnageTool are the same.

Note: There’s no iPad 2 jailbreak out yet. These jailbreak steps applies to iPad 1 only.

Jailbreak iPad 4.3.2 with PwnageTool 4.3.2

Step 1

• Download iOS 4.3.2
• DownloadPwnageTool 4.3.2
• DownloadiTunes 10.2.2

Rest of the steps to jailbreak iPad 4.3.2 with PwnageTool 4.3.2 are exactly similar to the guide posted earlier:

How to: Jailbreak 4.3.2 with PwnageTool 4.3.2

How to Jailbreak iOS 4.3.2

• Jailbreak iOS 4.3.2
• How to:Jailbreak iPhone 4.3.2 Untethered with Sn0wBreeze 2.6
• How to:Jailbreak 4.3.2 Untethered on iPhone with RedSn0w 0.9.6rc14

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Also checkout:

Downgrade iOS 4.3.2