Apple Releases iWork to the iPhone

Students and business-people alike both need, on occasion, to type up a paper really quick, or to create a quick presentation for their meetings the next day. Up until now, if all you had on you was an iPhone or iPod touch, you were mostly out of luck. Using some free or paid apps, you could type up a few sentences, but adding formatting or pictures was really just not possible. Until now.

In a press release earlier this morning, Apple, the makers of the iPhone and iPod touch, announced three new apps for the iPhone, all of which are branded as part of the "iWork Suite". These three apps are Pages, which allows for some heavy word-processing power, Keynote, which allows you to create slick looking presentations, and Numbers, Apple's spreadsheet-creating app.

All three of these apps were first available on the Macintosh, then later came to the iPad, and now have finally arrived on the iPhone and iPod touch. Each app is available in the iTunes App Store, and will cost you $9.99 a piece, which, although it seems kind of pricey, could be worth it. For current owners of the iWork apps on the iPad, the iPhone version is a free upgrade.

Although this seems kind of cool and very useful, creating presentations or spreadsheets on such a small screen is a slightly daunting task. Also, the iPad versions of these apps have not been such a smashing success,  which could be a bad sign for this new version. 

Overall, these apps are a little pricey, but when you need them, you really do need them. If you have to create quick documents or presentations on the fly, then go ahead and shell out the $10 for the app. However, if you don't really need it, but you thing it would be cool to have, you probably should save your money for a better cause.

ASUS Announces the Padfone, A Tablet/Phone Combo

For a few days, there has been some rumors and speculation about ASUS' new tablet device, thought to be called the Padfone. All rumors were wither denied or confirmed at today's official unveiling of the Padfone.

The Padfone was announced earlier today during the first day of the Computex exhibition in Taiwan. 

The idea of the Padfone is that it will sell as a tablet/phone combo running Android. When one needs a bigger screen, say, for watching a movie or playing a game, you can just slide the phone into a slot in the back of the tablet, and your screen is suddenly magically bigger.

The tablet also has a bigger battery in it, so when your phone is low on juice, you can just pop it into the back of the tablet, and it will start charging. 

With the Padfone, there is no need to buy a separate data plan for both the phone and tablet, because the tablet can just use the 3G data connection built into the docked phone.

Although it is unclear whether the tablet part of the Padfone will work without the phone docked inside or not, this seems like a pretty cool device. There are no details about pricing or availability, or even specs, which is definitely a setback. Another problem with Android tablets in general is the lack of tablet designed apps, at least with the Padfone, there is a smaller screen device to view phone-optimized apps. 

Below are the two promotional videos that ASUS put out.

Microsoft Unveils Windows Phone 7 Update, Calling it Mango

Earlier today, Microsoft held a press event, announcing some of the newest features that will be found in the latest edition of their mobile phone operating system, Windows Phone 7. This update to the operating system is code-named Mango.

Andy Lee, president of Microsoft's mobile division, took the stage today and announced some of the new features that will be found in Mango.


To start off, Twitter and LinkedIn will now be integrated into Windows Phone 7. Also, the homescreen will be updated slightly, so that notifications are pushed more.

Call history will be sorted by person, and you will be able to see all of the calls, texts, IMs, and visual voicemail (another new feature in Mango) all in one "list". Related to this, a new feature in Mango will be the ability to group friends into groups. Groups will show all of those friend's activity, be it calls, texting, or even social networking activity. One can also communicate with all of the members in a group.

Although the long awaited copy and paste has finally come in an update a while ago, Mango will also add predictive text while typing. These are both important features that seem standard on any phone. However, predictive text can either save you time, or become an extremely annoying part of texting.

The new "threads" feature allows users to carry on a conversation from Facebook to texting, etc.

Andy Lee, President of Microsoft's mobile devision

Also regarding communication, Mango will allow users to keep email inboxes separate or combined, or even both. For example, one might keep his work email separate from his personal email, but he/she could combine two separate personal inboxes, and have work and personal inboxes. Some new security features have also been added for enterprise email.

Voice activated technologies will also be integrated into Mango. Microsoft showed how one could have text messages read to them while in the car, one could also respond just using his/her voice.

Microsoft is also bringing smarter apps, along with the ability to run multiple apps at once. Another improvement that will come with Mango is faster web browsing. Bing, Microsoft's search engine, will be integrated into Windows Phone 7, and will provide a slightly "smarter" search. For example, searching for the name of a movie will bring you directly to showtimes.

Mango will be released in the fall as a free update, and, unlike the previous update, will just require users to plug their phones into their computers. Mango will first appear on Microsoft/Nokia devices, but will soon be available on other phones. Mango will also be available on a few new devices that will support 4G.

Overall, Mango seems like an exciting update. If, unlike the previous update, everything goes as planned, this should give consumers more of a reason to buy a Windows Phone. Even with great hardware and a great OS, the problem still remains: With only 18,000 apps available (compared to over 300,000 for the iPhone), the devices are still not compelling. Although Windows Phone 7 is not going to outsell the iPhone anytime soon, Mango is a good step in that direction. A little help from app developers, and Windows Phone 7 might find itself on top.

Sony PlayStation Network Finally Back Up, Gamers Rejoice.

Map Showing Where PlayStation Network is Back Up.

     

     Sony's PlayStation Network, Sony's service that allows PlayStation 3 users to play over the internet against each other, had a data breach around April 20th, were an unknown hacker got access to users information, such as address, email address, phone number, username, and possibly passwords. Regarding credit card numbers, Sony said that the data was encrypted, and they do not think that data was stolen. However, Sony has no way of conforming that data was not stolen.

     This serious data breach led Sony to take the PlayStation Network, as well as it's media-streaming counterpart Qriocity, offline, so that they could completely revamp the system and ensure complete security.

     When Sony first announced the fact that PlayStation Network was going offline, they said it would be down for "A full day or two". That day turned into weeks, and now, about 25 days later, the PlayStation Network goes back online (Along with the new job position at Sony, the Chief Information Security Officer.)

     Many gamers are probably rejoicing right now, as there were a few new gaming titles that came out that weren't even playable yet, because they had to be registered with the PlayStation Network. However, gamers in more than %70 percent of the United States are still left out in the cold, because, as of press time, the only states with the PlayStation Network back up are Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and California. 

     It is nice to know that the PlayStation Network is back online somewhere, even if not in your particular part of the world. Users can now rest peacefully knowing that they will be able to play soon again, and that any identity theft will be covered, free of charge, by Sony, with their free year of identity theft protection to all PlayStaton Network users. (Note to hacker: Wait a year before using all of those credit cards.)

UPDATE: Sony has posted a new map showing that the PlayStation Network is online everywhere, at least in North America. To access the PlayStation Network, you must upgrade the firmware on your PlayStation 3 to 3.6.1, as well as change your password. The PlayStation Store features will be down until the end of the month. The PlayStation Network is still down in Europe and Asia.

Blogger Back Up, We Couldn't Report it was Down

Blogger, Google's easy blogging service, has been down since about 12:30 Pacific time yesterday. This affected, among many others, Gadgetator. We were not able to report the down-coming of the Blogger service, but fortunately, more than 20 hours later, we are able to report to you that the Blogger service is back up and running, pulling Gadgetator up along with it.

Although we do not think that anything on our site was affected from a user's standpoint, we thank you for your patience, as we waited for Google to bring it's Blogger service alive again.

YouTube adds Movie Rentals, Average Price of $3.99

     YouTube, Google's extremely popular video upload and sharing service, has recently added full length movies to it's millions of videos already on the site. However, unlike the other millions of videos, these movies will not be given out for free.
     The average movie costs $3.99 for a 24 hour rental. However, some movies cost $2.99, and a sprinkle of the 3000 new movies are actually free, but contain some ads.
     This puts YouTube in the same movie-streaming boat as iTunes, Netflix, and even the Gadgetator reviewed Alphaline Entertainment. All of these services stream movies on-demand.
     YouTube is different from iTunes, Netflix, and others because, unlike anyone else, YouTube has many free movies. Netflix does not rent movies, but rather uses a subscription model. YouTube also stands out from iTunes, as it doesn't offer downloads of movies, however, rental prices are similar.
     Overall, YouTube seems like a great way to view movies, at 3000 movies, the library is nice sized, but you probably won't find everything you're looking for. However, if you do find what you are looking for, especially if it's an older movie, there's a slight chance that it'll be free. Another plus is that, since the movies are saved on your YouTube account, you can watch a rented movie almost anywhere you go, and switch off between devices during the movie. Check it out. as the chances are likely that you'll at least find one free movie you'll enjoy.

View the YouTube movie library here.

Pandora adds Comedy; Users Everywhere just Laugh

     Pandora, the extremely popular online music streaming service, has recently added comedy tracks to it's library of millions of songs.

Comedy Tracks on Pandora

     The service analyzed music and artists, and was able to give users more music similar to any music track. With this new update, Pandora now analyzes comedians by their style, and will give you more comedy tracks similar to that style. 

     This could be a very good decision for Pandora, as it brings them slightly further away from just music, and closer to something which you could actually use to find new comedians and 

     Also, although you wouldn't think that this would launch with many titles, I had no problem finding everything I wanted. Best of all, all this is %100 free. Can't beat that.

View the Official Press Release.