Browsing the web on the Apple iPad: 15 screenshots of how most common websites will look on your iPad

The New York Times on the iPad

It is now officially confirmed by Apple, the iPad will be in store by April 3rd in the US and shortly after in some other countries. As Steve Jobs himself emphasized during his January 27 keynote, the iPad is aimed to be the perfect device to, among others, surf the web from your living room couch. We now know that the iPad will not support flash, which might actually impact your browsing experience on some flash intensive websites. Other websites may actually detect the iPad as an iPhone (most WordPress blogs currently do) and present you with a page meant for a 3″ screen. But for most sites I tested, the iPad truly looked like the perfect internet tablet we have been waiting for.

If you can’t wait for another month and if you are dying to see what your favorite websites will look like on the iPad, read more and take a look at 15 screenshots taken from the iPad simulator that Apple was kind enough to provide iPhone developers with (I actually hope that I am not breaching the Apple SDK NDA by publishing these screenshots, after all, I am only revealing what Safari looks like on the iPad, which Apple already did to the whole world on Jan 26).

Apple did not invent apps and touchscreen phones! They only made it mainstream!

If you have been a geek for 10 years or more, you probably know that Apple did not invent touchscreen phones and mobile applications (apps). For the rest of you, here is a bit of background information about apps, appstores and touchscreen devices that existed well before the iPhone, well before Apple managed to bring what was essentially made for geeks to the bigger and more profitable mainstream market.

Top-20 mobile applications for iPhone, Android and Blackberry

If you own a smartphone (some even now call them app-phones), chances are that you’re constantly looking for the best and latest apps! Here is my top-20 non game list of applications for the three devices I use on regular basis.

I use a iPhone 3GS, a Google Nexus One and a Blackberry Bold 9700: 6 of my top apps actually run on all three devices and the other 14 are either platform-specific or only run on two of my devices. Make sure to read more to quickly get the best out of that brand new smartphone you just bought

Google Apps: is your organization ready to Go Google?

Google Apps is Google’s set of messaging and collaborative tools for groups and businesses. It is basically a customizable version of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Sites and Google Docs for your own domain name. That means you can start enjoying all the benefits of Gmail (conversation threads, huge storage, great anti-spam, integrated Gtalk, etc…) with a personalized email address like <yourname@yourbusiness.com>.

Whereas the standard edition is free for up to 50 users, Google Apps also comes in a Premier Edition should you require Google Groups, Google Videos, more users and storage, as well as support and SLA. Check this page to compare both editions. It actually even comes in two more versions specially packaged for Educational and Government use.

I personally use the free standard edition as the emailing and collaboration platform of my mobile applications company (Bitsmedia Pte Ltd) and, despite a few frustrations, I simply love it. Make sure to read more to find out if Google Apps is the perfect tool for your organization.

Photos of my wet iPhone working again after dismantling it

I attended my daughter’s friend’s birthday party last weekend and guess what? I fell in the pool, all dressed up, with (among others) an iPhone in my pocket. Needless to say that the pretty Apple device turned into a wet brick which would not even switch on.

I initially decided that rather than throwing it away, I would at least dismantle it (for the geeky joy procured by looking into its guts) and share that joy by uploading a few pictures on this blog.

To my biggest surprise, the iPhone started working again after reassembling it !! Read more for more pictures !!

Google Buzz: why you should care…

For the past two days, the buzz is all over the web. It is still a global trending topic in Twitter (its competitor?) and most blogs have now shared their thoughts about Google’s latest baby: Google Buzz.

Google Buzz is Google’s latest initiative to take its slice of the social media cake. A new platform to share status updates, photos, locations, etc. Sounds familiar? Indeed, the concept is a mixture of Twitter + Facebook + Foursqurare. You’re already using two or three of these platforms and asking yourself why you should care? Why should you start posting status updates to yet another platform? Well read more and find out why I think you should at least pay attention to this new Buzz.

10 reasons why you should jailbreak your iPhone

Apple and its iPhone have definitely created, over the past 2 years, a major revolution in the way we use our phone. In terms of technology: the best capacitive touch screen ever and a powerful CPU/GPU in a sleek device; in terms of user-interface: a whole new concept of navigating through the menus of your phone with your finger-tip; and of course, probably the most important of all, in terms of ecosystem: a powerful SDK combined with a 30/70 revenue share app store on iTunes. All this has allowed thousands of 3rd party developers to come up with more than a 100,000 apps in just 18 months. There is, as Apple likes to claim it, “an app for everything”.

Yet, there has also been lots of controversy about some limitations of the iPhone, such as the lack of multitasking, notifications, widgets, customizable home screen, etc…

Well, jailbreaking your iPhone (I take no responsibilities whatsoever as per the legal or technical impacts this could have on your phone), might actually help you to overcome these limitations as it will allow you to install apps that you can’t find on the official iTunes app-store. Here is a list of my top 10 jailbroken apps and top 10 reasons why I could not use a non-jailbroken iPhone anymore.

5 must-have iPhone applications for social networkers

Facebook: the 3rd edition of Facebook’s very own iPhone app will keep you connected to all your friends and Facebook pages. It also allows you to update your status on the go, as well as upload photos and videos (iPhone 3GS only). iTunes link

LinkedIn: a full-featured iPhone client for the most professional of all social networks. If you’re an active LinkedIn user, here’s how to manage your network on the go. Invites, messages, profiles, updates, etc… all the LinkedIn features available on the web are there. iTunes link

Tweetie 2: there are tons of different Twitter clients available on the AppStore and you may need to try a few to find your own pearl. Although Tweetdeck for iPhone is free, I believe that the guy behind Tweetie did a great job in terms of user interface and performance. iTunes link

Foursquare: there again, some of you might be more into Gowala or Loopt when it comes to checking in at your favorite venue. I am personally addicted to Foursquare. iTunes link

Pingle: I don’t think the guys at Ping.fm have developed an iPhone app (it might change now that Loic Lemeur and Seesmic bought them over) but Pingle lets you connect to your Ping.fm account and update all your various social networks at once. iTunes link

My Hub: you’re right, that’s number 6 and the title up there says “5 apps”. Well, at $1,99 it is still a great tool to access all your contacts from one single app. The current version brings Facebook, Twitter and Plaxo together with the native address book of your iPhone. Future releases will hopefully support LinkedIn, unified search and cached data. So I thought my #6 deserved its place in my top 5 iTunes link

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Contacts, Calendar, Mail: how I keep all my computers and mobile phones in sync

Because I know keeping all your different devices in sync can quickly become a hassle, I thought I would share with you the best method I have found so far to properly sync contacts, calendars and emails across multiple platforms.

Syncing Mac, iPhone, Nexus and Blackberry

If like me, you own more than one phone and/or more than one computer, and enjoy the freedom to switch from one device to another without troubling yourself and risking to miss some important data at some point in time, the rest of this post is for you. Most importantly this approach allows me to stay away from annoying duplicates and, worse, lost data.

Blackberry Bold 9700 vs iPhone 3GS: you may actually need both

Just a few days ago I tried to highlight why, in my opinion, the Google Nexus One is not quite there yet as a true replacement for my aging iPhone (see previous post here).

The Blackberry Bold 9700 is a totally different story. Despite the Blackberry’s App World, a decent camera and a cute tiny screen, this phone is certainly not competing with the iPhone as a true “entertainment” device. Yet, it seems to have found its place in my pocket as an incredibly addictive device for what a phone is ought to be: a communicating platform.