We've heard some really good music come out of an iPad before, but to me it's all basically sounded like yeah, it came from a tablet. This remix of Jason Derulo's "It Girl," however, which you can watch below, sounds like the real thing to me. Yes, there's a lot of R&B sampling in there, and some of the sythesizers do sound like, well, synths, but on the whole it sounds really amazing. Professional music, made completely with an iPad!

Plus, the video, by a group called East Midwest Music, is probably the most well-produced iPad music video ever, clearly documenting not only which apps were used for which instruments, but also how they were recorded and put together. Trust me, as a blogger who often has to go hunting around for screenshots to label apps in music videos, I really appreciate that. Definitely give this one a watch below.

[via TechCrunch]

The iPad rocks this 'It Girl' remix originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple has released version 5.1.2 of Safari, now available in a Software Update near you. The new version, according to the notes, increases stability, fixes a few issues that could cause hangs and memory leaks, and fixes an issue that would allow web page to flash to white. No more more freaky strobes when loading up a new URL, hopefully.

The patch also allows web pages to show PDF content right inline with the rest of their web material, which is a nice option for programmers who need to show content that way. In fact, we'll just say we're looking at you, restaurants -- can't you just pay someone to translate that menu into CSS and HTML instead of making us read the PDF directly. Sheesh. Safari 5.1.2 is a 40.2 MB update, and does require a restart. Grab it at your leisure.

Safari 5.1.2 out now, fixes memory leaks, stability originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The iOS 5.1 beta 1 SDK is now available for download by paid devs at the iOS developer site. Sign in with your developer credentials to gain access to the updated SDK. You will need to download and install firmware via iTunes and cannot use over-the-air updating for this initial release.

Because it cannot be said too often, make sure you read any release notes on-site. For everyone intoxicated by new technologies that might allow you to update using other means, I cannot strongly encourage you enough to go to the site and read the release notes. This hint goes out especially to those of you who are not primarily developers but how have purchased dev accounts to stay current on the technology.

Installation alerts appear in a big yellow box on the main iOS dev page. The yellow box for 5.1 is larger than ever. Important update notices also appear on the developer forums. If you run into troubles installing updates, please check the dev site and forums first.

If you don't have access to the dev site and forums, please don't e-mail us for technical support about the iOS 5.1 beta. You do so at your own risk.

As a final note, don't forget to register your device at the developer portal and prepare it for development before installing the new beta.

The beta is, as always, released under the terms of Apple's NDA. For that reason, enhancements, APIs and features are not listed within this post.

Happy developing everyone! Thanks, everyone who tipped us.

iOS 5.1 beta ready for testing originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The progressive left-leaning political news site Talking Points Memo issued an interesting set of (non-partisan) statistics that shows just how much the share of total devices running Microsoft Windows has declined in the last five years. As you can see from the chart above, in 2006 78% of visitors to TPM were using devices running some flavor of Windows (blue line). Total share of Windows devices started a rapid decline in the years that followed, thanks mostly in part to the increasing popularity of Macs (red line). By 2009, Windows devices had fallen 13% while Mac devices rose by 10%.

But what's really interesting is what started to happen in 2009. With the rise of mobile devices like the iPhone 3G, mobile visits (green line) to the site skyrocketed from 3% in 2009 to 14% in 2011. More interesting is that mobile devices continued to take a huge chunk away from Windows devices. While Mac usage on the site only declined 2% between 2009-2011, Windows usage took a big dip, going from 65% to 57%.

TPM does note that the sites visitors tend to slant towards the Mac-favoring side anyway, but still founder Josh Marshall rightly points out that that the decline of visitors running a Microsoft OS from 78% in 2006 to only 57% is huge.

TPM further notes that the breakdown of mobile OS traffic is about 77% iOS and 23% all other mobile OSs. When you combine the 28% OS X traffic with the iOS traffic, devices that use an Apple OS account for a whopping 40% of the site's traffic. Not bad for a company that only had a 20% share of the traffic just five years ago.

[via Daring Fireball]

Talking Points Memo sees Windows visitors decline, Mac and iOS users soar originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 27 Nov 2011 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Welcome to TUAW's 2011 Holiday Gift Guide! We're here to help you choose the best gifts this holiday season, and once you've received your gifts we'll tell you what apps and accessories we think are best for your new Apple gear. Stay tuned every weekday from now until the end of the year for our picks and helpful guides and check our Gift Guide hub to see our guides as they become available. For even more holiday fun, check out sister site Engadget's gift guide.

As much as we'd all love to get away from the piles of paper that dominate our lives, it's still hard to live without a way to commit digital content to paper. Whether you're printing labels and envelopes, need to print a report for school, or you like to print photos from your iPhone or iPod touch, a printer is a necessity for the computer user. Printers have come a long way from the days of the slow and noisy ImageWriter II shown above, and now even cheap printers can astound you with their high quality output.

In this edition of our 2011 Holiday Gift Guide, I'll provide some hints on what you should consider when purchasing a printer to work with your Mac or iOS device. When making the purchase decision for a printer, there are some questions regarding how you'll use it that need to be answered.

All-in-one or print-only?

Most printers these days come in two styles -- all-in-one printer/scanner combos and just plain printers. All-in-one printers are very useful if you often need to scan documents that have been signed, or if you want to be able to scan printed photos.

Those who are thinking about doing high-quality photo or slide scanning should opt for a separate printer and a specialized photo scanner. While the scanners in the all-in-one models have improved dramatically over the years, they usually can't match the high resolution, scanning speed, and retouching software that comes with a dedicated photo scanner.

There are some differences in the all-in-one printers as well. Some are designed just for printing and scanning, while others provide the ability to send and receive faxes. If you're still using the ancient technology of faxing to send documents, you'll want to look for a model that has the built-in fax modem and RJ-11 telephone port.

Photos, printouts, or both?

The next thing to think about is what you'll be printing. Photo printing is done on special coated paper that provides either a matte or gloss finish to your images, and even a low-cost photo printer can turn out fairly good printed pictures these days. On the other hand, if you do a lot of photo printing, it's going to be much less expensive in terms of consumables (ink cartridges and photo paper) to just take your images to a local drugstore or photo shop on an SD card or flash drive for printing.

A 2005 New York Times article noted that printing a 4" x 6" photo from a home printer could cost anywhere from 28¢ to 50¢ per image. Consumers in the US can go to a number of retailers and get prints in the range of 10¢ to 16¢ apiece. Prices of consumables -- the print paper and ink -- haven't dropped much, so these numbers are probably still accurate.

What are you paying for? Convenience. You can do one-off prints of favorite pictures in a minute or less. I've often been able to upload photo files to a local Walgreen's store and pick them up in about an hour, which is still pretty convenient.

Most inkjet printers will do both photo and regular printing, so if you still think that you need a printer that does a decent job of making photo hard copies, go with inkjet. Which brings us to our next topic:

Laser or inkjet?

Laser printers have dropped considerably in price over the years while capabilities have soared. In fact, a quick look at the HP website showed two black and white laser printers with a price tag of less than $100. The least expensive color laser printer is now running $149 on sale.

What's the big attraction of laser printers? Speed. Many laser printers can pop out a first page in less than ten seconds, then churn out pages at anywhere from 12 to 42 pages per minute. For the impatient folks in the crowd, that's a plus. However, inkjet printers are no longer as poky as they used to be, with print speeds up to 35 pages per minute. Once again, it's the consumables that will bite you every time.

Toner cartridges are expensive, especially for color laser printers that generally require four cartridges -- black, cyan, magenta, and hello -- to print a full range of colors. It's not uncommon to spend well over $200 for toner cartridges for a color printer, and $75 - $100 for black toner cartridges.

Inkjet printers are also quite inexpensive. HP has a low-end color inkjet printer that is available for $30. How can printer manufacturers sell printers cheaply? It's easy -- they're using the pricing model that was pioneered by razor manufacturers years ago. You basically give away the razor and then make money on the consumables -- the razor blades. In this case, the manufacturer makes a ton of money on ink (or toner) cartridges.

With that $30 printer I was referring to, you get a single black ink cartridge and a single color cartridge, good for about 165 pages of printing. When it's time to buy a new set of cartridges, you're looking at $58 -- almost twice the cost of the printer! The page yield on those replacement cartridges is about 330 (color) to 480 (black) pages, which adds up quickly.

If you do a lot of printing, I'd recommend a laser printer. The toner cartridges are more expensive, but they also last a lot longer -- usually in the range of 1,300 (color) to 2,000 (black) pages. The extra speed is also going to make you happy if you're printing big reports all of the time.

For photos or casual color printing, it's inkjet all the way.

USB or wireless?

Back in the day, every printer had a cable. Whether it was AppleTalk, Ethernet, SCSI, or (more recently) USB, you were constrained to printing from a computer that was tethered to a printer. Now many printers come with built-in Wi-Fi (or Bluetooth, rarely) connectivity so that you can print from anywhere on the network.

For those who just want to print from a desktop Mac or PC and don't mind being anchored to a printer, then USB is just fine. For those who want to print from a laptop, Wi-Fi is the way to go. And for those who want to print wirelessly from an iOS device without an intervening personal computer running something like Printopia, you want to look for an AirPrint-compatible printer.

At the present time, your choices for AirPrint-compatible printers are limited to devices from two manufacturers -- HP and Canon. HP has the most AirPrint printers, with 22 models now supporting direct printing from iOS. Canon recently added three AirPrint-compatible printers to its line and promises that future Pixma photo printers and all-in-ones will also support AirPrint.

Conclusion

There are a lot of good printers on the market. Remember when you're looking for one to use with your Mac that you should make absolutely sure that it supports Mac OS X printing. Printers from most manufacturers, including HP, Canon, Epson, and Lexmark, work very well with Mac OS X, but be sure to check older models for compatibility. If you're trying to ditch the PC or Mac and just go straight from iOS, then be sure to look for AirPrint compatible printers from HP and Canon.

Be sure to check manufacturer online stores for deals that you can't usually find in stores, and also keep an eye out on the Apple Online Store (or ask at Apple retail locations) for free or low-cost printers added to a Mac package.

Whatever printer you decided on, remember that consumables are the biggest part of the lifecycle cost of your printer. Look at the replacement toner or ink cartridge costs before you buy, and try to get a feel for the cost per page that you print.

Printers are becoming less of a necessity for computer users, so think about your needs before you choose. Don't buy one with all the bells and whistles unless you have money to burn or really need all those capabilities.

Holiday Gift Guide: Buying a printer originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 26 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Most of the bag and case manufacturers that we receive review samples from are in the US, and their products are usually sold in Apple Stores in the US as well. An established UK bag maker, Marshall Bergman, is making a splash in the UK with the Corbin canvas bag (£79.95) for iPad and/or the 11" MacBook Air. The bag will be sold at Apple Stores in the UK and a number of other European countries, so here's a close look at a top quality way to carrying your favorite Apple toys.

Design

Back in the early to mid 1990's, I carried my Newton MessagePads in a bag from Eagle Creek. The Corbin bag reminds me of a larger version of that beloved bag in both looks and functionality. It's a cross-body bag that is designed up to fit the iPad or 11" MacBook Air. The exterior of the bag is made of a water resistant canvas material, so if you're in a rainy climate you'll love the protection you get from the Corbin.

Gallery: Marshall Bergman Corbin Canvas Bag for iPad, 11" MacBook Air

Around the sides and on the bottom of the bag is a rubberized material that provides even more protection so that the bag can be placed on wet surfaces with no worries. There's a long and adjustable canvas strap for using the bag over one shoulder or cross-body, with nice brass hardware that really adds a touch of class. All of the zippers have long leather pulls attached for easy access to the main bag and pockets.

There's a large snap-closure pocket on the front of the bag with a smaller pocket inside to hold an iPhone. On the back is a zipped pocket for those items you want to keep safe. The inside compartment is padded, and has a zipped pocket, a removable key holder, a couple of pen holders, and some slip-in pockets for organization.

The Corbin canvas bag comes in two colors, black and khaki. There are also leather editions of the Corbin in brown and black at £124.95.

Functionality

Marshall Bergman says that the Corbin bag is designed for the iPad or 11" MacBook Air. Of course, that meant that I had to push the envelope and try placing both an iPad 2 and an 11" MacBook Air in the bag. Sure enough, it worked just fine with both devices -- and the iPad 2 is in a folio case.

Now you know that the Corbin bag has room to spare, but how about those other features I described earlier? There are two things that I think would improve the bag slightly. First, it would be nice to have a pad on the shoulder strap to make for more comfortable carrying, and second, there should be a Velcro flap to close over the iPhone pocket. That pocket is in a large snap-closure pocket, and it would be easy for an iPhone to slide out of both pockets.

The construction of the bag is flawless. For our European readers who aren't able to easily come bags by such great US manufacturers as Tom Bihn or Waterfield Designs, I don't think you can go wrong with the well-designed, spacious, and protective Corbin bag.

Conclusion

For our European readers who are near Apple Stores, you owe it to yourself to take a look at the Marshall Bergman Corbin bag for your iPad, 11" MacBook Air, or both. The canvas bag is affordable and is well-suited for years of protective service, and you can go with the extremely classy all-leather version if you so desire.

The Corbin bag also makes a perfect holiday gift for the gadget geek on your list, so keep it in mind if you're stumped about what to buy your favorite person.

Marshall Bergman Corbin bag for iPad and 11" MacBook Air: Review originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Time to get up, get out and do some shopping for you or your Apple-owning friends! Apple's Black Friday event has been going strong in Australia for over 12 hours and the sale has finally made its way to the US.

Similar to previous Black Friday sales, the discounts are modest. You can save:

• $41 on an iPad
• $21 on an iPod touch
• $11 on an iPod nano
• $101 on a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or an iMac
• $11 on the Magic Trackpad
• $11 on the Magic Mouse
• $11 on the Apple Wireless keyboard
• $11 on the AirPort Express
• $21 on the Time Capsule
• $21 on the AirPort Extreme
• $11 on the iPad 2 Smart Cover (Red)
• $5 on a $50 iTunes Gift card

There's also steeper discounts on non-Apple products like backpacks, cases, speakers and more. The sale is available both online and in Apple retail stores. Have fun shopping!

Apple's Black Friday sales now live in the US originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 25 Nov 2011 08:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We've mentioned Susan Kare and her work on the site before, but it's a story that's always worth repeating: She's the woman behind some of Apple's most iconic, well, icon designs. Kare was working as a curator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco when her friend Andy Hertzfeld asked her to think about some graphical icons to be used in a computer interface, and as you can see on this great PLoS blog post, she jumped right into the project. In these great images from her sketchbooks, you can see her working on the first proportionally spaced digital fonts used, and then progress up into bitmaps of both famous Mac icons like the Trash Can, the Cmd key, and the smiling Mac.

There are even some really great but not used icons like a symbol for "Auto Indent" that actually shows an automobile leaving an indentation in a tree. What amazing work. She has published a book of her work, and you can even get it signed if you buy it directly from her website.

Don't forget, too, that not only was Kare designing these icons for the Mac, but this was for the first major computer graphic interface, which means many of the standard icons we know today (the little speaker for audio controls, or the hand on screen for moving things around or even clicking through Internet links, were first originated by Kare and her peers. Really amazing stuff.

[via The Mary Sue]

Inside Susan Kare's 'iconic' sketchbooks originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Every day this week, we'll be spotlighting some major app sales on the Store, because all week long for Thanksgiving, devs everywhere are putting up their apps for discounted prices. Come get some great cheap apps!

• The beautiful Lemmings-a-like Spirits for iPhone is down to just 99 cents.
• This is a must buy: iBlast Moki 2 HD is on sale for just a buck. One of the best games of the year, for the change you've got in your couch? Yes please.
• I really wish the deck-building card game Dominion was out on iOS, but it's not yet, and until then we have Battle of Gundabad, which is also a buck today.
• All of Huaxu's games are going free during the holiday this week, including Castles Conqueror, Crystal Soul, and Crystal Dash.
• And it's not really a holiday sale until Sega gets involved -- they've got a bunch of games on sale, including Gunstar Heroes, the Streets of Rage and Super Monkey Ball games, and all of the Sonic the Hedgehog titles.
• To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Frogger, Konami has released a game called Frogger Free, featuring new content, new modes, and the same old game that you already love. I don't know how holiday-related this is, but hey, it's a free classic game -- what more do you need?

Enjoy! Stay tuned to our holiday gift guide all this week -- we'll have lots more sales to report, I'm sure.

Thanksgiving app sales: Frogger Free, iBlast Moki 2, lots more originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Online shoppers aren't just looking for tablets to buy, they are using them to do their shopping, too. The New York Times suggests that the majority of tablet owners use the device to shop, and that they prefer the shopping experience of the tablet over that of a smartphone or desktop.

Only about 8 percent of online shoppers are tablet owners, according to Forrester Research. As a result, retailers have overlooked this group of customers and focused their efforts on beefing up their websites or releasing smartphone apps instead.

The success of the iPad 2 has changed all that, and retailer Anthropologie is one of many stores taking notice of tablet users this year. The company released an iPad app right before the start of this year's busy holiday shopping season and expects it to bring in 20 percent of the store's sales within a year. This would be a significant jump from the 6 percent of sales that currently comes from iPad users browsing Anthropologie's website on the device.

Other retailers like Walmart, Saks Firth Avenue and Tea Collection (a children's clothing store) are also embracing the iPad. These retailers are using the tablet device to extend their website and offer an immersive experience. The Tea Collection, for example, is using its iPad app to let customers create outfits, share the outfits on social networks and even watch videos about how the outfits are made. It's the start of a whole new way of shopping for tech savvy customers.

[See our past coverage of catalog apps from Google, Catalog Spree & The Find.]

More retailers see catalog gold in iPad apps originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.