HOUR 1:
Gaylord in Detroit, Michigan listening on
CKLW 800 AM asked: “I’m at Apple’s website and I’m trying to figure out whether to buy a refurbished iPad with WiFi, 16GB first generation for $349 or spring for the iPad 2 for $499. Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated.”
We’ve said this several times before on the show: you can’t go wrong with refurbished products from Apple. They guarantee them for a year and usually appear to be new! Dave has had an iPad 2 since Day 1 thanks to our resident iDork (Rob) and loves it. It was a nice upgrade from the first iPad.
That being said, the real question here is whether the iPad 2 is worth $150 more than the iPad. Let’s look at the differences, shall we? The iPad 2 is thinner and lighter than the iPad. The 2 is almost half the thickness of the original, and it’s about 10 grams lighter. Now we’ve handled both models, and the difference feels greater than it actually is. The iPad 2 feels svelte compared with the original.
It’s faster too, with a dual core processor vs. the original’s single core. While a lot of people will say the original one feels just as fast, that’s not likely to remain true as more apps come out that take advantage of the dual core CPU. Getting an iPad 2 is future-proofing, for at least a year or so. That’s about all the future you can get, in consumer technology.
The screen and storage are unchanged, but the internal memory for running apps has been increased from 256MB to 512MB. This means smoother and better multitasking, among other things.
Then we have the “all new” stuff. The iPad 2 has front and rear cameras. Video chatting isn’t just possible, it’s easy. The iPad 2 has a gyroscope, which some apps will take advantage of soon, if they’re not already out. And the iPad 2 has what is probably the world’s most clever and useful screen cover, with its row of magic magnets that slide it into place.
Seriously, doesn’t that sound like it’s worth $150 more? So while we have nothing but good things to say about Apple’s refurbished units, $349 for an original iPad is, in our opinion, too close to the iPad 2‘s price. If someone offered an original iPad for $99 or maybe $149, then you’d have to give it serious thought.
We hope that helps you out.
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
The “Into Tomorrow” team discussed the latest apps that they
have been playing with recently.
For Android:
• Dave recommends: Calorific, Free
“Rob and I have been hitting the Gym and working with a Personal Trainer lately. I found an easy diet app that’s been helping me lose some initial weight and hopefully keep it off with their diet tracker. It’s called CALORIFIC and they help you make healthier decisions about what to eat and drink, then record it all with just 2 clicks. Others I’ve tried are such a pain to use and I hate trying to count calories. I just won’t do it. With this one, they help you follow suggested food categories (green for good, yellow for okay, red for bad — which to me really means “good” i.e. deserts!), and it helps you try to improve your star rating. Time to make healthy eating a habit! Free and it’s called CALORIFIC for Android.” – Dave
• Mark recommends: Chuzzle, $2.99
“This terrific game from Pop-Cap was just launched for the Android (and now it’s on the iPhone also) and it sells for $2.99. However, it was the FREE APP OF THE DAY on Amazon’s Appstore. You DO check Amazon’s Appstore every day to see what the free deal is, right? Anyway…Chuzzle. It’s a game where you match three furry little puffballs to make them disappear. It’s simple to play and addicting as hell. I’ve spent a few hours (okay, a LOT of hours) playing it on a PC, and now it’s in my pocket. This game is easier and less frustrating than Angry Birds, and more colorful and engaging than solitaire. It’s a bargain at $2.99 (I think the iPhone version might be more). Right now, it’s available only through Amazon’s Appstore, so you’ll need to download THAT app, first. As you might expect, Google doesn’t allow the competition into their Android Market, so to get the Amazon Appstore, you’ll want to browse from your computer to amazon.com/appstore and enter your mobile phone number. Chuzzle, from Pop-Cap, it’s my app of the week and you’re not allowed to blame ME when you get totally addicted.” – Mark
• Listener Letasha in Collierville, Tennessee listening on WKIM 98.9 recommends: Prognosis: Your Diagnosis, Free
“I’m just calling in to share one of my favorite applications that I use on my Droid and it is called Prognosis. It’s really geared toward medical students, maybe even first year medical students or nurse practitioners, but it’d be great too for nursing students, to learn some prognosis and diagnosis. It gives you these nice little case studies that you have to follow and say what you would do on examination and what would be your plan of care, so pretty cool app.”
Thank you Letasha! Share your favorite app with us by calling 1-800-899-INTO, or by clicking here
For iOS:
• Rob recommends: ABCs of Boobs, Free
“Ok, I know you’re thinking I’m a pervert. But, this is a VERY informative app! It’s not a time-waster. I’ve shared several facts from this app on Facebook & Twitter. Some interesting facts I’ve learned via this app:
– Did you know that about 2 million women in the United States have breast implants?
– Breastfeeding can help you lose weight.
– Breasts contain no muscle tissue, so there’s no exercise that can change their shape.
– Breasts don’t stop growing until your early 20s.
– Cleavage is not determined by breast size.”
• Chris recommends: BeatBurn Treadmill/Outdoor Trainer, $3.99
“BeatBurn app is made for runners and walkers, and can offer you some motivation during your workout. BeatBurn chooses music from your playlist to match the beat of your feet by using what they call beat snyc technology. Beat-sync analyzes the tempo of your music (in BPM, or beats per minute) and then selects the best songs to fit the intensity of your workout. You can complete a profile and BeatBurn will design the perfect program for you based on the goals you set. The app even senses when you need to kick it up a gear to fulfill your goals, offering motivational pep talks through an integrated human voice to get you back on pace. You can adjust your workout at any time and have the ability to turn off the personal trainer in your ear at any time. You can track your progress — distance covered and how many calories burned– and share your progress on Facebook or Twitter.”
Tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast for more details.
What are your favorite apps?Let us know!
Guest in this hour:
Robin Raskin, Founder and President – Living in Digital Times
Would you risk your life to protect your cell phone? Our next guest did and shares her unbelievable story.
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Here are some of the answers that we got:
• John in Fairbanks, Alaska listening on KFBX 970 AM called in and said: “I would take out my gun and shoot him. If that was not a choice, I would give up the phone and get another one since they are so cheap.” • Philip said: I would shoot him 😉 I would give him a chance to leave me alone. • Jay said: As a former cop and one who always carries a gun – legally – I would be happy to shoot the bastard. This sort of therapy teaches criminals not to behave in this manner. • Wayne said: 1st, get the GPS option. 2nd, give up the cell phone. 3rd, have the cops track the thief in real time. 4th, bust them. 5th, make them pay your monthly bill? • Trevor said: I always carry a pistol with me. I don’t think he would be stupid enough to try anything looking down the barrel of a 45, but you never know. I would think that he would think his life is worth more than a cell phone. • Jorge said: Totally let it go. You can remote wipe an iPhone, with cloud based computing all your docs, pics, contacts, etc. Should be on a cloud anyways. Not worth losing your life. |
Craig in Moreno Valley, California asked: “Hi Dave, I’ve been listening for about four months now, love you guys’ show. I called last time and asked about the battery life of an iPhone. I was thinking about changing from Android, no way … I’m not gonna do that, I’m an Android. This week I’d like to know about SSD drives. I have an old Dell computer that’s about 4 years old and everything works, but I think I’d like to pep it up with an SSD drive. Just worried about reliability of those things these days. They are pretty expensive still, so I was wondering what you guys think about that.”
SSD drives are proving to be just as reliable as regular hard drives, which is a good thing given how much they cost. I’m using a brand new S-series Sony Vaio Laptop with SSD and I love it! There are some good news and bad news about your 4-year old Dell, however. And it has to do with the SATA interface that connects your hard drive to the computer’s main board.
The good news is, that machine only has a 3 gigabit-per-second SATA interface. This means you can use the less expensive drives from companies like Intel and Crucial, who sell a 120GB SSD for $240 and $220, respectively. That’s a bit cheaper than the top of the line models.
And that brings us to the bad news. Well, maybe it’s good news of a sort. You see, the fastest SSDs on the market right now are the OCZ Technology Vertex 3 models, but you really need a modern 6 gigabit-per-second SATA interface to take advantage of the drive’s speed. That’s bad, for older computers. What’s good, though, is that the 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD is only about $280. So while you could save money now by purchasing the cheaper and slower drives, and not notice it, you could also spent just a few dollars more and get the fastest drive, making your SSD better if you should upgrade your computer in the future.
Of course, as with any technology, if you wait a couple more years, they’ll have something completely new available, and you’d probably want that anyway. But we commend you on your choice to buy an SSD. It will make a gigantic speed boost for your computer. You’ll love it.
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
iolo: Several copies of System Mechanic – Fix & speed-up your PC, Automatically
iLuv: Several iSP110 Mini Portable Stereo Speakers (in a variety of colors)
Microsoft: Copies of Street & Trips Software with GPS receiver
VSO Software: Copies of Convert-X-to-DVD 4 – Lets you convert videos to DVD and watch on any DVD player.