For a platform that regularly takes flak for not being able to multitask, it looks like iOS is way ahead of the game when it comes to quick switching between apps.

As of iOS 4.3, four and five finger gestures are being added to the software. Using them, you can easily slide back and forth between running apps, pull up the quick-switch menu, and jump back to the home screen.

Oddly they are currently locked for developer use only, but that hasn’t stopped non-developers from enabling them.

Our friends over at GottaBeMobile.com have a guide that shows you how to unlock the gestures on any iPad (original, or the new one) running iOS 4.3. Unfortunately you’ll need a Mac, and it’ll run you $5.99, but it almost looks worth it; check out the video of the gorgeously animated gestures in action:

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The gestures are certainly more quick and natural than having to double tap the home button, then tap and on-screen element to switch apps. And while they may be natural in terms of execution, they lack initial intuitiveness. Until they are taught the first time, it isn’t straight forward to try four or five finger gestures.

There’s also the question of  whether or not implementing these gestures will limit developers. In multiplayer games like Harbor Master, you can have multiple people docking ships at once. In MultiPong, four player mode requires that each player have a finger on the screen at once. It’s possible that iOS might interpret the movement of four individuals’ fingers as a single four-finger gesture, and that would really wreak havoc on the game experience if you’re defending your goal with a paddle then suddenly switching to another app!

If I had to guess, I’d say that this is why Apple hasn’t yet enabled the gesture for all. They probably need to give developers time to specifically disable such gestures in apps that would be ruined in some way if an improper four or five-finger gesture was detected.

The iPad 2 is here! Are you surprised? Probably not. Apple is quite consistent with it’s product iterations. There’s nothing mind-blowing about the iPad 2, but it’s definitely set the new bar for tablets. Here’s the low-down:

Specs:

• iOS 4.3
• 9.7 inch capacitive glass screen with oleophobic (fingerprint resistant) coating @ 1024 x 768
• Dual-core Apple A5 CPU @ 1GHz
• Enhanced GPU that Apple claims is 9x faster
• 16/32/64GB memory options
• Forward-facing camera (with FaceTime support, naturally) @ 640×480 resolution
• Rear camera for up to 720p (1280×720) video recording
• Sensors: Gyroscope, accelerometer, light sensor, digital compass
• WiFi a/b/g/n & Bluetooth 2.1
• 3G & GPS (optional)
• 25 watt-hour battery
• White or black bezel options

Dimensions & Weight (and size comparisons):

The iPad 2 is 9.5 x 7.31 x 0.34 inches or 241.2 x 185.7 x 8.8 mm. That’s right, the iPad 2 is ridiculously thin, probably the thinnest tablet on the market. It’s even more thin than the iPhone 4 (9.3 mm).

Here is the iPad 2’s size visualized against two other 10 inch tablets, and the original iPad:

The iPad 2 is also a bit lighter than the original iPad: 1.33 pounds (601g) vs. 1.5 pounds (680g). Here’s how its weight stacks up to the competition:

Weight was one of my major complaints in my iPad review, so it’s nice to see that they’ve been able to bring it down somewhat. Still, as Chippy noted on twitter earlier, they fell short of the important 1 pound mark.

Design

The design of the iPad 2 isn’t far off from the original, though they’ve reshaped it to make it much more like the latest generation of iPod Touch.

Specifically, they’ve flattened the dome shape on the back of the iPad, but still let the edges taper up to the sides of the device. This eliminates one of the surfaces, so now you’ve essentially got just a front and back with a smooth transition between, rather than individual sides. Keeping the sides rounded means you’ll be able to get your fingers under the device to pick it up, but the overall width of the iPad 2 has been reduced over the original.

Thanks to Apple’s iPad 2 video, we got to see some cool shots of the device’s insides. Check it out below:

Continue reading on page 2 (Cameras, CPU, GPU, & Battery Life, Display Mirroring & AirPlay, iOS 4.3)…

RIM has posted an official video on their BlackBerry YouTube channel and does a brief web browsing comparison with the PlayBook [tracking page] and iPad [tracking page] side-by-side. It’s good to see the PlayBook in the flesh rather than as a pre-rendered animation as it’s been seen up until now. Naturally, the BlackBerry PlayBook blows the iPad out of the water (otherwise they wouldn’t have shown it). But like a movie trailer, videos like this can make something look much better than it actually is. I’m not saying the PlayBook doesn’t appear to be performing well, but they were obviously selective about their tests. Check out the video below:

If you’ve ever wished you could check your RSS feeds in the shower or read an eBook in the bath without fear of dropping your device, this could be the super low-cost solution for you!

Use at your own risk!

Just pick up a box of watertight zipper bags and double bag your capacitive device inside. The screen works perfectly through the plastic and the bags will keep your device dry. I wouldn’t recommend sustained completely submerged browsing, but this simple solution works great in the shower, or as protection in case you were to drop your device in the bath or pool. Also make sure not to expose the device to temperatures too hot for an extended period of time.

I’ve always wished that I had waterproof speakers to listen to music in the shower, but apparently all I need is a waterproof iPhone. You could set speakers up in the bathroom, hooked up to a netbook or UMPC, then use the Remote app on your iDevice to control iTunes and remotely control the music. See the waterproof bag in action:

One of the promises of the iPad [Portal page] is that its large capacitive touch surface would be great for having multiple people interact with content on the screen. It’s taken a little while, but I’ve finally found some games for the iPad that are, not only fun, but great for more than one player on a single iPad, and I’ve had a blast playing them with friends and family — some of which are gamers, casual gamers, or not even gamers at all — yet all of them have had fun! Check them out and consider giving them a try!

Harbor Master HD

Harbor Master is a free game which tasks you with guiding ships into their proper ports to have their cargo unloaded. Once the ships are free of their cargo, you need to direct them off of the screen. The challenge is to not have any ships crash into each other. The premise is simple, but things start to get hectic and fun as more and more ships start to crowd the waters, and there is even multiple types of ships to make things more challenging.

While Harbor Master necessarily designed to be a multiplayer game, it works great as one, and if your hoping to place anywhere on the online leaderboards, you’ll likely need a few friends to help you out with your boat managing abilities. The game works great for multiple players as each player can claim a section of the map to take care of. It makes for some great teamwork too as you send your friends ships to manage while you ensure that your section of the map is copacetic. Check out this video of Harbor Master HD on the iPad in action:

MultiPong

MultiPong is an awesome little game that is clearly designed for multiple players. The game is $2.99 and supports 1-4 people on a single iPad. Think of your classic Pong, then visualize four paddles, powerups, and a dynamic play space.

The map is arranged in a square with pairs of players across from each other. There are several powerups (or sometimes powerdowns) that can be activated by hitting them with the ball:

• Long paddle – increases paddle size
• Energy paddle – zaps the ball when it hits your paddle, increasing it’s speed
• Extra Life
• Gravity – pulls the ball toward your goal for a number of seconds
• Multi ball splits the ball into two (can happen over and over again until you have a bunch of balls on the map)
• Short Paddle decreases paddle size
• Big Ball increases the size of the ball (can happen several times, until the ball becomes quite massive!)
• Reverse paddle likely the toughest of them all; reverses the direction that your paddle moves

On top of powerups, there is a dynamic play space. There are several types of bumpers, spinners, and various obstacles that will appear in the center then changed randomly. There is even an ominous storm cloud to obscure your view of the ball.

The app looks good, sounds good, and is a blast to play with friends and family! Check it out:

While demonstrating the iPad to a family member the other night, and explaining the advantages/disadvantages of it when compared to a regular computer, an interesting thought popped into my head, and I’d like to hear your opinion on it.

At $499 each, which would you rather buy, and why? Let us know in the comments section.

Apple iPad:

• Apple iPhone OS variant
• 9.7 inch screen @ 1024×768
• 16GB storage
• WiFi
• Touchscreen
• On screen keyboard
• 10 hour battery life

-or-

HP Mini 311:

• Windows 7
• 11 inch screen @ 1366×768
• 160GB Storage
• WiFi
• Full keyboard
• 5 and 1/2 hour battery life

I was really surprised that Apple didn’t do anything “magical” or “revolutionary” with the iPad’s [Portal page] on-screen-keyboard. The iPhone’s was definitely revolutionary because it was probably the first truly viable OSK – thanks to some intelligent software design and a capacitive screen instead of a resistive one. The iPad’s keyboard has that same inteiilgent software design, and a nice big capacitive screen. The problem is the big part. The iPad’s keyboard works well, but it really only works well if you can set it down on a desk in front of you so that you can touch type on it. If you are walking around with it in your hands, it works quite poorly for thumb typing. This fact alone makes the iPad annoying to use for typing if you don’t have something to set it down on.

Even since I got the iPad in my hands, I’ve been wishing for a Dial Keys-style keyboard implementation. Dial Keys, if you’ll recall, is a piece of Windows based software that was designed for touchscreen UMPCs. Dial Keys places a split radial keyboard at the corners of the device, which puts keys right in the range of one’s thumbs. If Apple allowed developers to modify the keyboard on the device, I’m sure we would have already seen something similar.

I made some mockup graphics to put on the iPad just to see what Dial Keys on the iPad would look like:

There’s been quite a bit of debate, since the release of the iPad [Product page][review], over whether or not it can function as a full computer replacement. I don’t believe that anyone can seriously say that the iPad could work as a full computer replacement for someone who would consider themselves a mobile professional — there are simply too many things that the iPad either doesn’t do, or doesn’t do well enough, for that. There has been, however, some reasonably logical arguments asserting that the iPad could replace a computer for those who don’t need more functionality than that provided by a netbook. Despite the number of ways that this point could be argued — varying usage scenarios, external media support (or lack there of), apps filling/not filling needs, etc. — there is one explicit fact that can’t be argued around: An x86 computer (be it OSX or Windows based) is required to set up, update, and otherwise support the iPad.

As simple as the iPad may be to use, someone can’t walk into an Apple store, walk out with an iPad, power it on, and just go. The iPad has to be plugged into a computer with an appropriate version of iTunes installed and synced first in order to function. I wonder if any adventurous non-computer owners have gone into an Apple store to purchase an iPad only to find out at home that they can’t actually use the device unless they own computer. It’s sort of weird to think that owning a Mac or PC is actually one of the minimum requirements for using an iPad.

It might sound far fetched to think that someone who doesn’t own a computer would go out an buy an iPad. But is it really? I know several people who own cell phones and don’t own a computer. Is a 3G equipped iPad really that much different? I can tell you that not one of the people I know who own cell phones (without owning a computer) expected to have to own a computer in order to operate their phone. With the iPad, that assumption would lead to some issues.

Even though one can create an iTunes store account directly on the iPad — enabling one to download media and apps — the iPad will always have to fall back on a good old fashioned computer in the long hall. At this point, besides the ability to update apps in a standalone fashion, the iPad cannot update over the air; it has to be plugged into a computer in order to update, if and when Apple releases new firmware.

There is nothing about the iPad itself that makes it impossible to be free of the clutches of a good old fashioned computer; Apple simply hasn’t set things up in that manner. Apple could rectify this issue by offering to activate the iPad in the store before the customer leaves, but they’d also have to do in-store updates for computerless customers, which seems a bit far fetched. Apple could change their update schema to allow for self-updating of the iPad so that it could update itself without the aid of a computer. While they’re at it, they could remove “ownership of a PC or Mac” from the iPad’s minimum requirement list so that users can pull it out of the box and start iPadding without an initial computer sync. Once these technical requirements are out of the way, people can go back to arguing whether or not the iPad is a computer replacement based on needs rather than having the iPad indisputably stuck with the proverbial ball and chain, that some people will tell you, an old fashioned computer is.

Then again, Apple has never quite positioned the iPad as a standalone computer replacement to begin with, which is an important consideration to make. They’ve compared the device to netbooks — saying that the iPad can do things much better — which may have been the reason we’ve seen so many arguments for or against that particular point. In the end, the iPad’s reliance on a full fledged computer is likely by-design: Apple doesn’t want people to buy the iPad instead of a computer, they want people to buy it in addition to a computer. They simply try to position the iPad as a better secondary computing device than a netbook, while still requiring a full computer for setup and updates, despite the fact that they could allow the iPad to function all by itself.