Marco Ament, the developer of Instapaper, discusses a critical problem with iOS 5 that will affect any application that stores its own content—including e-book readers. It has to do with iOS 5’s iCloud backup system. Apple wants to reduce the amount of data that has to go out over wifi, and is asking developers not to store such data in Documents folders within the app itself that would get automatically backed up. Instead: Data that can be downloaded again or regenerated should be stored in the <Application_Home>/Library/Caches directory. Examples of files you should put in the...

Our sister blog Gadgetell reports that Samsung has started to sell the Galaxy Player 4.0 and 5.0 directly through its website, for $229.99 and $269.99 respectively. Both devices have similar specs: 800 x 480 resolution on 4” or 5” screens (just a bit less than the current iPod Touch’s 960 x 640 at 3.5”, but certainly better than its prior 480 x 320), 8 GB internal memory with a microSD card slot for expansion, front-facing camera and 3.2 megapixel rear camera (compare that to the iPod Touch’s 1 MP camera), Bluetooth 3.0, 802.11 b/g/n wifi, and Android Market access. They...

CNet reports on some great deals Apple is currently offering on its first-generation refurbished iPads. For $399 you can get either a Wi-Fi + 3G 32GB model, or a Wi-Fi-only 64GB model. For $499 you can get a Wi-Fi + 3G 64GB model. Not a bad deal at all for those who don’t mind a few extra ounces and the lack of a camera. They will run the new iOS 5. Alas, Apple doesn’t have much to offer in the way of refurbished iPod Touches right now. It does have a 64 GB 2009 (3rd-generation) model for $249. Lots...

From an e-reader point of view, the Apple event today was a bit of a disappointment. The iPad is the best-selling tablet ever? We already knew that. One bright spot is that the entry-level iPod Touch price will drop by $30 to $199, basically equivalent to the price of the Kindle Fire which it outspecs in a few ways (camera, microphone, motion sensor, etc.). I wonder whether the new iPods are enough of a change from the old that the old will get an additional refurbishment discount when they launch. I wouldn’t mind having one of those retina display screens…...

Ten years ago, the original iPod came out, changing Apple inexorably from a snooty little computer company whose best days were seemingly long behind it to one of the greatest powerhouses of the consumer electronics industry. Today it seems likely Apple is going to kill off the last vestige of that original hard-drive-and-music-player-only device. Yesterday Gizmodo took a look at some of the complaints and erroneous predictions of low sales surrounding the original device, and pointed out a CNet review by Elliot Van Buskirk predicting that descendants of the iPod might replace the PC. The funny thing is,...

Wired’s Gadget Lab takes a look at the history of 7” tablets, and why Steve Jobs has been extremely dismissive of the idea. To Jobs, a 7” tablet is too small to accomplish anything worthwhile, and many would see the form factor as little more than a smartphone that’s too big to picket, too small to do much. But the fact that Apple is staying away from that market niche has been allowing others to exploit it without fear of competition—in particular, the Nook Color and now the Kindle Fire. They’re being marketed as media consumption devices rather than...

Lest we forget, there’s one more e-reading-related company whose name starts with “A” that is about to make major product announcements in the next week or so. Apple’s iPhone and iPod show is coming up, and rumor has it that Apple will be killing off the iPod Classic and Shuffle lines altogether this year. Ars Technica looks at the rumor and finds the reasoning behind it sound. Thanks to the emergence of cloud-based services, there is no longer as much need to carry a 160GB hard drive full of music around in your pocket. ...

Just as Amazon did last year when it introduced the new third-generation Kindle, it is renaming its existing models and putting them on sale. The “Kindle Keyboard” and ”Kindle Keyboard 3G” have been marked down $15 to $99/$139 for the wifi-only version and $139/$189 for the 3G version (prices are with/without “special offers”). The wifi keyboard version is priced exactly the same as the new Touch wifi version, and the 3G keyboard version is only $10 less than the 3G Touch (or the same without ads). Given that you can order a $79 ad-supported Kindle right now, it’s...

The next Apple event is set to take place on October 4th, and the invitation going out to journalists is captioned, “Let’s talk iPhone”. This caption has led to speculation on the part of tech journalists that the new iPhone will include advanced voice-recognition features that have been in the offing since Apple bought Siri 18 months ago. They also speculate that Apple will just be introducing only one new phone—and not the rumored “low-end iPhone” that some investors have been expecting. Rather than a new low-end model, Apple can just continue to keep last year’s iPhone around as...

Saturday afternoon, I started feeling abdominal pain. I thought it was just food poisoning or the stomach flu, but when it didn’t improve by Sunday afternoon I went down to the local urgent care center and learned that it was, in fact, appendicitis. They operated right away, removing the no-longer-necessary appendage from my body through laparoscopy, and sent me home to stay with my parents on Monday morning. During the operation process, a few more things about the iPod Touch vs. the iPad for e-reading were brought home to me. While I was waiting for the verdict from...

A while ago I wrote about the paucity of Android equivalents to the iPod Touch, and suggested that Samsung’s Galaxy Player might be such an equivalent. Shawn Ingram at our sister blog Gadgetell has just gotten its hands on the Galaxy Player 4.0 and 5.0, and also the Galaxy Tab 8.9, and has posted some first impressions. In fact, first impressions are just about all it has of the two Players. (Ingram got his hands on a review unit of the Tab 8.9, and will review it more fully later, but apparently not for the Players.) It does note...

On CNet, Donald Ball surveys a number of suggestions for what Apple can do to improve the iPod Touch, Apple’s “forgotten” iOS product. I’ve long held that the iPod Touch is Apple’s true “game-changer”. Maybe it doesn’t get as much press as the flashier iPhone and iPad, but it’s essentially a phoneless iPhone, containing most of the desirable features without the obnoxiously expensive contract. I have an 8GB 1st-gen iPod Touch that continues to be very useful for many purposes—I can whip it out to check my email anywhere there’s wifi, even if I don’t have my laptop or iPad on me,...