Apple begins accepting preorders for the iPad today. I know you are jittery with anticipation, but before you go place your order, please consider these 5 questions that will help you make an informed purchasing decision:

1. Can the iPad replace my personal computer? In researching the iPad, I have seen several comments on blogs from people who say they plan to scrap their laptop and use their iPad for all their computing needs. So can the iPad take the place of your personal computer?

   It depends. The iPad can browse the web, it can view and produce documents, and it can store photos and other multimedia. Yet there are some things your computer can do that your iPad cannot. The iPad cannot:

   • Accept USB connections. Since there is no USB port on the iPad, you can forget about plugging in certain devices, like an external harddrive or a printer. There will, however, be accessories for connecting some devices. For example, to connect your camera to the iPad, you will have to purchase a camera connection kit that is essentially a limited USB port. Of course, they could have cheaply and easily built this feature into the iPad, but in typical Apple fashion they are charging you for the accessory instead.
   • Create or edit video. While most people are perfectly fine with this limitation, if you use a web cam or produce movies on your computer, then the iPad will be unsuitable as a primary computer.
   • View Flash content on the web. Certain web sites are built with Flash, which is unsupported by the iPhone and the iPad, to the disappointment of many. Some of these sites, like Hulu, may develop apps that allow you to view their content on the iPad, but the lack of Flash support on other sites may be a nuisance.
   • Open non-Apple multimedia. Sure, you can buy music from iTunes, applications from the App Store, and books from the iBookstore; but if you want to open and save an mp3 file from the browser, a windows media file or some other non-Apple-sanctioned file type, then you may be out of luck.

   If you only use a computer for basic needs and you don’t consider the limitations above limitations at all, then perhaps the iPad can replace your personal computer.

2. Am I willing to carry around another device? If the iPad cannot replace your laptop, are you willing to tow around another device when you leave home? Sure, the iPad is thin and light, but if you’re already carrying around an iPhone and a laptop, are you okay with adding another valuable to your baggage?
3. Will the LCD display be hard on my eyes for book reading? The most-touted advantage of Amazon’s Kindle eBook reader is its e-ink display, a matte screen with no brightness or glare. E-ink is said to be easier on the eyes than an LCD display. If the iBookstore is the main reason you’re buying an iPad, ask yourself whether your eyes can tolerate staring at an LCD screen for hours. Personally, I am so used to spending hours in front of my computer that I imagine reading a book on the iPad would not strain my eyes anymore than I’m used to. But some eBook enthusiasts might find that the Kindle’s e-ink display is a better fit.
4. Am I willing to pay more (up front and per month) for 3G service? The iPad ships with Wi-Fi on April 3, and another version will ship with 3G capabilities later that month. If you’re always on the go and you plan to take your iPad with you, you may be considering a 3G iPad. So will you be able to tether your iPhone to your iPad and use your 3G service on both devices? Steve Jobs answered this question quite clearly: “No.” That means you are going to have to add $15 or $30 (depending on your usage) to your monthly expenses if you purchase a 3G iPad. That’s in addition to the higher cost of the 3G iPad itself. You can see the iPad pricing structure on the Apple site.
5. Will I be able to sync apps between my iPhone and iPad? We already know that more than 150,000 apps from the App Store will be usable on the iPad, but if you have already purchased apps on your iPhone, will you be able to use them on the iPad as well without having to repurchase?

   Songs you purchase in iTunes can sync across five devices, so I would imagine the same would go for apps. Also, when you download an app, the purchase is stored in your iTunes account so that if you delete it, you can redownload it without having to pay again. Hopefully your purchase history will follow you to the iPad, though this question remains unanswered as of this writing.

So will you buy an iPad in addition to your iPhone? What are some other questions to consider before buying an iPad? I would love to hear your opinion in the comments.

5 Questions to Consider Before Buying an iPad is a post from Apple iPhone Review.

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I have too many things to deal with in my real life that I don’t want to have to worry about the tasks and stresses of some RPG character, too! Give me a simple game that I can play to take my mind off things every now and then, and I am a happy camper.

Here are seven simple and sweet iPhone apps that satisfy my small, but gnawing appetite for games.

1. Sheep Launcher!

   How to Play: Keep the baby propelling upwards through the air by tapping it when it starts coming down. If you miss, game over. High altitude = high score.

   

2. FallDown!

   How to Play: Tilt your iPhone left and right to keep the red ball falling towards the ground. You must hurry or you’ll be crushed between the floor and the ceiling! You can pick up tokens along the way to accumulate points, stop the movement, or speed up the ball.

   

3. Falling Balls

   How to Play: Tilt your iPhone left and right to force the stick figure man to run away from balls that are falling from the ceiling. If you’re feeling daring, play in the more challenging Ninja mode.

   

4. Paper Toss

   How to Play: Flick the wad of paper into the trash can as many consecutive times as possible, keeping in mind the office fan that’s blowing wind across your path. Read more in my original Paper Toss review.

   

5. PAC-MAN

   How to Play: Do I really need to explain? Your goal in this classic arcade game is to guide the yellow Pac-Man through the maze, collecting little dot thingies while you avoid the evil ghouls. Get it?

   

6. Skee-Ball

   How to Play: Roll the balls into the holes. Seven balls, seven holes. The farther away a hole is, the more points it’s worth. Extra points for getting the ball in a hole that’s flashing yellow.

   

7. Touch Hockey

   How to Play: Just like a classic, real-life air hockey table, your goal in this iPhone game is to get the puck into your opponent’s goal. You can play against a computer or against a friend.

   

Do you play games on your iPhone or iPod Touch? What are your favorite games in the App Store? Let me know your opinion in the comments.

7 Simple, Yet Sweet Games in the App Store is a post from Apple iPhone Review.

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So, here’s the updated video and link: Sign the Petition for an Open App Store on the iPhone OS

Sorry if any of this caused you frustration. As always, thanks for reading, commenting and sharing.

Chris

We’re back. Sorry for the downtime. is a post from Apple iPhone Review.

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Apple has removed countless apps from the App Store. Satire, sensuality and simplicity have all been purged from the listings at one time or another. The App Store is a walled garden that is becoming increasingly difficult to penetrate. But it doesn’t have to be this way!

Join the Movement

Would you like to help improve the iPhone? Sign the petition below to let Apple know you want an App Store free of arbitrary rules and regulations.

(If you don’t see the petition below, go here to sign it directly.)

Do you agree with Apple’s heavy-handed approach to App Store regulation? Or do you want a more open App Store? Feel free to add your two cents to the comments.

Sign the Petition for an Open App Store on iPhone [Video] is a post from Apple iPhone Review.

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Bryan writes:

I have a new iPhone and am on my first international trip with it. Works fine EXCEPT i am unable to find a way to prevent it from downloading e-mail attachments along with the e-mail message. I have gobbled up 180mb of data time (@ 5$/mb, minus what i get deducted when i spend more on larger data packages) and cannot find anybody anywhere (including iMac stores, web search, etc.) who can help me with this problem. My old Blackberry would receive e-mails but would not download the message until i told it to. Several people (including the Apple store) says the default mode is to download the e-mail but NOT the attachment. As i am down over $200 in wasted data fees and still have 2 more weeks and 4 more countries on my itinerary, this is not working out too well for me.

Thanks for any ideas you may have. Bryan

I was curious about this, so I went into the Mail app to check my email and I browsed through all my messages that have attachments. Apparently, when a message has an attachment that is around 100 kilobytes (KB) or less, iPhone will load the attachment automatically. If it is over 100 KB (or so), it will not load unless you tap on it.

Now, with an unlimited data plan, it doesn’t matter whether a file is 10 kilobytes or 1 Megabyte (a hundred times larger), because it costs you the same. But say you are an AT&T customer traveling in Europe, a single kilobyte will cost you $0.0195 (according to AT&T). That means a 100 KB attachment that loads automatically will cost you $1.95, even if you didn’t intend to open it.

This could be a serious impediment for international customers who deal with lots of documents, as checking a day’s worth of email abroad could cost you a lot in wasted attachments. But to rack up hundreds in data charges for attachments, you would have to be opening hundreds of emails with attachments. For example, to reach $100 in data charges from email attachments alone, you would have to open 50 emails that contained 100 KB attachments — assuming we are going by the $0.0195/KB rate. If an email has attachments upwards of 125 KB or so, they will not load automatically.

Upon looking into the Settings in my iPhone, I found no way to prevent attachments from loading in emails. However, if you’re an international customer, you can save money by preventing Mail from loading embedded images — in Settings >> Mail, Contacts, Calendars, toggle “Load Remote Images” to OFF.

If you know how to read emails without loading the attachments, please help Bryan and others resolve this issue by suggesting a solution in the comments.

If you have your own question, contact me. I can’t publish every question, but I will do my best to read and respond to yours.

Can I Prevent Mail from Loading Attachments While Abroad? [iPhone Q & A] is a post from Apple iPhone Review.

1. Because who defines what’s too sexy and what’s acceptable? For example, Wobble, a humorous app which contains no photos whatsoever but lets you import your own photos on which to create a “wobble effect,” should not have been banned. Is it silly? Yes. Is it immoral? No. Just because a few prude moms make phone calls to Apple and complain does not make these apps unethical or obscene.
2. Because giving developers the opportunity to create apps and then removing them from the App Store without warning is a slap in the face to those who are making an honest living in the App Store. Don’t get me wrong. I know the Wobble app and those bikini babe slideshow apps are not the classiest apps in the App Store, but Apple permitted them and then on a whim decided to pull the rug out from under its developers and remove them from the App Store. People were making an income off of these apps, and Apple robbed them of their businesses because it insists on being the moral police.
3. Because although I don’t care for useless bikini apps, banning them opens the door to other app bans based on shaky moral grounds. What’s next: Banning apps that are critical of religion? Banning violent games? Banning controversial books?
4. Because although the “boobs” apps littering every category of the App Store were certainly annoying, the problem could have been easily remedied by setting a Parental Control for Adult apps. Simply set these so-called inappropriate apps aside in their own category, and restrict access to that category for users who are 18 and up.
5. Because Apple makes money off these sexy apps. The Wobble app alone made $500 a day in the App Store, half of which went to Apple. Why lose out on this income stream for no good reason?
6. Because the Android App Market doesn’t ban adult apps, and some iPhone users who are offended by Apple’s iron fist may someday migrate over to a Google phone.
7. Because there is no way to remain consistent when thousands of apps are submitted to the App Store each day. Banning the game Daisy Mae’s Alien Buffet because its main character wore a bikini, but permitting the Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition app and the Playboy app is downright irrational and only exposes Apple for the hypocrites they are.
8. Because many iPhone users are legal adults and can decide for themselves what content to download or not to download. Apple, I am not a child, and you are not my Mom or Dad.

8 Reasons Why Apple’s Ban on Sexy Apps is a Bad Idea [Video] is a post from Apple iPhone Review.

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As you may have heard, Apple has imposed yet more restrictions on the App Store, this time vowing to ban apps that feature swimsuits, skin and even mere sexual innuendo.

They even removed a game because the main character (read: cartoon) wore a skimpy outfit.

The App Store changes are due to customer complaints from a vocal minority of people embarked on a crusade to rid the world of the slightest titillation because, well, “think of the children!” Here’s a letter to Apple from one of these censorship-minded Puritans. Let’s hope these folks don’t have their way or the iPhone is going to become rather… unstimulating:

Dear Apple & Mr. Jobs,

P.S. Oh, and those sexy rounded edges on the iPhone body… please fix that too.

My opinion (video)

What do you think?

What do you think of Prudence’s letter above? Should Apple take more care to protect children from the leagues of inappropriate material they can access on the iPhone? I welcome your opinion in the comments.

Update: Commenter reinharden thinks Prudence does not go far enough in her call for app bans:

As lust for money is the root of all evil, the stock app should be removed as well.

If the map app is removed so as to not pollute the minds of the young with notions of faraway places, similarly the clock app should be modified so as to only show the time at the current location. And the weather app should only show the local weather.

And frankly I’m not sure how I feel about all this touching…especially when combined with all that pinching and zooming. It’s all too sensual and likely overly stimulating for young minds (and hands!).

What the iPhone Will Look Like When the Puritans Win [SATIRE] is a post from Apple iPhone Review.

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Apple today introduced the iPad, a device CEO Steve Jobs heralds as the middle-ground between a laptop and a smartphone. Based on the announcements so far, it looks like the iPad is a lot like a giant iPhone, minus the phone.

Here is a comparison of the iPad vs the iPhone. I will update this page as new details become available.

iPad vs iPhone: How do they compare?

Display: The iPad has a 9.7-inch (diagonal) Multi-Touch display, compared to iPhone’s 3.5-inch screen.

Apps: The iPad will run iPhone apps from the App Store, but Apple has also debuted a Software Development Kit for iPad-specific apps.

Typing: Just like iPhone, the iPad features a virtual keyboard. Steve Jobs demonstrated the keyboard by placing the iPad on his lap and typing. Jobs says the keyboard is “a dream to type on,” but I have my doubts. Imagine typing a long document with no physical keyboard. If you own an iPhone, you know how challenging this would be. Luckily, Apple is also introducing a keyboard dock for the iPad.

Multitasking: The iPad does not support multitasking — running multiple apps at once — and neither does the iPhone. There is some speculation that Apple will introduce multitasking for iPhone soon.

Camera: Unfortunately, the iPad does NOT have a camera, while the iPhone has a camera, and the iPhone 3GS has a video camera.

Flash: Unbelievably, iPad does not have Flash support, and neither does iPhone.

Speed: The iPad sports a 1 GHZ processor, compared to iPhone’s 600 MHZ.

eBooks: Apple has introduced an eBook store for the iPad called… you guessed it… iBooks. iBooks will be available on both the iPad and iPhone via the App Store. You will presumably also be able to use the Kindle app for iPhone on the iPad. Could the iPad be a Kindle killer?

iWork: Jobs said he always wanted to include iWork, Apple’s Microsoft Office-equivalent, on the iPhone, but it just wasn’t practical. iWork is present on the iPad, though not on the iPhone.

Capacity: The iPad will be available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities. iPhone is currently available in 16GB and 32GB.

Wi-Fi: Both the iPad and the iPhone can pick up a Wi-Fi signal.

3G: iPad will be available with 3G, though you can also get an iPad without 3G for a lower price. The iPad’s 3G signal will be provided by AT&T, though unlike the iPhone, a contract will not be required and you can cancel any time.

Price:

The iPad pricing is as follows:

iPhone price varies depending on whether you buy the 3G or 3GS and whether you are starting a new contract with AT&T or upgrading. See the Apple Store for details.

iPad Video Demo

Check out Apple’s video demo of the iPad:

iPad vs iPhone: What do you think?

Is the iPad a revolution in computing? Or is iPhone good enough? Let me know what you think of Apple’s new iPad in the comments.

iPad vs iPhone is a post from Apple iPhone Review.

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When I asked my readers what iPhone improvements they wanted to see in 2010, lots said better battery life was among their iPhone wishes. Understandable. My fully-charged iPhone battery rarely makes it through the day.

But the problem is not that the iPhone has a weak battery, it’s that when you’re constantly browsing the web; checking Mail, Twitter and Facebook; and running iPhone app after iPhone app, OF COURSE you’re going to drain the battery.

If you want to run the most powerful mobile device on the market, you’re going to have to accept a heavy toll on your battery life. You can’t have it all.

Nevertheless, there are things you can do to conserve your iPhone battery life. Here are 7 ways to make your iPhone battery last a little bit longer. Some of these solutions may prevent you from using your iPhone to its full potential, but all are great for those times when you are running low on battery and you want to make sure your iPhone makes it through the day.

1. Turn OFF the “Ask to Join Networks” feature. By constantly searching for a nearby Wi-Fi network, iPhone places a heavy burden on your battery. You can tell it not to look for available networks by turning OFF “Ask to Join Networks” in Settings under Wi-Fi. You will still be able to join available Wi-Fi networks manually.
   
2. Lower the screen brightness. The lower the brightness, the lower the demand on your battery. To lower the iPhone’s screen brightness, go to Settings >> Brightness.
   
3. Turn off Notifications. If you have enabled Notifications, your iPhone is constantly searching for updates from certain apps. For example, Facebook notifies me when someone posts on my wall, Twitter notifies me when someone mentions me, and the Words With Friends game notifies me when it is my move. Turning off notifications under Settings >> Notifications will save you lots of battery.
   
4. Turn off the data Push and Fetch features. Under Settings >> Mail, Contacts, Calendars, the Push and Fetch features instantly send new data to your iPhone (Push) and search for it at periodic intervals (Fetch). For example, Google Calendars pushes new calendar items I’ve added from my computer onto my iPhone instantly, and the iPhone’s Mail app can be set to fetch new mail every 15, 30 or 60 minutes. Turning off Push and setting Fetch to “Manually” will save you some precious battery life.

   

5. Shorten the Auto-Lock time. You can set your iPhone display to turn off after 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 minutes of inactivity, or to never turn off. By having your display auto-lock after 1 minute, you are ensuring that your display is off more often and thus using less battery. Go to Settings >> General >> Auto-Lock to set your preferred auto-lock time.

   

6. Disable 3G. 3G uses more battery than Wi-Fi or EDGE, so if you can afford to turn it off in times of low battery, using EDGE or Wi-Fi instead will prolong your charge. To disable 3G, go to Settings >> General >> Network and toggle the button to the OFF position.
   
7. Enable Airplane Mode. Enabling Airplane Mode in Settings will disable all network connections, including your cellular signal, 3G, EDGE and Wi-Fi. It is a drastic move, but if you’re low on battery and all you want to do is listen to some music or use an app that doesn’t require an Internet connection, then Airplane Mode is a good idea.
   

My prediction is that iPhone’s battery will always seem “weak,” no matter how hard Apple tries to improve it. They will introduce the next iPhone and it will no doubt sport a better battery, but it will also feature powerful new capabilities that will drain that battery. Did you really think you could run those killer augmented reality apps without killing your battery life? But the tips noted above will help you conserve battery life when you need it the most.

How do you conserve your iPhone’s battery life?

7 Tips to Conserve iPhone Battery Life is a post from Apple iPhone Review.

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By now, I am sure you have heard of the tragic earthquake that struck Haiti, killing up to 500,000 people. If you own an iPhone in the US, you are in all likelihood using AT&T, which has joined the relief effort by making it extremely easy for its customers to donate to the relief effort.

If you text HAITI to 90999, AT&T will add a $10 charge to your bill and 100% of it will go to Red Cross Relief Efforts. Please take a second to contribute now.

Also see: Haiti Earthquake Relief: 9 Ways to Help Now

Thank you and please spread the word.

AT&T Customers: A Hassle-Free Way to Donate to Haiti Relief Now is a post from Apple iPhone Review.

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