After the massive failures from the JooJoo tablet and now the Grid 10, Fusion Garage might have disappeared in thin air. The first sign of the disappearance was that their website went down, reporting the 503 database error. As of right now, the website is barely up: certain images won’t load on the site, and when you go to their online store, the button for purchasing a Grid 10 said: “We are currently running out of stock. Thank you.” Also, Fusion Garage hasn’t posted any new content on their Twitter and Facebook feeds, due to the fact that their PR team ditched the company. Here’s a statement from one of FG’s employees:

Unfortunately, none of our efforts have resulted in any communication from the company to the customers. Given all of this, we don’t have any other choice but to cease working with FG effective tomorrow. (Source: Engadget)

While it’s sad to see a small company disappear, it’s hard to be sympathetic when Fusion Garage delivers so little to the market. A great example of this was the JooJoo tablet. It offered some features that the iPad doesn’t have, but ultimately failed because of it’s performance and the web-only UI. Best of all (not really on Fusion Garage’s part), they discontinued the JooJoo after only having 90 pre-orders for the device. Wow.

Back in March, AT&T announced that they were going to acquire T-Mobile USA, so they can expand their spectrum and enhance their network. While this sounded like a good idea, it would ultimately lower competition in the US mobile market and this didn’t cut it for many people, especially the FCC. The FCC has declined the merger, making AT&T to pull the application from the FCC and scrap the deal.

Today, AT&T has publicly made an announcement that they’ve scrapped the T-Mobile deal and will now cough up $4 billion to Deutsche Telekom as a breakup fee and an additional $3 billion. Interestingly, AT&T and T-Mobile agreed a roaming deal which will allow phones to work on both of their networks.

Here’s AT&T’s comment about today’s announcement:

The actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to block this transaction do not change the realities of the U.S. wireless industry. It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world, with a mounting need for more spectrum that has not diminished and must be addressed immediately. The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.

October 4, 2011 was a day that everyone was anticipating. On that day, Apple held their “Let’s Talk iPhone” event and people were expecting the much hyped, iPhone 5. Based on numerous case leaks and mock ups of the next iPhone, it showed that it could’ve had a significantly thinner design and the bigger screen that everyone wanted. What we got instead was the iPhone 4S, an incremental upgrade from the iPhone 4.

Obviously, initial reactions weren’t that great. People all over the world were disappointed with the 4S, because they were expecting the iPhone 5. Because people were so disappointed, the iPhone’s market share and sales has went down a little bit, making Android phones #1. What’s funny about this is that the iPhone 5 was just a rumor, not something that was confirmed by higher-res graphics in iOS 5, and part leaks.

But when you put the leaks aside, the iPhone 4S is truly not a disappointment. Apple has crammed in a powerful A5 chip to power iOS 5, and the inellegent assistant, Siri. But, is the 4S worth signing your life away with a 2 year contract? Read on to find out.

Hardware / Design

As I stated earlier, this was one the disappointments of the 4S. Compared to an iPhone 4, there is virtually no difference, but to be honest, keeping the design is a positive thing.

Even if the design is a year old, it’s still a work of art. Just like the iPhone 4, you still get the squared-off design with two pieces of glass sandwiched between the aluminum antenna band. With those components, the iPhone has extraordinary build quality. In fact, the iPhone doesn’t feel like a phone, it feels like a piece of jewelry or something luxurious. Unfortunately, the 4S’ design doesn’t come with compromises. Because the iPhone 4S features an all-glass design, you’ll have a significantly higher chance of shattering your phone. Also, the squared off design does take time getting used to, but after a while, you’ll get used to it. The 4S does have one cosmetic change, however. The antenna on the 4S borrows the same exact design from the Verizon iPhone 4. We’ll talk about the antenna more in-depth later in the review.

Retina Display

As time passed by, phone displays have significantly increased in size and it is now a desire for consumers. People want bigger screens and phone companies provides them, except for one: Apple. This is Apple’s fifth iPhone and still, no bigger screen. Obviously, everyone was extremely disappointed with this considering that phone screens are constantly getting bigger. But, there is one feature of the display that makes up for it, and it’s the resolution.

This was one of the hallmark features of the iPhone 4. With a resolution of 960 x 640 packed into a 3.5-inch display, you get a staggering pixel density of 326 pixels per inch. At that resolution, you can’t see the individual pixels even when you bring the phone all the way up to your eye. With this display, Apple has to do system-wide changes to fully support the display. For example, Apple has re-done the icons with much greater detail and has changed the system font to Helvetica Neue, which is a narrower version of Helvetica.

Even to this day, the Retina Display is still one of the best displays in the market right now. One thing to note, however is that the 4S’ display is manufactured by Toshiba, making the viewing angles slightly lower.

Performance

 Something that is completely different from the iPhone 4 are the internals of the 4S. Under the hood, you have a dual-core A5 processor that is clocked at 800MHz and 512MB of RAM. The specs compared to a modern Android phone doesn’t sound overwhelming, but in reality, it’s faster than today’s Android devices.

The chart above shows that the iPhone 4S is faster than the Samsung Galaxy S 2, both in CPU and graphics benchmarks. The thing with this is that the Galaxy S 2 has a 1.2GHz dual-core processor with a full gigabyte of RAM, and yet the 4S beat it.

But, benchmarks are just numbers. What matters the most is the actual performance when using the phone itself. Everything in iOS 5 (startup, animations, loading apps) is buttery smooth thanks to the A5 processor. The performance compared to an iPhone 3GS is night and day, while compared to the iPhone 4, it isn’t that much of a difference. To fully experience the A5 processor, you’ll have to use CPU intense applications like iMovie, or playing Infinity Blade.

Camera

One of the more significant features of the 4S is it’s 8-megapixel camera sensor, which blew me away. The new camera features an updated backside illumination sensor, a fifth lens element, and has increased the aperture to f/2.4. Also, the camera is capable of recording 1080p video, which looks stunning as well. The best way of explaining the camera performance is by looking at some sample pictures and as you can see, it’s stunning. These photos are straight from the iPhone and has not been edited at all.

Antenna Performance and Battery Life

As part of the slightly changed hardware, the iPhone 4S has an enhanced antenna design, which is supposed to end the over-dramatic “antenna gate” issue that the iPhone 4 had. Apple says that the antenna will “intelligently” switch between the two antennas, providing better call quality and signal strength.

After using the phone for a good amount of time, signal strength has been dramatically improved both from the 3GS to the 4. Also, the antenna gate issue as been resolved. One thing that all iPhones lacked from was the call quality. The 4S sounded slightly better compared to the 3GS, but it could still improve.

As far as downloading data, the AT&T iPhone 4S does get one slight advantage over the Sprint and Verizon iPhone. Apple is taking advantage of AT&T’s HSDPA 14.4Mbps network, which is generally faster than normal speeds. The 4S averages around 3Mbps which is pretty quick for a phone network, but nothing can beat LTE with it’s mind-boggling 20Mbps download speeds.

When Apple posted the 4S’ battery performance on the website, something didn’t seem right. Compared the iPhone 4, talk time on the 4S increased from 7 to 8 hours,but from there on, everything get different. Internet browsing on Wi-Fi dropped from 10 to 9 hours and the most substantial difference is in the standby time: 300 to 200 hours. The reason why battery standby decreased is because of the new A5 processor, which is power-hungry. Although, Apple did make a very slight bump in the battery capacity to accommodate the new processor, but it doesn’t seem to make it any better.

Because of the new processor, a good number of 4S users are reporting terrible battery life; some said that the phone dropped 2% after 30 minutes of standby time, which is usually not good. Because there has been numerous reports, Apple took action with the iOS 5.0.1 update, which is supposed to fix all battery issues, but Apple is still investigating the issue. During my use of the iPhone 4S, battery life has been excellent. The phone will last a full day and I’ll usually have about 50% left. Obviously everyone has different usage patterns, so battery life can vary.

With 200+ new features, this has to be one of Apple’s biggest software update ever. Of out of the 200+ features, I’m just going to list my favorite features of iOS 5.

 Notification Center

 Possibly one of the biggest requests that Apple has received was an easy way of accessing your notifications and also have un-obtrusive notifications. Finally, iOS 5 now has an Android like pull down menu that shows your recent notifications, and has two widgets: stocks and weather. The pull down window is certainly a nice addition, but the more significant one are popup notifications.

Gone are the frustrating popup notifications, and now when you get a new text message or email, a small notification will slide down on the top of the screen. Best of all, it doesn’t interrupt you. As of right now, there is one slight problem with this concept. When you do get a notification, you can’t dismiss the notification right away. Instead, you’ll have to wait until the notification fades away, which can be annoying. Though, there is a catch to that. There is an un-official way to dismiss them, and the way you do it is you slide Notification Center down very slightly, and release.

Another improvement that Apple has down are lock screen notifications. When you get a notification, you can just slide the icon to the left and go straight into the application. It’s a really handy feature, especially when you have a lot of them.

         iMessage

Another big addition to iOS is iMessage, which is Apple’s very own BBM like service. Just like BlackBerry Messenger, you can text to all of your iOS 5 devices for free through a Wi-Fi network, or cellular data. Not only you can send texts, you can send pictures, contacts, and videos, though it would be nice if Apple allowed document sharing on iMessages.

     PC Free

Another big addition to iOS 5 is that you can “cut the cord”. What I mean by that is that you can now setup your device without connecting to iTunes, and sync and backup wirelessly. Also as part of the PC Free package, you can change the device name within the settings.                                  

                Photo Editing

With iOS 5, you can now edit your photos right within the camera app. Now, it doesn’t provide you Instagram like filers, but give you basic editing like auto enhance, red-eye removal, and crop. The auto enhance feature does a great job at enhancing photos, but sometimes it wouldn’t work as well. If you want serious editing to your photos, you should use Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop.

 iCloud

Remember MobileMe? It was mostly a “Mobile Mess” because nobody used it. It was $99 per year and it provided services that doesn’t necessarily enhance the iOS experience and it was not integrated well within the OS. When Apple announced iOS 5, they’ve scraped MobileMe and replaced it with iCloud. 

iCloud is a complete revamp of Apple’s cloud services and I believe they’ve finally got it. Gone are the iWeb and iDisk services and have been replaced with services that are actually useful and integrates well into the OS. iCloud does retain some MobileMe services like email, contacts, and calendar sync, but now it’s more than that.

With iCloud, you can have photos, music, apps, and documents backed up and synced across your iOS 5 devices. Also, as part of the PC Free package, iCloud can automatically backup your device (app data, photos, contacts, etc.) in the cloud. Another service that Apple provides is called iTunes Match. For $24.99 a year, iTunes will scan all of your music and match your songs for high quality music directly from the iTunes store.

With all this, you get 5GB of storage for free and it won’t count your music, apps, books, etc. Instead, it stores your backups, Mail, documents, and etc. If you feel that 5GB isn’t enough, Apple will offer you more storage options for a fee. For $20 per year, you get 10GB of storage, $40 for 25GB and $100 for 55GB.

Siri

The biggest feature of the iPhone 4S isn’t the camera or the processor, it’s Siri. As you know the iPhone had some type of voice control that allowed you to control your music, call contacts, and basic stuff like that. The problem with that is it’s very limited and you have to speak commands, not by using regular sentences. Meanwhile, Android’s voice control is more cohesive like asking for map directions, and most importantly, voice dictation.

With the 4S, Apple has completely revamped voice control and made it extremely useful. With Siri, you can use natural language to send texts messages, emails, restaurant suggestions, setting alarms, and tons more. If you ask Siri a more complicated question (like whats the square root of 144), it will use Wolfram Alpha and provide your detailed information about your command. For restaurants, Apple teamed up with Yelp to provide local restaurant data and suggestions. Another added bonus with Siri is that you now have voice dictation. So whenever you bring up the keyboard, there’s a little microphone button next to the spacebar and when you touch it, you can start dictating.

While all of the commands are nice, Siri does have a humorous side. If you ask Siri a silly question, it’s most likely to give you back an answer. Here are some examples above.

Wrap-up

Overall, the iPhone 4S is an excellent phone. The combination of an excellent display, camera, processor, and operating system makes the the iPhone 4S an unbeatable phone. Sure, it doesn’t have LTE or a bigger screen, but it’s something that you can easily ignore when you actually use the device.

But here’s the burning question: should you upgrade if you have an iPhone 4? To he honest, it’s really up to you. If you really want the extra speed and the 8 megapixel camera, go ahead, but you’ll have to fork over $649 for the phone off-contract. If you own an iPhone 3GS, it’s a no brainer. You’ll be experience the features of the iPhone 4, except you get some extra features.

So, is this the “ultimate device”? You decide, but me personally, it’s a yes.

UPDATE (10/15/11): The port in the video above was rough to say the least but, a video (below) was uploaded showing a much smoother experience. The problem of server side system verification is the next hurdle to jump over.

You can get the Xperia Ray for $450 without a contract and on Newegg for $350.

Just 16 months after the acquisition of Palm, HP announced that they will be discontinuing the TouchPad and webOS related operations. With this, the unreleased Pre 3 and the unsold TouchPads will remain unclear, but HP will still explore and optimize webOS.

“In addition, HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.“

Not only will HP discontinue webOS, but they will pull the plug on the Personal Systems group (PCs, mobile devices, storage, monitors, etc.). HP will now focus onto being a software company and are in talks with Autonomy Corporation about a possible offer for HP.

We now all hope that a company will buy webOS and make the OS live on.

This is not good. According to Arik from AllThingsD, Best Buy was only able to sell 25,000 TouchPads out of 270,000 (doesn’t count returns!) that they’ve initially ordered. With that, Best Buy has 200,000 more units in hand and they are threatening HP to buy back those unsold units. Because of that, an HP exec is reportedly flying to Best Buy headquarters to persuade them to keep those units.

Best Buy isn’t the only one who has this problem, big electronic distributors like Fry’s, Wal-Mart, and many other are also having terrible sales. The TouchPad has already received many deep discounts and HP has recently gave the TouchPad a $100 price drop. On top of that, Staples has offered a $100 coupon on top of HP’s $100 cut.

With terrible sales, mediocre reviews, and buggy performance, the TouchPad could officially be a bomb.

After the failure of the JooJoo, they’ve decided to do a complete reboot. The first thing that they did was a name change. Their new name is now TabCo but interestingly, they’ve been floating around for months, but kept a dirty secret that they were truly the team from Fusion Garage. As part of the reboot/relaunch, they’ve announced the Grid 10 tablet and the Grid 4 phone. Both devices are running a completely new operating system that’s based off the Android kernel.

The tablet packs in a Nvidia Tegra 2 chip, a 10.1 inch display with a higher resolution of 1366×768, 16GB or 32GB of storage, and a front facing 1.3 megapixel camera. The tablet will cost $499 for the 16GB model and 32GB for $100 more.

The phone is powered by a Qualcomm dual-core processor, 16GB of storage, and a 4-inch display with a resolution of 800×480. The phone will be available unlocked for $399 and carriers will be announced soon.

According to Android Police and RootzWiki, they claim that they have snapshots of Google’s next major release of Android: Ice Cream Sandwich. From first glance, the theme is similar to Honeycomb and blue accents. The snapshot from Android Police shows that there’s a revamped notification pull down, which might contain mini apps, similar to iOS 5′s notification center. The snapshot from RootzWiki shows a revamped dock and a new application drawer.

Here are some extra details from RootWiki’s website:

• Blue Themed – Like our site (Change theme on bottom)
• Camera has built in panorama mode
• Will launch with Google Shopper and NFC Enabled devices will be able to utilize those features
• Gmail is all rethemed
• Will be available for the Nexus S
• Nexus Prime gets it first (expected) then other devices will follow after
• Not too many changes, just UI things, don’t think requirements are set too high for year old devices to run it
• The little icon in the bottom right, looks like a tray with multiple apps in it
• Google search bar embedded on very top like Honeycomb
• Apps/Widgets launcher a lot like Honeycomb
• This release is still very early, notice the theming of the power tray

It’s been a while since we’ve updated the polls. Our last poll was about features from Apple’s latest operating system, OS X Lion. Here are the results:

- Launchpad: 6 votes

- Full Screen Apps: 11 votes

- Mission Control: 6 votes

- AirDrop: 1 vote

- Versions: 3

- Updated Apps: 20 votes

As iPhone 5 (or 4S) rumors ramp up, we would like to hear your opinion on what you would like to see in the next iPhone.

We’ve gotten word from a previously reliable source that Apple is discontinuing the Magic Mouse in favor of the Magic Trackpad. Our retail source has informed us that Magic Mouse inventory is not being replenished for Apple stores, and that Apple is finally phasing out the Magic Mouse.

This rumor is hard to believe because most users prefer a mouse, instead of a trackpad. Users can download third-party applications that will take advantage of custom gestures and much more. Fortunately, Apple currently isn’t forcing users to take advantage of the Magic Trackpad. Users have a choice between a Magic Mouse or a Trackpad when you purchase a Desktop.

When the 3DS was launched, people were skeptical about it’s high price tag, which made sales ‘disappointing’, according to Nintendo. To make sales potentially faster, Nintendo has lowered the price from $249 to $169, which is almost half the price. For existing owners, Nintendo has a thank you gift, which allows you to download ten NES virtual console games on September 1st, plus 10 more GBA virtual console games.

Nintendo points out that Star Fox 64 3D, Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7 and Kid Icarus: Uprising will arrive around the holiday season.

About a month ago, I’ve written a review on Apple’s Smart Cover and I liked the Smart Cover. It kept the iPad’s slim profile and it’s functional. The thing I disliked the most was the lack of back protection. This is where the Cover Mate comes in. This is a hardshell case but with a cut out on the side for a Smart Cover. Now, Case Crown isn’t the only company that’s doing this. In fact if you go to Amazon, you’ll find a truck load of them.

With many variations of this case, how does this stack up? Watch the video to find out!

Apple has released their next major release of Mac OS X yesterday exclusively through the Mac App Store. At the price of $29.99, it’s an appealing price considering a major OS upgrade. Lots of Mac users took advantage of the upgrade and today, Apple has announced that Lion has topped one million downloads, which is pretty impressive.

Here’s the press release:

CUPERTINO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Apple® today announced that in just one day, over one million users bought and downloaded Mac OS® X Lion, the eighth major release of the world’s most advanced operating system. Available through the Mac® App Store™ for $29.99 (US), users are buying Lion faster than any other OS release in Apple’s history.

“Lion is off to a great start, user reviews and industry reaction have been fantastic,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Lion is a huge step forward, it’s not only packed with innovative features but it’s incredibly easy for users to update their Macs to the best OS we’ve ever made.”

Lion introduces more than 250 new features to the Mac, including Multi-Touch® gestures; system-wide support for full screen apps; Mission Control, an innovative view of everything running on your Mac; the Mac App Store, the best place to find and explore great software; Launchpad, a new home for all your apps; and a completely redesigned Mail app.

Available in 123 countries, the Mac App Store brings the revolutionary App Store experience to the Mac so you can find great new apps, buy them using your iTunes® account, download and install them in just one step. The Mac App Store offers apps in Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity, Utilities and other categories. Users can browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what’s hot, see staff favorites, search categories and look up top charts for paid and free apps, as well as user ratings and reviews. The Mac App Store is built right into Lion and available for Snow Leopard® users through Software Update as part of Mac OS X version 10.6.8.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

After much speculation, a refreshed MacBook Air is finally here. There are no cosmetic changes, but the internals has changed. Both models have stepped up to a Core i5 and i7, Thunderbolt ports, backlit keyboards, Bluetooth 4.0, and Mac OS X Lion.

The new baseline 11.6 inch MacBook Air features a 1.6GHz Core i5 processor, 2GB of DDR3 1333MHz RAM, and 64GB of flash storage. The higher end model doubles the RAM and the storage, pricing in at $1,199. The baseline 13-inch MBA has the same amount of RAM and storage from the higher end 11-inch model, but the CPU has been bumped to a 1.7 GHz Core i5 processor. Stepping up to the $1599 model bumps the storage to 256GB.

Next up, we’ve got the Mac Mini. Both of the Mac minis pack in an Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, Bluetooth 4.0, Thunderbolt, AMD Radeon HD graphics and Mac OS X Lion. The $599 Mac Mini comes standard with a 2.3GHz Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost, 2GB of RAM, and a 500GB 5400-rpm drive. Stepping up to the $799 model will bump the processor to 2.5GHz and 4GB of RAM. You also have the option to get a 256GB SSD drive, or a SSD plus a 750GB 7200-rpm drive. For the Mac Mini Server, you get a Core i7 processor and 1TB of storage standard.

The most striking difference with the Mac mini is the lack of an optical drive. You can clearly see that Apple is enforcing digital downloads.

To enhance the new Macs, Apple has announced the Thunderbolt display, formerly known as the Cinema Display. The display still packs in a huge 27-inch 2560×1440 IPS display and a 2.1 speaker system. Apple has updated a few components such as the new Facetime HD camera and adds an extra Thunderbolt port and Gigabit Ethernet. It starts at $999 and will be shipping soon.

After many predicted launch dates, during Apple’s earning call, CFO Peter Oppenheimer has announced that Lion will be coming out tomorrow. Lion is Apple’s seventh major release of the OS X platform bringing elements from iOS. Lion will be a Mac App Store exclusive and will cost you $29.99.

If you’re upgrading to Mac OS X Lion, check out our guide to make your upgrade smooth!

Today, Samsung introduces a new case for their flagship tablet, the Galaxy Tab 10.1. It’s called the Smart Case and it allows you to fold the case into a video stand, or a typing stand. It comes in red, black, green, orange, and blue colors.

Sounds familiar? Yup, Samsung once again copied Apple. I honestly have no clue why Samsung is doing this; they’re in a major lawsuit with Apple and now they release this? Now, the case doesn’t feature the magnet system that the Smart Cover has and it protects the back, which the Smart Cover lacks. What’s interesting about this whole situation is that it had been manufactured by the company called Anymode, which the CEO of that company is the nephew of Samsung’s chairmen.

Below is a bunch of pictures of the product.

Looking to upgrade your MacBook Pro or iMac to 8GB of RAM? You might as well upgrade now because Amazon is offering 8GB of Corsair RAM for $50. Don’t let the price tag fool you because this is DDR3 1333MHz RAM, which matches recent iMac and MacBook Pro specs. This is certainly a bargin if you do a lot of multitasking.

Frustrated with the bugs that still remain in iOS 5 Beta 2? Today will be your lucky day because iOS 5 Beta 3 will finally fix many of those frustrations you’ve had. With this new beta, they’ve fixed most of the Camera bugs as well as various others. They also added a feature under the accessibility options called Assistive Touch. This allows the user to use the touch screen to control gestures, hardware buttons (volume rockers, home button, orientation lock), as well as recreate physical movements like shaking the device.

Beyond Assistive Touch they also included crowd sourced Wi-Fi location data to better improve the location tracking features as well as more advanced option in terms of controlling which features and applications can use this data.

Lastly, they added the ability to set custom SMS tones.

What you’ll need

• A Mac with the latest version of Snow Leopard (10.6.8)
• 8GB of free disk space
• App Fresh – A free application that keeps all of your software to the latest version
• Omni Disk Sweeper – A free application that shows large files on your hard drive
• OnyX – A free utility program, similar to CCleaner for Windows but with more options
• Backup your hard drive with Time Machine,  Carbon Copy Cloner, or any other piece of backup software you prefer

Here’s something that you might have done already, but if you’re not sure if you have the latest version, go to the Apple Menu > About This Mac. If you have anything lower than 10.6.8 (latest version), click Software Update.

OS X Lion will finally discontinue Rosetta support, so your Power PC application will no longer work. If you still use a Rosetta application, you should update to hopefully, an Intel version. If there’s no Intel version, you’re out of luck. To find out if you’re using a Power PC app, go to your Application Folder > Utilities > Activity Monitor.

Upgrading to Lion may cause incompatibility to some of your applications. Some apps are already pushing out updates that prepares it for Lion. To update all of your apps, it’s recommended to use App Fresh.

OS X Lion recommends at least 8GB of hard drive space, and possibly more for the recovery partition that Lion will put. If you already have 8GB or more free, it’s still a good idea to de-clutter your hard drive. By using Omni Disk Sweeper, you can see which folder or component in your hard drive is the biggest. You’ll be surprised how much clutter you might have on your hard drive.

There is an alternative to Omni Disk Sweeper called DaisyDisk. It has a hefty price tag of $19.99, but it gives you a graphical representation of your hard drive and it has much more features.

Another great utility application is called OnyX. OnyX is almost like CCleaner for Windows, but with powerful tools like checking the S.M.A.R.T status and maintenance utilities. There’s a lot more that goes with OnyX that you can check out.

Possibly the most important step to this guide is backing up all of your data.

Obviously with this step, you’ll need an external hard drive, which is relatively cheap. When picking out an external drive, you should always pick one with a bigger capacity than your current hard drive. There are two pieces of software that you should use for backup: Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner. I recommend Time Machine due to the simplicity and it’s built-in to OS X. If you’re tech-savvy, you can use Carbon Copy. 

Stephen Elop promised a new MeeGo device this year. As a result, it’s the all new N9, a MeeGo device which admittedly enclosed in one slick piece of hardware. The display is 3.9-inches with a resolution of 854 x 480, 1GB of RAM, and a choice between 32GB or 64GB of storage. Under the hood is a TI OMAP 3630 1GHz processor that’s capable with good 3D graphics. On the connectivity side, it includes penta-band radios, Bluetooth 2.1, NFC, and GPS. On the back of the phone, there’s an 8 megapixel camera with auto focus. The whole phone weighs 135 grams, with a battery capable of 50 hours of music and 11 hours of 3G talk time.

On the software side, it comes with a special version of Angry Birds, Galaxy on Fire 2, and Real Golf 2011 to show off it’s graphical powers. MeeGo features a full webkit web browser full with flash support and HTML 5. MeeGo also features a three panel homescreen: swipe left for notifications, swipe right for notifications. As of right now, there’s no word on pricing or availability.

This is the product that Apple’s been peer pressuring it’s customers when they buy their iPad 2. This isn’t your ordinary case, it’s a cover. It only protects the front, not the back. This is a very unique approach to the case industry because third party case companies (and even first party’s) goal is to create a protective case for that expensive product. What’s interesting that Apple has designed the Smart Cover along with the iPad 2. Because of that, Apple is making the Smart Cover a big deal. Starting at $39 for the polyurethane and $69 for leather, is it a good buy? Read on to find out.

Unboxing

Design

Most of Apple’s cases blends in well with their products; the Smart Cover is no different. On the front side of the Smart Cover, there are these separators and on the back is a nice microfiber lining, which Apple claims will clean your screen when you have it on (more on that later). With the Smart Cover, you have two choices of materials: polyurethane or leather. With the polyurethane model, you have a choice of gray, baby blue, green, orange, or pink. With the leather Smart Cover, you have a choice of tan, navy blue, black, cream, or the PRODUCT (RED) Smart Cover, which will donate some of money to the Africa AIDS Foundation.

I have the black leather Smart Cover and I’ve been using this cover for about a week now. I can tell you right now that I do like the cover, but there are some big concerns with the exterior. On the back of the packaging, it warns you that the dye on the leather Smart Cover may rub off during use. I never thought that would be a big deal, but when some of the color rubs off, it gives the Smart Cover a shiny effect. Another way of the color coming off is when you wipe the cover with a damp cloth. One of the minor issues is the microfiber lining. Apple claims that it cleans your screen, but it turns out that it makes it worse. The microfiber lining will attract lots of dust and grease; when you put the cover down your screen, it leaves crease marks on the glass and lots of dust.

As I said before, Apple designed the Smart Cover along side with the iPad 2. Because of that, Apple was able to make the Smart Cover interact with the iPad’s sleep/wake function. For example, when you lift the Smart Cover, the iPad wakes up and when you put the cover down, it sleeps the iPad. Apple was able to do this by using magnets. Apple also uses magnets to perfectly align the Smart Cover, when installing it. Obviously, this sleep/wake function isn’t unique to the Apple Smart Cover. Other companies are building in magnets to their folio cases to take advantage of that feature. If you’re worried about it falling off, you shouldn’t be because the magnets are fairly strong. It’s so strong, it can lift the iPad up when you’re holding the cover in the air.

Functionality

The iPad Smart Cover does work well as a video or typing stand, using a folding mechanism seen in Speck’s and Incase’s earlier designs. The Smart Cover provides two angles for typing, a reclined angle for video viewing in landscape orientation, and a straight up angle for portrait orientation FaceTime calling. Both of the typing angles felt sturdy and comfortable; the landscape angle was also sturdy.

Conclusion

With no doubt, the Smart Cover is a very interesting approach to the case industry. The magnets that interact with the iPad is something that no company have really thought about. But with such a hefty price tag and the lack of back protection, it’s probably not the case for you. If you really do want to protect the back while using the Smart Cover, you’ll have to fork over another $29 for a hard shell or a film.