TechBytes: iPhone Update
Apple making iPad adjustments, kids to use touch screens and more.
April 8, 2010— -- Apple will unveil updates today to the software that powers the iPhone. iPhone owners are hoping Apple addresses one of the few gripes about the device: limited multi-tasking. There's no way right now to run more than one program at a time, except for a select few, and those are mostly Apple's own programs. Any changes to the iPhone will also show up on the iPad because they run on the same software. But the updates probably won't be available for a few months.
iPad Adjustments
The iPad is getting high marks as a media device. It's great for watching movies, checking e-mail and playing games. But as Nick Bilton of the New York Times explains, people are not as comfortable using it with tools such as word processing and spreadsheets.
"Some of the productivity suites, people are having a little bit of trouble with because it's a brand new interface," Bilton wrote. "You're literally using something that you probably used for many, many years on a touch-screen device with a pop-up keyboard, and it's designed for that touch-screen device, so to get used to it actually takes a little bit of work."
You can read more from Bilton on the New York Times Web site.
Kids and Touch Screens
If touch screens are the future of computing, it may be kids that truly make them mainstream. Research firm Gartner has predicted that more than 50 percent of PCs purchased for users younger than 15 will have touch screens by 2015. On the other hand, the company is predicting fewer than 10 percent of computers sold to businesses will have touch screens five years from now.
Masters in 3-D
Tiger Woods makes his return to competitive golf today but that's not the only thing generating buzz at the Masters.
The golf tournament will be the first to be broadcast in 3-D. Those who got a sneak peak at the technology say it works particularly well for golf, giving viewers a better sense of the breaks on the putting greens. It will only be available to those with 3-D TVs or computers.
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