Expert Blogs
UPDATE (07/23 night): I've re-run the iTunes File Sharing test with the just-released iOS5.0b4 (beta 4 of the forthcoming iOS 5) running on both iPad 1 and 2 (without jailbreaking, enabling iCloud or even installing more than one app on the devices).
Unfortunately, Apple has never let screen recording applications into the AppStore. This is diametrically opposed to the situation on most other computing platforms, both mobile and desktop. Just some examples: Microsoft has never had any objection to mirroring Windows Mobile phone / PDA screens on a desktop computer.
You may already know I'm a lecturer on programming languages: Java and its relatives (e.g., C), non-language-specific technologies like OpenGL and, now, iOS programming.
Flash support has always (according to some people, painfully) been missing from the iOS platform. In the article below, I explain how you can watch any kind of Flash videos (via SkyFire) and how you can use full(!) Flash (and even Silverlight!) applications on your iPad (via AlwaysOnPC). All this without having to jailbreak!
Pure Flash videos
Unfortunately, Apple's official support for Bluetooth devices is pretty weak. Keyboard support is limited (not all otherwise, with third-party "hacks", usable models are supported) and there's no true game controller / mouse / external GPS support at all.
Fortunately, there are a lot of utilities in Cydia (accessible from any jailbroken iDevice) that provide help in using these devices.
Many think iTunes is bloatware that should in no way be used for media synchronization. This is why I started making some very serious benchmarks. In a nutshell, the results: while the actual loading, tab switching, audio media format conversion etc. of iTunes may indeed be painfully slow, particularly under Windows, for synchronizing media to iOS devices it is in no way worse than the free and highly recommended competition. Actually, just the opposite - at least with the latest (tested) iTunes versions...
I also wanted to provide up-to-date benchmark results – something like the excellent, albeit highly outdated ones HERE.
Today, I've played a bit with printing right from iOS devices (iDevices for short).
As you may know, Apple's own solution, AirPrint, is compatible with only few printers, all from HP. (Fortunately, no longer only the [in my humble opinion] lowly and unreliable inkjets are supported, but also LaserJets, but still: there's still no support for other manufacturers' gear and not even HP's own, older models.)
Needless to say, the two printers I tried to print to, a Samsung MI-2525w and an HP LaserJet 1320, aren't supported either.
UPDATE (20:15 CET, the same day): a reader at MacRumors, Night Spring, has mentioned I've forgotten to point out the other and, in this case, Phone Disk-less and even Windows-friendly way of quickly transferring a complete directory structure to GoodReader running on the iDevice: zip all the files up into one big ZIP file and drop it into the File Sharing frame of GoodReader in iTunes. I've even prepared a video showing this:
I've long been working on my forthcoming full(!) tutorial and comparison of everything video playback on iDevices. Now that I'm also writing a full comparison of all iDevice file accessor and media synchronizing tools, I've also very thoroughly tested the video (among other things, MPEG2 TS) conversion of the, otherwise, excellent and highly recommended SyncPod (by iSkysoft) tool. This – and the recent, great jailbreaking and XBMC releases – made me publish a separate, dedicated article. This all means that, as usual, my article contains tons of never-before-published information on generic video conversion, cutting etc. related information. Feel free to ask (in the comment section) if you'd like a more thorough explanation on any of the discussed (sub)subjects!
I've played a bit more with creating Cydia packages. I've found out the following:
If you have problems installing Fink...
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