You know the drill. Come time, we’ll be talking about everything iPad. We’d love to talk with you, so come by, chat, and share you views.

• 6pm PT/9pm ET/2am BST

We’ll be live on:

http://www.tipb.com/live/

So click on through, we start setting up 15 min. before show time. Chat with you soon!

iPad live tonight! 6pm PT/9pm ET/2am BST is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

The Cydia Store now has a great extension available for jailbroken iPhone and iPod touch called Fullscreen for Safari that allows for not only toggling Safari into fullscreen mode for completely unobstructed browsing, but also includes multi-touch gestures.

This package costs $1.49 and has functionality and options that will completely change the way you use Safari. You can do things like two finger swipe left/right to switch tabs, two-finger swipe up/down to either open a new tab or close the current tab respectively, and shake to toggle fulscreen mode. (I personally love this function.) To get into fullscreen mode, the developer has defaulted to using a three finger tap anywhere on a page, but I’ve reassigned that to bring up my bookmarks since I can just shake my iPhone to get it into fullscreen mode.

This Cydia extension is seriously sweet, and I would absolutely consider this a must-have for all iPhone and iPod touch jailbreakers (not yet available for iPad). You can follow the developer, @Yllier, on Twitter to keep informed of any updates.

UPDATE: From Twitter:

it seems some are experiencing a crash of safari if they resume the app. fix has been submitted to bigboss. ETA in next 12h

Video after the break and if you have played with Fullscreen for Safari, let us know how you like it!

by Andrew Wray

Fullscreen for Safari extension for iPhone [Jailbreak] is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

It’s been roughly 6 months since Apple launched the iPad — April 3 for iPad Wi-Fi, April 20 for iPad Wi-Fi + 3G. Since then, millions and millions of us have bought iPads but that only proves the demand was there, it says nothing about how iPad has lived up to that demand. So we thought we’d take a moment and ask: how’s it working out for you?

In what ways has it surprised and delighted you, and in what ways has it frustrated and disappointed you? Are you using it more than you thought you would or less? Has it replaced your iPhone, iPod touch, or laptop as your go to device, or is it occupying a niche between one or more of those?

Let us know you thoughts in the comments and follow on after the jump for mine.

I began using an iPad Wi-Fi on launch day and the minute that big, bright screen lit up it was an IMAX moment for me. “It’s just a a big iPhone” was exactly right — size was the killer app. Almost immediately I stopped reading on my iPhone or MacBook. I began saving everything I came across to Instapaper so I could read it later on my iPad. (I would even close my MacBook and pick up my iPad just to read long articles, the experience was so much more enjoyable).

Browsing the web was fantastic; disintermediating the keyboard and mouse of the traditional PC and touching the screen made for a far more immediate and intimate experience. So much so, in fact, that when Dieter and I wrote our iPad review we focused almost entirely on the experience of the device.

Gaming also benefited from the big screen, igniting an ongoing debate in Chad’s heart as to whether the faster launch schedule of iPhone games can equal out the grandeur scale of iPad.

When iPad 3G launched I quickly switched to one of those. I knew I would the first time I was away from Wi-Fi, reached for my iPad, and found the internet unavailable. In many ways the iPad is just a bare display for internet content, app, web app, and web alike, and having that connection 24/7 felt like a requirement. The first time I wrote up a blog post on iPad while in the passenger seat of a car racing down the highway, I knew it was more than just a feeling. Likewise watching the World Cup final rounds streaming over 3G while out for breakfast with friends.

It’s not perfect. It can be heavy and unwieldy at times. When iPhone 4 and iOS 4 launched in June the combination of Retina Display, FaceTime, and especially multitasking and unified inbox had me reaching for my iPad less and less often. Some of that was surely “shiny new toy” syndrome. Some of it was hard limitations of iPad under iOS 3.2.

Now we’re starting to see the first wave of truly innovative and engaging iPad apps. Some work, some fail, but the ambition is there. Twitter for iPad is showing off sliding panels. FlipBook is making social media into a personal publication. The New York Times is finally giving us a great app. Netflix… really isn’t, but along with many other services from Hulu to ABC, not to mention incredible apps like Air Video are providing us with personal, portable TV.

And iOS 4.2 for iPad is on the horizon, bringing everything iOS 4 brought to iPhone back in June but adding AirPrint for productivity and AirPlay for entertainment, and while the former was needed the second could just be killer.

Either way I’m using the iPad a lot more again. That intimacy combined with instant on and a battery that won’t quit is just something laptops can’t match (unless and until Apple adds an iOS layer to Mac OS X?). For Photoshop, InDesign, video production, long form writing, and other tasks that benefit from the horsepower, multi-window, hardware keyboard strengths of a MacBook the iPad is still no replacement, but in terms of a really personal computing experience, iPad has become irreplaceable.

iPad has also become a new product category. Whether it’s proven the space Tablet PC never could, created a new Media Tablet space almost no one else has entered, or just shown Apple can move product is unclear. Ultimately will we see a robust tablet market like smartphones, with iPad being just one of many successful devices, or will we see a tablet market like music players, where iPad has the same 70% share iPod has enjoyed and other devices remain niche?

I’m betting on the former. We’re just beginning to see some challengers like the Android-based Galaxy Tab at 7-inches and even Kindle claiming smaller, one-handed devices can be better for portability or specific tasks. Palm and RIM are getting into the tablet game and Microsoft will certainly try again with a post-iPad device the same way they’ve just relaunched mobile post-iPhone. The potential is too great and awareness too high for the other players not to fight for market share.

And we’re also only a few months away from Apple showing off iPad 2, with rumors of a 7-inch, FaceTime equipped upgrade of their own. Then there will be iOS 5 beta next spring. The cycle never ends.

So 6 months later and what we concluded 6 months ago still rings true:

The iPad is neither absolute failure nor second-coming. It is nothing more or less than Apple's attempt to once again make the computer more personal. What began with the original Apple and Mac and became the Apple II and iMac, takes another step forward into the future with the introduction of the iPad. That the iPad can deservedly be mentioned alongside those previous paradigm shifts, that it does for multitouch computer appliances what was done before for command-lines and graphical user interfaces — and smartphones with the iPhone — is a tremendous accomplishment. But it's the first generation of this shift, the Apple or Mac, not the Apple II or iMac, and that means it's certainly not for everyone, not yet and perhaps not ever.

But it’s proven over time that it’s for me, maybe not “right” but “right now”. Apple hasn’t nailed the device yet — they might next time, or the time after — but they hammered it hard, harder than I initially thought, and developers have taken it even further.

This is an enthusiast site and I’m an enthusiast, however, so let me know what you think.

iPad: Six months later is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

There have always been a few white iPhone 4 in the wild, Apple employees in Cupertino the likely suspects, or high profile celebrity friends like Stephen Fry, or even low-profile friends far from the spotlight. Some have been caught on camera, some have been sent in as quiet tips. The only thing that hasn’t been seen is the white iPhone 4 generally available for sale online or in stores.

The latest rumor says Apple is still having manufacturing problems involving color consistency, more specifically now matching the white of the Home button with the white of the faceplate. (Yes, Steve Jobs can tell the difference down to a micro-shade at 100 paces).

Apple has only said they’re coming end of 2010, though TiPb has heard early next year is also an option. (No exclusive white Verizon iPhone 4 rumors please).

We know some of you are still waiting on a white iPhone 4, but you’re willing to wait until Apple gets it perfect, right?

UPDATE: An anonymous tipster just sent us the above white iPhone 4 picture, also in the wild, and confirmed:

I was laughin so hard cuz the Home button really doesn’t match the housing!!!

Whether that means Apple really is having a color-matching problem, or whether it means these are just DIY conversions and they don’t (and won’t ever) match we don’t know. But we’d like to have the real ones available soon either way.

[Pocket-lint, anonymous]

UPDATED: White iPhone 4 in the wild, when will they be in the stores? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

A couple of interesting FaceTime tidbits this weekend as it looks like group video chats might be available in the future, but only on iPod touch in the Middle-East.

First up, while FaceTime is still missing from certain Middle-Eastern iPhone 4 carriers, it appears to be working fine on iPod touch (2010). So it’s not a government restriction, which just leaves the carriers asking for it to be removed, or Apple worrying about the carriers and pre-emptively removing it. This begs the question, just what’s going on?

Next up, Jailbreakers have struck again and found the following string in iOS firmware:

<key>AllowsMultipleConnections</key>

<false/>

Apple already provides this functionality in iChat for Mac. If they bring FaceTime to Mac having the best of both worlds makes sense. Likewise, with Skype adding multiple video calls in their Windows version, this would appear the next step for Apple to take to try and get people to start using their product over Skype. Also with the iPad 2 coming next year with most likely a front facing camera, this would be a logical feature to throw in considering the large real estate on the iPad's screen.

If you are jailbroken and have the knowledge in editing program strings feel free to try this out at your own risk. To enable it all you have to do is navigate to:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/IMCore.framework/imagent.app/PlugIns/FaceTime.imservice/ServiceProperties.plist and change the false value to true. If you try it out let us know how it works!

[9to5Mac, iPod Touch Fans]

by Brian Tufo and George Lim

FaceTime: Group video chats and Middle-East carrier spats? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog