Just in case you weren’t completely convinced of Apple’s dominance in the world of tablets, the iPad has managed to beat out Galaxy Tab sales in Korea, which is Samsung’s home turf. 1 million iPads have been sold in the region since November 2010, claiming 70 – 80% of the overall Korean tablet market. Meanwhile, electronics reseller Gazelle is reporting that Amazon’s Kindle devices deprecate in value about 22% in faster than the iPad. It’s a little unfair to compare the iPad to simple e-book readers; the real test for the Kindle brand will be how well the Amazon Kindle Fire will fare in the long haul.

It’s still too early to see how well the Kindle Fire will do in the reseller market, but it’s hard to imagine the thing going for much cheaper than the $200 it retails for. Gazelle’s CEO explains that frequent price drops and releases of multiple models helps to accelerate reduced prices on Android devices. The iPhone, by contrast, is still worth 60% of its value after being available for a year, while top-of-the-line Android handsets are only worth 40% of their original price.

For all of the squabbling that Samsung and Apple do around the world, beating a manufacturer in their own country is a huge symbolic victory. Of course, Samsung still has a gigantic lead in a number of other industries, such as television, but even that might not last if Apple decides to make an iTV. During the iPad 2 launch in the spring Korean retailers quickly sold out, even though about two-thirds of the models being sold were Wi-Fi-only. Even as a homegrown company, I have trouble imagining Samsung building up that much excitement around their next tablet.

As for the resale value, that’s good news for those who frequently upgrade, but not so great for those getting into the game initially. The folks at Gazelle warned that it’s often not worth paying an extra $100 or $200 for extra storage capacity, if your main concern is selling the device later on. It sure would be nice if we could get a microSD memory card slot on these things, then memory denominations would be significantly less of an issue.

In any case, are any original iPad owners out there thinking of upgrading soon, or does this news of stable resale value keep you happy with your purchase?

Source: AppleInsider, CNN

If you’re all in on Google+, the latest in a series of Google social networks aimed to compete with Facebook and Twitter, you’ll want to head on over to the App Store and hit the update button, because the official Google+ app for iPhone now offers instant image upload and access to the What’s Hot stream.

Instant Image upload watches your iPhone for any pictures or videos and automatically grabs them and uploads them to Google’s Picasa service, which is tied into Google+. It’s similar to Apple’s iCloud Photo Stream but even more powerful as the uploads are unlimited. (Photo Stream only stores up to 1000 photos for up to 30 days).

Of course, while this might delight some users, it will raise incredible privacy concerns for others. Rightly, Google+ announces instant upload immediately when you launch the Google+ app and allows you choose whether you want it on or off, and if on, whether it can upload pictures, or videos, only via Wi-Fi or over 3G as well. You can also go into settings and change your mind at any time. (Especially if you’re taking any pictures that really shouldn’t be automatically uploaded to the internet!)

Hot Stream is similar to your circle timeline but shows you Google+ posts that are especially popular, topical, or others deserving of your attention — as decided by Google.

Overall it’s a good update. Google still hasn’t wowed us with their iOS apps, but little-by-little they’re improving and becoming more solid. They’re still nowhere near as slick as a top-shelf Twitter app on the iPhone, but they’re getting closer to Facebook level and given Google+ is much newer, that’s no small feat.

If you haven’t already, remember to circle up iMore to your Google+!

Free – Download now]

Sudoku Seasons isn’t your typical game of Sudoku. Instead of filling in the squares with the numbers 1-9, you must use nine different symbols. In celebration of love, Sudoku Season’s most recent theme is for Valentine’s Day and includes symbols such as hearts, lips, cake, and roses.

I’m a huge Sudoku fan and enjoy the challenging twist that Sudoku Seasons brings with the use of goodies instead of numbers. With this change, however, you lose the ability to mark each little box with possible numbers it can be, but that’s ok. I don’t come to Sudoku Seasons to play a traditional game of Sudoku — but to play a fun, themed game of Sudoku!

Completely unrelated to the game, Sudoku Seasons also includes a few cards that you can customize with a message and send to your Valentine via email. I sent my husband one just a bit ago!

In addition to Valentine’s Day, Sudoku Seasons includes 4 other cheery themes: Santa Red, Merry Green, Icy Blue and Mystic Gems. I’m looking forward to updates for future holidays.

Giveaway

We love you, here at iMore, and have paired up with the folks at 99Games to celebrate our love by giving away promo codes to 5 lucky readers! For a chance to win, just leave a comment below!

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Cydia is the jailbreak app store — the place to get all the great, useful, functional programs that for various reasons Apple doesn’t allow in the official iTunes App Store, like in-app SMS, themes that change the look of your entire phone, quick toggles for Wi-Fi or Bluetooth settings, and much, much more. But whether you’re new to the iPhone or to jailbreak, or have been hacking your gear since day one, you know Cydia can be as much pain as pleasure. You can find the most amazing utilities, themes, tweaks, and apps there – but buying them can sometimes cause way more frustration than fun.

Now, I fully realize that by jailbreaking my iPhone 4S I’ve classified myself as a power user who’s chosen to jump through hoops go the extra mile to get some of my apps outside of Apple’s official app store. But while waiting for the iPhone 4S jailbreak, and living with a stock iPhone for a week, I was reminded of the sheer difference in user experience between the App Store and Cydia. I went over this already on the first episode of our Apps & Accessories Live podcast, but here’s the gist.

Buying an app on the App Store

1. See an app you want
2. Tap the price tag
3. Enter your iTunes password
4. Get the app

That’s it. Sure, tapping the price tag isn’t always intuitive for new users (a big BUY or DOWNLOAD button would be easier). Sure, you had to set up the iTunes account and decide to trust Apple with your credit card information. But once that’s done, aside from having to verify you credit code if you use a new device, you’re good to go. If you have multiple devices, like an iPad and iPod touch, or you upgrade to a new device, you just re-download the app. It couldn’t be easier. It makes buying a snap, especially impulse buying.

Buying an app on Cydia

1. See an app you want
2. Tap to buy
3. Choose to login with a Google or Facebook account
4. Login with your email and password
5. Choose to pay with Amazon or Paypal
6. Login with your Amazon or Paypal account
7. Hope the app recognizes the payment, if not, try to restore the license
8. Sometimes re-spring the Springboard (iOS Home screen system)

On the surface it may seem only twice or three times as complex, but what the simple list could easily be expanded with:

1. Trying to figure out what to do if, like me, you’ve consciously decided not to have a Google or Facebook account due to privacy concerns. (I ultimately made a Google account just for Cydia and for Google’s strong-arm Google+ authorship drive.)
2. Sometimes being thrown back to the very beginning of the buying process, over and over again, when something goes wrong with the payment process (why can’t it just send me back to the payment screen?)
3. Sometimes having a huge struggle getting the app to realize you’ve paid for a license
4. The problems often associated with changing devices, like when you get a new iPhone, and trying to use a previous license.

Now you can choose to pre-authorize a certain amount via Amazon, if that’s your preferred checkout option, but that really only delays the inevitable.

And still that doesn’t cover the apps that choose not to be part of the Cydia system.

I recently tried to buy IntelliScreenX to check out it’s iOS 5 integration. The process was so labored, so error-prone, I ultimately gave up and waited and calmed down for several days before going back to try again. (And sent Rene a string of incredibly angry text messages in between fully laying out my frustration at the process.)

Not only does it absolutely discourage me from impulse buys (good for me, bad for developers), it discourages me from any buys (bad for everyone).

Again, I understand that by jailbreaking and buying jailbreak apps, I’m stepping outside the Apple eco-system and the ease of use it provides. I also understand the Herculean task Saurik, the creator of Cydia, tackles every day in making and improving the Cydia app store.

Maintaining a user account system isn’t easy. Having a checkout system isn’t easy. Getting developers the money they deserve and protecting apps from unlicensed use isn’t easy.

But the current process is still too hard and often too frustrating.

Time for Cydia to strike back

Figuring out a way to store the user-account on-device would be a good step. If Google or Facebook force a timeout, investigating a Cydia account system proper would be a great alternative. Storing the associated payment system username would further reduce the friction (not the password, of course). And if a problem occurs, returning the user to the previous screen, not the very beginning of the process, would be a huge improvement.

I love my jailbreak. I lasted 6 days with a stock iPhone 4S before I jailbroke. I love the ability to customize my phone — to make my device work the way I want it to work. I love Cydia and all the great apps it gives jailbreak users access to.

I’m offering these criticisms and sharing these experiences because I love it so much, and really hope it gets even better. We’ve been hearing whispers about improvements coming to Cydia for a while now, so hopefully those will be released and address a lot of what’s mentioned above.

iOS 5 stole a lot of ideas from jailbreak. It’s jailbreak’s turn to strike back!

At a recent trade show, Samsung product manager Chris Moseley commented on the recent rumours swirling about an Apple-made iTV television.

“We’ve not seen what they’ve done but what we can say is that they don’t have 10,000 people in R&D in the vision category. They don’t have the best scaling engine in the world and they don’t have world renowned picture quality that has been awarded more than anyone else. TVs are ultimately about picture quality. Ultimately. How smart they are…great, but let’s face it that’s a secondary consideration. The ultimate is about picture quality and there is no way that anyone, new or old, can come along this year or next year and beat us on picture quality. So, from that perspective, it’s not a great concern but it remains to be seen what they’re going to come out with, if anything.”

If you are fully submerged in the Samsung culture, I could understand that line of thinking, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s hard to put Apple past setting a new bar for any electronics industry, regardless of how well-established it is in any particular field. Steve Jobs and Tim Cook both admitted openly that the Apple TV was little more than a hobby project, but what’s going to happen when Apple takes TVs seriously? Are they just going to make another little puck, only have it not suck for a change? Or are they going to go all-out, producing an entire TV set?

While I certainly agree with Moseley that Apple isn’t likely to oust Samsung’s top spot in TV in the next two years, I would be really surprised if Apple didn’t at least introduce some considerable competition in that timeframe. Competitors are offering some really smart connected home solutions, but if Apple doesn’t have a real presence in the world of TVs, the Mac, iPhone, and iPad will have comparatively limited reach. I’m eager to see how Apple patches that gap in their strategy, but what about you guys? Would you pay a premium for an Apple-made TV? 50-inch Retina Display, anyone?

Lastly, we can’t help but remember what happened the last time existing players counted Apple out of an established industry — namely Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer and Palm’s Ed Colligan, who both believed Apple wouldn’t get any significant market share — when the iPhone launched in 2007.

Source: Pocket-Lint

“Weight Watchers Mobile for iPhone makes it easier than ever to track your diet plan and make healthier food choices.”

Weight Watchers Mobile is currently the best way to plan and monitor your diet on the iPhone. It gives you the ability to manage your entire Weight Watchers diet plan including tracking your points and weight, searching for restaurants and recipes, calculating point values, reading success stories to stay motivated, and more. If you’re committed to not only eating better but living a healthier lifestyle, Weight Watchers not only provides excellent online tools but a great iPhone app that’s with you wherever you go.

Since it’s Mobile Nations Fitness Month, I’ve decided to take a more practical approach to dieting than just counting calories with something like MyFitnessPal. I want to make a lifestyle change that will hopefully stick with me even after I’m done counting points. I’ve found Weight Watchers to be the best solution for developing better eating habits that you can actually live with.

I followed the plan for 3 months last year and lost almost 25 pounds which I’ve managed to keep off for the most part. This time around I’ve decided I’d like to get down to my goal weight. At the end of the day, Weight Watchers is about changing bad habits and putting good ones in their place.

Gone are the days of counting and tracking points in a paper tracker. If you’ve got an iPhone (or iPad), it’s never been easier to stick with Weight Watchers. Once you’ve signed up online and entered in some personal information you’ll be able to sign into the Weight Watchers apps and start tracking from there.

The main thing you’ll be using the app for is tracking points and managing your weight loss. You can select from a large list of restaurants and recipes that have point values pre-calculated for you already or you can calculate points and portion sizes yourself.

For those of you not familiar with Weight Watchers, they take fats, carbs, fiber, and protein into consideration. Enter those 4 things into the built-in points calculator and it will give you the PointsPlus value. Those of you familiar with Weight Watchers from years ago probably remember the point sliders you had to use. You can throw those away now.

You can also track your weight loss progress through the app. You weigh in once a week, always on the same day, and input your weight into the app. It will then track your progress and milestones for you. Healthy checks are also built in to the app so you can make sure you’re consuming the right kinds of foods such as water, oils, vegetables, and fruits.

If you don’t want to subscribe to Weight Watchers or pay a subscription fee you can still benefit from the app. Maybe you don’t need to track points but just want to make it a point to eat healthier. You can view many featured recipes as well as access cheat sheets. Cheat sheets are great for estimating portion sizes for common proteins and the value for alcohol mixed drinks.

I’ve found cheat sheets to be useful when I’m eating somewhere that may not have nutritional information readily available or I eat at someone’s house and I’m not quite sure of point values. I can estimate by using built-in cheat sheets. I’ve also found it helpful to store nutritional PDF sheets in apps like iBooks or Dropbox for quick reference when it’s a restaurant that Weight Watchers doesn’t have information on. This is great for smaller local places and chains that may not be national.

The good

• The built-in points calculator makes it easier than ever to get points values on the go
• Huge database of recipes gives you great new meal choices with reasonable point values
• Cheat sheets are a great help when nutritional information isn’t available

The bad

• Really requires a Weight Watchers subscription for full benefit
• Local restaurants most likely won’t be listed so you’ll still have to calculate
• Friends can’t be added via the app

Conclusion

Weight Watchers is one of the best diet plans around because it encourages you to make a lifestyle change instead of just counting calories. Weight Watchers Mobile for iPhone makes it easier than ever to track your diet plan and make healthier decisions about food choices.

If you’re trying to decide what diet plan is right for you but know you don’t want to count only calories, Weight Watchers is a great middle ground that’s easy to follow and stay on track with. When paired with their iPhone app, it’s never been easier to stay on track.

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The U.S. Department of Justice recently approved Apple’s acquisition of various Nortel and Novell patents. The need to clear these purchases with the DoJ was for anti-trust purposes; after all, Apple already has a huge market lead, and any patents that could put competitors out of business would result in less choice for American consumers (which I think we can all agree is a bad thing). During the investigation, Apple had committed to licensing standard essential patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms, and won’t be seeking injunctions involving those key patents.  Though the Department of Justice has given the green light, they’re still keeping a very close eye on the situation.

“In light of the importance of this industry to consumers and the complex issues raised by the intersection of the intellectual property rights and antitrust law at issue here, as well as uncertainty as to the exercise of the acquired rights, the division continues to monitor the use of SEPs in the wireless device industry, particularly in the smartphone and computer tablet markets.  The division will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action to stop any anticompetitive use of SEP rights.”

While the DoJ also approved RIM and Microsoft’s acquisitions of some of the Nortel patents, only Apple was named in regards to Novell. There was a big hubbub around Microsoft getting in on a joint bid, and Google getting uppitty because they weren’t invited to the party (even though they were).  Eventually, Microsoft had to open-source the patents they acquired, as the Department of Justice saw that they could potentially be used to put Linux out of commission.

It’s also interesting to note that Motorola and Samsung may be suing Apple over FRAND patents in complete unfair, unreasonable, and discriminatory ways — with the EU investigating at least Samsung over the potential abuse.

Nortel’s patent portfolio may have cost upwards of $4.5 billion, but it includes some very attractive  technologies relating LTE, networking, voice, internet, and semiconductors. Once upon a time, Nortel was the crown jewel of the Canadian tech sector, and though it’s sad to see its final remnants being chopped up like this, at least their accomplishments are going to work with the current industry leaders.

Source: Department of Justice; Image credit: Howard Lake

It’s Valentine’s Day, and as Rene proved in song iMore can easily be pronounced just like the Italian word for love, amore! So in that spirit we have a link back to our Valentine’s gift guide for you, to help keep you in your special someone’s good graces (and off the couch!), as well as a special edition ZEN and TECH podcast to help you make all the right moves (and stay out of the dog house!). So pour yourself a tasty beverage, curl up with your iPhone or iPad, and get ready to get ready for romance!

• iPhone and iPad gifts for Valentine's Day

ZEN and TECH 34: Sex and dating tips for Valentine’s day

Georgia and Rene discuss sex and dating tips for Valentine’s day, whether you’re single, broken up, just starting a new relationship, ready to get serious, or been together forever and looking for new ways to re-light the sparks. This is ZEN and TECH.

• Our podcast feed: Audio | Video
• Download Directly: Audio | Video
• Subscribe via iTunes: Audio | Video

Hosts

• Georgia (@GeorgiaTiPb)
• Rene (@reneritchie)

Contact

You can reach all of us @ZENandTECH, via email at podcast@zenandtech.tv, or leave a comment below!

Thanks everyone, you’re the best community on the web and we love having you with us!

Disclaimer

While Georgia is a therapist, she’s not YOUR therapist. Everything said or implied on this show is for informational and entertainment purposes only. And shouldn’t be taken in any way as a replacement for proper, professional care.

Credits

Music is Peace on Earth by wellman.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

For today only the iMore iPhone case store has the Case-Mate Tank Case for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 on sale of only $34.95 — that’s 42% off! Go get them before they’re gone!

• Shop Case-Mate Tank Case for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 now!

It takes a beating. The Tank iPhone 4S, AT&T iPhone 4, or Verizon iPhone 4 case brings an extreme approach to defending the device with a rugged case that completely protects the iPhone 4S, AT&T iPhone 4, or Verizon iPhone 4 from screen to back.

Modeled after motorcycle helmet engineering, Tank is designed with a hard, impact resistant exterior and a shock absorbing interior. A shatter resistant, polycarbonate hard shell combines with the thick, silicone cushioned interior.

The retractable screen shields from impacts, cracking and condensation, fully protecting the iPhone 4S, AT&T iPhone 4, or Verizon iPhone 4 screen. The Tank exterior is made of a premium, soft grip texture that slides easily in and out of your pockets. The Tank tests number one in impact resistance against the leading brand, and meets or exceeds US military standards.

Apple is testing an 8-inch iPad according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Apparently Apple is working with component suppliers in Asia to test out a new size iPad with a smaller screen. According to the report, Apple wants to broaden its product pipeline to maintain its dominant position in the tablet market.

Officials at some of Apple’s suppliers, who declined to be named, said the Cupertino, Calif.-based company has shown them screen designs for a new device with a screen size of around 8-inches, and said it is qualifying suppliers for it. Apple’s latest tablet, the iPad 2, comes with a 9.7-inch screen. One person said the smaller device will have a similar resolution screen as the iPad 2. Apple is working with screen makers including Taiwan-based AU Optronics Co. and LG Display Co. of South Korea to supply the test panels, the person said.

Apple has always stated that tablet devices with smaller screens than the iPad would not deliver the same experience for its users. However the fact that Apple is now testing smaller sized iPad devices should not really come as that much of a surprise. We are sure Apple tests all sizes of screens for its devices but that does not mean any of them will actually be released. On the other hand, Apple may be looking into releasing a cheaper model iPad to enhance its appeal to those on a budget.

Source: WSJ

With up to 38 different 4G LTE frequency combinations at play around the world, Apple would need to offer more than one iPad 3 model in order to support North America as well as Europe, Asia, and Australia

Following not only rumors by nearly every tech blog out there, but sources for both iMore and The Wall Street Journal are saying that the next version of the iPad will almost certainly come in an 4G LTE option. The Wall Street Journal says AT&T and Verizon are sure things, but what about everyone else? Not only is LTE up-and-comer Sprint not mentioned, but neither are carriers in Canada, the UK, or anywhere else in the world. Let’s dig in a little to discuss if it would be worth Apple’s while to make an iPad to work internationally.

LTE is a standard that is being used around the world, starting with TeliaSonera in Sweden and Norway back in 2009. In the US, you have AT&T, Verizon and even MetroPCS with various states of active LTE networks. In fact, there are over 30 countries that have commercial LTE service available, so pushing the standard into the iPad sounds like a no-brainer. That is, until you consider the frequencies used. Unlike GSM which used exclusively the 800, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz bands around the world, LTE is being used in nearly every band available. In North America, the 700 and 1700 MHz bands are the main bands for LTE, but 800, 1900, 2500 and possibly even 1500 MHz are in play. Add in the rest of the world, with 900, 1800 and 2600 MHZ, and you have the potential for up to nine bands that the radio chipset would have to support. Complicating matters even more, even in similar frequencies, there are multiple chunks of spectrum that don’t overlap. For example, Verizon uses 746-787 MHz, while AT&T uses 704-746 MHz. While close, these different blocks have different equipment needed due to radio propagation and interference issues. Extrapolate this across the world, and we’re now encompassing 38 different frequency combinations around the globe.

Now, a multi-band phone can only do so much. Look at the devices we have now, which include the bands for GSM on 800/900/1800/1900 MHz, and usually only three similar bands for 3G. If Apple is to make the LTE enabled versions available all over the world, a nine band LTE radio is not possible. Keep in mind that Verizon has essentially said that single band LTE devices are all they’re going to be rolling out in the near future.

So going back to the question, is it worth Apple’s while to make an iPad to work around the world? No, because they can’t do it with just one device. However, it is worth it to make multiple devices. One will support the 700 and 1700 MHz bands in North America, and one for the 800, 1800 and 2600 MHz bands for Europe, Asia and Australia. At this time, the 900, 1500, 1900 and 2500MHz bands are outliers, and though will some day be used, aren’t necessary for a successful international launch. Remember T-Mobile here in the states? Apple seems to be doing just fine without supporting their 1700 AWS spectrum.

I think the initial iterations of an LTE iPad are going to be similar to the iPhone 4 strategy. Recall the Verizon version shipped months after the AT&T/GSM version and only worked on the 800 and 1900 MHz bands for CDMA here in the US. Meanwhile, an international version worked on GSM and HSPA networks around the rest of the world. I expect the initial version to be rolled out for North America, launching in the US and Canada right away. Then a version with support for the most widely used blocks and bands for other parts of the world in the coming months.

Mickey Papillon host The Cell Phone Junkie Podcast and is a frequent contributor to Mobile Nations. Follow him @TCPJ_Mickey.

Everything you need to know about using your iPhone Camera to take great, memorable photos

With the new iPhone photography — or iPhoneography — series we’re running on iMore, we have a lot of new iPhones users, and burgeoning photographers joining us. So, Leanna and I thought it would be a good idea to team up, take a moment, and go over the basics so that everyone gets up to speed just as quickly as possible. If you’re new to the iPhone or new to taking pictures, here’s everything you need to know to get started. Bookmark it. If you’re already an expert, save the link for a friend, and jump right into our iPhoneography Forum and share your work!

The iPhone 4S camera

The iPhone 4S has an 8 megapixel camera. A megapixel is 1 million pixels, so that means the iPhone 4S camera captures images that are 3264×2448 pixels in size. That’s enough to print an 8×10 picture at 300 dots per inch (dpi), or fairly high quality. (Low quality color images print at 150-300dpi, high quality at 300-600+ dpi)

The aperture on the iPhone 4S camera is f/2.4. The f stands for “focal ratio” or “f-stop”. The lower the f-stop (which is actually a larger aperture), the more light that can be let in so you can get better pictures in a wider range of settings. For example, combined with the iPhone’s macro abilities, you can be obtain a shallow depth-of-field (where the subject is in focus, and elements in front of and behind the subject are blurred). The iPhone 4S also has 5 elements in the lens, helping to keep photos sharp.

An infrared (IR) filter helps produce more accurate color, and combines with software that optimizes dynamic range and white balance. So, you basically have a camera that could previously only be found on a dedicated point-and-shoot, built right into your phone.

• iPhone 4S camera hands-on

Quick Camera access

With iOS 5, Apple’s made it easier and faster than ever to access your camera when you need it, even when your iPhone is locked, and even if you have a passcode set.

• Double click the Home button
• Tap the Camera button

That’s it. Two clicks and a tap and you’re in the Camera App and ready to shoot.

• Yes, this does leave you open to pranks

The Camera app

Tap the Camera icon on your iPhone Home screen to launch the Camera app. The Camera app is the built-in, default way to take photos on your iPhone. Even in other apps, like Messages, if you tap the camera button to take a photo, you’ll be taken into the Camera app.

The Camera app opens to a live-view screen, similar to the LCD display you see on a point-and-shoot or DSLR camera. Controls are available right on the screen to take a photo, set the flash, access advanced options, and switch to the front-facing camera. Other controls are also available, including a hardware shutter and digital zoom. We’ll walk you through all of them.

Geo-tagging

The first time you launch the Camera app, it will ask for your permission to use your current Location. That’s because, if you let it, your iPhone will store the GPS coordinates of every photo you take, so you can always easily refer back to it later. This can be great for keeping track of vacation shots, but not so great if you’re posting pictures online and don’t want the entire internet to know your address.

Whether you choose to enable geo-tagging for now or not, you can always change your mind later.

• How to to geolocation on or off for your iPhone Camara

Taking a photo

There are two ways to take a photo with the Camera app. Both of them will fire the shutter and save a picture to your Camera Roll library.

1. Tap the Camera button on the live view screen
2. Click the volume up hardware button on the side of your iPhone

Bonus tip: If your iPhone headset has a volume up button, you can use it to take pictures remotely!

Pinch to Zoom

The iPhone has a mediocre digital zoom but if you absolutely have to zoom in, it can be very slightly better than nothing.

• Touch your thumb and forefinger to the screen and pinch them together to zoom in.
• Spread them apart to zoom back out.

Once you’ve activated the zoom feature, a slider will appear giving you linear control, if you prefer it.

Macro

The iPhone will automatically adjust for macro photos. Just bring the camera close to the object you want to shoot and take the picture.

Note: There appears to be a glitch in iOS 5 that causes problems focusing extremely close for macro photos. It locks for a moment, then blurs again. Hopefully Apple is fixing this for the next update.

Changing auto-focus and auto-exposure

The iPhone camera has automatic focus, exposure, and facial recognition. It will always try to take the best possible photo it can, but it may not always know which area of the photo you want to target.

Changing the target is simple.

• Tap the screen

That’s it. Any area you tap will be surrounded by a white square and your iPhone will automatically refocus and re-balance the exposure for that area.

If your iPhone detects a face — or up to 10 faces — it will put a green square around it and automatically refocus and optimize the image around the face.

Locking auto-focus/auto-exposure

Sometimes the auto-focus and auto-exposure on the iPhone is more blessing than curse. For example, when there’s a lot of movement, or when the center of the photo you want to take is exceptionally bright or dark. When that happens, you can lock both the auto-focus and auto-white balance so that, when you move the camera around, they no longer change.

• Place your camera one the area that has the focus and exposure you want to lock onto to
• Tap the square to make sure the focus and white balance are set.
• Hold the square with your finger until it turns blue and pulsates.

The words AE/AF Lock will appear at the bottom the screen to confirm you’ve done it correctly. Move the camera and take your photos without worrying about the auto-focus or auto-exposure balance any more.

To remove the AR/AF Lock, just tap the screen outside the square.

• More on how to use the iPhone AE/AF camera lock

Setting the flash

Your iPhone has an LED Flash that can be set to off, auto, and on. It’s not a great flash and as will any point-and-shoot camera, light is your friend — especially lot of daylight. If you’re in a really dark place, however, and really want or need a picture, it’s easy to turn the flash on.

• Tap the Flash button at the top left of the live view screen.
• Tap the On button to turn the flash on, or the **Auto button* to put it into automatic mode.

Taking HDR photos

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range and involves taking a series of pictures, one right after the other, both slightly overexposed and slightly underexposed, and combining them together to reveal more light and shadow information than a standard single-exposure photo would allow. So basically, you can see detail in the bright sky and in the shadow under the tree, rather than having one blown out or the other lost to black.

• Tap the Options button at the top center of the live view screen.
• Slide the HDR toggle to On.

The bottom of the screen will show HDR so you’ll know it’s enabled.

Note: The multiple exposures take a short amount of time to combine, so after you take an HDR photo you’ll see a your iPhone say “Saving HDR”. If you need to take a lot of photos quickly, you’ll want to make sure HDR is set to Off.

Displaying the grid

The grid is useful to help you align your photographs and achieve better compositions. For example, by using the “rule of thirds”.

• Tap the Options button at the top center of the live view screen.
• Slide the Grid toggle to On.

Two sets of vertical crossed by two sets of horizontal lines will divide your screen, and you’ll be ready to compose your shot.

• How to use the “rule of thirds” to better compose your iPhone photos

Camera Roll and Photo Stream

Once you’ve taken a photo, it gets stores in your Camera Roll, and optionally your Photo Stream.

To access the Camera Roll from inside the Camera App:

• Tap the Thumbnail button next to the camera button.

To access the Camera Roll from the Home screen:

• Launch the built-in Photos app
• Tap the the Camera Roll tab.

Photo Stream is part of iCloud and keeps the most recent photos from your Camera Roll, up to 1000 of them and for up to 1 month, in a special album that’s stored up to Apple’s servers and pushed down to your other iOS 5 devices. It can also stream photos to an Apple TV 2 without keeping any local copies, and will store all your photos, without limit of number and time, in iPhoto or Aperture on Mac, and on a Windows PC.

Think of it as a photo only (no video) duplicate of all the Camera Rolls of all your iOS devices — including photos you’ve saved to the Camera Roll from email and the web — all in one place.

Unlike Camera Roll, however, you currently can’t delete photos from Photo Stream (that will change with iOS 5.1 later this spring). That means if you take any risqué photos you don’t want store online, you’ll have to reset your entire Photo Stream via iCloud.com in order to get rid of them.

Photo management and editing

You can manage your photos, including emailing, tweeting, iMessaging, deleting, creating and filing into folders, and even basic editing like red-eye removal, rotation, cropping, and auto-ehance, right in the built-in Photos app. There are also several excellent photo editing apps in the App Store.

We’ll cover more on that in a future article. For now, we just want you to focus on taking photos.

Other Camera apps

While the basic, built-in iPhone Camera app is all you really need to get started, there are several other well regarded Camera apps in the App Store. They typically provide more or better features than the built in app. Here are two of our current favorites.

• Instagram is a popular, free iPhone app for applying distinctive filters to your photos, squaring them, and quickly sharing them to the Instagram network, as well as via Twitter and Facebook. You can also see some amazing examples of other people’s iPhoneography. Read more – Download now
• Camera+ has a lot of great features, including separate focus and exposure settings, image stabilization, enhanced zoom, scene modes, and a bevy of sharing options. – Read more – Download now

What’s next

Now that you have a basic idea how the iPhone camera works, go shoot some photos. Shoot tons of photos. Still life, portraits, landscapes, wild life, sports, anything and everything that catches your fancy. The secret to success here is definitely practice!

• Check out our weekly iPhone photography projects to learn more
• Share your work, tips, and advice in your iPhone photography forum

Following up on iMore’s news today on the iPad 3 announcement, quad-core, and possibility of LTE the Wall Street Journal has now said LTE looks to be a lock as well.

Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. will sell a version of the coming iPad that runs on their newest fourth-generation wireless networks, according to people familiar with the matter, as the battle to cash in on big investments in mobile broadband heats up.

We noted earlier, Apple could release a 4G LTE variant model targeted specifically for Verizon and AT&T. Due to differences in frequencies for international carriers, like Rogers, Bell in Canada and others in Europe and Asia/Pacific, it’s still unknown how wide-spread the LTE iPad 3 would be. Could Apple go U.S.-only for now? Again, Apple likely has these details decided already but they simply haven’t all leaked out yet.

Also missing from the latest round of rumors is any mention of the U.S.’s third largest carrier, Sprint. While Sprint currently offer the iPhone, they don’t have an iPad on their CDMA/EVDO rev A network at all. Considering Sprint won’t start their deployment of LTE until mid 2012, and even then, only in six markets. Would they still get a 2-3mbps “slow” CDMA/EVDO rev A iPad 3… or nothing again?

So Retina display, quad-core, and now LTE seem good bets for iPad 3. Out of all of those, how important is 4G LTE to you, and what network would you most want it on?

Source: WSJ