Which app have been updated to look great on the new iPad‘s impressive 2048×1536 Retina display? Not very many yet by our count, but we expect the floodgates to open when Apple’s third generation tablet actually hits the shelves next Friday, and for a steady stream to follow thereafter.

As Marc Edwards of Bjango wrote for us before, it might take a while for all our favorite apps to update, especially ones that use a lot of custom graphics for their user interfaces, and especially ones that didn’t prepare for @2x Retina graphics by building all their assets in a scalable format to begin with.

Apple has already updated a ton of their apps already, including Pages, Keynote, Numbers, GarageBand, iMovie, iWork, Apple Remote, Find My Friends, etc. but they knew this was coming for a while now.

Marc’s keeping track of Retina-ready apps, and sharing screen shots of apps-in-progress over on Twitter @RetinaiPadApps and we’re also going to maintain a count in our iPad Apps & Games Forums as well.

So head over there and join in our official iMore iPad Retina apps watch-list and as soon as you find your favorite apps have updated for Retina, let us know!

iOS 5.1 has been out for several days now, so it’s time to ask — how’s it working for you? Did it fix any bugs or battery life issues you were having with iOS 5 on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad? Did it make performance better on your older original iPad or iPhone 3GS? Did any of the new features like even faster camera access and Photo Stream photo deletion make you life easier?

Is it pretty much the same as iOS 5 for you? Or did it make things worse? Is your battery draining faster, are things more buggy, is performance worse, is is camera access even more annoying now?

Bottom line, how is iOS 5 working out for you?

Give us your quick answer in the poll up top and give us the details in the comments below. Make sure to include which device you’re running iOS 5.1 on, and whether you did a clean install or updated, and if you updated, whether you did it via iTunes or over-the-air (OTA) right on your device.

Apple has made 1080p TV shows and music available for streaming and purchase via the iTunes Store. The price is the same as the previous 720p HD content, but is the image quality better enough to justify the bigger download sizes and increased storage they’ll require?

First of all it’s worth remember that, as of now, only the new iPad and the new Apple TV, in addition to iTunes on the desktop, can even play back 1080p content. If you primarily watch your iTunes TV shows and movies on an iPad 2 and iPhone 4S or older device, 720p is all you can play. That makes the choice simple — there is none.

[Clarification: As pointed out in the comments below, you can load 1080p content onto iPad 2 or iPhone 4S, but the screen density is insufficient to play them at native resolution. For streaming, there's no reason to go 1080p. For purchases, you may want to swallow the size difference and go 1080p simply to future-proof your collection.]

If you’re getting the new iPad and/or the new Apple TV, however, you have the choice. With one flip of the Settings, you can go from 720p to 1080p. That makes the choice not so simple.

Ars Technica has taken a look and compared 720p vs 1080p content from iTunes, and the results are surprising. 1080p iTunes content isn’t that much bigger than 720p, but still manages to look better.

n the iTunes 10.6 preferences under Store, you can select whether HD downloads come in 720p or 1080p resolution. In the iTunes Store, movies conveniently list the file size for the selected format. A couple of examples: Hugo is 1.74GB in SD, 3.99GB in 720p, and 4.84GB in 1080p. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is 1.00, 2.91, and 3.65 gigabytes, respectively. However, to determine the quality difference, I looked at two (currently free) TV episodes: episode 1 of season 5 of The Big Bang Theory, and the first episode of Awake.

The reason Ars gives is that the new Apple TV supports High Profile H.264 decompression up to level 4.0, while the iPhone 4S and the new iPad support it up to level 4.1. That means they can handle more bits per second, and otherwise better optimize quality vs. file size. However. Ars also found the amount of extra detail in the 1080p versions varied greatly between videos and even within videos. In other words, 1080p didn’t always make a big difference to the overall quality of the experience.

While not directly comparable, if you want to look at the difference between 720p and 1080p without buying or downloading entire movies or TV show episodes, iTunes Movies Trailers is a good resource. I checked out a bunch of recent trailers, including The Avengers and noticed not only differences in quality but in color fidelity as well (look at the greens in the image up top). File sizes weren’t outrageously different either.

Check out their full report via the link below, and let us know if you’re going to be flipping your iTunes switch to 1080p.

Source: Ars Technica

While Sprint added the iPhone 4S to their lineup last October, last week’s new iPad event came and went with Sprint decidedly absent from the new iPad carrier announcements. So what’s the deal? Will Sprint be getting the new iPad? Well, Engadget has discovered entries in Best Buy’s internal database system that may just hint that the new iPad will reach Sprint too.

the new iPad for Sprint has arrived in Best Buy’s internal inventory system. Does this mean we’re going to see the devices magically show up next week at the electronic megastore? Eh, we wouldn’t count on it showing up that soon. But is it possible that Sprint will have Apple’s iconic tablet ready to go alongside the Samsung Galaxy Nexus when it launches its multi-billion-dollar 4G investment?

Sprint’s 4G deployment is well behind Verizon and a fair bit behind AT&T (thanks in no small part to the distraction that was WiMax). While they could perhaps have offered a CDMA iPad right away, being stuck on a theoretical maximum speed of 3mbps while AT&T and Verizon LTE can hit 72 mbps — and even AT&T fake 4G/3G can hit HSPA+ speeds well into the double digits — would have been less than optimal.

So if you’re holding out for the new iPad on Sprint, all hope may not be lost. However, even though the New iPad is carrier unlocked, if you buy now you probably won’t be able to switch to Sprint later — CDMA doesn’t work that way, and it’s uncertain if either the AT&T or Verizon LTE iPads would work on Sprint LTE.

Unfortunately, until Apple and Sprint make an announcement, all you can do is wait. (Or grab an AT&T or Verizon model for now and sell it and buy a Sprint one later — no contracts, after all.)

• Sprint help and discussion forum

Source: Engadget

Every week the editors at iMore carefully select some of our favorite, most useful, most extraordinary apps, accessories, gadgets, and websites. This weeks selections includes a musical game, a jailbreak tweak, an accessory and app to accept credit card payments, a music identifier, a news readers, and a photo editor.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

Guess Your Songs – @Alli_Flowers

Remember the old game show “Name that tune?” Remember how if they told you enough about the song, you could guess it in a single note? Well what if you only had a single note and no background information? What if that tune came from your own iTunes library?

Guess Your Songs is a great new game that you can play on your iPhone, iPad, Facebook, or directly through www.guessyoursongs.com. It uses your iTunes library, and plays you a snippet of a song. It could be a single note, it could be 10 notes – depends on the song – whatever fits into the two seconds you get to listen. Oh, and it’s not the beginning of the song, either. This can be a challenge.

Once you listen to your two seconds of music, you get three choices. Guess Your Songs will display the album art (if you have it), and give you three song titles. All you have to do is tap the correct song. This can sometimes be tricky. For instance, I played one round, where I got two seconds of silence. When I looked at my choices, two were classical pieces, and the third had a lengthy bridge with spots that were so quiet they could have been silence. Very difficult to make that call!

The more eclectic your collection, the easier it is to guess correctly. If you have a large collection of music from the same genre, it could prove very challenging!

So challenge yourself to see how well you know your own music collection, and give this a try!

Free – Download Now

Zeppelin (jailbreak) – @JorjLim

Zeppelin is a very simple jailbreak tweak that allows you to change your carrier icon. Instead of reading “O2″ or “AT&T” you can actually customise it to show the actual logo of the company, or even something completely different like the batman symbol, the Apple logo, or even the logo of your favourite sporting team.

When you initially download it it comes with some basic icons; from popular sci-fi series, video games as well as popular brands. However there are endless numbers of bonus packs to download in the Cydia store for free. (It even has their own category in Cydia)

If you want to really have simplicity, you can even set it to “none” to have nothing there at all.

One of the good things about this tweak is that you don’t even have to respring when you change an icon, so you can switch between them on the fly without having to worry respringing your phone.

You can download this fun little tweak from Cydia for free.

Square Register for iPad – @iMuggle

I’ve been using Square as the main method for taking credit card payments for PXLFIX since last summer. I love the ease of use, idiot proof interface, and low fees. As much as I’ve always enjoyed being able to take a credit card wherever I was, whether in the office or on a consult, I’ve felt like Square could add a bit more customization.

Square Register is exactly what I’d been wanting to see them do. I can now have a beautiful virtual shelf showing all our services and repairs, I can favorite certain items that get used more than others, and add photos for each item. I also like the fact that I can choose whether or not an item is taxable. In the state where my business is located, we don’t yet have to charge tax on labor so we have to break that out on invoices. Square makes it easier than ever. Just toggle tax on or off for any individual item.

I’ve been playing around with Square Register since it came out and I have to say that it’s one of the best options for small businesses that don’t want to be anchored to one point of sale or commit to several monthly fees. You can sign up for Square for free and receive a reader for free as well. Square Register is also a free download via the App Store.

Free – Download Now

USA Today – @Gmazo1

I’m a News junkie – I always have been. First thing in the morning – after I read my emails and check tweets from the night, i fire up two or three news apps to see what’s going on in the world. I have vacillated between my iPad and iPhone – but usually turn to the iPad for one app – USA Today. AFter checking the front page of the New York Times, this has been my go to app.

Now, USA Today has been updated for the iPhone and it is awesome. They did a complete redesign of the iPhone app; the sections are in big, bold colorful letters on the left hand side. In each “category” you can choose from lots of options. Being a sports nut, I really appreciate the ability to see Top Stories, Scores and each sporting league right there for easy perusal.

I also like that the settings menu is built into the app. I can manage my alerts, choose display options and get support via email or twitter. There is even a handy weather widget on the front page that can be set to multiple locations. All in all, this is a great upgrade and has made this my new “go to” news app when I am just looking for quick stories – not in depth analysis.

Free – Download Now

Shazam – @Bla1ze

I’m getting old. My memory for the names of songs and tunes I like is no longer as good as it once used to be. For example, watching the iPad announcement I sat there wondering what the name of the song they played while showing off the new stores was pretty much for hours, even though I knew I had heard it before. I gave up though, and headed off to the app store to find an app that would know instantly. I found Shazam, played a few seconds of the song, Shazam sent it to the cloud and immediately gave me the answer I was looking for — We are young by Fun featuring Janelle Monae. Shazam is free and available in the app store, right now.

Free – Download Now

iPhoto for iPhone and iPad – @llofte

One of the announcements during Apple’s iPad event was iPhoto for iPhone and Mac. When rumors first started surfacing about this, I’ll admit that I wasn’t too thrilled because I’ve never been a fan of iPhoto for Mac. I’m happy to report that I’m actually very impressed with iPhoto for iPhone and iPad.

I don’t want to repeat myself, so please take a look at my full review.

$4.99 – Download Now

The new iPad – @reneritchie

What? Stop looking at me like that. It had to be done! The new iPad packs an ridiculous amount of technology into a sleek, sexy package for an unbelievably low price. It’s such a design, engineering, and logistical achievement that I’m guessing Apple’s competitors likely went into collective apoplexy after watching the event on Wednesday and are probably still on pure oxygen.

2048×1536 Retina display pixels in a 9.7-inch display is crazy. It’s more than your 1080p television at a tiny fraction of the size. 4G LTE networking is fantastic for those with coverage, and the Apple A5X chipset looks to be quad-core graphical monster. It’s even got a 5mp version of the iPhone 4S’ fantastic iSight camera built in.

And it’s almost the same size as the iPad 2, and the same price. If you haven’t gotten a tablet yet, it’s a great time to start. If you have an original iPad, it’s a great time to upgrade. If you have an iPad 2, it’s a good upgrade provided one or more of the features fixes a real problem you’ve been having.

I’ll be lining up to get the fully loaded version on launch day, but if you haven’t made up your mind yet, we’ve got everything you need to help you decide right here:

• 2012 iPad buyers guide

Tell us your pick!

Those were our picks, iMore Nation, so now it’s your turn! Tell us your pick of the week below. Give us the name of your favorite app, site, or accessory, and tell us why it made your life more productive, more informed, more entertaining, or just plain more fun. Jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

Winner of the 2011 iMore Editors Choice Award for favorite iPad case, Pad & Quill is hard at work on a new line of products, including cases specially designed for Apple’s new iPad. While there may not seem to be too many differences between last year’s iPad and this year’s new iPad, when you’re dealing with handcrafted designs, and old world materials like wood and leather, it pays to be perfect.

While we’re waiting on the new gear, Pad & Quill president Brian Holmes was gracious enough to offer iMore readers %15 off any of their existing models. That includes the Little Black Book for iPhone and iPod touch, Contega, Octavo, and The College Edition for the iPad 2, the Case for the original iPad, and the Cartella for the MacBook Air. They also have cases for both the Amazon Kindle and the Nook, if you happen to have either of those as well.

Italian bonded leather and Baltic birch abound, and the quality is off the charts. (And no, this isn’t a sponsored post, we here at iMore are just huge fans of their work.)

So enjoy the teaser image up top, and check Pad & Quill out via the link below. And for this weekend only, use coupon code iMPQ12 to save 15% off your order.

Prices variable – Shop now

A few tethering applications have appeared in the App Store only to be pulled very soon after. One such application was iTether, it appeared back in November 2011 and was pulled on the same day it launched. The app cost $14.99 and used USB to connect your Mac to your iPhone to use its data connection. The app bypassed the usual carrier tethering charges which probably explains why it was pulled.

Now the developer behind iTether has returned with a new service which is simply called Tether. The new service is based on HTML 5 so there is no need to source the app through the App Store.

“It was clear from our initial application iTether, there was enormous demand within the iPhone ecosystem,” says Tim Burke, CEO of Tether. “It was unfortunate that Apple decided to remove our application, only 20 hours after we launched. However, this caused us to innovate. Our underlying patent-pending technology behind Tether for iPhone is unlike anything on the market.” Tether’s new version for the iPhone is purely based on HTML5 and creates a completely wireless connection over AdHoc. This circumvents the need of buying the application directly from Apple’s App Store and allows any iPhone or iPad with a data connection to allow tethering.

Tether is available as a once a year purchase of $30 and is compatible with Windows as well as Mac. There is currently no trial version so you can't test it before you part with your money. You can see exactly how it works in the video below!

Source: Tether

Following the new iPad event, the internet erupted not with praise for the new iPad‘s Retina display, or it’s A5X quad-core graphics chipset, or the availability of 4G LTE models. No, it erupted with controversy surrounding Apple eschewing the name “iPad 3″ and going with simply the new “iPad.”

Note, that’s not “the new iPad”, it’s the new “iPad”. Apple is just referring to it as “the new iPad” because it’s the iPad that is new. Heck, even with the iPhone, that currently does have a numbering system of sorts, is referred to as “new” by most people. Many people don’t know what model number the newest iPhone is at, or think they do and get it wrong. On multiple occasions, I’ve had people say something like “yeah, well my brother has the iPhone 4G!” when telling them I had an iPhone 4. It’s a well known point of confusion (and one that likely just got worse, thanks to AT&T and Apple).

Yesterday, Simon Sage, expressed his dislike for the new name and argued that even though the rest of Apple’s product line — iMac, Macbook Pro, Macbook Air, iPad — aren’t numbered, Apple still doesn’t run around calling them “the new [insert product name here]“.

Actually. They do. Here’s “The new iMac”.

And “The new MacBook Air”.

And “The new Mac Pro”.

They may not have done it as repeatedly or in as many places as they’ve done “the new iPad”, but they have done it. And for a reason. MacBooks and iPods haven’t had numbers before, so the new MacBook or the new iPod is an easy transition. The last iPad was the “iPad 2″ so Apple needs to stress that while the latest model isn’t being called the “iPad 3″, it’s still the latest model. It’s still new. The word is simply a descriptive term to go along with it and emphasize the transition.

I guarantee your new iPad will not arrive in a box labeled “The new iPad”.

As to the argument that there’s be no way to distinguish between iPad models, that’s something we’ve already learned to deal with. Just like we have “iPod touch (3rd generation)” and “iMac (early 2011)”, we’ll have “iPad (3rd generation)” or “iPad (early 2012)”. Now, I do agree that with the iPad, it is a little different because Apple will be selling two models at the same time, but really, it doesn’t change anything. The current iPad will get the spotlight, and somewhere in the corner will be the previous year’s model with the appropriate label.

I also agree that for this year, and this year only, this rebranding might confuse customers. The fact that the iPad 2 is older than the iPad is bewildering, so, absolutely this will be confusing to consumers — but that’s precisely why Apple is being so adamant about referring to the latest iPad as “the new iPad”.

Apple has always been relentless about embracing change and it’s served them pretty well. “iPad” is simpler, stronger, and more Apple-like. It’s better. People have a tendency to resist change, so it’s certainly understandable that many reacted strongly, even negatively to Apple calling the new iPad simply the new iPad.

Arguably, Apple’s mistake was not with axing the numbering scheme now, but with starting it in the first place. The repercussion of that mistake is to have one confusing year. In a couple years from now, this will be a non-issue. And in reality, how much will this confusion actually hurt them? A customer is going to walk in and ask for an iPad, an employee will show them both models, and they’ll make a decision. It will have zero effect on Apple’s bottom line.

Back in October, I predicted that Apple was going to make this naming move with the next-generation iPhone. Looks like I nailed it, I just underestimated how quickly they’d move.

The World Wide Jailbreak Convention (WWJC) has announced that JailbreakCon 2012 will be held Saturday, September 29th at the South San Francisco Conference Center.

The venue its self is in prime location, situated 9 minutess from San Francisco's airport, 16 minutes from the Heart of the city, 40 minutes from the home of Apple and 30 minutes from the Facebook and Twitter headquarters.

We at JailbreakCon are very excited to be in such a great city, and we hope all attending can have a great stay in the city we all know as being "All things tech". Our event date is the 29th of September 2012. We do advise all attending to allow the weekend stay as we may make some changes along the way, but we can confirm the 29th as the event day.

For those attending, they’re in the process of organizing with local hotels and lodging facilities to get attendees the best deals they can. You can hit the link below to view a map of the conference center and more information about JailbreakCon.

Anyone iMore readers that are members of #TeamJailbreak plan on attending the conference? It should make for a good time to be had by all.

Tickets are available now so hit the links below for more information and to get your tickets before they’re gone!

More: WWJC

Tickets: Eventbrite