iPad2 thread

[runawayprisoner]

Real Racing 2 HD looks fabulous. Especially more so through HDMI to a good HDTV. Super fun gameplay. I have GT Racing, and I must say... I prefer Real Racing 2 HD so far.

But there is still room for graphics improvement. The game doesn't seem to put any kind of strain on the iPad 2.

 

[Aikouka]

Real Racing 2 HD looks fabulous. Especially more so through HDMI to a good HDTV. Super fun gameplay. I have GT Racing, and I must say... I prefer Real Racing 2 HD so far.

But there is still room for graphics improvement. The game doesn't seem to put any kind of strain on the iPad 2.

Yeah, when I saw Infinity Blade screenshots... I was really hoping that they'd try and put some AF into the game, as there were still some jaggies, but the textures blurring at a distance was definitely noticeable.

Asphalt 6 looks pretty decent... maybe latter PS2 graphics with AA. I might have to try Real Racing too.

 

[zsdersw]

That's still not representative of the iPad demography. You are talking about... who here? Again, those people you are talking about... how many of them actually has an iPad? On launch day?

I'm not talking about anyone on here... but I can guarantee you the people waiting in line or who camped outside Apple stores the night before launch day aren't best summarized as the affluent.

You are generalizing everyone just because of someone you know? I don't think that's a good way to judge people.

Not just "someone I know"... lots of people I know and lots of people I see at Apple stores. The data on "twentysomethings", debt and personal savings in "twentysomethings" and older adults also point to a very significant chunk of iPad/iPhone customers not being the affluent, college-degreed professionals of Apple's computer business.

The bottom line is also, as zerocool84 correctly points out, the iPhone and iPad wouldn't be the immense successes they are if only the rich had them.. to the degree of which that a purchase of the iPad or iPhone reliably indicated their socioeconomic situation.

And "first buyers" include people who stood in line to buy them the day they came out.

Yes... because only the rich would stand in line and camp outside an Apple store. /sarcasm

 

[DivideBYZero]

I'm not talking about anyone on here... but I can guarantee you the people waiting in line or who camped outside Apple stores the night before launch day aren't best summarized as the affluent.



Not just "someone I know"... lots of people I know and lots of people I see at Apple stores. The data on "twentysomethings", debt and personal savings in "twentysomethings" and older adults also point to a very significant chunk of iPad/iPhone customers not being the affluent, college-degreed professionals of Apple's computer business.

The bottom line is also, as zerocool84 correctly points out, the iPhone and iPad wouldn't be the immense successes they are if only the rich had them.. to the degree of which that a purchase of the iPad or iPhone reliably indicated their socioeconomic situation.



Yes... because only the rich would stand in line and camp outside an Apple store. /sarcasm

Jesus, start a new thread in OT about it. Stop crapping in this one. D:

 

[zsdersw]

Jesus, start a new thread in OT about it. Stop crapping in this one. D:

No.

 

[Pliablemoose]

DBZ, I'm hearing maybe 1 million sold this weekend, you hearing anything similar?

 

[DivideBYZero]

No.

Only an idiot would start a discussion about personal debt in an iPad 2 thread. What's next? Discussion of the inside leg measurement of iPad 2 owners? It's as relevant as your chosen discourse.

 

[DivideBYZero]

DBZ, I'm hearing maybe 1 million sold this weekend, you hearing anything similar?

If I asked, and was told, I still couldn't tell you. Sorry!

 

[you2]

Which codecs can ipad 2 play? I.,e if i transencode a dvd I have how can I load the movie onto the ipad and play it ?
--
Not familiar with apple's closed system so a bit of patience with a newbie question

 

[Genx87]

Which codecs can ipad 2 play? I.,e if i transencode a dvd I have how can I load the movie onto the ipad and play it ?
--
Not familiar with apple's closed system so a bit of patience with a newbie question

Same question. I am looking at a tablet to watch movies and listen to MP3s while on the road. I am thinking ASUS Transformer. But the iPad2's gaming numbers look incredible.

 

[zsdersw]

Only an idiot would start a discussion about personal debt in an iPad 2 thread. What's next? Discussion of the inside leg measurement of iPad 2 owners? It's as relevant as your chosen discourse.

Actually, my part of the discussion in this thread was about immediate adopters of the iPad 2 and other newly released products.

 

[akugami]

Which codecs can ipad 2 play? I.,e if i transencode a dvd I have how can I load the movie onto the ipad and play it ?
--
Not familiar with apple's closed system so a bit of patience with a newbie question

Handbrake, available for free on PC or Mac, can convert most video files to a format compatible with iOS devices.

What really sucked was the Nokia employee who contributed to VLC and was able to get a free app which plays almost any video file removed from the iTunes store. I mean, VLC for iTunes might technically violate all the terms of the GPL license but it was available for free and the source code was also available for redistribution. WTF you stupid Noka bastiche.

 

[runawayprisoner]

VLC was arguably the worst media player for the iPad on the App Store, though.

As for other media players, a simple search for some keywords ("mkv" is one) brings up yxplayer, which can play avi, divx, xvid, mkv, flv, wmv, and mp4 (outside of Apple's default player), and supports mp3, ac3, wma, pcm and aac audio. Subs supported are smi, sub, and srt formats.

And it is free.

 

[you2]

How do you load videos outside of itune ? With non ios devices I can treat them as disks. Can I do this with ios devices or do i need to somehow first import the stream into itune ?

Thanks for the pointer to handbreak. I use linux most of the time but at least this is a starting point.

Handbrake, available for free on PC or Mac, can convert most video files to a format compatible with iOS devices.

What really sucked was the Nokia employee who contributed to VLC and was able to get a free app which plays almost any video file removed from the iTunes store. I mean, VLC for iTunes might technically violate all the terms of the GPL license but it was available for free and the source code was also available for redistribution. WTF you stupid Noka bastiche.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Install iPhone Explorer if you don't want to open iTunes. It'll mount your iDevice like a drive in Windows Explorer or Finder, and then you can just drag and drop files on and off the respective app folders.

http://www.macroplant.com/iphoneexplorer/

Unfortunately, no Linux version.

 

[vulcanman]

Need some techies to help with this one.

The glass on the IPAD2 ... is it scratch-resistant ?

I ask because of this ...

digitimes has a BOM here that lists the surface as being "aluminosilicate glass over glass"

And this site discusses the properties of this glass.

Reading the above two articles gives me the sense that the IPAD2 is indeed highly resistant to scratches.

I would like to hear from the techies in the group.

 

[runawayprisoner]

It is highly resistant to scratches. My iPad 1 uses the same glass (a bit thicker), and it didn't have so much as a hairline scratch after 6 months of use.

Of course, don't just go and assume that it's invincible. It's highly resistant, but not scratch-proof.

 

[Aikouka]

VLC is pretty awful. It can't even handle a 720p h264 video on my iPad 2.

Install iPhone Explorer if you don't want to open iTunes. It'll mount your iDevice like a drive in Windows Explorer or Finder, and then you can just drag and drop files on and off the respective app folders.

http://www.macroplant.com/iphoneexplorer/

Unfortunately, no Linux version.

I posted a thread about that software in the Apple sub-forum and in my testing, all that software was good for was crashing. If I started it with my iPhone plugged in, it crashed at the splash screen. If I plugged it in post startup, it crashed when I went to access the Media folder, which is where all the goodies are.

EDIT:

I also tried Real Racing 2 HD and it's pretty nice. The menus seem "more refined", although I kept wondering why my contrLL selection never took... unlike most menus, you need to actually scroll to and select the option.

I couldn't figure out how to switch from in-car to out of car view either, albeit I didn't have much time to look while actually racing.

 

[gus6464]

I purchased sub player because of good reviews and it's ability to play subbed anime mkv's and it works flawlessly. You have to run the mkv through their app to convert it but the process is very quick and hardware acceleration works really well. It played a 1080p hardsubbed mkv with no hiccups. I have encountered some mkv files that are encoded funny to not play correctly but I don't think that's the player's fault.

Ohh and also Dead Space is fantastic.

 

[zerocool84]

I got to play with my brother's iPad 2 this morning at work and DAMN it's so thin. You really need to see it in person to see how thin it is. You could throw it and it'll slice off people's heads. It's very very smooth, times where the iPad 1 would hiccup the 2 flows nicely. Didn't play any games so don't know about those but it's much smoother. The connector port didn't seem that secure in there. It moved slightly when connecting. Not that good and could see some problems in the long run. There's lots to not like about the software as usual but hopefully they'll fix many of the issues in 5. Obviously it's still the best tablet out there and they didn't need to change much. Competition is coming and I'd still wait until those are released to buy a tablet.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

VLC is pretty awful. It can't even handle a 720p h264 video on my iPad 2.



I posted a thread about that software in the Apple sub-forum and in my testing, all that software was good for was crashing. If I started it with my iPhone plugged in, it crashed at the splash screen. If I plugged it in post startup, it crashed when I went to access the Media folder, which is where all the goodies are.

EDIT:

I also tried Real Racing 2 HD and it's pretty nice. The menus seem "more refined", although I kept wondering why my contrLL selection never took... unlike most menus, you need to actually scroll to and select the option.

I couldn't figure out how to switch from in-car to out of car view either, albeit I didn't have much time to look while actually racing.

I believe you tap the upper left or upper right to change view. AT least that's how it is on my iPod.

That game is already ridiculously nice. Real Racing 2 is a huge upgrade from the 1st one and what not. However, Real Racing 2 on iPad 2? Dang, I'd like to get my hands on that.

 

[cheezy321]

Actually, my part of the discussion in this thread was about immediate adopters of the iPad 2 and other newly released products.

Another apple thread, another trolling job by zsdersw

Wake me up when zsdersw actually provides something relevant and useful in an apple thread.

 

[MrX8503]

I got to play with my brother's iPad 2 this morning at work and DAMN it's so thin. You really need to see it in person to see how thin it is. You could throw it and it'll slice off people's heads. It's very very smooth, times where the iPad 1 would hiccup the 2 flows nicely. Didn't play any games so don't know about those but it's much smoother. The connector port didn't seem that secure in there. It moved slightly when connecting. Not that good and could see some problems in the long run. There's lots to not like about the software as usual but hopefully they'll fix many of the issues in 5. Obviously it's still the best tablet out there and they didn't need to change much. Competition is coming and I'd still wait until those are released to buy a tablet.

Lol @ the slicing. It's good to hear that the iPad 2 is pretty refined. I just wish it's browser did more.

 

[mammador]

Apple has more or less nailed the tablet market. I can't see any other company overriding Apple's brand, which is essentially what makes the iPad sell. it's the iconic model, and Motorola, Samsung and RIM will always be followers, not leaders. Samsung has its smartphone range to fall back on, but RIM doesn't even have that. As people are starting to see through Blackberrys quality, making a tablet and expecting to compete with the iPad makes no sense.

 

[akugami]

VLC was arguably the worst media player for the iPad on the App Store, though.

As for other media players, a simple search for some keywords ("mkv" is one) brings up yxplayer, which can play avi, divx, xvid, mkv, flv, wmv, and mp4 (outside of Apple's default player), and supports mp3, ac3, wma, pcm and aac audio. Subs supported are smi, sub, and srt formats.

And it is free.

Good to know. I don't usually watch videos on my iPhone and will usually convert the files to what is natively supported. I just like to keep my options open. I'll search that video player. And yes, VLC sucked but it was an option if you didn't want to re-encode all of your video files. One of the things is VLC was just getting started and I'm sure that it could have gotten a lot better as things went on. VLC on the PC is my most used video player.

How do you load videos outside of itune ? With non ios devices I can treat them as disks. Can I do this with ios devices or do i need to somehow first import the stream into itune ?

Thanks for the pointer to handbreak. I use linux most of the time but at least this is a starting point.

You should be able to obtain a version of Handbrake for Linux.