Although it is still evolving, the iPad has made plenty of routine tasks easy and fun and it is all set to bring a revolution of sorts in the field of education, as well. With an interesting user-interface, amazing resolution, long battery life, apt size (equivalent to a physical book) and a powerful processor, surely it has the potential to change the way the education system functions all over the world. In fact, many college students have already switched to the trendy device from Apple for carrying out a number of their curriculum related activities, assignments, projects and presentations.

From boardrooms to Classrooms

iPad devices have made significant contributions to many fields like healthcare, travel and tourism and business. For instance, it is increasingly being used in board meetings and to carry out many business related tasks. But now, it is slowly entering classrooms, in the sense that some of the schools have integrated the use of this device in their teaching methodology. This has made the whole process of learning more interactive and engaging, which ensures that students are able to grasp their subjects better.

The interactive feature of the iPad makes the subjects come alive to the students by breaking the monotony and ambiguity in concepts that earlier came with textbooks in subjects related to science, commerce and the humanities. Since it is a fun way to learn new things, the iPad also increases class participation.

Today’s school and college going generation is tech-savvy and takes to the iPad just like a fish takes to the water. Thus, they can optimize the use of the iPad in a way that helps them get the maximum advantage from the learning perspective. I am sure, students of all age groups can improve their academic performance by using the iPad as a learning device.

Self-Education through iPad

iPad devices have tremendous potential for becoming a tool for self-learning. There can be custom made apps for every kind of course offered at school or university level. In fact, Apple has iTunes U, which contains exclusive apps for various grades, covering topics like Nursery rhymes to advanced chemistry. Additionally, it can be used to record lectures and refer to them later, instead of taking lengthy notes. The device also helps students enrich their extra-curricular skills like learning music or a foreign language via various apps or video tutorials.

There are however, a few things one must consider before making full-fledged use of iPads in various educational institutions. First of all, educators and students both need to be trained to make apt use of the device, as well as, the apps that are used for the purpose. Next comes the issue of affordability. Not all schools can afford, at least presently, to have 1:1 student to iPad ratio, and there is still ambiguity over the fact that who will actually pay for and own the contents like apps and e-books. Once these things are in place, I am sure that the iPad devices can very well become a commonly used device in different schools across the world.

I was looking for something quick access interface for regular numbers & texts and I recently came across this app that gives much more than what I needed - Favorites – Quick Launch list of your favorite tasks. 

So here is a through review of Favorites – Quick Launch iOS app that you can use on iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad!

Favorites Quick Launch iPhone App Review

The concept of this app is simple and productive - You can save your time by creating a quick launch list of your favorite tasks including Speed dial, emails, SMS, Website Bookmarking and frequently used device settings.

The interface is designed such as to serve the purpose of word – Quick!

Everything has quick access via dashboard and interface works very fluidly, I tried the app on iPod Touch, iPhone & iPad as well, which looks and performs fabulously well.

Favorites Quick Launch app does reduce your time taken in  searching numbers and email IDs from the huge list every time and trust me you will love your iPhone more when you have this app.

Detailed features list of this iOS app is as follows -

Add your favorite phone numbers to the quick launch list.

Add your favorite email addresses to the quick launch list.

Add your favorite phone numbers for text messaging to the quick launch list.

Add your favorite Websites to the quick launch list.

Add your frequently used device settings the quick launch list.

Add up to 4 items from the quick launch list to the notification center for quick reminders.

Continuing with the review this app not just quickly add new entries but editing them is also very quick and easy. Moreover you can add tasks and set reminders so, you will never need any other app for remembering everything.

As you can see in above screenshot, the app has also added the quick launch buttons for all the settings option you have for your iOS devices. This makes stuff better because I know it takes me literally 5 taps to turn ON/OFF my WiFi every time. So shortcuts to settings works much faster for many regular tasks on your iPhone.

Last and very important thing I would like to highlight about this app is its available for Free of cost! Amazing isn’t it? That is why I have recommending this app to everyone to try at least once and you will definitely love the experience in a productive way!

Cost : Free

Ratings - 5/5

Download Favorites – Quick Launch List of Your Favorite Tasks

As the name suggest this app has all great wallpapers and lock screens for your iPhone/iPad and app comes free to download where you can get 100+ HD wallpapers completely free, which is pretty awesome. Because there are very few apps out there who give away high quality wallpapers collection completely free and this one is just gives you best of the league.

Once you had enjoyed those free HD wallpapers, you can separately buy the wallpapers pack right inside the app for just $0.99 per pack. The wallpaper packs are basically the categories and you can go for the category you need, and get your favorite HD wallpapers on your iPhone. Another great thing about this app is it does not have annoying advertises within it, so your experience of choosing wallpapers is ad-free!

This app reduces tedious way to download separate apps for few category of wallpapers  and few bucks as they have all collected right in to the single interface.

When you download the app you need to click on Free category and it will start downloading your 100 HD wallpapers and will take little time based on your internet connection. And you can see all the categories below it which you can purchase as you need it.

Interface is simple to understand and easy to use. Overall, I really liked this app and I would definitely recommend this app for all kind of users who love customizing their iOS devices.

Here are categories available on this cool wallpapers app right now and they are constantly adding new category packs every few weeks.

Free (100+)
- 3D Wallpapers (100+)
- Abstract Wallpapers (100+)
- Animal Wallpapers (100+)
- Birmingham UK Wallpapers (100+)
- Birthday Wallpapers (30+)
- Car Wallpapers (200+)
- Christmas Wallpapers (100+)
- Easter Wallpapers (50+)
- Food and Drink Wallpapers (100+)
- Halloween Wallpapers (30+)
- London UK Wallpapers (250+)
- Love Wallpapers (60+)
- Military Wallpapers (100+)
- Nature Wallpapers (400+)
- Neon Wallpapers (40+)
- Police Car Wallpapers (100+)
- Snow Wallpapers (100+)
- Space Wallpapers (100+)
- Switzerland Wallpapers (100+)
- Texture Wallpapers (200+)
- Waterfall Wallpapers (100+)

App Rating - 4.5

Cost: Free to Download & Use Free Category

          For each other category you have to pay $0.99

Download This App Now

As this new form of latop is superthin and offers a lot considering its size, it was important for me to know how exactly these devices will impress to the end-user.

Dell recently uploaded the testimonial/user review of the first customer they sold this device, who was deliberately looking for a dell ultrabook for his traveling and computing needs. It’s quite a unique way dell captured their customer experience video form and uploaded on YouTube for India to see how great the Dell XPS 13 experience can be.

User Review/Testimonial of Dell XPS 13

I hope, this cool innovative video form Dell will help you choose the new breed of laptops called ultrabooks. Check out more about Dell Ultrabook Series XPS 13 here.

Today, we are reviewing one of the flavors of Trivia, which you have never seen before and a complete new experience made available on Android Smartphones called – Photos Trivia.

Photos Trivia Android App Review (Free)

Most of us are definitely bored with the Trivia in old school way and Photos Trivia definitely add a new dimension to our love for Trivia and helps us kill time without loosing any excitement.

I’ve been playing with this app for last 4-5 days and it’s definitely easy to get addicted for it. As you move forward the challenges become exciting and all you have to do is guess the photo as early as possible and score the points. Soon you will find yourself competing with your older scores, which is the beauty fo this game/app available for all Android smartphones.

The User interface is fairly simple to understand and once you get in,you can choose from various categories you would like to guess the photos from. From Art, Hollywod, History & Birds, you get numerous number of pictures & categories to choose from which can keep you busy for hours.

The developers are constantly adding the new photos & categories every week, which is interesting to have in this free Android app. Photos Trivia works very fluently on different screen sizes and even lower end Android smartphones and wont consume much of your space on Android Smartphone.

This app is definitely the one of very few apps that I played for a longer time, which I enjoyed a lot and that is why I am giving this complete 5 star ratings for its cool UI, involving & exciting design and simplicity that anyone can understand easily!

Cost: Free

Ratings: 5/5

Download Photos Trivia Here

NewsAce Multimedia News Reader App Review

This app lets you collect all your favorite news feeds and multimedia resources in to a single platform. The user interface is really nice somewhat similar to Apple Newstand you get with iOS devices.

The Interface is aesthetically pleasing an very responsive and its gesture based navigation to swipe left and right to newer news. You can manually add any number of RSS feeds to this free app and it also suggests you hand picked 400+ resources for reading directly. The app works really great with all Android devices with different screensizes and specifications and very usable on tablets as well.

The recommended section well categorized to find the news that you want to read and becomes a fun experience overall compared to surfing through browser. 400+ recommended news channels including CNN, Movieclips(movie trailer), The NewYork Times, ESPN, Engadget, Boingboing, The Big Picture, 5min, BestRadioPodcast, College Humor, and Twitter Youtube are already in-built in the NewsAce app for Android.

As I said this app is ‘Multimedia News App’, It has capabilities of subscribing to podcasts & radio shows that get synced automatically. Its a great feature for those who does not want to have separate apps for news, social & multimedia.

The app also displays Twitter news and it is to configure no matter it is text, links or photos. This whole app is supported by Google reader so you can directly sync or use it with the NewsAce.

Some of the Miscellaneous features of this app includes View it Later,which lets you view the pages and RSS feeds even if you are offline. Share features lets you share the stories to various social sites and Starred feature let you save the favorite RSS feeds or News very easily.

Overall, This app is really useful for almost everyone who loves to stay updated with latest news, videos & podcasts. And as its free its definitely a must-have app for Android smartphone or Tablet users.

Cost: Free

Rating – 4/5

Download NewsAce Multimedia News ReaderApp

Video Demo of The NewsAce App

Well, almost never right? I was going through same from a long time now and then I stumbled upon this really smart app for  my iPhone that can easily & visually manage my financial goals – Budget Envelopes.

Today, I am going to give in-depth review of budget envelope that will help you decide why you should budet envelope all your finances.

Budget Envelopes iPhone/iPad App Review 

As all of you are aware that, most popular method to save and manage money is envelop budgeting. We get the income, we store it in different envelopes for specific purposes and use it when needed.

This app is built upon the same concept where you can create virual envelopes and store the expected incomes from various sources. You can assign the envelopes for specific purposes like – groceries, entertainment, gas and so on.

Now when you make expenses, the envelops get empty accordingly and you can visually manage which money is going where! Its damn simple to view how much money fro envelop is spent and what is left very quickly and it encourages you to spend money according to needs. The progress bar shows you money left in Green & Money spent in Red and in similar way you can  have unlimited envelopes as you want.

Why this app is most helpful is because of its recurring monthly income and spending capabilities. Because most of the people have predictable income value and timings, you can set it once and forget about it.

Like you are getting $3000 monthly wages and $1000 for Rent, you just set it once and you don’t have to update it again and again. Similarly your predictable spending can also be set and edited within the app, so you do not have to worry about it.

Unexpected expenditures can be easily met using Budget Enevelope App, because you can collect all your financial details at single interface. You can additionally create reports and graphs to find out where you are saving money or where is that you are overspending.

The export feature of the app is really strong and some of them are as follows -

• 2D pie chart view of expense by envelope and income by category.
• 2D bar chart view of expense vs income.
• Bar chart view of income and expense for last six months.
• Detailed 2D Pie chart view of income and expense reports for any day/week/month/year.
• Print reports from the device directly with any Air print supported printer.
• Export reports into PDF and email the PDF report.

Additional Features of the Budget Envelope App -

Despite of its mainstream finance management capabilities, The app also does have many promising features that you can use to store the data securely and sync it very easily with the other devices in your family.

The interface is simple, easy to understand and works very fluently on both Apple iPad & iPhone can be used with all iOS devices.

Its strong capabilities of managing finances, syncing, exporting, printing & emailign PDF reports, Budget Envelope becomes a definite must-have app for those who are sincerely willing to manage money & plan a great monthly/yearly budget.

Cost: $0.99

Ratings – 4.5/5

Download Budget Envelopes App For iPhone/iPad 

HTC One X from the HTC One series has been a much talked about Android based smart phones and Samsung already glamorized the market with Galaxy and now it has come up with the new breed Galaxy S II. Well these both smart phones are quite lucrative and full of exciting features and if this season you are thinking of to buy anyone of them, then let us have a walk to the park and see, which smart phone stands on which strand.

HTC One X Vs Samsung Galaxy SII  Comparison

Form Factor

HTC One X is being framed in 134.4 x 69.9 x 8.9 mm as compared to Samsung Galaxy S II which has been composed in the frame size 125.3 x 66.1 x 8.5 mm. Comparing the weight of both, One X is just 130gms, compared to 116gms of Galaxy SII. However you will hardly feel the difference of 14gms.

HTC One X is a thin built with decent 3 touch capacitive buttons below the display. Compared to this, Samsung Galaxy holds a bit grand look with brawny built and comes with stylish button with physical centre button and two capacitive touch buttons.

Well over all perceptions says, that HTC is a head in the form factor.

Display Comparison

In terms of display, HTC One X is composed of super IPS LCD 2 capacitive touch display of 4.7 inches and which offers the screen resolution of 720×1280 pixels with the pixel density of 312ppi. Compared to this you will find, 4.3 inches display in Samsung Galaxy SII which offers the 480 x 800 pixels with density of 217ppi.

Both the display offers the multi touch support, sensors like accelerometer, proximity and Gyro sensor which enhance the user experience. Both the displays are also protected by Corning Gorilla Glass displays.

More or less, in terms of display features, both stands on the same strand, however HTC One is ahead in offering the better picture quality with better resolution and pixel density.

Camera Quality:

Galaxy S II and HTC One X, both are powered with 8MP camera, where the maximum resolution is also the same. However you will find HTC One X better than Galaxy, when it comes to other features like dual LED flash, quality of HD and also in terms of software application for enhancing the pics quality. Both have maximum resolution of 3264×2448 pixels, features like LED flash, Geo Tagging, image stabilization, face detection and HD video shoot at 1080p resolution.

Processor, OS and UI:

HTC One X is powered with 1.5 GHz Quad Core processor which is backed by Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset, compared to this, Samsung Galaxy comes with 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor which is powered by Mali GPU.

In terms of OS power, HTC is again ahead to Samsung Galaxy S II which is powered with Android Gingerbread 2.3.4 compared to Android 4.0 ICS which powers the HTC One X. If we talk about UI, then Samsung Galaxy SII has TouchWiz 4, while in HTC you will experience the charisma of Sense UI which is popularly known for offering better gaming experience and user friendly UI.

Memory, Connectivity & Battery:

HTC One X comes with 32GB of internal memory which is no more expandable. Samsung Galaxy also comes in 16/32GB variants and it offers the support for expandable memory. Both the smart phones offer quite similar connectivity features with the difference in Bluetooth, where HTC is powered with HTC one X and Samsung comes with 3.0.

HTC One X runs on 1800mAh battery and offers the 10 hrs of talktime on 2G and close to 9 hrs on 3G. Where have Samsung Galaxy SII runs on 1650mAh battery which offers 19 hrs of talk time on 2G and 9 Hrs on 3G.

Verdict

HTC One X is powerful Android based smart phone which has show quality performance in recent times and better quality of experience in all aspects of interaction. Powered with Android 4.0 ICS, HTC One X is no doubt a head from Samsung Galaxy SII which is no doubt less expensive then HTC One X. However Samsung Galaxy SII with decent features is an ideal choice if budget is the constraint.

HTC Evo 4G LTE Android ICS on May 18 for Sprint Customers

Evo 4G LTE composed of 4.7 inches HD display and it offers the charisma of Android 4.0 ICS. It runs on dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor which offers soothing and smooth multitasking performance on Android ICS.

Apart from this it also composed of 8 MP camera which offers decent photography experience.

So, get ready to experience the new breed of Android on Sprint, don’t forget to witness the launch of HTC Evo 4G LTE on 18^th May 2012.