Bskyb release new Sky Sports News for iPhone app.

This week Bskyb have released a brand new version of their very popular Sky Sports News app for iPhone users. Rather than just update the app through the app store, you have to delete your old app and install the new app.

Please see the screen shots below from the app store.

Aft using it yesterday, I can say that not much has changed. There does seem to be more video content available for stories and their is the addition of a dedicated F1 section which brings the app in line with that on its bigger brother on the iPad.
I have taken some screen shots below for you to see how the app looks.

As you can see the style of the F1 part matches the iPads style and you can watch SSN or listen to their radio channel but you will need the Sky Go app for watching Sky Sports News live.

New iPad vs Original iPad

Well I’ve had my new shiny iPad for just over a week and I’m very happy with my purchase.
Having owned an original iPad for a while now, I was wondering if it would be worth spending the cash on the new new iPad, but I think the screen alone made it worth every penny.

The screen is truly impressive, it’s so sharp, plus the colour output is dramatically better than the original panel used in the last two versions of the iPad.
The brightness output is also hugely increased and the picture below should off the difference between my new iPad (on the left) and my original iPad (on the right).

I made sure that I had the brightness cranked to the max on both and I’m really surprised at the difference between the two panels.

Now the retina display is packing that eye-watering pixel density, and close up shots of my apps on both screens really show the difference between old and new.

Above is a photo of my original iPad and below is the same shot of apps on my new iPad.

Moving on from the amazing display, the new iPad is also a lot quicker at loading video content than the 1st one, but the thing I noticed that wasn’t that much different was the loading of web pages. Yes the new iPad is quicker, but it’s not amazingly quicker, which I wasn’t expecting.

Camera, the front facing camera is ok, but the rear camera is very good indeed, lots of detail captured as hopefully you’ll see below.

I was especially impressed with the level of detail achieved with the fields and also the cloud detail, the camera captures lots of shading very accurately. So a big thumbs up from me on that.

That’s it for now, as I use my iPad more and more, I will post my feedback.

Sky officially launch their Cloud WiFi app

Today Bskyb have officially made available their app to Sky customers who subscribe to their Unlimited and Connect broadband services.

It’s available for iOS devices via the app store.

Once downloaded onto your device you will need to sign in using your Sky I.D

Once you’ve signed in, you’ll need to install a wifi profile so that your device will automatically connect when at a location that is part of Sky’s new wifi in the cloud service, saves having to search for networks!

You can search based on your location or search via an address or postcode and the neat map will show you where you can find free wifi.

It’s a great app and it’s free!
Go and download it folks.

Panasonic Blu-ray Home Cinema Remote app for iPad

This will be a brief quick review on Panasonic’s new app for iPad users for controlling their home cinema systems without the need for a clumsy remote, or to be staring at a tiny tiny display on the front of the main unit which I know from experience is a complete pain in the ass. Especially when you’re discussing setups with customers.

So making a visually attractive and simple to use app really is the answer, and I will try to show you the benefits of using this app if you own an iPad.

So ill launch it from my iPad by tapping on the new icon which you can see below:

We will start with showing you the app in portrait mode, and then move onto the landscape mode.
Very simple layout with a nice jog dial or trackpad in the middle top of the screen. Very easy to switch between inputs on your home cinema:

As you can see below, you can also easily switch between the different sound-stage modes and it even shows you the difference between how the modes actually distribute the audio around your room, it really doesn’t get easier than this, images below show you the difference between 2 surround options:

For customers I think this will make selling them a sound system even easier as it will show them just what a sound system can really do for them.
Now I could go on and on about all the different sound settings, but let’s just say there’s quite a few.

Now when you turn your iPad to landscape mode, you get 3 amp like screens to suit what type of system you’re used to using, and also makes the settings super easy to switch between.

Now if you like to use a remote control, then you can use the app as well!

So their you have it, it’s free so if you own an iPad, then why not download from the app store.

Panasonic Remote App 2.0

Panasonic UK have today released their newest version of their iOS app, Viera Remote 2.0…….finally……..as someone who runs a dealership, we were told this app update was to be released 3 weeks ago, so I have no clue as to why it has then taken them a further 3 weeks to actually release it.

I’m hoping that when I test this in my shop tomorrow that the trackpad part works better than the older version did, especially when using the new Web Browser app on the 2012 SmarTViera Televisions.

The main benefits of this app update is that it will allow you to share content that’s on your portable device with everyone else on the big screen and also you can drag content from your tv screen onto your device.

Here below are some screen shots I’ve taken on my iPhone, shall post later when I get home and have updated my iPad app too.