Amazon announced this week that the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson is the top-selling book of the year for 2011, according to a report in Forbes. I recently finished the book, and really enjoyed it. The unprecedented access that Jobs gave to Isaacson resulted in lots of great stories that I had never heard before and revealed fascinating insights and opinions of Steve Jobs. I highly recommend it. And now, on for the other iPhone and iPad news of the week:
- I find the iPad so much more enjoyable to use than a computer, and I am constantly finding new ways to use it instead of a computer. Along these same lines, Harry McCracken of Technologizer wrote a great article about how he has started using an iPad instead of a computer.
- If you have an iPhone 4S, you probably already know how useful Siri can be. Lex Friedman of Macworld has some great tips for getting more out of Siri.
- If you live in New York City, a cool new Apple Store opens today at Grand Central Station. Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Fortune wrote a good overview of the store, including a video walk-through.
- Eli Milchman of Cult of Mac reports that if you are a customer of Chase bank, you can now use its free iPhone app to transfer money from your bank account to any other U.S. bank account (it doesn't need to be a Chase account). The Chase app has long allowed you to deposit a check just using your iPhone, thus saving you a trip to the bank. Now, the app saves you a trip to the ATM when you need to pay someone. Neat.
- David Pogue of the New York Times reviews the Epson Megaplex, a projector for the iPhone that can turn your iPhone into a home theater.
- Oklahoma attorney Jeffrey Taylor writes about using an Android tablet in court on his site The Droid Lawyer. Everything in his post applies to an iPad as well, except that instead of the Android app RepliGo Reader, on the iPad you should use the excellent GoodReader app.
- What happens when you cross The Three Stooges with an iPhone? Watch this trailer for the new Farrelly Brothers movie, around the 30 second mark. (via TiPb)
- And finally, here is a story about an ill-fated iPad sale that, I'm embarrassed to admit, occurred in a town not too far from New Orleans, where I live. Chealsea Gaudin of WWL, the local CBS affiliate, reports that a man was at a gas station in Slidell, LA when two other men approached him and asked if he wanted to buy an iPad for $120. Our shopper tried to show some smarts by asking to asking to to see the iPad to check that it was real. They showed him an iPad, and then our shopper went to the ATM machine to get money, at which point our mobile retailers swapped out the iPad for "a stripped Dell laptop with an Apple logo taped to it." I'll put the picture below. This led to a skirmish when the shopper realized what happened, and the sale went downhill from there ... guns were involved, as was a pursuit by the police, and finally capture, at which point the police found in the vehicle "several fake laptops and fake Apple iPads." As you do your holiday shopping this year, I recommend that all iPhone J.D. readers consider shopping at the Apple Store, Amazon, or other fine establishments instead of your local neighborhood gas station. As for that picture I promised you, I think it is a stretch to even call this a "fake Apple iPad":
