Techmeme: The iPad Air 2: Thin, Gorgeous, Powerful — and That's Enough (David Pogue/Yahoo Tech)

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October 22, 2014, 6:55 AM

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Walt Mossberg / Re/code:

iPad Air 2: best iPad ever, but only a modest evolutionary improvement over the Air — Apple iPad Air 2 Review: It's Better, but Is It Better Enough? — I am a tablet lover and, more specifically, an iPad lover. I use my iPad and iPad mini every day for a variety of things …

More: Asymco, Telegraph, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, USA Today, The Tech Block, The Loop, CNET, Associated Press, Pocket-lint, iPhone in Canada Blog, Laptop Mag, Gizmodo, iPhone Hacks and Cult of Mac. Tweets: @bonniescha

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

iPad Air 2 review: great hardware, but lacks multiuser, multitasking support, tablet-specific features — Apple iPad Air 2 review — What is an iPad? — When Steve Jobs introduced Apple's tablet in January 2010, he delivered an unequivocal answer. “The iPad, if you were to sum it up …

More: Engadget, TechCrunch, New York Times, SlashGear, Mashable, Guardian, bgr.in, Tech.pinions, MacRumors, Business Insider, iMore, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac and iPhone in Canada Blog. Tweets: @reckless

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

iPad Air 2 is on equal footing with the MacBook Air for performance, forges ahead of iPhones — The iPad Air 2 (And a Few Cursory Words Regarding the iPad Mini 3) — The relationship between the iPad and the iPhone, performance-wise, has been hard to predict.

More: Quartz. Tweets: @asymco

David Pogue / Yahoo Tech:

The iPad Air 2: Thin, Gorgeous, Powerful — and That's Enough — Hey, kids! It's time to play Apple Announcement Mad Libs! … Yes, it's gotten to the point that we tech critics can pretty much recycle our iPad reviews from year to year. — This is it: The new iPad Air 2 (Deanne Fitzmaurice/Yahoo Tech)

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

iPad mini 3 review: with Touch ID the only significant improvement over the iPad mini 2, buy the 2 and save $100

More: TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, Mashable, Guardian, SlashGear, The Independent and TUAW

Molly Wood / New York Times:

Apple Pay: Seamless in Stores, but Quirky Online — AFTER I used Apple Pay for a day of shopping in stores, a few things became clear: The new payment system is convenient, problem-free and even fun. — The same can't be said for using Apple Pay to shop via apps on my phone or tablet.

Kelly Hodgkins / MacRumors:

Apple Pay Shown to Work Internationally Using U.S.-Based Credit Cards

More: 9to5Mac, Mashable, TUAW, TechnoBuffalo, iPhone in Canada Blog, Ubergizmo, tbreak.ae, MacDailyNews, BGR, PhoneArena, AppleInsider, PYMNTS.com, iDownloadBlog.com and The Verge

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Nexus 6 hands-on: supersized, even by today's standards, with much improved camera — The Nexus 6: hands-on with Google's phablet — After watching Apple unapologetically release the gigantic iPhone 6 Plus and Samsung release the fourth iteration of its massive Galaxy Note …

More: TechCrunch, Ars Technica, Phandroid and 9to5Google

Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:

Apple Launches “Maps Connect,” Self-Service Local Listings Portal — This afternoon Apple notified us of a new self-service portal to add or edit local business listings: Apple Maps Connect. It's intended for small business owners or their authorized representatives (though not agencies) …

More: Engadget, AppleInsider, iMore, App Advice, The Verge, Apple Spotlight, Ubergizmo, BIA/Kelsey, 9to5Mac, SlashGear, Understanding Google … and iDownloadBlog.com. Tweets: @julipuli

Eric Slivka / MacRumors:

iPad Air 2 Up to 55% Faster Than iPhone 6, Up to 68% Faster Than iPad Air — A short time ago, we highlighted a new benchmark appearing to show an iPad Air 2 device carrying an A8X chip with a triple-core 1.5 GHz processor and 2 GB of RAM. — While we mentioned that the enhanced specs …

More: Ars Technica, Inquirer, BGR, MacRumors, Gizmobic, Tapscape, iDownloadBlog.com, SlashGear, TechnoBuffalo, 9to5Mac, iMore, MobileSyrup.com, Gigaom and App Advice

Mark Spoonauer / Laptop Mag:

iPad Air 2 benchmarks: excels in Geekbench compared to Samsung Galaxy Tab, Nvidia Shield, Sony Xperia Z2, strong on 3DMark but not best

More: AppleInsider. Thanks:@mspoonauer

Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:

Sexist French Uber Promotion Pairs Riders With “Hot Chick” Drivers — “Who said women don't know how to drive?” the Uber blog post asks. The post was deleted after an inquiry from BuzzFeed News. — Yesterday, Uber's Lyon office unveiled a new promotion with an app called “Avions de Chasse.”

More: The Daily Caller

Jonathan Vanian / Gigaom:

Google exec: Chromecast V2 is coming; users have cast 650 million times — Google's Mario Queiroz said that 650 million people have now hit the cast button. An API for developers will let them build custom apps for Backdrop. — Three months ago, Google claimed that Chromecast users …

More: Ubergizmo, Phandroid and Android Central

Marton Dunai / Reuters:

Hungary plans to impose new tax on Internet traffic — (Reuters) - Hungary's government plans to levy a new tax on Internet data transfers, according to the draft 2015 tax bill submitted to parliament late on Tuesday, which could hit Internet providers and the country's telecommunications companies.

More: VentureBeat, Wall Street Journal, RT, Taxation, Portfolio.hu Online …, Hungary Today and Broadband TV News

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Yahoo Beats In Q3 With Revenue Of $1.09B, EPS Of $0.52 — With all eyes on what Yahoo will do with its $5 billion+ in Alibaba cash, Yahoo today reported its Q3 earnings after the close of trading, with sales of $1.09 billion excluding traffic acquisition costs and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.52.

Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:

Yahoo Reveals Mobile Sales for First Time: $200 Million, 17% of Total

More: MarketWatch, Gigaom, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Seeking Alpha and AdExchanger. Tweets: @dmac1

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Raspberry Pi Founder Shows Off Incoming Touch Panel For Making DIY ‘Pi Pads’ — Eben Upton, the founder of the Raspberry Pi microcomputer, has shown off a new piece of hardware that's likely to expand the ecosystem around its single board computer — namely a touchscreen display.

Tweets: @pmarca

Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:

GT Advanced To Sell Furnaces for Cash to Pay Back Apple, Says Fortune — Fortune columnist Philip Elmer-DeWitt a short while ago tweeted from the courtroom in Springfield, Massachusetts that one-time Apple (AAPL) supplier GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT) has agreed to pay off its debts to Apple …

More: Wall Street Journal, Fortune, StreetInsider.com, ZDNet, 9to5Mac, Reuters, CNET, Electronista, SlashGear, iDownloadBlog.com, Seeking Alpha, MacRumors, Bloomberg, Cult of Mac and AppleInsider. Tweets: @philiped

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

HP to announce Sprout, a computing device combining a large display, touch surface, 3D scanner, and overhead projector — HP Will Unveil New Computing Product Called Sprout Next Week — When Hewlett-Packard announced it would split in two — one company devoted to PCs and printing …

More: Engadget, Digital Trends, ZDNet, Windows Phone Central and Business Insider

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft Lumia to replace Nokia brand, starting in France, global rollout in the coming weeks — Microsoft Lumia will replace the Nokia brand — Microsoft started dropping hints about its plans to kill off the Nokia and Windows Phone brands last month, and now the company is ready to make it official.

More: SlashGear, Global Nerdy, Electronista, Re/code, TechSpot, TechnoBuffalo, FierceWireless, InfoWorld, Ubergizmo, WMPoweruser, MobileSyrup.com, TechCrunch, Pocketnow, The Next Web, SuperSite for Windows, Windows Phone Central, Business Insider, WinBeta and The Seattle Times

Chris O'Brien / VentureBeat:

SoftBank and Sequoia invest $100 million in Indonesian e-commerce startup Tokopedia — Indonesian e-commerce site Tokopedia has landed a $100 million round of funding led by SoftBank and Sequoia Capital. — In a press release today, the firms said the round was officially led by SoftBank Internet …

More: TechCrunch, Reuters and Tech in Asia

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