Sync2Play

"How many books are available for the iPad? I'm trying to decide whether I should buy an iPad, a Kindle, or a Nook?"

While there are many other factors that go into choosing an ebook reader than just how many books are available, I'll start with that as a metric since that's the question. There are two primary ways you can easily get books for an iPad. You can download the free iBooks app from the App Store, or you can download the free Kindle app from the App Store. Both have a huge number of books, although the Kindle store currently has more.

"What does 3G on the iPad mean? I'm trying to decide which iPad to buy and I want to know whether I should get the iPad with WiFi or the iPad with WiFi + 3G"

The iPad with WiFi + 3G includes support for a 3G data plan from AT&T. If you purchase the 3G iPad and a data plan from AT&T, the iPad will have internet access available even when you aren't near a WiFi hotspot. A 3G data plan is convenient if you travel frequently away from either your home or office where WiFi is readily available.

"Does the iPad have a USB port where I can connect my digital camera or camcorder to transfer movies?"

The only ports included on an iPad are the standard Apple dock connector and a headphone jack. If you want to connect anything else you have to buy additional hardware. Fortunately one of the the add-ons available from Apple is a USB port.

"Does the iPad have a built-in camera? I want to do video chat and am trying to decide between an iPad and a Netbook."

Apple did not include a camera in the iPad design. It's possible someone may create a third party camera that connects through the dock connector at some point in the future, but for now, if having a camera is an important part of buying a tablet or Netbook, the iPad won't provide the solution you are looking for.

"Does the iPad have built-in speakers or do I need headphones to use it?"

The iPad includes built-in speakers on every WiFi and 3G model. As long as you are in a quiet space with little external noise, the speakers work well for watching movies downloaded from iTunes or streaming on Netflix. If you are somewhere noisy, like on an airplane or commuting to work on a bus or train, you will probably want to use headphones instead.

A great iPad text editor is essential to making the iPad a productivity tool. I've finally found one in Elements. LIke a number of iPad text editors, Elements syncs with Dropbox. The difference - Elements is simple to use and integrates more seamlessly than anything else I've tried. Elements saves to Dropbox every 30 seconds and also works if you're offline, syncing with Dropbox the next time you connect.

If you recently purchased an iPhone 4 and tried to connect it to your MacBook, Mac Mini, or iMac running Mac OS X 10.4, you're not alone in your frustration. Connecting an iPhone 4 to a Mac with Tiger aka OS X 10.4 results in an error that tells you your operating system won't work with the phone. If you're running a Mac without an Intel processor, you probably need to consider an upgrade to new hardware because Apple is making it increasingly hard to upgrade PowerPC Macs. If you have an Intel Mac, you have one of two options, one of which is cheaper, but also a violation of the terms of service.

There are a number of iPad apps with support for reading PDF files on iPad, including Safari, Mail, and iBooks but so far, I'm finding them all lacking in the PDF management department. One of my biggest problems with using iBooks is that I have to store PDF files on my computer and in iBooks, instead of keeping them in a place where I can read them from anywhere. Safari and Mail both preview PDF files the way you might expect them too, but they don't really manage documents. There are a number of standalone PDF readers, but I just don't see the value in paying for most of them.

TextExpander for Mac OS X is a great time saver for eliminating the need to retype all your frequently used text in email, documents and elsewhere. Now that there's a TextExpander iPad version, you can save time typing in many of your favorite apps. Before you can use TextExpander with the various Twitter clients, task managers, notepads, and other tools, you need to take a few steps to get started.

"Is there a way to backup iPhone SMS Text Messages so that I can read text messages on my computer?"

While iTunes makes a backup of your SMS Text Messages when you backup your iPhone, it doesn't expose them in a way you can access them. It would be great if they simply put a text message reader in iTunes, but they don't. Instead you need to download additional software to backup text messages from your iPhone. Fortunately you're not alone in wanting to backup your text messages as a number of software companies make a desktop solution for copying text messages to your computer from your iPhone.