Ed Sutherland - page 64

While much of the discussion about books available on Apple’s soon-to-be released iPad revolves around the price publishers will get from Cupertino versus Amazon, there is another wrinkle to the story: 30,000 classics are already available for the tablet device – and they are all free. Along with iBooks sold by Apple, the iPad will also display the many out-of-copyright classics available without charge from Project Gutenberg.

In a world of DRM, where Apple’s FairPlay DRM will restrict distribution of newer books, the iPad also supports the ePub standard.This little known ability could help Apple realize its plans of getting educators onboard the iPad.

We close out the week (and winter in the U.S.) with a trio of MacBook deals. First up is a MacBook Pro with a 2.46GHz Core 2 Duo processor, along witha 15-inch screen for $999. Next is a 1.8GHz MacBook Air with 64GB of SSD memory for $1,199. Finally, is a fully tricked-out 17-inch MacBook Pro laptop running at 2.66GHz with three years of AppleCare for $2,090.

Along the way, we also have more deals on MacBook Pros, some musical hardware for your iPod or iPhone, plus a great laptop buddy. As always, details on these and many other bargains are available on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

For some time, Apple has viewed its Apple TV product as a ‘hobby.’ While the device has been updated occasionally, the streaming video gadget has not been seen as a weapon in Cupertino’s battle with Google for media supremacy. However, that may change as word leaks that Google, Intel and Sony have teamed-up for GoogleTV.

A GoogleTV prototype already exists, according to the New York Times. The device employs Google’s Android operating system, Google’s Chrome Web browser and Intel’s Atom processor. The project has been underway for several months and plans to get a toolkit to developer over the next two months, with products introduced possibly this summer. Google has begun limiting testing of its set-top box with Dish Network, according to the NYT.

Although you can’t read a Mac publication or talk about Apple without stumbling over lengthy coverage of the iPad, for developers wanting a sneak peak before April 3, the story is much different. Much. In a 10-page document, Apple binds developers to the strictest rules of secrecy outside the CIA.

In a requirement harkening back to World War II, Apple insists developers quarantine the iPad in a room with blacked-out windows, presumably to prevent the tablet device being ogled by telephoto lenses, according to BusinessWeek. If that’s not enough, the iPad “must remain tethered to a fixed object,” according to the report which cites four people familiar with the secrecy rules. Finally, because Apple is a trusting lot, developers seeking to use a pre-release iPad must send Cupertino photographic proof that all steps have been met.

Despite last-minute hang-ups on getting content onto the iPad, Apple has sold “hundreds of thousands” of the tablet devices since the Cupertino, Calif. company began taking pre-orders a week ago. The report seems to mirror a Venezualan blogger and analyst who predicted Thursday Apple will reach the 200,000 mark sometime today.

Apple could sell more iPads than it did iPhones during the same first three months, “people familiar with the matter” told the Wall Street Journal. Blogger Daniel Tello has said Apple could reach the 200,000 mark for online pre-orders of the iPad by mid-Friday. Tello, also known as Deagol, bases his estimates on order numbers buyers submitted since Apple unleashed pre-orders March 12. An equal amount of in-person pickups at Apple retail locations are also expected, according to Fortune.

As the week winds down, we offer three deals for Mac fans on the go. First up is Apple’s Nike+ armband for the iPod nano. For iPhone owners, we have Morphie’s JuicePack charging case battery pack for your handset. The unit provides 270 hours of standby or 4.5 hours of talk. Finally, if you are heading out but not certain how to get there, there is NAVIGON’s MobileNavigator app for the iPhone.

Like always, details on these and many other bargains (such as Gameloft’s iPhone apps, including “Earthworm Jimmy”) are available on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Apple may sell 400,000 iPads during the first week of accepting pre-orders for the tablet device, according to two reports Thursday. Apple may sell 200,000 iPads online by mid-Friday for delivery and an equal number destined for pick-up at Apple retail locations. The Cupertino, Calif. company said it will begin shipping iPads April 3.

If Palm has problems now, wait until this summer, one analyst predicts. Not only will Apple likely have introduced a new iPhone, but there is BlackBerry-maker RIM, as well as the growing strength of Android-powered handsets.

UBS analyst Maynard Um predicts Apple will unveil a new iPhone in June. Although Palm has a deal to promote its Pri, Pixi and Plus through AT&T, Um believes Palm will be down to a one-carrier strategy as AT&T focuses its marketing muscle on promoting the new Apple handset. Indeed, we saw the first signs of that pulling away when the Dallas-based carrier announced it would delay launching the Palm Pre and Pixi from April to June or July. In another sign the upcoming iPhone may be drawing AT&T’s eye off Palm’s new handset’s, the carrier will “sharply reduce its marketing budget” for the handsets’ launch, according to Cannacord Adams analyst Peter Misek earlier this week.

In addition, amid talk Palm might be better to sell itself to Apple or Google, Um told investors Palm must “drive greater scale” (analyst-speak for sell more handsets) at a time when AT&T is focused on the iPhone into August and Verizon is busy with its Android-based offerings.

Earlier this week, Morgan Stanley analyst Ehud Gelblum said Palm could license its webOS to other manufacturers, rather than hawk its own line of handsets. A BNET writer tweaked that suggestion, promoting Palm as the perfect take-over prospect in the increasingly competitive battle between Apple and Google.

[via Electronista]

Publishers are balking at a new requirement by Amazon for three-year contracts aimed at thwarting the current rush toward Apple’s rival iBookstore and iPad.

Apple has said it will permit publishers to charge between $13 to $15 for best-selling titles, a premium over Amazon, which keeps titles for its Kindle e-reader at a flat $9.99. A number of larger publishers have sided with Apple’s so-called “Agency” pricing model, concerned the Amazon flat-pricing will undervalue printed books in the eyes of consumers.

We start the day with two – count ’em, two – 27-inch iMacs. First up is an iMac Core i5 Quad running at 2.66GHz for $1,699. Next is a Core 2 iMac running at 3.06GHz, outfitted with 8GB of RAM for $1,899. If you haven’t found an iPhone 3G yet, AT&T is back with a $49 deal on an 8GB handset.

Details on all these and plenty other bargains are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page coming up right after the jump.

Palm seems in dire straights. Cannaccord Adams has cut its estimates following word AT&T may delay launch of the Palm Pre and Pixi from April to June or July. Now other analysts are suggesting Palm’s 400 handset patents could spark a bidding war between Apple and Google.

Cannacord analyst Peter Misek said Tuesday he’d “recently learned” AT&T would delay launching the two Palm handsets due to what he said was a “long list of technical issues” with the smartphones. Additionally, the carrier plans to “sharply reduce its marketing budget for the launch.” Along with weak sales, technical issues have started impacting Palm’s relationship with carriers, Misek said.

Apple has redesigned its iWork.com Website for the iPad and iPhone, allowing documents to be viewed on touchscreen devices. The company also unveiled new ways to share documents, allowing documents to become public.

The updated interface now allows documents to be scrolled using a finger, an action that has become common for iPhone users and upcoming users of Apple’s iPad tablet device. In a statement, the Cupertino, Calif. based company said the “new interface and improved scrolling help you find your shared documents faster.”

The global PC market can thank Apple’s iMac for being the main reason desktop computer sales have pulled out of a two-year nosedive, an analyst said Wednesday. The popular Apple all-in-one computer accounted for 25 percent of all desktop growth in 2010.

Although notebooks and netbooks account for more than 90 percent of global PC growth, desktops now appear “like they’ve stopped eroding and can resume at least some low single-digit recovery after two years of decline, driven by emerging markets, corporate workhorse use and power gamers,” Caris & Company analyst Robert Cihra writes.

At least two media sites are following Apple’s no-Flash policy when it comes to the iPad. The Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio have produced versions of their Web sites with front pages that do not require Adobe’s Flash, reports say. However, possibly more interesting is how publishers view the iPad experience differently than the iPhone. The iPad, it seems, has jumped that evolutionary hurdle from strictly a computing device to more akin TV.

Kinsey Wilson, NPR’s head of digital operations, told MediaMemo‘s Peter Kafka iPhone apps are a ‘very intentional experience’ where people actively search for information. That possibly is why pages on the NPR Web site deeper than the front page are customized for the iPhone.

Today we have a bit of everything in the way of Mac deals. We start off with a kit everyone needs – a charger for your iPhone and iPod when on the road. The $4.99 collection includes a USB hot-syncing and charging cable along with a charger for your car or when you are traveling. We shift into software mode with the lastest batch of price drops for iPhone and iPod touch apps, including Tiki Totems Premium. The app is an accelerometer-based game with one of favorite guaranteed to tie your tongue titles. Nobody has enough storage – actual or virtual. After a while, your pristine Mac gets cluttered with apps, icons and assorted files. Do something about that bulging byte count and latch onto some external storage, such as a 1TB off-loader from Iomega.

Along the way, we check out some timely software from HR Block. As always, details on these and many other bargains are available on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

In a bit of irony, Apple reportedly is hesitating to sign longterm deals with flash memory suppliers because of high prices which some blame on Apple’s heavy use of the chips in a growing array of devices. Although demand is weak for the flash memory in some areas, prices remain high due to chip makers desire to please large customers.

The reason why prices can be so high with a weaker demand is the “major suppliers are limiting their supply to the market,” reports trade publication Digitimes. The tight supply could drive flash memory prices even higher and mean suppliers “may not be able to satisfy customer demand in the second quarter,” Digitimes added Tuesday.

Excitement over the iPad’s introduction continues to accelerate production of new App Store entries more than six weeks after Apple unveiled its tablet device. Indeed, the number of new iPhone OS apps produced rose 185 percent since the iPad became public January 27.

“Over six weeks since Apple announced the iPad, Flurry continues to measure a significant increase in iPhone OS new application starts within the system,” Flurry Analytics’ Peter Farago writes. The company said a large number of the new applications are “custom version of existing applications tailored for the iPad.”

While most Apple watchers have been concentrating on the iPad, something unexpected happened: sales of Macs and iPods rose higher than financial experts expected. The new retail numbers makes one analyst believe Wall Street is in for a surprise for the March quarter.

According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster’s interpretation of retail sales figures supplied by research firm NPD, Mac sales are up 39 percent compared to the same period a year ago, far above the prevailing Wall Street expectations of a 22 percent nosedive. Likewise, iPod sales, according to the NPD data, increased by 7 percent through February, up from a 17 percent drop financial experts were expecting.

As a result, Munster believes Apple will sell 2.8 million to 2.9 million Macs for the second quarter, a tad higher than Wall Street’s expected 2.7 million second quarter results. The analyst also foresees 9 to 10 million iPods sold during the period, up from the Street’s prediction of 9 million.

The rosy picture comes with some provisos, though. First, it should have been easy for Apple to beat expectations, given 2009 got off to such a sluggish start. Another point that Munster makes is that while unit sales are up, the average selling price is lower. The average price of a Mac is down 10 percent compared to the 7 percent Munster had expected. Although the analyst had expected the average selling price of iPods to be higher, the actual ASP inched up just 3 percent, compared to the 15 percent the analyst had expected.

[via Barron’s and Fortune]

How many iPads did Apple sell over the weekend? One estimate puts it at 152,000 – that’s actually down from the initial excitement when some pegged pre-sales at 20,000 per hour.

By Sunday, the rate of sales had fallen to 1,000 per hour, according to Venezualan-based blogger and analyst Daniel Tello. Tello estimates 120,000 iPads were pre-ordered on the first day due to “pure overexcited fanboism.” Tello based his estimates on the order ID numbers submitted to Investor Village’s AAPL Sanity Board.

We close out another week we three hardware deals. First up is a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo iMac with a 22-inch screen and lots of extra goodies from ExperCom, including 8GB of RAM and three years of AppleCare – all for $1,399. Next up is a deal on a MacBook powered by a Core 2 Duo 2.26GHz processor, along with 4GB of RAM and a 640GB hard drive. Lastly, we have an iPod Classic with 120GB of storage for $189 from the Apple Store.

Along the way, we check out more deals on an Airport Extreme router, the latest batch of App Store Freebies and other items aimed at Apple fans. As always, details on our featured items, as well as many other products, are available on the CoM “Daily Deals” page coming up right after the jump.

Did you buy an iPad when Apple began pre-sales this morning? If so, you weren’t alone. Indeed, Apple may have sold 20,000 iPads per hour, leading one commentator to suggest the Cupertino, Calif. company was earning $10 million per hour on its new tablet device.

The estimate comes from Andrew Erlichson, CEO of Phanfare, a photo share site. Erlichson said he purchased two iPads and noted the order IDs.

For years, the letter ‘i’ has been a goldmine for Apple; apply the letter to an ordinary object and you have lines outside your door waiting to buy the gadget. Apple may have to find another letter now that an Australian trade court sided with a handbag maker.

IP Australia, the government board that watches over trademarks, rejected Apple’s claim on the letter, noting the Cupertino, Calif. company didn’t prove “a person of ordinary intelligence and memory” would assume that just because a product carries the letter “i”, it was the brainchild of Steve Jobs. Although the case revolved around a laptop bag named DOPi — iPod backwards — the IP Australia judge, or registrar Michael Kirov (a self-proclaimed Apple fan) said that wasn’t enough to block sales.

The outcome of Apple and Nokia’s dueling patent infringement lawsuits could wait until mid-2012 for a verdict from the international trade court. The two companies swapped lawsuits in 2009, alleging the other with infringing key technologies.

The three-year timespan for the U.S. International Trade Commission sets the stage for what Reuters has characterized as “the spectre of a prolonged legal struggle.” In January, when the ITC launched a probe of Apple practices, CoM noted the legal battle could span three years. A month later, the ITC announced it had begun investigating Apple’s claims against the Finnish cell phone giant.

We near the end of the week with a number of Mac-related deals. First up is a Mac Pro Quad-Core Xeon running at 2.66GHz for $2,149. Next up is a passel of newly reduced App Store items, including our favorite: “Where’s Waldo? The Fantastic Journey.” Finally, we wrap up our top trio with a 64-inch Sharp AQUOS 65-inch LCD HDTV.

As usual, details on these and many other deals (like the 24-inch Apple Cinema Display) are available from the CoM “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

We take a look at three hardware deals for Mac fans. Apple has 2.13GHz MacBooks for $749. A 22-inch 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo iMac is on sale for $1,363. A 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook, bundled with 8GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive is $1,573, rounding out our top trio for the day.

As always, details on these and many more items can be found on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page which comes right after the jump.