https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGMsT4qNA-c
These toddlers can barely speak, but they sure can rock an iPad.
Check out the video above. In it, two-year-old Bridger shows his mastery of the iPad. Just watch him swipe his way through the Home screen to find the app he wants.
The videos in this post are just a sample of many toddler videos on YouTube, demonstrating the unbelievable ease two- and three-year olds have mastering the iPad.
Here’s a 17-month old:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC5lFMu2Qak
Check out this funny Mike Tyson video where he offers to cure your Angry Birds addiction in three easy steps.
The skit was recorded with Mashable Editor in Chief Adam Ostrow at South by Southwest to promote Tyson’s new Animal Planet show, Taking on Tyson.
Mashable: Mike Tyson Can Cure Your Angry Birds Addiction [VIDEO]
Will you pay to read the New York Times on your iPad under its new subscription plans?
Or will you try to game the system, getting free access through Twitter, Facebook or Google?
[polldaddy poll=4736679]
Thanks to its 21 built-in magnets, the iPad’s Smart Cover makes a great fridge magnet.
Just clip it to the fridge. It’s pretty sturdy. It clings to the fridge surprisingly strongly. There’s little danger of it coming loose, even when swiping your finger across the screen.
It’s another reason to invest in a $40-$70 Smart Cover when you get an iPad 2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueGl0qL-oLo
“It comes with a camera in the front, one in the back, and one in your neighbor’s shower.”
Another great free plug for Apple’s hot-selling device.
One of the drawbacks of the cheaper, WiFi-only iPad 2 is that it doesn’t have GPS — so it can’t run any of those beautiful fullscreen navigation apps.
GPS is limited to the more expensive 3G iPad models. But if you own a GPS-enabled iPhone, you’re in luck. The WiFi-only iPad 2 inherits GPS functionality when it’s tethered to an iPhone.
The trailer for Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard is the first “interactive” game trailer I’ve seen. Check it out below. You hit the hotspots to “play” the game. Pretty cool. Reminds me of Myst.
Microsoft is killing the Zune player after five years of unsuccessfully trying to compete with Apple’s iPod.
The Zune is being discontinued thanks to weak ongoing sales, Bloomberg reports. It will not be refreshed when current units sell out.
When the Zune was introduced in 2006, in mold-breaking brown nonetheless, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer predicted the player would one day overtake Apple. But it failed to even crack the top five MP3 players. According to NPD, Apple had 77% market share in 2010.
“MSFT abandoning Zune last sign AAPL totally dominated portable music for the last decade,” tweeted industry analyst Michael Gartenberg. “Sony, Samsung, Dell all failed to move needle.”
Gartenberg also predicted that tablets will be the next Zune.
Pundit Paul Kedrosky said: “My main reaction to news that Microsoft is going to stop selling Zunes is … Microsoft still sold Zunes?”
Instead of selling hardware players, Microsoft will shift its focus to putting Zune on smartphones running Windows mobile OS.
With its world class design, Microsoft’s young hip image, and ground-breaking advertising like the spot below, is it any wonder the Zune failed to take off?
(This is a joke, btw)
Rocker Jon Bon Jovi says Steve Jobs is “personally responsible for killing the music business” with iTunes.
In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, Bon Jovi says kids no longer enjoy the “magical” experience of buying and enjoying LPs because of digital downloads. He hates to sound like an “old man,” he says, but it’s all Jobs’ fault:
“Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it. God, it was a magical, magical time. I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am, and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: ‘What happened?’. Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business.”
I’m an old man too, but I’ve never enjoyed music more. I much prefer my fantastic Sonos music system than my old record player. I do recall the excitement of buying a new LP every week. I doubt I’d get the same excitement these days, but that’s not Steve Jobs’ fault.
As for killing music, I’d say Bon Jovi has done more on that front than Steve Jobs.
Incidentally, Bon Jovi sits on a White House panel with Jobs’ wife, Laurene Powell Jobs. Both are members of the White House council for Community Solutions. Might be awkward at the next meeting.
The Sunday Times Magazine: LITD: Jon Bon Jovi, 48, rockstar (paywall)
In line with AT&T, Verizon is also making calls and texts to Japan free.
Verizon said texts, wireless and wireline calls to Japan will be free through April 10.
AT&T is offering free calls and texts to Japan through March 31st.
Verizon also provided instructions on how to donate money via text to Japanese relief efforts.
Details in the press releases:
AT&T customers can call and text Japan for free through March 31st, the company said on Monday.
The offer extends to customers in the United States and Puerto Rico, and is in reponse to last week’s earthquake and tsunami.
AT&T also said wireless customers will not be charged for international long distance calls or texts to Japan that were placed after March 11th.
And AT&T landline customers can apply for 60 minutes of credit for calls to Japan from March 11th to March 31st.
Here’s the details from AT&T’s press release:
Just marvel at the engineering behind the iPad 2’s Smart Covers. Between them, the iPad 2 and its Smart Cover contain an incredible 31 magnets.
Apple has made extensive use of magnets in the past – to hold a remote control to the iMac, for example, or keep the lid of a MacBook closed. But it has never used so many magnets in a product, or so elegantly.
The 31 magnets in the iPad 2 and the Smart Cover:
It’s really quite mind-boggling. iFixit has the details.
Like we said, the iPad 2 is one slim sexy slab of computing awesomeness. Most of the tech press has yawned at the iPad 2 because it doesn’t seem like there’s a ton of new features. But it’s the small changes — the thinness, the speed, the cameras – -that make all the difference. The iPad 2 is the tablet done right — finally.
For regular consumers, the iPad 2 is irresistible. Look around: the whole world is going iPad bonkers. Did you see the lines at the stores yesterday? There was nowhere near enough stock. A lot of people went home disappointed. And that was just the early adopters. There’s a lot of mainstream consumers lusting for the iPad 2. For weeks, I’ve been taking calls from friends and family of all ages and walks of life, from kids to grandparents. There’s a ton of non-nerds planning to get an iPad in coming months.
Are they right? Is this the iPad to get? What about the rumored iPad 3 in the fall? Should you wait?
Heck no! Take the plunge with the iPad 2. Read on for the details:
Remember when logicboards were one of the biggest components of a computer? Not any more.
An iFixit teardown of the iPad 2 reveals a logicboard the size of a couple of matchbooks. By contrast, the three batteries consume almost all the interior space.
The teardown is being published live on the iFixit site.
The iPad 2 isn’t easy to open, iFixit says: it’s sealed with a ton of glue.
Here’s a couple more shots of the internals:
College student Amanda Foote sold her place at the head of the iPad line at Apple’s 5th Ave. store for $900.
Who did she sell it to? The guy right next to her apparently. Why? No one knows.
She camped out for two nights for the $900. She plans to buy tickets to Lady Gaga.
“line is around the block” — Paul Arrington in Charlestown, SC.
“Hmmm, I wonder what these could be?!?” — Joey Egan at Apple Flagship Store in San Francisco.
“Its crazy how many ppl r standing in line 4 the new iPad,” tweets Tracie Cooke-Wilkes from the Oxmoor Mall in Louisville, Kentucky.
Here are some more pictures from around the U.S.:
Send your own to [email protected] and we’ll post them up.
If you’re thinking of visiting Target for an iPad 2 later today, better think again.
We just got a report from the stockroom of one Target store, which has only five iPad 2s in stock for sale at 5PM today. They are all 64GB, WiFi-only models in black.
An employee at the store just sent us the following message with the picture above:
“stockroom we only got 5 of the 64gb wifi only black models insulting right.
Stock levels at big box retailers like Target and Best Buy were expected to be much lower than Apple’s retail stores, but this is shockingly low.
It’s not clear if this is the inventory level at all Target stores, but I’d say it’s typical. Apple is offering the iPad 2 for sale at about 10 different retailers, so stocks are likely to be stretched thin. Obviously, retailers are keeping their inventory levels secret: they don’t want to scare potential shoppers away.
The Target employee summed it up nicely: “Better off waitin outside apple or best buy.”
The popular Flipboard app was updated on Wednesday, adding Instagram support and search across social networks. But it also included a surprise for users with jailbroken iPads.
Steve Jobs has jumped almost 40 places on Forbes’ list of the World’s Billionaires. He is the 43 rd richest person in the U.S. and the 110th richest in the world.
Jobs’ net worth has jumped almost $2 billion in one year, from $5.5 to $8.3 billion, Forbes estimated. The leap is thanks to Apple’s surging stock, bouyed by a successful year of iPads and iPhone 4s. Jobs has been on Forbes’ 400 list for the last 11 years. He’s grown his net worth more than 500%. Not bad for a college dropout.
Here’s Jobs’ profile on Forbes, and the annual list of filthy rich.
New beta Release Candidates of Lightroom 3.4 and Camera Raw 6.4 are available for immediate download on Adobe Labs.
Adobe:
The Release Candidates bring raw file support to seven popular camera models including Canon EOS Rebel T3i and Olympus E-PL1s, improve on lens correction profiles introduced in the Lightroom 3.3 and Camera Raw 6.3 releases, and add over 10 new lens profiles to help photographers automatically correct unwanted distortion and chromatic aberration.
Lightroom 3.4 RC is a free download for Lightroom 3 customers, and Camera Raw 6.4 RC is free for Photoshop CS5 customers. More information at Adobe Labs.
Her’s the list of newly supported cameras:
An astonishing 82% of consumers plan to buy an iPad despite the dozens of competing tablets due this year, a ChangeWave survey found.
There’s a caveat: that’s 82% of consumers who plan to buy a tablet in the next 90 days, which is only 5% of the 3,091 consumers surveyed in February – before Apple showed off the iPad 2.
Still, it’s a huge percentage. Only 4% plan to buy the Motorola Xoom; and 3% plan to buy RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab.
Further out, almost 30% said they will be buying a tablet in the future — also an amazingly high number. Not surprisingly, these tablets will cannibalize sales of netbooks, eReaders and even traditional notebooks.
Just kidding. Of course it doesn’t suck. Just the opposite.
The first reviews are in, and they range from enthusiastic to downright giddy. Everyone raves how light and thin it is, and what a big difference that makes in a tablet. Across the board, the reviewers say Apple has made a great device greater, and it’ll be difficult to beat: on design, performance, experience and price.
The only knocks are the screen (last year’s spec) and the cameras, which are functional but not great.
Here are some highlights of the early reviews:
Engineers built and flew a replica of the flying house in Pixar’s “Up” — setting the record for the largest cluster balloon flight ever.
It took 300 balloons, each 8-feet tall and filled with an entire tank of helium. The stint was for or National Geographic Channel’s “How Hard Can It Be?” show. Watch the video report:
Four days before the iPad 2 goes on sale, the first line is already forming.
Apple fan Justin Wagoner has set up camp outside an Apple Store in Dallas, Texas. Here’s a snap of his tent taken by a MacCast reader.
Wagoner appears to be the first person lining up for the iPad 2, which goes on sale on Friday at 5PM. Apple isn’t taking preorders, so its first come, first served.
Wagoner also camped out to be first in line for the iPhone 4 last year. He has set up a site to document his camping trip: iJustinOfficial.com.
Who can guess this iPad app from the fingerprints it leaves behind?
And what about this one below: