According to a new report by analyst Brian Marshall, we should all expect the iPad 2 in April.
No duh. Apple’s stuck to a rigidly defined yearly update cycle for all of their iOS devices, so you don’t need to go to Analysis U. to figure out exactly when to expect the next iPad.
But the April date for the iPad 2 isn’t really the meat of this story. More interesting is what Marshall says we should expect spec-wise from the iPad 2, which is… nothing special at all.
No surprises here, but if you’re not one of the lucky bastiches who manages to score himself a $399 iPad from TJ Maxx or Marshall’s this Black Friday, don’t expect the Apple Store to price match: as an email from Steve Jobs makes abundantly clear, TJ Maxx is not an authorized reseller, and they are selling them for $399 at a loss.
Today is the day. Finally. Apple is shipping iOS 4.2 to iPads, the iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4, and second, third and fourth generation iPod touches. iPad users have the most to benefit since they will be getting app folder enhancements and multitasking for the first time. The update also includes Game Center, AirPlay and AirPrint for all devices. Find My iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is now free to use without a MobileMe subscription and you can now rent TV episodes directly on your iPad.
The update should be available for downloading around 10:00 AM PST today. You’ll need the latest copy of iTunes (version 10.1) so make sure your Mac is up-to-date. Afterwards tether your iOS device to your Mac and check for updates in iTunes after the appointed time.
Check out Apple’s press release for complete details on this exciting new iOS release.
How can you tell when a company is in trouble? When the CEO bashes a rising competitor’s strategy while copying it at the same time. Such is the unfortunate predicament with our friends to the north, Research in Motion, makers of the BlackBerry.
Earlier this week, RIM CEO Jim Balsillie proclaimed that “We believe that you can bring the mobile to the Web but you don’t need to go through some kind of control point of an SDK, and that’s the core part of our message”, effectively declaring that Apple is an enemy of freedom or whatever is regarded to be bad at the moment while making the case for its vaporous PlayBook tablet. At the same time, the company unveiled an ad campaign for BlackBerry as the platform of choice for “Super Apps,” which are, wait for it, applications that bring mobile to the Web through an SDK. Basically, they’re like iPhone apps, but of far lower quality.
There’s a lot to criticize here, but I’d like to focus on the core contradiction at hand. RIM is trying to argue that Apple is bad, because its most exciting functionality isn’t vanilla web pages, while at the same time arguing that the BlackBerry platform is exciting because it has applications that are tightly integrated with the OS. You literally cannot have it both ways. Either Apple has cracked the formula on making mobile computing as capable as desktop computing, or mobile is irrelevant as a platform and a good web browser is all we need.
It seems clear to me that the establishment players in mobile are still in a state of shock at the success of both the App Store and the Android ecosystem. When a platform developer is advertising Flash and Adobe Air compatibility as a point of differentiation (also known as the “Hey! We’re like a Netbook without a keyboard!” argument), they have seriously lost the plot of what makes them competitive. It would be nice to see the iPad get some credible competitors. That won’t happen until someone recognizes that tablets are their own category of computer for which application exclusivity matters. If you don’t believe that, read Robert Scoble’s “data points” post and weep.
The rationale behind Apple’s unibody aluminum housings isn’t just aesthetic appeal: it’s also sturdiness. Unibody aluminum adds a bit of heft to an ultra-thin Apple portable, but it makes that device also harder to break despite its thinness.
There’s always room for improvement though, and if a new patent published by the USPTO is anything to go by, future iPads might trade in their aluminum shell for ultra-strong carbon fiber.
Deals on Apple products tend to be depressingly meager when you’re buying new, as I discovered yesterday when I did some price comparisons on the new 11.6-inch MacBook Air, only to discover the most aggressive deal I could find on the laptop was a whole five dollars off the retail price. Yet that’s all too typical: Apple products tend not to dip dramatically lower than their MSRP unless they are either refurbished or subsidized by a carrier.
Consider our jaws dropped, then, by the biggest deal on a current-gen Apple product we’ve ever seen. TJ Maxx — TJ Maxx, of all places! — is offering the iPad in at least some stores for a cool benjamin off the regular price.
Unscrew the salt shaker and empty it onto your uvula, because it’s Digitimes rumor time. According to the always questionable publication, Apple’s already got the parts suppliers for the iPad 2 lined up… and they’re ready to name names.
If you’re in the netbook, notebook, PC, hand-held gaming, newspaper or DVD business, Apple wants to eat your liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti — at least according to a huge number of observers who don’t know what the word “cannibalize” means.
For example, Microsoft’s general manager for Windows product management, Gavriella Schuster, said this month that the netbook market is “definitely getting cannibalized” by the iPad.
Wait, “cannibalized”? What does that mean, exactly? And why is everybody saying it?
Apple iPads wowed the crowds at Tokyo Designers Week this year in a 5 X 5 configuration where 25 iPads gave onlookers an opportunity to watch video and music synced wirelessly on all the devices. Audience members were also invited to manipulate the sound and videos on the individual iPads, which got things quickly all out-of-sync and challenged participants to work together to return the display to a harmonious state.
The design was commissioned by the Environmental Ministry of Japan as part of a “Challenge 25″ event to mark the 25th anniversary of Tokyo Designers Week and draw attention to human impact on the environment.
See more about the work of the display’s DJ designers as well as a hands-on video that talks about how they got it to work here.
Apple has just released another gold master candidate of its long-awaited iOS 4.2 firmware to developers. This version is iOS 4.2.1, and we assume it quashes the Wi-Fi bug that’s recently been affecting the iPad.
MacRumors reports that Apple has instructed developers not to resubmit their applications under the new build, suggesting that only minor fixes are included in this update.
Unfortunately it’s not the iOS 4.2 news many of us have been anticipating, however, it’s nice to see Apple are fixing these bugs before they release the firmware to the public.
Developers can get their hands on iOS 4.2.1 via the iOS Dev Centre.
I knew I was old the moment I realized that the foundation of my every Sunday’s pleasure was wandering down to the newsstand and picking up the latest issue of the Economist, so I’m both a little sad and a little delighted to note that I’ll no longer have to make that journey: the Economist is coming to the iPhone and iPad.
Google’s Docs service is meant to make office documents easier, more accessible and more collaborative by bringing them into the cloud. Instead of needing to purchase or download an office software suite, you just go to a URL, load up the web application and you’re good to go.
It’s a fantastic product, but as the desktops and notebooks we used to compute on have gradually been replaced by mobile products like smartphones and tablets, Google Docs has fallen behind.
There’s great news today for users interested in bringing their Google Docs with them on their iPhone, though: Google has just announced that they’ve vastly improved the functionality of Google Docs on iOS, and you can now even edit your documents on your iPhone or iPad.
The secret sauce is Google’s new document editor, which supports editing within Mobile Safari, albeit with a few limitations. They’re in the process of rolling out the new document editor, and it’ll work on iOS 3.0+ devices, as well as Android 2.2 Froyo… now downloads required..
Verizon’s Twitter account might have tipped the forthcoming arrival of the iPhone to America’s biggest CDMA network, but Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg is still playing coy about the possibility of a Verizon iPhone.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Seidenberg says that a Verizon iPhone will only arrive “when Apple thinks it’s time.”
It’s Education Week on CultofMac.com. How’s Apple doing in schools these days? What are the best education apps? Is iTunes U worthwhile? Join us as we learn more about Apple in Education.
The iPad is going to be very big in schools, predicts Professor Mark Warschauer, one of the world’s leading experts in technology and learning.
In an exclusive interview, Prof. Warschauer predicted that schools may soon start buying iPads in big numbers to replace not just desktops and laptops, but also textbooks and other reading materials.
“Until a couple of years ago, the majority of book reading — and a lot of magazine and newspaper reading — was done in print,” he said in a phone interview. “I think we’re going to see that change now.”
It’s Education Week on CultofMac.com. How’s Apple doing in schools these days? What are the best education apps? Is iTunes U worthwhile? Join us as we learn more about Apple in Education.
We are a culture on the go. We work, eat, play and study on the move, multitasking all the way. It doesn’t take an advanced degree to understand the appeal of Apple’s new mobile devices, particularly iPads and MacBooks, on college and grad school campuses everywhere. Many schools are getting in on the act directly, and facilitating mobile computing by providing iPads and MacBooks to their incoming students.
“The trend in higher education computing is this concept of mobility” said Greg Smith, George Fox University’s chief information officer, “and this fits right in.”
Traditionally Black Friday takes place on the Friday immediately following Thanksgiving — November 26th this year. It is the official start of the holiday season when retailers generally open up very early and offer deep discounts on items geared towards drawing you into their stores. They hope you’ll buy more through impulse buying.
However, in recent years things are changing so start looking for deals – now. The holiday shopping season seems to start earlier every year, but actually practically after Halloween in the US. Best Buy, Target and Walmart are already offering pre-Black Friday deals on their websites and many other retailers are too.
If you are looking for the best Black Friday deals you’re in luck because you have Apple technology to help you find them. You need to use that technology to your advantage so you don’t miss out on some good deals. I will help you get started with this first post — a technology overview for all you avid shoppers out there.
Later this week and next week I’ll follow-up with more specific information on applying these technologies which I’ll summarize here. I hope all this information will turn you into a savvy Black Friday shopper.
There’s been a great hullabaloo very recently here in the United States over the U.S. Transportation Security Administration’s implementation of its so-called “Advanced Imaging Technology,” aka naked full body scans, and its equally unnerving intimate pat-down procedure.
It’s Education Week on CultofMac.com. How’s Apple doing in schools these days? What are the best education apps? Is iTunes U worthwhile? Join us as we learn more about Apple in Education.
Apple had traditionally enjoyed 50 percent of the educational market, however a tight economy coupled with lower PC prices led by netbooks until recently depressed the Cupertino, Calif. company’s classroom reach to just about 20 percent. While the iPad is credited with many advances, it also sparked a comeback for Apple, making the $500 tablet competitive with PCs in the secondary and higher education markets, according to Needham & Company’s Charlie Wolf earlier this year.
Wolf’s prediction, made before the iPad really hit the street, has been confirmed again and again.
It’s Education Week on CultofMac.com. How’s Apple doing in schools these days? What are the best education apps? Is iTunes U worthwhile? Join us as we learn more about Apple in Education.
Cedars School in Greenock, Scotland, has become the first school in the world to deploy an iPad to every child in the age groups it serves (roughly 5 to 16 year-olds). We’ve mentioned this effort before, so Cult of Mac decided to check in on the project again for our Education special and see how they’re doing.
“The iPad has become far more embedded in our school day than I ever thought it would become,” Fraser Speirs, the architect behind the project, wrote on his blog.
It’s Education Week on CultofMac.com. How’s Apple doing in schools these days? What are the best education apps? Is iTunes U worthwhile? Join us as we learn more about Apple in Education.
As part of Cult of Mac’s ‘Apple in Education’ week, we’ve trawled through the hundreds of thousands of app in the App Store and compiled a list of the best applications for your iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, that we think will help you make the most of your device while studying.
The applications we’ve featured will help you to study for your exams, remind you of when your assignments are due, and make it easy for you to create and manage your notes in class. We also have 4 sections dedicated to different subjects, and a few applications designed to help you in these areas, including English, Math, History, and Science.
There’s no shortage of iPad docks out there, but most offerings force you to dock in portrait position, which can make typing on your iPad via a Bluetooth keyboard something of a pain.
Altec Lansing’s latest dock, the Octiv Stage, fixes that by allowing you to swivel the iPad when it’s docked between landscape and portrait, while also packing in some impressive speakers to add a little bit of oomph to your iPad’s audio output.
It’s a nice looking dock, if a bit beefy, but unfortunately it has an equally beefy price: $150.
$300 is a lot to spend for an iPad satchel, but if you’ve just got a pressing GQ shoot coming up, Palmer & Sons’ exquisite iPad hip bag is probably the most fashionable way of toting your iOS tablet around we’ve seen yet.
It’s made of Havana Brown leather (with Italian cognac available to order) and features brass rivets and panic clasp closures throughout. Just don’t call it a murse. Mad Man Palmer and his psychopathic, skin-happy sons don’t like that at all.
Since the iPad launched, scams luring gullible folks in with mirage of free ones have proliferated almost as fast as the device itself.
Now that desire for Apple’s magical tablet is at its peak — only world peace is slightly more desirable — watch out for the iPad bait-and-switches.
McAfee Labs investigated the top 12 Scams of Christmas — sing along with us now — and the first to put dancing plums over the eyes of eager consumers are iPad scams.
Using your iPad with AT&T? Good news: Ma Bell has just announced that you can now manage your iPad’s account and data plans from any computer with a web browser. Just go here.
That’s good news for people trying to cancel their 3G subscription after they’ve mislaid their iPad at a bar or train station: previously, you could only manage your 3G subscription through the “Cellular Data” settings. God forbid, but better safe than sorry.
We reported on Friday that a nasty WiFi bug causing random drops in the gold master build of iOS 4.2 was likely to delay release of the update from anywhere between a few days to the end of the month.
It looks like that report was right: Apple has just dropped a second GM build of iOS 4.2 for the iPad, updating the GM from 8C134 to 8C134b.
Where this puts the official release of iOS 4.2 is anyone’s guess. We’ve previously heard rumors to expect iOS 4.2 to drop tomorrow, but some sources are placing the official release date as far away as November 24th.
Ultimately, what it will all come down to is how much testing Apple thinks the new GM will require for a fix to a single WiFi bug. Taking all bets!
In the meantime, you can download the second GM for developers here.