Never one to let an opportunity to explain a technology with a metaphor pass him by, Steve Jobs compared the transition from PCs to tablets as similar to when people stopped buying trucks and started buying cars (which is a dubious view of history, but let him run with it). From Engadget:
When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks. But as people moved more towards urban centers, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them. And this is going to make some people uneasy.
I actually think Steve is both right and wrong about this. What’s more likely is that a lot more households will again become one-PC homes as the need to do intense writing, coding or other keyboard horsepower activities gets more evenly distributed as other kinds of applications migrate to tablets. Only time will tell, of course.
Super Monkey Ball was one of the first games that introduced us to the possibilities of gaming on the iPhone & iPod Touch when it was previewed back in March 2008, along with the announcement of the App Store. As the biggest selling game on launch day, Sega set the standard for other 3D games with superb graphics, an intuitive control system and incredibly fun gameplay. Now Super Monkey Ball 2: Sakura Edition is available on the iPad, so does this super-sized version live up to the expectations we’ve come to expect from those little monkeys?
Much has been made over the last 24 hours about the fact that Apple has managed to sell two million iPads in just 60 days — a pace dramatically ahead of the original iPhone, which took 74 days just to get a million units into the hands of the public. Much less-debated, but potentially more interesting for Apple’s long-term future, is that the iPad has grossed more than $1 billion in revenue by hitting the 2 million mark. At $499 a pop and units as pricey as $829, they’ve cleared that barrier by a flying leap in record time. For context about just what a monumental achievement this is, consider the fact that when FedEx reached $1 billion in gross sales in its tenth year of operation, that was the quickest rise to a billion dollars in revenue without acquisitions in the history of American business.
Apple’s growth machine has hit a new gear with iPad, and I’d like to take this post to due some geeky quick and dirty analysis in the manner used at my day job to get a sense of Apple’s expectations for the platform and to guess as to whether its rapid take-off is a good sign or a sign of danger.
Even if the iPad did have weight sensors, this would still be a self-evidently bad app idea…. and grow exponentially worse in direct correlation to user weight density.
Steve Jobs himself said the iPad is “magical” but this may be the first we’ve seen it used as a prop in a magic trick, thanks to Japanese YouTube illusionist “Salary Magician.”
His tricks are all standard sleight-of-hand affairs that take advantage of the iPad as a prop behind which birds, books and envelopes can be hidden “in plain sight” but the real beauty of this act is the way Salary Magician has conjured himself up a home-made app to give his tricks that extra bit of shazam.
End note: is “Salary Magician” the best name for a Japanese magician ever, or what?
Created by Stanford alums Ashkay Kothari and Ankit Gupta as part of the Launch Pad class at the Stanford Institute of Design, Pulse is an absolutely gorgeous iPad newsreader that makes RSS and Atom feeds as easy as Google search, and even more gorgeous than Google Reader Play.
If you’re dreaming of Netflix for your iPhone, good news: you’re just a jailbreak away. Hacker Knisitruck says that the existing Netflix iPad app is secretly a universal binary and can be easily ported to the iPhone with a few simple steps.
Calling all Star Trek fans out there: The iPhone 3Gs has a universal translator — Jibbigo. Speak into your iPhone in any of the five supported languages, and the iPhone speaks the translation back.
TowerMadness is one of the most popular tower defense games on the iPhone, and now makers, Limbic Software, have released a high-definition version for the iPad which boasts stunning 3D graphics, split-screen multiplayer and eight new maps. But how does this version compare to its smaller predecessor?
If you’re a hopeful author sitting on what you hope to be the next great literary classic — or, failing that, the next mopey emo vampire series that you think will sell like gangbusters amongst the indiscriminate Hot Topic tween market — great news: Apple’s just released information on self-publishing on the iBookstore.
It’s a bit more complicated than just uploading your fan fiction, of course. Basically, you need to have a manuscript in ePub format, a 13-digit ISBN, validate against epubcheck 1.0.5 and contain no unmanifested files, as well as a US Tax ID, a valid iTunes Store account, and an Intel-based Mac running Leopard or higher. But once you’re established, you can start selling your books online, even internationally.
I’ve been really waiting for this: I can’t wait to read the first self-published iBooks blockbuster. Hell, time to head back to Scrivener and try to write one myself.
This seems like an absolute no-brainer to me, but over on their official blog, Adobe is asking whether iPad owners want the company to make it possible to view native PhotoShop PSD files on their tablets.
Muses former Photoshop Product Manager, John Nack:
I periodically hear requests for the ability to view Photoshop PSD files on devices like the iPad (for example, browsing files that one has synced via Dropbox).
This is obviously a capability that Adobe could build. The question of course is whether we should build it (as opposed, say, to building something else).
I’m not sure if Adobe’s really this obtuse or what, but of course the iPad is the perfect device for an artist or graphic designer to use to show prospective clients his portfolio at a meeting, peeling back layers and perhaps making light modifications on the go. Heck, I’m not either an artist or a graphic designer, and I want that functionality.
It’s been a long 57 days, but if you’re in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland or the UK, and you jumped to pre-order an iPad when it was first announced, you’ve probably already gotten one in my hands.
On the other hand, poor suckers like me who missed the initial pre-order date due to their own idiocy have another couple of weeks to wait. And if you aren’t from one of the international countries blessed by the hand of Jobs for the first round of international iPad launches, but instead live in some more exotic and fragrant clime, you’ll have to wait until some time in July before you get an iPad at best.
So, which of our own chattering non-Yankee natives are now holding an iPad in their hands? What do you think? Is it everything you hoped it would be? Sound off in the comments!
Instead of dragging potential buyers out of a car to discuss details, Mercedes Benz is using the iPad to keep them on the showroom floor while getting down to brass tacks.
Some 40 Mercedes Benz dealerships are testing the iPad program, which uses the company’s MB Advantage software. The sales staff can scroll through info on the latest offers, check rebates and start running the credit application while the customer sits in the Mercedes they are interested in buying.
“We wanted to bring the mobile revolution into the dealership,” Andreas Hinrichs, vice president of marketing, told the Wall Street Journal. . “The iPad is consumer centric but there is a business side to it as well.” If the pilot program is successful, the company will roll it out for all 350 US dealers.
Good for the seller, sure. But for the buyer? They just might miss a shot at reality in a cubby-hole office, making a decision they regret while high on that new-car smell.
Some people are hesitant to jailbreak anything because they worry it will ruin their device. Think of jailbreaking as an addition to your device and not a substitution. Jailbreaking is the only way to unlock some awesome features on your iPad. Earlier this week I walked you through on how to jailbreak your iPad using the Spirit jailbreak. Now I will tell you why you should jailbreak your iPad.
If you pre-ordered an iPad and you live in the land of Marmite and Pickle, keep an eye out for a member of your local postal constabulary this morning: according to reports, numerous Brits are claiming that their iPads are already en route or already delivered, a day before Apple’s May 28th U.K. launch.
It seems like Apple might have been prepared for this: according to reader Paul B., they’ve pushed Pages, Numbers and Keynote to the UK App Store, which weren’t available until now.
Any of our readers hailing from Albion holding an iPad in their hands yet? Brag to us poor sucker continentals in the comments.
Tomorrow’s the official international launch day of the iPad in nine select countries, so why not celebrate with a slice of delicious iPad cake, complete with edible candy App Icons. I call dibs on the Plants Vs. Zombies, Twitterific and Kindle for iPad app slices.
Apple didn’t even need to release the iPad overseas in order for it to become an international hit, according to analytics released by AdMob on the day before the iPad’s official international launch.
According to AdMob’s data, international usage of the iPad hovered at around 25% of total traffic in April.
That’s an amazing number, but it groks with my own experience living in Germany: iPads are fairly easy to find here on eBay and Craigslist, at entirely reasonable premiums. The iPad may be big in the States, but it’s going to be huge in the rest of the world.
I find my cinema display offers plenty of screen real estate for the things I do everyday, and with my MacBook Pro hooked up, having two displays is a real benefit. It’s nice to have the ability to browse through one document whilst typing up another on a separate screen, or have easy access to my music library or my Twitter feed without having to move or minimize the application I’m working on.
However, I don’t always want to be sat at my desk. I often like to get stuff done from the sofa when I’m feeling a bit lazy, or from the garden on a nice day. Now I can have two displays wherever I’m working thanks to Air Display from Avatron Software on my iPad.
Against the odds and earlier than expected, Wired magazine has debuted its interactive magazine app for the iPad. And it’s killer.
The Wired app blends the magazine’s superb editorial editorial and high production values with elements that only digital can bring – interactivity and multimedia. The stories are well-written and beautifully designed with big, gorgeous photos. Navigation is easy and intuitive and there are lots of interactive graphics and supplementary video.
“Wired magazine will be digital from now on, designed from the start as a compelling interactive experience, in parallel with our print edition,” says Chris Anderson, Wired’s editor in chief. “Wired is finally, well, wired.”
Thanks to Apple’s ban on Flash, the app had some birthing troubles, and was expected later this summer. Wired has solved the Flash issue by making the app native to the iPad — it’s not an Adobe Air or Flash port. According to Anderson, it’s made with the same Adobe productions tools used to create the print magazine, so it’s (relatively) easy and quick to produce in parallel. This, of course, is crucial.
It’s not cheap — $4.99 a pop — which has already upset some reviewers on iTunes. Because the digital edition is produced in parallel and distribution costs are near zero, it should cost a lot less than print, critics reason. (The print edition costs less than a dollar with a subscription).
But the price is perhaps one of the most important things about the digital edition. Wired is trying out a new business model, one that many print publishers are praying will work. Me too. If Wired can make it profitable enough to support its editorial costs, that’s good news for everyone — publishers and readers.
Check out CultofMac.com’s quick video tour of the Wired iPad app (This video will play on the iPad, btw):
Speaking Tuesday at Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting, CEO Jeff Bezos said that a color version of the Kindle e-reader is “still a long way out.”
According to Bezos, adding color to the Kindle’s e-ink display, while possible in the lab, is simply “not ready for prime-time production.”
Don’t think for a second, though, that Amazon intends to let the iPad run away with the e-book market without a fight.
Bezos appears to have been very specifically saying that a color e-ink Kindle wouldn’t be out soon, but his wording leaves the possibility of an iPad-like Amazon tablet wide open. Trying to beat Apple at the tablet hardware game is probably folly, but there’s got to be a lot of temptation in the Amazon offices to give it a try.
There’s a growing number of analysts and pundits who believe that netbooks will increasingly become irrelevant to most customers as tablets This latest Retrevo poll seems to support that opinion.
The Retrevo poll’s sample size was over 1,000 individuals of different genders, ages, incomes and location who considered buying a netbook last year. The question asked was: “Did you hold off on buyinga netbook after the iPad was announced in January?”
The results are quite good for iPad. 40% waited to buy a netbook until after Apple announced the iPad, while 30% didn’t wait at all. The remaining 30%? They all abandoned their netbook plans and went with iPad instead.
Billed as the first real tennis game on iPad, Ace Tennis HD 2010 doesn’t disappoint. Boasting gorgeous graphics, Ace Tennis HD has a great multiplayer mode, wich matches you with other players online.
Be warned — this kind of competition really brings out the John McEnroe in you — dominating other players is dangerously addictive.
Forget the escalating Apple – Google rivalry for a moment, the latest chapter in the war against Apple unfolds in New York: Yankee Stadium has banned iPads. Apparently their existing security restrictions prohibiting laptop computers extend to the new Handheld Wonder, leaving multitasking attendees all atwitter.
Good opportunity here for my hometown team (and legendary Yankee rival) Boston Red Sox to encourage iPads at Fenway Park, and create a custom app for enhancing the game day experience. With the Express Written Permission of Major League Baseball, of course…
What would you want to have on your iPad while watching the game?
The Elgato EyeTV HD DVR is easy to recommend to Apple fans who are serious about video: it’s whole raison d’etre is to make it as easy as possible to transcode your high-defenition television content to watch on your MacBook, iPhone or iPad.
As a DVR, the EyeTV allows you to plug it into your satellite or cable box and record shows in high-definition H.264 video, which can easily be converted to iPad or iPhone optimized files when you plug it into your Mac’s USB port. If that’s too much work for you and you expect to watch a show on your iPad over your HDTV, you can opt to record in iPad or iPhone mode.
Even better? If you don’t want to physically sync your EyeTV media to your iPhone or iPad, you can just stream it over 3G or WiFi with the EyeTV app.
The Elgato EyeTV HD is available now at your local Apple Store for just $199.
When people first started playing with the iPad, a common comparison was to the interactive, tablet-like book (, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer: a Propædeutic Enchiridion) featured in best-selling author Neal Stephenson’s steampunk sci-fi novel A Diamond Age, so it seems like a natural fit that Stephenson will soon be coming to iPad with an app of his own.
The project’s called The Mongoliad, a wonderfully stupid title that sounds like a gag from the lost sequel to John Barth’s Sotweed Factor. But the idea is sound: Stephenson and a few fellow authors including Greg Bear and Nicole Galland will be releasing a set of serialized stories to the App Store, presenting “an ongoing stream of nontextual, para-narrative and extra-narrative stuff” that will allow readers to interact and create their own stories in the Mongoliad universe with some “pretty cool tech.”
Though details are scarce and while Stephenson’s product could be nothing more than some fancy e-books, this is worth being excited about. Stephenson’s fiction has long luxuriated in the magical possibilities of technology, and I’m eager to see if what he comes up with in code is just as future-thinking as what he creates in prose.
