Writer’s notes: this handy dandy guide was made with love to help you with your purchase of the iPad 2. If you’re looking to buy “the new iPad” which will be released on March 16th, 2012, click this pretty link for our updated guide.
We’ve been getting a lot of questions from readers and friends over which iPad 2 you should buy. Should you go with WiFi only, or the 3G version for when you’re not around a hotspot? How much storage do you need? And most importantly, how do you choose between black or white?
The answer is that you should get the 16GB WiFi-only model in black. Here’s why:
Mobile editing is much easier when you have a plan. Photo: Apple
iMovie and GarageBand — two of the most exciting new applications for the iPad — went live in the App Store yesterday, and although GarageBand is supported on the first-generation iPad, iMovie unfortunately isn’t. There is a workaround, however, and you don’t need to jailbreak!
Just a few minutes ago, after a nine day wait, the iPad 2 went up for order… and even if you dropped you order within seconds of them becoming available, Apple’s estimated shipping delay was between 3-5 business days. Worse, free shipping is your only option with the iPad 2: there’s no way to overnight it.
For a guy like me, the fact that the iPad 2 won’t be shipping out for almost another week was a problem. I have an obvious professional interest in having an iPad 2 as quickly as possible. Yet as I considered my options, I ended up hitting the order button anyway, because I just don’t think I can be part of the Apple Store launch day spectacle this time.
If you’re up right this second, there can only be one possible reason: to order the iPad 2. As you can see from the image above, iPad 2’s went up for order a little before 1AM PT / 4AM ET. All models came with an estimated 3-5 business days shipping delay, and there is no option to get overnight shipping: free shipping is the only option.
The only problem? Seconds after making the above order, the order page appears to be down again. Was 3-5 business days delivery just a technical blip, and will the iPad 2 come back up sometime soon with a more aggressive shipping date? Or is Apple already sold out? (Edit: Nope! Back up again, with the same 3-5 business days estimate!)
We’ll keep you updated. Anyone grab their iPad 2 yet? Which one’d you end up ordering and why?
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.
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.
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.
Yesterday’s update to the iOS 4.3 includes a requirement that buyers must enter their passwords for each purchase in iTunes.
The move comes after parents and legislators squawked that kids were making too many accidental buys in “credit-card bait games” in part because passwords stayed active for a 15-minute grace period.
“We are proud to have industry-leading parental controls with iOS,” Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told the Washington Post. “With iOS 4.3, in addition to a password being required to purchase an app on the App Store, a reentry of your password is now required when making an in-app purchase.”
What do you think about the new requirement?
And do you think it will stop these games targeting kids?
Half of all people using mobile devices for business transfer “sensitive” data over smartphones and tablets, according to a Harris Poll released Thursday. Results of the survey, compiled from the responses of more than 2300 Americans in late January 2011 indicate tablets such as Apple’s iPad may herald a post-PC society, with men and younger audiences more likely to trust the security of their mobile data.
FuzeBox, developers of collaboration solutions for desktop and mobile installations, commissioned the survey, which found that sensitive data transfers appear to be increasing in the mobile universe as professionals begin to adopt tablets in larger numbers, and that tablets, generally, increase the likelihood of transferring sensitive and private information.
Photo by Visualist Images - http://flic.kr/p/7MtAFW
Apple’s next retail location may be Austin, Texas. The tech giant is using the annual South by Southwest Interactive Conference (SXSW) to test a 5,000-square-foot popup store. The concept, already a practice with other retailers, will be used by the tech giant to hawk its iPad and test the city’s reception toward a more permanent outpost.
Apple Monday picked the Art Deco-look of the Scarbrough Building on Austin’s downtown Congress Avenue. After a “quick tour” of locations, the tech giant reportedly is now hard at work putting the finishing touches on the location. Starting Friday, Apple will use its temporary two-week presence to hawk iPads to those attending the event known for computers, movies and music.
The International Data Corporation (IDC) reports an ongoing boom with tablet computers, with Apple’s iPad still kicking competitors to the curb.
They counted about twice as many “media tablets” sold in fourth quarter 2010 as the previous quarter – some 10 million computers.
Apple still has 73% share of the market – down from 93% Q42010 — but analysts expect them to keep that strong hold over competitors.
Apple is building on its strong 2010 first-generation iPad launch with the iPad 2, which will ship this month, before most competitors come to market with first generation media tablets. Although more competing devices will be launched this year, IDC expects Apple to maintain a 70-80% share of the market.
IDC defines media tablets as devices with color displays between 5-and 14-inches which run lightweight operating systems (such as Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android OS) and can be based on either x86 or ARM processors. Tablets, for the purposes of this research, are defined as tablet PCs run full PC operating systems and are based on x86 processors.
Just about 90% of all media tablets were shipped to the US, Western Europe and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) in Q42010.
Apple has just announced when its iPad 2 tablet will be available Friday. Depending how quickly you want to lay hands on the device, you can stay up till 1 a.m. Friday morning and grab the tablet online, or wait until 5 p.m Friday local time and pick up the device at a number of participating retailers.
Along with 236 Apple retail locations, AT&T, Verizon, Best Buy, Walmart, Target and other stores will have the iPad 2, which has met with mixed early reviews. Others have speculated why there were no pre-sales of the device, instead requiring fans wait until the opening day.
Luke Renner, the founder of Fireside International, reached out last week to let us know about a very worthy program he’s running that could use Macs to do a whole lot of good. His organization has started the Caribbean Institute for Media Technologies (CIMT), a center that aims to teach journalism and multimedia storytelling skills to people in Haiti, in order to help educate “Haiti’s next generation of journalists, filmmakers, authors, and spokespeople.”
Specifically, the school has just received a huge collection of Rosetta Stone language training software, which is fantastic, except for the fact that it only runs on Intel Macs, and the school only has older PPC machines. If the school can pull together 11 Intel Macs, new or old, they can launch the program in earnest and repurpose the PPC towers to an additional center they’re planning to build.
To learn more about CIMT and Fireside, see this post. To offer your support, e-mail the organization at [email protected] or make a donation through the link on the right sidebar of their site.
Making a difference in Haiti is important to me, particularly since the catastrophic earthquake of last year. I also love seeing Macs help kids learn how to make a difference in the world. It’s a worthy cause. By all means, get on it.
Good news for RSS users: NetNewsWire Lite is now in the Mac App Store.
This free news reader remains one of the nicest around, and this new update looks particularly smart, with new toolbar icons and a complete re-write of all the code behind the scenes.
Note that “Lite” means “lite”. This is a deliberately lightweight, stripped-down cousin of the much meatier NetNewsWire application (which will be on the App Store at a later date). That means that some features some people insist on – like syncing with Google Reader – are not included.
But if, like me, you just want to keep an eye on some feeds and do it quickly, NNW is an excellent choice of news reader. Recommended.
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.
As predicted, iOS 4.3 has just dropped and is ready for download now onto supported hardware, running the gamut of third and fourth generation iOS devices from the iPhone 3GS to the iPad 2.
Changes in iOS 4.3 include faster web browsing thanks to the Nitro JavaScript engine, personal hotspot functionality for AT&T iPhones and iTunes home sharing, allowing users to stream their iTunes libraries directly to their device. Full details are available here.
Given up hope on the white iPhone 4 yet? You probably should, but at least one analyst hasn’t: Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that Apple will start production of the white iPhone 4 this month and ship it no later than early April.
According to Kuo’s checks, Apple has solved the problem of light leaking onto the camera sensor through the back glass plate of the white iPhone 4 by making changes to the film material used to coat it.
With the camera issues fixed, Kuo says manufacturers will initiate production of the GSM iPhone 4 in white this month. Kuo doesn’t know if the white Verizon iPhone 4 will ship at the same time.
To be honest, at this point, the only reason for Apple to release a white iPhone 4 at all is pride. They’ve already hopelessly boned it for this generation: releasing a white iPhone 4 in the last few months of its lifespan isn’t going to get many buyers. With Apple reportedly looking at revisiting an alumium
Dejavu All Over Again? Microsoft and RIM plan to launch iTunes rivals.
Haven’t we seen this movie before? Companies drool over the success of Apple’s iTunes. Companies announce iTunes alternatives. Alternatives gather dust, eventually vanishing from the consumer consciousness. Now come PlayBook tablet maker Research in Motion and Microsoft both hoping to launch new services that rewrite the way most of these tech stories end.
For its part, RIM wants to include the UK-based 7digital music store on its as-yet-to-be-released PlayBook tablet, while the software giant reportedly plans a music and video service codenamed “Ventura” to replace its beleaguered Zune.
TiVo’s not doing so well these days. A gadget I once considered it nearly impossible to live without has since been buffeted by streaming set-top box competitors like the Apple TV and Roku Box, even as more and more HDTV manufacturers bake DVR functionality right into their sets. Last year, TiVo actually lost $84.5 million while simultaneously running up a deficit of nearly $800 million, so needless to say, they need to pull something out of their posteriors quick if they want to stay in business.
It looks like that “something” might well be repositioning the TiVo box as a streaming device that will pump its recorded content straight to your iPad. TiVo is asking customers how they feel about the option to “stream live TV, DVR recordings and TV shows from a cable company’s On Demand library to one’s iPad” from both the comfort of their home and while they were out on the road.
That sounds like a pretty killer feature to me, especially given the feature paucity of the current TiVo remote app. Unfortunately, I don’t know if TiVo can pull it off: TiVo announced that HulU Plus would come to its DVRs “soon” way back in September of last year, and that functionality still hasn’t arrived. TiVo needs to be sprier if they want to stay relevant.
Apple really seems to want people to take Friday afternoon off. Not only are they not taking pre-orders for the iPad 2, but now they’re mailing customers, telling them to get in line at their local Apple Store if they want an iPad 2 at launch.
“Be the first to get the next iPad. This Friday, March 11, at 5:00 p.m.” the mailing reads. “The Apple Retail Store is the best place to experience iPad. Our Specialists will show you around the features, help you choose the perfect model and set everything up just the way you like. So you’ll be up and running before you leave the store.”
Just in case you’re about to call your boss, though, please take a hint from Cult of Mac: as long as you don’t mind waiting until Saturday, the easiest way to get your iPad 2 is going to be to set your alarm for 12AM PT / 3AM ET and order it off of Apple’s site with overnight shipping. Or swing by your local Target, Wal-Mart, Verizon, Best Buy, AT&T or Verizon store on the way home and try your luck. You do not need to start camping out now, though. A saner head can prevail.
The University of Kentucky’s Patterson School of Diplomacy has launched an 18 month trial evaluating the value of Apple’s iPad in professional graduate education. The entire school – students, faculty and staff – will use the iPad for tasks ranging from graduate seminars and courseware to admissions and student recruitment. The goals are both practical and forward thinking:
“With Facebook and Twitter empowering opposition movements in Iran and Tunisia, and the U.S. drawing a line in the cyber-sand in defense of Internet freedom, effective statecraft today demands mastery of new communication tools. 21st century diplomacy increasingly has a digital and high-tech edge – diplomatic training must too,” said retired Ambassador and Patterson School Director Carey Cavanaugh.
Approximately 50 Patterson School students, faculty, and staff began the iPad trial in February, and another 35 students are expected to join once the 2011 entering class is chosen.
The superintendent behind the abandoned $1.3 billion school iPad deal should go to 'teacher jail,' says union.
I’m guessing this has happened to all of us at least once: you finally cave to temptation and buy that Apple product you’ve had your eye on, only to have Cupertino release a new version a couple weeks later.
To be fair, Apple’s usually pretty good about at least giving you some money back when that happens, but it’s true that our wallets are often the casualty of Apple’s secretive product release schedule.
Good on Apple for doing the right thing in this case, though: an Apple retail store in New Jersey has agreed to exchange an order of original iPads and replace them with iPad 2s.
Why the exception? The iPads in question were ordered by a class of students at Rutgers’ Center for Management Development, which was scheduled to start on March 11th. Since an iPad was necessary to take the course, but because students had to pay for them themselves, Apple decided to take pity upon a class full of kids who literally couldn’t have waited to buy the iPad and exchange them, even eschewing their usual restocking fee. Good for Apple.
Remember all the talk about Apple’s $7.8 billion deal with Samsung to supply components for the iPhone and iPad? One of the concerns was that Samsung also produces the Galaxy S smartphone and Galaxy Tab tablet. We may now be seeing the rethinking of that marriage of convenience. Samsung reportedly is being passed-over for a Taiwan-based chipmaker to supply Apple’s iPad 2, as well as a rumored iPhone 5.
The Cupertino, Calif. tech giant is said to have signed a deal with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to produce the dual-core A5 chip, which will build upon the previous A4 chip produced by Samsung and part of the original iPad. Samsung also is expected to update its Android-based Galaxy products.
