The first signs of how the iPad will be handled internationally are appearing, including talk of carrier subsidies. Months before Apple said it will announce international deals for the tablet, one carrier is already planning to sell subsidized iPads requiring two-year 3G contracts.
Hutchison Australia reportedly will begin offering the iPad with a $455 (333 Euro) rebate when customers sign-up for a two-year contract offering 5GB of data for $41, or 30 Euro.
After Super Bowl Sunday… Monday morning. A single artery slightly to the left of my pineal gland pumps gin-infused headache into my frontal lobe in simultaneity with the overhead clock’s incessant tick.
How to write about Apple products when the aftermath of last night’s alcohol-soaked football madness makes me incapable of doing anything but watch that staccato timepiece twitch towards some impossibly far-off time: to when my fingers can type their way out of their tremens; to when my mouth isn’t ash-dry as the taste of the Colts’ humiliating defeat, when I can spill out words of a new Apple product or rumor as readily as I am — here, now, in hangover hell — to vomit up my spleen?
Tic. Tic. To the feeds. And suddenly, a way out of my nauseous, neuralgic writer’s block. A clock, just like the one torturing me, but created from the casing of an old iBook G4, with the pendulum of an Apple mouse flowing into upwards into churning horological guts.
An Etsy find, sure, and already sold out… but this I can write about. Now if only the feeds would spit out some Apple-inspired hangover cure, or a video from the Woz about why the New Orleans Saints suck. Perhaps then I’d somehow find a way to make my way through the day.
Primate Labs’ Geekbench is a tiny little benchmarking application with one really neat funcitonality: run it on your system and it’ll upload the results to their servers, allowing users to easily compare benchmark scores across computers to inform their next purchasing decision.
That’s swell, but hardly news in and of itself… except that over the weekend, someone downloaded the GeekBench app and ran it on a system referring to itself as a MacBookPro6,1, the commonly acknowledged successor to the current MacBook Pro line. Oh, and it’s packing an Intel Core i7 M processor.
Was the iPad originally meant to be a killer TV platform? An analyst speculates the iPad would be the perfect platform for Apple to launch its vision for anywhere television, tying Apple TV, iTunes and network programming into one sleek and stylish portable DVR.
“Imagine a portable set top box, but with its own killer screen,” wrote Berstein Research analyst Craig Moffett. “Navigation of programming guides and iTunes listings would occur on the iPad, using an intuitive touch interface. Output would go directly to the widescreen TV on the wall.”
What will Macworld 2010 look like without Steve Jobs? For starters, the annual gathering of Mac fans will see less than half as many exhibitors Feb. 9-13: 220 this year versus 500 in 2009, the last year Apple said it would officially support the San Francisco event.
Without as many exhibitors (particularly Apple) what will Macworld focus on? It’s all about “community,” organizers say. The goal is to replace Steve and the home ship with enthusiasm ginned-up by the faithful. To help with the revival atmosphere, Macworld 2010 will feature New York Times tech columnist David Pogue, writer-director Kevin Smith, media maven Leo Laporte, Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber and probably the most-talked-about Apple product since the iPhone: the iPad.
Apple’s iPhone nearly doubled its shipments in the fourth quarter, earning it 3rd place among smartphone makers. The handset had 14.4 percent of the market, making further inroads on No. 2 Research in Motion, according to researchers at IDC.
The new data show Apple had a nearly 82 percent year-over-year growth rate, jumping to 14.4 percent of the smartphone market in 2009, up from 9.1 percent in 2008.
“Apple’s iconic iPhone added another chapter to its short history by nearly doubling its shipments from the same quarter a year ago,” according to the report entitled “Worldwide Converged Mobile Device Market.”
Silicon Insider posted this interesting graph putting into perspective exactly how large Apple is, compared with the other big three tech companies out there. And it’s all about cash.
Essentially, Apple is the second most cash rich company out there, with a little under $39.8 billion in cash and short and long term securities to call upon. Microsoft’s technically ahead of them, but it’s a comparatively small lead of a paltry $0.6 billion dollars… and while Apple’s cash reserves continue to rise, Microsoft’s have leveled off over the last half year.
Then comes Google, with only $24.6 billion in cash and investments, and finally Intel, with $18.9 billion on hand.
All of these companies have major assets, but Apple is clearly positioned to become more cash rich than Microsoft in the coming months. We’re on the brink of a huge transition in the tech landscape: the day that Apple is bigger than Microsoft. About time.
The Siri iPhone app wants to make getting dinner reservations or concert tickets as easy going to a concierge: all you have to do is open the app, tell it what you want, and it’ll arrange the rest.
For example, say you’re in New York City for an important business trip, and, after an evening of drinks with your colleagues, you all decide — as one sometimes does — that you want to go to a concert… specifically, by an industrial metal band specializing in sadomasochist leitmotifs.
All you’d do in that case is launch the Siri app and say, “Get me tickets for four to the next Genitorturers concert.” And that’s it. Siri will automatically identify your location through GOPS, then search its partners including OpenTable, MovieTickets, StubHub, CitySearch and TaxiMagic for the show.
Neat stuff, but knowing how finicky voice recognition can still be, using Siri might be less like getting your evening sorted through a concierge than screaming into the hearing horn of a shell-shocked veteran. You can grab it for free through the App Store.
Magazine and news publishers are collectively hoping that e-readers and tablet computers will save their businesses, and Apple’s eager to get them on board in developing high-quality animated versions of their publications to help get an iPad into each newspaper and magazine reader’s home, so it’s no surprise that Steve Jobs met with fifty top executives of the New York Times yesterday.
What was surprising, though, was Jobs’ attire: a magical top hat, of the sort championed by Mr. William Wonka and Miss Marlene Dietrich.
According to New York Mag, “When Apple recently booked the cellar dining room at Pranna for a talk with 50 top executives from the New York Times, even restaurant higher-ups didn’t know who their VIP guest would be. But last night, Jobs came strolling in wearing what our source calls “a very funny hat — a big top hat kind of thing.”
Like the hat, most details of the meeting are anecdotal. Jobs apparently admitted he likes to hold the Sunday edition of the New York Times in his hands, ordered a mango lassi and penne for dinner (neither of which were on the menu) and otherwise just showed off Apple’s new device to executives while answering questions.
Overall, it seems like the NYT executives present were interested in the iPad, but unwilling to lock themselves into a single delivery platform. Business as usual, in other words. Still, who knew that the man who hasn’t once been seen in the five years wearing anything besides blue jeans and a black turtleneck was such a secret dandy?
Add Hachette Book Group to the growing list of publishers using Apple’s iPad to drive a wedge between Amazon and its requirement for $9.99 pricing on ebooks. The company joins Macmillan and HarperCollins adopting Apple’s “agency model” pricing and making waves in an area Amazon once dominated.
“There are many advantages to the agency model, for our authors, retailers, consumers, and publishers,” Hachette USA CEO David Young said Thursday night. “Without this investment in our authors, the diversity of books available to consumers will contract, as will the diversity of retailers, and our literary culture will suffer,” he added. The remark about a lack of diversity in ebook retailers was an obvious dig at Amazon, which until the iPad, enjoyed the lion’s share of control over pricing.
Just days after Apple asked an iPhone app developer to remove references to Google’s Android Marketplace, the Cupertino, Calif. company is advising location-aware applications can’t simply help Google’s AdMob serve location-based advertising.
“If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store,” Apple warns.
Now that we all know what the iPad is going to look like, the library of concept designs we used to illustrate the old “Apple Tablet” rumor posts look pretty silly, but they’re occasionally worth examining for ideas just not on what Apple could do with the iPad next… but what accessory makers might do.
This Yanko concept for the “MacView” tablet seemed like a pipe-dream even a few weeks ago, but what I particularly like is the iMac-like display shell it slides into in desktop mode.
Really, there’s no reason an accessory maker couldn’t make that work. Since the iPad can be paired with any Bluetooth keyboard, all this really is is a stand: design a free app that automatically pairs your keyboard with your iPad and you’ve got a pretty decent, touch-controlled iMac Mini.
A lot of people are nonplussed by the iPad because it doesn’t seem so new, or even very useful. It’s just a big iPod touch. So what?
But one of the most interesting things Apple said has about the iPad is how it improves the “experience” of doing everyday computing tasks — email, web browsing, making photo slideshows.
Again, people say so what? We’ve already got laptops for email and watching movies. But improving experiences is exactly what Apple is great at. The iPod wasn’t the first MP3 player, but the first anybody could enjoy using. The same thing is going to propel the iPad into the mainstream. Everyday tasks like sending email and reading newspapers are going to be so much nicer on the iPad than any other device. (see for example the New York Times screenshot after the jump.)
Software developer Fraser Spiers has been digging through Apple’s iPad videos, pulling screenshots to take a closer look at the details of the iPad’s UI. His conclusion? It’s going to provide a very good experience not just for media consumption, but also media creation.
Look at what’s in here: a full stylesheet engine, multi-column page layout, a complete library of cell formulae and a full set of builds and transitions. You can create a Magic Move transition on the iPad. That’s probably the most advanced technique you can do in Keynote, and it’s there on the iPad.
The New York Times has a fascinating piece by ex-Microsoftie Dick Brass on how interdepartmental fighting is causing the company to fail. Microsoft has turned into an anti-innovation company, he says.
Internecine warfare among Microsoft’s divisions has created a “dysfunctional” corporate culture that thwarts creativity instead of nurturing it. “The company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers,” he writes.
Welcome to the “iPhone photography toy of the week” slot. Today’s toy is: InfiniteScope.
Of course Wired is prepared for Apple’s iPad, says Chris Anderson, the magazine’s editor in chief.
Responding to Tuesday’s piece that Wired‘s digital version won’t work on the iPad, Anderson says the magazine knew all along about Apple’s aversion to Flash and Air, and has a solution.
“Obviously we knew about Apple and Flash from the beginning and there were no surprises there,” he says in an email. “We have a solution and will launch on the iPad according to plan and on schedule, along with Android and Windows — it’s a full cross-platform strategy, which was the idea all along.”
Anderson wouldn’t say what the solution is, but it’s a good one, he claims.
The iPad has already launched a thousand jokes, some of which you can wear some on your chest, or your privates, before you can even buy one in March.
See some examples after the jump:
Verizon getting the iPhone later this year is no longer a done deal in the mind of one financial analyst. Indeed, Credit Suisse has downgraded the carrier, expecting AT&T could retain an exclusive iPhone contract until at least mid-2011.
The financial firm downgraded its recommendation for Verizon to Neutral, down from Outperform, and shaved its target price to $30 per share, down from $32.
Although Verizon may “eventually” be awarded an iPhone contract as Apple drops its exclusivity in the U.S., “there is much greater probability that AT&T keeps exclusivity for another 12-18 months than investors realize,” Credit Suisse told investors Thursday.
Prevailing wisdom previously was that AT&T’s exclusive contract would end in June of this year and Verizon was the likely beneficiary. However “we no longer think AT&T will lose iPhone exclusivity in mid-2010,” the financial company writes. The delay could benefit Research in Motion’s RIM in the U.S., it said.
The analysis comes a day after reports Verizon and Apple were “still talking” about an iPhone deal. AT&T may have underbid Verizon and other carriers to win the iPad contract. Although the carrier would only say its iPad data plan “pricing speaks for itself,” AT&T beat out Sprint, T-Mobile and others to connect iPad users.
Apple recently came to AT&T’s defense amid questions about the carrier’s 3G network. Apple’s chief operating officer Tim Cook told reporters he had “very high confidence” AT&T can correct problems that have plagued reception.
[Via Barron’s]
In the wake of widely reported yellowing and flickering display issues on Apple’s line of 27-inch iMacs, rumors have it that Apple has halted production until they get to the bottom with the problem.
Apple’s denied the production halt, but if a UK-based Apple Authorized Service Provider speaking to Gizmodo is to be trusted, the situation’s a lot more dire than Apple is letting on.
Amazon obviously has a lot to fear from the iPad, and they seem to know it, if their latest acquisition is anything to go by: they have just purchased Touchco, a small company that makes very cheap multitouch displays. Oh, and they are merging it into their Kindle division. Duh.
Touchco’s touchscreen technology is pretty cool: not only is it cheap, but it’s sensitive to pressure, and can detect an infinite number of simultaneous touches. It’s also totally transparent, which means it won’t mute the full color LCD screens for which it is designed like other touchscreens solution.
It’s pretty clear Amazon’s planning a truly impressive, full-color, multitouch update to the Kindle… but they need it sooner rather than later. The iPad’s not even out yet, and it looks like Apple’s won the battle. Better crack the whips on those Touchco engineers, Amazon.
It is pretty clear Apple has declared a silent war on Google. CEO Steve Jobs allegedly has mocked the Mountain View, Calif. company’s well-known “Do No Evil” mantra and even blames the Internet giant for trying to “kill” Cupertino’s iconic iPhone. However, that animosity appears to have spilled over into Apple’s iPhone App Store approval process. Apple asked a developer to delete mention Google’s Android in an application’s description.
In an email to the developer of “Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab” developer Tim Novikoff, Apple wrote “it would be appropriate to remove ‘Finalist in Google’s Android Developer’s Challenge!’ from the application’s description.
Apple wrote that the edit was required to “avoid an interruption in the availability” of the flash card application.
The note from Apple said the app’s description, which also includes other usual promotional material, “contains inappropriate or irrelevant information.” However, the company is likely not objecting to the developer mentioning inclusions in Newsday or various iPhone design books.
In November, Apple was kind enough to make it simpler for people checking out music through links on the web to view that album or artist’s information without actually launching iTunes.
Called iTunes Preview, the feature allowed users to click on an iTunes music link and be taken to that song, artist or album’s preview page, where you could read reviews, see the album cover, check out the user rating and listen to little song snippets. You only needed to leave your browser if you wanted to download the album.
iTunes Preview was a feature I loved: simple though it may be, it made it a lot easier to check out an artist or album when people mentioned it on the web.
Now Apple has just rolled out the same functionality for apps in the App Store, and it works the same way. Now, if you want to see an app, the only reason you need to load up iTunes is to actually download it.
I don’t want to use iTunes in any capacity as a web browser: I want to open it only when I want to suck some app or video or album down. iTunes Preview’s continuing slow rollout is a welcome improvement on the way iTunes links work.
H.264 is a very cool compression standard indeed, and intimately familiar to most Mac users as Apple’s own codec of choice for iTunes, Quicktime and the iPod. It’s also the codec driving YouTube and Vimeo, and the one used for streaming HTML5 video by both Google Chrome and Apple Safari.
The only problem? H.264 is neither free nor open-source. If you’re Apple and you want to use H.264 to serve HTML5 video in your browser, you need to pay MPEG LA, the owners of the codec, a $5 million licensing free. This has raised some eyebrows by the likes of Mozilla Firefox, who want HTML5’s video compression standard to be the free, open-source Ogg Theora. Their argument, summarized, is it’s foolish to build the next decade’s internet video standards upon the back of a licensed codec when there’s a free alternative that works nearly as well.
Today, MPEG LA confused the debate a bit by announcing that H.264 will stay royalty-free for free Internet Video until 2016…. but while it probably ends the Internet Video codec battle, it’s not a development that ends the debate.
There seems to be a slight crack in the rather monolithic analyst pronouncements of support for the iPad. Needham has scaled back its endorsement of the new Apple device, telling investors it forecasts 2 million tablets sold in the year after the iPad launches, down from a previous 4 million.
The reversal came in a note entitled “Seeing is Believing” and follows its previous “Apple has Another Winner” analysis. Although the firm still believes “sales of the iPad will be substantial even in its first iteration,” the thumbs-up is labelled “cautiously optimistic.”
As a toddler of a Mac switcher, I still have the stray folder or two of legacy files from my days mucking through the morass of the PC experience. One of the files I’ve guarded most carefully was my old Trillian IM chat log files: four years later, and I’m still anticipating migrating in the legacy chats, spam, files and cybers of my nascent instant message years.
Looks like I now finally have the opportunity: Trillian, the popular Windows multi-protocol instant message client — is now available for the Mac in an open alpha.
And it’s ghastly. Basic IM support works well enough, but there’s a load of issues. The contact lists don’t automatically slurp in your friends’ pictures. Audio and video chat don’t work. You can’t view your logs. You can’t have group conversations. There’s no e-mail integration. The preference and customization options are slim. &c.
It’s strange to see Trillian for Mac after all these years waiting for it… and realizing that, thanks to Adium, I’ve totally moved on. Still, if you have fond memories of Trillian from back in your Windows 98 days, the somewhat unstable alpha build is a free download. But then again, so is Adium.