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Is Apple Facing Serious Supply Constraints on the iPad 2? [Speculation]

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When the Apple Store came back online yesterday after the announcement of the iPad 2, customers were a bit shocked to find out that Apple is not taking any pre-orders for the device until March 11th, the same day the product hits store shelves. Apple has always had a great track record of taking pre-orders on products after they’ve been announced, so we’ve been wondering just why they’ve changed policy this time. Could it be that they’re afraid they’re not going to have enough initial stock to satisfy store orders as well as online orders?

Rumors were flying around the web days before the event that Apple has been facing supply constraints for the iPad 2 and that the product was facing the serious possibility of being delayed until April or May. When Steve Jobs took the stage yesterday, he went out of his way to adamantly state that the iPad 2 would be launching worldwide in March, and not April or May. Is the move to eliminate pre-orders an effort to increase the lines at stores and build even more hype around the excitement of the launch? That could possibly be the answer but I think it’s a bit unlikely.

Report: RIM To Bring BlackBerry Messaging To The App Store

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This is what losing looks like: according to sources speaking to Boy Genius Report, Research In Motion is preparing to bring Blackberry Messenger to iOS through the App Store.

BGR says that RIM wants to own the messaging space, and that means being ubiquitous across all platforms. It’s a curious move: BlackBerry Messaging is one of the few reasons people still buy BlackBerry smartphones over an iOS or Android device.

Ceding the messaging advantage to the competition? A curious move to say the least, especially since RIM is supposedly hopeful that their new BlackBerry tablet, the PlayBook, can help them get back some of their sales mojo. Does RIM see its future as being primarily in software over hardware? Are they already ceding victory to Apple and Google?

[via TUAW]

Gartner: iPad Growth will ‘Dramatically Slow’ Demand for Home Mobile PCs

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Photo by ....Tim - http://flic.kr/p/5fwfmh
Photo by ....Tim - http://flic.kr/p/5fwfmh

The growth of the iPad, along with other tablet devices prompted one research firm to scale back its estimates for consumers PC demand. Instead, there is a “growing consumer enthusiasm for mobile PC alternatives,” including the just-announced iPad 2.

“We expect growing consumer enthusiasm for mobile PC alternatives, such as the iPad and other media tablets, to dramatically slow home mobile PC sales, especially in mature markets,” George Shiffler, Gartner’s research director, said Thursday. As a result, the firm now believes this year’s global PC shipments will increase 10.5 percent over 2010, down from an earlier estimated 15.9 percent.

Joint Venture for Small Businesses Has Officially Launched

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Although not covered in yesterday’s event, Apple has, as rumored, rolled out their new small business support program, Joint Venture. Here’s how Apple describes Joint Venture:

Joint Venture is a program designed to help you use Mac, iPhone, and iPad to improve the way your business runs. We’ll set up your new Apple products, train your employees to get the most out of them, and make sure everything stays working with dedicated support.

Not only will Apple help you setup new systems for your business with software installation and data transfer, they’ll also train your employees on an on-going basis, allowing companies to schedule up to three two-hour training sessions per year for their employees.

Joint Venture will also support your business in times of crisis, offering “unprecedented” access to the Genius Bar as well as telephone consultations, priority access for in-store appointments and even loaner notebooks in the form of MacBook Pros and MacBook Air for while your office machines are in for repair.

A pretty compelling offer, especially for the price: coverage begins at $499 per year for up to five system, with each additional system coverable for $99.

Analyst: iPad 2 ‘Critical Catalyst’ for Continued Tablet Lead

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Despite the iPad 2 introduction lacking a lower price, analysts Thursday view the updated tablet as a ‘critical catalyst’ helping Apple maintain its lead in the tablet marketplace.

“We believe the iPad 2 introduction and the June iPhone refresh will serve as critical catalysts in the coming months,” Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope told investors. Although Goldman Sachs had assumed a lower selling price would also be unveiled, the analyst firm still believes Apple will maintain – or even grow – its current lead.

Rumor: Sandy Bridge Mac Minis Might Be Coming This Month

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Using nothing but a historic release of Mac mini release dates and Apple’s recent introduction of Thunderbolt, the Three Guys And A Podcast have made a fairly compelling argument that new Mac minis are due soon.

Noting that Mac minis have tended to be released every eight months on average and that the last major update was in summer, the eponymous Three Guys think that Apple will roll out a Mac mini revision replacing the Mini DisplayPort with a Thunderbolt port.

They also theorize that the Mac mini will make the jump to Sandy Bridge along with last month’s MacBook Pros, with the $699 Mac mini getting a 2.3GHz Intel Core i5 processor, and the Mac Mini server getting the Intel Core i7 CPU.

This all seems fairly likely to me, but the interesting part isn’t the specs, it’s the when. The Three Guys speculate that the new Mac mini will be rolling out this month, but honestly, who knows? The average update in the Mac mini line happens eight months apart, but that average is skewed by extremes: a 19 month window between August 2007 and March 2009 where there were no updates, coupled with a microscopic two month gap between updates from July to September 2005.

Sandy Bridge Mac minis are coming, no doubt about that. But I wouldn’t lay any money down on when.

Apple Will Give You A $100 Refund On Any iPad Bought In The Last Two Weeks

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We were warning pretty much everyone we knew for months that if they hadn’t bought an iPad yet, it was a sucker move not to wait until Apple at least announced the new one… but if you or one of your friends is one of those unfortunates who caved to temptation within the last two weeks, good news: Apple will give you a partial refund for your brand new but now obsolete first-gen iPad.

Apple’s handling it the same way as they handle their refund process for Macs that have been obsoleted within a couple of weeks of a new revision being announced: just go into your local Apple Store or call up Apple, prove you bought your iPad within the past fourteen days, and they’ll give you a refund of $100, €100, or £100.

Giving refunds on obsoleted products is one of the nicer things Apple does. I mean, yeah, it’d be nicer if they actually allowed you to return your iPad, but hey, what are they going to do with them now?

[via MacTrast]

The Smart Covers for iPad 2 Might Have Been Inspired By Japanese Bath Lids

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They aren’t much good at protecting your iPad from a fall, but if all you want is something to protect the screen and prop your iPad 2 up for typing or movie watching, the new Smart Covers are the bee’s knees. Made of ribbed, folding polyurethane, they attach to the iPad using magnets, and not only is merely peeling a corner of one up enough to unlock your iPad…. the inside of the smart cover will even clean and polish your screen when it’s attached.

Very neat, but it looks like Apple had some design inspiration for their iPad 2 smart covers: as TUAW notes, the new Smart Covers have an eerie resemblance to a common style of Japanese bath tub lids. It just goes to show: one of the hallmarks of good design is in being endlessly adaptable to a wide-range of problems.

Rumor: iPad 2 Has Doubled, Faster Memory

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When Steve Jobs ticked through the major hardware changes in the iPad 2 at yesterday’s event, one conspicuous bullet point missing from his slide was RAM. The original iPad famously only had 256MB of RAM when it launched, which was a decision that was criticized even at the time. When the iPhone 4 got a bump to 512MB, it was assumed the iPad 2 would fall in line… but Apple’s failure to document such a clear spec bump got a lot of people nervous. Surely Apple would only not mention a doubling of RAM if the RAM hadn’t been doubled?

Apparently not. A Korean semi-conductor analyst has just claimed that he knows for a fact that the new A5 SoC in the iPad 2 comes with 512MB of RAM. It’s not just double the meg, either: the new RAM is LPDDR2 RAM with a speed of 1,066MHz, which is greater memory bandwidth than the 800MHz memory in the iPhone 4.

Without hearing word straight from Apple, this only qualifies as a rumor, but we simply can’t believe Apple wouldn’t at least double the iPad’s RAM this go-around. They’d just have to, right?

Best Buy, Sams Club and Wal-Mart Will Carry The iPad 2 At launch

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When the iPad first launched, it did so at Apple Retail Stores and online, leaving the big boxes in the lurch for months. Over time, though, the iPad did eventually creep onto store shelves at the likes of Sam’s Club, Target, Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

For the iPad 2, it doesn’t look like we’ll have to wait nearly as long: the iPad 2 will be available at Best Buy at launch, and maybe even Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club.

This is refreshing news. Apple is not taking iPad 2 pre-orders yet, which meant that anyone who wanted an iPad 2 on Friday was going to have sit in line for hours with the usual screaming idiots. Rolling out the iPad 2 at big box retailers simultaneously — even in limited numbers — should make March 11th a little more manageable.

FaceTime Porn Service Excited over iPad 2

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Apple announced the new iPad will come equipped with front and rear-facing cameras as well as FaceTime video chat capability.

That got us thinking about live porn chat service iP4Play, which has been serving up porn via FaceTime since August 2010.

While interactive video sex chats are nothing new, FaceTime brings portability and convenience — or, as the Apple site touts it: “Now your smile goes even further” — and the porn company claims it has tens of thousands users, with a 30% growth surge each month. The service costs $4 a minute for a live chat with a video vixen.

Munster: iPad 2 ‘In Line with Expectation’

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Details of the next-generation iPad “are in line with expectation,” however an early shipping date caught some analyst off-guard, one prominent Apple analyst told investors Wednesday afternoon.

The additional news that Apple had sold the 100 millionth iPhone also mirrored Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster’s outlook for 16.2 million sales of the iconic handset during the March fiscal quarter.

The lack of any price change or “evolutionary additions” to the initial iPad likely means the first tablet will be phased out quickly, ABI Research analyst Jeff Orr noted. Although the addition of video cameras, a dual-core processor and HDMI video output keeps the iPad 2 in the running with other tablets, it is really Apple’s ecosystem and integration with other Apple products that differentiates the company, Orr said.

The absence of a lower price is because Apple “feels they have a lack of competition,” Orr told us.

Analyst Gives Steve A+ for Just Showing Up, But B+ for iPad 2 Reality

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Reactions are mixed on Apple’s iPad 2 announcement. Although the new iPad held some surprises, what most caught the eye of analysts we talked with was that CEO Steve Jobs, out on medical leave, showed up to unveil the next-generation tablet. The announcement “started as an A+ for Steve Jobs presenting and the testosterone contained within the presentation,” Giles Nugent, instructor at the SAE Institute, said by e-mail.

The announcement of front and back cameras, dual processors, faster graphics and more movement sensitivity, also matched Motorola’s recently-released Xoom tablet feature-for-feature, Nugent adds. “In terms of the iPad, I would say it met expectations, but didn’t necessarily surprise anyone.”

Forget the iPad 3, The iPad 2 Is Awesome Right Now!

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I feel pretty bad about yesterday’s post about the iPad 3 being the one to make a song and dance about. I’m sure the iPad 3 will be great when it comes out, but for right now, the iPad 2 is a great upgrade. This is not a ho-hum update, as our anonymous Apple staffer suggested.

It’s a rockstar from Mars update. It runs on tigerblood.

The slimmed-down weight and bulk make a big difference. It’s much easier to hold and handle. It’s pretty astonishing that Apple managed to cram in so more, yet made the case so incredibly thin. That is rockstar engineering.

The cameras should have been in there all along, of course, but the addition now makes the iPad much closer to feature-complete.

But the real magic of the device is the integration of hardware and software. Look at the piano in Garageband. You tickle the virtual keys softly and it plays softly. But hammer on them and you sound like Little Richard. The iPad 2’s screen is touch-sensitive, thanks to the built-in accelerometer, which tells the iPad how hard you are touching the screen. Watch the video of it in action here. It really is pretty astonishing!

Without that integration of hardware and software, other tablets are just fancy digital picture frames, as Wired’s Brian Chen noted on Twitter.

The iPad 2 is pure Apple: it proves that Apple is its own most ruthless competitor. Overnight, 15 million first-generation iPads were rendered obsolete.

Apple’s competitors are dead in the water. Steve Jobs is a master of hyperbole, but this time he’s right. There’s no doubt about it: 2011 is the year of the iPad 2.

Apple’s New HDMI Adapter Also Works With iPods and iPhones

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Apple HDMI Adapter in iPad 2

A new Apple HDMI adapter announced at the iPad 2 keynote earlier today was accompanied by a slide of the accessory hooked up to the second-generation device, however, Steve forgot to mention that it would also be compatible with the iPhone 4, the fourth-generation iPod touch, and the original iPad.

Unfortunately, movies and slideshows will be capped at 720p on these devices as opposed to the 1080p output that the iPad 2 can throw out. We’re assuming this is the difference between Apple’s A4 and A5 chips.

The ‘Apple Digital AV Adapter‘ is priced at $39 and is expected to ship later this month. If you head on over to the Apple Store you’ll notice the full list of supported devices within the product’s description.

iPad 2 Pre-Orders Already Listed on eBay

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iPad 2 eBay $10,000

It didn’t take long for eBay to become awash with iPad 2 pre-order listings from hundreds of sellers guaranteeing worldwide delivery after launch day, which is good news for those outside the U.S. who need to get their hands on a second-generation iPad when it launches.

Expect to pay over the odds to get it early, however. Many sellers are asking for at least $1000, while I’m yet to find one that’ll take less than $800 as a ‘But It Now’. The dreamer above is asking for a ridiculous $10,000 and couldn’t even be bothered to include a pic. They strangely advertise same-day shipping, though! Smells fishy…

Watch the New iPad 2 Video Right Here (updated)

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Here’s the latest video that Apple has released on the iPad 2. Six minutes in length, it features Johnny Ive, Scott Fortsall, and few other Apple employees talking about the design and user experience of the new iPad 2.

update: here’s the video for the new Smart Cover in action

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCb4BOd8iXQ

The iPad 2, Everything You Need to Know

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Did you guys hear that the iPad 2 was announced today? Steve Jobs, in living legended status, even did the unveiling. Here’s everything that you need to know about what went down today at the Apple Keynote.

True to the rumors, Apple found quite a bit of things to update and tweak on the iPad:

They boosted up the processor considerably, switching from a 1GHz A4 processor to a 1GHz dual-core A5 processor. Along with the faster processor, Apple claims they’ve cranked up the graphics and are pumping out 9x the graphics performance, although there was no specification given on what they did to improve on the PowerVR SGX 535 graphics processor of the first unit.

First Looks at the Stunning New iPad2 [Gallery]

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Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Ready for iPad2. Photo Credit: Coldjerky
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Ready for iPad2. Photo Credit: Coldjerky

Don’t be fooled by the photo above — it was drizzling and bleary Wednesday as the Apple universe converged on San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where Steve Jobs announced the imminent arrival of iPad2.

Based on the design enhancements and new specs of the latest magical device out of Cupertino, Apple, Inc. ought to enjoy sunny days and clear skies as far as the eye can see.

Apple Now Offering Original iPad for Only $349

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In a move to clear existing inventory of original iPad units, Apple has slashed prices on the iPad. You can purchase a refurbished 16GB Wifi iPad for only $349. Pretty stellar deal considering that the original iPad still matches up extremely well in comparison to the competition and should be a viable machine for another year. If you’re leery about getting a refurbished unit but still want a cheaper magical experience, Apple has knocked $50 off the original price for brand new units.