Despite Apple’s push to leverage the iPad to conquer the e-reader market, numbers say consumers have other plans. Earlier this week, CEO Steve Jobs trumpeted his iBooks store selling 100 billion ebooks during the service’s first 11 months. Eclipsing that marker is new research indicating music downloads are five times as popular and 15 times as many apps downloaded during the same period.

“The conclusion that can be drawn so far is that apps/songs show an order of magnitude more popularity than ebooks,” said Asymco’s Horace Dediu Friday. It is unclear whether Kindle’s ebooks outsell Amazon’s music downloads because the two companies offer differing delivery methods, with the Seattle-based Internet retailer foregoing an Apple-like integration of ebooks, music and app sales.

At Wednesday’s iPad 2 launch event, Steve Jobs described competitors as “flummoxed” to counter the iPad’s success, and he’s right. Almost a year after the iPad’s debut and we’re only starting to see the first of the original iPad’s real Android competition: not the 7-inch tweeners, but actual competition to the iPad’s software and hardware feature set. So what does Apple do? They come along with the iPad 2 and effortlessly cut the legs out from underneath the competition.

Samsung is one of Apple’s biggest suppliers and one of its biggest competitors, especially in the smartphone and tablet space: Samsung’s still unreleased Galaxy Tab 10.1 is one of the few Android tablets that seemed to be competitive in features and hardware with the original iPad. Stress original, though, because in the wake of the iPad 2, Samsung VP Lee Don-Joo has gone on the record as saying that parts of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 are “inadequate” compared to the iPad 2.

Flummoxed is right. Apple’s modus operandi for product revisions is hardly some sort of arcane mystery: they improve the software, make the device thinner and try to eke out some more battery life. How did Samsung — one of Apple’s biggest component suppliers — get caught off guard by the iPad 2?

The answer? They didn’t, of course. They knew what was coming. As a company, though, they just weren’t agile or resourceful enough to head it off.

Apple’s adamant that you should use their FaceTime video chat software over WiFi, and even have some software checks to make sure you’re not trying to pump your pixellated mug out over 3G. It appears, though, that the iPhone 4 isn’t particularly mindful if you’re connect to 3G somewhere down the pipe: if you want to use FaceTime on an iPhone 4 over 3G, it’s just a Personal Hotspot away.

Further indications Apple wants to use its $1 billion data center to stream media to its family of mobile devices, such as the iPad, iPhone and iPod. The Cupertino, Calif. company reportedly is pressing music publishers to allow repeated downloads of music purchased through the iTunes store.

The move would alter current iTunes policy, allowing consumers to re-download music despite the originals no longer stored on connected devices. An agreement could be reached as soon as the middle of this year as Apple preps its North Carolina data farm this spring by iTunes and MobileMe.

For those who like to add sparkle to their bling – and can afford to spend as much on their iPad case as on the iDevice itself – CrystalRoc has announced their Swarovski iPad 2 case. Featuring over 4,000 Xilion cut crystals this ultra-chic piece of loungeware will set you back $700, and is shipping immediately.

Why wait for ostrich leather? Not recommended for use on subways or in urban areas at night.

[via BornRich]

Have you ever wanted to watch a movie from iTunes on your iPhone without actually syncing anything?

With iOS 4.3 and iTunes 10.2, your dreams will come true. iTunes Home Sharing is a new feature of iOS 4.3, which will be released to the public on March 11. It was demonstrated earlier this week at the iPad 2 launch event.

Home Sharing will allow you to easily share your music, videos, and photos to any iOS 4.3 device over your local WiFi network. This eliminates the need for third-party applications or transcoding software.

Here’s how it works:

For those of you who like living on the Bleeding Age – while running on older hardware – Cult of Mac received this tip from reader Matt Briggs about getting his Core Duo based MacBook running the Lion Developer Preview installation of Mac OS X 10.7:

I managed to get the Lion preview running on a supposedly unsupported Macbook Core Duo from May 2006.

I installed Lion on a USB drive hooked up to a Mac Mini Core 2 Duo 2009, then removed /System/Library/CoreServices/PlatformSupport.plist and the same drive booted in the Macbook with no issues!

there might be some stricter restrictions in the future, but pretty good right now!

IMPORTANT: This is an unverified tip of an unsupported configuration. Use a spare hard drive for any tests, do not overwrite your primary system. This capability may not last in the official release versions.

I don’t have a Core Duo system myself to test this, so if anyone can duplicate these results on their own system please let us know in the comments.

When reader Liam Dennis updated his Twitter for iPhone app yesterday, it told him that Steve Jobs had registered a Twitter account. He explains:

“It scanned my address book for users I wasn’t following. It only found one. A twitter account linked to [email protected], a contact I had made to send the occasional email to him as we all do.

The [email protected] email address is known, of course, as Steve Jobs’ email address at Apple — the one he uses for his famous one-word responses to customers’ queries.

So has Jobs finally registered a Twitter account?

Hackers are getting faster and faster. Apple released the iOS 4.3 GM to developers earlier today. A few hours later, hackers had figured out a jailbreak for that same release. The same actually went for the iOS 4.3 betas (1 through 3, to be exact).

After the break: how to jailbreak your iOS 4.3 device (Be warned: it’s a bit of work to gather up the required keys and patches to make the jailbreak).

We knew it was coming, but AT&T has just confirmed that their network will support iOS 4.3’s new Personal Hotspot feature (previously a Verizon iPhone exclusive) starting on March 11th.

If you are already a $25 DataPro plan subscriber (which nets you 2GB of usage) and also have the $20 a month tethering option, you’ll be updated to AT&T’s new plan automatically when the change pushes out next Friday.

Verizon iPhone users, of course, get unlimited data, but the Personal Hotspot capability costs $20 for 2GB of data to up to 5 connected devices. AT&T’s plan, on the other hand, gives you 4GB total data to play with: either 4GB through your iPhone 4 alone, or 4GB parceled out between the iPhone 4 and the devices connected to it via Personal Hotspot.

Ultimately, AT&T’s implementation of Personal Hotspot seems like a better deal for extreme road warriors, while Verizon’s seems better for regular users. Which plan do you prefer: AT&T’s implementation, or Verizon’s?

Apple allowed one new iPad 2 accessory to go unmentioned during yesterday’s launch event: the official iPad 2 Dock.

A company called C² Technologies has announced the first of seven iPhone apps for training U.S. Army crews who operate and fire Patriot Missiles. Called the Mobile App for Patriot Missile System, the training program was developed on a game platform called Unity 3D.

The app uses multimedia for training, including video of actual Patriot Missile crews, 3D animations, pictures and text.

According to a release by C², the app “covers positioning and readying [of] the Patriot Missile system to launch and fire.” Can your Android app do that?

Apple released the Gold Master of iOS 4.3 to developers this afternoon. The Gold Master release includes the iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS as well as the 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch.

The new AppleTV has been left out in the cold still sporting iOS 4.3 Beta 3 and there is no word on when it’s firmware will go Gold Master.

Registered iOS developers can download these updates as well as a new Gold Master SDK from developer.apple.com.

You can see all the new stuff in iOS 4.3 here.

Let us know if you find anything interesting in the new Gold Master release by leaving a comment.

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.

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]

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.

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.

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.

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.

With the slimmer, lighter iPad 2 you may be wondering whether special clothing is still needed to haul it around.

After all, the latest version of the magical device is even more cargo-pants friendly than the previous one.

Mohan’s Custom Tailors is betting that men will prefer a way to carry it in your suit jackets – rather than going all “murse.”

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]

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.

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?

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.

Mac fan Sam found this cool Apple Logo lamp on eBay, and it certainly looks smart on the minimalist desk in her System Attic lair.

The lamp costs £25 (UK pounds) from ss-design-shop on eBay, and it’s available in several different colors, although I think plain white looks best, don’t you?