Not wishing to get left behind amid all the iPad fussing, Google has announced an experimental web UI for iPad and other tablet devices.
Taking cues from Apple’s own Mail for iPad, the webapp puts an inbox down the left side and displays messages on the right.
In the same post, Google’s Punit Soni reminds us that no matter how bad the Apple-Google relationship has been painted by the press, things are obviously going well enough for a number of Google products to be included by default on iPads out-of-the-box, namely: Google search inside Safari, YouTube, and Maps.
Here are some fancy photos of the iPad overnight at Apple’s 5th Avenue store in Manhattan, courtesy of our friend Richard Gutjahr, who is currently first in line for an iPad.
Check out Richard’s campout blog here (BTW: it’s in German, but there’s a Google translate button).
The likely scene at Apple stores Saturday morning. Image from ABC's Modern Family sitcom, which featured an iPad lineup at the Grove Apple store.
If you’re going down to the Apple Store to buy an iPad on Saturday morning, here’s what to expect:
At 7AM, all Apple’s ~14,000 retail staff will be in an all-hands meeting. They will be trained on all features of the iPad and each staffer will get face time with the device.
The stores will set up two waiting lines: one for reserved iPad buyers, the other for walk-ins.
There will be a strict two-iPads-per-person limit.
All store staff will work until 10 a.m. to deal with the first rush of buyers.
There is expected to be another rush 3 p.m., when left-over reserved iPads (if any) will be turned over to walk-in customers.
Apple has likely shipped enough iPads to fulfill all the reserve orders at each store. It has also likely shipped ~100 iPads for walk-ins. Larger flagship stores will likely have larger supplies.
Best Buy stores will have just 15 iPads each: five of each memory configuration.
Blogger Richard Gutjahr is currently first in line to get an iPad at Apple's flagship 5th Ave. store. He bumped professional line sitter Greg Packer, who didn't reserve his iPad.
Professional line sitter Greg Packer has been bumped from the front of the iPad line at the 5th Avenue Apple Store.
Packer didn’t reserve his iPad, so he’s dropped behind German blogger Richard Gutjahr, who did reserve an iPad.
“Apparently nobody before me in the original line had a reservation,” Gutjahr just emailed me from his iPhone. “Crazy.”
As we reported yesterday, Packer began his campout to be first in line for an iPad on Thursday. Packer is a professional line sitter who has gained considerable media attention for being first in line for scores of events, including the original iPhone and Ground Zero.
Gutjahr says Packer is angry about getting bumped. “He seems to be really mad,” Gutjahr wrote. “Funny thing: the media still thinks he’d be the number one who gets the iPad. But he needs to wait until the reserved line is done. And that one is lead by me. Who would have thought this?”
Gutjahr says there are about 20 people in line so far at the flagship Manhattan store. He and the others in line plan to camp out all night until the iPad goes on sale at 9AM. Gutjarh is blogging the event.
Crowds are expected to be light because Apple offered pre-orders and reservations. Most people will receive their iPads by UPS tomorrow or will pick up reserved iPads at Apple stores in the morning.
Still, the absence of a big crowd at the Cube-shaped store — normally a huge tourist attraction — is giving Gutjahr pause. “Hope its not a flop,” he wrote.
iFixit reviewed FCC-leaked pics of iPad internals Friday afternoon.
iFixit, perhaps the premier gadget tear-down shop on the web today, dissected photos Friday of a pre-production iPad provided by Apple to the FCC, which inexplicably leaked the photos somehow, despite Apple’s desire that they be kept under wraps until August.
With standard caveats about the photos being lower-resolution quality than those iFixit will publish Saturday during its own teardown of a commercially available unit, the company uncovered a few interesting tidbits shedding light on Apple’s suppliers, manufacturing processes and thinking behind the design of the highly anticipated device.
From the iFixit review of the FCC photos:
* It looks like there is a LOT of epoxy holding these chips down to the board. More than we’ve seen before— Apple is really serious about durability on this thing.
* Apple didn’t solder the battery! The iPad uses the same battery attachment system as the iPhone 3G and 3GS.
* Notably lacking from the RF/data cable is anything GPS related.
* Dual speakers provide stereo sound. Two small sealed channels direct sound toward three audio ports carved into the bottom edge of the iPad.
There’s more at the ongoing iFixit review, as well as plenty of info on the iPad hosted by the FCC. And of course, stay tuned for the deluge of information and opinion about Apple’s newest revolutionary device set to wash over the shores of Cyberia just a few hours from now.
Today, Mag+ becomes reality with the release of Popular Science+, a version of the, um, popular science magazine that’s been built exclusively for iPad. And it looks amazing.
Here’s a video walk-through from BERG’s Jack Schulze:
Compare and contrast with the original video mockup from a few months ago:
The BERG team have done a great job of turning their concept into a real product. They’ve done something else, though: Mag+ is a template, a platform for e-magazine publishing. Having got this trial version of Popular Science out, Bonnier can apply the same technology to their other titles, as well as move it to other mobile platforms like Android.
BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow won't be getting an iPad. CC-licensed photo by Roo Reynolds
A pair of alpha nerds, BoingBoing’s Cory Doctorow and Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani, have just published strong anti-iPad pieces. Neither is buying the iPad, for different reasons.
Doctorow is firmly against the iPad because it’s too commercial and locked down. He wants an open device he can hack. And Trapani thinks the Mark II iPad will be so much better than the first, only an idiot is will buy the first version:
Cory Doctorow (BoingBoing): Doctorow has a host of reasons he’s not buying the iPad, among them: it’s the second coming of the CD-ROM “revolution,” you can’t share media with others, the device itself is glued closed and it hastens the Wal-Martization of software. “… there’s also a palpable contempt for the owner. I believe — really believe — in the stirring words of the Maker Manifesto: if you can’t open it, you don’t own it.”
Gina Trapani (Lifehacker): Trapani predicts the price will halve in short order, and that next year’s model will be much better. “First-generation Apple products are for suckers. Only lemmings with no self-control and excessive disposable income buy first generation Apple products, especially in a new gadget category.”
CoM’s take: I don’t change the oil in my truck and I don’t want to change the batteries in an iPad. It’s open where it counts: access to the web. And I bought the first iPhone, the first iPod, the first Airport and plenty of first-generation Macs. Haven’t regretted buying any of them (except the first Time Capsule, which just died).
It’s April 3rd weekend, which means a good number of you will be trying out some of the first iPad games to hit the App Store. I, living in Germany, am not be so lucky: my own iPad won’t be delivered until some still unknown date in the farther-flung days of April. Instead, I’m still stuck gaming on my iPhone, but luckily, I’ve got one of the best and hardest-core games on the App Store to entertain me this weekend: Sword of Fargoal.
If you missed Stephen Colbert on the telly last night, here he is showing off his iPad. He opens the show holding the iPad as he sits at his desk. “Thank you for joining US,” he says, as he winks at his new iPad and then puts it away. Then he says: “Of course, the big story for tonight is — I have an iPad.”
The iPad may not ship until Saturday, but here on the deal desk we celebrate with the first price drop on an iPad app: Touch Hockey Extreme FS5. Also on tap today is a new batch of App Store freebies, including Batter Up Baseball. Finally, you can get your server’s up-to-date with a deal on the server version of Mac OS X 10.6.
As always, details on these and many other items are available from CoM’s “Daily Deals” page, starting right after the jump.
A day before Apple officially launches sales of the iPad, a new report predicts the Cupertino, Calif. company could sell 7 million of the tablet devices in 2010 and see demand double and triple over the next two years. Although the 7 million figure is just the latest to surpass Wall Street expectations, researchers Friday termed the number “conservative.”
The researchers at iSuppli expect 14.4 million iPads will sell in 2011 and 20.1 million in 2012. Although initial sales will again be driven by first-adopters, researchers see future demand propelled by a growing base of applications, greater features and potentially lower prices.
If you need to write to a mounted volume over SMB, you might want to hold off on updating to OS X 10.6.3 if you haven’t done so already: Apple support forum users are reporting major problems in multiplethreads that SMB is borked.
Reader Eric Dube writes:
[T]here seems to be a systemic issue with the latest 10.6.3 update from Apple breaking write access to SMB shares for many users. The problem occurs when you try to copy a file with extended file attributes to the SMB share – files without extended attributes can be copied. I can honestly say the problem breaks connectivity to every one of my SMB shares that I’ve tried and need to access on a daily basis. So far there’s no word from Apple (numerous people including myself have reported the issue though) or any known workaround that works (other than copying the files from a terminal prompt instead of the finder.)…
At this point, I’m already considering backing out the update and going back to 10.6.2 since that works just fine. It appears to be a wide-spread problem, so it might be worth looking into to warn users about.
It certainly seems to be a wide-spread issue, although not one that affects me personally. Have any of you guys noticed this problem since updating to 10.6.3? Let us know in the comments, especially if you found a solution that has worked for you in getting around the issue.
Apple has released its iBooks application for download, ahead of Saturday’s official launch of the Cupertino, Calif. company’s iPad tablet device. The application, which allows iPad users to read e-books as well as purchase titles from the iBookstore, can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store.
To get iPad owners started, Apple will include the children’s favorite Winnie the Pooh, by A.A. Milne.
Her at CoM, we’ve sent trackback hugs to our good friend Richard Gutjahr before for his fine, funny Apple Tablet inspired mock movie poster Photoshops. But as clever as Richard’s last round of mock-up posters were, the iPad still hadn’t been officially announced, and he didn’t even know what the Apple tablet was going to look like yet. His latest posters are all the funnier for being tablet accurate.
We’ve got a couple more after the jump, but be sure to hit up Richard’s site for the whole collection.
Could the iPad be the best thing to happen to Amazon? Although a debate has raged over what impact Apple’s tablet device could have on the Seattle-based e-book leader, Amazon could actually benefit from the iPad, a Friday report suggests. Despite a wide-held opinion that the iPad is a more flexible platform, Amazon could sell more e-books to iPad owners than Apple.
“If you’re an iPad buyer, chances are about 90 percent that you’re also a book buyer on Amazon,” Forrester analyst James McQuivey told the Wall Street Journal. Unlike Apple’s launch of the iPod or iPhone, where the Cupertino, Calif. company started with iTunes and the App Store pre-installed, iPad buyers can choose whether to install Apple’s iBooks or another e-book app, such as Amazon’s Kindle app.
[polldaddy poll=”2995715″] When the much-awaited Apple tablet device was christened the iPad in January, many people hated the name.
CoM readers were underwhelmed by the choice of iPad, 51% of the 1,380 readers who answered our poll on Jan. 27 gave the moniker a “meh” while just 17% said the name “rocks.”
For English speakers, the sanitary product association was immediate and launched a thousand jokes — including some printed for posterity on underwear, for many non-English speakers, it was just one awkward vowel away from iPod.
Has time — and the fact that the device is almost in stores — made any difference?
It’s possible to hack UPS tracking numbers to monitor other people’s iPad orders, consultant Stephen Foskett has discovered.
If you have a genuine iPad tracking number, you change the last two digits to get valid tracking numbers for other people’s iPad orders. I just checked, and I’m glad to see I’m not the only one with an iPad on a slow plane from China.
Here’s how the UPS tracking number breaks down, according to Foskett:
… the standard UPS format is “1ZAAAAAATTIIIIIPPC”, where AAAAAA is the account, TT is the service type, IIIII is the invoice, PP is the package, and C is the check digit. These numbers are not encrypted or at all random, and CodeProject has a complete decoding method.
To hack the tracking number, you increase the last number by one (the checksum), while decreasing the penultimate number by one (this is the last digit of the package number).
So if your package number ends in “63,” you can substitute “54,” “45,” “36,” “27,” and “18” to get valid tracking numbers for five more packages.
The hack works — I just tried it. I can now follow iPad packages going to Manchester Center, VT; Inverness, IL; Waverly, MN; Bridgewater, NJ; and Saint Louis, MO.
To make sure the packages are iPads, check the origin location (Shenzhen, CN) and weight (1.4Kgs).
Foskett suggests the hack could be exploited by analysts trying to figure out how many iPads Apple shipped this week. He thinks it could also reveal how many people are ordering two iPads, and the distribution of customers around the country.
UPS's tracking system shows many iPads just left China at 4.30AM last night (April 2 local time).
UPS is gearing up for a massive, “all hands” iPad delivery day on Saturday. UPS says ALL iPads will be delivered en masse on Saturday except to customers in very remote locations.
“We’ve got all hands on deck for a huge wave of Sat. deliveries,” says MikeAtUPS, who is providing UPS customer service via Twitter. “Unless you’re in a very remote area, your iPad’ll arrive on Sat.”
Thanks to UPS’s flip-flopping tracking system, the shipping company is being inundated with iPad customers asking where their packages are.
On Tuesday, UPS’s tracking system appeared to show that many iPads had left China and were in Louisville, KY, where UPS has a giant international shipping center. However, a few hours later references to Louisville were removed and iPad packages were listed as still being in China. (Some CoM readers with knowledge of UPS’s system suggested that references to Louville were some kind of internal UPS admin message).
It now appears that many iPads left China at 4.30 AM last night (April 2 local time) — just two days before iPad launch day.
MikeAtUPS has been busy answering queries from customers asking where their iPads are.
One customer said he was “freaking” because he didn’t know where his iPad was. “There’s no need to freak,” MikeAtUPS told him. “Everything is going according to plan.”
He’s also been asked several times if UPS can deliver iPads early. “Afraid not,” he says. “By Apple’s decree, they’ll all be delivered on Saturday, Launch Day!”
UPDATE: Another UPS customer service rep on Twitter, ThomasAtUPS, says iPad launch day is a “major operation for UPS.”
“The iPad deliveries are a major operation for UPS,” says ThomasAtUPS. “While we can’t say much now, we might later. I’d be interested. :)”
As the U.S. enjoys some above-normal temps after a deluge of rain, we take a look at a variety of Mac-related deals. First up is some Mac Pro Xeon workstations, including a 2.66GHz quad-core model model starting at $2,149. Next is a new batch of App Store price drops, including the venerable “Boggle.” We wrap up our top spot with Mac Bluray Ripper Pro.
Along the way we’ll also check out a deal on the WolframAlpha “computational knowledge engine” for the iPhone and iPod touch. As always, details on these and many other bargains can be found on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page, which starts right after the jump.
Like the Silent Bodyguard app we mentioned two weeks ago, KamAlert will, in an emergency, text authorities — or whomever the user wants — and include details like GPS data in the messege. But KamAlert claims to add two powerful security features: a sensor that uses the camera to detect motion that can automatically trigger a customizable function that sends photos or video to pre-selected recipients, and an audible alarm (in addition to the silent one that both apps possess).
All the features can be adjusted or turned off to avoid, say, the possible embarrassment and/or legal issues resulting from accidentally emailing the cops evidence of your latest frat/sorority party.
For those interested in an inexpensive, portable gadget to augment home security, and if the $5 app works as advertised, it sounds like a valuable, highly customizable security tool; if it doesn’t, well, the iPhone probably makes a decent shuriken.
It’s time for our weekly digest of tiny iPhone reviews (well, it’s a day early, but, you know, it’s a holiday weekend, so…), courtesy of iPhoneTiny.com, with some extra commentary exclusive to Cult of Mac.
This time, we review Chemical Pixel, Color Magic Deluxe, ..™, Easy Beats Pro, Looptastic Gold, Rotate Video, Saturation, Vector Tanks Extreme, Vellum, and Water Your Body.
Two men charged in federal court with planting credit card skimmers at gas stations used an iPhone to plan the crime.
The Hummer-driving, iPhone toting pair hit eight gas stations in central Utah before an attendant noticed the devices. He provided security cam footage of Robert Fichidzhyan, 27, and Levon Karamyan, 55, both of California, installing skimmers.
They were busted after police searched their car, a damaged white Hummer H2, and found keys to open the skimming devices and an iPhone with a map of Richfield with gas stations marked on it. Reports didn’t mention whether it was a map or a gas-station finder app.
