Take a gander at the clip up there. It’s been forty-odd years since Bobb Goldsteinn coined the term “multimedia,” but I think — and maybe you’ll agree with me — this is the first time I’ve felt that I could easily apply the word and think “yeah, that’s exactly what it is.”
In the clip, Alexx Henry of Alexx Henry Photography guides us through a behind-the-scenes peek at the production of an issue of online-only Viv Mag, tailored for consumption on the iPad. Along the way, you’ll see references to some of the other forerunners of this transformation that we’ve written about in the past, like Wired and Bonnier.
Probably the coolest way I’ve heard anyone yet sum up the new paradigm, from Alexx Henry, late in the clip: “We aren’t making moving pictures — that’s what movies do. We’re creating pictures that move.”
We start the day with two – count ’em, two – 27-inch iMacs. First up is an iMac Core i5 Quad running at 2.66GHz for $1,699. Next is a Core 2 iMac running at 3.06GHz, outfitted with 8GB of RAM for $1,899. If you haven’t found an iPhone 3G yet, AT&T is back with a $49 deal on an 8GB handset.
Details on all these and plenty other bargains are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page coming up right after the jump.
Palm seems in dire straights. Cannaccord Adams has cut its estimates following word AT&T may delay launch of the Palm Pre and Pixi from April to June or July. Now other analysts are suggesting Palm’s 400 handset patents could spark a bidding war between Apple and Google.
Cannacord analyst Peter Misek said Tuesday he’d “recently learned” AT&T would delay launching the two Palm handsets due to what he said was a “long list of technical issues” with the smartphones. Additionally, the carrier plans to “sharply reduce its marketing budget for the launch.” Along with weak sales, technical issues have started impacting Palm’s relationship with carriers, Misek said.
Apple has redesigned its iWork.com Website for the iPad and iPhone, allowing documents to be viewed on touchscreen devices. The company also unveiled new ways to share documents, allowing documents to become public.
The updated interface now allows documents to be scrolled using a finger, an action that has become common for iPhone users and upcoming users of Apple’s iPad tablet device. In a statement, the Cupertino, Calif. based company said the “new interface and improved scrolling help you find your shared documents faster.”
Londoners stuck in the tube now have a handy iPhone app to request ticket refunds. Tube Refund, which costs $0.99, zaps off the request for riders whose journey is delayed over 15 minutes.
Depending on where you go and what time of day, a one-way tube ticket can cost from £1.80 to £4.00 ($2.75 – $6 circa) and a weekly pass £44 ($67) so the app could quickly pay for itself.
This is a great idea — though according to the London Underground rules, refunds only apply for delays “within our control” that last over 15 minutes.
Given that it’s the oldest underground railway in the world, it’s hard to know how much time riders spend in darkened tunnels is due to reasons beyond control of transport authorities.
Apple's 27-inch iMac may account for higher Mac sales. (@Gizmodo)
The global PC market can thank Apple’s iMac for being the main reason desktop computer sales have pulled out of a two-year nosedive, an analyst said Wednesday. The popular Apple all-in-one computer accounted for 25 percent of all desktop growth in 2010.
Although notebooks and netbooks account for more than 90 percent of global PC growth, desktops now appear “like they’ve stopped eroding and can resume at least some low single-digit recovery after two years of decline, driven by emerging markets, corporate workhorse use and power gamers,” Caris & Company analyst Robert Cihra writes.
At least two media sites are following Apple’s no-Flash policy when it comes to the iPad. The Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio have produced versions of their Web sites with front pages that do not require Adobe’s Flash, reports say. However, possibly more interesting is how publishers view the iPad experience differently than the iPhone. The iPad, it seems, has jumped that evolutionary hurdle from strictly a computing device to more akin TV.
Kinsey Wilson, NPR’s head of digital operations, told MediaMemo‘s Peter Kafka iPhone apps are a ‘very intentional experience’ where people actively search for information. That possibly is why pages on the NPR Web site deeper than the front page are customized for the iPhone.
Traditional publishers may be feeling the heat to develop iPad apps and versions of their pubs, but online publishing execs are adopting a wait-and-let’s-see 2.0 attitude.
The Association of Online publishers polled its 1,500 members, finding them optimistic for 2010 — but not about e-readers or iPads. Half of the respondents predicted strong growth of 10%+, mainly from display ads and an uptick in video, with a number of smaller revenue streams adding to the bottom line.
When asked about the impact of e-readers and tablets in 2010, that sunny outlook was a bit scarce.
—Mail Online MD James Bromley: “These are still really really embryonic devices that are great and fantastic, and I want to be at the top of the queue to buy one and play with it. But we’re talking about a very, very narrow subsection of society that will have these in 2010. This is the time that we learn about these devices – ‘11, ‘12, ‘13 is when these might become slightly more mainstream.”
—Conde Nast Digital UK manager Emanuela Pignataro: “E-readers will be the novelty of 2010. I don’t think it is a short-term adoption – it will take years.”
—Thomson Reuters consumer GM Tim Faircliff: “I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”
—Incisive Media digital manager John Barnes: “The issue with tablets is, they’re not really servicing the needs of color, with graphics and diagrams – it’s a bit like version one of the iPod.”
Pilot Edward Smith, second right, pilot of a small plane that crashed Monday evening on Hilton Head Island, SC. (AP Photo/Russ Bynum)
Robert Gary Jones was enjoying a jog along on the beach with his iPod when a single-engine plane making an emergency landing hit him from behind, killing him instantly.
The 38-year-old father of two was on a business trip in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina when a Lancair IV-P aircraft lost its propeller and was “basically gliding” Monday evening before hitting Jones, coroner Ed Allen told AP.
“There’s no noise,” said aviation expert Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general for the National Transportation Safety Board. “So the jogger, with his ear buds in, and the plane without an engine, you’re basically a stealth aircraft. Who would expect to look up?”
Pilot Edward I. Smith and his passenger walked away from the crash landing near the Hilton Head Marriott Resort and Spa.
According to the Lancair web site, the airplane model that killed Jones is a four-seater that can reach speeds of up to 345 mph and is sold in kit that can “be easily built in one’s home shop,” with a final price tag estimated at $320,000 – $470,000.
Jones’ death is uncommon, but not unheard of: last year a Philadelphia jogger using an iPod died when a tree fell on her.
Hard to say whether volume control might have saved him, but it’s worth thinking about.
Ever been attacked by a voyeuristic hankering to see what images are being tweeted right now while, say, waiting for a table at the local steakhouse? Well, whip out the iPhone, because Swiss developer Nicolas Seriot has the scratch for your itch.
TweetyShow does for tweeted photos what Chirp Flow did for text tweets: displays a stream of images being tweeted — in this instance, to Twitpic — in realtime. There are sites on the web like PingWire that do the same thing, but Seriot says this is a first on the iPhone.
The app sells for a buck, and also has the ability to search for photos tweeted by a specific user.
You know spring has arrived when apps like this start making appearances: New from App Cubby is KaleidoVid, a dollar-app that turns the iPhone into a kaleidoscope.
Just point the camera at something colorful and KaleidoVid does the rest; the app then lets you unleash your creation on the world through email, Facebook or Twitter.
Seems like a great candidate for the Best Magic Brownie App Award.
Knox Bronson got in touch to tell us about a little video he’d made.
It’s called Pixels at an Exhibition, and it documents the creative efforts of people who took part in the iPhone photography exhibition at the Giorgi Gallery in Berkeley, California, in December last year.
A 50-inch multitouch screen from Samsung shown off at CES in 2009. These devices will soon be common, according to a visionary, 20-year-old report from Xerox PARC. Image: Engadget.
Way back in 1991, just as Apple was transitioning from 68k to PowerPC chips, the braniacs at Xerox PARC were predicting it’s entire iPod, iPhone and iPad strategy. And next up for the iPad is a blackboard-sized device.
Nearly 20 years ago, just as personal desktop computers were taking off, researchers at Xerox started thinking about the next stage: ubiquitous computers and the cloud.
“Ubiquitous computers will also come in different sizes, each suited to a particular task. My colleagues and I have built what we call tabs, pads and boards: inch-scale machines that approximate active Post-It notes, foot-scale ones that behave something like a sheet of paper (or a book or a magazine), and yard-scale displays that are the equivalent of a blackboard or bulletin board.”
The inch-scale “tabs” are Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch, plus smartphones from Google and Palm. The foot-scale “pads” are the iPad and the 50-odd tablets coming out this year. And next up are yard-scale “boards,” which will act a big-screen hubs in the home and interactive workspaces in the office. Microsoft’s Surface table is the best current example, but more big-screen devices are inevitable as component prices come down thanks to the flat-screen TV industry.
What’s amazing is how twenty years later PARC’s vision describes Apple’s transition into a “mobile” company with a range of devices accessing the cloud. It’s fitting that the vision that should come for the same lab that invented more-or-less personal desktop computing.
Toktumi CEO Peter Sisson demonstrates his Line2 app, which adds a second phone number to the iPhone. The app is now available for the iPod touch, turning the device into a sophisticated softphone.
Apple seems to be changing its tune on VoIP apps for the iPod touch. Less than a week after it was submitted, Toktumi’s Line2 VoIP app has been approved by Apple. The $14.95 a month app turns the iPod touch into a fully-featured telephone.
“Interesting was how quickly it was approved – less than a week from submission!” says Toktumi’s founder and CEO, Peter Sisson. “I think its an important development.”
Already available for the iPhone, Toktumi‘s Line2 app joins Skype and Truphone For iPod on the touch, but boasts more features, Sisson says. As well as unlimited U.S. and Canada calling and low international rates, the app has a host of “professional-grade” features, such as call waiting, conferencing, call transfer and visual voicemail.
“It turns the iPod touch into a serious telephone,”Sisson says. “It’s a real telephone. You use it over Wi-Fi and you’re spending $15 a month and that’s it.”
In January, Apple approved an update of the Line2 app on the iPhone to make and receive phone calls over a 3G or WiFi. The approval was in stark contrast to Apple’s earlier stance on VoIP apps, which seemed hostile. Apple’s position was highlighted by the spat over Google Voice, which Apple still hasn’t approved for the App Store.
On the iPhone, the Line2 iPhone app provides with an additional number. It’s pitched at business users as a way of separating business and personal calls.
It also provides a host of advanced, business-oriented call control features like caller-specific call forwarding, after-hours settings, voicemail by email and an auto-attendant (“Press 1 for…”). And it can be used to avoid roaming charges when travelling overseas.
Avaliable as a free 30-day trial, Line2 is $14.95 a month, pay-as-you-go. Here’s the iTunes Link.
Hit the jump for a couple of videos showing how it works.
Today we have a bit of everything in the way of Mac deals. We start off with a kit everyone needs – a charger for your iPhone and iPod when on the road. The $4.99 collection includes a USB hot-syncing and charging cable along with a charger for your car or when you are traveling. We shift into software mode with the lastest batch of price drops for iPhone and iPod touch apps, including Tiki Totems Premium. The app is an accelerometer-based game with one of favorite guaranteed to tie your tongue titles. Nobody has enough storage – actual or virtual. After a while, your pristine Mac gets cluttered with apps, icons and assorted files. Do something about that bulging byte count and latch onto some external storage, such as a 1TB off-loader from Iomega.
Along the way, we check out some timely software from HR Block. As always, details on these and many other bargains are available on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
In a bit of irony, Apple reportedly is hesitating to sign longterm deals with flash memory suppliers because of high prices which some blame on Apple’s heavy use of the chips in a growing array of devices. Although demand is weak for the flash memory in some areas, prices remain high due to chip makers desire to please large customers.
The reason why prices can be so high with a weaker demand is the “major suppliers are limiting their supply to the market,” reports trade publication Digitimes. The tight supply could drive flash memory prices even higher and mean suppliers “may not be able to satisfy customer demand in the second quarter,” Digitimes added Tuesday.
Excitement over the iPad’s introduction continues to accelerate production of new App Store entries more than six weeks after Apple unveiled its tablet device. Indeed, the number of new iPhone OS apps produced rose 185 percent since the iPad became public January 27.
“Over six weeks since Apple announced the iPad, Flurry continues to measure a significant increase in iPhone OS new application starts within the system,” Flurry Analytics’ Peter Farago writes. The company said a large number of the new applications are “custom version of existing applications tailored for the iPad.”
A new app called Silent Bodyguard features a panic button that sends an SOS distress signal with GPS coordinates to potential rescuers without alerting onlookers.
Van Zandt says the app may prove useful in situations where a person is trapped or in grave danger but can’t place a call or create a text message. In Silent Bodyguard, users program in contacts for SMS alerts, calls or email addresses to reach in case of emergency.
Silent bodyguard is the brainchild of Los Angeles mom Jo Perry whose daughters came a little too close to becoming crime statistics for comfort. Her youngest daughter was the classmate of a girl abducted and killed while on an errand and her oldest daughter attends the same University as the graduate student recently murdered in a lab.
Perry, who co-developed the app with Justin Leader, points out that once activated, the SOS messages will continue to be sent out every 60 seconds, updating location. Even if it goes out once, four emergency contacts will know that the user is in some kind of trouble. The alarms keep going out until turned off.
The idea is that you can communicate distress when you can’t make a call or a text. Perry keeps hers in a pocket, not her purse, just in case.
“The app is simple, but because we designed it to be silent and for “stealth” activation, it’s not the usual on-off button people are used to, ” Perry told CoM in an email. “That’s why people don’t always “get it” at first. The home screen is designed to look like a photo viewer, not an alarm. Again, to make it easy to use when a person feels threatened in the presence of people who might be hostile. Joggers, college students, realtors, etc. can find themselves in scary situations with people around whom they can’t just dial a friend and say, “I’m scared.”
We do like the idea, but wonder what you’re supposed to do when the first thing the perp grabs is your iPhone…
While most Apple watchers have been concentrating on the iPad, something unexpected happened: sales of Macs and iPods rose higher than financial experts expected. The new retail numbers makes one analyst believe Wall Street is in for a surprise for the March quarter.
According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster’s interpretation of retail sales figures supplied by research firm NPD, Mac sales are up 39 percent compared to the same period a year ago, far above the prevailing Wall Street expectations of a 22 percent nosedive. Likewise, iPod sales, according to the NPD data, increased by 7 percent through February, up from a 17 percent drop financial experts were expecting.
As a result, Munster believes Apple will sell 2.8 million to 2.9 million Macs for the second quarter, a tad higher than Wall Street’s expected 2.7 million second quarter results. The analyst also foresees 9 to 10 million iPods sold during the period, up from the Street’s prediction of 9 million.
The rosy picture comes with some provisos, though. First, it should have been easy for Apple to beat expectations, given 2009 got off to such a sluggish start. Another point that Munster makes is that while unit sales are up, the average selling price is lower. The average price of a Mac is down 10 percent compared to the 7 percent Munster had expected. Although the analyst had expected the average selling price of iPods to be higher, the actual ASP inched up just 3 percent, compared to the 15 percent the analyst had expected.
Inside Steve Jobs’ abandoned mansion. @Photo Jonathan Haeber, Bearings. Photo: onathan Haeber, Bearings.
A judge upheld a ruling to let Steve Jobs raze a crumbling mansion in Woodside, California, though a preservation group may appeal the decision, again.
The saga of the sagging 30-room Jackling mansion is a long one. Jobs bought it in 1984 and lived there for about a decade, then rented it until 2000. Built in 1925 for copper magnate Daniel C. Jackling, it sat empty, overgrown until Jobs was granted a demolition request in 2004. (For a good look on just how run down, check out Jonathan Haeber’s amazing photos).
A local preservation group called Friends of the Jackling House went to court and kept the bulldozers at bay. In May 2009, Jobs submitted more documentation to bolster his argument that razing the house was more feasible than restoring it.
This week a supreme court judge upheld the council’s decision, so Jobs can apply for another demolition permit.
On Windows, when you’ve finished using a particular piece of software, you close it with the X symbol in the top right corner of the application window.
Many switchers assume that the window close control in the top left of an OS X application window does the same job: but that’s not quite true.
Earlier this month, Apple had already come clean that many of the iPad’s accessories would not actually be available for purchase simultaneous with the April 3rd release of the tablet itself. At that time, the ship date for accessories like the iPad keyboard dock and spare iPad power adapter was placed in mid-April. Now they’ve been pushed back even further, to sometime in May.
Those aren’t the only accessories to slip. The official iPad Case has also slipped: instead of being available along with the iPad on April 3rd, it’s now slated to a mid-April shipping date.
These aren’t huge delays, but it does show pretty clearly that Apple is having some supply chain problems. It also bodes poorly for Europeans like me who were looking to pick up an iPad keyboard dock at launch: it looks like these accessories might be in scant supply for awhile, with all the spare units going to supply the American market.
There’s more than one company to experiment with iPhone payment schemes lately, and while the likes of Square looks pretty good, I think there’s something beautifully simple about the way PayPal’s iPhone app handles transactions: you just open the app, type in the amount of money and bump your iPhone against the iPhone of the person you want to pay. There’s no dongle required.
It’s about as simple a solution to paying someone using my iPhone as I can think of. The only problem is that it requires you to entrust your financial dealings to the consistently crummy PayPal service. Although I must admit, the embedded video is so endearingly corny, I’m having a hard time hating PayPal too much this morning.
