All aboard! Enterprises can either jump on the hurtling iPad express or hop on the slow-moving freight that other tablet manufacturers promise will be coming along any time now. That’s the conclusion from the analyst gurus at the Gartner Group.
“The iPad looks set to become a market disrupting device, like the iPod before it,” the research firm tells companies. “Even if you think it is just a passing fad, the cost of early action is low, while the price of delay may well be extremely high,” it warns.
Because Apple is already using the brand name iPad, two companies have tried to name their competitive tablets something completely different: The nPad.
NY-based DJ Rana Sobhany is fully committed to Apple’s mobile hardware — iPads and iPhones — as the technology that will be used to create the next generation of mobile music production. Her website Destroy the Silence chronicles her iPad Music Experiment and is filled with audio and video clips showing how the author and former instrumental musician is warping the boundaries of nightclub and dancefloor music production.
Sobhany notes in a recent interview that the strong emotional connection usually present between audiences and traditional live music performers can be lost in the transition to computer-based performance. She feels the touch-screen UI of Apple’s flagship mobile device may be able to help bridge that divide. “The iPad creates complete audio and visual engagement with the audience because I’m not just clicking a mouse,” she says, adding “I’m actively using these apps and mixing beats.”
This link points to a 10 minute clip of music Sobhany created during a recent set at the House of Blues in LA. It was mixed live on two iPads with one additional synth/drum machine controller powered by an iPhone.
Just a couple weeks ago, Apple updated their iLife suite up to the year 2011… but despite the fact that iLife ’11 requires Snow Leopard to run, Cupertino did not see fit to upgrade the executables to 64-bit…. even though programs like iMovie ’11 would certainly have benefited from the support.
What about Final Cut Studio, then? Last updated in July of 2009, Final Cut Studio is one of the top movie-editing software packages around… and it too could desperately benefit from some 64-bit support.
Evan Agee recently emailed Steve Jobs to see about Final Cut Studio, expressing his hopes of a 64-bit update to the package. As he’s sometimes wont to do, Apple’s CEO fired back a reply: “Stay tuned and buckle up.”
Before the iPad debuted, the tablet market was basically limited to niche convertible laptops with stylus-driven displays largely marketed to digital artists. The iPad changed everything: it placed the tablet as a bridge device between a phone and a laptop and made it less about the creation of a few specific types of digital media than a gadget aimed at the consumption of digital media.
It was a genius redefinition of a product class, and Apple’s basically dominated the tablet market ever since it was released. You might be surprised by how utterly complete the iPad’s domination of the tablet market is, though: according to statistics released by Strategy Analytics, the iPad accounts for 95.5% of all tablet sales.
That number’s going to go down, of course. The iPad basically caught gadget makers with their pants down, and we’re only just staring to see devices like the Galaxy Tab and the upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook creep out of electronic makers’ design factories to challenge the iPad’s crown. Apple’s percentage of the tablet market is largely due to the fact that there just aren’t any good tablets out there besides the iPad.
So that number’s going to go down, but by guess, with that sort of head start? Apple’s still going to sell more than half of all tablets made for at least the next couple of years.
November 7th’s turning out to be an important date for big box retail. It’s not just the day that Target’s slated to get the iPhone for the first time, but also the day that all 158 Best Buy Mobile stores will finally get the iPad.
Best Buy’s Mobile store locations are more Lilliputian Best Buys that focus on mbile electronics and are most often found in shopping malls or in congested downtown city locales.
There’s some obvious advantages for Apple pushing the iPad through as many outlets as it can this holiday season. Cupertino clearly does not want anyone to be able to fall upon the excuse of merely not being able to find an iPad or iPhone to buy a loved on this Christmas, and by selling iPads at Best Buy Mobile, Apple is able to expand its retail presence even to malls that don’t have an Apple Store.
Pretty soon, about the only excuse anyone’s going to have not to own an iOS device is sheer obstinance.
Former vice president Al Gore recently spoke about another kind of inconvenient truth: his role as the last Mac standing in what became a PC White House during the Clinton administration.
Nowadays, Macs and PCs coexist in the inner sanctums of power — iPads abound for playing Pac Man or catching up on email — but back in the day it was much more an either/or proposition.
Mac Directory recently published an interview with Gore, where he touches on being the last Apple holdout in the West Wing, as well as the importance of Apple’s commitment to open source and how it may influence and help grow the Cupertino company.
Early MacBook Air adopters have been reporting problems with their new notebooks that include video problems and frequent kernel panics. Now some of these users have released pictures and video evidence demonstrating the flickering video and computer freezing issue that appears to be happening on nearly all 11-inch and 13-inch models of the new MacBook Air.
We were the first to report this issue last week-end and since then there are more reports of other MacBook Air users encountering the same problem. Users in Germany are reporting problems and the folks at MacWorld have reported seeing the problem happen on of their new MacBook Airs.
The Sesame Street Workshop’s charming take on Apple’s “There’s An App For That Campaign” and featuring the so-called “iPogo” is plenty cute, but after watching the whole thing, does anyone else think that the idea of a pogo stick with knives built into the handle might not entirely be child-friendly?
Apple has never been very happy with the prospect of fixing your iPod or iPhoneunder warranty just because you dropped it in the toilet. That’s why they’ve started cramming so many moisture sensors into the gadgets: the tiny stickers — which change color if they are exposed to an inordinate amount of moisture — give Apple an excuse to deny you service if things get too wet.
Apple’s rationale here is pretty sound. After all, if you trip and spill your iPhone into the drink, that’s pretty clearly not their responsibility. The problem is that those moisture sensors and their accuracy are both highly contentious: Apple’s fighting a lawsuit in which a California woman claims they are trigged erroneously by the humidity, and indeed, those who live in more humidclimes have been complaining about false moisture positives for years.
With that in mind, it’s sort of distressing to see that the new MacBook Air uses a record amount of moisture sensors internally. In fact, by my count, there are 9 moisture sensors exposed in the image above alone… and there’s apparently even more hidden underneath connectors.
