You may want to put your Mac on mute — audiophonic doofus explosion incoming — but what you’re looking at here is the first working, untethered jailbreak of the iPhone 3Gs and iPod Touch G3… and if its developer is to be trusted, it should work on the iPad when it comes out next Friday too.
According to jailbreaking wunderkindGeorge Hotz (aka geohot), the jailbreak should be out soon, although asking for a release date “won’t make it happen any sooner.”
If geohot’s right about the iPad jailbreaking technique being similar to the iPhone 3Gs and iPod Touch G3, we could be looking at a zero day iPad jailbreak. Oh, good. I don’t think I could do without 5 Icon Dock HD.
Fans of classical literature rejoice. Project Gutenberg – the publisher of thousands of free, public domain eBooks – is coming to Apple’s iBookstore. Having previewed Apple’s iBookstore, AppAdvice.com reported this morning that the iPad book store will include free access to more than 30,000 public domain titles, including Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, and if Apple doesn’t ban it, the Kama Sutra.
A prototype Best Buy ad on an iPad tosses in a camera flash along with product info.@WSJ
Brick-and-mortar media may seem tepid about the iPad, but their sales people are not.
According to the Wall Street Journal, interactive iPad ads are selling for figures reminiscent of their paper counterparts, back before magazines made the endangered species watch.
Both Time and The Wall Street Journal are charging — and have sold — iPad ads costing from $200,000 – $400,000, depending on the length of the ad run.
Time will charge $200,000 for an ad in the first eight issues. Clients so far include Unilever, Toyota and Fidelity and three other unnamed “major advertisers.”
Ads in the pricey iPad edition of The Wall Street Journalcost $400,000 for four months. Coke, FedEx and four other “major advertisers” are already on board.
People magazine said it took just two days to line up six advertisers for the first three months of its iPad edition, which won’t even launch until late July.
“Mind-blowing” games, video and interactivity are getting ad folks to write checks, Steve Pacheco, FedEx’s director of advertising, told the Journal. “You are taking something that used to be flat on a page and making it interactive and have it jump off the page.”
Maintaining the pretense of objective journalist integrity by reporting in third-person upon itself, the Wall Street Journal claims that “according to a person familiar with the matter,” they’ll be charging you $17.99 a month to read on your iPad.
That’s ten bucks less than a monthly subscription costs… but that’s still a hefty price tag for digital content. My gut instinct is that only existing Wall Street Journal subscribers would be tempted by an annual $216 subscription… it’s not a price point that is going to attract new customers. That multimedia content better snap. What do you think?
Using any application that supports UPnP/DLNA media steaming for the iPod Touch (e.g. PlugPlayer), the latest update will allow you to stream music and movies to your Apple handset from the MiFi’s microSD card slot.
With microSD cards now coming in capacities up to 32GB, what this means is that you can now pretty easily double the capacity of your media library if you’re willing to pick up a MiFi… and while the MiFi might be a redundant addition to your gadget bag if you’ve got an iPhone 3G, it would be an excellent way to keep your iPod Touch mobile and media rich without signing a two-year contract.
Despite what Apple and even my fellow Cultists of Mac tell me, for me, the iPad isn’t a compelling gaming or productivity platform (at least primarily) and it’s not a viable laptop or even netbook replacement. For me, the iPad is a thing, attractive lozenge of aluminum and glass that will usually sit on my living room table on top of the pile of magazines and newspapers that are usually placed there. Despite Steve Jobs’ assertion that people don’t read anymore, the iPad is an e-reader, first and foremost…. and it’s going to be the best e-reader ever released.
It does not appear that I’m alone in this opinion. comScore recently polled 2,176 iPad customers and discovered that over one-third of them said that they mainly thought they’d use the device as an e-reader.
There are a few apps I find absolutely indispensable, and Instapaper Pro is at the top of the heap. When I find an interesting long article during the day (for example, this wonderful New York Times piece on the evolution of the science museum from wunderkammer to proslytizer) I just click Instapaper’s “Read Later” bookmark and give it the attention it deserves later, in a stripped down, paginated, ultra-readable iPhone-friendly format.
I’ve been eagerly anticipating what Instapaper developer Marco Arment had up his sleeve for the iPad version, and now he’s given users a sneak peek on the official blog. There’s no huge surprises here, which even Arment admits: “No multi-column reading, no fake book-page animations, and no giant newspaper graphics,” he says. Never the less, it looks perfect, right down to the dual-pane navigation view. Even better: Arment says that existing Instapaper Pro customers will get the iPad version for free.
Once Apple.de gets around to allowing me to buy an iPad, I think this is the app I’m most looking forward to giving a try. I intend on buying the stock 16GB iPad WiFi, and Instapaper is that rare app that actually gets better and more indispensable when you don’t have a mobile broadband connection. This is a must have program for everyone who loves reading, and reading’s going to be the thing the iPad excels at most.
Apple has started promoting ten-pack, WiFi-only iPad bundles to educational institutions… but those looking for the usual generous Apple education discount will be disappointed here.
According to MacRumors.com, this is the breakdown of the 10-packs currently available:
BF822LL/A: iPad Wi-Fi (16GB) $4,790
BF825LL/A: iPad Wi-Fi (16GB) with AppleCare Protection Plan for iPad – Auto Enroll $5,580
BF823LL/A: iPad Wi-Fi (32GB) $5,790
BF826LL/A: iPad Wi-Fi (32GB) with AppleCare Protection Plan for iPad – Auto Enroll $6,580
BF824LL/A: iPad Wi-Fi (64GB) $6,790
BF827LL/A: iPad Wi-Fi (64GB) with AppleCare Protection Plan for iPad – Auto Enroll $7,580
In other words, at the end of the day, schools hoping to introduce their students to tablet computing and e-reading can only expect $20 knocked-off the price of each iPad, regardless of price.
Well… it’s something, I guess, although it looks like the real carrot here is the savings on AppleCare, since opting to buy a 10-pack with AppleCare knocks another 200 bucks off the price.
Either way, don’t think you can use this deal to get around Apple’s 2 iPads per customer rule: you’ll need an authorized education purchaser login to take advantage of the deal.
Developers will gather at eBay offices in San Jose for a weekend event aimed at creating applications for the iPad.
Organized BarCamp style, the first iPad DevCamps will be held from April 16-18. In addition to new apps, DevCampers — experienced Cocoa Touch developers, web developers, UI designers and testers — will also squeeze their cerebellums on how to best migrate Mac OS X applications and test and optimize iPad applications. The weekend workshop costs $50, but the cost may be offset by sponsors.
It’s organized by Raven Zachary, who runs iPhone agency Small Society and fathered previous iPhone DevCamps.
Not in Silicon Valley? Satellite dev camps are in the works around the US (Colorado, Portland, New York, Boston) and the globe (Brazil, Switzerland, Munich) check the list for complete locations.
Don’t have the scratch to pick yourself up an iPad when it is released next week? Well, as long as you've got six hundred CDs lying around, we've got good news for you: thanks to a little company called iPodMeister, you can trade in your old, unwanted CDs and DVDs for pristine Apple swag.
It’s not a scam. iPodMeister was founded by a group of musicians and students who realized that they could make a lot more selling used CDs abroad than locally. They have pretty strict rules about what CDs or DVDs are eligible, but if it’s in its original casing with the original inset and as long as it isn’t a bootleg, they’ll probably accept your disc.
So how many CDs or DVDs will an iPad cost you? A 16GB iPad WiFi will cost you 600 CDs or DVDs, with the 32GB costing 700 and the 64GB costing 800GB. On the other hand, if you want an iPad 3G, you’ll need to drop 950 CDs or DVDs for the 16GB, with the 32GB costing 1050 and the 64GB costing 1150.
It’s not exactly a great trade if you’d be willing to try to sell your CDs or DVDs yourself, but if you’ve already digitized the vast majority of your music collection, this is a pretty good deal. And heck, if you haven’t digitized your old CDs, but still want in, iPodMeister will even rip them for you for the cost of another 100 to 250 trade-in CDs.
Amazon’s Kindle used to be the best e-reader out there, but now that the iPad’s been announced, the e-reader’s slowly-updating, monochrome display looks like something the ghost of Johannes Gutenberg is ectoplasmically sliming digital type upon from beyond the grave.
Make no mistake: this is basically a Kindle-compatible version of iBooks, right down to a re-skinned library screen. The New York Times describes it in action:
The Kindle app for the iPad, which Amazon demonstrated to a reporter last week, allows readers to slowly turn pages with their fingers. It also presents two new ways for people to view their entire e-book collection, including one view where large images of book covers are set against a backdrop of a silhouetted figure reading under a tree. The sun’s position in that image varies with the time of day.
The big question is whether or not Apple is even going to let apps like the Barnes & Noble reader or Amazon’s Kindle for iPad on the App Store. Both would compete with iBooks as an e-reading app, and Apple has a history of turning down apps because they duplicate existing functionality.
Even if Apple does let them in, though, Apple may not allow users to buy Kindle or Barnes & Noble e-books as in-app purchases, effectively hobbling them. In fact, I’m guessing that’s exactly what’s going to happen: Apple may be willing to let existing Kindle owners migrate over to the iPad, but there’s no way Apple’s going to allow Amazon to get a foothold as an e-book seller on their own platform.
Apple is now accepting iPad apps for a “grand opening” of the iPad App Store, according to an email just sent to registered developers.
“iPad will begin shipping soon and your opportunity to be part of the grand opening of the iPad App Store starts today,” the email says.
There’s no details about when the store’s grand opening will be. Apps have to be submitted by March 27 to be part of the grand opening. The iPad is due to hit stores on April 3.
Back when everyone thought Apple’s tablet was going to be called the iSlate, HP stole the rumored name for their own iPad-esque wedge of aluminum and metal, the HP Slate, but the specs remained a mystery. Now Spanish gadget blog Clipset has the details on HP’s forthcoming tablet, confirming pretty much what we knew all along: it’s basically a netbook with the keyboard broken off.
According to Clipset, the HP Slate is driven by Intel’s Atom processor, and contains built-in USB ports, a memory card reader for expandable storage, and the poorly thought-out placement of a backwards-facing webcam.
That Intel Atom processor would be just fine if the HP Slate was being driven by a custom touchscreen OS like the iPhone OS, but instead it runs Windows 7, which runs chunkily at best on netbook processors and has a long way to go as a multitouch-driven OS.
The cost? €400, or almost $550, although my guess is that in the US, HP won’t dare go higher than the entry-level iPad’s $499 price.
It’s a nice try, but one that falls short. They might confuse some people: in chassis design, the HP Slate looks so much like the iPad that it resembles a Chinese knock-off more than a competing product. Caveat emptor. But there’s just no way anyone is going to mistake Windows 7 for iPhone OS.
All of the usual unnamed insiders say that Apple has had a hard time lining up TV programs, digital newspapers and other content before the launch as media titans weigh the advantages of jumping on the iPad bandwagon against the potential threat to current revenue streams.
Talks are still on, according to these Cupertino deep throats, to secure discounted TV shows. iPad users would get $0.99 downloads instead of the $1.99 and $2.99 they pay now at the iTunes store. Deals with newspapers, magazines and book publishers have all been put on the back burner for now.
If the numbers insiders cited in the story are correct — hundreds of thousands of iPads have been pre-ordered and Apple could sell more iPads in the first three months than iPhones in the first trimester after debut– the content owners could soon be the ones scrambling.
What, if any, content do you consider essential for the iPad?
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.”
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.”
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.
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.
In the Hackintosh community, the MSI Wind is somewhat legendary for being the first netbook out there that could essentially run OS X out of the box, with all features working and no hardware hacking required.
Now it looks like the venerable Wind has another Apple bragging point: with its keyboard ripped out and its display replaced with a touchscreen and reversed, the MSI Wind U100 makes a good poor man’s substitute for the iPad.
Sure, it doesn’t use the iPhone OS — it’s running Snow Leopard 10.6.2 — and it’s got some rough edges (it can only be turned on and off by wiggling a little paperclip in a hole), but if you were hoping that Steve Jobs was going to announce a MacTablet on January 27th instead of a big iPhone, this might be just the project to devote your weekend to.
When the iPad was first announced, Apple promised that the process for signing up for 3G service would eschew the iPhone’s Mephistophelean contract with AT&T. Instead, it would be simple, allowing end users to sign up and cancel their 3G service on a month-by-month basis.
If these screenshots of the iPad’s Settings panel are anything to go by, Apple’s been just as good as their word here. It’s hard to imagine, in fact, how signing up for 3G could be any simpler: you don’t even have to deal with AT&T.
Apparently, all you do to sign up for 3G is open up the iPad’s settings, plunk in your credit card information and then specify your order size: 250MB of data per month for only $14.99, all-you-can-gobble for $29.99. Simple! And if you sign up for the 250MB plan, you’ll get three alerts — 20 percent, 10 percent and empty — to let you know when you’re running low on data and affording you the option to top up with some more.
This is about as painless as it gets. I just hope international telecoms follow AT&T’s lead here and keep it simple, stupid. There’s just no room in my budget for yet another two-year data contract at this point.
We all know the wait for the iPad, at least in the U.S., will be over on April 3, right? Wrong. True connoisseurs know they need to wait until June 1, when Mervis Diamond Importers will unleash the hideous and despicable Diamond iPad on the world. It’s a bejeweled and bedazzled monstrosity boasting 11.43 carats worth of diamonds to make your magical technology device far more ugly and way more likely to cut your fingers as you watch a movie or read a book on it. All for the low price of $20,000 and your dignity.
For the truly elite only. Do you have enough cash and little enough common sense to go for it?
If you’re in the market for an iPad — and you know you are, because it’s killer — you’re probably wondering which model to buy.
Naturally, you’re looking at the cheapest $499 iPad, which has Wi-Fi only, but you’re thinking you might also want 3G. After all, you can pay-as-you-go for data, and who knows when you might need it? And what about storage?
I’ve though it through, and concluded that most people should buy the 32GB iPad with Wi-Fi + 3G, including the wireless keyboard. Here’s why:
U.S. bookseller Barnes & Noble claims to be unconcerned about the iPad’s threat against their own e-reader, the Nook. Indeed, they are so excited about the possibilities of the iPad that they are now promising iPad owners that they can expect to download their own free Barnes & Noble e-reading software just around the time of the iPad’s launch, which will allow individuals to buy any of more than a million eBooks as an in-app purchase.
In truth, it makes sense: the Nook’s not really doing much business, and the iPad is going to be huge. Unlike the closed ecosystems of other e-readers, Barnes & Noble can launch all feet in and essentially parasite off of the iPad’s success.
The question is: will Apple allow Barnes & Noble and Amazon to open competing e-book stores? I tend to doubt it: Apple’s taken strong stances in the past against the duplication of functionality, and they are going to want to keep a stranglehold on the iPad e-book marketplace, the same way they control the iPod’s music and video marketplace. The more booksellers on the iPad, the better from a consumer perspective… but I really worry that Apple’s going to stamp down hard not just on commercial e-reader apps, but fantastic existing apps like Stanza.
Did you buy an iPad when Apple began pre-sales this morning? If so, you weren’t alone. Indeed, Apple may have sold 20,000 iPads per hour, leading one commentator to suggest the Cupertino, Calif. company was earning $10 million per hour on its new tablet device.
The estimate comes from Andrew Erlichson, CEO of Phanfare, a photo share site. Erlichson said he purchased two iPads and noted the order IDs.
