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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).

Doctorow has a Sad Mac tattoo, btw.

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.”

Big smug smile.

And yeah, Comedy Central isn’t iPad-friendly. It’s conspicuously absent from Apple’s list of ‘iPad ready” websites.

[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?

Let us know in the comments.

The first round of iPad apps are live on the App Store. There’s already a wide selection of apps, from NetNewsWire for iPad to AOL’s AIM.

But in a world accustomed to $0.99 apps, there might be some sticker shock.

Prices of iPad apps seem to be $3.99 and up. There’s a handful of fre apps, but not many.

Wonder how long early-adopter pricing will hold up before there’s the inevitable race to the bottom?

Here’s the full listing of iPad apps.

Update: Picture me boring a hole through my throbbing temples with my fingertips. PC World has just confirmed Netflix for the iPad. The pictures of the app are even hosted on Apple’s servers and the app is listed on AppShopper, so short of a linkable announcement, this is as official as it gets. The Netflix app will be free to download, but you’ll need a Netflix subscription to stream video, which starts at $8.99 a month.

In other words, due to the web of lies and trickery bloggers weave on April Fool’s Day, I’ve been punk’d by real news. I hate this day so much. See the original (discredited) post positing this was in all probability a prank below.

The big three tech reviewers — Walt Mossberg, David Pogue and Ed Baig — have all given the iPad pretty enthusiastic reviews. Of course, being pro reviewers, they are obliged to remain cooly professional and criticize shortcomings like the lack of Flash, multitasking and camera. But read between the lines, and these are pretty much double-thumbs-up:

WSJ’s Walt Mossberg: iPad has better than 10 hours battery life, email and other writing is surprisingly easy and productive, and digital newspapers are “gorgeous and highly functional.”

As I got deeper into it, I found the iPad a pleasure to use, and had less and less interest in cracking open my heavier ThinkPad or MacBook.

NYT’s David Pogue: Thinks nerds will be unmoved but technophobes will love it. Says it’s not as good as a laptop for “creating stuff,” but miles better for consuming books, music, video, photos, Web and e-mail.

For most people, manipulating these digital materials directly by touching them is a completely new experience — and a deeply satisfying one.

USA Today’s Ed Baig: Says Apple is “rewriting the rulebook for mainstream computing.”

Apple has delivered another impressive product that largely lives up to the hype.

If you’ve heard those rumors of Verizon selling the iPhone this summer, don’t hold your breath, suggests an analyst. The talk is just the latest gamesmanship by Apple in an attempt to throw Google’s Android phones off-stride.

Although Verizon’s 90 million customers would allow Apple to directly confront the growth of Android-based phones, there remains some major sticking points before any agreement between the Cupertino, Calif. company and the carrier are signed, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu told investors Wednesday.

Although his fingers are always yellow with nicotine and his teeth are always brown with Marmite, Gadget Lab’s Charlie Sorrel is my very favorite of secret boyfriends, and it’s mostly due to that wonderfully sinuous memory of his.

The latest fragment of mnemosyne plucked from the pickled depths of Sorrel’s gin barrel mind? Charlie realized that the iPad Camera Connection Kit — Apple’s suggested method for directly transferring your digicam’s photos to your tablet — looks remarkably similar to 2005’s iPod Camera Connector, which allowed you to do the same thing on your iPod Photo (albeit, without the USB dongle). In fact, they look identical.

What that means is that if you happen to have that old, useless iPod Camera Connector dongle collecting detritus in a drawer, you may well just be be able to slap it into your iPad when it’s delivered. Or you may not, but if you ask us, there’s no real reason for Apple to change the tech here when they can just recycle an old piece of hardware for an entirely new generation of device.

Well spotted, Charlie, old top.

The person who sells you the iPad on Saturday will probably be seeing it for the first time, too.

Keeping in line with air-tight secrecy around new product launches, Apple retail store employees have not had any hands-on time with the new touchscreen device.

Reuters reports:
Apple store workers say they have yet to see or touch the iPad, even though the launch is just days away and they are being trained and encouraged to talk about Apple’s newest device with customers.

“We haven’t seen it; we never do” before a product is launched, said one employee, who asked not to be identified because workers are barred from speaking with the media. “Every store employee I know, including the managers, they haven’t seen it.”

If Apple follows the same route for the iPhone launch, store workers may see it an hour before it goes on sale.

And presumably, the iPad blackout doesn’t extend to genius types who will be helping customers set up their just-purchased devices.
Reuters also notes that while Apple store workers get 25% discount on iPods and Macs, they get no discount on iPhones and it’s uncertain whether they’ll get something off the already priced-to-move iPad.

Via iPhone Freak

Ever the genius engineer, Woz has figured out a simple and elegant way to run two iPhone apps simultaneously (otherwise known as multitasking).

He has two iPhones.

Having two iPhones also doubles his battery life.

“By the way, I solved the problem of battery life and [the lack of] multitasking on the iPhone,” Woz told Dan Lyons of NewsWeek. “I just have two iPhones, so if the battery runs down on the first one, I can use the other. And if I’m talking on one, I can use the other one to look something up. You would not believe how much use I get out of that.”

Genius.

The New York Times this morning calls Tony Fadell the “godfather” of the iPod (he’s leaving Apple for greener pastures). But the title should probably go to Jon Rubinstein, the former head of Apple’s Mac and iPod divisions and now CEO of Palm.

The history of the iPod’s development is told here and here, but the short story is:

1. In late 2000, Steve Jobs asked his executive team to look at gadgets people were attaching to the Macs. Perhaps Apple could do a better job of designing them. Videocameras were an obvious candidate, but they were already pretty good. Jobs wasn’t sure Apple could do better. But early MP3 players were a different story — they were horrible.

2. Jon Rubinstein, the head of hardware, hired Tony Fadell to look into making some prototypes, but the project didn’t go into high gear until Toshiba showed Rubinstein a tiny 1.8-inch hard drive it had just developed. They had no idea what to do with it, but Rubinstein did.

3. Rubinstein called Jobs to tell him he’d found the perfect technology for an MP3 player, and he kept Fadell on to oversee the early protoypes. Fadell did such a good job, he went on to become head of the iPod division and eventually took Rubinstein’s job.

As Steven Levy says in his writeup of the iPod’s development, The Perfect Thing:

There is no single “father of the iPod.” Development was a multitrack process, with Fadell, now on staff, in charge of the actual workings of the device, Robbin heading the software and interface team, Jonathan Ive doing the industrial design, Rubenstein overseeing the project, and Jobs himself rubbernecking as only he could.

However, I give credit to Rubinstein, who was at the heart of the development process. He had the initial technological insight, put together the team to develop it, and led the charge to keep improving and updating the device. If there’s a godfather of the iPod, it’s Jon Rubinstein.

Here’s a very cool mockup of the iPhone 4G with an aluminum “unibody” enclosure from our friend Graham Bower of MacPredictions.com.

The mockup takes its style cues from Apple’s current lineup of unibody MacBook Pros, which are carved from single slabs of aluminum. Metal gives the iPhone a much nicer look and feel.

Like today’s rumors, Graham is predicting a front-facing camera and a high-resolution screen. A high-res screen would allow the iPhone to display more than one app at a time (multitaking!):

And given that the iPhone OS now supports multiple resolutions, a higher resolution screen is also eminently possible. Perhaps we’ll even be able to pinch and zoom the icons on the Springboard. A higher resolution screen also makes dashboard widgets for the default Springboard screen more likely – it’s hard to believe that Apple will sit by while Android and Windows Phone 7 Series are enjoying this feature.

Thanks Graham!

Taiwanese chip and touchscreen maker Elan Microelectronics Corp. has asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban the import and sale of some Apple Inc. products —  including the almost-in-your-hands iPad —  alleging patent infringement.

Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch, MacBook, Magic Mouse and iPad use technology which the company claims infringes Elan’s patent “352” granted in 1998 for detecting the simultaneous presence of two or more fingers, Elan said in an email statement today.

“Our goal is to protect our technology and to stop sales of those products in the U.S.,” Elan spokesperson Dennis Liu told Bloomberg.

This isn’t the first time Elan, which bills itself as the “smart human interface expert,” tries to give Apple the eFinger: they filed suit against Apple in a California court over another touscreen patent, “353,” in April last year.

Apple has not yet commented on the suit.

One thing is certain: patent lawyers on both continents will be keeping a shine on their shoes. On March 2, Apple filed a complaint with the ITC against Taiwan’s HTC Corp. alleging its patents were breached, though the cases are not related.

For years I’ve been shuttling movies and TV shows between Macs at home and work using a portable hard drive.

But now that same drive is hooked to the internet thanks to the Pogoplug, a nifty $129 device that turns any USB hard drive into your own little cloud server accessible over the Internet.

Sitting on a bookshelf at work, the Pogoplug serves up all my files over the Net, even to my iPhone. It’s also going be a great complement to the iPad (arriving Saturday), storing all my media and streaming music and movies over the net without eating up the iPad’s limited memory.

Apple is working on two new iPhones for a summer launch, including an iPhone for Verizon, the Wall Street Journal claims.

While Apple has unveiled a new iPhone every June or July since launching the product in 2007, the new model with CDMA capability, the cellular technology used by Verizon, is notable because Apple and AT&T Inc. have long had an exclusive relationship with the iPhone. That has given AT&T a competitive edge over other carriers including Verizon for the last three years.

While Apple has unveiled a new iPhone every June or July since launching the product in 2007, the new model with CDMA capability, the cellular technology used by Verizon, is notable because Apple and AT&T Inc. have long had an exclusive relationship with the iPhone. That has given AT&T a competitive edge over other carriers including Verizon for the last three years.

A Verizon iPhone has looooong been rumored, the Journal story is a major step towards confirmation. The Journal cites “people briefed on the matter.” Apple, AT&T and Verizon all declined to comment.

A Verizon iPhone would be a huge win for Apple. Verizon is the biggest carrier in the U.S, with 91.2 million customers. It’s network is reputed to be the fastest and most reliable.

The 10.6.3 update has just been released and includes a raft of bug fixes for QuickTime, OpenGL and more.

The 437.2MB update is available via Software Update and is recommended for all users of Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

The list of fixes, enhancements and improvements is after the jump:

We’ve all heard the saying, “the only thing better than an iPad is a free iPad” (and if you haven’t, you have now, because I just said it). No, we’re not crazy enough to be giving away free iPads. But we know who are: the folks over at VIVmag.

Although it’s never going to replace the iPod in most people’s pockets, Microsoft’s done a lot to overcome the initial missteps with their Zune line of portable media players.

In fact, if not for the overwhelming advantages of the App Store, I’d recommend the Zune HD to people over the iPod Touch. It’s a fantastic media player with a beautiful high-definition screen and a great interface, and it’s available at a wonderfully down-to-earth price: the 32GB Zune HD only costs $199 compared to the 32GB iPod Touch’s price of $299.

Only the Zune platform’s woeful app marketplace makes it a sucker buy for those who want the most of their PMPs: if all you want to do is watch movies or listen to MP3s, the 32GB Zune HD is a great deal.

Now, Microsoft is teasing the imminent release of the 64GB Zune HD. There’s no price available yet, but my guess would be $299, which is $100 cheaper than the 64GB iPod Touch. Whether or not you think that’s a good deal depends a lot on how invested you are in the App Store, but if you’re looking for a great, next-gen PMP at an affordable price, this is one Microsoft product that even an Apple fan can feel pretty good about owning.

According to 9to5Mac, Apple has started sending out shipping notifications to the earliest iPad pre-order customers.

WiFi only, of course. Curiously, even though it’s only March 29th, those who chose expedited shipping are being told to expect delivery on April 3rd. Don’t expect yours early… but do expect a lot of incremental iPad status updates like this in your newsfeeds this week.

What about you guys? Have you gotten your shipping notifications yet? Excited? Let us know in the comments.

According to Steve Jobs (as relayed by MediaPost), a mere four days after putting the iPad in eager customers hands, Apple’s going to launch the “next big thing,” a new “revolutionary” service to take the tech world by storm. But it’s not going to be a gadget. It’s an advertising network.

Meet iAd, another tin-eared Apple brand name that may be creatively bereft, but certainly gets the point across: a mobile advertising network for iPhone OS devices.

Of course, this won’t take any one by surprise who has been following the recent mobile advertising tiffs between Apple and Google. In January, Apple bought mobile advertising company Quattro for $275 million… a few months after Google had snapped up AdMob.

Apple’s also been warning developers from creating apps that use location-based data to serve up ads from competing mobile ad networks. Guessing that Apple would roll their own mobile ad network soon wasn’t a matter of prophecy.

At first blush, it seems weird that Cupertino would roll-out another big product so close to the iPad launch, but there’s little to lose here. Apple’s going to want developers to start building iAd functionality into their apps. This isn’t a consumer product or service, after all… it’s a developer service that will be completely invisible to most users.

As long as this isn’t another Mobile Me fiasco, launching iAd sooner rather than later shouldn’t take any of the luster off of the iPad launch.

Although they are supposed to be mortal enemies, Steve Jobs was just spotted chatting amiably with Google’s Eric Schmidt at a coffeeshop in downtown Palo Alto, reports Gizmodo.

Overheard from the conversation were two lines by Jobs. Enthusiastically, “They’re going to see it all eventually so who cares how they get it.” Which seemed to be about web content, said the tipster. And, “Let’s go discuss this somewhere more private,” after they noticed the crowd gathering around… Schmidt was very quiet, listening, and Jobs was doing a lot of the talking.

And as Giz notes, what’s that black thing on the table? An iPad maybe?

Someone just forwarded me this hilarious story about a woman who was pinned to the floor by her Mac Pro.

The Mac Pro is a big, heavy machine and can weigh upwards of 40 lbs. The story circulated on an Apple consultant mailing list recently. Here it is, typos and all:

This is by far one of the funniest tech calls that I have ever recieved. One of my clients called this morning to say she is trapped under her MacPro tower and she needed me to come asap to help her out. I asked “where are you?” and she said “at home not at the studio”. She screamed “just get here!”. So I rushed over there, punched in the key code to get through the gate and entered her house calling out her name. I found her laying flat on her back on the staircase with the MacPro crushing her chest. I ran up there to pull the tower off her and I couldn’t help but to laugh. You see she is this small 4 foot 6 inches middle aged tiny lady. She just didn’t have the strenght to push the tower off. She had this idea to move the tower upstairs but because the tower was so heavy for her, she thought she could pull the tower while laying flat on her back over her body. Crawling the machine slowly up the stairs. It didn’t work. Helped her move the tower upstairs but the tower ended back down stairs anyway. It was just too funny.

So there you have it. Pro tip: Don’t move heavy machines around by putting them on your body and crawling across the floor.

With the update of many of Apple’s pro apps including Final Cut, and Aperture, the hardware they’re designed to run on is starting to feel a little stale.  Certainly the top of the line Mac Pros, still dominate Geekbench scores for the first thousand pages or so,  but for the first time in the Intel era, the MacBook Pro is no longer the dominant laptop.  So too, is the fate of the entry model Mac Pro, which is finding itself out-classes by average gaming rigs on the PC side.

These updates are Waaaaay past due, I know I’ve got both a Mac Pro and  a 17” Macbook Pro in need of an update, but for those of you not staying up every Monday night in the hopes of a Christmas-like Tuesday morning, here’s the skinny:

• Mac Pro: last updated 03 March 2009, 388 days ago. Average release cycle: 236 days.
• Macbook Pro: last updated 08 June 2009, 291 days ago. Average release cycle: 200 days.

Certainly Apple dominates profitability in the computer market, but they do that by staying far, far ahead of the curve in technology, innovation and design.   But that competitive advantage is only sustainable as long as you drive as hard as Apple has historically to stay out front. That’s not happening here with this generation of machines.  This has been the longest wait for Pro Laptops in the Intel era, and so far the second longest wait for a pro tower.

Of course, Steve has words of comfort for the faithful, “Not to Worry” he wrote in response to a like-minded cultist’s query last week.

I’m not worried, Steve. I’d like to say I’m running out of patience, but what choice do I have, really?

…and so the wait continues, see ya on Tuesday…

This week hasn’t heralded any major App Store gaming releases, so this weekend, in the wake of the inamorata’s shamelessly bragged-about decimation of my all-time high score, I’ll be revisiting an old iPhone favorite: GeoSpark ($1.99) by Critical Thought Games.