Seth Weintraub

iOS 4.2 is a bombshell of an upgrade on iPad, enabling multi-tasking, printing, folders, faster browsing and other features we’ve been enjoying on our iPhone 4s for the past months as well as some hidden gems.  This feels like the iPad we’ve always never knew we wanted.  Follow along as we attempt to chronicle the new stuff:

MacStories (nice new site design!) points out that there is a new redesigned black keyboard that makes its appearance in the lock screen if you enable alpha-numeric entry.  It was available previously by using the iOS Configuration Utility.  This will hopefully make its way to other parts of the OS….

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Engadget posts theirs noting the multitasking capabilities:

http://www.viddler.com/simple/1e6b08b8/

Meanwhile, App Advice does a flyover, below.

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Apple issued a press release (and updated iOS 4.2 page) ahead of the iOS 4.2 beta that just hit.  In it, they detail the new AirPrint standard and its ability to work with HP ePrint printers.  To confuse matters slightly, HP offers an iPrint iOS app (pictured below) that does iOS printing.

It appears that MacOS 10.6.5 will also allow printing through a Mac with current developer builds offering that functionality.

“AirPrint is Apple’s powerful new printing architecture that matches the simplicity of iOS—no set up, no configuration, no printer drivers and no software to download,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “iPad, iPhone and iPod touch users can simply tap to print their documents or photos wirelessly to an HP ePrint printer or to a printer shared on a Mac or PC.”

“We’re pleased to work with Apple to bring Apple’s AirPrint to our fall lineup of ePrint printers in time for the holiday shopping season,” said Vyomesh Joshi, HP executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group. “Making it easy for our customers to print anytime, anywhere, is a key priority for HP. iPad, iPhone and iPod touch customers are going to love how easy it is to print using our new range of ePrint printers, creating high-quality printed pages in an instant.”

Full Release below:
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Along with a new developer agreement that developers must now sign, Apple has released iOS 4.2.  Yes, it is for the iPad too and includes printing.  Get downloading!

Mercury News is reporting today that Apple will soon launch a subscription plan for newspapers which will also provide advertising revenue stream for publishers.

The Cupertino company has agreed to provide an opt-in function for subscribers to allow Apple to share with publishers their information, which includes vital data that news organizations use to attract advertisers, industry sources say.  Publishers “want the data of their customers so they can integrate it into their circulation database so they know who their customers are,” said [industry analyst]Fidler, who works with many newspapers…”Obviously, Steve Jobs sees this as a significant revenue stream for Apple in the future.”

The report states that Apple wants to take 30% of subscription revenue sold through the online store and up to 40% of advertising revenue from the venture.  Not all publishers are lining up for this proposition.

Publishers wanted to pay Apple a fee rather than a cut of subscription and advertising revenue, and are not happy with Apple’s terms, he said. They had hoped to offer app editions as part of subscription bundles that include print versions of the paper. Instead, they must use Apple as an intermediary with subscribers.

Apple continues to make major moves into publishing, with Conde Naste saying that devices like the iPad may soon account for 40% of their revenues.
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…and apparently neither can that Taiwanese CGI news organization.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8FS03ddILY&w=640&h=385]
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This will either be nauseating or exciting to many of you but that version of Parallels  ($39/$49/$79/$99) that is available today also has a free iPhone component which allows you to view your Parallels Desktop instance remotely with iOS devices.  While much easier to manipulate on the iPad, the application lets you navigate through Windows on your iPhone as well.  Parallels on iPad above and iPhone below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2I-jCY4N9I&w=640&h=385]

More Screenshots below:
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Apple’s raining on our Ninja fantasies with truth again. According to the PR team, Steve Jobs did not in fact get those Ninja Stars taken from him.  Or at least some part of the story isn’t true.  According to the Loop:

“Steve did visit Japan this summer for a vacation in Kyoto, but the incidents described at the airport are pure fiction. Steve had a great time and hopes to visit Japan again soon.”

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The Mac Virtual Machine market heats up today with the release of Parallels 6.  The biggest Virtual machine maker for the Mac platform adds 80 new features (most of which we detailled a little early!).  See below for a breakdown.

Battling back with price, VMWare today is dropping the price of a competitive update to $10.  That is a pretty drastic measure.

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Coolest/quickest way to find apps…in the spirit of Google Instant Search:

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…because Apple is dropping the free bumper plan at the end of September.  Clearly, they didn’t get the memo that a $.01 piece of tape solves the non-issue just as well as a case?

Our tests found the Bumper successfully mitigates the iPhone 4’s reception issue, which was a weak point in the phone’s otherwise-stellar performance in our tests. And we agree with Apple that not all iPhone 4 owners will experience reception difficulties with the device.

But putting the onus on any owners of a product to obtain a remedy to a design flaw is not acceptable to us. We therefore continue not to recommend the iPhone 4, and to call on Apple to provide a permanent fix for the phone’s reception issues.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBypHTKPqq8&w=560&h=340]
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As Macworld notes, today is the 10th anniversary of the release of MacOSX.  As a wayback machine experience, here’s the Key(note)master introducing it at Macworld 2000.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko4V3G4NqII&w=674&h=531]

I remember I picked up my copy in Scottsdale Arizona (visiting friends) and installed it on my Powerbook G3, and never looked back.
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It seems pretty likely  according to some research done by Macrumors.  imsense’s technology is likely behind the processing of the overexposed/underexposed images taken with the iPhone 4’s camera that leads to the often-better HDR pictures. Here’s the evidence, which is pretty damning:
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGmRKSds9OY&w=673&h=404]

Yeah, OK. So it isn’t easy to read an iPad in direct sunlight.  Plus, who wants to bring your $500-$830 bundle of awesomeness out to the pool when a $140 piece of plastic does the job?

Oh, wait?  You wanted to browse the web in color?

via CrunchGear.
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iPad, meet the world’s biggest consumer market.  Apple today announced that the Wifi models of its iPad will be available in China on September 17th.  Legitimately.

iPad Wi-Fi models in China will be available for a suggested retail price of CNY3988 for 16GB, CNY4788 for 32GB and CNY5588 for 64GB.

No world on 3G models but we’re pretty certain there is some extra government complexity there.

Press release complete with ‘magical’ references below:
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Want to add that supercool new HDR functionality to your older iPhone? Not to worry. If you’ve jailbroken (or need a reason to) your iPhone 3GS or 3G and have iOS 4.1, it is just a few string mods away. Here are the steps via the very helpful Will:

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Not that most people would need to worry about this, but experimenters are finding that Gamecenter is currently limited to 500 friends.

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http://online.wsj.com/media/swf/VideoMicroPlayer.swf

According to the WSJ, Apple’s about face on 3rd party app development may have been due to pressure from the FCC:

The concession comes after the Federal Trade Commission launched an inquiry around June to determine whether Apple had violated antitrust laws with the earlier policy. It isn’t clear if Apple’s move Thursday was in response to the FTC’s investigation, but it will likely be carefully scrutinized by the regulatory agency, said people familiar with the situation.

They also speculate that other platforms may have been a factor:
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4CHkHtUJ8w&w=640&h=385]

Interesting decision for Apple to make here on this application.  VLC is fantastic on the Mac and it looks equally good (except for high bitrate MKV files) for the iPad.  If they accept it, people will be less likely to make videos in H.264.  On the other hand, Apple’s customers would have a field day playing all of those ripped DVDs of yore.

The killer for this application, which hasn’t yet been shown, is if it can stream videos effectively from a NAS server share or over the net.  Uploading videos via iTunes is olde fashioned.
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Oh, now you want an iWatch band? Good news, Engadget’s linking to a broken WordPress site (that’s how popular the idea is!) that supposedly has ’em for $20.

You’ll of course need a Nano as well ($143@Amazon).
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Mac4ever this morning posts that Facetime, Apple’s open source video chatting protocol, will be coming to iChat very soon, adding desktop Macs to the machines that are able to video chat with Apple’s camera-wielding iOS devices.

Even more interestingly, they say Apple is working on  a Windows Facetime application as well.  ORLY?

If that weren’t enough, they say that Apple iLife ’11 (sans iDVD) is coming very soon.

Mac4ever, you’ll recall, had a wide ranging report last year predicting, amongst other things, the Magic Mouse, new aluminum remote and iPad.  At that point they said iApps would be 64-bit and for Snow Leopard only.
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