If you are wondering how ABC got it first, our theory is that their parent company’s biggest individual stockholder had some pull.
ABC News Gets Early Hands-On with the iPad
Author
ePub books now can be dragged into iTunes
Something we’ve missed from yesterday’s iTunes announcement. If you go to somewhere like Project Gutenberg and download the ePub version of Hamlet, iTunes lets you drag it into your Books folder. From there you are stuck, it doesn’t open
What's not to like about this iPhone 4 mockup?
Apple refunds those who ordered expedited shipping on iPads
Apple today sent letters to customers who ordered expidited delivery as their iPad shipments won’t arrive any earlier than those who didn’t. The email is pasted below:
Apple Germany got a quarter of a million orders for iPads alone?
We might have a blockbuster on our hands here folks. Gizmodo’s reliable source says that German consumers have ordered 3.5 times what was predicted: 250,000 iPads. (We didn’t even know they were taking pre-orders
Apple’s streaming music service sees delays as Spotify gets upgrade in Europe
I hadn’t really even thought about it, but CNET wants to let us down lightly: There isn’t going to be streaming music for the iPad launch. That is unless you have Spotify, which means you are probably either in, or pretending to be in Europe where it has cleared the Apple’s approval gauntlet. Spotify was even updated this week with some spiffy new features (details below).
As long as I can use Pandora (eventually as a background process?) on the iPad, I’m cool.
Spotify Description
For more information visit www.spotify.com
Spotify opens up your iPhone to a world of music. Unlimited, unrestricted, instant access to your favourite tunes – wherever you are – all wrapped up in a simple, user-friendly interface.
Features:
– Access to millions of tracks with Spotify
Air Harp for iPad
AirHarp for iPad is what happens when developers mix the popularity of the virtual guitars on the iPhone with the space of an iPad.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEP9CKhbpBk&w=700&h=500]
By the way, that is not a camera you see on that iPad, it is a figment of your imagination (
In case you forgot: Apple sends out iPad pickup reminders
You remember that $600 purchase you reserved earlier this month and you’ve been thinking about constantly since? Well, Apple is here to remind you that you should head over to your Apple Store to pick it up on April 3rd. OK?
Wedding? Funeral? Hospital? In Jail? No excuses. If, for some reason, you don’t pick it up by 3PM, you go to the back of the line. No Soup for You!
Phillip M sends in his reminder as well.
Apple Market Cap: Goodbye Walmart, next stop Microsoft
Fortune spotlights Apple’s recent market cap rise as it passed retail giant Walmart yesterday. With iPad hype reaching historic proportions, investors have upped Apple’s Stock to record highs day after day this week. Many analysts no longer think it is a matter of if Apple will pass Microsoft, but when. The graph below shows that if current trends that started in 2004 continue, the passing will be inevitable.
This is NOT the new MacBook Pro
For those waiting for Apple’s new Core i7 MacBook Pros, take solace in the fact that this isn’t Apple’s new pro laptop. It is an Atom-powered knockoff from China (shocker). Specs include a 1366X768 “HD” display, G Wifi, 100Mbps Ethernet and 512MB of RAM.
It does win one battle vs. current MacBook Pros however: It has HDMI out. We’d like to see Apple close that hole in the next gen but won’t hold our breath.
iPad Canadian (global?) launch on April 24th?
iPad in Canada says that Apple’s Canadian Store employees were given a black out period for taking days off on April 24th.
We were contacted by a source with close ties to the Apple Store that the weekend of April 24th has been marked as a
AppleTV Take 3
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeEA1-9vlTw&w=700&h=420]
The language of Apple’s iPad video has me wondering if Apple may be thinking iPad as a long term direction for AppleTV.
The technology for wirelessly sending a 1080P signal to a receiver connected to a HDTV is maturing. 802.11N is fast enough to stream compressed HD video (from a Time Capsule or Mac Mini Home Server…or North Carolina) and, at some point soon, Apple’s mobile processors will be able to do the heavy lifting of putting a compressed HD stream wirelessly onto a 1080P screen.
This all seems like a generation away at the most, technically speaking. iPad would be the remote that is actually powering the content. I like it.
iTunes 9.1, iPhone Configuration Utility, iPhoto 8.1.2 updates
Software update yeilds three updates today. First and foremost, iTunes gets updated to 9.1 in preparation for the iPad:
iTunes 9.1 comes with several new features and improvements, including:
43 iPads = 1 Apple Lisa
For those who think the iPads are expensive
Mapquest App brings free basic turn by turn voice instructions
One area where the iPhone currently lags behind Android 2.1 phones is Mapping. The iPhone maps application has only had minor updates since its unveiling in 2007 and isn’t great for car usage. Sure you can buy $100 apps that give you full turn by turn directions but most don’t give you what Google’s free full solution does. We’d be surprised if that wasn’t addressed in the iPhone 4.0 OS, though.
In the meantime, Mapquest today updated their free iPhone app to include “basic” voice turn-by-turn functionality. We’ve yet to try this but it’s probably the best we’ll see until June. Download it now for iPhone here.
Tony Fadell now officially split with Apple
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wQ7oL9pIIU&w=700&h=505]
Once you are on the outs with Steve Jobs, you aren’t coming back. Tony Fadell left Apple day to day last year when Mark Papermaster took over as head of the iPod division, but “Stayed on as a special consultant to Steve Jobs” (read:severance agreement). Today he is officially cut free according to Brad Stone of the Times.
SlingPlayer coming for iPad
Well, if you can’t have Hulu on the iPad, perhaps SlingPlayer with a DVR is the next best thing. SlingPlayer is coming to the iPad, albeit not at launch. According to Zatsnotfunny:
In regards to resolution, I don
Just in time for iPad Launch: App Store now in Facebook
Apple has upgraded its App Store Facebook page to allow purchases directly from inside the wildly popular social engineering site (see graphic below). Via Gizmodo.
iPhone to have 960×640 double-resolution display? (Updated)
John Gruber took the opportunity of the Wall Street Journal‘s post today on the Verizon iPhone to tout his sometimes obvious, but also new tidbits of information. While the WSJ talked about a Verizon iPhone, Gruber segues to the general iPhone 4G which he says will have a front-facing camera (no kidding!), an Apple chip (like they’d go back to Samsung now?), and third party multi-tasking (which was pulled from 3.x at the last moments).
He also mentions that the screen will be 960×640, which is double the current resolution (double height, double width). While its pretty obvious that Jobs would get laughed off the stage if he tried to release another 320×480 iPhone
Developers: Submit iPad Apps for Final Review
Today Apple announced that developers have until March 31st at 5 PM Pacific Time to get their final apps in. This means the Final 3.2 GM seed is now available for developers to download from the portal.
Additionally, MacRumors notes that release notes for the GM seed reveal that the iPad will get one free major update. Owners will be forced to pay after that. For instance, people who buy an iPad now will get 4.x updates free as of this summer but will have to pay for 5.x updates whenever they come out.
From Apple:
Apple working on two new iPhones, one for Verizon for September
Verizon iPhone. Those two words almost pain my ears at this point, but the Wall St. Journal is wheeling them out once again. After many false starts, they have the Verizon iPhone happening in September after an initial launch on AT&T this Summer:
The people briefed on the matter said one of the new iPhones is being manufactured by Taiwanese contract manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., which produced Apple’s previous iPhones. The model that has CDMA capability, used by Verizon Wireless, is being manufactured by Pegatron Technology Corp., the contract manufacturing subsidiary of Taiwan’s ASUSTeK Computer Inc., said these people.
Obviously no one would comment on the story but AT&T did manage to chuck this one out there:
“There has been lots of incorrect speculation on CDMA iPhones for a long time. We haven’t seen one yet and only Apple knows when that might occur,” said an AT&T spokesman.
Mac Office 2011 screenshots peeped
BGR got a few shots of the upcoming Office 2010 2011. Nothing too spectacular here and we certainly wouldn’t say “Outlook for Mac looks absolutely delicious, and we can
Apple Order Status page crashing a lot today
Not sure why this page has been crashing a lot lately.
Additional iBook Features Shown In Tutorial Video
In the tutorial videos Apple just posted, there are some features shown off for their iBooks app that had not been documented or shown off prior to today. The features include:
- System-wide Dictionary
- Built-in brightness control
- Search for words (PDF/Viewer.app-style)
- Table of Contents/Bookmarks page
- Ratings/Reviews window
- “Get Sample” option
Check out the screenshots below:
