9to5 Staff

Apple’s uber-successful iPad 2 now has a Consumer Electronics stamp of approval, with the consumer magazine proclaiming the WiFi+3G version of the iconic device the best tablet available on the market. iPad 2 has beaten Motorola Xoom to the tablet punch, in addition to a bunch of would-be iPad killers from Archos, Dell, Motorola, Samsung and ViewSonic.

Consumer Reports put out a press release quoting their electronics editor Paul Reynolds:

So far, Apple is leading the tablet market in both quality and price, which is unusual for a company whose products are usually premium priced. However, it’s likely we’ll see more competitive pricing in tablets as other models begin to hit the market.

iPad 2 emerged on top despite Consumer Reports calling the Xoom “the iPad 2’s chief rival.” I guess it ain’t everything about speeds and feeds, huh Moto? You know what’s really remarkable? Read on…

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A new ChangeWave survey (boy, are those market surveys ticking me off) pitting the Verizon iPhone 4 owners against their AT&T iPhone 4-toting counterparts is out and looks like the former respondents are slightly more satisfied than the latter. The difference is in two percentage points, with 82 percent of Verizon iPhone 4 respondents saying they’re Very Satisfied versus 80 percent of AT&T iPhone 4 customers.

What about dropped calls? Read on…

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We told you how record labels are hoping to re-ignite interest in digital downloads by re-packaging albums as media-rich iPhone apps with interactive features. David Bowie is jumping on the bandwagon with a digitally re-mastered release of his 1975 single Golden Years, scheduled to land on iTunes on June 6.

Bowie, which previously released Space Oddity app album on iTunes, envisions the Golden Years app with remixing capabilities, based on eight separate tracks containing lead vocals, back vocals, percussion, harmonium, twelve-string guitar, bass, drums and percussion.

Music Radar details other features of the app:

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Image credit: Tsevis

Here’s an interesting quote from the outspoken Apple co-founder and a “Dancing With The Stars” contestant Steve Wozniak. His take on tablets? They’re for Joe Schmuks, not us geeks, he conveniently told a group of enterprise storage engineers during a keynote session at Storage Networking World in Santa Clara, California. He said tablets are in this respect much like TVs:

The tablet is not necessarily for the people in this room. It’s for the normal people in the world.

He then added this on the subject of Android’s seemingly unstoppable growth:

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Nasdaq OMX Group Inc, which operates the Nasdaq exchange, is going to retool the Nasdaq-100 index containing the hundred largest nonfinancial Nasdaq stocks. The rebalancing will see Apple’s share of the index cut to 12.33 percent. Apple, which trades on Nasdaq under the AAPL ticker, currently has a big weight of 20.49 percent, or one fifth of the index. Reuters points to a document on Nasdaq’s site which states:

Nasdaq decided to enact a special rebalance in order to bring the weights of the index securities closer in line with their actual market capitalizations.

According to The Wall Street Journal, a rare decision comes after Apple’s meteoric rise boosted by strong sales of iOS gadgets:

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Larry Page gets to wake up on his second day as Google’s CEO to the news that federal regulators are pondering their next move regarding his company’s search dominance. Sources familiar with the matter tell Bloomberg Businessweek that the US Federal Trade Commission is awaiting a Justice Department ruling over Google’s planned acquisition of ITA Software before proceeding with a long overdue probe.

If the ruling, to be made public soon, will be that the ITA acquisition would reduce competition in the travel-information search business, “a broad antitrust investigation” is likely to be launched and it “could be on par” with the scope of the Justice Department’s probe of Microsoft ten years ago. A spokesperson for the Mountain View-based search monster told the publication that freedom of choice on the Internet allows consumers to choose whichever search engine they see fit:

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Uh-oh, looks like federal grand jury is probing both Apple and Google over certain popular smartphone applications. According to The Wall Street Journal, both companies were asked to provide basic data about certain third-party apps found on both the App Store and Android Market:

Apple Inc. and Google Inc., which oversee digital “stores” that offer mobile applications to users of iPhones, iPads and mobile-devices powered by Google’s Android software, have been asked to provide information about the applications and app makers, the person familiar with the matter said.

Federal prosecutors are reportedly sniffing because they heard certain apps don’t play by the rules and illegally obtain personal information without users’ consent, which is a a federal computer-fraud law. Market Watch first broke the news earlier today that online music service Pandora has been served a subpoena to produce documents, but the prosecutors informed them they were not a target of the investigation:

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According to CBS8 and Signonsandiego, a private security guard at an Apple Store shot a suspected armed intruder in the head.

Chula Vista police said three people smashed the window to break into the Apple Store in Otay Ranch Town Center early Monday and were confronted by an armed security guard, who shot one of the intruders in the head.

The mortally injured man was found in the mall parking lot a short distance away, collapsed in his car, Chula Vista police said.

Two other suspects were apprehended after fleeing on foot.  The smash and grab happened at 7am in the morning before any shoppers were present.

There are reports that 40 shots were fired in the exchange.

The male suspects and their alleged female accomplice then got into a silver Acura that crashed while still inside the shopping center’s parking lot, Facicci said, noting that one of the men was driving and he died in the crash. He appears to have been killed by a bullet that went through the passenger window, Chula Vista Police said.

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Google has just announced intentions to bid a whopping $900 million on Nortel’s patent portfolio. The stunning development is an effort to prevent patent trolls and competitors with vested interests from filing bogus patent infringement claims, the company said. Nortel, a Canadian telecom company, announced back in June 2009 intentions to sell off all of its business units following a bankruptcy in 2009. Google’s senior VP and general counsel Kent Walker explains:

If successful, we hope this portfolio will not only create a disincentive for others to sue Google, but also help us, our partners and the open source community – which is integrally involved in projects like Android and Chrome – continue to innovate. In the absence of meaningful reform, we believe it’s the best long-term solution for Google, our users and our partners.

This is significant on many levels…

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I must admit, I’m fed up with market surveys. I’m talking about recent mobile surveys from comScore, IDC, ABI Research, StatCounter Mobile and many others. ComScore’s February mobile numbers, for example, prompted Business Insider’s Henry Blodget to argue that iPhone is “dead in water”, which in turn provoked pundit John Gruber to observe that “the iPod Touch and iPad don’t count, apparently”.

Piggy-backing on the latest surveys, Fred Wilson again advised programmers to create apps for Android first, provoking an opinionated response from Instapaper founder Marco Arment. And a rebuttal from Henry Blodget. And a new chart suggesting Android blows past iPhone even if you include the iPod touch. So why don’t research firms take into account the entire OS mobile market share as a measure of a platform significance?

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And you thought the first-generation iPad only supported video output in enabled third-party apps and built-in programs such as the Photos app. A system-wide hack has surfaced that lets the original iPad mirror whatever is displayed on its display, like iPad 2, regardless of whether the app supports this feature through system APIs or not.

It requires a jailbroken iPad 1 and Apple’s Digital AV Adapter or VGA adapter to hook up the device to a big screen TV or a projector using HDMI or VGA connection. The hack involves changing a setting in the property list file of the Springboard app. That’s all there is to it, really. Here’s a quick tutorial video…

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Eric Schmidt is no longer Google’s chief executive as Larry Page took the reigns this morning. The blogosphere is analyzing what this means as pundits scramble to measure the impact of Google’s co-founder on the company’s future. Page is taking over at a time when Google is one of the most powerful and most-valued technology companies on the planet. They reported $8.4 billion revenue in the last quarter.

The company owns search and mobile advertising and is chipping away market share from everyone in the cellphone space. It’s leading the charge in modern web development with the Chrome browser. The Chrome operating system will launch on desktops and servers at some point, potentially giving them a stronger foothold in corporations and on our desktops. But in spite wind in his sails, the perilous road lies ahead for the new CEO…

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Apple’s review process has gone a long way since the early days when every day would bring a new story about a controversial rejection. It’s rare nowadays that an app would take longer than a couple of weeks to be reviewed, let alone months. That’s exactly what happened to the TrapCall app by Tel Tech Systems Inc. After a whopping 201 days in review, the App Store team has finally approved this app.

The free app requires a paid TrapCall service from five bucks a month. It lets you stop getting harassing phone calls by unmasking blocked and private phone calls. Developers claim it’s the only app in the world that can do this, speculating their workaround of the *67’s caller ID blocking feature is probably why it took Apple so long to review the app. Their product manager Nate Kapitanski told us in an email message:

The whole situation was incredibly frustrating as we had a real hard time even getting a response from Apple after 2-3 months as to what was possibly holding our app up.

What’s really interesting is how the program handles call unmasking…

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Fans of jailbreaking have long known that Sundays are traditionally reserved for major iPhone jailbreaks. Following yesterday’s tweet by a team member MuscleNerd, Dev-team released a set of updated tools for an untethered jailbreak of iOS devices. The news comes a week following the release of tethered iOS 4.3.1 jailbreak via Pwnage Tool. Here’s what you need to know if you’re into jailbreaking plus a video right after the break…

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Tech giants Apple, Google and Microsoft are all rumored to be working on solutions for contactless payment based on an NFC chip and dedicated software applications that should turn your phone into a secure e-wallet and now Amazon is said to be joining the party soon. The company won’t make phones, of course, but software and cloud solutions to support new payment services.

Their Amazon Payments department is rumored to be mulling a service that would enable physical retail outlets wireless payments from customers using Amazon’s dedicated app on their mobile phone. Plus, a NFC-based marketing service is alleged to be in the works as well. The decision whether to launch the service should be reached in the next three to five months, sources say. Bloomberg has more details:

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Companies are keeping a close eye on the jailbreaking community as at least one big brand demonstrates willingness to advertise on Cydia, the unofficial store for unsanctioned third-party programs which can be installed on jailbroken iPhones, iPods and iPads. Car manufacturer Toyota is reportedly running adverts in the Cydia store (through ModmyI) to promote their iPhone user interface theme, also distributed through the store. The adverts and the theme are part of Toyota’s advertising campaign for the 2011 Scion tC vehicle.

The said sports coupe made a splash when it was unveiled last month. It was the first major redesign of the vehicle and it came with a more powerful engine. Deciding to target millions of people who jailbreak their iOS gadgets, Toyota reached out to the people behind Cydia (ModMyI) to buy ad slots in the storefront app. The news came from Kyle Matthews, the founder of ModMyi ( read the post):

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Above illustration: Peach iDollars theme for iPhone by Studio Peach

I recently opined that our Android friends are less willing to pay for quality content, namely apps. It’s nice to see this notion shared by professionals that have experience with both platforms. In a chat with Peter Kafka over at The Wall Street Journal’s MediaMemo blog, Major League Baseball Advanced Media’s boss Bob Bowman said this:

The iPhone and iPad user is interested in buying content–that’s one of the reasons they bought the device. The Android buyer is different. It’s a great phone–make no mistake about it. But if you really want first rate digital content on a device, your first look will probably be an iPhone. And on the tablet, an iPad.

And Bob should know. He previously urged for a greater quality control in Android Market and his company, owned by all of pro baseball’s teams, has 1.5 million mobile app subscribers. They develop for both Android and iOS plus Facebook. He singled out Android fragmentation as a reason enough to limit the number of supported Android handsets. At some point, he said, fragmentation is “diminishing returns” and added:

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Yesterday in the US Patent and Trademark Office database surfaced an interesting Apple patent providing a glimpse of an exciting software feature that could be possibly used to enhance the user interface for handling apps that multitask on an iPad.

Originally filed in the third quarter of 2009 and entitled “Device, method, and graphical user interface for manipulating workspace views”, the patent application describes methods for solving cumbersome and inefficient moving of one or more windows between workspaces, or seeing several workspace views simultaneously. Read on for more juicy details…

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With fake news published on a daily basis on The Onion website, every day feels like April Fool’s Day. Joining today’s laughing festivities (which is good for your health, scientists say), “America’s finest news source”, as these jokers call themselves, have released a native iPad app. Available free from the App Store, it augments their iPhone application The Onion and the Onion News Network podcast. It’s got everything you’d expect from the leader in fakes news on the web…

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Today is April Fool’s day, folks. You’ve probably noticed a bunch of prank posts in your morning news flow, but this one’s not a joke. For those unfamiliar with it, Apple Computer, Inc. was launched on April 1, 1976. That makes the company 35 years old. Apple is now a global consumer electronics powerhouse that commands several lucrative verticals such as phones, music, digital entertainment and of course tablets and their blockbuster products have captivated consumers and caught competitors flat-footed, giving them a pause.

While the best is yet to come, I bet co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak didn’t think in their wildest dreams of gaining so much influence when they were agonizing over the first Apple I in the Jobs parents’ garage. So how did the two Silicon Valley geniuses build the most-valued technology company on the planet poised to soon beat Exxon Mobil Corporation in market valuation? Here’s an interesting overview of the key moments shedding light on how Apple came to be…

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So, Apple has revolutionized the music business, reinvented the phone and is leading the charge with its iPad. Plus, they make some computers as well. Not bad for the 35-year-old company that its co-founder Steve Jobs likes calls the world’s biggest startup. Each time Apple entered a new market, it caught its competitors on the wrong foot, leaving them perplexed and dumbfounded. Steve Ballmer who laughed off the iPhone isn’t laughing anymore.

RIM executives who thought the original iPhone was impossible in 2007 because it would have terrible battery life had found out when the device was released that it was virtually all battery plus some silicon. Nokia bosses used to point out how their day’s or week’s worth of sales matches Apple’s quarterly handset sales and now they’re going to bed with Microsoft – of all companies – to become relevant again. As of late, computer companies like Acer and smartphone vendors like Nokia and LG Electronics have seen their CEOs step down due to the Apple effect. Read on…

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