OK, just kidding. But the Playbook just got priced. And it runs Android Apps.
Research In Motion announced the BlackBery PlayBook tablet with great fanfare seven months ago. Company executives have been mum on its exact pricing all this time, except vague hints that the gizmo will price-match Apple’s tablet. With the beefier iPad 2 now making rounds at the same starting price of $499 and with Samsung’s rival Galaxy Tab adjusting itself to the pricing pressure from Cupertino, RIM has officially joined the fray by price-matching the iPad.
The PlayBook costs $499/$599/$699 for the 16/32/64GB WiFi model, the same as iPad 2. Best Buy is now taking pre-orders for the device as we speak.
Citing a lack of adoption, software bugs and slow load times, the $41 million startup Color, from the (Apple purchased)Lala founder is failing to catch the hearts of early adopters. This type of app really relies on everyone using it –which doesn’t seem to be happening, all of 5 hours after its launch. We’ll give it some more time.
Skype announced a new release of its Internet telephony software for Macs. Version 5.1 boasts enhanced conference calling capabilities enabling participants in group calls to easily identify active speakers – very handy. iSight Firewire webcam detection problem has been resolved as well, Skype says. Another nice-to-have: It’s finally possible to select recently called numbers stored in the dial pad. Release notes accompanying the download also mention “several minor bug fixes” and “call quality feedback.”
Skype 5 enraged many Mac fans, this author included, with its huge interface. It’s plain ugly, unfriendly and takes up too much valuable screen real estate unnecessarily. Perhaps in a realization of the backlash, Skype today backpedaled with a contest to redesign the application’s chat window, one area heavily criticized for the clutter.
Something about the accompanying statement rubs me the wrong way:
Our friends over at the Italian blog Setteb.it have compiled a handy iPad 2 pricing matrix ahead of the international expansion tomorrow. Actually, due to time zones iPad 2 just launched in New Zealand and Australia (it’s Friday there). If domestic launch is anything to go by, patience of Apple’s loyalists overseas will be put to test as the company’s struggle to meet demand continues.
A glance at the online Apple store in New Zealand and Australia shows a 2-3 weeks shipping estimate. The US online Apple store also has shortened estimates for new orders to 3-4 weeks, down from a 4-5 weeks estimate. We bet international delays are possible because supplies are likely to get more constrained. Like in the US, in some territories abroad the gizmo costs the same in local currency compared to the last year’s model.
Today, US shipping estimates for iPad 2 improved to 3-4 weeks Expand Expanding Close
Once partners, soon frenemies? Droid X launch (left to right): Android’s Andy Rubin, Verizon’s John Stratton, Google’s Eric Schmidt, Motorola’s Sanjay Jha and Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen
Motorola’s role in helping put Google’s mobile operating system on the map with Droid-branded smartphones cannot be underestimated. Even though Android has revitalized their phone business, it is now a risk factor for Motorola Mobility, formerly the mobile devices division of Motorola Inc. The company is reportedly developing its own smartphone software to reduce dependency on a single supplier.
They apparently hired a number of former Apple and Adobe engineers with experience in the mobile market, a source “familiar with the matter”told InformationWeek. This includes Apple’s former head of rich media and applications group Gilles Drieu and former manager of JavaScript development Benoit Marchant. Motorola did not deny such plans beyond re-affirming its Android focus. Jonathan Goldberg, a Deutsche Bank analyst:
I know they’re working on it I think the company recognizes that they need to differentiate and they need options, just in case. Nobody wants to rely on a single supplier.
If you resort to software to figure out those speed traps, know that your senator is possibly lobbying to ban such programs from mobile bazaars forever. A group of senators took a tough stance on the matter, reports ABC News. The senators call such specialized apps “nothing but a public safety hazard”.
Deciding enough is enough, senators Harry Reid, Charles E. Schumer, Frank R. Lautenberg and Tom Udall – all Democrats – in a knee jerk reaction sat down and wrote a letter to Apple, Google and Research In Motion.
They want those checkpoint-dodging programs taken down from Apple’s App Store, Google’s Android Market and RIM’s App World. A mind-boggling excerpt from their letter reads:
AirPlay, a technology from Apple that beams media from iOS devices to the $99 Apple TV set-top box with no setup required, is allegedly coming to your television set, reports Bloomberg. The Cupertino firm is reportedly “weighing” to license AirPlay technology to third-parties for use in TV sets, enabling users to wirelessly stream movies, photos and music from their iPhones, iPads and iPods to compatible television sets. First devices are expected this year, the story has it. The report goes on to note that, if successful, such a move would spur greater popularity of Apple’s gadgets in the living room:
An expanded AirPlay would let users stream programming wirelessly from an Apple mobile device to a TV that carries the technology. That may spur wider use of Apple’s services and devices in consumers’ living rooms.
The New York Times has a carrot for loyal subscribers: A free one-year subscription for online articles accessed on the web and via iPhone and iPad apps, reports The Loop. The deal excludes the e-reader editions, Premium Crosswords and The New York Times Crosswords apps. The paper is reportedly pitching its long time users with the following line:
As a frequent reader of NYTimes.com, you’ve demonstrated an uncommon interest in a wide variety of today’s most important topics.
According to several threads on the Apple Discussions forum (here, here and here), the iPad’s front camera locks up in the FaceTime app when attempting to establish a video call. It’s unknown how widespread the issue is, but it seems to be stemming from a software bug likely to be addressed with the next iOS release. According to users posting on the forum, the problem won’t go away until device is restarted.
Other hiccups are also being reported. One poster details the issue:
Facetime was frozen on iPad 2. It had the last video capture as the main screen of Facetime. Could not see receiving video. Resolution: Reset to factoring settings. Apple – possible app glitch.
Another user is having troubles with the back camera, too: Expand Expanding Close
Yesterday, Apple updated a support document to reflect the problem some users reported with iMovie for iOS where the built-in media browser wouldn’t list certain video clips stored in your camera roll. According to Apple, footage not directly captured on the device may not be compatible with iMovie. This includes non-Apple-friendly material imported from, say, your camcorder – either directly via the official camera connection kit or through desktop iTunes. Such video clips do not appear in the Video browser within iMovie, explains Apple.
iMovie for iOS is designed to work with video recorded with iPad 2, iPhone 4, and iPod touch (4th generation). To ensure optimal performance, the app filters out certain non-Apple video clips from the Video browser. These incompatible clips cannot be added to your iMovie project.
Here’s a simple workaround that circumvents this design deficiency.
Boy Genius Report had a chance to test the unreleased iOS 4.3.1 build and they claim the firmware update will fix the widely reported subpar battery performance, a “feature” of iOS 4.3:
Battery life seems a tad bit better, though that’s not scientific at all.
I initially dismissed claims of subpar battery performance until my iPhone 4 began acting up a few days ago. Battery performance dropped visibly, forcing me to charge the phone twice a day. How’s your battery life in iOS 4.3? Meet us in comments.
Above image: A third-party solar case for the iPhone
French company Wypsis is drumming up a superthin solar panel layer (less than 100 microns) that could juice a phone from outdoor light. A deal with Corning, the producer of Gorilla Glass, is also possible, paving the way to solar-powered iPhones. Apple’s patent entitled “Integrated touch sensor and solar assembly” from last year, originally filed in Q3 2008, did predicate solar-powered portable devices such as iPhones and iPods. Expand Expanding Close
Voice searching is all the rage on Android devices (and your Chrome desktop with this nifty extension) and at the same time we’re being promised new forms of software interactions stemming from the advancements in the natural language processing science. Our operating systems have basic speech-to-text capabilities, but it doesn’t work that great and we rarely use the feature in everyday computing. With Chrome 11, Google is taking a different approach, leveraging their vast computing power to deliver cloud-drive speech-to-text to HTML5 web apps, explains a blog post:
Fresh from the work that we’ve been doing with the HTML Speech Incubator Group, we’ve added support for the HTML5 speech input API. With this API, developers can give web apps the ability to transcribe your voice to text. When a web page uses this feature, you simply click on an icon and then speak into your computer’s microphone. The recorded audio is sent to speech servers for transcription, after which the text is typed out for you.
It’s not that we particularly believe hints and rumors originating from sources aiming for a little coverage, but we thought you might like to know. Our reader Tommaso turned our attention to Italian-language blog MelaBlog.it that apparently spotted a Michal Kors-designed leather case listed at the online Apple store. The blog speculates how a slight difference between product images gives away a larger screen rumored to debut with iPhone 5. Or it could just be an angle thing. Expand Expanding Close
When I heard the “can’t feel the boobs” line, I thought I must had been dreaming. After all, this was a high-profile commercial for a flagship consumer device. Aptly named “Pwnage,” the advert in question stars American actress, writer and comedian Kristen Schaal (for those not in the know, Kristen is a contributor on The Daily Show and is famous for her role as Mel in the HBO series Flight of the Conchords and Louise in Bob’s Burgers).
The promotional clip has her demoing a game on an Xperia Play, the latest Sony Ericsson-branded, Android-toting smartphone. The device sets itself apart from other droids with the physical PlayStation buttons and the ability to play downloadable Sony-approved PlayStation One games.
Video is one of the few applications that haven’t been fully realized in the cloud. While we’re not there yet, Google’s been making great strides since they unveiled YouTube Video Editor nine months ago. The web-based service lets you perform basic editing on your clips.
Look, there are inevitable issues with operating system updates. Yesterday’s 10.6.7 update has fixed a bunch of vulnerabilities as well as 2011 MacBook Pro display flickering and lock ups, but it also introduced new hiccups. Some owners of the new 13-inch MacBook Air are experiencing crashes when attempting to run iTunes 10.2.1, according to a thread on the Apple Discussions forum started yesterday.
The posts describe unresponsiveness when running the latest iTunes version under 10.6.7, requiring folks to force-quite the jukebox application. Here’s how one poster put it:
Every time I run iTunes 10.2.1 I get as far as the window displaying correctly then within 20secs the machine freezes and is unresponsive to anything other than a forced shutdown via the power button. I have fixed disk permissions with the same result.
A digital games distribution platform, Valve Corporation’s Steam, could expand to iOS and Android devices following Steam for Mac launch last May. The news came via a Steampowered User Forum member who had an interesting chat with Valve’s co-founder Gabe Newell at the company’s Bellevue, Washington headquarters. The boss apparently dropped hints of both iOS and Android possibly becoming Steam-powered gaming platforms:
After a little “sneak peek” we sat down to talk about Steam and other goings on in Valve. During this chat he confirmed that Steam will get a video recorder very soon, also he said they were looking into the iOS/Android platform for possible expansions with Steam. He also said that the Source film maker is in the pipeline for a public release.
That’s cool, but there’s more to it than meets the eye.
Mac OS X 10.6.7 update that went live yesterday hasn’t brought out any new user-centric features. However, besides fixing display flickering and lock ups on 2011 MacBook Pros, the software update did a good job of bug squashing, fixing a ton of vulnerabilities security experts discovered in Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Leopard. More than 56 vulnerabilities were patched, according to a Computeworld article.
As promised, Mozilla, the open-source organization behind the Firefox browser, has just released Firefox 4, the next major iteration of the popular browser. The 27 MB download is available in over 80 languages on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Firefox 4 features an optimized JavaScript engine that makes web apps run noticeably faster, with GPU-accelerated page rendering. The browser comes with a new look user interface. There’s a a dedicated bookmark button right next to the search filed.
The tab bar is placed atop the address bar (you can also revert this setting), resulting in a more polished, cleaner appearance. If you’re like me, you keep dozens of tabs open as you scrub through your favorite websites. This quickly adds up to the confusion as sorting through tabs becomes an increasingly tedious affair. Luckily, more controls are now available to manage your tabs.
Apple has issued a statement confirming that it will be launching its iPad 2 in more countries this Friday. The device goes on sale at Apple’s online and retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers this coming Friday, March 25 at 5pm local time. Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and additional countries will get all models of iPad 2 in April, Apple said. Expand Expanding Close
China Times is abuzz (original in Chinese, Google translation) with alleged details concerning a fifth-generation iPhone 5. The handset is in trial production as we speak, the story claims, and full production is expected in the third quarter of this year. This would indicate that iPhone 5, which is expected to be introduced this summer, may not be immediately available in larger quantities following the launch. The device will be manufactured by Apple’s long-time manufacturing partner Hon Hai Presicion Industry Co., also known as Foxconn, the paper added. We told you this past weekend that Foxconn is planning to open a new manufacturing plant in São Paulo, Brazil in order to meet Apple’s growing appetite.
China Times also confirms speculation that iPhone 5 boasts a larger four-inch touchscreen in response to Android superphones with blown up displays. The story goes on to mention a possible NFC chip for contactless payments and an all-new scratch-resistant metal chassis designed to improve reception. The metal back corroborates our Foxconn source telling 9to5Mac that iPhone 5 will sport metal back akin to the original iPhone. Expand Expanding Close
Apple’s A5 chip has debuted with iPad 2, but the company’s already hard at work designing the A6, contemplating the A7 and thinking about the A8. Apple added more chip experts to their in-house silicon team and poached veteran engineers from Samsung and ARM earlier this month. A LinkedIn profile belonging to chip expert Eunseok Ji reveals he recently came on board as a senior Apple engineer, the role he played for years at rival Samsung. He counts advanced semiconductor skills in his profile, hard core stuff such as logic design, DFT, silicon testing and hands-on experiences on post-silicon bring-up and debugging of complex mixed-signal design for system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions.
Why antagonize your silicon manufacturer by poaching such an expert? Okay, Samsung is a frenemy. But why lure an engineer away from ARM? This fabless semiconductor firm makes designs that power Apple’s iOS gadgets and the vast majority of mobile gear, for that matter. ARM’s Steve Ravet, who also joined Apple in March as an SOC prototyping engineer, is a twelve-year veteran who worked as a system verification engineer at Compaq and verification engineer at International Meta Systems prior to joining ARM as an electrical engineer.
His competencies include CPU validation and design, focused on FPGA emulation, silicon and board bringup, top level simulation and debug for ARM microprocessor cores and SOCs. I’m just speculating here and your guess is as good as mine, but I think you’ll agree such a hiring spree might be a tell-tale sign of a greater number of unique hardware features in upcoming Apple gadgets. Look no further than Apple’s current lineup of iOS devices.
There’s a chatter these days that the Japan crisis and shortages of components might force Apple to consider delaying international roll out of iPad 2, especially with fears of the iPad 2 launch in the Czech Republic slipping to April, which was a false alarm attributed to translation errors.
Nonetheless, it appears retailer Best Buy is gearing up to launch the tablet in Canada this coming Friday, March 25. The company appears to have learned from the US experience where Best Buy had a small number of iPad 2s at hand while customers waited in lines outside Apple stores for hours only to be told the device sold out. In other words, Canadians should expect a more orderly iPad 2 experience at Best Buy’s retail stores.
All of this came in the comment section over at the retailer’s Canadian web site where a person identified as an employee confirmed that Best Buy will begin selling Apple’s tablet Friday morning at 10am. There will be no pre-orders, the site admin warned. The launch will be handled on a first come first served basis. Lines are expected, he wrote, and a ticket system will be exercised in order to sort through the orders:
