iPad (2021)

Hot on the heels of reports that claim Apple is gearing up to launch a new iPad model this fall, Digitimes reports that Apple will be adding a second manufacture to augment the tablet’s current manufacturing from Foxconn. Foxconn is currently Apple’s exclusive contractor for iPad 2 production and since the plant’s devastating incident in May and with a new tablet right around the corner, Apple is looking for a second manufacture to build their popular tablets.

According to the report, Apple’s second iPad manufacture will either be Pegatron or Quanta Computers. Pegatron, notably manufactures the Verizon iPhone and reportedly landed 15 million iPhone 5 orders for a fall release. Quanta manufactures some Macs and other Apple products. With Apple reportedly gearing up to launch a new iPad 2 model – dubbed iPad HD by This is my next – now is a perfect time for Apple to use more manufacturing power.

The ‘iPad HD’ is expected to be a professional-minded tablet from Apple with a 2048 x 1536 Retina Display. Artwork of this high resolution has already appeared in iOS 5 exclusive SDKframework files and has been a long-rumored feature for the tablet family. This new iPad is pegged at being another iPad model, not the iPad 3.

Expand
Expanding
Close

The Chinese Economic Daily News via Bloomberg reports that Foxconn plans on spending NT$47B to build stores in China which will sell Apple products, which of course it also produces.  The information was relayed by the unit’s Chairman Steve Chang.

Back in January, we reported:

Foxconn subsidiary Cybermart has been granted retail permission from Apple and will begin selling Apple products in April of this year. Cybermart currently has 34 stores across the Greater China area, with 7-8 more stores planned for 2011. The report also states that Cybermast is planning to open as many as 500 stores, that will retail Apple products, in the future.

Foxconn is becoming a pretty powerful player in Apple’s fortunes in China and the world.

Expand
Expanding
Close

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XYbVwg5B7g]

There is a new Facetime ad as well, below:
Expand
Expanding
Close

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iui_BLtj4wg]

One of our readers took it upon himself to jailbreak one of the Apple Store iPad 2 Smart Signs (video above). If you aren’t familiar, the Smart Sign is the iPad in front of each Apple product. As we revealed earlier this year, this sign explains and provides specifications for the product it sits beside.

Customers are not able to actually use this iPad for anything but the Smart Sign application, but with the right top-secret gesture anything is possible. That’s where reader Adrian came in. He figured out the secret gesture, went to the home screen, launched up Safari, and jailbroke the Smart Sign with the new JailbreakMe 3.0 tool.

Now that it has been done, no one else needs to do this, mmk?

Expand
Expanding
Close

One of the more controversial components of the iPhone 4 is its non-Gorilla glass backing.  Glass is a great material for displays obviously because it is transparent, relatively strong and scratch-resistant.  However, it is more questionable for the back of a device because it breaks spectacularly where traditional materials are stronger and lighter.

But it does look awesome on the back of the iPhone 4.

So the question of the day: Should Apple’s next iPhone continue to use a glass backing or should they move to a different material like plastic, aluminum or liquid metal?

Expand
Expanding
Close

This afternoon, we recieved some intel from an iPhone source that has been reliable in the past.  Most of the information is already known but it is important to weigh in on what’s going around.  The “big” news is that Apple will be selling two totally distinct iPhones in September.  One will be a low-end variety that will address the cheap Android market, according to the source.  The other will be a high-end device and will be an all new design.  There will be no mistaking these two devices, they will be immediately discernible.  The iPod touch, like it always has, will get updated in September as well.

So that’s where the info path trails off, and to be frank, it isn’t all that surprising.  There are currently two totally distinct iPhones on the market: the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4.  The 3GS is at a cheaper price point while the iPhone 4 is the high-end line.

So we’ll have the same thing in September?  iPhone 4 is the low end and iPhone 5 the high end?

I’m not so sure.  For one, the price of an iPhone 4 isn’t going to compete with cheap Android phones in any way.  Apple is currently selling them for over $600.  They aren’t going to cut the price in half overnight.  The 3GS doesn’t currently compete on price either.  I think that to compete on price with Android, Apple has to make a totally new low end phone as well.

What’s it going to be?  I think a good place to start looking is the curent iPod touch.  The iPod touch has the same resolution screen as the iPhone 4 but with poor(er) viewing angles because the screen doesn’t have In-Plane Switching.  (video below)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJSESZ3faH4&HD=1]

Also, the back camera is an order of magnitude worse than the iPhone 4’s, it doesn’t have GPS, has less RAM and the battery doesn’t last quite as long.

…and obviously the iPod lacks the “phone” bits.

But Apple somehow makes a lot of money selling this “almost iPhone” for just $229 retail (and under $200 at discounts) vs. the $650 that the iPhone 4 fetches without a plan.  It doesn’t seem infeasible to me that Apple could use the iPod touch platform that debuted a full year ago to build a cheap iPhone device.

Here’s how:

Start with the same hardware.  Add the GPS/3G baseband chips and some phone wiring and a solid 3 megapixel camera and you are 99% of the way to an iPhone lite.  iPhone Air?  Whatever.

Apple could make this device, one that is thinner than an iPhone 4, with most of the same specs, for $299.  But here’s the best part:
Expand
Expanding
Close

.

We’re in love with Guilherme Schasiepen’s iPhone 5 mockups (via MacMagazine.br).

More below:
Expand
Expanding
Close

This is my next runs this story based on unnamed sources who claim that come this Fall tablet fans will have a choice between iPad 2 and an-all new high-end iPad aimed at creative pros, apparently dubbed ‘iPad HD’:

Our sources are saying that not only will there be a newly designed iPhone coming in the fall, but there is going to be a new entry into the iPad family as well. As hard as it might be to believe, the new tablet is said to sport a double resolution screen (2048 x 1536), and will be dubbed the “iPad HD.” The idea behind the product is apparently that it will be a “pro” device aimed at a higher end market — folks who work in video and photo production possibly — and will be introduced alongside something like an iPad version of Final Cut or Aperture. This product is specifically said to not be the iPad 3, rather a complimentary piece of the iPad 2 line. Think MacBook and MacBook Pro.

As for Final Cut Pro/Aperture, it would perhaps explain why Apple made such a drastic change in its X product, but the extra pixels don’t exactly make a professional video editor.   A bigger screen could, however :D.

Overall, we love the idea of an iPad HD and all of the previous evidence points to it (below from the iS 5 SDK). But why wait until the Fall?  Perhaps the screens just weren’t ready yet at price points that made sense.  That is a lot of pixels to throw on a 9.7-inch display.

Also interesting:

Expand
Expanding
Close

We were the first ones to report that Jailbreakme.com was live last night at about 2am ET.  That was about 20 hours ago.  Just a few minutes ago, @chpwn tweeted that they’d surpassed a million jailbreaks on Jailbreakme.com.  That’s a pretty impressive distribution vector.

Although there was some concern going in that Comex was rushed in this jailbreak, commenters seem to be impressed with the results.  The process couldn’t be easier as the below video shows.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Reuters is reporting that the second hacker has been indicted in the case of personal data being copied from AT&T iPad infrastructure. Earlier this year, the two hackers breached AT&T’s servers and received 120,000 iPad users’ personal data.  They then reported that data to a media outlet who embarrassed AT&T.  Two weeks ago, the first hacker, Daniel Spitler, plead guilty last week and could wind up testifying against his accomplice to reduce his sentence.

The hacker indicted today, Andrew Auernheimer, is being charged with one count of conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to computers and one count of identity theft.

Andrew Auernheimer was charged by a Newark, New Jersey grand jury with one count of conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to computers and one count of identity theft, the office of U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman in New Jersey said.

Auernheimer is free on bail, while his partner Spitler is waiting sentencing September 28th. Spitler could face 12 to 18 months in prison. 
Expand
Expanding
Close

Amazon today announced unlimited storage for music in its cloud drive.  The catch is you have to upgrade your overall Cloud storage (also includes Docs, Pictures, movies, etc) to the 20GB plan which is $20 per year.  Once you do that, you can upload “Unlimited” amounts of music and play it anywhere.  So, this appears to be taking on Spotify, Google and Apple’s iTunes Match (though each service is slightly different).

Speaking of Apple, the Amazon Cloud web experience is now also optimized for the iPad.  Full press release below:

Expand
Expanding
Close

.

The WSJ reports on the next generation iPhone due this fall:

According to some suppliers of components to Apple, the new version of the iPhone is expected to be thinner and lighter than the iPhone 4 and sport an 8-megapixel camera. One person said the new iPhone will operate on Qualcomm Inc.’s wireless baseband chips. The current iPhone 4 uses memory chips made by Samsung Electronics Co. and baseband chips from German chip maker Infineon Technologies AG, according to a report by market-research firm iSuppli Corp.

Verizon execs have already said the next iPhone will be a GSM/CDMA world phone – which means it is likely that it will use Qualcomm’s Gobi chips (As the current Verizon iPhone and iPad currently do).  Numerous reports have also said it will contain a 8megapixel camera – from Sony and other manufacturers.

There is some question about whether or not these devices will meet production deadlines, however…

Expand
Expanding
Close

Facebook is having an event tomorrow which many believe is a Skype tie in, which could lead to a Skype iPad app or a Facebook iPad app, or both! in one?!  That’s well and good, but  TechCrunch takes a look at some of the upcoming features of a bigger project that might also receive a mention tomorrow: Project Spartan.

It seems a bit sensationalized, but it comes off like this: Sometime in late July (soon!), Facebook will reveal a HTML5 platform with automatic Facebook logins using a new set of APIs which make a great iOS/Android social gaming platform.  Facebook has a few developers signed up already, Zynga is probably one of them.

Notes one developer:

Facebook wants a cut of the Apple’s mobile app market, that’s been clear this entire time. Perhaps it’s not war against Apple — maybe Apple is just going to ‘gift’ Facebook the share of their market (the HTML5 share) in exchange an alliance being formed whereby Apple get’s some exclusive access to Facebook’s 600 million-plus users and thereby cutting out Google (exclusive to some degree, Facebook is too open for it to be fully exclusive). In this theory, it’s not Facebook Spartans vs. Apple, it’s Facebook/Apple Spartans Vs Google.

The Spartans have been told to code specifically for the iOS flavors of Safari — both iPhone and iPad.

So, it sounds like Facebook is going to build a nice HTML5 platform (like Chrome) for social gaming. Hopefully one of the games is 300.

As noted by Fortune, Steve Jobs’ biography now has a more pleasant sounding name than its previous working title: iSteve: The Book of Jobs *cringe*

It’s got a new title.  But it isn’t the one that Amazon has listed above…
Expand
Expanding
Close

Skype dropped a new Mac Client on us today, a day ahead of the Super “Awesome” Facebook announcement that is rumored to include Skype.  New features for the unpaid version include “super awesome” background video chatting control bar.  Pony up a few bucks and get yourself up to Windows level (they got a head start on Microsoft tactics!) with Group video conferencing that looks and acts nothing like Apple’s built in iChat group teleconferencing (this was in 5.1Beta as well).  Also, screen and document sharing.

The Windows version – just to make sure it is one step ahead of the Mac version – got Facebook integration with the 5.5 update.

If you aren’t still at the standard 2.8 like us, have a look at the tips and tricks to see if you’re a good update candidate (we’re staying put).

We were pretty stoked two weeks ago to see the iPad version demoed only to have Skype go silent on the product last week.  We’re thinking it might be happening at the Facebook introduction on Wednesday….about the same time as the Google Plus App hits.  Via TechCrunch
Expand
Expanding
Close

Last week’s leak revealed that @Comex had another iOS PDF exploit in the works.  Looking at Jailbreakme.com this evening, it appears that a new version of the famous iOS untethered jailbreak is about to be unleashed.  The ‘coming soon’ yellow sticky looks like the sticky Apple puts on its store right before new products hit the virtual shelves. 
Expand
Expanding
Close

Update: October 26th: Seagate just released a firmware update

The Post PC age is upon us and we’ve now got new iOS devices in all shapes and sizes in our homes.  But getting and sharing media to all of these many devices starts to become a chore, especially when on the go.  One solution is moving media into an Internet-connected NAS or the (i)Cloud.

Unfortunately, pulling that data down to your iDevice when you are on the go, especially high quality video, can be an expensive burden on your wireless data plan.  Just a few movies can put you over your monthly data limit.  And that’s where you have a speedy Internet connection that can handle a full screen movie.  And what do you do when there is no signal (camping?) at all?

Seagate thinks they have a solution to this problem with their new $200 Goflex Satellite 500GB hard drive.  Read on for the full review:

Expand
Expanding
Close

@comex, a member of the Dev-team has been working hard on an iPad2 jailbreak since the device was released.  The jailbreak will use another PDF exploit via jailbreakme.com and support iOS 4.2.1-4.3.3.  Last night, however, one of the jailbreak beta testers leaked the exploit online.  This version of the JailbreakMe 3.0 exploit has not been confirmed by the Dev-Team or @Comex himself.  Many users have reported that this exploit only works with WIFI-only iPads and issues with Safari crashing.  (Sounds wonderful!)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-u2ukWWd6A]

We must reiterate that this Jailbreak has not been confirmed by the Dev-Team to be working or even safe.  Several iPad2 Jailbreak related malware have been distributed recently, so proceed with caution if you must attempt to use this leak. Hopefully we will hear from the Dev-Team or even receive an official iPad2 Jailbreak soon. Screenshot below:

Expand
Expanding
Close

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAYLSfeE0wI]

SupermanofSteel reports that as part of their new refresh of their lineups called “52”, DC will do “Day and Date digital” which means the same day that comics are available in the store, they will be on the iPad.  Double good news for digital comics fans.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Using Apple’s set of APIs, the New York Times has opened up in-app subscriptions in their iPhone and iPad app reports Macstories. After setting a paywall not too long ago the New York Times has been looking for ways to get their users to sign up for the subscription. It appears the Times has found their way, through the app store, offering subscriptions for website, iPhone, and iPad access. The Times is charging users $15 for access to the website plus iPhone, $20 for website plus iPad, and a combo of all three for $35. If you’re interested download the apps here and here.

In this digital age, do you agree with the New York Time’s subscription model?

..

At this point, it seems pretty obvious that Google means business with the Google Plus platform. Besides all of the other areas Plus has engulfed, it looks like Google is heading into the gaming realm.  The above snippet was found in the Plus web page code

“have sent you invites and more from Google+ Games”

So now Google is taking on Microsoft’s Xbox and Apple’s Gamecenter? Perhaps Google might want to lower the barrier to entry.
Expand
Expanding
Close