iPad (2021)

You can’t always be there at bedtime to read your kids their evening stories.  However, Nursery Rhymes with StoryTime let’s you read them their favorite stories remotely using an iPhone.  While it doesn’t replace being there, it is a nice stopgap and a great idea.  The artwork on these stories is top notch.

I see this as being fantastic for parents that are split up or even parents that travel often.  Perhaps v2 could have a little FaceTime window.

$3.99 at the App Store

Expand
Expanding
Close

As if today’s pay wall announcement from the New York Times Company wasn’t enough, the news broke that an iPad-exclusive newspaper, The Daily, will begin charging for access next week. Unlike the Times’ entry-level $15 a month subscription for reading online articles on smartphones, the privilege of enjoying The Daily on your iPad costs just 99 cents per week, or forty bucks per year. Rupert Murdoch’s digital-only newspaper is slated to launch in Western Europe by summer, The Guardian reports. The exact release depends on when Apple’s new iOS subscription service becomes available in the country.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Last night, an update to Angry Birds HD dropped on iPad with fifteen new levels, a new golden egg and a “feature” that has immediately angered loyal fans – adverts. No, not the unobtrusive types of an AdMob or AdSense variety seen in some apps. In Angry Birds HD, a “news section” – a nicer word for advertisements – hits gamers in the face upon reaching the pause screen.

It pitches the official merchandise, forcing gamers to wait for the promotional animation to finish, thus hindering their ability to restart the level and resume the game as quickly as possible. The move backfired as agitated fans began posting despicable comments in iTunes reviews. Here’s what one avid fan wrote:

Expand
Expanding
Close

3G and GPS are supposedly the only notable differences between WiFi and 3G models of iPad 2. Alas, the WiFi model records higher-quality audio than its 3G counterpart. Mind you, it’s a design deficiency rather than a feature. iLounge did some testing and discovered that WiFi units evidently record better-sounding audio.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs has sent out an email to the company’s team in Japan to share the message of support and help local employees cope with a series of terrifying disasters that have brought the country to standstill. The Macotakara website first published (and MacRumors confirmed it) the contents of Jobs’ email, posted here in its entirety.

To Our Team in Japan,

We have all been following the unfolding disaster in Japan. Our hearts go out to you and your families, as well as all of your countrymen who have been touched by this tragedy.

If you need time or resources to visit or care for your families, please see HR and we will help you. If you are aware of any supplies that are needed, please also tell HR and we will do what we can to arrange delivery.

Again, our hearts go out to you during this unimaginable crisis.

Please stay safe.

Steve and the entire Executive Team

Expand
Expanding
Close

Life is definitely good in the land of iPad. In 2016, sales of Apple’s tablet should top more than a hundred million units annually and half a billion units cumulatively. It’s projected to grab the biggest chunk of an estimated 60 million slates in this year, another indication that 2011 and 2012 will be the years of iPad. This notion is shared by analyst Jennifer Colegrove who says tablet PCs are “the fastest growing application for touch screens.”

A simple armchair analysis suggests cumulative iPad shipments nearing a whooping half a billion units by the end of 2016. Yes, five years is too long a time for crystal ball peering, but even the most outspoken naysayers coming out of the woodwork should acknowledge the iPad’s enormous potential for Apple’s fortunes.

Expand
Expanding
Close

The Pusetic brothers, the brains behind the stupendously addictive platform jumper Doodle Jump that has amassed ten million paid downloads, have just released a brand new game that introduces an interesting twist to the original formula. It’s called Doodle Jump: Hop the Movie and is available free for the iPhone and iPad.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Mobile games developer Gameloft is launching Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard for the iPhone tomorrow and to mark the occasion they’ve put together a pretty awesome interactive trailer that lets you play the embassy level by clicking on the hotspots to choose between several possible directions. It’s kinda cool, reminds me of those laserdisc games from the 80s, such as Dragon’s Lair, which has been ported to both the iPhone and iPad. Note that the above clip works on PCs and Macs, but those watching the trailer on their iDevice won’t be able to interact with it. The official site has more information about this promising looking release.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Mac database application Bento has been updated with several noteworthy features and made its Mac App Store debut. Additionally, companion iPhone and iPad apps, each costing five bucks, have been enhanced with support for Bento 4 for Mac and the ability to record voice memos and sync iCal tasks. Mac folks who own a previous Bento version can upgrade for just $29 with a $20 instant rebate upgrade and newcomers are free to download Bento 4 from the Mac App Store for fifty bucks. Here’s a quick rundown of the new stuff.

Expand
Expanding
Close

As if yellow tinting wasn’t enough, some early adopters are reporting dead pixels on their brand new iPad 2 and other spooky stories. Matt is our north Texas reader and he sent this in:

Expand
Expanding
Close

Floorplan comparison: Apple’s A4 chip (left) and the latest A5 processor (right)

Reverse engineering wizards over at Chipworks put the A5 chip under a microscope. Yes, it’s a Samsung – confirming our hunch. The experts came to this conclusion by putting the chip under a microscope and examining dielectric layers and the shape of the transistor gates. The teardown analysis also revealed a die almost twice the size of the A4 chip from the previous-generation iPad and iPhone 4, the 45-nanometer manufacturing process and other interesting tidbits.

Expand
Expanding
Close

With iPad 2 now in the picture (no pun intended), exhaustive camera benchmarks from numerous publications paint a pretty bleak picture for Apple’s magical device. Like it or not, iPad 2 cameras mostly earn lower scores when pitted against Motorola’s Xoom, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and even Apple’s own iPod touch. The empirical testing backed by real-life footage proves what we’ve been suspecting all along, that iPad 2 takes substandard stills and grainier video than most tablets.

Expand
Expanding
Close

The iPhone repair experts at iFixyouri have determined that most of the weight savings in the iPad 2 – a fifth of a pound, is in the LCD and Glass assembly.

Here’s a breakdown weights of the Wifi iPads:

iPad 1 – 712.60g
iPad 2 – 600.60g (iPad 2 – 112g lighter)

If we break that down even further, the iPad 1 LCD/Glass is almost half the weight of the original iPad.

iPad 1 front half(LCD & Glass assembly) – 347.90g
iPad 1 back half – 364.70g

However, breaking down the iPad 2, we find a much lighter glass assembly accounts for most of the weight loss.  The glass we found out last night is 27% thinner than the original iPad. Eliminating the frame that the glass sits on, using thinner LCD and thinner glass, Apple saved 84.7g. That makes up for 75% of the weight reduction.

iPad 2 front half(LCD & Glass) – 263.20g
iPad 2 back half – 337.40g

Apple was able to shave almost 30 grams off of the rest of the device, and with a slightly bigger battery, that is significant.  But the lightness you feel is mostly the glass weight savings.

Our report on the iPad 2 glass from over a month ago first detailed Apple’s effort to save weight in the LCD/Glass assembly.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Just like the previous iOS device launch days, today’s iPad 2 launch is spawning reports of some minor issues.  We’re getting some images of the yellow tint we saw last year.

Reader N. Peach sent this in. In all likelyiehood they yellow will dissipate just like last year’s issues as the glue from the factory dries.  Another reader’s is below:
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple has been the leader in miniaturization since the original iPod’s debut, which marked their entry into the ultra-portable gadget market. Fast forward ten years later and we have iPad 2 and iPhone 4 that are just 8.8 and 9.3 millimeter thick, respectively. Matter of fact, iPad 2 is actually thinner than your shiny iPhone 4. Even though Apple has come a long way in a short while with such ultra-portable devices, they might hit a  roadblock soon, which is your regular 3.5 millimeter audio jack. Needles to say, there’s a patent for that.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Just in time for the iPad 2 launch today, first triple-A iPad games have received timely updates designed to take advantage of the gizmo’s advertised nine times graphics performance increase. Enhanced versions of both medieval sword fighting Infinity Blade by Chair and Electronic Arts’ Dead Space for iPad just went live on the App Store, proudly advertising prettier and more complex graphics made possible by the A5 chip inside iPad 2.

Expand
Expanding
Close

The debate about Flash on iOS devices rarely makes headlines these days, but it’s far from being over. You can see it in an increasing number of apps from third-parties that aim to solve this nasty issue once and for all. While the vast majority of solutions only tackle Flash videos, only a few iOS apps are capable of rendering other content types delivered through Flash, like games and interactive apps.

Enter iSwifter, a new iPad app that claims to stream any Flash content.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Interesting note from a Wired UK story on Rovio: The company was almost in bankruptcy prior to releasing their Angry Birds app in the App Store. They had been making meager earnings selling apps through the mobile carriers and for other companies.  One App for app store and now they are $50 million in the black with a lucrative franchise on their hands.

Wired.co.uk via SAI
Expand
Expanding
Close

iPad 2 comes out in 2 days (March 11th) and you know what that means… reviews! Here’s a roundup and some notes of interest.

Joshua Topolsky for Engadget:

-Unbelievably thin

Pictures don’t quite do the iPad 2 justice — it feels really, really great in your hands. Not only does the construction give it a feeling of heft and permanence, but the thin profile combined with the new, tapered edges make holding the device a real joy

-Bezel is slightly thinner

-Has 512 MB of RAM, 1 GHz A5 clocked at 800 MHz

-Clearer speaker

The sound seems clearer if somewhat quieter than the old version, and we can’t say that there’s a major improvement as far as the placement goes.

-Battery life is slightly better than original iPad’s.

-iPad 2 cameras “are really pretty bad”

More after the break…

Expand
Expanding
Close

same numbers!

We’re not sure if this has already happened, but EETimes reports on the rumors that Apple has shifted its A5 production from Samsung to TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company).  Since no one has seen a real A5 processor yet, we don’t know if Apple has already switched.

Perhaps most damning, the art that Apple has put out on its A5 Chips is actually just an A4 Chip with ‘A5’ superimposed over top(!) See same part numbers around the edges above.  Does this mean that Apple has something to hide? (They always do)

The move would make logistical sense as Apple’s current (former?) partner in processor manufacturing, Samsung, is increasingly becoming a competitor in both iOS devices and in PCs.  Apple was supposed to take $7.8Billion in parts from Samsung this year.  Might be time to adjust that estimate.

With little or no fanfare, Apple and TSMC have recently entered into a foundry relationship, sources said. As reported, TSMC will make the A5 dual-core processor on a foundry basis for Apple’s iPad 2. That can be read here and here.

We reported on Apple’s move to Qualcomm (from Infineon) who use TSMC’s process for GOBI chips in October.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple has mailers going out today telling us to get ready to interrupt our Friday in order to line up like little actors all over the place in their iPad 2 Friday marketing campaign blitz. Ugh. I’m kinda down on the whole “spend Friday in line without a reservation” thing if you hadn’t noticed.

It is also interesting that Apple seems to default to the White iPad more often than not in its marketing – which was only a rumor a week ago.

Sorry Apple, I’m not spending my Friday in line.  Instead, I’m going to do the more convenient thing: Have my alarm wake me up at 2:55 am on Friday morning before work, order it online then, then try to go back to sleep.  (we love you Apple) I won’t have a 2 to play with over the weekend but at least I’ll have my Friday.

I think @MarkGurman will be queueing up at the Grove in LA if anyone wants to go bother him there (or hold his place in line).

Also, Me: White 16GB Wifi, Tan Leather iCover. You?
Expand
Expanding
Close