iphone blog

March 18, 2010

Apple’s iPad: ‘Hundreds of thousands’ sold and content squabbles

Filed under: zdnet — Tags: , , , , , , , , — @ 7:54 pm

Posted by Larry Dignan @ 12:54 pm

Categories: Apple, General

Tags: Apple Inc., Sales Strategy, Sales Force Management, Sales, Larry Dignan

Apple has reportedly sold “hundreds of thousands” of the iPad so far and the device’s sales could top the iPhone’s debut after three months.

The Wall Street Journal reported the iPad’s sales figures, citing “people familiar with the matter.” The Journal’s story detailed how Apple was racing to secure content deals ahead of the iPad’s launch April 3.

[Complete ZDNet coverage: Apple iPad]

Apple and media companies are negotiating pricing on TV shows. Deals with publishers—newspapers, magazines and textbooks—have been put on the backburner for now.

Not so surprisingly, media players are apparently weighing the risks and rewards of making Apple the content gatekeeper.

In any case, it appears that the iPad won’t be launching with its full content arsenal when it hits the streets.

Original post:
Apple’s iPad: ‘Hundreds of thousands’ sold and content squabbles

Amazon releases “Kindle for Mac”

Filed under: bgr — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — @ 6:03 pm

Kindle For Mac

Today, Amazon announced the release of Kindle for Mac, a service designed to allow Mac users to purchase, as well as access, the content of the Kindle e-book library right from their Mac. Amazon is touting the following features of Kindle for Mac application:

  • Purchase, download, and read hundreds of thousands of books available in the Kindle Store
  • Access their library of previously purchased Kindle books stored on Amazon’s servers for free
  • Choose from 10 different font sizes and adjust words per line
  • Add and automatically synchronize bookmarks and last page read
  • View notes and highlights marked on Kindle, Kindle DX, and Kindle for iPhone
  • Read books in full color including children’s books, cookbooks, travel books and textbooks

Amazon seems to be feeling the proverbial heat as the release of Apple’s iPad, and accompanying e-book store, looms. As some of you may recall, just days after the announcement of the iPad, Amazon began to renegotiate pricing terms with its content publishers — something they had been unwilling to do for quite awhile. Not exactly earth shattering news, but another toy for Kindle-loving Mac users to play with. Hit the read link for the full press release.

Read

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Amazon releases “Kindle for Mac”

Tip: Cheap iPad Stand

Filed under: theappleblog — Tags: , , , , , , , , — @ 4:45 pm

It is said, necessity is the mother of invention. While eagerly awaiting my iPad to arrive — is it April 3 yet? Pleaaaaase? — I had a stream of consciousness that went something like this: I like baseball; the iPad is a decent size to watch a streaming game on MLB’s iPhone app while I’m playing World of Warcraft, or working, or, well, whom am I kidding, playing WoW. The Apple dock, while in addition to being a $30 hunk of plastic, only props up the iPad in portrait mode; it’s a little hard to watch the game that way.

I looked up and noticed my paper stand I use for making changes to copy I’ve marked up. “Self.” I said to myself. “I betcha that’d hold an iPad real well.” After a quick screen capture, some resizing and printing, I had an iPad mockup to test with.

It fit wonderfully. In both dimensions. The stand costs about $10 at your local office supply store. As a bonus, it folds up flat so I can toss it and my bluetooth keyboard into my manpurse carry bag. It’ll be fantastic for working on-the-go. Of course, I may need a shock-resistant case for the thing if Papelbon coughs up a lead in the playoffs again. Not that I’m bitter about that.

How about you guys? Any low-cost solutions you’ve found?

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Tip: Cheap iPad Stand

March 17, 2010

Wired Demoes Its iPad E-Zine At SXSW

Filed under: AppAdvice — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — @ 3:39 pm

Wired took advantage of the SXSW conference this week to show off once again the upcoming tablet version of its magazine, which is headed to the iPad. Most noticeably, the bear changes his posture depending on orientation, just wonderful.

Check it out:

Here is the Flash-free version.

While nobody can argue that it looks just great, it still has to be seen running on an iPad… but they seem very confident about it.

[via 9to5mac]

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Wired Demoes Its iPad E-Zine At SXSW

Apple Updates iWork.com with Better Interface for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

Filed under: tipb — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — @ 2:54 pm

102918-iwork_com

MacRumors reports on an email being sent to users of Apple’s iWork.com document sharing site that outlines a few updates to the service, including one for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad:

Refined user interface. A redesigned Sign In and Shared Documents page for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch makes it easy to access your documents while on the go. The new interface and improved scrolling help you find your shared documents faster. Visit www.iwork.com from your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch to view your shared documents.

iWork.com has been in beta since it was introduced at Macworld 2009 and it’s still unclear exactly how much effort Apple is putting into it compared to say iWork touch recently unveiled for the iPad, and whether or not Apple will ever release full-on Web App versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote to compete with Google Docs and Microsoft’s new Office 2010 Online.

If you use iWork.com, let us know what you think of the changes.

Apple Updates iWork.com with Better Interface for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Apple adds sharing features, iPad interface tweaks to iWork.com beta

Filed under: appleinsider — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — @ 1:40 pm

By Sam Oliver

Published: 09:40 AM EST

Apple this week quietly announced a handful of enhancements to its fledgeling iWork.com beta service, including the availability of new sharing features and improvements to the online service’s user interface tailored for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

Share documents on websites and social networks

More specifically, Apple said users can now create a public link that will allow them to shares documents with large groups or on websites and social networks. As such, there’s no longer a need to set a password or send an invitation. Anyone with the public link can view documents shared in this manner, but cannot add comments or notes.

iWork.com

Improved Shared Documents page

Meanwhile, Apple also said that user can now download documents shared on iWork.com without leaving the Shared Documents page. This same page also lets users track the number of views their publicly shared documents receive.

iWork.com

Refined user interface

Finally, Apple said it has redesigned iWork.com’s Sign In and Shared Documents page for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, to make it easier for users to access their documents while on the go.

iWork.com

“The new interface and improved scrolling help you find your shared documents faster,” the company said. “Visit www.iwork.com from your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch to view your shared documents.”

To take advantage of iWork.com and these new features, Apple noted that users should be using the latest version of iWork on their Mac. It’s also requesting that users provide it with feedback on the latest round of changes.

About iWork.com

Released as a public beta on January 6, 2009 at the Macworld Conference & Expo, iWork.com provides a web interface for viewing, downloading, and commenting on uploaded documents from Apple’s Mac-based iWork productivity suite.

The service supports uploading of Pages ‘09 documents, Keynote ‘09 presentations, and Numbers ‘09 spreadsheets. Users can download documents in both Microsoft Office and PDF formats, in addition to their native iWork formats.

The user who uploads the document determines which of the aforementioned formats are available as download options. However, in contrast to cloud-based office applications such as Google Docs, iWork.com does not offer editing. The service is currently free as a beta but will morph into a subscription-based offering once it’s finalized.

Last year, AppleInsider published an extensive look at iWork.com.

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Apple adds sharing features, iPad interface tweaks to iWork.com beta

Flash-Free Versions of NPR, Wall Street Journal Web Sites Coming for iPad

Filed under: tipb — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — @ 1:15 pm

iPad_flash

All Things Digital is reporting that NPR along with The Wall Street Journal are just a few of the big-name media outlets preparing Flash-free versions of their respective sites specifically for Apple’s new iPad.

While National Public Radio is scrambling to have their iPad application available for the iPad release date, they are also putting the finishing touches on their app alternative solution for users to listen to their programming directly from the iPad on April 3rd.

“Use the iPad’s browser to visit NPR.org, which will detect that it’s being viewed with Apple’s device and serve up a custom-built site. This means no trace of Adobe’s (ADBE) Flash, which is used to power graphics and media on the site.”

The Wall Street Journal will also have their Flash-free, iPad specific, front page in a few short weeks. However, the deeper you click into their site you will find that Flash does still exist. That’s certainly understandable given how large the site is and how deeply Flash content, especially video and advertising, has been integrated. Detecting iPad Safari’s unique user agent string might be easy enough (that’s how so many sites detect and deliver iPhone optimized web sites already), but setting up complete mirrors absent Flash is by no means a simple task and may not be a viable solution for those sites out there that depend on Flash to display most of their content. (Though hopefully it will cause sites that use Flash for no reason — we’re looking at you restaurants! — to rethink the decision and switch to more basic, searchable, and friendly standards based technologies).

As the battle between Adobe and Apple over Flash continues to heat up, it’s interesting to see where the chips are falling. Is not having Flash on the iPad or iPhone still a concern to you? Let us (and them) know how you feel in the comments!

Flash-Free Versions of NPR, Wall Street Journal Web Sites Coming for iPad is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

March 16, 2010

The iPad Can Read Camera Footage, Not Bootlegs

Filed under: AppAdvice — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — @ 8:36 pm

I spend a significant amount of time every now and then converting movies and shows to an iPhone-friendly format. Quite understandably, the simple mention of “avi” (nothing to do with na’vi) by Apple on the iPad tech specs page got my hopes pretty high. Unfortunately, this is not what one might think.

Far from me to explain to you what a codec is or how video works, but here is the deal, while the iPad will indeed be able to read certain avi files, its support is very limited. As posted by Apple:

Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

This is the format you get when filming on your point and shoot. In short, you’ll be able to transfer what you filmed on your camera and watch it right away on your iPad. On the other hand, this has nothing to do with the Divx and Xvid format the movies you download via torrents come in, for these, you’ll still have to convert.

While the footage support is great, this is just making me realise how much of a pain Apple is with these video formats. The iPad, like Steve said, will be amazing to watch videos on the plane, but unless you’re ready to drop $3 per episode, be ready to spend the night before your flight converting all your shows to mp4.

I know they’re protecting their revenues here, but they opened-up for eBooks, why not videos then?

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The iPad Can Read Camera Footage, Not Bootlegs

iPad Supports .AVI M-JPEG Video

Filed under: tipb — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — @ 3:01 pm

video_hero_20100225

We didn’t notice this until @pivale pointed us towards PCWorld’s article, but sure enough according to Apple’s iPad tech specs, the iPad does indeed support a type of .AVI video:

Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

No .AVI support of any kind is listed under iPhone or iPod touch tech specs. (Then again, none of those devices are running iPhone 3.2 like the iPad — yet).

.AVI, the audio-video interleave is a container introduced by Microsoft. Motion JPEG is a type of .AVI compression. While .AVI in general is ubiquitous for standard definition video content on the internet, there’s no indication Apple is supporting the specific XviD codec (encoding/decoding) used by those files.

In other words, and as pointed out in comments below, this will help owners of some types of video cameras watch their footage via the camera card reader accessory, it won’t let anyone watch their bootleg movies on the iPad.

iPad Supports .AVI M-JPEG Video is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

150,000 iPads Pre-Ordered, Which Ones are TiPb Getting?

Filed under: tipb — Tags: , , , , , , , , — @ 11:40 am

which_ipad_tipb

With estimates of Apple’s first weekend of iPad pre-orders already topping 150,000 units, we thought we’d take a quick look at just which models TiPb readers — and staff — were getting. We posted our survey on Friday, just as pre-orders started and the results can be seen above. A lot of you are either not getting one or are waiting before taking the plunge. For those of you who did pre-order, the cheapest 16GB iPad Wi-Fi was most popular, followed by the most expensive 64GB iPad 3G, and then the 32GB Wi-Fi model.

As to TiPb (and SPE!) staff, here’s what we’re getting and why:

  • Rene Ritchie: I went with the 16GB Wi-Fi version because I want it now and will be getting a 3G version as well so I’m keeping costs down up-front so I can splurge at the end. Yes, it’s a sickness and no I don’t want the cure!

  • Dieter Bohn: The iPad is an exercise in contradictions: looks like it could be a full, multitasking computer, but acts like a giant iPhone. Could be a giant iPhone, but the big screen makes it something more. So I figured I’d embrace the contradiction and get the craziest one in the lineup: 64 gigs, WiFi only. The fact that I have several phones which act as WiFi hotspots helps, though.

  • Jeremy Sikora: I ordered a 32GB iPad Wi-Fi. I blame Rene.

  • Chris Vitek: I am going for the 3G because I want the option of having Internet/data connections even without wifi. The large disk size is so I can load lots of photos and media (mostly movies) and apps without worrying about running out of space. I would have preferred a larger storage size, but 64GB isn’t too bad.

  • Matt Sawyers: I am going with the 3G iPad. While I expect to mostly use the iPad in WiFi areas, to know that I can get 3G away from a Wifi point if I need it. Also the fact that I will not have to pay for the service every month if I do not need it is an extra incentive! The 64GB size will be used for a large number of documents I like to have on the go & I will have a lot of my podcasts & videos on it as well.

  • Mickey Papillon, The Cell Phone Junkie: I went with the 16gb iPad because I wanted to get and use the iPad to keep up with the technology, but won’t be keeping all my media on it. I determined from my 32gb iPhone that I don’t use all the space on it, and in fact, most of the space on the iPhone is being used by music. I will not be putting any music on the iPad, as I have other devices that I use for music (like the iPhone and ipod).

  • Matt Miller, Nokia Experts: After much internal debate, I bought a 32GB WiFi-only version because I think it will be a great tool for my daily train commute. It may end up replacing my nook with the multiple ebook client support and it will keep me from buying this year’s new iPhone, no matter how cool it might be. I can get a great iPhone app experience on the iPad without having to sign up for an AT&T contract. I never use my iPhone 3GS as a phone so the iPad should also replace my iPhone, but my daughter will be happy to take it from me.

If you pre-ordered the iPad, tell us which one you ordered and why!

150,000 iPads Pre-Ordered, Which Ones are TiPb Getting? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

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