Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"How about a nice thick wooden case for that upcoming iPad? While it does double the width of the iPad and make it significantly more unwieldy, it does look nice. This is certainly a "case" of form over function. Har."

I can see using this, if I wanted to use my iPad for a picture frame, cycling through my iPhoto library. Other than that, not so much. They are going to sell for $79.95 USD and are from a company called Vers, which also sells iPhone cases made from wood.

"Not content with answering tech questions from Americans, Steve Jobs this week answered a question from all the way over in Sweden."

So Jezper asks via email if he will be able to tether his iPhone and his iPad, to which Steve replies via email from his iphone... No. 

"Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was in attendance at the Oscars Sunday night, and during the telecast the first iPad ad revealed, upon closer look, prices for some titles in the new iBookstore."

So some eagle eyes out there watching the first commercial noticed prices on some of the books, ranging from $7.99 USD to $14.99 USD. Jobs was also on hand, in his words, "To see Up win," which it did, so perhaps he was good luck.

"The wait for the iPad is, er, well, it's just beginning I suppose. On Friday, Apple announced that the new device would go on sale on Saturday, April 3 in the U.S. Customers who want to pre-order can put in their claim on March 12-just a week away, so get your clicking fingers ready."

Again, this is only the Wi-Fi version so I expect you will have to wait until late April for the 3G versions to roll out. Countries outside the U.S., specifically Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.K. per Apple, will have to wait until the end of April for either one. On March 12th you can pre-order either version from the Apple online store. Here is the press release if you are interested. Better start saving now!

"When Apple does eventually get around to shipping the iPad, which may not be as soon as many of us had hoped, we'll at least have some good quality, familiar content to enjoy on the platform according to an internal announcement by Condé Nast as reported by the New York Times."

They plan to have Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour ready to go after the release of the iPad, by staggering the launch of each title over the course of the next six months, ending sometime this summer. These will all be sold through iTunes, and I don't think they will be the only company doing this. I'm hoping Zinio has something available since they already have an iPhone app, as well as many titles to choose from. But I'm really hoping some kind of Kindle app will happen so I can use it for all those books I own.

"Would you enjoy Netflix on your iPhone? Netflix would really like to know. Not that they are considering putting their app on the iPhone, or more importantly, on the iPad. But hypothetically, if they did...would you be interested?"

The last time a survey came out they were in preparations for PS3 and Wii versions so hopefully this means that Netflix will offer something for use on the iPad at least, if not the iPhone. In case you are wondering, the text of the survey was this:

"Imagine that Netflix offers its subscribers the ability to instantly watch movies & TV episodes on their iPhone. The selection availability to instantly watch includes some new releases, lots of classics and TV episodes.

There are no advertisements or trailers, and movies start in as little as 30 seconds. You can fast-forward, rewind, and pause or watch again. The movies & TV episodes you instantly watch are included in your Netflix membership for no additional fee.Whenever you want to instantly watch content on your iPhone, your iPhone must be connected to a Wi-Fi network (such as one you might have at home or at work, or in public places like coffee shops, book stores, hotels, airports, etc.)If this functionality were available, how likely would you or someone in your household be to instantly watch movies & TV episodes on your iPhone via a Wi-Fi network?"

I would likely watch, what are your thoughts?

"Apple is planning to leverage its work in transforming Mac OS X to work on other devices-most specifically the iPhone-to power "new platforms," according to a recent job posting. Those platforms will also be powered by "custom silicon," like Apple's A4 processor that powers the iPad."

You can see the job posting at Apple here, and it outlines they are looking for a full-time engineering manager to "oversee platform bringup with the Core Platform Team." Part of the duties will also be to "coordinate the software team with hardware and custom silicon teams in developing and prototyping new platforms." Anyway, lots of conjecture with this job posting as to what it all means for the future. Leveraging the architecture would certainly be one way to keep the revenue coming in, but do you think Apple will do that? What are your thoughts?

"Big-time textbook publisher Macmillan is introducing new software called DynamicBooks, which will let college professors curate e-books for their own courses."

I hated having to pay the outrageous text book prices when I was in college, even more so when they jacked up the prices on used books, so now as a parent of a soon to be college student (fingers crossed) I'm all for any possible way to cut those costs down. With this method, they are posting the textbook online and allow professors to add paragraphs, add links, add extra sources and updates without having to check in with the author (I can seem some hazards here). Students can then purchase the books through the local school bookstore, or to go Dynamicbooks.com or CourseSmart to get them. Sounds like this is going to be just perfect for the iPad.

"Steve Jobs unloaded on Flash during a meeting with Wall Street Journal executives last week, according to Gawker.Jobs met with editors of the Journal to show them the new iPad. The Journal make widespread use of Flash on its website for video, infographics, etc., and editors raised concerns about the absence of Adobe's plug-in."

No surprise here I guess, we all know how much Steve Jobs hates Flash, and I'm not such a big fan myself. It does make me curious though as to how many sites currently using Flash will adapt in order to work effectively with the iPad. I'm hoping for as many as possible, what are your thoughts on Flash?

"Apple's new iPad is being criticized for lacking the capacity to run multiple third party applications at once, but the company has a variety of options to pursue in addressing the issue."

Lot of complaining without much to base it on. We still don't know what the OS is going to look like on the final product, and as the article says when comparing the iPad to the iPhone , "The iPhone OS is constantly running system processes that listen to the mobile network for incoming calls and texts, it runs an iPod process for playing back music all the time, it watches for background notifications being sent to idle apps, and there's a variety of other things always going on. This is the definition of multitasking."

For what I plan on using this for (book reader mainly and surfing the web), I don't see that expanded multitasking beyond what is already on the iPhone will be a deal breaker for me. What are your thoughts?

"Apple has quietly increased the limit for over-the-air downloads from the App Store and iTunes Store on the iPhone. Until recently only content under 10MB in size could be downloaded over an EDGE or 3G connection-downloading of larger apps and media content had to be done over Wi-Fi."

No one knows for sure, but speculation is that it is related to the pending iPad release. Whatever the reason, it is welcome news.

"About Objects, Inc. will be offering a completely revamped version of its most popular iPhone development training course that will include coverage of Apple's new iPad tablet computer."

This will be a 5-day course titled, appropriately, "Introduction to iPhone and iPad Development" and starts April 26th, 2010. It will be held at the Hilton Garden Inn in Cupertino, California and they will also have one in May in Reston, VA. The tuition is $2,495.00 USD with the obligatory early registration discount as well as a group discount for groups of three or larger. You can find more information at the About Objects website.

"WSJ's Walt Mossberg, NYT's David Carr and TechCrunch's Michael Arrington discussed the iPad on TV under the aegis of Charlie Rose this weekend."

"A special Macworld 2010 conference session - targeted at corporate and business decision-makers - will attempt to demystify the entire process of producing custom iPhone and iPad software, from start to finish."

This particular session will be held this Saturday, the 13th, from 10:30am until 11:45am. In a short 75 minute presentation, they plan on covering the "entire spectrum of developing software, both in general, and for the iPhone and iPad in particular." Ambitious to say the least!

"The formidable Economist magazine has blessed Steve Jobs with a rare cover story examining the potential impact of the Jesus tablet. Even rarer, the iPad story is mostly positive, even if the religious imagery is over the top."

Yes, it is a little over the top in my opinion. You can read the story here.

"My colleague Dan Frakes has chimed in with his take on the five best surprises from the iPad's launch. I'm in total agreement with his list-well, except for the name thing. The iPad's design is elegant, the size seems about right for a device designed to surf the wWeb and handle e-mail and e-book reading. I really want to buy one..."

But he has reservations, although mine are quickly fading. The only thing he points out that I'm hoping they do fix when it comes out (hopefully with new OS for the iPhone as well) is the multi-tasking, or lack thereof. For a device such as this I think it really hinders it's usage if you don't have multi-tasking. The video camera? Nice but not essential for my needs however I can see that it would be beneficial for video chat. The lack of flash, no GPS on certain models and the video limitations don't really bother me for what I'm contemplating my usage might be for this device. What are your thoughts?

"Apple is dramatically rethinking how applications organize their documents on iPad, leaving behind the jumbled file system and making file access between the iPad and desktop computers seamless."

Basically it works the same as the iPhone does: apps will store all their documents within their own directory, so when you delete the app, you delete the files. But they will also let you specify which documents you want to share wirelessly. In doing so, the iPad can be mounted via WiFi and you can drag and drop the files back and forth between the iPad and your computer. There will also be syncing capability via iTunes and/or MobileMe, but those details haven't been sorted out yet. Basically they are making it easy for the average person to move things around without having to learn any file hierarchy, which to me is a pain anyway. The storage capacity doesn't sound like much, but to be honest, I have the 32GB iPhone 3GS and I have yet to run up to the storage limit. I imagine it would be the same with this device. But it sounds like a pretty good system of being able to move files in case I do happen to hit the wall. 

"And let the accessorizing begin! Tom Bihn, maker of messenger bags and laptop bags, has already announced two bags that will fit the iPad."

One called the Cache is more like a sleeve, and the other called Ristretto is pictured above. Tom Bihn isn't the only one either, the folks at Magnetism have also jumped into the iPad case field offering a couple choices of their own, but instead of synthetic material they use clothing grade fabric and linings. Not to be outdone Belkin also has a line of iPad covers. I'm sure in the next month or two many more will jump into the fray for accessories for the iPad. But to tell you the truth, the cover that Apple came up with is pretty slick and will be hard to beat. 

"Apple speaks of the iPad as an in-between device-a digital media, Internet, and communications tool-that fits somewhere between an iPhone and laptop. And that makes sense. But where does it fit in your life's locations?"

And to end the day, take a look at this article, one persons ideas on how the iPad would fit into their life. For me, after thinking about it a few days, I can see several of the same uses, if not more with some business angles fit into the mix. All except for the use as a GPS as I'm thinking this might be quite large to have hanging off of your windshield, but it certainly would be easier to see while driving! If you are still not sure if you should get an iPad, just riding the fence so to speak like I am, check out this article at Macworld titled "The iPad: What you need to know."

"And now we hit Phase Two of Rumored Apple Ta ... sorry, iPad hype: in which the world attempts to review something that won't ship for at least two more months, and which only a few hundred people have ever actually held and used."

And so begins Andy Ihnatko's review of his experience with the iPad. This is a pretty thorough run through of the iPad, or at least as thorough as it can be for being able to test it for a short 45 minutes.