Cosmetic Differences in iPad 3G vs iPad Wi-Fi

iPad 3G
As pointed out by 9to5Mac, the 3G version of the iPad is pictured in Apple's online gallery and carries a cosmetic difference to the Wi-Fi version. The 3G version has a black plastic strip that extends to the top of the devic...

iPad: Music Playtime 140 Hours, eBooks Priced Same as Amazon

Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg attended the Apple Media event where Steve Jobs announced the Apple iPad. Swisher has posted a video where Mossberg questions Steve Jobs after the event.

Mossberg brings up the issue of e-book pricing w...

Former Facebook for iPhone Developer Joe Hewitt Says iPad “Everything He’s Been Wishing For”

Joe Hewitt, who developed the awesome Facebook 3.0, but controversially (and some would say detrimentally) left the iPhone platform before Facebook 3.1 over the App Store review process, has come out extremely positively about the iPad:

iPad is exactly the product I’ve been wishing for ever since I wrapped my mind around the iPhone and its constraints. While the rumor mill was churning with all kinds of crazy possibilities for the Apple tablet, I mostly rolled my eyes, because I felt strongly that all Apple needed to do to revolutionize computing was simply to make an iPhone with a large screen. Anyone who feels underwhelmed by that doesn’t understand how much of the iPhone OS’s potential is still untapped.

Hewitt claims the biggest constraint he had in making the ultimate Facebook app was screen size, and the iPad removes that completely. But what about his concerns over Apple’s role as iPhone — and now iPad — gatekeeper?

The one thing that makes an iPhone/iPad app “closed” is that it lives in a sandbox, which means it can’t just read and write willy-nilly to the file system, access hardware, or interfere with other apps. In my mind, this is one of the best features of the OS. It makes native apps more like web apps, which are similarly sandboxed, and therefore much more secure. On Macs and PCs, you have to re-install the OS every couple years or so just to undo the damage done by apps, but iPhone OS is completely immune to this.

Web apps is also how he sees working around Apple. Anyone can make anything they want for the iPad, provided they’re willing to run it on their own server and not gunk up the end-users machine. That, Hewitt says, is the key to total client-side freedom.

So here’s hoping the platform gets Hewitt back, if not for Facebook 3.2 or 4.0 for the iPad, then for something equally as impressive…

[Thanks to Fassy for the tip!]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Former Facebook for iPhone Developer Joe Hewitt Says iPad “Everything He’s Been Wishing For”

iPad Uses Micro-SIM for 3G. What is it and Will the 4th Gen iPhone Get It?

The 3G version of the iPad is unlocked, so if your carrier supports micro-SIM, it should “just work”. Wait… what? Steve Jobs dropped the micro-SIM comment so matter-of-factly during the iPad introduction that it took us a moment to process — Micro-SIM, aka 3FF or 3rd generation SIM card. Yeah, don’t have one of those, and neither does any iPhone. Awkward…!

PCMag’s Sacha Seagan fills us in:

3FF SIMs were developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to fit into devices too small for a regular SIM. Where a regular SIM measures 15 millimeters x 25 mm, a 3FF SIM card measures 12mm x 15mm.

Today’s “regular” or mini-SIM is the 2FF, much smaller than the credit card-sized SIM that was generation one, and the 3FF is teensy-tinier still. Sure, no one in North America uses them yet, but T-Mobile is getting them, AT&T is obviously getting them since they’re supporting the iPad with data plans, and we’re guessing over the next 3-6 months, more carriers will get on board too. (Engadget is saying the pipeline is set for Orange and O2).

And the reason why Apple went with the Micro-SIM in the iPad? Could be they needed to save space in a device already twice the size of an iPhone. Could be it’s just Apple being kill-the-floppy-drop-firewire-Apple. If that’s the case, it’s quite possible the 4th gen iPhone will get it next, and then what would Apple do with all that extra space?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPad Uses Micro-SIM for 3G. What is it and Will the 4th Gen iPhone Get It?

No Camera for iPad - Is it a Deal-Breaker?

iPad SDK allows you to take photos and other insights

Filed under: Software, iPhone, App Store, SDK

Turns out a camera in the iPad may have been closer than we thought -- Engadget has been diving into the SDK released yesterday (NDAs be darned, I guess?) and discovered that the ability to "Take Photo" is still hidden in the iPad's code. Of course, the device doesn't actually have a camera, but the fact that there's code written for one could mean that prototypes of the device did have a camera, and/or that we'll eventually see one in a future revision.

There's a few other interesting things sneaking out of the SDK as well, including the fact that "popovers" (those windows and menus that were popping up in the video yesterday) are listed in Human Interface Guidelines as iPad-only flair. That would make designing for the two platforms pretty different -- while it's certainly possible, as we learned yesterday, to run iPhone apps on the new platform, it seems like Apple is telling developers that iPad apps will have a very different feel than their smaller predecessor's versions. A year from now, the two platforms may end up being different markets entirely.

Update: The "touch to return to the call" bar made the trip to the iPad, too. Makes it more likely that this is just vestigial code.

iPad SDK allows you to take photos and other insights originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iPad SDK allows you to take photos and other insights originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Possible Details on Apple’s ARM-based ‘A4′ Chip?

Bright Side of News claims to have information on Apple's "A4" chip unveiled as the brains behind the company's new iPad tablet device. Unsurprisingly, the CPU included in the chip is said to be based on the ARM Cortex A9 licensed by Apple a...

iPad Impressions from People Who’ve Actually Used It

Like many things Apple, the iPad launch has galvanized those who believe it’s the “next big thing” from those who believe it’s the “latest stink” — but what about those who, you know, have actually spent time using the thing, and now had a chance to ponder it a bit?

Sure, some are no doubt Apple enthusiasts easily impressed, while others are jaded journalists almost impossible to impress. For a mix of both, follow on after the break.

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber has two long posts up about the iPad, and wins the cleverest analogy award hands-down, comparing the Mac to manual and the iPad to automatic transmissions.

Car enthusiasts (and genuine experts like race car drivers) still drive cars with manual transmissions. They offer more control; they’re more efficient. But the vast majority of cars sold today are automatics. So too it’ll be with computers. Eventually, the vast majority will be like the iPad in terms of the degree to which the underlying computer is abstracted away. Manual computers, like the Mac and Windows PCs, will slowly shift from the standard to the niche, something of interest only to experts and enthusiasts and developers.

British actor and tech enthusiast Steven Fry also spent time with the iPad and came away positively giddy because of its simplicity and Apple’s perfectionist tendencies towards product development. He also called the iPhone a “100,000 volt taser shot up the jacksie” (whatever that is) to the Nokia, Samsung, Palm, and Blackberrys of the world, so we’re predisposed to heart him:

There are many issues you could have with the iPad. No multitasking, still no Flash. No camera, no GPS. They all fall away the minute you use it. I cannot emphasise enough this point: “Hold your judgment until you’ve spent five minutes with it”. No YouTube film, no promotional video, no keynote address, no list of features can even hint at the extraordinary feeling you get from actually using and interacting with one of these magical objects. You know how everyone who has ever done Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? always says, “It’s not the same when you’re actually here. So different from when you’re sitting at home watching.”? You know how often you’ve heard that? Well, you’ll hear the same from anyone who’s handled an iPad. The moment you experience it in your hands you know this is class. This is a different order of experience. The speed, the responsiveness, the smooth glide of it, the richness and detail of the display, the heft in your hand, the rightness of the actions and gestures that you employ, untutored and instinctively, it’s not just a scaled up iPhone or a scaled-down multitouch enhanced laptop – it is a whole new kind of device. And it will change so much. Newspapers, magazines, literature, academic text books, brochures, fliers and pamphlets are going to be transformed (poor Kindle). Specific dedicated apps and enhancements will amaze us.

Engadget editor-in-chief, Josh Topolsky, however, thinks Apple hasn’t told a compelling, must-buy story for the iPad (yet?):

There’s no question that much of what the iPhone and iPod touch do translates nicely here, and there’s no question that some of the tweaks made to native iPad apps are impressive, but nothing I saw made me sit up and think, “Wow, I need this.” It’s telling that the most intriguing user experiences shown off today were the iPad versions of the iWork suite. iWork? If Steve Jobs hoped to answer the question about why we need this third device, or how it’s better than a netbook, he didn’t make a compelling case. Where is video chat? Where is multitasking (honestly, only one app at a time for a device of this size and speed)? Why is the lock screen so embarrassingly empty? Why are there no active widgets to fill that huge homescreen space? Where is the expansion of the multitouch user experience? And seriously, where are the media partnerships?

iLounge’s Jeremy Horowitz thinks many of us missed the “Minority Report” moment:

Apple didn’t bring flashy demos. It dropped the ball on a few arguably trivial parts of the UI and didn’t bring any really showy software to the event; rather, it focused almost entirely on updates to old apps. The biggest hint of what the iPad will enable was a two-second reference in the N.O.V.A. demo to opening airlocks by putting your fingers on the screen and turning the door handle. It was shown, and if you knew what it was—basically, Metroid Prime using your fingers rather than a Wii controller—you realized what this meant for games, and for other apps on the iPad. This is just not possible on the little iPhone screen unless you have baby fingers.

Mobile analyst Michael Gartenberg, writing for SlashGear, thinks the iPad is neither an iPod touch nor a MacBook:

The form factor is excellent. It’s not too light to feel fragile and, at 1.5 lbs, it’s also not something that’s going to tire you holding it long term. The screen is amazing with a full XGA resolution. I could easily imagine reading for hours on end on this screen and far prefer this idea to e-ink. For one, there’s no annoying refresh that happens with every page turn and, as a backlit display, it’s perfect for reading in dark places, like airplane seats or in bed without disturbing anyone else. The performance of Apple’s silicon is wicked fast. I was pretty skeptical about running existing apps in a pixel-doubled full screen mode. Action games, I figured, would be pretty much out of the question and Apple came fully prepared to answer that question. Existing games ran ridiculously fast and titles optimized for the device make this the ultimate mobile game device. Personally, I’d buy it just for gaming alone.

So it’s sounding like, if some aren’t convinced about the utility or place of an iPad in the greater computing ecosystem, most who’ve actually used the hardware have come away impressed. Again, these aren’t mainstream opinions — strictly inside baseball here — so it will be interested to see how people take to it when they can start walking into their local Apple store and trying it out.

When that happens, will the iPod touch have to duke it out for buyer attention?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPad Impressions from People Who’ve Actually Used It

iPhone OS 3.2 SDK Released: External Display, File Sharing, No Multi-Tasking, No iPhone Support

Apple iPad UI — The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Sebastiaan de With of Cocoia has posted another of his UI roundups, this time focusing on Apple’s evolution of the iPhone interface in the form of the brand new iPad.

He notes the expanded icon size of 72×72, and as-yet-unused 64 and 320 versions, along with more “earthy” metaphors, and since he designed the one for Classics, weighs in on the very similar looking iBooks.

Conversely, he’s not a fan of the new “popover” UI element, calling it kludgy. And feels the repugnant, inconsistent look of the iPad iTunes application takes no advantage of innovations from either the iPhone or Mac, and is a visual punch-in-the-face. He’s also worried that the lack of encouragement for resolution-independance in iPhone app development (though TiPb’s heard Apple does indeed stress that) will make the iPad’s 2x mode a blurry mess.

For our part, TiPb’s wondering how much of these UI changes, good, bad, and ugly will hit the iPhone with either iPhone 3.2, or iPhone 4.0?

What do you think Apple should move over to the iPhone, and what do you hope they keep far, far away?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple iPad UI — The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

iPhone VoIP apps now offer calling over 3G network

A recent change in the iPhone SDK agreement that allows apps to perform audio and video calls over 3G has vendors rushing to change their applications.

Apple iBooks App to be US-only at Launch? What About iPhone-also?

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before — Apple rolls out a new form of media, like say iBooks e-books, for their iTunes/iPod/iPhone/now iPad ecosystem, and it’s initially only available in the US.

No doubt the global-village defying mess that is international media licensing rights is at play here, as different publishers can own different parts of the same books in different territories, so TiPb is not at all surprised. Like iTunes Movies and TV, which took a long time to reach Canada, the UK, Australia, etc., we’re not going to hold our breath for iBooks any time soon.

But that’s hardly unique. Amazon took a while to get the Kindle international, and they’ve failed miserably at rolling Amazon MP3 out. If there is a company that can push through the quagmire, however, it’s Apple and its iTunes juggernaut.

Meanwhile, we’re still waiting to hear if US-based iPhone and iPod touch users will get a version of Apple’s newest app as well. Or is everyone outside the US and not on an iPad just going to have to make do with the Kindle app…?

[via Engadget]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple iBooks App to be US-only at Launch? What About iPhone-also?

Apple A4 iPad Chipset = ARM Multicore Cortex A9 + Mali 50 GPU

According to Bright Side of the News, it turns out that newly spun Apple A4 system-on-a-chip that debuted alongside the iPad does indeed pack more punch than the Sammy in the iPhone 3GS:

A4 is a System-on-a-Chip, or SOC, that integrates the main processor [ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore i.e. Multi-Processing Core, identical to ones used in nVidia Tegra and Qualcomm Snapdragon] with graphics silicon [ARM Mali 50-Series GPU], and other functions like the memory controller on one piece of silicon – not unlike what Intel is trying to achieve with its future “Moorestown” Atom processor that debuted inside LG’s Smartphone

Cortex A9 indeed? But no PowerVR SGX like the iPhone. Engadget says this is also similar to the Tegra2 platform. So, it’s more of an Apple assemblage of ARM components rather than anything PA Semi unique, but is it a first step towards more customized silicon? Either way, we’d still love to see this baby powering the 4th gen iPhone and iPod touch.

Still no word on RAM though…

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple A4 iPad Chipset = ARM Multicore Cortex A9 + Mali 50 GPU

Apple Tablet Rumor Scorecard

Hands on with the iPad

Following Apple's iPad event, a trio of Macworld editors get their hands on the new tablet and share their impressions.

iPhone game review: Diner Dash

Filed under: iPhone, App Review

Diner Dash [iTunes Link], the popular and addicting time-management PC game by Playfirst has made its way to the iPhone. In this game, you play Flo, an entrepreneur who ditched her dayjob to fulfill her dream of restaurant ownership. The game begins with Flo working in a dumpy greasy spoon, but as you progress through the levels and earn more money, upgrades become available, leading Flo to her ultimate goal: Running a thriving restaurant empire. Here's an iPhone game overview and review of Diner Dash.

Gameplay: As customers enter the cafe, Flo must arrange seating, take orders, serve food, drop off bills, and bus tables -- all while monitoring everyone's happiness. A simple premise, but as you progress through the levels, gameplay becomes more difficult -- more demanding customers, more tables, and higher daily financial goals.

To pass a level, you must meet the cash goal. Earn cash when customers are seated, served, and given appetizers and desserts. At the end of their meal, customers tip Flo based on their happiness level, indicated by the heart meter. Like most time management games, chaining (completing the same action in a row) and color matching (matching a customer's clothing color to the seat) earns you extra cash.

If you get bored with the levels, try your luck at the Endless Shift mode. Endless Shift has a nonstop stream of customers coming through the door and ends when too many people get angry and storm out.

Controls: Diner Dash is an excellent fit for the iPhone's touchscreen interface. Dragging customers to their seats with your finger and tapping to queue Flo's actions is simple and intuitive. Trying to switch customer seating arrangements to activate the color-matching bonus is tricky and takes time to master, but otherwise, game control is easy.

Graphics and music:For a cartoon game, the graphics, animations, and music are all well-done. Don't like the music? Select "iPod Music" option on the main menu to listen to your own tunes.

Diner Dash fans might be disappointed to learn that the iPhone adaptation is the same as the PC game. However, priced at only $4.99 -- a bargain compared to the PC game's $19.99 price tag -- you might not mind replaying the game on a mobile device.

Diner Dash is the perfect game to pick up when you have a few minutes to spare. Passing a level typically takes about three to five minutes, so there's not a lot of time commitment involved. But once you play one level, you'll think, "Just one more...", and the next thing you know, two hours have passed!

Diner Dash is available for purchase in the iTunes store.

iPhone game review: Diner Dash originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iPhone game review: Diner Dash originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fujitsu Possibly Gearing Up For Fight Over ‘iPad’ Trademark in U.S.

Last week, we uncovered evidence of Apple seeking to trademark the "iPad" name in a number of countries, foreshadowing the name of Apple's tablet device announced yesterday. At the time, we noted that Apple had not applied for an "iPad" trademark in...

Review: iVideoCamera for iPhone

iVideoCamera gives iPhone users the video capability they wouldn't otherwise have, but certainly not the quality of video they could expect from an iPhone 3GS. If something is better than nothing, then iVideoCamera at least meets that minimum standard.

Zagat To Go 3 app offers augmented reality and offline sync

Zagat has released Zagat To Go 3.0, the latest version of its iPhone app. Zagat now includes augmented reality and offline sync, allowing access Zagat content without Wi-Fi or mobile reception.

AT&T Releases Two More Anti-Verizon Ads — Secret Switch and Share AT&T

The battle of TV attack ads between AT&T and Verizon continues on as AT&T has just released two more commercials taking aim at Big Red.

In the first commercial, named “Secret Switch”, Luke Wilson is at a dinner party and he secretly switches the attendee’s AT&T smartphones for Verizon devices. Once they realize they’ve been bamboozled by tricky Luke and are using “dumb phones” all hell seems to break lose. Notice the Motorola Droid highlighted when they mention “dumb phones”?

There’s no mention of the iPhone specifically (Apple doesn’t share screen time), but one diner does complain that all her apps are gone…

The other commercial is titled “Share AT&T” and this time Luke concentrates on educating the viewers about how AT&T provides a better overall 3G experience than Verizon. Some of the key points he touches on are the faster speeds for downloading songs and videos, and the ability to talk and surf at the same time, etc…

Check out the videos after the break, and let us know what you think about them!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

AT&T Releases Two More Anti-Verizon Ads — Secret Switch and Share AT&T