The iPad’s future shock

Fraser Speirs says that the iPad is an attempt to address the tech industry's greatest failure: the inability to make technology easy for regular people to use, so they can get on with their real jobs and lives.

Virgin Mobile Canada lights up HSPA+ network, iPhone 3GS, Bold 9700 in tow

Virgin Mobile Canada lights up HSPA+ network, iPhone 3GS, Bold 9700 in tow originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 10:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Will iPad’s A4 Chip Make Its Way to iPhone 4G?

iPhone 3.2 SDK on iPad — iChat Video Calling, File Downloads, Telephony Support, Handwriting Keyboard… And Coming to iPhone?

Engadget has been getting tips from deep code divers who are exploring Apple’s latest iPhone 3.2 SDK for the iPad and what they’re finding includes code/hooks for iChat-style video Calling, file downloads from Mobile Safari, support for telephony like SMS and calls, and some prototype support for a “handwriting keyboard”. The video conferencing news is especially intriguing:

We’re told that there are hooks to accept and decline a video conference, flip a video feed (which suggests a front-facing camera) and — most importantly — run the video call in either full screen mode or in just a portion of the screen. That means you’ll be able to chat and do other things at the same time, which could mean there’s at least some type of multitasking going on here.

Could this be another example of the iPad being “unfinished“, or of Apple removing a camera at the last minute — like the iPod touch G3 — because they couldn’t get an implementation that was good enough in time for the big reveal?

Looks like there’s some good news (or good speculation at least) for iPhone owners as well, since the devices all share the same OS code base:

chpwn also tells us [...] both the new landscape orientation for the homescreen and keyboard support appear to be destined for the iPhone itself when 3.2 comes out.

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

iPhone 3.2 SDK on iPad — iChat Video Calling, File Downloads, Telephony Support, Handwriting Keyboard… And Coming to iPhone?

Apple iPad Promotional Material Updated to Remove Flash Content, Adobe iPad Porn Fail Removed from TheFlashBlog

And 9to5mac finally puts to bed the does-iPad-support-Flash flood they kicked off yesterday by noting Apple and their advertising agency have updated promotional videos and images on Apple.com to properly reflect the lack of Adobe Flash support on the iPad, including the blue lego bricks of plugin fail we iPhone users are so used to.

As we were told by our source at the secretive organization, Apple came crashing down on them with urgent requests to change the video.

In other no-Flash-on-the-iPad news, TheFlashBlog has removed the lone porn fail image from their condemnation graphic, while Merlin Mann at Kung Fu Grippe [via Daring Fireball] points out that if the graphic had been in Flash rather than a JPG, no iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch owner would have seen it anyway… (Or would they, as Gruber updates to pass on that the site in question has an iPhone version that replaces the Flash with QuickTime. D’oh!)

Thus ends the latest flare up in the never ending Flash on iPhone OS saga. Right?

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

Apple iPad Promotional Material Updated to Remove Flash Content, Adobe iPad Porn Fail Removed from TheFlashBlog

Review: Palm Pixi Plus smartphone

The "Plus" in the Palm Pixi Plus really means one thing: the addition of Wi-Fi connectivity.

iPhone Tip: How to Turn Off Camera Notifications

iPad UI gets ported to the iPhone and iPod touch

At this particular point, 50-something days away from the earliest iPad deliveries, we doubt too many people are up in arms about the iPad's ability to act as a jumbo iPhone. On the other hand, if we told you you can take pretty much the entire iPad experience and distill it down to your iPhone OS device, well you'd probably care a lot more, wouldn't you? To get that extra 3D flavor to your UI, including the fetching iBooks shelf and other iPad-specific touches, you'll need a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch, access to the Cydia app store, and the manpower to click past the break for the full instructional video. Come on, you know you want to.

[Thanks, Taimur]

Continue reading iPad UI gets ported to the iPhone and iPod touch

iPad UI gets ported to the iPhone and iPod touch originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 04:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Excitement about iPad: A Large Screen Multi-Touch Platform

With the launch of the Apple iPad, there has been no shortage of reactions and opinions on the device. We feel the most promising aspect of the iPad is that there is now a relatively inexpensive full-sized multi-touch platform that is open to a ma...

3G VOIP Phone Calls Allowed on iPad Too, Skype Imminent

LA Times reports that Apple has confirmed that it is now allowing the iPhone and newly released iPad to make voice over IP (VOIP) calls over AT&T's 3G cellular network.

"We revised our Program License Agreement in conjunction with our...

Apple Was Working on Video Conferencing in iPad?

Engadget reports that evidence has been found in the iPad 3.2 SDK that Apple had been working on the possibility of video conferencing for their new tablet device:

We're told that there are hooks to accept and decline a video confer...

Apple’s Official iPad Video Reveals Support for Flash?

With iPad on the way, AT&T touts network investments

With a 3G-capable iPad coming later this year, AT&T says it's improving its 3G network.

Fring Brings Video And Voice Calls Over 3G to iPhone

Magnetism Studios announces iPad bags

Magnetism Studios has announced a pair of sleeves for the iPad, a Sling and an Envelope, both made out of natural materials like suede, corduroy, and cotton.

Analyst: There’s a market of four to five million iPhones a year in China

Filed under: Apple Financial, Apple, iPhone

I thought Apple sounded a tad bit defensive about China on the conference call Monday, but Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty says there's nothing to worry about: she expects Apple to sell up to four or five million iPhones in China per year. Apple told us on Monday that they've activated about 200,000 iPhones in China so far, but Huberty claims that there's a market for maybe 50 million iPhones over there, and echoes Tim Cook's assertion that price is the main issue. "Hardware pricing, service plan pricing and the large up-front payment," she says in her report, "were cited by 85%, 66% and 56% of respondents respectively, as reasons they were not likely to purchase an iPhone."

Keep in mind that the four to five million figure is a top end -- in the first year, Apple has said that they're aiming for more like one or two million. But there is definitely a solid market to be found in China, and significant sales there could help buoy Apple earnings reports over here for sure.

Analyst: There's a market of four to five million iPhones a year in China originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Analyst: There's a market of four to five million iPhones a year in China originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Adobe Flash Blog on iPad/iPhone — Bad for Games, TV, News… and Porn!

TheFlashBlog’s Lee Brimelow, Platform Evangelist at Adobe “focusing on the Flash, Flex, and AIR developer communities” has put up a series of iPad mockups highlighting a wide range of web sites all showing the blue lego brick of, in this case Flash, plugin fail — and they feature the range of games like Farmville, news sites like CNN, TV sites like Hulu, and online porn like… well, you get the idea.

In all fairness porn is underplayed compared to the rest, but that it’s played at all by someone from Adobe is — forgive us — a ballsy move. Of course easy to access, free, online porn is a major reason a certain segment is upset there’s no Flash on the iPhone or iPad. Regardless of your personal feelings one way or another about it, porn is historically a huge early adapter of technology, including VHS, DVD, online video — no increasingly Flash-based, and even the iPhone via Jailbreak and web apps.

Brimelow is using the visuals, mainstream and adult alike, to point out how ubiquitous Flash is on the ‘net, and how Apple shouldn’t be calling the iPad (and previously the iPhone), the ultimate browsing experience” when it doesn’t include Flash.

That’s a valid point, and one Adobe’s Photoshop Product Manager John Nack addresses candidly and, in our opinion more convincingly, on his own blog. He made me rethink some preconceptions, so it’s well worth a read.

But Apple isn’t aiming the iPhone or iPad at the web, or computing, as it is today. They’re attempting to reframe their mobile devices as appliances for tomorrow. Yesterday’s web was all about Internet Explorer 6 and Microsoft’s proprietary ActiveX platform. Today is about Flash. We’ve moved passed IE6 and ActiveX, and Apple is betting we’re moving past Flash as well.

The porn industry, interestingly, will likely be one of the early indicators on whether that ends up being true or not. Along with sites like Hulu, Brimelow’s post might just end up being less an inditement of Apple today, but a checkbox for HTML5 conversion tomorrow.

As to gaming, Gruber’s right. How would Flash games written for a mouse and keyboard on an iPad — or iPhone — anyway? They’d need to convert them for multitouch and fingers anyway, and then why not make an app that fully leverages the hardware?

[Via Daring Fireball]

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

Adobe Flash Blog on iPad/iPhone — Bad for Games, TV, News… and Porn!

iPad CPU may find its way into next-gen iPhone

Filed under: Hardware, iPhone, iPod touch

Since the announcement that the iPad comes with a 1 GHz A4 chip developed and owned by Apple (thanks, no doubt, to their acquisition of chipmaker PA Semi), one thing's been on a lot of people's minds: when will this chip make it to the iPhone?

The iPhone 3GS runs on an 833 MHz Samsung chip, that, presumably to increase battery life, is underclocked to 600 MHz. While this is better than the original iPhone and iPhone 3G's 620 MHz CPU (underclocked to about 412 Mhz), there's still plenty of room for improvement. Analysts fully expect that improvement will come either from the A4 chip itself or a lower-powered variant of it designed for the iPhone's smaller screen and battery.

Early impressions of the iPad's speed from people who have actually handled one are that the device is far faster than any iPhone or iPod touch released so far, with applications opening "instantly," and provides far smoother graphics performance. With Apple now designing and implementing its own "system on a chip" CPU for the iPad, it seems very likely this will be one of many iPad features that will trickle down to Apple's smaller mobile devices. Once the iPad actually finds its way to consumers (and teardown sites), we'll have a much better idea of what Apple's A4 chip is capable of. As for the next-gen iPhone's CPU, I'm placing my bets on an A4 variant rather than the full iPad CPU, with an operational speed in the neighborhood of 800 - 850 MHz -- more than twice the speed of the iPhone 3G.

iPad CPU may find its way into next-gen iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iPad CPU may find its way into next-gen iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tablet Manufacturers Reevaluating Pricing Options in Light of iPad Announcement?

DigiTimes reports that several Asian notebook manufacturers were taken by surprise by the unexpectedly low entry-level $499 price point for Apple's iPad, forcing them to reconsider how they will price upcoming tablet models.

The vendo...

Five things to bring back from the iPad

Filed under: Hardware, Software, Apple, iPhone

MobileCrunch has an interesting post up about five things the iPad has and does that Apple would do well to bring back to those of us using the iPhone. I think we'll see more of these as we go along (especially as, you know, some of us actually get to touch and use the device), but this list is a good start.

Bluetooth keyboard support is something that only jailbreakers could do on the iPhone, but it shows up day one on the iPad. The iPad, according to those checking out the SDK code, will also be able to share files with the desktop, and different apps on the iPad will even be able to identify themselves as owners for certain filetypes, which is another cool trick that Apple should teach the old iPhone dog. And of course, that processor -- we can probably expect to see a smaller version of it in a future variation of the iPhone sooner or later, since Apple is always fighting to get battery life and speed to the max.

Of course, the iPad and the iPhone are two different devices, and Apple will want to keep some things separate -- as we've heard already, there are certain interface guidelines for the iPad that the iPhone will never use. But especially if we see the expected update to the iPhone later this year, it's a good guess that we'll also see some of the iPad's more reusable features find their way to the "iPad mini."

Five things to bring back from the iPad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Five things to bring back from the iPad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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