Archive for 2010

Almost twenty years ago Scientific American posted an article of Xerox PARC. Its authors were thinking about the future technology and decided the next stage of it will be the ubiquitous computers.

"Ubiquitous computers will also come in different sizes, each suited to a particular task. My colleagues and I have built what we call tabs, pads and boards: inch-scale machines that approximate active Post-It notes, foot-scale ones that behave something like a sheet of paper (or a book or a magazine), and yard-scale displays that are the equivalent of a blackboard or bulletin board.”

They were right - tabs are the iPhones and iPods Touch and pads are iPads. But does it mean that we can expect from Apple something really huge like big-screen hubs? Such devices have already been developed (the best example is Microsoft's Surface table, the other one is Samsung MultiTouch Board shown on the picture), but they are still too expensive because of a flat-screen TV components.

Since the iPad SDK became publicly available January 27 there were more than 2,000 apps released in App Store. The mobile metrix firm Flurry analyzed some facts and made a conclusion: in comparison to December the number of new iPhone OS apps released in February is more than 185% higher. Most of them are customized versions of the apps released for iPhone/iPod Touch earlier.

Flurry said that iPad allowed AppStore to gain more apps and increase the distance between it and its biggest rival Android's Market Place.

When Apple started accepting iPad pre-orders it was announced the iPad Case will be shipped April 3rd and iPad keyboard Dock - April 20th. But as we see from the screenshot above both of these accessories are delayed. What is it, another manufacturing delay?

The iPhone OS is a great operating system and is also one of the safest. That's why Apple rejected the anti-virus application developed by Kaspersky Lab. Such app will never make it to AppStore, just because users don't need it.

Some users who run the jailbreak might catch a virus. However if they do everything right - there will be no troubles and no viruses.

Another popular antivirus program is eset nod32 antivirus.

For the last few months we have been witnessing the competition between Google and Apple that becomes more and more significant. We tried to analyze some facts and made a conclusion that the confrontation is more personal than corporate.

Read the rest of this entry »

Apple posted a new document on its website about iPad battery replacement, where it is said:

"If your iPad requires service due to the battery’s diminished ability to hold an electrical charge, Apple will replace your iPad for a service fee."

Apple also added that your data will not be moved to a new iPad, so you'll need to sync your device to iTunes to backup all the personal information it contains.

The battery replacement will cost you 99$ (and 6.95$ for shipment). Apple claims the process will take one week from sending the iPad to receiving replacement device. You can replace your battery in local Apple Store or at the office of Apple Authorized Service Provider. To get further information contact Apple Technical Support.

The Wall Street Journal has information that nearly 10,000 iPhone users regularly access the Microsoft employee mail system. Such a number represents almost 10% of the company's global staff.

It is really interesting as Microsoft executives are not happy to see their employees using products of rival companies. Its CEO Steve Ballmer already had an accident last September when he caught a man from the company's personnel who tried to snap a photo of an entrance with his iPhone. At that moment he was so angry he put the phone on the ground and pretended to stomp on it. After that he walked away.

The WSJ also reports:

"...the company in early 2009 modified its corporate cellphone policy to only reimburse service fees for employees using phones that run on Windows Phone software."

It is obvious the company tries to reassure its employees to use its software and hardware, but they continue to hide and even customize their iPhones to make them look more like generic handsets.

New page featuring iBooks for iPad has been rolled out on the Apple's official site. The app will be available as soon as the new device will be launched (the official date is April 3rd). Apple confirms iBooks will use the open ePub standard and the same version of FairPlay DRM that continues to be applied on video content distributed via iTunes.

iBooks will allow users to switch portrait and landscape modes, change fonts and text sizes and even tap on words to see its definition from Wikipedia or built-in dictionary. It is compatible with VoiceOver functionality that makes content to be read aloud automatically.

For some time iBooks will be available only in USA, but as we know Apple already seeks for professionals to expand their book business internationally.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BK_FCXcyrk

iDongle is a new device that lets you to jailbreak your iPhone/iPod Touch or reboot it on the go. It is very easy to use - just plug it in and wait. The only problem is that it supports only iPod Touch 2G/3G and 3.1.2 iPhone 3GS.

At the moment there is only a dozen of this devices, but the developer says he collects money at the moment to build up a full-fledged production.

iSMEStorage is the first application for iPhone with cloud storage virtualization service that allows users to manage more than 10 different storage clouds from their device in 1 Cloud file. Clouds include Google Docs, FTP-as-a-cloud, Email-as-a-cloud, Gmail-as-a-cloud, Miscrosoft SkyDrive and LiveMesh, Apple Mobile Me and Amazon S3 and other.

SMEStorage CEO says:

"We are very happy to add the iPhone to the list of clients that users can use to get access to their files from our platform... It is the first [application] to virtualize storage clouds and make them available from one Cloud File System, and it is the first App of any kind in the App Store that enables access to Microsoft SkyDrive files."

iSMEStorage v1.01 is available here in the Productivity Category from the AppStore only for 0.99$.

Members of AAPL Sanity Board at Investor Village resource decided to study the iPad order numbers. By 11:05am EST they received fifteen confirmations about 74,000 orders (the device went up for pre-order at 08:30 am EST).

But there were other who became interested in the dynamics of iPad sells. Valcent Financial Group says about 51,000 orders in 2 hours, Silicon Alley Insider reports about 20,000 devices reserved per hour.

Fortune predicts Apple may have only 300,000 iPads available for sale right now. It also reports 91,000 devices were sold in six hours since 08:30 am.

Today Apple announced new photos of iPad. One screenshot is very interesting as it contains mysterious icon on the home screen. It is situated on the right of the device and appears only in the one picture on site.

As you can see it looks like the logo of National Geographic, so we can assume the icon is for a digital version of this magazine.

Another cool stuff was released by the Jailbreak Collective. It is a set of  iCon Magnets for your refrigerator (or any magnet surface). The authors say these are the icons for the old-school tasks where the usual iPhone apps are coming up short.

The price for 18 magnets is $13 plus shipping. It is available for purchase here.

Forbes ranked Steve Jobs the 136th Richest Man in the World. He has a net worth of $5.5 billion and shares his ranking with 5 other rich men.

Carlos Slim Helu tops the list with a net worth of $53.5 billion. More information here.

9to5mac reports that the latest iPhone 3.2 Beta 4 SDK has the new gestures folder. And there are two new types of commands (3Tap.plist and LongPress.plist), that are certainly not implemented in the iPhone SDK 3.1.

Apple will probably allow developers to use these new capabilities in the next version of the iPhone OS. We might even see these next month in the shipping version of the iPad.