Archive for 2010

MuscleNerd, a member of the DevTeam, posted an interesting tweet. He claims that a new version of PwnageTool to jailbreak the Firmware 3.1.3 will be released soon.

However he also warns the owners of an iPhone 3G or 3GS, suggesting not rush for firmware update. In other words, the improvements of firmware 3.1.3 are minimal, so if you are comfortable with firmware 3.1.2 just stay with that.

A few days ago Epocrates Inc., the developer of mobile software for healthcare professionals, revealed a new study of more than 350 clinicians who were asked about their opinion about iPad. The results were stunning - 9% said they will buy an iPad when it will be available, another 13% plan to purchase one in the first year. That means that one in five physicians will likely have an iPad in a year.
Epocrates Inc. also announced that it intends to improve clinical reference applications so it could run on iPad.

By optimizing our software for the iPad, we are capitalizing on the larger screen real estate and interactivity provided by this sophisticated device. We are committed to providing the most productive experience at the point of care, keeping physicians informed and focused on the patient rather than searching for answers.

- said Epocrates SEO Rose Crane. The company's software has more than 275,000 subscribers among physicians in America and over 900,000 worldwide.

As time passes by, more hospitals look at potential of the iPad. One San Francisco program even aims to use tablets to provide charts, X-rays, notes and prescriptions to hospital workers at the touch of a finger. That looks like a whole new way of enforcing last technologies to make our life better.

The new concept by Patrycjusz Brzezinski was released recently in the Internet. It is a docking station, which looks pretty similar to the bottom of an iMac. It would work good for the iPad, as with an Apple Bluetooth keyboard it could be used as a some kind of a touch enabled mini iMac.   And if you suddenly need to go somewhere, just undock the iPad and put it in your bag. That's convenient.

Patrycjusz Brzezinski is also known for his previous concepts. The concept of "MacView", a tablet with a pair of touch screens in a slider design, was one of the most resonant. It is presented on the pictures below.

On Thursday's night Charlie Rose show featured an interesting discussion with Michael Arrington, Walt Mossberg and David Carr about the upcoming Apple iPad.

Michael Arrington is known as the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch. Walt Mossberg writes 2 columns for the Wall Street Journal. David Carr works as a culture and media columnist for the New Your Times. The 25 minutes long coverage reveals some interesting opinions that are worth to hear:

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Silicon Alley Insider reported recently that Steve Jobs visited New York City to meet with executives at The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for discussions about bringing their content to the iPad.

Apple CEO held a dinner meeting with 50 representatives of The New York Times, though the visit to The Wall Street Journal was more low-key and the audience was very limited.

On Friday morning Steve Jobs also visited Time & Life Building to demonstrate an iPad to Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore and roomful of magazine editors.

It is obvious, that the goal of Jobs’ NYC visit is a content partnership. Since the iPad presentation, Apple has been working hard to broaden its content deals by pursuing book publishers and bringing textbook publishers on board. Currently the company apparently starts to focus its efforts on the magazine and newspaper industries.

Geohot has tweeted  saying that the jailbreak is easy but it only helps those who are dumb enough to upgrade.

I hear rumors going around that the 3.1.3 jailbreak is hard. It isn't. But the only people it helps are those dumb enough to upgrade. Sorry.

These words indicate that it is unlikely the BlackRa1n jailbreak will be upgraded soon to support the new firmware.

The official Mobile Spectator Guide for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games is now available for iPod Touch and iPhone. It can be downloaded for free from the App Store.

This application is a location-aware schedule that details more than 2,000 sport and cultural events taking place for 17 days between February 12 and 28, 2010.

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Government officials are worried about iPad’s popularity, as it may prove a threat to national network infrastructure. And we're all informed by Steve Jobs that iPad will be available with AT&T unlimited 3G-internet access for only 30$.  Government warned that the device can bring wireless network to a standstill as new users may overload wireless networks. The director of scenario planning for the federal government’s Omnibus Broadband Initiative Phil Bellaria said that with iPad’s release modern networks will be overburdened by a data flow they were not built to handle.

… We must make sure that network congestion doesn't choke off a service that consumers clearly find so appealing or frustrate mobile broadband’s ability to keep us competitive in the global broadband economy.

In addition to that, analysts predict Apple can sell 2 million to 5 million units in the first year.

Apple has improved their new iTunes Preview service by activating in-browser previews for iPod and iPhone applications.

iTunes Preview was launched by Apple in November. It worked for those iTunes links, which used to simply open the application. Before that your browser would open a blank page and prompt you to open the link with the iTunes application. Now you are also able to view screenshots, changelogs, descriptions and reviews for iPod Touch and iPhone applications.

Besides, last month Apple also started using QuickTime to offer 30 second song samples encoded in 44.1 AAC 300+ kbits/second.

Debra Shinder from TechRepublic posted an article about 10 reasons why she won’t buy an iPad. As time passes by her thoughts provoke more and more passionate discussions on this topic. So here are these 10 reasons:

1. There is no physical keyboard (or you need to buy an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard).
2. One size doesn’t fit all (it doesn’t fill the gap between mobiles and netbooks as 9.7” inches is an exact screen size of netbook, and you cannot put it into your pocket).
3. It runs iPhone OS (so there is no multi-tasking).
4. There’s not enough storage (and you cannot expand it via USB-flashdrives).
5. There’s no HDMI output or camera (if you can watch video, why you can’t make videoconferences with your friends?).
6. There are no USB ports (and you would not be able to connect your own web-cam, for example).
7. There is no flash memory slot.
8. The price is not right (it just seems to be illogical to pay 200$ for additional 48 GB )
9. It is locked in. All apps are in AppStore, and good ones cost money.
10. It is all about network (why should people change their internet provider to AT&T just because of purchasing some new device?).

While Debra compares fully-equipped 829$ iPad with a powerful and though compact laptop, it seems like she’s looking for an ability to make use of all its capacities. On the other hand, TUAW critics and Apple fans say that iPad is designed to be an enhanced ebook-reader that makes it easy to handle everyday operations like checking e-mails or surfing the web.

What do you think?

SlideToPlay published several interesting videos where popular games are shown on the iPad in action. You can see games like Need for Speed Shift, Super Monkey Ball 2 and NOVA played on the big screen. Some of them are optimized for the bigger resolution, others are just a 2x bigger rendering of the exact same iPhone game you can buy now.

The titles of the first movie are Assassin's Creed, Sims 3, Tetris, and Paper Toss:

Here's the video of NOVA:

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The software company RATP gave an interesting presentation called "How to successfully market your iPhone application". This presentation gives advice to AppStore developers how to increase sales and learn new marketing strategies.

Let's watch:

Darren Beckett created a small table, comparing the entry-level iPad's cost and functions with popular e-readers like the Amazon Kindle DX, Fusion Garage JooJoo, Sony Reader and others.

While the iPad is as the most expensive on the list, it's fairly obvious if you need anything more than a simple e-reader, the iPad offers the most bang for your buck.

BroadPoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall calculated the real price of the Apple iPad. His numbers are based on the price of all components.

The flash memory and the aluminum case both cost about $25, while the Apple A4 processor is just $15. The total cost for 16GB Wi-Fi iPad (US$499) is just $270.50. Manufacturing adds $10 and warranty service costs add up to $20.

Thr 32GB and 64GB Wi-Fi models add even more margin. The 32GB model costs only $25.50 more than the 16GB, but the suggested retail price is $100 more. Apple will really make money on the 64GB model, which costs $76.50 more than the 16GB device but sells for $200 more.

Google released a software update for Android-based Nexus One smartphones. The update offers a number of enhancements, but the most interesting one is a support of the multi-touch technology in phone's Browser, Gallery and Maps applications. The new functionality is called "pinch-to-zoom".

Google previously had an agreement with Apple, that Android OS would not support multi-touch in the U.S. Now it looks like all the agreements are gone.

Engadget posted a video of the Nexus One's pinch-to-zoom functionality: