ipad

I know that so many of you have been a little undecided on this important subject, so this seriously significant information may be enough to sway you as to your own deeply conflicted feelings.

The majority of your fellow humans are not interested in owning an iPad.

No, I haven't been pounding the streets and screens of this world in order to ask everyone still living and breathing after the iPad launch announcement. Instead, I have lucked upon an article in Computerworld, which tells me of some survey work performed by online comparison shopping helper Retrevo.

Retrevo possibly performed … Read more

Although Apple's iPad has yet to hit the market, the Federal Communications Commission has expressed concern over its potential impact on AT&T's 3G network.

Without naming AT&T, which has secured a carrier deal for the tablet device, Phil Bellaria, director of scenario planning, and John Leibovitz, deputy chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, outlined their concerns in an FCC blog post Monday:

With the iPad pointing to even greater demand for mobile broadband on the horizon, we must ensure that network congestion doesn't choke off a service that consumers clearly find so appealing, … Read more

Humans really are like magpies; we love shiny things. The iPad shows yet again how easily we are attracted to hardware baubles, even if it's actually the more abstract ecosystem of services, content, and software surrounding the hardware that makes the physical product truly worthwhile.

I find this a fascinating phenomenon, and it's something I talk about in the chapter on Convergence in my book, as it's a critical thing to understand if you are in the business of creating ecosystems that combine hardware, software, and service elements. I've seen it happen time and again where … Read more

As I noted on the day the iPad was released, the fact that another company may be the one to make the tablet computer a mass-market consumer device has to leave plenty of folks in Redmond smarting.

But while most of that frustration has stayed private, one former Tablet PC team member has lashed out publicly. Dick Brass, a former Microsoft VP who left the company in 2004, lashed out at Redmond in an op-ed piece that ran Thursday in The New York Times.

As some have questioned what the release of the iPad means for Amazon, Brass said he … Read more

Despite finally breaking a year's streak of quarterly losses, Sony's press conference Thursday will likely be remembered mostly for a quote that's already being mocked by tech blogs.

During a press conference to announce its earnings, Sony Chief Financial Officer Nobuyuki Oneda expressed his company's interest in competing in the touch-screen tablet market with Apple. According to ComputerWorld, he said:

"That is a market we are also very interested in. We are confident we have the skills to create a product...Time-wise we are a little behind the iPad but it's a space we would like to be an active player in."

Seems reasonable enough, right? Lots of companies would--and will--follow Apple's lead. It's just the nature of business, and we expect it. But it's important to point out why Sony is being mildly ridiculed for this quote: because in most observers' eyes, this is exactly what's wrong with the company. The gadget maker that used to be at the forefront of innovation is rarely first at anything anymore--with the exception, it should be noted, of the Sony Reader, the first modern e-book reader. But over the past decade they've gotten beat at their own game in several major categories: music players (Apple), televisions (Samsung), and video games consoles (Microsoft and Nintendo). … Read more

Clues are being discovered in hardware and software that are leading to more speculation that the iPad can support a front-facing iSight camera.

According to Mission:Repair's blog, the site received a shipment of parts used to repair the iPad. Inside that shipment, they found a metal internal iPad frame with what appeared to be a "spot" for a camera.

Mission:Repair's curiosity led it to grab a Unibody Macbook, disassemble it, and pull the iSight camera--a standard unit--from its frame.

The site staff discovered that the camera fit perfectly inside the hole within the iPad … Read more

Some people get angry about anything to do with Apple. It's not for me to suggest they should get a life, because I am sure they feel they already have one, thank you very much.

However, the launch of the iPad seems to have revealed a rather more base and extreme level of emotional outpouring, last seen, perhaps, when Sports Illustrated created its first swimsuit edition.

Engadget, for example, decided to shut down its comments for a while in order to let the bile float off down the Nile.

For those outside the Fanboy Funhouse, it all seems rather odd. Which is why I was moved to pay attention to an e-mail I received from Sandee Cohen, self-confessed angry person. Cohen is no ordinary angry person. For a start, she is running a two-day seminar at next week's MacWorld Expo. How many angry people could do that?

Cohen is a mistress of the Adobe Creative Suite, but, as an intelligent angry person she has some theories as to why she and others are experiencing their negative emotions.

"Mac users feel they have some sort of investment in Apple. The older ones kept with the Mac platform when it was in danger of dying out. They may feel that since they supported the Mac, they have a right to tell Apple how to make products, operating system, etc.," she told me.

And you more junior, unwashed enthusiasts, well, you have some issues too, apparently.… Read more

Publishers aren't wasting any time getting their books onto the new iPad.

Publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Kaplan Publishing, McGraw-Hill Education, and Pearson have signed deals to be among the first to port their textbooks over to Apple's new tablet. Heading to the iPad as well as the iPhone and iPod Touch will be their textbooks, study guides, and test prep manuals.

Announced on Wednesday, the agreements were made with ScrollMotion, a company that develops the iPhone e-reader app Iceberg Reader and works with publishers to digitize their books for the mobile market.

The digital textbooks promise a slew … Read more

If analyst predictions are any indication of what the iPad will see in actual sales, it's going to be a good run for Apple.

In a research note to clients on Wednesday, Needham & Company's Charlie Wolf predicted Apple would sell two million iPads in fiscal 2010 and an additional six million devices in 2011, according to a report on AppleInsider.

What's interesting is that Wolf says more than half of the iPad sales would be drawn from the iPod Touch. Many have said that the iPad looks like a larger version of Apple's iPod Touch. … Read more