ipad

Why some people are so angry about the iPad

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

Textbook publishers heading to iPad

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

Analyst: Apple will sell 8 million iPads by 2012

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

The 404 Podcast 511: Where the more you ignore us, the closer we get

All the recent frenzy over the Apple iPad might be too much for the tech nerds of the world to handle. Tuesday, Josh Topolsky of Engadget reported on a disturbingly high volume of "ugly, pointless, and frankly threatening" comments on the Web site and took action by indefinitely closing all comments on the blog. We appreciate Josh's wake-up call, although vocalizing one's opinion through anonymous blog comments is just another extension of the Internet.

We definitely empathize with the site's moderators, however, who must be tearing their hair out trying to protect Engadget visitors from trolls, predators, idiots, and all the other lobos on the Web. Good luck with that, guys!

In other tech news, TechCrunch gives us a first look at Google's interpretation of a modern tablet device, as imagined by Glen Murphy, Google Chrome's designer. The video you see on the site is just a mock-up, however, so don't get your hopes up! At this point, we'll take just about any tablet that doesn't have an Apple on it.

We can't thank our buddy Props Guy Jim enough for making the awesome "The 404 Bunch" poster you see to the left. Jim is the same gentleman who came through with 3k temporary tattoos, so thanks again! Look for a full-size poster coming to a 404 studio near you.

EPISODE 511 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Lumberjacks beware; owners love their e-readers

Tree huggers rejoice.

E-readers are a hit, or rather 93 percent of owners surveyed by research company, The NPD Group, say they are "very satisfied" with their device. Only 2 percent of buyers reported being dissatisfied, according to the research firm.

What this means is that technology appears to be improving upon an information-distribution system nearly 4,000 years old. It also means that book publishers better get on the ball.

Most of those surveyed owned either an Amazon Kindle or a Sony Reader, the leaders in the e-reader space, Ross Rubin, NPD's executive director of analysis, … Read more

Is this how gamers will use Apple's iPad?

I would rather eat someone else's rain gear than play video games for 10 hours a day. But I will defend the right of everyone to play, as long as they aren't getting on my nerves on an airplane.

So while I know that many have focused their enthusiasm for Apple's new iPad on drooling over its potential as a device for consuming books and movies, below is some footage that might make gamers feel somewhat tingly, too.

I was directed to this Warcraft III video by Cody Brown, an NYU Social Entrepreneurship undergraduate and founder of Kommons.com.… Read more

Citrix to help users run Windows 7 on the iPad

Citrix Systems claims that it can help users run a virtual installation of Windows 7 on the Apple iPad, when the tablet device is released later this year.

Writing in a blog post on the company's site, Chris Fleck, the company's vice president of Community and Solutions Development, said those companies that use either of the company's desktop virtualization platforms, XenDesktop or XenApp, will be able to use Windows 7 from the iPad.

"It turns out [that] the 9.7-inch display on the iPad, with a 1024x768[-pixel] screen resolution, works great for a full [virtual … Read more

Does Google wish the iPad didn't exist?

How has Apple's launch of the iPad made other companies feel? Has it brought sneaking admiration or steaming ire?

I fear that Google might not be leaping for joy like leprechauns.

You see, one of the strange world figures I have arbitrarily come to follow on Twitter, 15-year-old Irish blogger, Tommy Collison, decided he would use Google unparalleled search engine to see how much disk space there was on the iPad.

Being a manboy of strong left brain, he entered "disk space on iPad". What he received was apparently innocent incomprehension. "Did you mean 'disk space … Read more

iTunes 9.0.3 released

Apple has released iTunes 9.0.3, which addresses a number of bugs found in previous versions of iTunes 9. The update provides a number of important bug fixes, including:

iTunes no longer ignores your " Remember password for purchases" setting. Addresses problems with syncing some Smart Playlists and Podcasts with iPod. Resolves a problem recognizing when iPod is connected. Addresses issues that affect stability and performance.

The "remember password for purchases" fix will be very popular, since it has been the biggest complaint we've ever received from iPhone Atlas readers about iTunes.

iTunes 9.0.… Read more

Six reasons iPads and cars don't mix

When I saw the Apple iPad unveiled last week, I immediately thought about how I could mount that sucker in my car. After all, Apple's Mac Mini is already the heart behind many custom car computing setups and there are more than a few car-centric iPhone and iPod Touch apps that will certainly be compatible with the new device. With a smaller profile than the Mini and a bigger screen than the iPhone, the iPad seems ripe for some sort of in-car application.

Then I thought it over more carefully and realized that using the iPad in the car is probably a horrible idea. … Read more