Tag Archives: Apple

iPad 2 on sale tomorrow, here’s when & where to get it

The next generation iPad is nearly here. Tomorrow, March 11 it arrives in stores. Starting at 5PM local time, all 236 Apple retail stores in the US, AT&T stores, retailers like Best Buy, Target, Verizon Wireless, and Walmart and select Apple Authorized Resellers will unleash iPad 2 unto the world. Starting at 1AM Pacific Time customers will be able to order the tablet online through the Apple Store. As you know, the iPad ranges in price from $499 to $829 determined by storage capacity (16, 32, 64GB) and connectivity (WiFi, WiFi + 3G with AT&T or Verizon). Black and white models will be available at launch. For those of you who have patiently been waiting for updated iPad hardware, today is the day to reward yourself and celebrate.

And here’s a nice surprise. Along with iOS 4.3, Apple has let loose the new iPad versions of GarageBand and iMovie one day early. They’re both available for download at the App Store for five bucks each.

Official PR after the break. Continue reading iPad 2 on sale tomorrow, here’s when & where to get it

iOS 4.3 out now; Apple TV receives new content and enhancements

Today Apple released the latest version of their mobile operating system–that is, iOS 4.3–one day earlier than expected. Just about coinciding with the launch of iPad 2, iOS 4.3 brings with it all kinds of goodies including significantly increased Safari performance, iTunes Home Sharing, AirPlay improvements, iPad side switch behaviors, and personal hotspot functionality for iPhone 4; it’s all detailed right here. Bug fixes and the like are bundled in too; hop after the break to find a rundown of what’s included. iOS 4.3 is a free download for all GSM iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and third and fourth-gen iPod touch owners. Connect your iOS device to a computer, fire up iTunes, and you’ll be notified to download and install the update.

In related Apple news, their hobby puck has also received a welcome system update. ATV owners will now be able to stream baseball and basketball games through the ether straight to their TVs thanks to MLB.tv and a NBA League Pass Broadband support. These services require pay subscriptions. In addition, Netflix has received 5.1 audio support. Cheers to that!

[Via Engadget 1, 2] Continue reading iOS 4.3 out now; Apple TV receives new content and enhancements

iPad 2 coming March 11: faster, lighter, thinner w/ iOS 4.3 & cameras

On Wednesday Apple revealed the next generation iPad. The iPad 2 is very much an evolutionary iterative device. It is faster, lighter, and thinner than its predecessor, packs back and front-facing cameras, and comes preloaded with a new version of iOS. Take my hand and let’s discover everything that makes iPad 2 the next extraordinary tablet, or as Steve Jobs calls it the “third blockbuster post-PC product” joining the iPod and iPhone.

Specs are important to you, hm? Then let’s start there. iPad 2 is faster. It features Apple’s new 1GHz dual-core A5 processor that is up to 2X faster than the A4; it boasts up to 9X faster graphics and somehow still maintains the same low power as the A4. Battery life remains the same at 10 hours with over a month of standby. iPad 2 is lighter and thinner. It is a mere 8.8mm thick, that’s 33% thinner than the original iPad (13.4mm). In fact, it is even thinner than iPhone 4 (9.3mm). It also lost some weight dropping from 1.5 to 1.3 pounds. On the front you’ll find a VGA camera that takes pictures and records video at 30fps; the camera around back shoots video in 720p HD also at 30fps and can do 5x digital zoom. The built-in gyroscope will assist the device in locating itself in space and orientation; higher precision in gaming will result. Last, Apple has hooked up with AT&T and Verizon to bring 3G data to the tablet.

iPad 2 is coming sooner than you think. It will be made available for purchasing March 11 in two color options: black and white (thankfully the latter ships “from day one”, teehee). Pricing remains the same, too; iPad 2 will come in various capacities (16, 32, 64GB) and models (WiFi, WiFi + 3G) starting at $499. After releasing on the 11th in the U.S., the new iPad will make its way to an additional 26 countries (including Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, and the UK) on March 25.

Learn all about iPad 2’s accessories, iOS 4.3, and new apps after the break. Continue reading iPad 2 coming March 11: faster, lighter, thinner w/ iOS 4.3 & cameras

Apple rewards MacBook Pro line a deserved refresh

It has been close to a year since Apple rejuvenated its MacBook Pro line of laptops with fresh processors and graphics chips. This go around the engineering team decided not to change the lappy’s aesthetics but instead upgrade only the internals. Neatly hidden inside the aluminum unibody MBPs are Intel’s latest Core i5 and Core i7 “Sandy Bridge” dual/quad-core processors, Intel HD Graphics 3000, and AMD’s beefier Radeon HD graphics, depending on the screen size (13, 15, and 17 inches). Take note that Apple has ditched NVIDIA’s mobile graphics cards for AMD’s latest and greatest.

Another new addition to the MacBook Pro lineup is a port called Thunderbolt I/O. Apple teamed up with Intel to invent a rehashed version of the DisplayPort with dual copper wire-based Light Peak technology; it doubles as a video out port and a way to transfer data with speeds up to 10 gigabits per second. For comparison’s sake, Thunderbolt can move data to and from peripherals up to 20 times faster than with USB 2.0 (480 Mbps) and more than 12 times faster than with FireWire 800. It also happens to best Intel’s next-gen USB 3.0 which promises to reach speeds of up to 5 Gbps. With existing adapters Thunderbolt can support all kinds of throughput including DisplayPort, DVI, HDMI, and VGA; Mini DisplayPort support is native. Thunderbolt can daisy-chain up to six peripherals; and speaking of which LaCie and Promise are currently developing Thunderbolt-ready RAID arrays and high capacity external hard drives. Though the MBPs are the first products to include the Thunderbolt port, Intel expects other manufacturers to build it into their computers by early 2012. It’ll be interesting to see if Apple can pioneer the adoption of yet another new display/transfer port. They did it with FireWire way back when, so we’ll see. With Intel on board, they’ve got a fighting chance.

New processors, graphics, Thunderbolt I/O, higher capacity hard drives, and an improved FaceTime 720p HD camera find their way into the refreshed MacBook Pros. Hop after the break to find a full rundown of the new 13, 15, and 17-inchers, including specifications and price. They are all available to customize and purchase today.

[Via Apple]

Continue reading Apple rewards MacBook Pro line a deserved refresh

Apple is Hollywood’s product placement king

According to Brandchannel, a division of global branding agency Interbrand, Apple products can be found in 30 percent of the top movies at the U.S. box office in 2010. Last year delivered 33 high-grossing films that made it to #1 in the box office; Apple products appeared in 10 of them, so now you can see where that percentage comes from. Of the 591 brands identified in the #1 flicks, Apple was clearly the most dominant. Its product placement leadership over the years, however, has been on the decline. After reaching its product placement peak in 2008 (when Apple products showed up in nearly 50 percent (20 of 41) of #1 films), its visibility in those top films dropped about six percent in 2009 (appearing in 19 of 44 films) and a staggering 14 percent in 2010. Hop after the break to see a handy chart put together by Brandchannel that helps visualize things. Though the numbers may be dropping year-over-year, there’s no question that Apple wears the product placement crown. I mean, their products are so pretty, what do you expect?

Other fun facts brought to you by Broadcom… Nike, Chevrolet and Ford tied for second place after Apple, each appearing in 24 percent of the top films; Sony, Dell, Land Rover, and Glock appeared in at least 15 percent of the #1 films; the single movie with the most placements was Iron Man 2 with a whopping 64 brand placements. Click here for more stats.

[Via Gizmodo; Broadchannel] Continue reading Apple is Hollywood’s product placement king

Verizon iPhone launch information

The Verizon iPhone is almost here. Here’s the scoop on how to get yours.

During the wee morning hours of Thursday, February 3, Verizon Wireless allowed its current subscriber base to preorder the Verizon iPhone 4 on a first-come, first-served basis. After the first two hours of the preorder window (precisely between 3AM and 5AM) VZW ceased online orders of the phone due to high demand and ended the most successful first day sales in the history of the company. Missed out on this opportunity? Not a current VZW customers? Read on.

Beginning Wednesday, February 9, you can order the phone through the Apple Store online for delivery OR reserve it for in-store pick up beginning Thursday, February 10. At at 7AM local time on Thursday the 10th, run–don’t walk–to a brick-and-mortar Apple Store to purchase the phone; they’ll be sold on a first-come, first-served basis.  On launch day you’ll also find the phone being sold at over 2,000 Verizon Wireless Stores (also starting at 7AM), Best Buy, select Wal-Mart stores, and online at verizonwireless.com and apple.com. Verizon’s got a nice Special Upgrade Offer happening right now; it’ll help you save money on purchasing an iPhone if you bought your latest handset between 11/26 and 1/10.

Got it? Good. Starting brewing some coffee now and prepare for the online and retail insanity to begin. The day you’ve been dreaming about is just around the corner.

[Via Engadget, here & here]

News Corp. unveils ‘The Daily’, the first iPad-driven news publication

“New times require new journalism. Our challenge was to take the best of traditional journalism, competitive shoe-leather reporting, good editing, a skeptical eye, and combine it with the best of contemporary technology.” That’s how News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch opened up the launch event for his company’s brand new digital newspaper The Daily. It’s being described as “the industry’s first national daily news publication created from the ground up for iPad.” News Corp. and Apple worked together to come up with a news source tailor-made for the tablet community. The Daily will push out new content every day and publish up to 100 pages focused on these specific areas: news, sports, gossip and celebrity, opinion, arts and life, and apps and games. It takes advantage of the iPad’s multitouch display by providing interactive methods of implementation.  For example, the home screen of the app provides readers with a carousel view of the day’s news, and you can easily swipe through them and tap on the ones that interest you most. Also, you can use your fingers to take a 360 degree view of a photograph. In addition to photos, the paper will highlight news using text, embedded videos, audio, information graphics, and real-time data and social feeds. For example, inside the gossip and celebrity section you might find a Twitter feed of a celeb who is making headlines and discover what she is up to that way. In short, The Daily allows its editors to deliver stories to their readers in new and exciting ways that simply are not possible in the realm of TV, radio, and traditional papers.

The Daily also includes… A selection of articles can be read aloud to you by actual people (read: no GPS-like robotic voices); the paper can be customized with your preferences (think: weather, sports teams); the apps and games section provides reviews and ratings for select iPad applications and will link you directly to the App Store if you decide to purchase an app; Sudoku and crossword puzzles are available to play within the app; readers can leave comments on Daily stories in either written or audio form; said stories can be bookmarked and saved for reading later; stories can be shared with others via Facebook, Twitter, and email (those who receive shared stories can read Web-friendly versions of the articles even if they’re not subscribers).

Readers are promised a new Daily to be automatically downloaded to their iPad straight from the either 365 days a year with new content everyday. If a day happens to be packed with breaking news, the editors can jump into the paper at any time and provide readers with the latest news (they can even change the cover story if they like). All of this comes at a price; since The Daily is an iPad-driven news source News Corp. does not have to worry about paper, factory, and delivery costs and the savings trickle down to the subscriber. It’s priced at $.99 per week or $39.99 annually, not bad at all. The first two weeks of use are free, thanks Verizon Wireless. It’s first application made available on the App Store featuring a subscription model; subscriber fees are billed directly to an iTunes account. The Daily app is available to download today right here.

The Daily promises a new voice for a new technologically-advanced era. I’m excited that a powerfully influential force in Murdoch’s News Corp. is behind the first digital paper made from the ground up for the iPad, and I’m equally curious to see how newspaper readers respond to it. It’s easy to assume that the young crowd of 20-somethings will take the charge in signing up for subscriptions, but what I’m most interested in seeing is whether or not those people who are used to reading traditional (read: physical) papers will take a liking to The Daily and transition over to it. At the get-go it certainly takes advantage of Apple’s tablet in terms of browsing and visually immersive experiences, so we’ll have to see if the editorial team can keep things up all throughout the year. If they continually pump out new content and update the app appropriately with readability improvements, I envision a bright future for the newspaper readers of tomorrow.

Look after the break a visual tour of The Daily and official PR.

[Via The Daily] Continue reading News Corp. unveils ‘The Daily’, the first iPad-driven news publication

Motorola takes a bite into Apple with “Goodbye 1984″ advert

Here’s a sneak peek at Motorola’s flashy Super Bowl ad.  The Motorola Xoom tablet was teased last month and detailed at CES, so now it’s time to build hype before its mid-February release.  The Honeycomb packin’, dual-core processin’, 4G capable tablet is nearly ready to take on Apple’s iPad.  More than that, Moto is going so far to spit on Apple’s “1984” ways (“One authority. One design. One way to work.”) and replace it with ideals including “choice,” “exploration,”and “freedom.”  Gone is a world dominated by Apple and their pesky white iPod buds and ready to take over is a red gaseous planet with a giant M emblazoned on it.  Tablet competition is about to get fierce.

[Via Engadget]

Apple App Store hits 10 billion downloads

On Sunday Apple proclaimed that it hit the incredible 10 billion mark in terms of number of iOS apps sold.  Today the App Store offers more than 350,000 apps to iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users in 90 countries around the world.  Says Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing: “With more than 10 billion apps downloaded in just two and a half years–a staggering seven billion apps in the last year alone–the App Store has surpassed our wildest dreams.”  Gail Davis of Orpington, Kent, UK downloaded the 10 billionth app (it was Paper Glider) and will now receive a $10,000 iTunes gift card.  She should host a party with Louie Sulcer of Woodstock, Georgia; he also received the enormous gift for downloading the 10 billionth song using iTunes.

This really is a remarkable milestone for Apple, and I hope that competitors Android and Windows Phone 7 take this news and use it as fuel to amp up their respective app development following.

[Via Apple]

Apple reports 2011 Q1 earnings: $6b profit, Macs up 23%, iPhones up 86%, iPods down 7%, iPad…

Apple’s first quarter financial results are in!  And it’s another record-breaking quarter for Jobs & co.  Number crunching time.  Apple posted a $6 billion profit on $26.74 billion in revenue.  Compare this to one year ago, that’s up from a profit of $3.38 billion on $15.68 billion in revenue.  Says CEO Steve Jobs: “We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales. We are firing on all cylinders and we’ve got some exciting things in the pipeline for this year including iPhone 4 on Verizon which customers can’t wait to get their hands on.”

Now let’s break it down by product category.  Apple sold 4.13 million Macs during the quarter (representing a 23 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter); 16.24 million iPhones (representing a 86 percent unit growth); and 19.45 million iPods (representing an 7 percent unit decline).  This is the second quarter that includes iPad sales, and how did they do?  7.33 million iPads were sold and that’s way up from the total sold last quarter (3.27 million, in case you’re wondering).

Looking ahead to the second quarter, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer expects revenue of about $22 billion and diluted earnings per share of about $4.90.

Unfortunately the earnings call administered by Oppenheimer and COO Tim Cook did not shed light on the health of Steve Jobs who decided to take a medical leave of absence from the company yesterday.  However, the call did bring to light an interesting news bite.  Cook spilled that Apple has invested a ton of money to secure a “very strategic” component for its products.  Though he failed to mention the mystery component, most sources are pinpointing it on the development of extremely high-resolution displays for future iterations of the iPhone and iPad.

Also during the call, Cook commented on iPad’s competitors.  “If you look at what’s out there today, there’s not much,” said Cook. “There’s the ones that use Windows, they’re generally big and heavy and expensive. They have weak battery life, they require a keyboard or a stylus as an input device, customers are frankly just not interested in them. Then you have Android tablets, and the varieties that are out shipping today, their operating system wasn’t designed for tablets. Google has said this, this isn’t just Apple saying this. That means you have the size of a tablet that just isn’t reasonable for what we call a ‘real tablet experience.’ That’s just a scaled-up smartphone, which is a bizarre product category. If you do a side-by-side with an iPad, you’ll pick an iPad.”  He went on to uphold Job’s stance on Android from last quarter’s call: “We firmly believe that our integrated approach is better than the fragmented approach.”

[Via Apple; Engadget, here & here]

Steve Jobs takes medical leave from Apple

For the second time this year, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is taking a medical leave from the company.  Jobs will remain CEO, and again he has called upon COO Tim Cook to take over Apple’s day to day operations while he’s gone.  Here’s the letter Jobs sent to his employees on Monday:

Team,

At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple’s day to day operations. I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011.

I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.

Steve

Details surrounding his leave have not surfaced, and Jobs hopes it remains that way.  Get better soon Steve!

[Via Engadget]