Tag Archives: iPad

Apple iPad to launch April 3rd, pre-order on March 12th

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The Apple iPad took one step closer to the brink of reality today when Apple announced a ship date.  iPads will be available for purchase Saturday, April 3 at Apple Retail stores, online at Apple.com, and “select Apple Authorized Resellers.”  (Could that mean we’ll see iPads sold at Best Buys?  Time will tell.)   On March 12 (one week from today) you can pre-order the iPad (Wi-Fi + 3G models) at Apple.com or you can reserve the iPad (Wi-Fi model only) at an Apple Retail store and pick it up on that date.  The 3G model will be released in “late April.”  Speaking of late April, peoples of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK will get their paws on the device at this time.  Need to be reminded the prices of the models and how much poorer you will be come next month?

Fun fact: Apple’s stock hit a record high Friday afternoon, jumping to $219.70 before it slightly fell to $218.95 at closing time, up around 4%.

[Via Apple; Yahoo!]

Penguin shows off its vision for the iPad

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John Makinson, CEO of book publisher Penguin, unveiled to a crowd this week his vision for the iPad and how be plans on pushing “books” and other content to it.  I say “books” because these demos look more like applications to me.  In fact, Makinson says, “for the time being at least we’ll be creating a lot of our digital content as applications for sales in app stores in HTML, rather than as ebooks.  The definition of a book itself, as you can see, is up for grabs.”  As demonstrated in the video above, Penguin plans on bringing children’s books with support for embeddable sound, touch interactivity, and accelerometer (shaking/tilting) implementation; interactive textbooks (human anatomy, shown here); an “online community for vampire lovers” (OK?); a travel companion with an itinerary and maps; and lastly a far-out “intergalactic GPS system” that uses the GPS chip and augmented reality to reveal star constellations when you point the device to the sky.  That last one will likely remain a concept for a while.  It’s good to see a company really looking ahead into the future of print/digital media.  The iPad has the power to do these things; it’s up to the developers (here, book publishers) to make it happen.  ‘Nother video of Makinson speaking to the crowd about his ideas after the break.

Watching these demos makes me wish I had a kid so I could buy him an iPad and watch him interact and learn in ways I never imagined were possible when I was a toddler.

[Via PaidContent; Gizmodo]

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Wired is coming to the iPad, looking suh-weet

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So this is what Wired is going to look like on the iPad.  Pretty cool, huh?  Wired teamed up with Adobe to create Wired Reader, a digital version of the real-life magazine.  The UI looks stunning and the back-and-forth between pages, images, and video is very fluid.  It runs on top of Adobe’s AIR app, allowing developers to easily convert the Reader to run on other mobile devices and even the PC or Mac.  Will the iPad revolutionize the print media industry?  Hard evidence like this points towards a resounding “yes.”

[Via Wired]

Comic books will look fantastic on the iPad

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When the iPad was announced, Steve Jobs hinted that app developers would have the option to port their apps as they are from the App Store (aka do nothing) or they could rebuild their apps to support and take advantage of the large screen, faster processor speeds, and better graphics.  Comic book app maker Panelfly is going to do just that.  Panelfly, along with developer team SugarCube, plan on reinventing the way comics are purchased and read with a new comics app made specifically for the iPad.  Here’s how the app works on the iPhone: You download the Panelfly app from the App Store for free and you add comic books to your library with in-app purchases.  According to Stephen Lynch, CTO and designer at Panelfly, the iPad version will experiment with different purchasing models (subscription-based possibly?) and also commented that the app UI will be very reminiscent of Apple’s native UI, and that’s a good thing.  Though he couldn’t spill the beans on pricing and go into much detail about the UI, at least we have these images to glaze over until the app likely releases alongside the iPad in late March.  If developers follow in Panelfly’s footsteps the iPad will quickly generate a whole new market for app devs and will certainly make the iPad a desirable product.

[Via Gizmodo]

iPad keynote event…in adjectives

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When Steve Jobs hosts an Apple keynote event it’s a given that someone will splice together all of the superfluous adjectives used to describe the new product or service at hand.  Last week’s announcement of the iPad is no exception, and this time that someone is Neil Curtis.  Curtis says all adjectives used in this video were taken from the iPad keynote alone, and no scene is ever repeated.  Magical!

[Via Gizmodo]