The war of words between Apple and Adobe over the former’s resolve to never to let Flash on its devices has taken a new turn now. Apple is all set to launch Gianduia, which is a substitute for Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight platforms, on its mobile devices. Apple had stated earlier that it would rather go for HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. Apple unveiled Gianduia at World of WebObjects Developer Conference, describing it as a client-side, standards-based framework for Rich Internet Apps to create quality online apps for its retail users.

If you think that Gianduia is a new thing, you are in for a surprise as this technology is already in use in its retail support applications such as One to One program, iPhone reservation system and Concierge program for Genius Bar and Personal Shopping reservations.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs had stated his opposition for Flash on Apple devices because it is “a closed system” and that Apple would support only open web standards. He further stated, “We know from painful experience that letting a third-party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in substandard apps, and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform.” Will Gianduia will be a Flash-killer? Only time will tell.

Resource:
http://www.techtree.com/India/News/Apple_Gianduia_to_Substitute_Flash/551-111098-580.html

Siri, a start-up based in San Jose, Calif., describes itself as a virtual personal assistant for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. For example, Siri users can speak commands like “find a table for two at 9 tonight” or “send a taxi to my house”; using GPS and speech-recognition technology, the application translates the commands and uses search algorithms to find answers. For results, Siri worked with several companies, including Citysearch, OpenTable and Taxi Magic.

An Apple spokesman, Steve Dowling, declined to comment on the specifics of the Siri deal. “Apple buys smaller companies from time to time but doesn’t comment on products or plans,” he said.

Norman Winarsky, vice president of licensing and strategic programs at SRI International, a research lab that helped develop the application, confirmed the sale but declined to disclose any financial details of the transaction. Mr. Winarsky described the sale of Siri, which was released as a mobile app in February, as “a great event for us in terms of our impact on the world.”

Before its sale to Apple, Siri raised a total of $24 million from investors, including Menlo Ventures and Li Ka-Shing, a Chinese billionaire who has also invested in Facebook.

Apple may eventually hope to offer an alternative to Google’s search service on the iPhone, the iPod Touch and the iPad, said Charles S. Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. Google has made large investments in voice command search, location-based search and advertising and in visual recognition search.

“Apple is trying to break ties to Google,” Mr. Golvin said. “Rather than have search in the browser, users would have a more relevant search application to use.”

Apple has acquired several smaller companies over the last few months as part of a larger effort to gain an edge on rival mobile companies. Most recently, Apple bought Intrinsity, a company that makes a speedy computer chip for mobile devices that uses very little battery power while processing graphics, video and other images. In January, Apple acquired Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising company.

“This is as much about keeping this good technology away from Google as it is about wanting it for themselves,” Mr. Golvin said.

Resource:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/technology/29apple.html?src=busln

In that earlier blog, I listed some of the reasons buyers gave for lining up to purchase the iPad on April 3, the first day of sales. The reasons and reader responses to those reasons are worth a second look since the iPad, like the iPhone, is one of those products that could alter the computing landscape permanently.

How exactly this will play out is of course still unclear. One reader, however, argued that the iPad will create a more pronounced “schism” between those who “create a lot of content”–i.e., people who use more powerful Macs and PCs–and “all the rest”–the latter defined as people who use small, highly-mobile computers like the iPad and Netbook for media consumption and light productivity.

Comments were varied, running the gamut from readers who thought the device was redundant and/or impractical to those who thought it to be a worthy purchase.

Here’s a sampling, pro and con:

• Hard to justify: “I love Apple products….However I can’t justify purchasing this device…A novelty product.”
• Steamroller: “Apple haters, technical scowlers, squinters, and grouches–eat your hearts out because the IPad is going to take over the world.”
• Productivity versus consumption: “My home computer will suffice for the number crunching, code compiling and media encoding needs. The iPad will be my encyclopedia, mailbox, newspaper, library, music jukebox, video player for the home and on the go.”
• Regression: “People are paying for something that does less than what we’ve been doing before…Because we want to be able to do two things at once (multitasking)…that makes us nerds?”
• Better than a Kindle: “Much as I hate to admit it, I’m likely to be an early adopter as soon as the 3G arrives…I have to read & review a lot of academic papers on the go. Not a great use for a laptop, iPhone is too small, notetaking on the Kindle (and PDF handling) way too limited.”
• Useless: “The more i read about the iPad, the more it angers me…its SO useless. a 500 dollar + device, for really really bad reasons. High end netbooks, that can do multitudes more, are cheaper. I can’t wait till more people realize how bad this device is, and it plummets.”
• Apple allure: “One glaringly obvious reason is missing from this list. ‘Because it’s from apple.’ Like apple, hate it, or anything in between, you still have to recognize…brand loyalists who would buy any product Steve Jobs waved in front of their faces because it was the latest greatest thing.”

Resource:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20002213-64.html

For ABC fans it sounds like a nightmare, and it’s great news for the ABC itself, since its app will remain ad-free. But in fact it’s great news all round: it means high-quality commercial publishing may yet live, not die under the benign, democratic, jackboot of Google.

The true genius of the iPhone, as well as any potential the iPad might have to change the world of publishing, lies in the invention of the application – something that didn’t really become clear until well after the iPhone was released in 2007 and the new app development industry really started hitting its straps.

It’s also a demonstration of the enduring power of great distribution to foster great content. We are learning that distribution is king (not content) but content is the monarch’s prime minister.

Apple created a seamless distribution system with the iPhone and the app store and now 185,000 apps have been created and 4 billion have been downloaded.

I’m now used to reading books on the iPhone. One app has 23,000 free books that are out of copyright that can be quickly downloaded and easily read, while another, Kobo, sells new releases.

So I’m reading books and newspapers, watching TV, playing Scrabble, doing my banking, running my calendar, looking for restaurants, checking the footy scores all through apps on my iPhone. The iPhone is becoming more and more essential every day, thanks to the apps.

The price range of the apps is huge – from zero to $70 (that I know of, for a GPS navigation system) – and some apps are asking for a monthly subscription (not very successfully I suspect).

In a couple of months Apple will launch a series of changes to the iPhone system that will take this system to the next stage, including embedded advertising.

When Apple’s new operating system for the iPhone, OS4, is released soon, it will contain what Apple calls iAd – an advertising platform that will allow app developers to put ads into their applications.

The most popular apps are free, or very cheap, which means no-one is making much money. But it turns it was a kind of Trojan horse strategy – either deliberate or not.

As Apple chief Steve Jobs said when he announced iAd a week ago: “The average iPhone user spends around 30 minutes a day using apps. Now, if we said we wanted to put an ad up every three minutes, that would be 10 ads per device per day. We’re going to soon have 100 million devices [running the iPhone OS]. That’s a billion ad opportunities per day in the iPhone and iPod touch community.”

Publishers thought the internet would be a Trojan horse as well – that they would give the content away for a while and then when everyone was hooked, start charging. But that didn’t work because, as I wrote on Friday in Business Spectator, content is not king, as they thought.

Presumably iAd will work on Apple’s new tablet machines as well, so publishers will be able to replicate and then enhance their traditional business model – charging for the content and putting advertising with it – on two devices, one large and one small.

Consumers will take their pick: one device that includes a phone and goes in your pocket, but has a small screen, or carrying an extra device with a big screen that’s easier to read. Maybe the iPad will eventually be a phone as well, so you just need that.

iAd is a direct assault on Google, or rather it completes the assault that began with the invention of the iPhone and continues with the iPad. Apps are simply a better and more reliable way to get content than the internet browsers on which Google relies.

More importantly, it turned out to be very difficult for a content vendor to make a living selling material of any value in a browser on the internet, distributed by Google.

Rupert Murdoch complains that Google “steals” the content, which is silly, but the effect is the same: content is being distributed for free.

The app store is now becoming much more analogous to the print distribution system that Murdoch grew up with, except for one thing: the barrier to entry into the system is very low, which means prices will be lower.

But at least they won’t have to be zero, and the publishing market will be able to find a new equilibrium that will support decent content.

Apple is taking a big risk, however, in making it a closed system. The new OS4 tightens controls so application developers can use no third party tools and software – mainly designed to prevent them using Adobe’s Flash system.

Jobs is once again betting that his fully integrated product design will prevail against an open platform.

It’s a repeat of the battle that Apple and Microsoft waged in the 1980s, which Microsoft won. This time Google’s Android smart phone operating system and Adobe’s Flash are taking the role of Microsoft.

Jobs is betting that, this time, his devices, the apps and the app store are a sufficiently unique distribution system to give Apple a decisive advantage. With iAd as well, he could be right.

The battle between Google and Adobe’s open system and Apple’s closed one will be a king War of the Worlds. At this stage Apple has the advantage, but that’s how it seemed earlier in the fight between it and Microsoft, until the cheap manufacturers of Asia drove down the prices of clone PCs.

This time manufacturing cost is not an issue – it’s all about distribution of content. And Google doesn’t have iTunes or an app store that channels money to those who make the content.

Resource:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/12/2869846.htm

Thursday, the company added more missing pieces when it introduced the fourth generation of the iPhone operating system at its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. After a wait of almost three years, we finally get multitasking–though not for everyone–and other sorely needed features like home screen folders and a unified e-mail in-box. The update is available for developers now with the general release for the iPhone and iPod Touch coming this summer and the iPad in the fall.

It doesn’t deliver quite the changes that we got from the iPhone 3.0 release last year (at least for now), but rest assured that OS 4.0 is a major update that checks off more boxes from our standing iPhone wish list. Though OS 4.0 is set to bring 100 new features, CEO Steve Jobs and Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iPhone software, focused on the seven biggest changes, or “tent poles,” during the course of Thursday’s event.

Multitasking

In our review of the iPhone 3GS, multitasking led our list of common cell phone features that were lacking. Granted, that list was shorter than it had been with previous iPhone versions, but multitasking remained a major omission in light of Android and the Palm Web OS.

Apple, however, has a special talent for making us forget such things by packaging an existing feature in a flashy new way. As Jobs said, Apple isn’t about being first, but rather about “being the best.” We’ll have to get our hands on the update before we fully agree, but Apple appears to have hit the mark. During the demo, Jobs showed how you’ll be able to tap the Home button twice to get a pop-up menu of running apps at the bottom of the display. As you switch back and forth, you’ll return to the exact point you left, even if you’re in the middle of a game. There’s no task manager of any kind and Jobs dismissed competitor devices that have one. As he put it, “If you see a task manager, they blew it.”

Though the pop-up menu only shows four apps at a time (you may be able to swipe through a longer list), you’ll be able to run at least 12 apps simultaneously. Jobs did not say if that number is a hard limit, but we’ll confirm that one exists when we get to play with the OS ourselves. Forstall insisted that multitasking would not affect performance because Apple distilled background processes into seven API services. They include audio from apps like Pandora Radio (yay!), VoIP (for Skype calls), push notifications, and task completion. Multitasking also will support local notifications and related security setting enhancements.

There is bad news with multitasking, though. The feature is compatible only with the iPhone 3GS and the third generation of the iPod Touch. Owners of other iPhone and iPod Touch models still get other OS 4.0 benefits, but you’ll need to upgrade if you want the full package. Before you run to the store, however, keep in mind that OS 4.0 probably won’t appear until after the Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June. At that event–we’re still waiting for firm dates–we should get new hardware, so make your upgrade decision then.

iPhone OS 4.0 features

Folders

Are you sick of scrolling through seven home screen pages to find your app? We certainly are, which is why we welcome the option for home screen folders. After a long press on the home screen (so the icons “jiggle”), you can take an app and drop it on top of another to create a folder. To see the contents of a folder or change the default name, just tap it for an expanded view. You can add as many folders as you like, but we’re unsure if there’s a limit to how many apps you can store in a single folder.

The process appears to be easy, though we wouldn’t say it offers a huge change from the equivalent steps on Android. It’s interesting, though, that with multitasking and the home screen folders, Apple is slowly chipping away at the advantages that Android currently holds. We love a good fight so we can’t wait to see how this develops.

E-mail

Though e-mail has always worked well on the iPhone, the experience has been a little disjointed with its various in-boxes and limited options for message sorting. Fortunately, the OS 4.0 update fixes some of those flaws. Not only will you get a unified e-mail in-box, but also the ability to add multiple Exchange accounts, organize e-mails by thread, quickly switch between accounts, and open attachments with a preferred app. We’re most excited about the unified in-box–sometimes it’s the little things–but we certainly wouldn’t kick the other features out of bed.

iBooks

iPhone owners will be able to get iBooks, the Apple’s e-book reader, on their devices. They’ll also be able to access Apple’s iBookstore to purchase new content. And if you have an iPhone and an iPad, you can read your book on both devices (with just one purchase) and sync your current page.

Enterprise

Though Forstall said 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies are using the iPhone, the device still doesn’t have quite the reach of the BlackBerry in IT departments. Yet, Apple continues to pursue that market with new features like enhanced data protection, mobile device management, wireless app distribution (nice), and multiple exchange accounts. Also new is support for Exchange 2010 and SSL VPN from Juniper and Cisco.

Game Center

Coming “later this year,” so perhaps not at the same time as the general OS 4.0 release, is Game Center. It will bring features like a social gaming network, the ability to invite friends to games, leaderboards, achievements, and the opportunity for “matchmaking” (setting up two people to play). We didn’t get an extensive demo of Game Center so Apple may still be tinkering with it.

iAds

Though Jobs and Forstall spent a lot of time on this feature, we’re not so enamored. Apple knows that iPhone users spend a lot of time in apps and it has recognized the revenue opportunities. iAds appears to be all about making you “want” to click on an ad by offering multimedia and interactive content. Jobs described it as combining “interaction” and “emotion” like we get in TV commercials. For example, if you have an ad about “Toy Story 3,” you’ll be able to see a preview and search local theaters for showtimes.

Though iAds will deliver new functionality to users, developers clearly are the primary target audience. Jobs even said that Apple wants to help developers make money by offering them a 60 percent share of any revenue. Yes, we understand that free apps aren’t really free, but the prospect of more ads cluttering our phone isn’t exciting. And you can be sure iAds will be available beyond the iPhone 3GS.

Other changes

Jobs and Forstall didn’t detail the 93 other new features of iPhone OS 4.0, but we did get a brief glimpse of other additions at the start of the presentation. Here are a few to ponder.

• Spell check
• Larger fonts for e-mail, texts, and alerts
• Persistent Wi-Fi
• Tap to focus video
• Customizable wallpapers for the home screen
• Search text messages
• Choose image size in mail messages
• Recent Web searches
• Create playlists
• 5x digital zoom in camera
• Bluetooth keyboards
• Gifting of apps
• iPod out
• Birthday calendar
• Wake on wireless
• File and delete mail search results
• Web search suggestions
• Rotate photos

What iPhone OS 4 means for the iPad

Version 4.0 of Apple’s iPhone OS is going to bring many welcome improvements to the iPad, including multitasking, app folders, and more capabilities for app developers to tinker with. Unfortunately, though iPhone 3GS and third-gen iPod Touch users can expect to run the new OS this summer, iPad owners will need to keep patient until fall.

On the upside, there are a few OS 4.0 capabilities included on the iPad currently that iPhone users will have to wait until summer to play with. Features such as iTunes playlist creation, home screen wallpaper, and iBooks will have iPhone users giving the iPad envious looks until their upgrade is available. Also, the iPad already offers apps that all can maintain your place after exiting the app. These include: Numbers, Keynote, Pages, and iBooks.

Another silver lining iPad owners can hold on to is the fact that OS 4.0 should come as a free upgrade. The iPad’s OS 3.2 documentation states that OS upgrades will be provided to users free of charge up to and including OS 4.0.

The collective groan from iPad users is mostly over having to wait for OS 4.0’s multitasking capability. Given the iPad’s aptitude for Web and e-mail browsing, it’s a shame that users can’t yet use these features simultaneously–a fact that Netbook proponents are quick to point out.

It might be easier to muster some patience if we only understood why Apple chose to stagger the roll-out to the iPad. No reason was cited at the OS 4.0 unveiling event. Given that Apple releases a new crop of iPods every fall like clockwork, it’s possible that the iPad update is being deliberately delayed to dovetail with an iPod announcement and Apple’s rumored cloud music service. It’s also possible, given the larger screen of the iPad, that porting over iPhone OS 4 simply requires more time.

Resource:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-20001998-233.html

Apple’s iPad sold 300,000 units by midnight April 3, including pre-orders, on its first day of general release: enough to ensure the device as a commercial hit, at least in the short-term. In a larger way, though, those sales numbers represent not so much a victory for Apple but a sign that a market indeed exists for consumer-oriented tablets. As companies ranging from Hewlett-Packard to Nokia prepare similar tablet PCs in coming months, Apple’s hardware choices and rollout could become the competitive benchmark by which these competitors map their own choices and strategy.

Some signs of that shift are already present in HP’s strategy for its upcoming tablet, with videos and a company blog showing off the device’s ability to video conference and snap images. HP has also highlighted its Slate’s support of Adobe Flash, which powers rich content on many popular Websites. By contrast, the iPad does not support Flash, nor does the current version include a camera—both things that HP seems eager to highlight as the competitive differentiator for its own offering, due at an as-yet-unannounced point later in 2010.

“With this slate product, you’re getting a full Web browsing experience in the palm of your hand. No watered-down Internet, no sacrifices,” Phil McKinney, vice president and chief technology officer for Hewlett-Packard’s Personal Systems Group, wrote in a March 8 posting on the company’s Voodoo Blog. “A big bonus for the slate product is that, being based off Windows 7, it offers full Adobe support.”

McKinney followed that up a few weeks later with another Voodoo Blog post touting the HP slate’s other abilities.

“Think about the last time you chatted with friends over Skype on your notebook,” McKinney wrote on April 5. “Or uploaded a picture from your mobile phone to Facebook or Flickr. How about the last time you viewed images or video from an SD card or USB device. We know that you expect to be able to capture and share digital content on your mobile devices.”

That same day, Engadget posted an image of what it claimed was an internal HP presentation comparing the specs of the company’s upcoming tablet PC to the iPad. That document suggested that the “HP Slate” would retail for between $549 and $599, and feature a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor, inward-facing VGA Webcam and outward-facing 3-megapixel camera. Windows 7 Home Premium, tethered to a proprietary HP touch-optimized user interface, will serve as the operating system.

Nokia is also developing a tablet competitor for entrance into the market later this year, according to recent online reports.

“Right now the supply chain (for a Nokia tablet) is being primed up for a fall release. It has to be on the shelf by September-October to meet demand for the holiday window,” Rodman and Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar told Reuters on April 7. “You don’t want to give that much of a lead to Apple because otherwise it becomes insurmountable.”

Nokia apparently declined to comment on those supposed developments. Other manufacturers, including Fujitsu and Fusion Garage, have tablets in some stage of active development. This year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas highlighted a number of laptops with touch-screen functionality, including the HP Touchsmart tm2 and Fujitsu Lifebook T4410, designed with an eye towards both the tablet and traditional PC markets.

But how will these tablets market themselves? HP and Fusion Garage, creator of the JooJoo tablet, are already touting their Flash support in a bid to slice off some iPad market-share. (Recent online reviews of the JooJoo’s Flash support have been unkind.) Other manufacturers could follow that same route, using Flash support to set themselves apart, whether or not their device uses Windows 7 or another, more proprietary user interface.

“By ignoring a pervasively widely used technology like Flash and treating its parent company with disrespect,” Charles Kind, an analyst with Pund-IT Research, wrote in a March 10 research note, “Jobs opened the door he must have preferred to leave closed: providing his competitors the opportunity [to] define these devices, technologies and markets far more clearly than he himself has done.”

On April 5, HP released a 30-second video demonstrating its slate’s video conferencing and image-snapping abilities, suggesting that both it and other companies may use embedded cameras as another differentiator over the iPad.

Yet despite the hoopla surrounding the iPad’s launch, and other companies’ aggressive entrance into the space, the tablet market is still nascent; as one analyst warns, simply because Apple managed to sell a few hundred thousand units during its new product’s first weekend on the open market doesn’t mean that others will be able to reproduce a similar feat, extra hardware and Flash support or no.

“The market will play host to a flood of ‘me too’ tablets in 2010, but it’s an immature product category with an unproven use case,” CCS Insight analyst Geoff Blaber told Reuters in an April 7 article. “Apple’s brand and service offering means the iPad will be an exception in a category that will struggle to gain consumer acceptance.”

Resource:
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Apple-iPad-Sets-Tablet-Bar-for-Nokia-HP-Microsoft-801771/

In the coming months, we’ll see how exactly the iPad will impact the ‘gadget’ industry. Will it save publishing? Will it revolutionise gaming? Will it change lives? Will it kill laptops and netbooks?

Apple has priced the basic Wi-Fi-only version at $499. The highest-end 3G version goes up to $825. Pricing will play a significant role in whether the iPad gains widespread acceptance or remains a niche product that is reduced to being an expensive indulgence or a fanboy badge of honour. People respond to pricing based on perception-they will compare a product to what they consider alternatives in the same category. Since the iPad is technically creating a whole new category (at least according to Apple), consumers will start comparing it, to either other media players such as the iTouch, or netbooks and laptops. And herein lies the rub. Evaluated on its own as a standalone category, the iPad does seem like it’s reasonably priced. However, things get murkier when you start comparing it to media players or netbooks. Netbooks and laptops offer far greater functionality and much better value for money. Media players, notably Apple’s own iTouch, offer very acceptable experiences at much lower prices. And so, while many consumers will still buy the iPad simply for the quality of its experience, many will consider it and then opt for alternatives which, in their perception, offer better value for money.

However, the fact is that Apple are past-masters at manipulating perception, and convincing huge masses of people that the iPad is something they absolutely cannot do without shouldn’t be a major challenge. It is undeniable that they have delivered an impeccably engineered product that delivers an experience quite unlike any other. And all those complaints about the lack of features, functionality and the closed ecosystem really won’t matter, because the iPad user is looking for an experience, not functionality. Thanks to Apple’s flair for great design and supercharged brand management, it will only be a section of techies and sworn Apple-haters who will end up disappointed, and this is not something that will give Steve Jobs sleepless nights.

While the price of the device itself shouldn’t be a major worry, the price of content is going to play a more significant role. If the iPad is to seriously impact publishing and gaming, then it needs to offer a wide variety of affordable content. But a monthly subscription to the iPad version of the WSJ is $17.99, while an iPhone subscription to the same publication costs less than $10. Going by initial murmurings, books and games are also going to be costlier, on average, on the iPad than on other digital distribution platforms. How this impacts the acceptance of the device as a primary media consumption platform remains to be seen.

What Apple needs to watch closely, this time around, is the competition. While mobile handset manufacturers were caught napping by the iPhone’s revolutionary design, there is already talk of iPad-killing devices hitting markets soon. The iPhone had the advantage of completely upending the market because it changed the perception of what people want from a phone. With the iPad, Apple is the incumbent that is setting the standard-and the competition will look for ways to make their products ‘better than the iPad’. Since there really are no strong preconceived expectations from the consumer for the category, people will be more receptive to competing products this time around. In fact, lots of potential customers have already proclaimed that they are waiting for alternatives from companies such as HP, Asus and India’s own Notion Ink before they take a buying decision. It’s extremely likely that these products, with the benefit of hindsight, may offer comparable experiences with more flexible features and open standards that attack the iPad’s perceived weak areas. In the long-term game, Apple could find that how they respond to competition could make the difference between mainstream dominance and niche presence.

But hey, this is Apple. They have built up a fan following that borders on being a religion, based on their ‘less is more’ philosophy. They have shown that a lot of people value simplicity, aesthetics and quality of experience over features or flexibility or open standards. Will they prove it all over again with the iPad? I wouldn’t bet against it.

Resource:
Yahoo News

On Thursday, Apple Inc. will unveil updates to the software that powers both devices. Although Apple has provided no details, iPhone owners and computer programmers who write applications for the popular smart phone are hoping the company will address their gripes about limits to such multitasking. The matter may escalate as people with iPads, which have larger screens, try to use them in place of more powerful computers.

The iPhone already allows for some multitasking, but that’s largely limited to Apple’s own programs. One of Apple’s recent commercials shows an iPhone user taking advantage of time spent on hold paying bills, checking e-mail, playing games and then switching back to calling.

But Apple has yet to give users ways to seamlessly switch among all the software “apps” available from outside software companies, the way phones from rivals Palm Inc. and Google Inc. already do.

So an iPhone user wouldn’t be able to listen to music using the Pandora program and check a bank account online simultaneously, for example. In most cases, users must return to Apple’s home screen, effectively quitting the open program, before starting a new task.

That’s unacceptable to many users and software developers, and full multitasking remains high on many people’s wish lists. Because Apple’s new iPad runs the same software as the iPhone, changes would apply to that larger gadget as well. Some people have held off buying one because of its inability to run more than one program at a time.

But the reasons Apple is believed to be resistant to broader multitasking — worries about battery life, performance and security — remain.

Ross Rubin, an analyst from NPD Group, said he believes those are still big issues for Apple, and he doesn’t believe full multitasking will be among the changes in the iPhone operating system to be announced at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters Thursday. Apple did not immediately answer requests for more information about its plans.

Apple has given software developers limited ways to work around the multitasking restrictions, such as allowing them to send very basic notifications nudging iPhone users to open an app for updated information.

Some people hope that if Apple doesn’t add multitasking, it would at least make the notifications less intrusive. Now, if a notification comes through, users must deal with it or dismiss it before returning to what they were doing.

The last time Apple made a major revision to its iPhone operating software, in March 2009, it added features that many iPhone users had been clamoring for since the device launched two years earlier. Those features included the ability to copy, cut and paste, and a search function that worked across all programs.

But this time, beyond multitasking, there seemed to be fewer big-ticket requests from everyday iPhone owners.

The new version of the iPhone system that Apple is announcing Thursday, likely to be known as OS 4.0, probably won’t be available for a few months. Most of the changes would have immediate appeal to software developers, not regular users, said Charles Golvin, an analyst for Gartner Inc.

Golvin believes Apple is likely to launch a system for delivering ads to iPhone and iPad apps, reflecting its January acquisition of mobile advertising company Quattro Wireless.

Although many of the changes Apple makes to the iPhone software will take awhile to translate into benefits for the average iPhone user, the most committed Apple watchers and bloggers have been honing their iPhone wish lists.

They want, among other things, a unified inbox for all e-mail accounts, support for more e-mail folders, wireless synching with a computer and a way to connect an iPhone with a regular keyboard, by plugging one in or using Bluetooth wireless technology.

But as is always the case, predicting the next move by secrecy-obsessed Apple is next to impossible.

“It’s Apple,” Golvin said, “so who … knows what actually could come out.”

Resource:
Yahoo News

The last time we saw the Slate was in the hands of Steve Ballmer during a rather tepid presentation in Las Vegas, with Ballmer showing off the Kindle reader and struggling a bit as he tried to tee up a video. But HP has clearly stepped up its game, starting with this snazzy 30-second teaser video that makes a point of showing off all the features on the Slate that are missing on the iPad, such as a built-in camera, a USB port (a real one, not an adapter), and an SD card slot.

Just a few hours after the video was posted, Engadget managed to snag what appears to be an HP marketing sheet — titled, none too subtly, “HP Slate vs. iPad” — that specifically stacks up the Slate to the iPad, point for point. Now, before we dive into the details here, let’s just point out that HP has yet to officially cough up detailed specs for the Slate, much less a price tag or a release date (other than “this year,” that is). Still, if what we’re looking at here is real, it’s a pretty clear indication that HP is positioning the Slate as an iPad killer.

Looking at the (purported) spec sheet, the Slate appears to have a series of enticing features that are missing on the iPad. There’s the camera, of course, and we’re not just talking one but two: a 3MP lens in back and a front-facing VGA camera for video conferencing. We’ve also got a single USB 2.0 port, an SD card reader, a “conventional” SIM tray for 3G networking, and HDMI-out video capabilities (not to mention 1080p playback) via the Slate’s dock connector. (Each of these key points are highlighted on the leaked marketing sheet as an “HP advantage,” by the way.)

Pretty interesting, and here’s a few more details to boot (again, not official): an 8.9-inch, 1024-by-600-pixel display (slightly smaller and lower-res than the iPad), a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor under the hood, and 32 or 64GB of built-in flash storage (expandable via the SD card slot). The spec sheet doesn’t mention Flash support specifically, but HP has already made it pretty clear that yes, you will be able to view Flash videos on the Slate.

The leaked spec sheet describes the Slate as measuring 9.2 by 5.7 by 0.57 inches, making the Slate (potentially) a tad taller, narrower, and thicker than the iPad (9.56 by 7.47 by 0.5 inches), as well as a tiny bit lighter (1.49 pounds, vs. 1.5 pounds for the iPad).

The leaked marketing sheet also ticks off a few specs labeled as “HP threat” — in other words, areas in which the iPad would have a leg up over the Slate, at least for now. Among them: no support for 802.11n, the latest official Wi-Fi standard; just five hours of battery life, versus 10 hours for the iPad; and a slightly more expensive price tag for the 16GB model ($549, versus $499 for the 16GB iPad) — although, to be fair (and if the leaked specs are true), the $549 16GB Slate might come with a SIM tray, whereas the equivalent 3G-enabled iPad will set you back $629.

Of course, one of the biggest selling points for the Slate (and yes, this we know for certain) is Windows 7, a full-on, multitasking, desktop-caliber operating system. The iPad runs on a modified version of the iPhone OS, and among other things lacks third-party-app multitasking (although that may be changing soon). Then again, the iPad OS is specifically designed for touch and runs lightning-fast; Windows 7 is designed for a keyboard and mouse (HP is promising a “touch-optimized UI” to help with fingertip navigation). And it remains to be seen whether Slate’s 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor will be up to the task of making Windows 7 run smoothly on a 1.5-pound tablet.

Let’s just say one more time that the leaked marketing sheet obtained by Engadget isn’t official; and even if it is real, the listed specs are certainly subject to change; and again, we still don’t have an official price tag.

Still, if the Slate proves anything, it’s that the tablet wars won’t end with the iPad; indeed, they’re only beginning. If the iPad turns out to be a hit (and the jury’s still out), it’ll spur more competition in the tablet “space” (“Courier,” anyone?), and that’s a good thing.

Resource:
Yahoo News

So here are answers to some of the most common questions I’ve received, in hopes they may help clear up any confusion. One caveat: Apple is offering a “sneak preview” on Thursday of a forthcoming revision to the iPhone operating system, which powers the iPad, so some changes might be revealed.

Can you print from an iPad?
Apple didn’t build in a printing function, so you can’t just tap a menu button to print an email, photo or Web page. But a few third-party apps allow printing of some items from an iPad to a networked printer. One is Print Online. It costs $5 and I tested it successfully. But these apps are complicated and limited workarounds—inadequate substitutes for built-in printing.

The iPad lacks a USB port, so how do you get files into it ?
Like the iPhone and iPod Touch, the iPad has the familiar Apple connector port and comes with a cable that links this port to a USB port on a PC or Mac. Then, using iTunes on the PC or Mac, you can sync over to the device your songs, photos, videos, contacts, apps and more.

New to the latest version of iTunes is a function that will also transfer to the iPad files like Microsoft Office documents. But this feature only works if you’ve installed on your iPad certain programs that can edit these documents, such as Apple’s optional $10 word-processor, spreadsheet and presentation programs. Documents can be moved in the other direction, too.

You also can get some types of documents into the iPad wirelessly, if you receive them as email attachments or as downloads from the Web. For example, if you receive a Word-document attachment, and you have Apple’s Pages word processor installed, you can send it to Pages, where it can be stored and edited. Pages can then send back the edited version.

Is there a way to type on the iPad without laying it flat and using the virtual keyboard ?
There are several. Apple sells a $39 case that bends to angle the device in a more convenient typing position (and allows for hands-free video watching). The company also sells a $69 accessory physical keyboard that features a dock at the rear to hold the iPad upright. In addition, you can type on the iPad using Apple’s $69 wireless keyboard for the Mac, which can be held on your lap.

Can I run Windows or Mac programs on the iPad ?
Not unless their makers produce iPad versions of these programs. The iPad doesn’t run the Macintosh or Windows operating systems, so it can’t run programs designed for them. It runs the iPhone operating system, which is only compatible with iPhone and iPad apps, of which there are more than 150,000. There are some iPad and iPhone apps that let you remotely control Windows and Mac computers, so you could indirectly run Windows and Mac programs via the screen of an iPad, but that isn’t like running the programs locally.

I hear the iPad lacks multitasking. What are the downsides of this ?
First, let me clarify that the iPad (and iPhone) can technically perform multitasking, or running more than one program at once. But Apple has chosen to limit this ability to some of its own built-in apps, and deny it to third-party apps. For instance, the built-in email program will continue to receive messages while you are watching a movie on the built-in video player.

The downsides of denying multitasking to all apps are considerable. For example, you can’t listen to streaming music from the Pandora music app while checking email. And you can’t view fresh Twitter posts while on other apps. You have to close the app you’re in, then re-launch a Twitter app and wait for it to fetch the new posts. And, you can’t, say, check email or surf the Web while waiting for a complex game to load in the background, because the game stops once you change to another app.

Since the iPad’s battery is sealed in, how do I replace it ?
The battery isn’t designed to be replaceable by the user. Apple will replace your iPad with one containing a fresh battery for $107, including shipping. The process takes up to a week. Most important, you will lose all your personal data unless you back it up regularly to your computer and restore it on the replacement iPad. Details are at: apple.com/support/ipad/service/battery/.

Resource:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303720604575169843380092872.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular