Macgasm

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In this episode, we talk about the failure of hardware specific messengers.

[02.6 MB] [00:07:40] [Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner] [Subscribe]

I think Apple has some editing of their algorithm to do when it comes to searching the US iTunes App store. I tried, although I knew it was futile, to search for iBooks, one of the new Applications for the iPad. So these are the results I received.

This one is from the desktop version of iTunes.

And this one is from the Mobile App Store for iPhone OS.

I don’t know if they are trying to suggest something or if they just managed to miss a little detail regarding the iPad. It made me chuckle.

Long-rumored to be set for the $1000 price point, the iPad was either going to be an evolutionary device built upon the framework of the iPhone and iPod Touch, or a regressive, stripped-down tablet version of a MacBook. Once the rumors began that the device would run a version of the iPhone OS, it became apparent that the hardware would certainly be the former. Thankfully, those rumors were confirmed at today’s Apple event held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

The simple description of the iPad hardware is that it resembles an oversized iPod Touch with more width to it while only slightly thicker (.17”), an incredible feat of design in itself. The iPad is 9.56” h x 7.47” w x .5” d and weighs in at a light 1.5 pounds (1.6 pounds with 3G modem). The black border around the screen is perfectly designed for holding it without unnecessarily invading the viewable screen. The brushed aluminum back is standard, familiar Apple design.

When powered on it is a stunning piece of technology. Driving iPhone OS 3.2 is Apple’s own 1 GHz A4 chip, “a custom-designed, high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip”, per Apple’s tech sheet. This chip enables the iPad to display 1024×768 HD video resolution at 132 pixels per inch. The device also supports video out, though it does not support any HD output. As should be expected with any device from Apple, a wide array of audio and video codecs are supported. To store all the content Apple wants to sell to you for use on the iPad, there are three different flash drives available for the device: 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB.

All models of the iPad come with built-in WiFi, with support for 802.11 a/b/g/n. Additionally, for a premium of $130 the iPad is available with a 3G modem supporting UMTS/HSDPA and GSM/EDGE for areas where 3G is unavailable. As with the iPhone and iPod Touch, the iPad also sports Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR technology. Rounding out the tech specs are the now-ubiquitous accelerometer, a 3.5 mm stereo headphone jack, ambient light sensor and a lithium-polymer battery that supposedly provides up to 10 hours of usage and up to 30 days of stand-by time.

The iPad is priced well below the $1000 price point that had long been predicted. Here is the complete pricing breakdown:

After all of those features and the great pricing it is a bit easy to forget that there are some significant hardware features missing. There is no SD card slot and no USB or Firewire port, but perhaps the most significant missing piece that seems like a no-brainer is an iSight camera. How it did not make it into the final hardware spec is beyond imagining; it would be a cheap, small, and light piece of hardware to add and would instantly increase the iPad’s usability three-fold. Perhaps this is just typical Apple iterative hardware release scheduling at work, i.e. we will see a next generation iPad with iSight, but it certainly is puzzling.

Of course the final analysis of the iPad product cannot be made until it has been released to the public and has had time to germinate in the real world. The hardware specs certainly support the possibility that this is a revolutionary product, but whether the iPad becomes the next “it” gadget for Apple or not will rely more importantly on the next OS release and, most importantly, application development.

[via engadget]

Today Apple announced their ‘latest creation’ the iPad. The iPad is essentially a larger form factor iPod touch with the capability to also provide 3G data for use while you’re out and about. Let me break down the data options.

First off, there are two models to choose from with differing capacities of 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB of memory. The first model is Wi-Fi only. The prices for this model are $499, $599, and $699 respectively. The second model is The WiFi + 3G. Those prices are $629, $729, and $829 for each capacity respectively.

The only carrier for the iPad (so far) is AT&T. Now, many groan at this prospect, particularly those in San Francisco and New York City, I am in the Chicago area, where there have been few reported problems with the AT&T network that are not structural in nature.

There are two data plans, a $14.99 per month and a $29.99 per month. The $14.99 per month gets you 250MB of data. This is good for those casually go outside of Wifi and would need to occasionally download something.  if you’re planning on spending a lot of time on the 3G network you might want to consider the second option that comes in at $29.99 per month. The second price point will give you an unlimited data plan, but don’t be fooled, unlimited probably means a couple gigabytes of bandwidth. In most cases 5GB is the cap and I know, as of right now with my iPhone, I’ve never hit that cap. The highest I’ve gone was 1.6GB in a month, and that was out of the norm.

I know you are already thinking ‘I do not want another monthly bill’. Well, you’re in luck. Apple has managed to convince AT&T that the iPad plan will not be a contract plan, but instead a ‘pre-paid’ or ‘pay as you go’ type of contract. This means that if you know you’re going to be traveling a lot during a particular month, you may opt to pay the $29.99 for the plan for that month and not pay for the plan the next month.

The iPad will probably be different in terms of data usage given the fact that it is a larger screen and is a much better video watching device than an iPhone. However, only time will tell how much data is actually used,  and we won’t know that until we can actually get our hands on one.

If you do not feel like having to pay AT&T but still want to be able to get data while on the go, take a look at our own Josh Schnell’s post on how to circumvent the data plan.  It’s speculative at the moment, but the concept is pretty interesting.

So, the keynote is over, the lights have come back up, and now comes the punditry. Everyone’s spouting off that the iPad is going to change the world, and we’ll see the end of the Text Book Age and the beginning of the Tablet Age – well okay, maybe not “The Tablet Age,” but definitely Apple’s Tablet Age.

So the next logical question is what the heck is the competition going to do to outdo the iPad. Probably the same thing the cellphone companies are doing to outdo the iPhone – beg, borrow, and steal, but very little real innovation. Before you come with the nooses, hear me out for a minute.

I wanted a Kindle, and I certainly would have taken a Barns and Noble Nook, but now I can get that experience in full color. That’s a lot of encouragement right there, and with battery capacities inching along towards more efficient designs, I really have to sit back and wonder if we really need e-ink. I haven’t held an iPad and I certainly haven’t spent 10 hours trying to read on it, so for all I know it could make my eyes bleed, but with a color screen you can do a lot of stuff, like video and gaming. There’s a lot of stuff the iPad might not do, but I think it does a lot more than its counterparts currently, and given society’s love affair with iPods and iPhones, more than a few of us are going to be willing to drop a couple dollars on it.

I won’t call the iPad a Kindle killer just yet, but I think it has begun its stalking phase, and it might take a stab at it at any moment.

Why am I not declaring the Kindle dead just yet?  People love their single function devices.  Being able to have an e-reader that’s just an e-reader and that gives you an extraordinary battery life is something that an iPad can’t compete with just yet.  If Apple wants to replicate an old fashioned book they’re going to have to take on the efficiency of the e-ink technology.  You’ve got to hand it to Apple, they’re trying, but they aren’t quite there yet.  People don’t want  to spend a lot of time worrying about another device to charge up, so if this thing really has the standby life that Apple says it does then the iPad could be a major competitor to the Kindle. It’s all about battery life with these devices, and until we get a prolonged look at the iPad, we’re not going to know how it really stacks up to its competitors.  Real life is a lot different than Apple’s suggested timeline for battery life, so 10 hours could really mean 5, which just wouldn’t be enough.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out, and more importantly what Amazon’s next move might be with the Kindle.  It should be an interesting year for mobile computing.

We pay good money for unlimited data plans.  What exactly does unlimited mean, and why is it that we need a new data plan for every single device we buy?  Doesn’t make much sense to me, and I’m sure a lot of you might be in the same boat.

So, why doesn’t a data plan for an iPad make sense for some of us?  It’s because we have an iPhone in our pockets, and the last time I checked some of us were capable of tethering that device to a computer.  This might not be the case in all countries, but up here in Canada Rogers is currently letting us tether our phones.  We call them up, and they enable access.  Pretty simple stuff.

Mr. Jobs never announced that we’d be able to tether this device to any other device in our arsenal, but he did announce that the iPad had bluetooth.  The fun thing is that the iPhone allows for tethering over bluetooth.  See where I’m going here?  I think Jobs got it right when he said that most people can survive on 250MB of data on their iPhone’s, and I’m sure that for most people, they won’t even bother with the 3G data plan, but for those of us who need it once every fifty-two weeks, a tethering option would be optimal.

The logistics will probably come down to semantics, and Telecommunications companies will probably do everything in their power to make sure that tethering isn’t an option, but on the rare occasion that a company has the balls to be a little bit different and afford us the option with our devices, being able to tether over bluetooth will be a valuable tool.

This is all pure speculation at this point, but it’s one question that I’d like answered.  If I can tether my iPhone to an iPad and save myself $150.00 plus an additional monthly charge, I’m going to do it.  I’m sure most of you would too.

Today’s Apple Event brought forth a lot of excitement, but some interesting things got lost in the shuffle. Here are some of the great announcements about how Apple is doing business-wise:

• Apple has sold over 250 Million iPods
• Apple has 284 retail stores worldwide
• Over 250 Million visitors in the retail stores last quarter
• Over 140 Thousand applications available in the Apple Store
• After this last quarter’s 15.6 Billion dollars in revenue, Apple is a 50 Billion dollar company

This is pretty great stuff that will be completely ignored in the news today. If you are an investor or just an enthusiast, these numbers should be very reassuring. Apple is in a very good place, and we should be happy.

Photo Credit: deltaMike

I’ve spoken of this before, but I really would like to get into this topic more deeply. I have been extremely outspoken against automated playlists for the longest time. I am very picky and moody about what music is playing, so I was adamant that “Some robot” isn’t going to know what to play.

For the past few months, I have been in a very serious relationship that continues to become more serious. When we’re together I want a very specific type of music to be playing. I want fifties-style easy listening to be playing continuously, and nothing else. This is where those goddamned “Robots” come into the situation. They work extremely well in this specific arena. I have really come to appreciate Pandora and iTunes Genius.

Pandora

If you need some tunes RIGHT NOW, Pandora is your best bet. Type in a song or artist in the style of your choice, and music begins streaming immediately. The best part is being able to hone the style of your ad-hoc “Station.” By giving each song either a thumbs up or a thumbs down, the algorithm will slowly begin to understand exactly what it is you want. For example, I have a station for when I am with the girlfriend that has Dean Martin as a base. After tweaking it for about a month, we only hear songs that we like. Just be warned that there are small ads about every eight songs. It is much better than terrestrial radio, but $36 a year will make those pesky ads go away completely.

iTunes Genius

If you’re a music connoisseur with a huge library, Genius is a really good way to group your similar music together. If you only want to hear the acid rock in your collection, using iTunes Genius is a smart move. Just make sure that Genius is allowed to update itself so you have the best results.

In sum, artificial intelligence isn’t going to replace the blood, sweat, and tears of a mix tape any time soon, but it is a superb way to get a genre or style of music very quickly.

Photo Credit: mattfred