Hasta La Gadget!

People wait in line to buy an iPad 2 outside the downtown San Francisco Apple store Friday. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

It turns out that even a relatively minor upgrade is enough to make Apple fans wait in line.

Outside the Apple store in downtown San Francisco, between 200 and 300 people were queued up by noon Friday to buy the second-generation Apple iPad. The line stretched the length of a city block, around a corner and halfway up the next block.

The line outside the flagship Fifth Avenue Apple store in New York encircled an entire city block by 4:30 p.m. Eastern, according to The New York Times‘ Nick Bilton. The first person in that line reportedly sold her spot for $900, according to Mashable.

That’s pretty impressive for a product whose first version sold 15 million units and whose second-version changes have been called “unremarkable.” Yet, lining up on the day a new Apple product launches has become almost a tradition, with lines sprouting up for the first iPhone, the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 as well as the first-generation iPhone. It’s a trick that other consumer electronics manufacturers would love to replicate — but almost none have (with the exception of Sony’s PlayStation 3 launch).

The iPad 2 goes on sale in Apple stores at 5 p.m. local time. The Apple website began taking orders Friday morning at 4 a.m. Eastern time.

The first person in line in San Francisco, Joshua Leavitt, had been there since 4:30 a.m. He’s being paid to purchase iPads for two customers of TaskRabbit.com, a bid-based system for getting other people to run your errands for you. He’ll be getting $40 to $50 for each of the two iPads he’s buying, Leavitt said, for a total of about $100 for a full day of standing on a chilly San Francisco street.

“I’m otherwise relatively unemployed, and it is a heck of a better way to spend my free time than making no money at all,” Leavitt said.

Apple employees were confident that everyone in line at that point would be able to purchase an iPad, so even those arriving at noon would probably be in luck. (Apple limits customers to two iPads each.)

But for those arriving later, it’s not guaranteed that you’ll get one. At some point, Apple employees in San Francisco said, they would hand out tickets to everyone in line who’d arrived early enough to get one.

Waiting in a long line may not be necessary. If past product launches are any guide, the company will continue to restock its retail locations daily. Getting to an Apple store early on Saturday, Sunday or Monday and waiting in a shorter line may be the easiest way to get an iPad 2 at this point.

Alternatively, if you’re not in a hurry, you can order online at the Apple site. The site is currently quoting delays of two to three weeks to deliver iPads ordered online, which is roughly comparable to the delay shortly after the first iPad launched.

After that launch, shipping delays gradually declined as Apple filled its retail pipeline, according to a graph published on iPadJailbreak.com.

Continue reading iPad 2 line watch: the few, the proud, the soaking wet (updating)

iPad 2 line watch: the few, the proud, the soaking wet (updating) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 14:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When you think about it, an iPhone-based rig that lets anyone carry a decent vocal effects rig around in their pocket sounds like a recipe for disaster. Just look at that gentleman in the promotional image above, for example: for all we know, he sounds like one of the week one American Idol rejects — but thanks to the miracles of modern technology and around $80 in spending cash, he fancies himself the next Clay Aiken. Ah, well, no use trying to stop this train. A new $20 app called VocaLive (there’s also a free version available) from IK Multimedia includes 12 real-time effects that can be chained up to three at a time, along with a recorder that can run up to four tracks for an extra fee. You can use the iPhone’s built-in mic or a handsfree if you like — but for “best” results, you can pre-order the company’s $59.99 iRig Mic that was announced back in January, which plugs into the phone’s headset jack and features a second connector for real-time monitoring. Either way, your friends and family are sure to quickly regret it.

VocaLive, iRig Mic, iPhone conspire to create vocal talent where none exists originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 13:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you were expecting your new 13-inch MacBook Pro’s Core i7 CPU to Turbo Boost its way north of that default 2.7GHz clock speed, we might suggest discontinuing your anticipation. Two separate reviews of the laptop are reporting the curious case of its Core i7-2620M processor failing to automatically overclock itself the way it should. Intel’s dual-core chip is capable of a maximum speed of 3.4GHz, but reviewers weren’t able to get it any higher than its stock setting while testing Apple’s latest 13-incher. High temperatures were identified (north of 90C / 194F) as the likely culprit, with Notebook Journal also finding its machine throttled down to 798MHz due to heat dissipation issues. PC Pro theorizes that Apple intentionally disabled the Turbo Boost functionality on this particular MBP model in order to preserve your lap and your pride from being scalded by melting components. That would make sense to us, and hey, it’s still a fast machine, just not Turbo fast.

[Thanks, Markus]

Update: AnandTech‘s findings contradict the above, with Anand asserting that “there’s absolutely no funny business going on here, the dual-core 2.7 is allowed to hit its maximum frequencies.” Seems like we’ll need to keep digging to get to the bottom of this one.

Update 2: We’ve confirmed with Apple that there are no specific hardware or software limits to block the Turbo Boost function, however we’ve also discovered, through less direct sources, that the company is providing new low level software tools to diagnose cooling issues with the 2011 batch of laptops. Ergo, the speed limits that PC Pro and Notebook Journal encountered might have been caused by inadequate heat dissipation, which arguably is no less troubling than an Apple-mandated de-Turbo-fication.

Intel Turbo Boost is MIA on new 13-inch MacBook Pro? (update: negatory) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 05:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you want to be the first of your friends to say you bought an iPad 2, take note that Apple will officially open up its online store for orders of the device at 4:00 AM Eastern Time.

Of course, customers who place their orders online will have to wait for it to be delivered. Those who want to actually have an iPad 2 in hand tomorrow will have to wait until 5:00 PM, when Apple retail stores will actually put the device on their shelves.

That’s the same time that other retailers, including AT&T, Verizon, Walmart, Best Buy, and Target have also been instructed to begin selling the gadget.

Exclusively for customers who go to an Apple Store, a free Personal Setup service will be offered. This means e-mail synchronization, iTunes linking, and even a few free apps will all be set up before leaving the store.

As a reminder, here’s the rundown of Apple 2 prices:

WIFI

– 16GB: $499
– 32GB: $599
– 64GB: $699

3G

– 16GB: $629
– 32GB: $729
– 64GB: $829