Amazon’s contempt for anyone other than English-speakers may be the Kindle’s undoing. By ignoring the majority of the world, it has left a huge gap in the e-book market. Now Spanish speakers are being given their own e-reader and store in the shape of Spring Design’s Alex.
The Alex will be re-branded as the Papyre 6.S Alex and join other Papyre readers sold by Grammata, a Spanish-language e-book provider. The dual-screen, Android-powered reader will launch with a mere 1,000 titles (still around 1,000 more Spanish titles than Amazon offers), rising to 15,000 to 45,000 when its publishing deals are signed.
The Alex, you will remember, is similar to the Barnes & Noble Nook, with an e-ink screen up top and a colored touch-screen below. The launch model will have Wi-Fi, with 3G to follow. Good news, then, for Spanish speakers the world over. Or almost. The Alex will cost a ridiculous €450 at launch in July. That’s $615, or the price of another Spanish-speaking e-reader with Wi-Fi and 3G: Apple’s iPad. Good luck, Grammata.
If you take a look at Apple’s “magical and revolutionary” iPad, you might see a brand new device, an entirely new product category that sprung forth from Apple’s labs fully formed.
Take a closer look, though, and its parts start to seem rather familiar. In fact, pretty much every bit of the iPad has been seen before. We’re not talking about leaked spy photos either. Over the last several years, the iPad has been tested in public by Apple itself.
From the unibody case to the multitouch screen to the very software that drives the iPad, it seems that everything from Apple in recent years has been little more than a byproduct of the iPad design and testing process. Looked at another way, the iPad is little more than a rehash of features found in half a dozen previous products. Think I’m crazy? Here’s a list.
Unibody “Brick” (2008)
The unibody MacBook Pro was the most obvious clue to the looks of the iPad. The case of the MacBook Pro, like the iPad, is hewn from a solid block of aluminum, which has several benefits. First, it is stiff. Stiff enough to hold a glass screen in place without it flexing, hence the nickname “brick” which seemed to leak from Apple and was picked up by the rumor blogs.
It is also rather good at dissipating heat (from, say, a fanless computer) and it is light. And because it doesn’t require an internal frame, the unibody can fit in a lot more battery (more about that below).
Core Animation (2007)
When Steve Jobs demoed Core Animation at the Worldwide Developers Conference in 2007, we wondered what on Earth it was for. Jobs sold it as bringing “very high production values” to Mac applications, and demonstrated an app which showed a whirling wall of video thumbnails. It was flashy, sure, but pointless on a desktop machine. Put it on a multitouch device, with its requirements for animated user interface elements, and it becomes essential.
The Big Glass Screen (2008)
This also debuted on the unibody MacBook Pro, and although the iPhone got a glass screen first, this was the real test to see if it would work on a bigger device. Aside from complaints about its glossiness, people were also worried about cracking the screen. What happened was the reverse: The all-in-one glass and aluminum block is surprisingly tough.
That wide, black bezel, too, is a match for the one on the iPad. In fact, if you ripped the keyboard off a MacBook Pro, you’d be left with something very much like an iPad. The design has been there all along. Spooky.
Glass Multitouch Trackpad (2008)
Another MacBook Pro feature, the glass multitouch trackpad, was the first time we saw multitouch for more than than just two fingers. Now you could swipe with three or even four fingers at once, opening up a whole new class of gestures. The fact that the pad is glass is also important, as — despite being silver — it is pretty much a small version of the iPad’s screen. Many-fingered control is essential to the iPad, and is what really sets it apart from the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Snow Leopard (2009)
When Apple announced Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, the big feature was “no new features.” While that could be taken as proof that the OS X team was working flat-out on the iPad, it’s also a little disingenuous. Under the hood, there were a lot of iPad-related changes.
For one, Snow Leopard was tiny compared to its predecessor, taking up roughly half the disk space. That’s also handy for a memory-limited handheld device, right? And if you think Apple hasn’t been working on iPhone OS multitasking for a long time, think again.
If you log out in Snow Leopard, you’ll notice how fast it closes. That’s because if an application has no open files to save, the OS pretty much chops its legs out from under it. In Mac terms, it is pretty close to a “force quit.” This is also what gets you back to the home screen so fast on the iPhone and iPad: One aspect of iPhone OS 4 multitasking is that apps need to be ready for shutdown at any moment.
Nonremovable Battery (2008)
The biggest surprise from the iPad is the battery life, which in many reviewers’ tests is even better than the promised 10 hours. This isn’t a magical new kind of technology, merely a combo of a really big battery and some clever power management. IPods and iPhones have had non-user replaceable batteries since forever, but the first Mac to get one was the MacBook Air. People screamed, except those who bought it and loved it.
The Air’s initial battery life wasn’t great, but it needed a battery that could be bent to better fill the crannies of its thin interior. As Apple got better at it, battery life started to creep up until we saw the iPad’s astonishing independence from wall-warts. The new MacBook Pro even manages to go 10 hours on a single charge.
There are doubtless many more less obvious benefits the iPad has brought to the Mac range. Like military research that eventually ends up in consumer tech, Apple’s drive to invent the iPad trickled into its old computers. The big difference is that military research is top-secret. In this rare case, the famously tight-lipped Apple put every part of the iPad out in the open, years before it was ever announced.
It looks like even Apple has been surprised by the huge success of the iPad. After selling way more than expected, Apple has “made the difficult decision” to delay the international launch by an entire month. If you live in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland or the UK, you’ll now have to wait until the end of May to buy one:
Although we have delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week, demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply over the next several weeks as more people see and touch an iPad. We have also taken a large number of pre-orders for iPad 3G models for delivery by the end of April.
We guess something had to give, but it’s disappointing that the already vague “end of April” date has slipped so far already. Then again, given that many markets still can’t buy TV shows or movies from iTunes, we wouldn’t be surprised to see this date move yet again.
Still, it’s not all bad news. Apple’s statement continues:
We know that many international customers waiting to buy an iPad will be disappointed by this news, but we hope they will be pleased to learn the reason—the iPad is a runaway success in the US thus far. [emphasis added]
Yeah, thanks Apple. It’s good to know that you’re making so much money over in the colonies that you’re happy to screw over the rest of the world. This is good news for one group of people though: gray importers. Those guys are going to make a fortune.
Google is almost ready to start selling its own tablet. The device, according to the New York Times, will be “an e-reader that would function like a computer.” So close is it that Eric Schmidt, CEO at Google, was describing it to friends at “a recent party in Los Angeles.”
The slate-like computer will run Android, and anonymous sources say that Google has already been working with publishers to put books and magazines on the device.
The choice of Android seems odd, given that Google is committed to the Chrome OS on the netbook platform. But Chrome will be an almost non-existent operating system, offering just enough software to load a browser and access Google’s online services. Android, on the other hand, is already well-developed and full-featured enough to offer all that you get from Apple’s iPad. It is also designed to be used on a touchscreen device, something that can’t be said for a skinned desktop OS like Windows 7.
A Google tablet could be the only tablet capable of actually challenging the iPad, avoiding the iPod whitewash in which Apple thrashed everyone, even Sony. It would also have some advantages. Google’s services, for one. Apple still doesn’t get the cloud, and getting data on and off the iPad is still largely done over a USB cable. Android is also the only other real player in apps with the Android Marketplace. It is way behind the iTunes App Store in numbers, but is at least in second place.
And don’t forget Google books, the Google Reader and Google Voice (soon to feature desktop VoIP, thanks to the recent purchase of Skype-rival Gizmo). Add in the fact that Google is committed to an open platform for which anyone can develop software (unlike Apple’s closed ecosystem), and you have a tablet that could be the perfect opposite of Apple’s.
Will Google march ahead and beat Apple like Microsoft did with Windows in the 1990s? We doubt it: We have a feeling that Microsoft is the one in trouble this time, at least in the mobile industry. One thing is for sure, though. Even if you’re a huge fan of the iPad, having Google nipping at its heels will keep Apple focused and everyone will benefit. At least the free market is good for something.
The Security Case for the iPad is a folio-style leather folder for the iPad. As a simple flip-open case it is fine, if expensive at $45. But its standout feature – security – is an almost willfully absurd duplication of something the iPad already has: a PIN-protected lock.
Like the iPhone, the iPad requires a four-digit PIN to unlock it (if you activate it). The “Security” Case has a three-digit combination to stop you opening the clasp, which is of the same design as you’ll see on the locking diary of a tween-aged girl, on on the briefcase of a middle-aged middle-manager. If that doesn’t ring a bell, it looks like the kind of lock which can be popped in seconds with the help of a small blade.
Worse, the port is still exposed. This is touted as a feature: You can charge the iPad while it is locked up. But it also means that anyone can gain physical access to your machine, plug it into another computer and wipe your data. That’s not so secure. Still, there is one thing that this case can provide. The iPad can display a slideshow of your photos when locked. If you have foolishly decided to run the album featuring those “cheeky” photos of your better half on your screensaver, then this just may save you some office embarrassment. Available now.
A number of Apple customers groaned this week about their iPad’s erratic behavior when connecting to Wi-Fi, and Apple has issued a bulletin with a recommended solution.
Apple’s support forum contains several reports from users complaining about their iPad’s behavior with Wi-Fi networks, Macworld first noted. Some complain their iPad’s Wi-Fi signal is very weak, while others say they’re unable to join their network after waking iPads up from standby.
In a support bulletin, Apple on Monday acknowledged an issue specific to dual-band Wi-Fi routers — those that are compatible with both 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz spectrum bands.
“Under certain conditions, iPad may not automatically rejoin a known Wi-Fi network after restart or waking from sleep. This can occur with some third-party Wi-Fi routers that are dual-band capable when: Using the same network name for each network, [or] Using different security settings for each network,” Apple wrote.
Typically, dual-band routers transmit both the 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz bands as one network with the same name and password. Apple recommends splitting the bands into two separate networks, naming them differently and making sure that both networks use the same type of security (WEP, WPA, WPA2, etc).
If all else fails, Apple recommends resetting network settings in the iPad’s Settings app (Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings).
In the past, some Apple customers have complained about slow, unreliable Wi-Fi performance with Apple’s iPhone 3GS as well. Traditionally, Wi-Fi problems have been difficult to diagnose, as performance varies among different types of routers, and signal interference can be caused by a number of factors (such as a large number of Wi-Fi units in the area using the same channel, or turning on a microwave, among other causes). For a deep dive on the different types of Wi-Fi bands, see Glenn Fleishman’s article “Understanding Wi-Fi’s two spectrum bands.”
Judging from recurring complaints over the weekend, perhaps the least intuitive part of the iPad is the way it recharges its battery.
The iPad charges just fine with its included 10 watt power outlet and cable. But numerous iPad customers have complained that their computer’s USB port was failing to charge the iPad, as the battery status read “Not charging.” Apple’s support site states that only “high-power USB 2.0 ports,” such as those included with recent Macs, can charge the iPad.
It turns out that’s not completely true.
Apple’s support site creates a bit of confusion. It reads, “Some USB 2.0 ports and accessories do not provide enough power to charge iPad. When this occurs the message ‘Not Charging’ appears in the status bar next to the battery icon.” That leads you to believe older USB ports can’t charge the iPad at all.
However, farther down the support document, Apple says that lower-power USB ports can charge the iPad — but only when the device is asleep.
“When attached to a computer via a standard USB port (most PCs or older Mac computers) iPad will charge, but only when it’s in sleep mode,” Apple says in the iPad support document.
In other words, some USB ports on older machines can charge your iPad while it’s asleep, but the issue is your iPad can’t tell you, because it can’t charge when the screen is on.
Apple’s support bulletin also clarifies a few tidbits about charging behavior. If you use your iPhone adapter to charge the iPad, it will charge, but more slowly than it would with the iPad’s charger, a fact confirmed by Gadget Lab tests.
And of course, charging with any computer’s USB port (whether it’s high-power or low-power) will be slower than charging with the iPad’s own charger, according to Apple. Also, when charging through a computer USB port, the computer must be powered on — not asleep or shut down.
The USB Implementers Forum ran a full array of tests on the iPad to confirm the tablet’s USB-charging behavior. The organization said that despite some consumer confusion, the iPad behaves very well. The iPad conforms to newer USB charging specifications (Battery Charging v1.1) to ensure that it draws power intelligently based on the amount of power available from any source, the organization explained.
Older, USB 2.0 ports deliver 0.5 amp, which is only enough to charge the iPad when it’s off. Newer machines that feature USB ports conforming to Battery Charging v1.1 standards, and the iPad’s own power outlet, have enough power that the iPad can draw the full 1.5 amps it needs to recharge the battery while it’s running, according to the USB Implementers Forum.
“The good news for consumers is that because it’s conforming to these specifications you’re not going to be at Starbucks and have it suddenly draw a ton of power,” a USB Implementers Forum spokesman said. “It knows how much power is available to it, and based on the power that’s available to it it chooses to behave in a couple of different ways.”
Three universities are getting pumped to hand out free iPads to students and faculty with hopes that Apple’s tablet will revolutionize education.
Seton Hill University, George Fox University and Abilene Christian University each pre-ordered bundles of iPads — sight unseen — with plans to experiment with how the tablet could change classroom learning. In interviews with Wired.com just prior to the iPad’s launch last week, officials from each university saw the iPad as having potential to render printed textbooks obsolete.
“Those big, heavy textbooks that kids go around with in their backpacks are going to be a thing of the past,” said Mary Ann Gawelek, vice president of academic affairs at Seton Hill, which is giving iPads to its 2,100 students and 300 faculty members beginning this fall. “We think it’s leading to something that’s going to provide a better learning environment for all of our students. We’re hoping that faculty will be able to use more of a variety of textbooks because textbooks will be a little bit less expensive.”
One hitch in the universities’ plans is that Apple has not inked deals with any textbook publishers to bring their offerings to the iPad’s iBooks store. So far Apple and publishers have only formed partnerships around e-books for fiction and nonfiction titles, like those available for the Kindle.
For textbooks, students can currently access about 10,000 e-textbooks through a third-party company called CourseSmart, which includes titles from the five biggest textbook publishers. CourseSmart is a subscription-based service that charges a fee for students to access e-textbooks of their choice for a limited time. The company has already announced an iPad app (demonstrated below).
The iPad may succeed where Amazon’s Kindle DX failed. Amazon released its 9.7-inch Kindle DX e-book reader in 2009, which was aimed squarely at students and the textbook market. Not only did Amazon not penetrate the e-textbook market; it also failed to impress students with Kindle DX pilot programs launched at a handful of universities.
The majority of the 50 students who were part of the pilot program at Princeton said they were not pleased with the Kindle’s slow performance and limited feature set, according to the campus’ newspaper, The Daily Princetonian.
“Much of my learning comes from a physical interaction with the text: bookmarks, highlights, page-tearing, sticky notes and other marks representing the importance of certain passages — not to mention margin notes, where most of my paper ideas come from and interaction with the material occurs,” Aaron Horvath, a senior at Princeton, told the school paper last year. “All these things have been lost, and if not lost they’re too slow to keep up with my thinking, and the ‘features’ have been rendered useless.”
The iPad has far greater potential to succeed as an educational device than Amazon’s Kindle DX, said Sarah Rotman, a Forrester analyst. Where the Kindle is sluggish, monochrome and limited in interactivity features, the iPad is fast, sports a colorful touchscreen and supports enough apps to cater to a broad audience of students, she said.
“The Kindle DX is essentially just a big Kindle with not much of the functionality that students need,” Rotman said. “It’s not color, it’s not touch and it doesn’t have faithful pagination, which is a really big deal for students.”
Seton Hill, George Fox and Abilene Christian said that in addition to giving students iPads, they would train teachers to integrate mobile web software and iPad apps into their curricula.
Both George Fox and Abilene Christian have already experimented with programs in which they gave students and teachers free iPhones and iPod Touch devices. George Fox’s iPod Touch program wasn’t the greatest success, because it turned out that the iPod Touch wasn’t the primary device students were bringing to the classroom. However, George Fox believes the iPad’s bigger screen will change that.
“We think the iPad will become the device students carry with them everywhere, and the laptop will become the base station in their dorm room,” said Greg Smith, chief information officer of George Fox University. “The iPad becomes the mobile learning device.”
Wired.com last year reported on the results of Abilene Christian’s iPhone program, in which 2,100 students were equipped with free iPhones. Abilene Christian professors and students said mobile software was improving classroom participation. Web apps enabled students to turn in homework, look up campus maps, watch lecture podcasts and check class schedules and grades.
Bill Rankin, a professor of medieval studies at Abilene Christian, called the iPhone program the “TiVoing of education,” because the iPhone was giving students the information they need, when they want it and wherever they want it. After the success of the pilot program, the iPhone has now become a regular part of Abilene Christian’s course structure.
Rankin views the iPad as the potential sequel to Abilene Christian’s iPhone program. The university has ordered 50 iPads to kick off an iPad pilot program, which Rankin believes will focus on the future of publishing.
“This is really about people re-imagining what books look like — re-imagining something that hasn’t really been re-imagined in about 550 years,” Rankin said.
Already, Abilene Christian is getting started with that idea. Abilene Christian’s campus newspaper, The Optimist, has re-purposed its website and newspaper into an iPad app (below) to launch in the App Store soon.
“We want the students to start thinking about, what’s the best way to present information on the iPad?” said Kenneth Pybus, an assistant professor of journalism and mass communication, who serves as adviser for The Optimist. “We’re challenging them to design features that would take full advantage of photos and texts and HTML5. There’s an academic component to that — forcing students to think differently about how information is distributed and presented to readers.”
Updated at 16:00 EST to include additional details about the tablet
While Apple’s iPad tablet is already out in stores, PC maker HP is busy trickling out videos every month about its iPad killer in a bid to drum up some buzz for the product.
Last month, HP released its first video introducing the HP Slate, a Windows 7 operating system based tablet that will support Adobe’s Flash technology.
Now HP’s latest video gives us a few more details. The Slate is likely to have a built-in camera, video-recording capability, USB port and a SD card reader — all features pointedly aimed at the iPad, which lacks all three. The HP Slate will also include access to Skype, an iTunes-like music store, integration with Flickr and the Firefox browser.
The Slate will have a full capacitive touchscreen in a design that’s similar to the iPad and familiar gesture such as pinch-to-zoom to navigate.
Still no word on pricing or availability of the HP Slate, though it is likely that it will launch this year.
Meanwhile, a leak from what is supposed to be an internal HP Slate presentation suggest the Slate will have an 8.9-inch touchscreen, 1.6 GHz Atom processor, Wi-Fi capability, optional 3G access and a pen/digitizer support, says Engadget.
The Slate could cost $550 or $600 depending on storage chosen–32 GB or 64 GB. But here’s what looks like will be a huge problem for HP. The leaked specs suggest the HP Slate will have a battery life of about 5 hours, which is half of what Apple promises with the iPad.
For a device that’s all about media consumption and to an extent portability, battery life is likely to play a key role in a consumer’s decision on which tablet to buy.
A Swedish company will be the first to sell an internet-connected, Android-based TV set. The TV, from the amazingly-named People of Lava, will also be the first television made in Sweden for decades.
The TV is set, fittingly, to enter beta-testing in early Summer, and other than size and price, tech-specs are still to be finalized. The first model will have a 42-inch high-definition LED screen and cost between $2,000 and $2,500 ($2,700 and $3,400). This will be followed by 47 and 55-inch models.
An internet-connected TV is surely a Good Thing, allowing things like YouTube, Netflix and Hulu to stream straight to the big screen. The use of Android, too, seems smart: it already works, it’s free and it is all about the internet.
But after video-streaming, and perhaps a news or weather screensaver, we don’t see a whole lot point in other services. The People of Lava TV will come with a browser, Google Maps, and you’ll be able to grab more apps (Twitter and Facebook head the list). But these will require a keyboard, and if you’re going to grab a keyboard, why not just grab your laptop, cellphone or even iPad off the coffee table? This has the added advantage of not annoying everyone else in the room.
The web-TV is the future, but just treating it as a giant-screened PC is the wrong thing to do. Take this in the direction of Boxee, however, and we’re willing to talk.
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