John Gruber:
Really, we’re right back where we were a year ago with Apple-Verizon rumors. I could pretty much just re-run today this piece I wrote a year ago. (I’d change my prediction that we’ll see a Verizon iPhone “before the end of 2010” to “before the end of 2011”, though. But I still think it’s a question of when, not if, the iPhone will be available through Verizon.)
Steve O’Hear:
As magical as Apple’s iPad maybe, it’s unlikely to go mass market anytime soon. That’s according to research carried out in the UK, which concludes that consumers struggle to see how the device could fit into their lives.
Yet Apple has sold over a million of these bad boys.
Ashlee Vance for The New York Times:
It is now available for businesses. Microsoft has said that Office will range in price from a limited, free Web version supported by ads to a full-blown version that costs $500, both to be available to consumers in June. Most analysts say they think Microsoft will hold on to its near monopoly on productivity software.
This is a smart move by Microsoft, but one question I keep asking myself is: if a company wants to move to a web based product, why would they pay Microsoft almost $500, instead of paying Google next to nothing (in comparison)?
This morning Engadget (I am sure Gizmodo as well, but I don’t visit that site) has pics up from a Vietnamese blog that paid $4,000 (reportedly) for a 4G iPhone. It looks a little more polished than the one that Gizmodo had, though almost identical.
The best part is that a teardown has revealed that the device seems to be running an Apple chip, perhaps even the A4 chip that powers the iPad. This is huge, if true it is the best news about the new phone to date. Any iPad user can tell you just how impressive the speed of the iPad is, now imagine that in your phone.
Can’t wait.
Mike Schramm:
While most of those who purchased the iPhone 3GS at launch had an upgrade date available sometime in November, far be it from AT&T to stand in the way of a new iPhone purchase. They’ve been changing the dates without fanfare to as soon as June 21st, 2010.
AT&T so far has done this every year, the difference is that they usually waited until you pre-order your phone. Then you get an email message such as the one I got when I bought the 3GS:
On June 17, AT&T announced a change to their upgrade eligibility policy
and ‘best upgrade pricing’ for qualifying iPhone 3G owners.Based on AT&T’s updated qualification criteria, we are pleased to inform
you that you are eligible to receive a refund on your recent
iPhone 3G S purchase.Your Order Acknowledgment and Shipment Notification emails will reflect
the original purchase price. However, Apple will issue you a refund in
the amount of $200.00, which is the difference between your original
purchase price and the new qualifying price.Apple will process your refund in the next 5 days, and will send you an
email when this has been completed. We will process your refund based
on your original payment method. See below for details.
Nice to see that fours years into it they are finally getting out ahead.
Mathew Schwartz:
In particular, he promised both local and remote attacks on two ATMs from “major” but as yet unnamed manufacturers, and to demonstrate “a multi-platform ATM rootkit.” In addition, he said he will detail “protection mechanisms that ATM manufacturers can implement to safeguard against these attacks.”
So many things I could do with this – for testing only ofcourse.
J. Nicholas Hoover:
Currently, according to a statement of objectives also posted online, GSA uses IBM Lotus Notes 7 for its 18,500 e-mail accounts, Blackberry Enterprise Server for mobility for about half of those accounts, and a number of other Lotus tools like Connections, Sametime, and Quickr for collaboration. It also has the option to use a number of Cisco collaboration tools — Cisco hardware and software powers the agency’s voice-over IP implementation, which is in the middle of being rolled out.
This is going to be the new outsourcing trend in large agencies and corporations. This is no small amount of emails to move to the cloud.
Eliot Van Buskirk:
That means HiFiMan not only plays lossless files that sound as good as CDs but also 24-bit files that sound better than CDs, with much wider frequency and dynamic ranges. That equates to reproducing very high pitches (even ones outside the human hearing range, which some say colors the sound we can hear), and music with more gradations in volume that allow dynamic nuances to shine through.
On my Christmas list.
Niraj Sheth:
Verizon Wireless declined to discuss details on the timing or the manufacturer of a such a tablet. Google’s role in the tablet wasn’t immediately clear, though Mr. McAdam mentioned it in the context of the discussions the two companies have about bringing new smartphones to market.
First when is Google going to stop playing catch-up in regards to Apple and start innovating and leading? A business that is constantly chasing competitors is never in the lead, ever.
Second, I hope they do make this, I would love to see more iPad like devices on the market.
Stephen M. Hackett:
I got several questions and looks from people when I took the iPad out of my bag, both on the plane and at the Salvation Army facility. That’s to be expected when you carry a new hot piece of tech, I suppose. Not a big deal, as long as no one is creepy about it.
All in all, the iPad served as a moderately useful laptop-replacement on this trip. It really shined in the areas of battery life and portability. The weight difference alone in my carry-on made carrying the iPad instead of my MacBook Pro worth it.
I have yet to get to travel with mine. This is about what I would expect.
Michael Weissenstein:
Galaxy 15 continues to receive and transmit satellite signals, and they will probably block or otherwise interfere with signals from the second satellite, known as AMC 11, if Galaxy 15 drifts into its orbit as expected around May 23, according to AMC 11’s owner, SES World Skies.
No cable TV in the U.S. for a day or so might not be a bad thing.
Lots of them.
I have very mixed feelings about the design.
The Atlantic has this great piece up that talks about how Google is investing time and resources to work with News outlets to help them make money.
James Fallows:
In part, he said, today’s discouraging ad results simply reflect a lag time. The audience has shifted dramatically from print to online. So has the accumulation of minutes people choose to spend each day reading the news. Wherever people choose to spend their time, Mohan said, they can eventually be “monetized”—the principle on which every newspaper and magazine (and television network) has survived until today. “This [online-display] market has the opportunity to be much larger,” he said. It was about $8 billion in the U.S. last year. “If you just do the math—audience coming online, the time they spend—it could be an order of magnitude larger.” In case you missed that, he means tenfold growth.
Chris Foresman:
However, a number of readers have alerted Ars that it seems the battery life isn’t living up to the promises, and many suspect that the automatic graphics switching is the culprit. So we set out to investigate the issue.
and:
While it’s no surprise that Aperture, iMovie, or Photoshop cause the system to switch on the NVIDIA GT 330M in the Core i5 and Core i7 MacBook Pros, some rather “pedestrian” apps can cause the discrete GPU to turn on as well: Tweetie, Transmit, PathFinder, Skype, and NetNewsWire, to name a few. These apps aren’t graphics intensive, but they are the kind of apps that most people leave running all the time.
Ars concluded that the use of Apple’s Core Animation is what is causing these relatively small applications to turn on the high-powered graphics cards. My guess is that they are right, the fix though does not seem to be that simple. I would like to see Apple make a seamless fix for this, however if they can’t here is an idea: take a Spaces approach.
Currently with Spaces (Apple’s multiple desktop preference) you can select which apps show up on which screen, or every screen. Why not build in a preference for the auto graphics switching that allows the user to essentially ignore an app when it wants to switch to the higher powered card? That’s what I would do short-term.
Mac Daily News is reporting that they have tip that MobileMe will become free. I would not doubt it, I have the service and it is hardly worth paying for. iDisk is almost not useable.
However MobileMe would be a perfect compliment to the iPad, all they have to make is some tweaks to the service. If MobileMe were tweaked and made free, it would become something that propels the iPad forward very quickly.
Peter Kafka:
The consumer research shop says U.S. sales of smartphones using Google’s mobile operating system climbed past Apple in the first three months of this year. Google (GOOG) nabbed 28 percent of the market, while Apple (AAPL) claimed 21 percent, NPD says. Less surprising is that BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIMM) still leads the market, with 36 percent.
I am waiting for my Verizon loving friend to call and boast. Here is the thing though, it doesn’t matter. Competition is great, it propels platforms forward. I don’t believe Apple is in it for market share, they are in it to be the best, and they are.