Kara Swisher spoke the truth–Apple is holding a press event on March 2nd at 10am, and the invite helpfully shows an iPad so we don’t need to go through any kabuki about what might be announced. I’ll be there and will liveblog the proceedings–stay tuned for details.
Tag Archives | Tablets
iPad 2: March 2?
All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher says that Apple is going to hold a San Francisco event on March 2nd–that’s a week from tomorrow–to announce the second-generation iPad. Assuming that happens–and Kara seems quite certain–the timing will be fortuitous, since it’ll let anyone who’s considering a Motorola Xoom or RIM BlackBerry PlayBook or HP TouchPad or any of umpteen other imminent arrivals see what Apple has in store before making a buying decision.
The conventional wisdom is that the new iPad will have a front-facing camera for FaceTime video chat and a thinner case; there’s also scuttlebutt about it running on both GSM and CDMA networks, for compatibility with wireless networks around the world. Earlier rumors about it having a high-res “retina” display and a rear-facing camera seem to have faded away.
Me, I hope that Apple bucks the pundits’ pronouncements and announces a 4G iPad–at least one that runs on AT&T’s zippy HSPA+ if not on Verizon LTE. But I haven’t seen anyone predict that, or anything else that counts as a Great Big Change rather than a Pleasing Refinement or an Expected Addition.
If a March 2nd event is indeed in the works, we won’t have to wait much longer for confirmation: Invites will go out in the next few days.
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The Rumor About the Rumor About iPad/iPhone Delays
Jim Dalrymple–one of the few truly reliable sources in Apple journalism–says that rumors that Apple has been forced to delay the next iPad and next iPhone are false. Of course, he also points out that nobody knows for sure when Apple was planning to ship them in the first place…
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Mobile Flash: Always Exciting, Always Not Quite Here Yet
Motorola’s Xoom tablet–the first one to run Google’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb–goes on sale on Thursday. It packs more features than any other tablet from a major company to date. But for the moment, one of them apparently won’t be support for Flash. As Engadget is reporting, Verizon’s Xoom site says that the gizmo is “fully Flash-enabled,” but then it says that Flash is “expected spring 2011.”
(Why the gap between Xoom’s debut and the debut of Flash on the Xoom? I don’t know the specifics, but I assume it’s because Motorola has yet to, well, fully enable it for Flash.)
I got a hint that Flash for Honeycomb was still a work in progress back on February 2nd, when I attended Google’s Honeycomb event and saw a demo of a third-party app that requires Flash–but which was presented on a Xoom that didn’t have Flash installed, rendering the demo meaningless.
Spring 2011 starts on March 20th, so it’s possible that the wait for Flash on the Xoom will be brief. But the fact that the tablet is shipping without Flash is entirely in keeping with the history of Flash on mobile devices to date. Hardware makers keep arguing that Flash is exciting and essential–and they raise the issue of its absence on Apple devices, either explicitly or by implication.
Here, for instance, is Motorola using Flash as a selling point back at CES in January:
Adobe hasn’t been shy about promoting Flash for mobile gadgets before it was ready, either: At the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, it showed off versions of Flash Player for BlackBerry, Web OS, and Windows Mobile that aren’t still yet available on any devices. And I’m not talking about the Mobile World Congress held last week–I’m referring to the 2010 edition of the show.
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The Case Against Apple's New 30% Content Fee
TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid makes the most cogent case I’ve seen against Apple’s new policy of mandating that apps that offer content make it available through the App Store, and charging a 30% distribution fee when they do so.
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Dear Tablet Industry: The Opportunity to Beat the iPad on Price is Still Wide Open
That leaked Best Buy ad spoke the truth: The Verizon 3G/4G version of Motorola’s upcoming Xoom tablet is an $800 product (or, if you want to be precise, a $799 one). Motorola says a Wi-Fi-only one will go for around $600.
With both versions, an analysis of the specs you get for the money you plunk down makes the prices look…well, not nutso: The Xoom is a fancier piece of hardware than the iPad in multiple respects. But the fact remains that tablet shoppers will get to choose between an iPad that starts at $499 and has an extremely deep selection of apps and content and a Xoom that starts at $100 more and is just getting started on the apps/content front. In other words, it’s Apple that appeals to price-conscious folks. That’s an utter reversal of what seemed to be an eternal verity of tech: Apple makes high-end products but doesn’t attempt to appeal to bargain hunters.
I know there are such things as low-cost Android tablets; Archos is probably the best-known maker of them. So far, though, most of the great big companies that are taking on the iPad don’t seem to be interested in competing for the business of the teeming masses of folks for whom even $499 may sound like a stretch. The one exception: RIM, which will apparently start the PlayBook at $499. (The PlayBook has a 7″ display versus the iPad’s 9.7-incher, but otherwise looks like it’ll be a beefy piece of hardware for the price.)
When the iPad was announced more than a year ago with its $499 pricetag, I assumed we’d shortly see iPad-esque devices from other major manufacturers that undercut it by $100 or more. Hasn’t happened yet; still seems like a big opportunity to me if it can be done while still eking out a profit. I’m beginning to wonder if the first big-name $399 tablet could end up being…an iPad.
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The Known and Unknown of Apple's New App Store Subscriptions
This is one of the more significant moments in the history of the iPhone and iPad: Apple has announced its system for selling subscription-based content through its App Store. As with apps and one-time purchases such as game content, it’ll take a 30% cut of the sale.
The company’s announcement says that content owners will be free to sell their wares outside the App Store as well–no 30% fee to Apple involved–as long as they provide the same (or better) offers within the App Store. That’s a relief. But it also says this:
In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.
That means that the current content-acquisition system used by Amazon’s Kindle and numerous other apps–which all happens in the Mobile Safari browser, not the app–is now verboten. Continue Reading →
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HTC Enters the Tablet Wars
HTC’s inevitable tablet looks interesting: It’s got…a stylus! That might make it a winner for those of us who like to draw on computers. I am, however, worried about the fact that it runs Android Gingerbread, not Honeycomb. Sounds like Android tablets may be just as fragmented as their smartphone brethren.
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There it is, a 7-inch Honeycomb Tablet
Last week I wistfully wondered when we’ll see more 7-inch tablets running proper tablet operating systems. Acer might be one to deliver with the Iconia A100, GigaOM’s Kevin Tofel reports. It’s launching in the United Kingdom in April, but no word on a U.S. release date.
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Adobe to Bring a Better Flash to Mobile Gadgets
At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona–which I’m not attending this year–Adobe has announced that it’s planning to bring Stage Video, the FlashPlayer 10.2 feature that permits fast video playback that doesn’t kill the battery–to mobile devices. It’ll be available on Android and for RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook tablet; the Android version will require Android 3.0 Honeycomb, which means it’ll work on tablets such as the Xoom but not on any currently-available Android smartphones.