Perhaps Apple was just being extremely careful not to draw any attention to the widely speculated name of its new multimedia device prior to this morning’s announcement, but one simply cannot overlook the fact that the company doesn’t have ownership over any domain names related to ‘iPad’.
For now, that is. → Read More
The iPad was just announced. We liveblogged the whole thing, but you still probably have a thousand questions about the device. While our man on the ground is plowing through fellow geeks to get a hands on, check out Apple.com/iPad. It just went live and details the pricing, specs, and functions. There’s even a 7:00 minute video for your enjoyment. → Read More
Okay, we’ve all seen the iPad now. We’ve read all about it. We’ve seen video of it in action. But how is it to actually hold? I took a bunch of pictures of people playing with it in the demo pit today after Apple’s event. The consensus amongst those I talked to? It’s actually quite comfortable.
I played with one myself for a bit and have to agree. While it’s nowhere near as light as a Kindle, it feels much more solid and because it’s significantly larger, is easier to hold with two hands. But it’s also light enough that holding it with one hand is not a burden. And it’s extremely thin. Plus, unlike the Kindle, you can easily swap between portrait and landscape positions. → Read More
You had to know this was coming, so let’s just get it over with. {democracy:72} → Read More
Hello, gorgeous. Big ups to whoever convinced Mr. Blurrycam to take a leave of absence so the gadget loving world could get a decent spy shot of this unannounced Motorola Android device. → Read More
Apple’s hoping to recreate the magic of what iTunes did for music with the addition of a vast selection of electronic books. Announced at Apple’s event today, the iBook store. Book pricing has been set similarly to what’s offered on Amazon.com’s Kindle platform — the first book shown at Apple’s event was priced $14.99, a Ted Kennedy book (available on Kindle for $14.78). → Read More
When Apple was demoing its new iBooks application for the iPad today during their keynote address, I just kept thinking to myself: this simply must have been designed by Delicious Monster, the shop behind the brilliant Mac app Delicious Library. I’m not the only one who thought that either. Delicious Monster founder Wil Shipley thought the same thing. The only problem? His shop didn’t make it.
In fact, Shipley was quite vocal on Twitter during the keynote today about the situation. “No, Apple didn’t license iBooks from me. They just copied me. Ah well,” he wrote. Later, he added, “I guess it’s not enough Apple has hired every employee who worked on Delicious Library, they also had to copy my product’s look. Flattery?” While Shipley tries to play it off as not that big of a deal, clearly he’s pretty upset about it. And he should be. I mean, the bookshelf view in iBooks is nearly identical to the main bookshelf view used in Delicious Library. Not only that, but it’s not like this is a little-known app that Apple may have missed: it has won the Apple Design Award twice, and been a runner-up one other time. Apple gives out those awards. → Read More
By now you’ve probably seen the videos on Apple’s site showing the iPad. But those aren’t always indicative of the way it actually works in real life. Luckily, Apple had plenty of iPads in a demo pit area after the event today and we captured some footage of a few applications actually being used.
In the video below see Apple’s new Keynote app (built specifically for the iPad), as well as the new iBooks app, in action. As you can see, the device is very fast. Also note the Apple employee talking about using the iPad to make calls. → Read More
While Apple is being lamented here and there for not supporting Flash on its shiny new iPad – boy does Cupertino have a strong dislike for the platform – Adobe has already responded to the news on the official Flash Platform blog.
The blog post, unambiguously titled “Building iPad Applications with Flash”, is mostly just to remind people of the company’s Packager for iPhone product, which will enable developers to make Flash apps function on the iPhone / iPod Touch through a work-around whereby Flash apps can be easily converted into iPhone apps using Creative Suite 5 (CS5). Adobe also published a post on its Adobe Flash Platform blog addressing the apparent lack of Flash support in the iPad. → Read More
Netflix has just reported its Q4 2009 results, and has performed pretty well as expected, although revenue was slightly below most forecasts.
What caught our eye is just how many Netflix customers are now streaming movies and TV shows online. The percentage of subscribers who watched instantly more than 15 minutes of a TV episode or movie in Q4 2009 was 48 percent, compared to 28 percent for the same period of 2008. → Read More
The suspense is over! Today, Apple unveiled its new tablet computer, aptly called the iPad, here in San Francisco. Steve Jobs positions the tablet as a third computing device between a laptop and a smartphone geared towards the “key tasks” of Web browsing, email, sharing photos, watching videos, playing games, and reading digital books. All current iPhone apps will run on the device, as well as new games and digital books designed specifically for it. Here’s a list of all our recent coverage from before, during and after the event. → Read More
All the naysayers can feel free to eat their hats. Today Apple finally revealed the device we’ve all been whispering about for a good year or more. The Sasquatch of gadgets is real. We’ll update this with all the details as they happen; in the meantime, follow our live coverage. Looks like a big iPhone to us. → Read More
http://cdn.livestream.com/events/crunchgear/new/index.html This is where all of our live content for today’s Apple event will live. To make things perfectly clear, Apple won’t let us film inside the event. However, CrunchGear and a special surprise guest will offer a full play by play. Feel free to turn on your headphones at work and listen to the news as it happens or watch us live complete with coverage from San Francisco before and after the event. We will start streaming live at 12:30pm EST/9:30am PST and the event begins at 1pm EST/10am PST. Tweet us live at @crunchgear with the hashtag “#applelive.” You can read our previous tablet coverage right here. Want the traditional live blog? Rock out below at about 12:30pm EST. There is no need to refresh your screen as this system will update automatically. Let the games begin. → Read More
Ah, Bingo and high technology. They go together like peanut butter and motor oil, except for the few times each year that Apple announces something. In that spirit, please enjoy a little “Tablet Bingo” while you follow the coverage of Apple’s mood-altering gadgets.
And while you’re playing Tablet Bingo, consider the following questions: do you like Apple announcements? Do you like to drink? Do you like to drink while following Apple announcements? Whether you answered yes or no to any of those questions, here’s an Apple announcement-specific drinking game. Play along with real booze or your favorite non-alcoholic beverage. Enjoy. → Read More
Look at that. The Apple Store is still up. It’s Apple’s normal custom to shut down the store shortly before a major Apple event. Does this mean that maybe there isn’t anything new today? Oh man, wouldn’t that be the greatest? Just think of the riots. SanFran wouldn’t know how to contain so many angry nerds. It would be like District 9. All because Apple let the world down. Anyway, back to the Livestream. → Read More
Folks were a bit disappointed early on in the iPad announcement when it started to sound like it’d be WiFi only – but there was a twist! Late in the show, Steve Jobs announced that there will be 3G-enabled models. While Apple specifically named AT&T as the carrier who will offer up the 3G, he also stated that all iPads will be sold unlocked. It relies on GSM microSIMs – so while you’ll be able to take it around the world, don’t expect to take it over to Verizon or any other CDMA carrier. The pricing of 3G through AT&T is a bit strange; you can pick up 250 Megabytes of data for the stupidly expensive price of $14.99, or unlimited data for the surprisingly cheap price of $30. There is no contract whatsoever. Alas, 3G support doesn’t come built into every model. Nothing in life is free, right? Gettin’ a 3G chip thrown in will set you back an additional $130 bucks – on the most expensive model, the 64GB edition, that brings the price up to $829. The 16 and 32 gigabyte models with 3G support will cost $629 and $729 respectively. Alas, the 3G-enabled versions will take a bit longer to hit the shelves than their WiFi-only brethren; whereas the WiFi-only versions will be in stores within 60 days, Apple expects the 3G-friendly iPads to reach retail in 90. → Read More
It’s official. Yelp is raising a huge chunk of change from Elevation Partners. According to a release, Elevation will invest as much as $100 million in the startup. For now, Yelp will be raising a $25 million in a Series E round from the firm. We broke the news last week here, when talk of the round was in the $50 million range. The initial infusion is half that, but Elevation could end up investing much more over time.
Elevation co-founder Marc Bodnick will be joining Yelp’s Board of Directors. We originally hear that Bono, an Elevation Partners partner, was to be the board representative for Yelp but it looks like Bodnick got the seat in the end. → Read More
The big day finally arrived, and Apple introduced the iPad this morning (yeah, you heard that already).
Strangely, during the course of the much-anticipated event, Apple’s stock went down, as observed by many. And then, Apple finally got around to talking about pricing. → Read More
In other, non-Apple news: Ubisoft has lost its mind. Its latest DRM scheme—the first game to use it will be The Settlers 7, curently scheduled for a Marchrelease—will require that you always be online in order to play its games. That’s not a good idea for many reasons.
For example, look at poor ol’ Devin. He’s been fighting Comcast for God knows how long. Needless to say, he’d be SOL if he ever wanted to play the PC version of a Ubisoft game ever again. → Read More
Another year, another iPhone OS upgrade to get excited about. They’re not saying much about it just yet, but Apple has just announced that the new iPhone SDK (complete with support for the just announced iPad tablet) will be available today. As partially predicted by the rumor mill, iPhone applications will run on the iPad. They won’t, however, run in little floating windows, as early faked leaks assumed. Instead, they will run in “blackboxed” mode at their standard resolution, or in a simulated fullscreen mode by doubling the pixels. Everything developers (and users) have come to know and love from the iPhone — from multi-touch gestures to accelerometer support — are fully supported in the iPad. Developers (or anyone just dying to play with the included iPad simulator) can look for it in the usual spot (http://developer.apple.com/). CrunchBase Information Apple iPhone Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
