At last the Apple Tablet rumors can die, but was it worth the long wait?

Steve Jobs finally lifted the veil of secrecy around the Apple Tablet today and revealed it as a device named the iPad. The unfortunate name choice aside, is it going to be worth the purchase?

The answer to that depends entirely on what your needs are going to be with such a device.  Unlike other items in the market, the iPad does not solve an existing problem.  The iPhone made smartphones truly smart, netbooks solved size problems for those that didn’t want to lug full sized laptops around, the iPod solved music issues, but the iPad … solves nothing.  There is no doubt that it is intriguing, and the implications of this device could be far reaching for years as other device manufacturers try to come up with their own solutions to answer this new challenge.

What you have could easily be described as over-sized iPod Touch, but at the same time it isn’t.  Yes, it will run the majority of the current 140,000 iPhone/iPod Touch applications, but due to its 9.7-inch screen, it will be able to handle a lot more.  App developers were able to download a new SDK (software development kit) that will allow them to develop for the 1024 x 768 resolution and the 1GHz processor.

Beyond the usual iPod Touch features, the iPad will also run the iWork office suite which means you can do word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, and although the screen will have a robust touch keyboard, writing a full document that way could quickly get tiring.  That’s why Apple is releasing a keyboard dock that allows you to plug the device into a physical keyboard, and to me that is where this device gets interesting.

Unfortunately no price was mentioned for the keyboard, but as a professional blogger I see where this could have a fairly large impact on journalism.  Yes, laptops are portable, but say you go to a news story, quickly pound out some notes on the screen keyboard, and then get back in your car, plug into the dock, and you can write up your full story on the fly.  You can then transmit the story via Wi-Fi or 3G depending on the model you purchased.

As a blogger, I am really intrigued by the possibilities here.  Could I blog easily from anywhere without carrying around a much heavier laptop?

Where this really gets complicated is when you look at the new iBook e-reader app.  You have a full book store you can purchase from, and while the Amazon Kindle better be quaking in its boots, the true star of this is the potential down the road.

Text books.

The game changer the education system has been waiting for may have just dropped into their laps.  A full-color e-reader that could properly display any type of text book.  Art?  No problem.  Statistics that needs to show all sorts of graphs?  Go for it.  Every college book store better start thinking now about what their futures will be like without … well … books.  There is no way that textbook publishers aren’t going to study the heck out of this thing and analyze that huge costs they will be able to cut in materials, printing, transport and so on.  I would say within 3 to 4 years you will see the first text books that have no print counterpart.

And don’t even get me started on what this could mean for comic books.

So, down to the business part of this:

iPad Specs

So, what is under the hood of the iPad?  What will be powering this newest entry from Apple into the consumer market?

• Memory capacities of 16GB, 32GB or 64GB
• 802.11n Wi-Fi
• 1GHz Apple A4 chip
• .5-inches thick
• 1.5 lbs
• 9.7-inch screen, 1024 x 768 resolution
• Bluetooth 2.1
• Speaker & microphone
• Accelerometer & compass
• 10 hour battery life, one month standby
• 3G connectivity for $30 a month via AT&T without contract.

iPad Price

And then comes the price.  The prevailing rumor leading up to today had been that we would be seeing a price of $1000, which Steve Jobs made mention of on stage at the introduction, and then he floored us with the following price chart.

So, what say you? Is it going to be worth it?

Check out my other posts from today on the iPad:

• CobWEBs Daily Edition: Apple shows the world the iPad – an internet ready Kotex – SeanPAune.com
• The iPad Marks A Whole New Product Category For Apple – StarterTech.com
• Apple finally unveils the iPad tablet – Tech.BLORGE.com
• What’s Missing From Apple’s iPad – technoBuffalo.com

Post from: SeanPAune.com

The Apple iPad Tablet Makes Its Debut

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All I have to say is, “It’s about ******’ time!”

Word has been circulating all day today that not only will Apple be unveiling the long-rumored Apple Tablet on Wednesday as its press event, but that it may also finally be announcing that the iPhone will be available on multiple carriers, breaking the exclusivity with AT&T in the United States.

Can I get a, “HALLE-FREAKIN-LUJAH!”

According to BusinessWeek, it would break down as:

• Verizon – summer
• T-Mobile & Sprint – fall
• Clearwire Corp. – Sometime in 2011

Being a Sprint subscriber, I’m over the Moon at the prospect that this may finally becoming a reality, but most of all I am happy for consumers and, yes, even Apple.  As I wrote recently on TechnoBuffalo in “Why Isn’t The iPhone On Every Carrier Yet?“, the continued exclusivity makes no sense on any front at this point.  For the consumer this will spur competition between the carriers to get the iPhone customers to be on their networks, and could possibly result in customers making a mass exodus from AT&T.

On the other hand, Apple is set to make more money than most people can even count.  In the quarter report that just came out from Apple for the three month period ending Dec. 26th, the company sold 8.7 million iPhones combined from all territories, and combined with its record number of Macs sold (and an eight percent decline in iPod sales), it walked away with a profit of $3.38 billion.  Now imagine the iPhone being sold across all four major United States carriers, and it is easy to see why it is time for Apple to cut the exclusivity from AT&T.

The time for a freed iPhone has come, the only question is if Apple will actually follow through with the idea.  My gut tells me this is actually going to happen because it is about the only thing that makes sense at this point for the product.

… and if true, thus will begin my cursing the fact I just bought a BlackBerry Tour this past August.

Post from: SeanPAune.com

iPhone May Be Headed To All Major U.S. Carriers

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So, yeah … I canceled my order for the Barnes & Noble nook.

Back in November I informed all of you that I ordered a nook and I was looking forward to reviewing it for all of you.  I knew I was going to have to wait a while before I got it, but that was fine with me, I was prepared for it, but I really couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.

… then the reviews started coming in.

I read one fairly harsh review somewhere last week, but I laughed it off and still felt secure in my purchase.  Then the AP wrote a pretty harsh review, but I’m not a huge fan of the AP so I took it with a grain of salt.  What I wasn’t ready for was the absolutely scathing review from The New York Times.

The review was so scathing it almost felt over the top, and then I got to to this segment on the second page:

So O.K., the Nook is a mess, clearly rushed out the door in hopes of stealing some of the Kindle’s holiday cheer. “We want to optimize everything quite a bit,” a product manager concedes.

When a product manager is saying “we want to optimize…”, that’s when I go and hit the cancel button on an order.  If someone whose livelihood depends on the product, and they are saying that it needs to be “optimized”, they basically have just spoken code for, “Look, we know it sucks and we rushed its release, but it is what it is.”

I admit it, I got sucked into the hyperbole, and even with one friend warning me (Hi, F … feel free to say “I told you so” at lunch this week) to wait for the reviews, I jumped in feet first, and this is what I get.  At least I was able to cancel it and I’m out from under what appears to be a beast of a device.

Sorry Barnes & Noble, I thought you had won me over, but then people actually touched the device.  Perhaps you should have made no one got to play with it prior to shipping?

Post from: SeanPAune.com

I Canceled My Nook Order

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Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!

For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!

Steven and I have a chit chat about the CrunchPad the JooJoo tablet announced today by Fusion Garage.  If you have no idea what that it, you can check out my historical post from earlier today about the history of the JooJoo, but really Steven and I are talking more about the circus that surrounds the device than anything else.  It boils down to being the Web 2.0 soap opera to end them all … with a $499 hunk of plastic at the end for anyone silly enough to buy it.

Push the big green button and have a listen in!

Post from: SeanPAune.com

CobWEBs Daily Edition: JooJoo – a tablet named by two rabbis

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As I am sure as with everything else in my life, now that I have chosen the Barnes & Noble nook as my e-reader, it is doomed to failure.

My parents asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and of course I decided on the Barnes & Noble nook just in time for it to be sold out for Christmas … because that’s how I roll.  I’m scheduled to get mine in early January, and at long last I will be entering the new age of books.

My decision on the nook was based mainly on three things:

Free books – There are 500,000 free books accessible on the nook, that should be enough to keep anyone entertained for eons.  I’m sure I’ll end up buying some books, but for at least a while I’ll just be working my way through the free ones.

Wi-Fi – I’ll take Wi-Fi over 3G from AT&T any day.

LendMe – While I have no clue what other friends of mine will have a nook, I love the idea we can lend each other books.

Considering how long Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and I have been podcasting about e-readers and how they will impact the market , I figured it was time one of us finally gave in and got one.  Mark has been in the same boat as me trying to figure out which one was the best choice, and honestly I don’t know if this will be the perfect one, but it’s the one I’ve decided to go with.

Now, why do I think this dooms the nook?  On Nov. 23rd, 2007 I picked HD-DVD over Blu-ray, and, well, we all know how that turned out since HD-DVD was officially declared dead on Feb. 19th, 2008.  There have been numerous examples of me picking the wrong “horse” over the years, so the nook isn’t 100 percent doomed, but me backing a gadget usually does add to its chances of failure.

I’m sure I’ll post a full review after I receive my nook in January, until then … start the countdown clock to Barnes & Noble pulling the plug on it!

Post from: SeanPAune.com

And I Finally Picked An E-Reader

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Why is it writers have become obsessed with the word “killer”?

“Such-and-such gadget is a this-and-that gadget killer.”

This is a refrain I have seen endlessly since I joined the tech blogging world back in July of 2007, and it is getting tiresome.  David Coursey over at PC World is just the latest offender with his piece entitled “B&N’s Nook Is A Kindle Killer: 5 Reasons Why“.

Mr. Coursey isn’t to blame, it has become an accepted trend, but that doesn’t mean it is one that should continue.  It has actually become a joke amongst professional bloggers that every new gadget or app released is either a “killer”, somehow “pwns” an existing tool and so on.  Whatever happened to words like “supplant”?  ”Replaces”?  ”Threatens”?  How about a headline along the lines of “B&N’s Nook Threatens Kindle’s E-Reader Dominance: 5 Reasons Why”.

Guess the word “killer” just sounds more serious, but whatever.

As for the nook, will it overtake the Kindle?  Well … it could.  This isn’t too big of a surprise as the Kindle was the first big name in the space, and it had become synonymous with e-readers, so that is always hard to knock out of that top spot.  (Think how “Googling” has replaced the word “searching” and you get the idea)

The nook has several legs up on the Kindle in the way of Wi-Fi, access to over 500,000 free e-books from Google, a color browser for shopping and so on.

One of the interesting aspects to me is the LendMe feature which allows one B&N users (be it on th nook, iPhone, computer, phone etc) can lend a book to another account holder on any device for 14 days free of charge.  While I’m not sure this is a feature I would ever actually use, it is a small way of capturing the experience of reading actual books.

You can read more details on the Barnes & Noble nook on StarterTech, but I have to say I was never tempted to buy a Kindle, but I am very, very tempted by the nook.  I like the look of the device, I like the advances in the user friendliness of the device (replaceable battery!), access to free books and so on.  Will I buy one for sure?  I’m still not sure, but I’m giving it some serious thought.

However, you will never hear me refer to it as “a Kindle killer” …

Post from: SeanPAune.com

The Barnes & Noble Nook Gets Called A “Kindle Killer”; I Weep For Journalism

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Someday I may get excited about the Amazon Kindle, but it still hasn’t happened yet.

Over at StarterTech I wrote up about how the Amazon Kindle 2 Got Official on Monday, but I tried to keep my general personal opinions out of that article.  In general I just don’t get the excitement over the device, and over the weekend I recorded a video cast with Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins about “Kindle 2.0: Is It the iPod for Books Yet?“.  I have embedded it below for easy viewing, but essentially I take the line that I think the Kindle is a bit silly compared to the iPod, and in no way as an essential piece of every day life.

As I say in the video, I just don’t see the point to the Kindle. It’s a nice concept, but at $359, it’s just too expensive.  They boast about how the new Kindle 2 can carry up to 1500 books in its 2GB memory, but do you really need to carry around 1500 books with you?  Yes, the same argument can be made about an iPod, but you can use your iPod as you work, the Kindle not so much.  An iPod you can put on shuffle play, want to try reading random pages from books on the Kindle?  There is also these concepts called the library and used book stores where you can either check books out for free, or buy them incredibly cheap.

I also have the problem with the idea where they show people sitting around outside, or on subways, reading their Kindles.  iPods you can hide under your clothes you use them, you can even disguise the earbuds and no one will know you’re using it.  With a Kindle, you care holding a high end gadget in plain sight, just asking for someone to rip it from your hands or mug you for it.  Now, if you have a tattered paperback in your hands… you get the idea.  Never mind the fact you can use an iPod as you walk/run/exercise… try that with a Kindle.

I really have nothing against the device or other ebook readers, but it just isn’t for me, and I don’t quite understand the market demographic.  Amazon reportedly sold 500,000 units last year, but I would love to know the demographics of who these people were.  Besides the $359 they are laying out for a special reader, they are laying out $10 on average per book.  In this economic climate, who can afford this thing?

As Mark said in the video, the iPod solved an actual problem, the Kindle solves a problem no one realized even existed.  I’m afraid you’ll have to leave me in the unconvinced column.

Post from: SeanPAune.com

The Kindle 2 Still Is Not A Must Have Product

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When I first talked about the iPhone 3G, I mentioned as long as the phone was exclusive to AT&T, I wouldn’t be getting the device for myself.  Well, it seems things could be far, far worse… I could have to deal with Rogers in Canada.

It seems that Rogers of Canada went so overboard with their pricing, raising so much ill will that over 53,000 people have signed a petition at RuinediPhone.com stating they will not purchase an iPhone under the Rogers plan.  Unlike American contracts that run for 2 years, Canadian contracts run for 3 years, and the current contract runs $60 for 150 minutes of daytime minutes, and 400MB of monthly data transfer.  As much as I dislike AT&T, at least their $69.99 plan gives you 450 minutes with unlimited data.

So, in light of people being angry with Rogers, Apple has decided to cut supplies to the Rogers’ stores, and they have also announced that the Canadian Apple stores will not be carrying the phone, so Rogers won’t receive any contract sign ups from that venue.

I understand why Apple signs these exclusive deals, better revenue sharing for them, but do they not check out the pricing plans before they sign the contracts?  How could they let Rogers be the exclusive carrier when they are offering such horrible pricing?  This reflects poorly on Apple as well as Rogers.  And, I’m sorry, but 150 minutes for that price is just highway robbery in my opinion.

Hopefully Apple will learn some lessons from this, such as when going exclusive with a company, make sure you read what is going to happen to your customers before you sign on the dotted line.  Sorry, Candians… you got screwed.

Post from: SeanPAune.com

Exclusive Carrier Madness

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Well, I just had my first encounter with Apple customer support, and I have to say I’m impressed.

After my hard drive failure a few weeks back, I had to put my iPod Touch apps back on the system, which I had luckily backed up.  Well, last night I had some issues with the Touch, so I did a reset, and went to sync the apps back onto it and… no luck.

I tried everything under the sun, and today I finally gave up and called them.  The first rep walked me through all the basics, staying with me on the phone the entire time.  After about 30-minutes he knew it was beyond him, and passed me up to a senior tech, Rick.  Rick spent about 15-minutes working on it before he determined he was also stumped.

This is where I got impressed.  Instead of just giving up, he said he was going to pass this up to an engineer, and that they would be calling sometime over the weekend, and if they didn’t, I was to call him directly.

What the…

All the way to an engineer?  A call back… on a weekend?

I had always heard how good their customer support is, and considering I bought this Touch used from someone else, I am even more impressed.  It may be that it can’t even be fixed due to the hard drive crash, and Rick was very blunt about that, but you can’t fault them for their effort and concern in this manner.  Major kudos to them.

Post from: SeanPAune.com

AppleCare

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First things first… it comes out July 11th, so all of you calm down.

Now, for those who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s all about the new iPhone… iPhone 3G. If anything was missing from the original iPhone release, it was 3G support as opposed to EDGE technology. The simplest way to explain it is that in the demo today, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, displayed a web page in 21-seconds on 3G, while in EDGE it took 59 seconds. In other words, it’s a lost faster.

This is something that really should have been around since the beginning, and I’m going to be blunt, I think the original iPhone adopters got shafted. More and more, it is looking to me like the original iPhone was more of a “beta” than an actual full release.

No 3G. Now it has it.

No enterprise support. Now it has it.

No third-party app support. Now it has it.

No GPS. Now it has it.

Only out in six countries. Now in seventy.

Yes, all products get upgraded, but these are such basic features and support in a device such as this, it almost seems iPhone 1.0 was a year early and a dollar short in retrospect. Never mind the fact the price is now $199 for 8GB and $299 for 16GB… you all enjoying that $599 you paid on release day now?

The new phone is certainly more tantalizing to me, but so long as AT&T is the sole carrier in the United States, I will not be getting one. They have lousy service, horrible customer support, and I want nothing to do with them. Mr. Jobs boasts endlessly about how many iPhones they’ve sold, but think how many more he would have sold if he had gone with multi-carrier support, or even a carrier with broader coverage than AT&T. Blech.

I will say I am very excited about the launch of MobileMe. Being a small company, exchange sever type service has always been something we would like to have, but it was never very practical. For $99 a year, having this sync our two iPod Touch devices, as well as having access from our browsers, seems like a great solution. The only thing I am curious about is if I will be able to set it up to work with our Gmail accounts; I’m not thrilled with the idea of having to start a whole new system of emails yet again.

True, we will only be able to work with this when the Touches are near Wi-Fi, but that will be fine as we are already used to that. A centralized calendar system will make our lives a heck of a lot easier though as all of us always seem to be heading in about 20 directions at once. It took a couple days just for us to get together on finding out if all three of us had a clear schedule for one day, so a centralize calendar is aces in my book!

With the news that iPhones and iPod Touches will be getting support for Office files, these devices are finally getting to the full PDA status I had hoped for when they first came out. I will finally be able to stop carrying around my Axim and just get down to my BlackBerry 8830 and the iPod Touch. One less device in my life! Woo! It looks like a good portion of my What I Want From The Apple SDK list is coming true, even the Sling Player is in development, so we are well on our way to what I had always suspected.

So, no iPhone for me still, but bring on MobileMe and the Apps!

Oh… and Snow Leopard as the next OS name… really? Um… okay, sure, why not.

Post from: SeanPAune.com

iPhone 3G

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