While all of my thoughts contained in my iPad review still hold true, I’d like to expand that review in a very specific direction — what traveling with an iPad is like.
Since buying an iPad on launch day, I’ve used it at home and at work, but not many places in-between. In those environments, the iPad shines as a quick-and-easy way to handle email and other specific tasks in my workday.
Boy Genius Report’s Michael Bettiol on MacDailyNews’ report that MobileMe may soon become a free service:
The question is: if MobileMe becomes free, will Apple dole out refunds to those who paid for the service within the past year, and will Apple generate revenue off the free service with iAds?
That is the question, without a doubt. This model would look a lot like Google’s — free syncing for calendar and contact information and email access, with ads served to members using the browser-based apps.
Engadget’s lawyer-turned-blogger, Nilay Patel, on the AT&T iPhone exclusivity deal:
The term of Apple and AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity deal has long been a mystery – although USA Today reported a five-year arrangement when the original iPhone came out in 2007, that number has never been independently confirmed, and it’s been looking suspect in recent weeks as Verizon iPhone chatter has gotten louder. But we’ve been doing some digging and we can now confirm that Apple and AT&T entered into a five-year iPhone exclusive in 2007, based on court documents filed by Apple in California.
The iPad etched-screen aesthetic does look good. No visual distractions or nerdy buttons. The penalty for this beauty is the re-emergence of a usability problem we haven’t seen since the mid-1990s: Users don’t know where they can click.
It’s a good read, but in the real world, the device is a breeze to use. I think the days of this type of thinking are limited.
Apple today announced that iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK on Friday, May 28. Customers can pre-order all iPad models from Apple’s online store in all nine countries beginning on Monday, May 10. In the US, Apple has already sold over one million iPads and customers have downloaded over 12 million apps from the App Store, as well as over 1.5 million ebooks from the new iBookstore.
Brian Chen at Wired has some advice for Apple, and he doesn’t pull any punches.
As in previous ChangeWave surveys, Verizon remains the clear industry leader in customer satisfaction – with nearly half of Verizon’s customers (49%) saying they are Very Satisfied with their cellular service. We note that Sprint/Nextel (35%) is now second in terms of customer satisfaction, with T-Mobile (23%) and AT&T (23%) lagging well behind.
And:
AT&T’s low churn rate – despite its relatively poor Very Satisfied rating and its high percentage of dropped calls – is attributable to the huge advantage it continues to maintain as the exclusive U.S. service provider for the Apple iPhone.
This update addresses an audio anomaly that some customers may hear coming from inside their Mac Pro computer when using FireWire audio devices.
I know of at least one machine doing this — hopefully this update will address it.
Cupidtino, a new online date-finding service for Apple fans:
Cupidtino is a beautiful new dating site created for fans of Apple products by fans of Apple products! Why? Diehard Mac & Apple fans often have a lot in common – personalities, creative professions, a similar sense of style and aesthetics, taste, and of course a love for technology. We believe these are enough reasons for two people to meet and fall in love, and so we created the first Mac-inspired dating site to help you find other Machearts around you.
Engagdet blogger Nilay Patel breaks it down:
There’s a crucial difference between “open” and “free” here. Although H.264 is an open standard, in that it was developed by a consortium of companies and anyone can make and sell an encoder or decoder, it’s not free – you’ve got to pay for a royalty fee to use it, and the rates are set by the MPEG-LA, which collects payments and distributes them to its members.
It is here, and it is stunning.
[…]
Daniel is an absurdly talented developer for the Mac, and MarsEdit 3 is a rock solid piece of software. It is one of the most-used, most-important, and most-beloved applications I own.
Indeed. I’ve used MarsEdit since I launched ForkBombr, and upgraded this morning without a second’s hesitation.
“One million iPads in 28 days—that’s less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Demand continues to exceed supply and we’re working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers.”
Most impressive.