- Image via Wikipedia
It seems as though various news sources are pointing out the high international demand for the iPad. One example was in Tokyo Japan where 1,200 people stood in line trying to purchase an iPad. This exemplifies the overwhelming demand of international customers for the iPad as Apple tries to overcome low supply levels in order to meet its unexpected interest. In the past month, the iPad has only been introduced in 10 of the 88 countries that will sell the product and is short on supply everywhere.
Personally I was not surprised or captivated with the iPad or the sales that it experienced. As a new type of device, not many people know why they want one or what they would use it for. Of those who have purchased an iPad, 91% say they are satisfied with their purchase. I would never purchase an iPad in its current form. Originally I was hoping that the iPad would be a smaller landscape product that was based more so off the OS X operating system than the iPhone OS. I want something with a file system that I can manipulate files on between applications. A device which automatically syncs files with my MacBook so I can work on things at home or on the go. My main purpose would be to work on a project at home on my MacBook and then take it with me to work on a mobile device and work on it during my breaks. Currently, I do not see how the iPad would fit in to my lifestyle.
I also was not impressed with the demand of the iPad. Maybe I had high expectations for what the iPad could have been but I thought that a tablet-like device should have sold more units up front. Rumors were giving higher numbers which I believed would have set a better pace but those numbers were inflated. It is difficult in one respect because an iPad and an iPhone are similar so many people do not see a reason to have an iPad if they already have an iPhone. On the other hand, I think people should understand the importance of the product more because they have been exposed to the iPhone for so long. For example: many people have been saying that the demand for the iPad is so much greater than the original iPhone. The millionth iPad was sold after 28 days rather than whereas the millionth iPhone was sold after 74 days. This is a great achievement for Apple but now that Apple has introduced the app store, sells millions of iPhones a quarter, and developers have created hundreds of thousands of apps, the million unit amount seems smaller than I would have expected.
- Image via Wikipedia
Reeling with excitement, I have no desire of falling asleep now. In 6 hours, Apple will release their new Apple tablet. I cant wait to hear about how Steve Jobs introduces this one. Supposedly a 10″ touch-screen tablet closely resembling a flattened first generation iPhone. It should have 3G connectivity, a front facing camera, and two dock connectors (for portrait or landscape positions). Hopefully it will have an OLED display.
It is said to be Steve Jobs’ most important product release yet. I can’t even imagine how it will surpass the iPhone. It will allow for downloads of book and most likely magazines and newspapers. You are said to interact with the tablet in a completely new way. I’m hoping it will be around $600. We shall see pretty soon.
This is one of the more exciting accessories I’ve seen for the iPhone. I’ve always wanted to control my electronics through my iPhone ever since my mom’s old PDA could (years ago). With ThinkFlood‘s RedEye unit and free app, you can control your infrared electronics from your iPhone. Back then, my mom’s PDA could only control a device with line of site, but the RedEye unit is controlled via wifi and therefore can be controlled in any direction, across the room, in another room, or outside the house as long as you can reach your wifi network. Just simply place the RedEye unit within range of your electronics. The great thing is you can control multiple units in multiple rooms or multiple people can control a single unit (which may be a bad thing :]). Another great thing is you have the ability to program your own remote. Which means you choose the buttons and functions of the remote control and can change it based on the different activities you want to perform. The RedEye and accompanying application seem like a set of very impressive tools for you universal remote control needs.
Right now while the RedEye is going through their beta process, ThinkFlood is offering each RedEye unit at cost $119 instead of the normal retail price of $149. This seems like an even better reason to jump on the bandwagon before they raise their price. It will be really interesting to see how well the unit works and I will follow up with what I think about the device and the software. I should have mine by the 16th. 🙂
ThinkFlood :: What is RedEye?.
Check out something ridiculously cool from the WWDC 2009 conference. There Apple had a semi-live updating board that would pulsate each time someone purchased an app. Developers called it the pulsating app store hyperwall, and pulsate it did. The idea that you can see all of these purchases happening in semi-real time in a graphical way is pretty neat. Plus I’m sure if you did some calculations based on the board you could tell the number of downloads (purchases) a day and the popularity of the different apps.
AppleInsider | Apple stuns WWDC crowd with pulsating App Store hyperwall.
To get a better look at the different applications on the wall, someone has made a photosynthesis. It’s a collection of over 200 close-up pictures stitched together to make one high quality portrait.
What you’re looking at:
Over 3,000 apps – and growing – are downloaded every minute from the App Store. This is a live feed showing the activity of 20,000 popular apps currently on the store. Every time a customer downloads an app, its icon lights up (5-min. delay).
How we made it:
This hyperwall was built using the latest in Apple technology. It’s powered by 20 Mac Pro towers running Mac OSX Snow Leopard. It was programmed in Quartz Composer using Open L APIs. And it’s shown on 20 synchronized 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays.
AT&T’s CruiseCast was discontinued.
A pretty interesting new option in automotive entertainment but definitely an expensive one is AT&T‘s new service called CruiseCast. The idea is that you can mount a satalite receiver on top of your car and get TV in your car while traveling. This antena connects to a box which converts the stalite feed and then routes that to TVs mounted in your car.
In order to get the service you have to shell out around $1,300 and then pay a monthly fee of $28. You could buy each of your 4 kids a new 32GB iPhone 3G S and still have some money over to help pay off the additional data charges. They would be able to choose their content better and play video games on them when they get bored. The funny part is they advertise it as 40 channels plus which seems like just a portion of the channels that you get with a basic satellite package however 20+ of those channels are music channels which means nothing being that you have a radio or hopefully some way of playing your own music. However what is interesting is that they claim to have a coverage area of the whole entire United States. And in case you are traveling through a tunnel of in between New York City skyscrapers, the equipment buffers the video so that you can go 3 minutes without signal until you would know.
