Apple Slate Will Redefine the College Textbook Experience

Posted by admin on Jan 8, 2010 in Apple, Tablets

Imagine if you will a day in the life of an incoming college freshman circa Fall 2009. They arrive with schedule of classes in hand and a list of text books they must buy. First stop, the school book store.

Will this student buy all brand shiny new books, spending as much as $500 or more just for the first semester? Or paw over USED books looking through every page trying to determine if the previous owner or owners have already highlighted everything or filled the margins with Twlight musings. Then they have the schlep that massive, heavy load of tree-killing paper home to their dorm room and start sorting out how many books they have to put in their backpack for each schedule of the day.

PCWorld: HP’s “Slate” Lowers the Bar for Apple

Posted by admin on Jan 7, 2010 in Apple, Microsoft, Tablets

By Tony Bradley, PC World

Steve Ballmer’s keynote address at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) did not unveil the rumored Microsoft Courier tablet PC. Ballmer did take the opportunity, though, to reveal an HP tablet PC dubbed the “Slate”.

The HP Slate was underwhelming, to say the least. Hailed by Ballmer as “something that’s almost as portable as a phone and that’s as powerful as a PC running Windows 7″, the demonstration showed a flat panel computing device that seemed more equivalent to a color Kindle than to a Windows 7 wonder-tablet.

Apple Tablet has “A Good Bit of New Sexy To It”

Posted by admin on Jan 7, 2010 in Apple, Tablets

According to Dan Frommer over at The Business Insider:

Some fresh Apple tablet gossip from an industry source who tells us they have seen the OS: (Not the device.)

• It’s “pretty” — obviously.
• “The UI has a good bit of new sexy to it.”
• “It’s a big iPhone, but it’s not just a big iPhone.”

PCWorld: Barnes and Noble Nook: Tantalizing but Unfinished

Posted by admin on Jan 7, 2010 in Nook, Tablets

Melissa J. Perenson, PCWorld

The Barnes and Noble Nook evokes images of curling up in a corner with a good book near a cozy fire, perhaps with a mug of hot cocoa close at hand. And the Nook ($259, as of December 17, 2009) will indeed let you read electronic books; but unfortunately, not everything about this e-book reader makes for a comfortable reading experience.

Newsweek: Apple’s Blank Slate

Posted by admin on Jan 7, 2010 in Apple, Tablets

By Daniel Lyons

Everybody’s talking about the new tablet computer Apple is expected to unveil this month. Some say it will save newspapers by giving them a new platform where they can charge for subscriptions. Some say it will destroy cable TV by letting people purchase shows à la carte over the Internet. Some say the tablet is pointless—nobody needs it, and it will be a total flop. But the truth is no one knows how this device will end up being used—not even Apple.

Yes, Steve Jobs and his team know exactly what the tablet will look like, what chips it will use, and how much it will cost. They’ve probably created some slick software for the tablet, and maybe they’ve struck deals with software makers and media companies to deliver content for the device.

But the cool thing about technology is that nobody ever knows how new ideas will evolve. Today’s hype around the tablet is a lot like the hype around theiPhone before its 2007 introduction. Back then, just like today, everyone was trying to guess what it would look like and what it would do—and as it turns out, nobody was even close.

The lesson we’ve learned since then is that even the people who created the iPhone could not have imagined what people would do with the device. Much of the fun of iPhone involves software apps that didn’t exist when the iPhone was introduced. Those apps don’t come from Apple—they were written by thousands of developers who found inspiration in a new computing platform.

This kind of unpredictability is typical in Silicon Valley. A lot of tech companies start out with no idea what they’re going to become, and if they do have an idea, it’s usually wrong. One of the big revelations contained in Googled, Ken Auletta’s new book about the search giant, is how clueless the company’s cofounders were about how to make money. The Google guys started writing code in 1996, but they didn’t dream up Google’s moneymaking programs, AdWords and AdSense, until 2002 and 2003, respectively. Early on, when an investor told Sergey Brin that Google needed a business plan, Brin responded: “What’s a business plan?”

No wonder the old media types didn’t recognize Google as a threat. How could they, when even the Google guys had no idea what their company would become? Same goes for other disruptors, like Facebook and Twitter, which have lured millions of people away from TV and other forms of traditional media. That’s why old media is in such a pickle: they’re competing against nimble rivals who try one thing, then another, until they find something that works.

Facebook was launched in 2004 as a site where college kids could stay in touch with friends. Presumably the site would make money by selling advertising to brands that wanted to reach Facebook’s members. But today, as it turns out, the big money comes from something else. In 2007 Facebook began letting outside developers create applications for Facebook. The big hits were games. The game developers make money by selling ad space inside their games. To keep luring in new players, they must buy advertising space from Facebook. If a developer doesn’t buy ads, it will get eclipsed by rivals that do. It’s pure genius—but it’s hardly what Mark Zuckerberg envisioned in his Harvard dorm room back in 2004.

Twitter’s founders also had a simple idea—instead of making yet another blogging platform, they would create a “micro-blogging” service where every post could only be 140 characters long. Since its 2006 launch, Twitter has evolved on its own as people kept dreaming up new ways to use it. Who knew Twitter would turn out to be a replacement for RSS, letting you subscribe to blogs and other news feeds? Who knew it would become a form of reality TV, letting you follow the day-to-day lives of celebrities?

For that matter, who at Apple could have forseen that some academics at Stanford would write software that turns the iPhone into a musical instrument, and that today people would form iPhone orchestras?

This kind of creativity and innovation is what makes technology so fun to follow. It’s also why making predictions about technology is such an exercise in futility. Whatever Apple announces this month, it will only be a starting point. The really cool stuff will come later, as millions of people start tinkering with the tablet and trading tips, and as thousands of developers get turned loose on a new platform and start pushing the limits of what the device can do. Frankly, I can’t wait.

The cool thing about technology today is that nobody can predict how new ideas will evolve. Facebook, Twitter, and the iPhone are all used far differently than their founders imagined. The same will be true as users embrace Apple’s new device.

Daniel Lyons is also the author of Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs and Dog Days: A Novel.

This article originally appeared here:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/229373

Apple tablet rumors garner anticipation

Posted by admin on Jan 7, 2010 in Apple, Tablets

SAED HINDASH/THE STAR-LEDGERALLAN HOFFMAN

I can sum up my attitude toward the Apple tablet in three words: I want one.

There’s only one problem. Apple’s tablet computer, envisioned as a slate-like device larger than an iPhone but smaller than a laptop, does not exist — yet.

That is, Apple isn’t saying whether a tablet is in the works. But that’s just a minor point I’m happy to ignore, especially with a number of reports suggesting Apple will introduce the tablet at a Jan. 27 event in San Francisco. That’s enough for me to join the scores of other technology writers, business analysts and bloggers in speculating about what the device will be like and how it will change the world.

Certainly I’m not alone in having absurdly outsized expectations for this product, as the tablet is likely the most anticipated computer in history. Depending on whom you ask, it may transform everything from the computing industry to the book business — and beyond.

Here’s one commentator, Mark Potts, writing about the tablet at his blog (at recoveringjournalist.typepad.com): “Apple’s tablet has the potential to change the way we consume and pay for media — many different types of media — as substantially as the company revolutionized the computing business with the original Macintosh, the music business with the iPod and iTunes and telephony and handheld computing with the iPhone,” Potts says. “Probably more so, in fact.”

A BusinessWeek article was titled “Five Ways Apple’s Tablet May Change the World.”

All of that, without really knowing what it will look like or do.

More than likely, it will be a strikingly thin, slate-like device with a 10-inch (or so) color touch-screen. Think of it as an oversized iPhone, with enough features to let you leave your notebook computer behind on a business trip.
BOLD PREDICTIONS

Here are 10 predictions for the tablet:

Apps: Just like the iPhone, the tablet (the iSlate? iTablet? iPad?) will include the apps made famous by the iPhone. (Three billion of these programs have been downloaded and purchased for use on Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch.) After the tablet announcement, app-makers will get to work creating versions of their apps capable of running on the tablet.

E-books: In tandem with the introduction of the tablet, Apple will add e-books to the iTunes Store. With the tablet’s color screen and video capabilities, the device will expand the possibilities for e-books.

Connectivity to external devices: The tablet will connect to wireless peripheral devices, like your printer, external keyboard and mouse.

Flip-out hinge: A flip-out hinge on the tablet will make it possible to prop the tablet on a desk or table when you’re using an external keyboard or watching a video.

Wireless storage: You’ll be able to back up information from your tablet directly to a WiFi-connected hard drive, like Apple’s Time Capsule.

Access to media on your computer: You’ll be able to wirelessly access various media, such as photos, music and videos, stored on your computer, via a WiFi connection.

Virtual keyboard: The tablet’s onscreen keyboard will use a new technology to provide tactile feedback when typing.

Magazines: Apple will encourage magazines to reinvent themselves for the tablet. For an idea of what this might look like, check out the video at the home page of the media company Bonnier.

Data plan: You’ll need to pay a monthly fee in order to have always-on internet access with the tablet. If you’re willing to accept lots of ads on the device, you’ll be able to sign up for a reduced-fee plan.

Videoconferencing: A new application will make videoconferencing easier than ever.
But these predictions don’t really answer the key question about the tablet: Why would you want one?

One technology commentator, Joe Wilcox, says you won’t. Why? Because there’s “too much overlapping functionality between the smartphone and laptop,” Wilcox says in an article at Betanews titled, “The world doesn’t need an Apple tablet, or any other.”

“Are most users going to buy a touchscreen and tablet, or tablet and laptop (and no cell phone) — or perhaps all three?” he asks. “The answer is no, no and no.”

Yet John Gruber, a popular technology blogger (at daringfireball.net), asked the same question (“If you already have an iPhone and a MacBook, why would you want this?”) and arrived at a very different answer: “The tablet is something you’ll buy instead of a MacBook.”

“I say they’re swinging big — redefining the experience of personal computing,” Gruber says.

Which makes sense. The Macintosh, the iPod, the iPhone. With the tablet, your main computing device wouldn’t be a desktop computer or a notebook computer. It would be the tablet.

In that respect, I was reminded of my initial reaction to the iPhone, back in 2007. After a half-hour of trying the iPhone, I felt like my MacBook was “a dumb, clunky antiquated device,” as I wrote at the time. The touchscreen, the tactile qualities, the interface — I prefer all of these to those on a traditional computer.

It’s quite possible the Apple tablet will take this line of thinking to its logical conclusion. That is, it will be the beginning of the end of the personal computer as we know it. A touchscreen device — more like an iPhone than a notebook computer — will be what you use for most computing tasks.

For most of us, that shift will be gradual. But I imagine how the tablet, as it evolves into a powerful, all-around computing device over the next five or 10 years, will become the hub for our computing, much as a desktop or notebook computer currently is. If it connects to external keyboards and hard drives, as well as the growing number of applications in the “cloud” of the web, it would do just about everything you wanted from a computer.

As it happens, I’ve been looking to buy a replacement for my MacBook, and you know what? I’m waiting. I want to see what the tablet is, and if it’s all I hope, then my next computer may be a tablet.

This article originally appeared here:

http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2010/01/apple_tablet_rumors_garner_ant.html

Use your iPhone to control your DSLR

Posted by admin on Jan 6, 2010 in apps, iPhone

This is an interesting use of the iPhone to act as a sort of remote trigger and monitor for your DSLR. It’s not quite as useful for video as it is for still but as more folks are mixing it up between stills and video at once in the studio, it could come in handy. Besides, let’s face it, who doesn’t like using their iPhone in new and cool ways. Check out DSLR Camera Remote for more info. $19.99 is a bit steep for an iPhone app, so there’s also a LITE version.

iPhone Apps for Filmmakers

Posted by admin on Jan 6, 2010 in apps, iPhone