Next Issue Media is developing a sort of Netflix for tablet magazines, and hopes to launch its platform on Apple iPad this summer. The app would allow users to view all the magazines they’d like, for a flat rate of $10 or $15 a month. So far, the Next Issue platform has only worked on Android Honeycomb devices, and the company plans to submit versions to Apple soon, though there’s no word on possible versions for Amazon’s Kindle Fire or Barnes & Noble’s Nook, which both run modified versions of the Google OS.
Digital magazine subscriptions make up just one percent of industry circulation, and publishers are working to change this. The NIM business model will stay the same – curated content sponsored mainly by ads – but customers aren’t locked in to subscribing to certain magazines, and can swap out titles at will. Another problem besides Next Issue’s lack of operating system compatibility is lack of content itself. The platform presently only offers 32 titles, in its joint venture with Hearst, Meredith, Time Inc. and Conde Nast. News Corp has also bought into into Next Issue, but has yet to contribute any content. NIM says it will add more titles later this year, and presently offers well-known magazines like Sports Illustrated, Fortune, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Esquire, Elle, Better Homes and Gardens, etc. Also, no print issues are included with an NIM digital subscription. Some publishers have been adding digital content to their print editions for free – not the case with NIM.
Since the iPad hit the market, publishers have been trying to figure out how to bolster e-magazine subscription sales, and have mostly come up with .pdf copies of what they publish in print, with a couple of digital bells and whistles thrown in. There hasn’t been too many compelling reasons for readers to make the switch to all digital. NIM hopes that by changing the basic mode of subscription, there will be a rise in all-digital sales. John Loughlin, who oversees Heart’s digital sales, states, “No one has done this before, and there are lots of practical reasons for that.”
Still, publishers need to sort out the logistics of e-subscriptions, including how they’ll get paid, actual subscription costs, issues of circulation and advertising, etc. “Anybody that tells you that they have the answer, or that their model is the model that would be successful 5 years from now – they’d be suspect,” says Loughlin, adding “We’re very much in a learning mode.”
The platforming indie-game hit Super Meat Boy will be coming to smartphone and tablet devices sometime in the near future. But not the notoriously difficult game as you have known it before. Edmund McMillen, co-creator of Super Meat Boy, announced on the “Team Meat” blog that Super Meat Boy would be completely redesigned for touch platforms. From the blog:
“Sadly, there was no way of doing this without the game becoming a pile of garbage, Super Meat Boy is a twitch platformer with precision controls, there was no way in hell this would work on a touch screen with buttons all over it, Super Meat Boy isn’t a game we want to make a sub-par version of just to cash in…
So, we decided to totally remake the whole game instead, from the ground up!”
Unfortunately, development on this new imagining of Super Meat Boy is only just beginning, so fans of the game will have to wait a while to get their fingers on the game. However, McMillen did post a few details about what is planned for the game. The game will not be a direct port of the console and PC versions. It will be designed specifically for a touch interface, meaning it will not have “non-tactile buttons” overlaid on the screen. Though aspects of Super Meat Boy will be present, the game will feature all-new art, sound, and “everything.”
And just in case you think I’ve been fooled by one of those April fool’s jokes, here’s a (very long) interview with McMillen in January during which he mentions a touch version being a possibility. The mention comes a little after the 58-minute mark:
Are you ready to be frustrated with Super Meat Boy touch platforming? Do you have any idea (I don’t) what type of controls a game of this sort would utilize on an iPhone or Android device? Are you sick of red meat? Let me know in the comments below.
Ever since the new iPad came out with its new retina display two weeks ago, developers have been scrambling to update their apps to accomodate it. If you own an iPad you’ve no doubt been seeing tons of updates in the app store, most of them including “New Retina Display Graphics!” Now, if you’re one of those with a new iPad, this is no doubt very exciting. If, on the other hand, you’re still rocking a first generation iPad, after awhile you start thinking about how much extra space all those graphics that you can’t see are taking up on your iPad, and you start to get a little annoyed. I’ve heard.
Anyway, moving on. The latest major app to feel the retina display love is the official Facebook app. An update released today that adds retina display graphics to the app. Now, if you’re one of the (not at all bitter) owners of an older iPad, there are things in this app for you, too. In addition to the sharp-enough-to-cut-you new graphics, the app includes several fixes for bugs that have been bothering some users for awhile. For example, the app now no longer switches your friends’ profile pictures around. The update also adds eight new languages, so if you’re a native speaker of Czech, Greek, Indonesian, Thai, Norwegian, Malaysian, or Portuguese (European, not Brazilian). Check out the full list of changes below:
As always, the Facebook app is a universal app. As such, all the updates to the app apply to the iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as to the iPad (of course, the app already had retina display graphics for the iPhone). Facebook for iOS is available for free in the App Store.
Have you gotten the Facebook update for your new iPad? How does it look? Let us know in the comments.
An April Fool’s Day gag drew the ire of a number of would-be iOS jailbreakers yesterday. A post on iJailbreak.com proclaimed that a new untethered iOS 5.1 jailbreak for A5 and A5X iOS devices (iPhone 4S, iPad 2, new iPad) was available. The article offered users a supposed link to download the AprilRa1n jailbreak tool and jailbreak their devices.
Of course, there were plenty of hints that this was a gag. If the name AprilRa1n wasn’t enough of a giveaway, the phrase “april-fools-joke” in the article’s URL should’ve been a clue. Failing that, there’s the disclaimer at the bottom of the article:
Finally, if that wasn’t enough, there’s the download link. Instead of initiating a download of the AprilRa1n tool, the download link goes to the following video:
Some people, however, weren’t quite sharp enough to pick up on the hints, and went ahead and updated their devices to iOS 5.1 anyway. In times past, this wouldn’t be too much of a problem: just roll back to the previous version of iOS, re-jailbreak, and you’re done. It’s a pain in the neck, but not a huge problem. Unfortunately, though, Apple took steps this time around to ensure that the upgrade to iOS 5.1 is a one-way trip. Once you’ve updated, there’s no going back. Which means that those poor souls who updated their devices without reading to the end of the article (or checking the date, or the disclaimer, or the article URL, or clicking the download link) are stuck waiting for the real iOS 5.1 jailbreak. Unfortunately for them, as we reported last week, they may have several weeks to wait.
As you might expect, those who upgraded (and those who want to make fun of them) took to the post’s comments. Here are a few gems.
At least two people went ahead and upgraded to iOS 5.1:
Some got the joke but weren’t amused:
A few decided to play along:
While others point out that the clues were obvious:
What do you think? Was this a good joke or just too mean? Let us know in the comments.
Amazon’s Android Appstore generates far more revenue than Google Play, and nearly as much as the iOS App Store. A recent study found that apps that rely on in-app purchases for revenue make the most money from the iOS versions of their apps, followed by Android versions purchased in the Amazon Appstore. Google Play (which recently replaced the Android App Market) came in a distant third.
The study, recently conducted by Flurry, compared “a basket of top-ranked apps” that are available in all three markets. The apps all rely on in-app purchases for their revenue. The apps average a combined 11 million daily active users (DAU). Beginning in mid-January, Flurry measured the revenue generated by each app for 45 days.
According to the data, the apps generated nearly as much revenue from the Amazon Appstore as they did from the iOS App Store. Apps from Amazon generated 89% of the revenue generated by iOS apps. Apps from Google Play, however, fell far behind, generated only 23% of the revenue gained from the iOS App Store. Check out the chart below:
Data like this could bode ill not for both Google and for the increasingly fragmented Android operating system. While Android fragmentation is not quite the problem that many pro-iOS apologists argue, it remains an issue. Though Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet is an Android device, Amazon has taken steps to make the tablet their own, including encouraging customers to get their apps from the Amazon Appstore rather than from Google Play. If other manufacturers o learn from Amazon’s success and create their own app markets, it could contribute to the fragmentation of the Android platform and potentially lead to
When Apple unveiled their new iPad on March 7th they also rolled out iOS 5.1. This was great news for most iOS users, but frustrating for those (like me) who prefer their iPhones jailbroken. As expected, iOS 5.1 possessed none of the vulnerabilities that had been used to crack its predecessor, iOS 5. What’s more, iOS 5 proved especially difficult to jailbreak, especially on the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, both of which run on Apple’s A5 processor. Would-be jailbreakers with those devices had to wait just over three months for an untethered jailbreak (i.e., one that doesn’t require the phone to be re-jailbroken every time it’s rebooted).
When iOS 5.1 released, then, there were fears that we would have to wait a similarly long time for an untethered jailbreak. Early signs after the release of the new iPad two weeks ago, though, suggested that the wait might not be quite as long. The day before the new iPad hit stores, noted jailbreak developer i0n1c posted a video and pictures of a jailbroken iPad 2 running iOS 5.1. The next day, just hours after the new iPad hit stores, another iPhone hacker, MuscleNerd, posted screenshots from a new iPad running an untethered jailbreak.
All of that looked pretty promising. Such progress so rapidly suggested that maybe an untethered jailbreak would be a little quicker in coming this time around. Maybe not, says jailbreak developer pod2g, who was an instrumental member of the team that developed the iOS 5 jailbreak. On his Twitter account today pod2g said that he was spending hours per day looking for vulnerabilities, but that a public jailbreak tool was still “weeks” away. Check out his tweets below:
So there you have it. If you have iOS 5.1 and want to jailbreak your A5 (iPhone 4S, iPad 2) or A5X (new iPad) device, you’ve got some waiting to do. On the other hand, if you’re using a jailbroken iPhone 4S or iPad 2 running iOS 5.0.1, then you’ll want to avoid updating to iOS 5.1, especially since Apple has taken measures to prevent users who have updated to iOS 5.1 from rolling back to iOS 5.0.1.
Unfortunately, a jailbreak dev’s work is never done. The longer it takes to get an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5.1, the closer it will be to the release of the next iPhone. Not only is it likely to be running on a completely new processor, the A6, it will also coincide with the release of iOS 6. Whatever exploits are used to jailbreak iOS 5.1, you can bet that Apple will fix them in iOS 6. And so the jailbreak war goes on.
Do you have a new iPad you want to jailbreak? Are you eager to get iOS 5.1 on your iPhone 4S or iPad 2, but don’t want to lose your jailbreak? Are you prepared to wait a few weeks before jailbreaking your device? Let us know in the comments.
Last month artist Petros Vrellis gained a bit of notoriety for his interactive animation of Vincent Van Gogh’s famous Starry Night painting. The painting could be manipulated by touch, allowing the user to change the flow of the painting’s animation however they wanted. After a few seconds, the painting reverted to normal. Interestingly, the accompanying music also changed based on the user’s manipulation of the image.
When the interactive painting was first noticed, there were numerous calls for Vrellis to turn it into an app. To the delight of the original painting’s fans, he did just that. Check out a video of it below.
The app is currently available for Apple’s iPad. It is a $1.99 download in the App Store. Unfortunately, based on the reviews, it does not appear to have retina display graphics (at least not yet). The functionality is the same. The user touches the painting to change the animation’s flow, and the accompanying music responds as the image is manipulated.
While $2 may seem a little steep for an app like this, sometimes it’s worth paying a little extra to reward someone for creating something cool. Head on over and out the app, then let us know what you think in the comments.
It’s not a joke, but it might be a prank. We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, though, and tell you that Alfred E Neuman is about to land his goofy little face on your iPad.
This year, MAD Magazine will celebrate its 60th birthday. which seems like a splendid time to go digital. MAD Magazine, the satirical heavyweight on popular culture is coming to your iPads on April Fool’s Day. This is fitting, says a blog post, because April 1st happens to be little Alfred’s birthday.
The iPad app will be free, but the content won’t be. Without ponying up a little extra, you’ll only really have access to a free preview. Readers can pay an upfront annual price of $9.99, or you can pay on an issue-to-issue basis. New issues will run you $4.99 and back issues will be $1.99. If you’re already a paid subscriber to MAD, don’t worry, you’ll have access to all the iPad content for free.
“We’re delighted to bring MAD to the iPad,” said MAD Editor John Ficarra. “We think the MAD app may be just the thing to turn the struggling iPad around and make it successful –though most experts think it may be just the thing that kills it altogether.”
Cute.
Here’s what you’ll be getting with the app:
The MAD app will include interactive versions of all current issues, access to a library of back issues and books, animated covers and “fold-in” pages, promo videos from the hit Cartoon Network show, MAD, and a link to MAD’s popular blog The Idiotical. In addition to the regular issue interactive “fold-in,” digital issues will also include a second, classic interactive “fold-in” from a past issue. Fans of Sergio Aragones’ MAD Marginals will enjoy a feature that allows readers to “pop-up” the margin artwork for a larger, more detailed view.
Like many magazines that come to the iPad, you can expect all the same content that’s present in the print version, with added interactive bonus features.
Like I said before, this could all be an April Fool’s prank. But I won’t lose sleep over it. What, me worry?
Google is preparing to launch an online store to sell its forthcoming Google-branded tablet directly, according to recent reports. The online store would mimic the direct sales method employed by Apple and Amazon to sell their iPad and Kindle Fire tablets, respectively.
The Wall Street Journal cites “people familiar with the matter” who say that the goal of the online store will be to boost sales of Android-based tablets. While Android-based smartphones have stood up well against Apple’s iPhone – even passing Apple in market share – Android tablets have not fared nearly as well against the iPad.
Google reportedly has their own Google-branded tablet in the works. In December Eric Schmidt told an Italian newspaper that Google was working on a tablet that would rival the iPad. Late last month sources said that a Google-branded tablet priced and sized to compete with Amazon’s Kindle Fire would be going into production in April. Meanwhile, there are rumors that Google is already working on Android 5.0 Jelly Bean, which is reportedly targeted for a mid-year release.
There is little information on when we can expect to see Google’s online tablet store, but it’s a safe bet it will go live around the same time as Google’s tablet launches. The store will not, however, be only for Google’s tablet. Other Android tablets will almost certainly be in the store as well.
Even with their own tablet and a store devoted entirely to Android tablets, Google is likely to face an uphill battle. While Android tablets have generally done fairly well, they have never been more than a (very) distant second place behind Apple’s iPad. What’s more, with Amazon’s Kindle Fire continuing to do well and with Windows 8 tablets coming later this year, the competition in the tablet market (or the non-iPad part of it, anyway) is only going to intensify.
What do you think? Can an online store and a Google-branded tablet help Google mount a serious challenge to Apple and the iPad? Let us know in the comments.
Whether you love Apple or hate them, you have to admit that their products are pretty darn popular. It seems like everybody these days has an iPod, or an iPhone, or an iMac, or an iPad, or some other product that starts with i (or doesn’t, like a MacBook).
As part of their All-American Economic Survey, CNBC decided to find out just how popular Apple products are. They found that the impression that everybody has an Apple product isn’t actually all that far from the truth. It turns out that just over half of American homes have at least one Apple product, and nearly a third have two or more. In fact, the report says, the average American household has 1.6 products made by Apple. Check out the chart below for a breakdown:
Jay Campbell of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the study for CNBC attributed the phenomenon to Apple’s business model: “[T]he more or our products you own, the more likely you are to buy more.” He also pointed out that “[p]lanned obsolescence has always been a part of the technology industry sales model, but Apple has taken it to a whole new level”
The survey also painted a picture of the average buyer of Apple’s products. They tend to be male, younger, and have a college education. While as many are homeowners as not, the more money a person makes, the more likely they are to own multiple Apple products.
The number of Apple products in a household went up if that house has children, the study found. While 48% of childless homes had at least one Apple product, Apple products were found in 61% of homes where there were children.
The percentage of homes with Apple products is only likely to increase in the future, too. One in ten homes that do not currently have Apple products plan to buy them in the next twelve months.
Which group do you fall into? How many Apple products do you have? Which products do you have? Let us know in the comments.
What is it with Sweden lately? From Pirate Bay and Julian Assange news to iPad magicians and Minecraft, the country seems to be at the forefront of both innovation and controversy on the web.
Just one day after an Australian group complained to consumer groups in that country about the marketing of the new iPad, Ars Technica is reporting today that Swedish groups are doing the same. Evidently, The Swedish Consumer Agency is receiving complaints about the 4G capabilities of the new tablet and could open its own investigation.
The issue in these countries is that Apple released only one version of the new iPad worldwide, and advertised it as 4G capable. While the tablet certainly is 4G enabled in the U.S. and a few other countries, it is not compatible with either Australia’s or Sweden’s 4G networks. Consumers and consumer protection groups are crying “false advertising,” though the Australian packaging for the device did include a sticker with a warning explaining the situation. Apple announced today that Australian customers who feel they were mislead could receive a refund.
This story is one more in a long line of unflattering new iPad stories. Will Apple offer similar refunds in Sweden? I’m guessing yes, and sooner rather than later.
Twitter seems to think the whole issue is a little overblown:
Apple is preparing to offer refunds to Australian customers who purchased the new iPad in the belief that it would run on the 4G LTE networks run by Optus and Telstra in Australia. Apple retained the references to 4G connectivity in their Australian marketing for the new iPad despite the incompatibility. Customer complaints about the issue drew the attention of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which asked Apple to remove references to 4G from its marketing.
According to the ACCC’s statement yesterday, they were in the process of seeking a court order to require Apple to change the “misleading” promotional statementts. In order to forestall legal action and placate angry customers, Apple announced today that they would begin emailing refunds to customers who felt they’d been misled, according to the ABC in Australia.. They also promised to alert new customers to the incompatibility at the time of sale. Though not compatible with Australian carriers’ 4G networks, the new iPad does work on their 3G data networks.
The two biggest updates to this year’s iPad are its new retina display and the ability to connect to 4G data networks. For would-be iPad buyers in most countries, though, the upgrade to 4G doesn’t do them any good. At present the new iPad is only compatible with the 4G networks of a handful of carriers in the US and Canada.
Australia isn’t the only country to have a problem with Apple’s emphasis on 4G in its marketing for the new iPad. There are reports from several countries today that Sweden and the UK are launching their own investigation into Apple’s marketing practices concerning the new iPad’s 4G capabilities.
It seems, then, that the moral of this story is pretty clear: if a flagship feature of your new product won’t work in certain places, you’d be best advised not to advertise that feature in those places. Because, shockingly, people have a problem with that.
Apple has been under quite a bit of scrutiny in the past few days over the way the new iPad’s battery charges. Shortly after the new iPad’s launch, it was discovered that when the tablet is plugged in, it continues charging for as much as two hours after the battery indicator reaches 100%. While this might be frustrating, it’s not actually a major problem. Many devices read as fully charged before the battery actually reaches 100% in order to preserve the battery’s health. Since the new iPad’s battery is so much larger than the batteries in other devices, it stands to reason that the gap between when the device reports 100% charge and when it actually reaches 100% charge would be bigger.
The problem came from a CNBC report that claimed to offer Apple’s response to the issue. Here’s the video again, in case you missed it:
As you can see, the reporter in the video attributes the claim that overcharging the battery can damage it to Apple. That, as you might imagine, struck a nerve with a lot of people, including Raymond Soneira, who originally discovered the discrepancy between when the battery reports 100% and when it actually reaches 100%.
Apple has responded to the controversy today. Apple Vice President Michael Tchao told AllThingsD that the new iPad charges in exactly the same way as every other iOS device. It reports 100% battery charge when the battery is actually not quite fully charged. At that point it continues to charge until the battery actually reaches 100%. Once that happens it stops charging and allows the battery to drain, then starts charging again to bring the battery back up to 100%. According to Tchao, if you unplug your iPad at any point after the battery indicator reads 100%, you should expect to get the promised 10 hours of battery life. What’s more, that charge cycle is in place specifically to avoid damage to the battery. The system is designed to allow users to keep their iPads (and iPhones, and iPod Touches, etc.) plugged in as long as they like with no ill effects.
Regardless of huge amounts of free content available, tablet owners aren’t opposed to paying for media they really want. In a study by Neilsen, tablet owners in the U.S., UK, Germany and Italy were surveyed to see who was willing to pay for what, and it was found that American consumers were more apt to pay for all forms of media content, except for news.
Other findings include:
The majority of U.S. tablet owners have purchased digital music and books for their devices, at 62 percent and 58 percent respectively. About half have paid for movies, at 51 percent.
News is the content most paid for among the European tablet users queried – 44 percent of tablet owners in Italy, 19 percent of tablet owners in the UK, and 15 percent of tablet owners in Germany stated they have paid for tablet news content. For the rest of the media content categories in Europe, users in Italy bought the most.
In a related study, it was recently revealed that 24% of young, tech-savvy users in the U.S. plan to buy Apple’s new iPad, while 29% of international users in the same demographic plan to do the same.
Apple’s new iPad hot off to a hot start, selling three million units in its first four days on the market. As of last Friday, the new tablet is now available in 35 countries around the world. And according to new research, Apple should see pretty awesome sales of the device in the next few months.
According to a survey from Baird Equity Research, 24% of U.S. respondents said that they plan on buying the new iPad within the next 3 months.
And an even larger percentage of international respondents say they’ll grab the device – 29%. Fifteen percent of U.S. buyers and 22% of international buyers said that they plan on getting a discounted iPad 2 instead.
The researchers admit that the study, which took responses from 488 people, “catered to a younger, tech-savvier group on average.” So while these results might not be the most representative of the population as a whole, they do tell Apple that a key demographic is pretty excited about the new device. The figures aren’t that far off a poll done before the tablet actually launched, where 29% of those surveyed said they planned on buying the new iPad.
Among current iPad owners, the desire to own the new model is even stronger. Almost half (48%) of those respondents said that they plan on upgrading to the new iPad. 35% of those surveyed already owned an iPad 2.
So, why do these young techies wants the new iPad. According to the report, it’s all about the Retina Display (28%) and the A5X processor (26%).
Last week there was a significant amount of controversy over whether the new iPad generated too much heat. Reports about just how hot the new iPad gets have varied pretty widely, with the most recent data suggesting that the amount of heat it puts out is comparable to its Android-based rivals.
In the midst of the ridiculously-named “heatgate” controversy, news of another problem with the iPad began circulating. It turns out that the iPad’s battery keeps charging for as much as two hours after the battery indicator reads 100%. This is potentially a bigger problem than the heat issue. Features like the retina display and 4G require a lot of power to operate (more than double the power, in fact), and Apple has had to make a major upgrade to the iPad’s battery to keep 10 hours of battery life that the iPad 2 boasted. If the battery isn’t charging fully when it says it is, people are going to be getting less from their iPad’s battery than Apple said they would.
Apple, however, has an answer for those who are concerned about the battery issue. They acknowledge that the battery isn’t quite full when the indicator reads 100%. Rather, it’s full enough to give you the promised 10 hours of use. That, at least, is what Apple told CNBC reporters in the video below:
So there you go: when your iPad says it’s “100%” charged, it’s actually just charged enough to give you the performance Apple promised. All well and good, right? Problem solved, right? Not exactly. Note that last bit about how overcharging the battery can damage it. Think about that for a second: if what Apple says is true, then they basically expect you to watch your iPad charge until it reads 100%, and then immediately take it off, lest it damage the battery. For a device that charges quickly, that may not be a problem, but the iPad doesn’t charge quickly. It takes somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3 hours to reach 100%. Because it takes so long, a lot of people plug in their iPad overnight to charge. Those people, according to Apple, are harming their battery by leaving it plugged in after the battery indicator hits 100%.
Now, it’s worth emphasizing here that the iPad only continues to draw power for another two hours after the indicator hits 100%. After that it stops drawing more than a minimal amount of power, even when plugged in. The iPad stops itself from charging at that point. What that means is that rather than stop charging when it reaches 100%, the iPad allows itself to continue charging to such a level that it damages its own battery.
That’s a big problem, according to Dr. Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate and the one who discovered that the iPad keeps drawing power after it says it’s fully charged. What’s more, it’s Apple’s problem, not the consumer’s. After CNBC’s report, which aired Friday afternoon, Soneira updated his study with a reply to Apple’s statement. He calls Apple’s response “poorly thought out damage control,” and said that it was Apple’s responsibility to deal with the issue by rolling out a software fix as soon as possible. Check out his update below:
While my interpretation is that this is just simply an issue of correcting the on-screen battery indicator so that it matches and agrees with what the battery charging hardware and software actually do, Apple has put forth a rather shocking reverse perspective that the on-screen battery indicator is instead the correct one. As reported by Jon Fortt of CNBC: “Apple is saying… if you charge it more than [when the battery indicator reads 100%], you could actually harm the longevity of the battery.”
Damaging the longevity of the battery is then exactly what the new iPad’s internal battery charging hardware and software are doing since it is their responsibility to properly control and manage the battery recharging process. It’s pretty obvious that if the new iPad knows that it is fully charged then it should automatically stop the charging! So according to Apple the new iPad is configured to damage the longevity of its own battery if it isn’t manually disconnected from the AC charger when the 100% indicator appears. Anyone that recharges their iPad unattended, especially overnight, will be doing this.
While Apple’s remark might apply to recharging dumb battery operated toys, the new iPad is a very sophisticated and expensive computer device that is fully capable of properly controlling and managing its own (rudimentary) battery charging process. Perhaps Apple should instead graciously accept my interpretation and rescind their own remarks, which sound like very poorly thought out damage control. Otherwise they need to immediately fix the iPad battery charging algorithm or they may be held responsible for replacing all iPad batteries. Which one will it be?
Few will deny that Apple makes some pretty amazing products. What Apple does not, apparently, do well is deal with problems that those products have after they release. In 2010 it was the badly mishandled “antennagate” issue with the iPhone 4, which ultimately led to a class action lawsuit. Apple settled the suit, agreeing to give everyone who purchased an iPhone 4 either $15 or a bumper case for their iPhone. This has all the earmarks of a similar scandal. In effect, Apple shipped the new iPad with a software glitch that (they now say) has the potential to damage the iPad’s battery, and their response has effectively been to tell users not to let their iPads charge after the battery indicator reaches 100%.
Whatever happens in the next few days or weeks, you can bet that the statement to CNBC will not the the last we hear from Apple on this issue. Whether they actually make another statement about it or not, you can probably expect iOS 5.1.1 to show up in the not-so-distant future with a fix.
What do you think of Apple’s statement about the battery problem? What should Apple do to fix it? Let us know in the comments.
Last week we brought you news of a budding controversy over the new iPad’s tendency to generate more heat than its predecessor, the iPad 2. While initial reports showed the new iPad running about ten degrees hotter (around 92º F), later tests found that the new iPad could actually get as much as 13 degrees hotter in certain situations – e.g., charging while playing certain kinds of games – and could even get as hot as 116º F. Apple responded fairly quickly to these reports, reminding everyone of all the feature they packed into the new tablet and insisting that the new iPad does all the wonderful stuff it does “all while operating well within our thermal specifications.”
Now it looks like the heat of the new iPad – which is apparently caused by an overabundance of LEDs – might not be all that unusual, despite the amount of attention it’s drawn. Following all the hype about “heatgate” (because putting “-gate” at the end is how we mark a scandal, apparently), PCWorld decided to see how the new iPad measured up to its Android-based competitors in terms of heat. What they found might be a little surprising. It turns out that excess heat is a tablet issue, not just an iPad issue.
For comparison, they tested the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, two of the iPad’s biggest competitors. They started by testing the new iPad and the iPad 2, and found that while the new iPad does run hotter, they “could not replicate the disturbingly high temperatures that some sources have reported.” On top of that, they found that despite a much higher battery capacity, the new iPad “was not dramatically warmer” than the other two tablets tested. The results are compiled in a chart below:
As you can see, when plugged in and after playing a graphics-intensive game for an hour, the iPad hit a temperature of 100 degrees, only six degrees higher than the iPad 2, five degrees higher than the Eee Pad Transformer Prime, and only two degrees above the Galaxy Tab. When unplugged the differences remain roughly the same, except that the Galaxy Tab got just as hot as it had when plugged in, meaning that the new iPad actually ran one degree cooler when unplugged than the Galaxy Tab. Those results are fairly consistent across the board: though the new iPad consistently ran warmer than the other tablets tested, it was only by a few degrees.
All in all, then, it looks like the heat generated by the new iPad isn’t actually as big a deal as some are arguing. Tablet designs lack any sort of cooling apparatus like those found in desktop and laptop computers (which, by the way, can have a tendency to get pretty hot themselves). Difficulties with heat dissipation are a natural and predictable consequence of that. Though the new iPad is admittedly worse about it, problems with heat are a problem with the design of tablets in general, not just the new iPad in particular.
What do you think? Is “heatgate” much ado about nothing? Do you have problems with your Android tablet getting hot? Let us know in the comments.
What do you get when you combine Swedish magicians and iPads? A quirky presentation about investing in Stockholm real estate, apparently.
Charlie Caper recently posted a video of himself and Erik Rosales pitching the Swedish capitol of Stockholm to a group of real estate professionals. In it, the two use iPads as magic props, showing video on the tablets that coincided with their stage actions. The well-choreographed show demonstrates that technological magic doesn’t have to mean the end of “the real thing.”
The presentation was preformed in Cannes, France at the Marché International des Professionnels d’Immobilier (MIPIM), a trade show for international real estate professionals.
I can’t say I knew much about Stockholm before this presentation, other than knowing that the Scandinavian countries were some of the most prosperous and happy in the world. And even though this presentation was for real estate developers, I think it’s safe to say they’ve sold me on Stockholm.
The news just keeps getting worse for Apple regarding the new iPad. In addition to its issues with the wi-fi reception and temperature problems, a new DisplayMate Technologies study claims that the new iPad displays a full battery charge long before it is fully charged.
This information, provided by Dr. Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies Corp, means you might not be getting the most out of your new tablet. DisplayMate is a company that creates calibration and diagnostic products for businesses, manufacturers, and consumers.
Over at ZDNet, Stephen J. Vaughan-Nichols quotes Soneira as saying:
“At 2:00 hours after reporting 100% charge the new iPad hardware started to reduce the charging power. At 2:10 the recharging cycle fully terminated with a sharp decrease in power.”
What this means is that it actually takes a little over two hours beyond when the iPad shows a full charge to actually be fully charged.
In that same interview Soneira speculated that the cause of this discrepancy is likely due to the mathematical model the iPad uses to estimate its current battery charge. Also, this is not a problem unique to the new iPad: poor estimates of battery life are common for all types of mobile devices.
An algorithmic or simple math error seems likely to me, as I can’t imagine Apple not wanting users to experience the iPad’s optimal battery life (which is nearly as good as the iPad 2’s by the way). How long has the battery in your new iPad been lasting? Let me know in the comments section below.
Sony has revealed that their Sony Music Unlimited service is coming to Apple’s iOS devices very soon. According to Sony Entertainment Network COO Shawn Layden, the app is currently in development and would be hitting the iOS app store “in the next few weeks.”
Apps for Sony’s Music Unlimited service are currently available on the PlayStation Vita and the Android platform (with separate apps for smartphones and tablets). While the app is free, the service requires a subscription plan. The basic plan, which has far fewer options, is $3.99 per month. The premium plan is $9.99 per month.
According to TechRadar, Layden announced the app while speaking at the IP&TV World Forum. He did not reveal any information about the app’s pricing, whether it would be a universal iOS app or have separate iPhone and iPad versions, or any more specific information about when it would be available.
Are you excited to see Music Unlimited coming to iOS? Let us know in the comments.
Apple has just released version 1.1 of their iTunes Movie Trailers App, which means that it’s “now designed for the spectacular Retina display on the all new iPad.” The trailers app still has all of the newest HD clips from upcoming films, and now you can enjoy them on your awesome new Retina display.
The new iPad features a 2048 x 1536 resolution, which amounts to 3.1 million pixels on the 9.7-inch screen. According to Apple, it’s about four times as many pixels as the iPad 2, and more than many HDTVs. Many big-time apps are beginning to update specifically to accomodate the new Retina display. Just yesterday, Netflix’s app was updated to include optimized icons and images. They also announced that HD video was on the way at some point.
App developers are going to have to make these adjustments, as the early numbers suggest that Apple has another hit on their hands. In its first four days on the market, Apple sold three million new iPads. Yesterday we learned that the new iPad already accounts for 6% of all web traffic coming from iPads.
Today, the new iPad is coming to 25 new countries, including many in Europe like Austria, Greece, Hungary, and Italy – as well as Mexico and New Zealand.
