There has been so much excitement when early adopters got their hands on their new iPads. As they expected, the new gadget can do almost everything what their iPhones or iPods are capable of, plus a lot more other tasks that the iPad offers. But there are also some complaints that initially came out, the most prominent of which is the alledged weak Wi-Fi performance of the device. Most feedbacks from Apple users discussion forums say that the iPad receives a weaker signal compared to iPhones and other Wi-Fi capable devices, with all of the devices located at the same distance from the access points. There are speculations that the poor Wi-Fi performance could be due to the shell structure of the iPad, which has an aluminum rear enclosure that somehow could have affected the effectivity of the built-in antenna. Another possible cause, according to some, is the power-saving scheme of the new device has reduced supply of power to the Wi-Fi module, thus affecting its performance. Whether the Wi-Fi problem is valid or not and regardless of the cause, there is no comment yet from Apple (maybe too early).
According to the Apple website, the company sold more than 300,000 iPad units on the first day of its release in stores. The figure included direct sales at Apple Retail Stores, deliveries of pre-ordered iPads and shipments to channel partners. Apple also announced that there was a corresponding increase in downloads of apps and ebooks that can be attributed to the release of the iPad. As per Apple’s press release, more than a million apps were downloaded from the App Store while iBookstore reported around 250,000 ebook downloads. Here is an official statement at Apple’s website. “It feels great to have the iPad launched into the world — it’s going to be a game changer,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPad users, on average, downloaded more than three apps and close to one book within hours of unpacking their new iPad.”
The much anticipated store release of the iPad this last week of March is slightly delayed and according to Apple’s official site, it will be finally available in stores on the 3rd of April. There are conflicting reports on the cause of the delay and a number of speculations abound. One report from Taiwan newspaper Liberty Times tells that iPad touchscreen maker Wintek is running late in its delivery of the touch panel for the device. Wintek, as expected, disputes this report and claims its production is running on schedule. Another report from an industry source states that the release delay is due to a little more tweaking being done by Apple in the iPad’s software. Whatever the reason is, the delay could have a slight impact on the number of initial orders, for this may put would-be early adopters in a wait and see attitude.
A study revealed that Apple’s iPhone is the clear winner in the apps market among mobile devices such as Google’s Android, RIM’s Blackberry and Palm. The iPhone has more than 170,000 apps available for download according to AppShopper.com, a site that specializes in iPhone apps. The official number according to Apple is 150,000 but the actual figure for download is closer to what AppShopper.com says. This is because it updates its figures regulary on a daily basis. According to the study, Google’s Android is a far second with around 30,000 apps. Next is Blackberry with only 5,000 apps and last is Palm with a meager 2,000 apps only.
The mad rush for the iPad has started with as many as 50,000 units pre-ordered in its first two hours of availability, according to industry sources. This quantity is big considering that the average online sales for all Apple products combined is only 15,000. The 50,000 figure is definitely not only for the iPad but the sudden surge in sale happened when it was made available for pre-ordering. So it is logical to assume that majority of the pre-orders were indeed for the iPad! This is an indication that there is a huge demand for the iPad among early adopters. The question now is if the performance of the iPad could live up to expectations because this will determine if the huge demand and high sales trend will continue.
Apple has just made a last-minute change to one of the function buttons of the iPad. What was originally a mute switch, which is above the volume control on the side of the gadget, was made a screen rotation lock. Yes, you heard it right, a “screen rotation lock,” a function which is absent from the iPhone (wish Apple will equip it as well). This button will lock the screen display in its current orientation, preventing it from rotating when the orientation of the device is also changed. This is especially useful when playing games that may require the iPad to always be moved constantly. iPhone users who are upgrading to the iPad know this inconvenience and would surely appreciate the new feature.
Opera has just released the 10.5 beta version of its web browser for Mac computers introducing several new features to the web browser such as the Cocoa, unified tool bar, growl notifications and multi-touch gestures. This new beta version is also a lot more stable than the earlier released Pre-Alpha version and provides support for Macs running the older 10.4 Tiger Mac OS. There are still a lot of Macs running Tiger 10.4 but Opera 10.5 support is only for those using Intel processors and unfortunately not for those with PowerPC processors. According to benchmark tests conducted by Computerworld, Opera 10.5 beta version is faster than Safari’s latest version and Google’s Chrome. Take note that this is still a beta version and there are still a few bugs that need to be dealt with until the stable version is released. But you can already test drive Opera 10.5 beta to get a feel of how the full version would work.
For those who find it difficult to write text and messages on the iPhone touch screen, your troubles may have been solved already by this clever gadget. The 4iThumbs screen protector adds bumps on the screen area where the keys appear, providing your thumbs with something substantial to push on and minimizing pressing of unwanted characters. You can remove the screen protector when not needed and can be stucked on the back of the iPhone. It not only protects your iPhone screen but also reduces glare for a better viewing and texting experience. The 4iThumbs screen protector is available in two models – the standard unit that is priced at $14.95 and the landscape version, priced at $16.95.
Since the iPad was launched by Apple last January, there has been so much speculation when it will be available in stores. According to several industry sources, it will go on sale on March 26 in the US. The basic version, with WiFi only and 16GB storage, will be priced at $499 while the 32GB and 64GB versions will be priced at $599 and $699, respectively. These units will be the ones to hit the stores first while the WiFi plus 3G models will be available later in April. The 3G feature costs an additional $130 for all models so the top of the line 64GB WiFi+3G will be priced at $829. Data plans for the 3G service will depend on the telco provider that you will choose. The iPad is powered by a 1 GHz Apple A4 CPU and runs on the iPhone OS. So Apple users, especially those who have iPhones, would surely love to get hold of this device once they hit the stores.
A research from Quantcast, a company engaged in analyzing web traffic, shows that the OS market share of Apple’s Mac OS X in North America is getting bigger while that of Microsoft’s Windows is slowly getting smaller. The report indicates that Mac OS X has 10.9% of the market share as of January and most of the OS X users are using Leopard, OS X version 10.5. On the other hand, Windows has 86.8% of the market and XP remains to be the most popular among Windows users. The reason why XP is holding on to this position is because of the increase in sales of netbooks, majority of which are using Windows XP. The Quantcast report also cited that the greatest growth in Internet use has been on mobile devices. This equates to a corresponding increase in mobile operating systems, which was calculated at 123.8% year-over-year in January 2010. In spite of the still no. 1 position of Windows as far as the OS market is concerned, it is worthwhile to note that its piece of the pie is slowly being eaten up by Apple’s Mac OS X.
Apple | cesar | 
April 7, 2010 10:08 am | 
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