Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

As HTML 5 continues to evolve, web developers are liking their new tools more and more. The question is whether the HTML 5 standard will ever be completed and browsers adjusted to tackle this brave new world.

You may have noticed your iPhone 4S running on AT&T's network woke up one morning and suddenly became 4G device. Or perhaps you live in New Jersey, and you just bought a new 4G enabled iPad and you are cruising along at 4G speeds. Think these devices are 4G, running on AT&T's latest and greatest ultra-fast network speeds? Don't think different, think again, because odds are you never were, and are not, running on a 4G LTE network.

But of course you are, because the device says you have a 4G device. Silly me, questioning a carriers marketing schemes and bringing into question what's really going on. Sorry folks, time to disappoint some of you, at least for a while.

There were some rumors that Microsoft would be bringing the Office suite to the iPad. The rumor also stated that it would come around the time the 3rd generation iPad was announced. Now that the iPad has been out for a while, we know this part is not true. But that does not mean we won’t see Office on the iOS.

The App Store has many applications that can read Microsoft Office files, but they are not the same as the real thing. Most of them have issues when reading anything more than simple files. Microsoft also makes changes to the file format on almost every version. This makes it difficult for anyone else to keep up. For that reason, many are wanting to see Office come to the iPad. The question is will Microsoft bring Office to the iPad?

The new iPad has a number of great new features. The Display is the biggest change from the iPad 2. It will be the reason many people buy it. The new cellular data protocol called 4G LTE is another big improvement. Data speeds are now faster than most land line Internet connections. While this speed may decrease as more users come online, it will still be a major improvement.

The iPad 2 with 3G saw data download speeds around 0.5–2 Mb/s and upload speeds around .5 Mb/s. With 4G LTE, the new iPads are seeing download and upload speeds around 5–15Mb/s. Speeds vary depending on many factors, including distance to LTE towers. Yet many will see ten times the speed when compared to the old 3G protocol. For many, it is fast enough now to get rid of the land line Internet connection. This will not work because the new 4G LTE data network comes with a very big issue.

Radio personality Rush Limbaugh began his daily radio broadcast on Monday singing the praises of his new iPad with retina display. Limbaugh said,

The iPad is made for viewing photos. The touch interface is ideal for browsing through galleries. The iPad’s next generation will have a retina display, which increases the resolution of the display. This will make it an even better experience by making the pictures look sharper and show more detail. But the iPad can do a lot more than just view photos.

There are a number of photo editors for the iPad, including Filterstorm and Photogene. Adobe has even come out with Photoshop Touch of the iPad.  Yet, Apple still has not released iPhoto or Aperture for the iPad. What are they waiting for?

On Wednesday, March 7, Apple is highly likely to unveil the iPad 3. The rumored hardware looks to be breathtaking. A retina display, massive graphics and CPU processing power, and a camera that will rival that of the iPhone, all while sending this goodness up and down to clouds everywhere with 4G speeds. iPad 3 is going to be a major leap in iPad technology, so much so we'll wonder why the iPad 2 wasn't called iPad 1S.

But for all the hoopla and sex appeal iPad 3 hardware will contain, it's the core of the product, the software, that will send would-be rivals back to the drawing board all over again.

Apple will officially announce the iPad 3 on March 7. This new iPad will have a retina display and faster quad core processor. With the Retina, the iPad will have the capability of displaying 1080p videos and movies.

The Apple TV is one of the best accessories for the iPad. It can mirror the iPad display onto a much larger screen. This is great for watching movies, sports, pictures, games, and presentations. While the current Apple TV should be able to mirror the iPad 3, it will not look as good since the Apple TV only displays 720p. That may change on March 7.

 Apple has been pretty quiet the last couple of months. So have the rumors about the new products. January has come and gone without hardware updates from Apple. Some speculated Apple would bring out the Apple HDTV, but that did not pan out.

 Apple has a great and focused line of products. Each one fills a need for their customers. They have focused on each line to create a product that is significantly better than their competitors.

While all their products have gone through a great deal of research and development, they can't focus on all of their products at once. Apple has to decide which products they need to focus on and which can wait. For 2012, Apple needs to focus on their top three products. Those three products are:

Cult of Mac claims to have learned from their visit to CES that iPad 3 is going to be thinner than the iPad 2. This information flys in the face of a cadre of far east rumors claiming the contrary. Cult of Mac is keen to point out that Apple creating a thicker iPad woud be bucking a trend in their iOS device world, having always made device after device, thinner and thinner and thinner.

Only from the mouths of our trustworthy DigitTimes foks (yes, that's heavy sarcasm) have we learned that the iPad 3 was to be slightly thicker than that of the iPad 2... What makes far more sense is an iPad 2 wanna-be, perhaps from Samsung or Google, would be slightly thicker than an iPad 2. Meanwhile, the logical assumption is that Apple – yet again – will scream by their competition with a svelt iPad 3, dominating the space for at least another year.

I recently had lunch with a friend who had purchased a Kindle Fire for his wife. "She's always on the iPhone, surfing or on FaceBook, so I got her a Kindle Fire." he said. His statement was somewhat shocking, but on the surface of things, his decision made a lot of sense to me, in that a larger screen device just made more sense. But I questioned why he didn't go iPad? He had thought of going iPad, but the iPad is $500, just so his wife can surf around and check FaceBook? "The Kindle was just $200 bucks..." he said, so he went for the Fire.

Erik Schmidt, former CEO and now Chairman of Google, proudly announced that within 6 months, "We [Google] in the next six months plan to market a tablet of the highest quality." Translation can be found here from the Italian site Corriere.it.

On the surface it would appear that Google is going to compete with its recently acquired Motorola Mobility division, which also manufactures tablets that use Google's Android OS. In reality, the forthcoming product (along with Schmidt's initial announcement) should be viewed as nothing more than hype for Google's latest Android 4.5/5.0 tablet OS, due to hit the market in the June time frame.

The iPod accessory market is huge and very profitable. Most of the market is based on the docking connector or cable. Those docking stations were nice when it was an iPod. Now, as the iPhones replace iPods, that same connector is a pain because users do not want to leave their phone in one spot.

That is all changing with the release of AirPlay and Bluetooth 4.0. These two technologies will make manufacturers very happy, as users replace their old docking station setups with new wireless versions.

A recent article by CIO.com titled, "Apple in the Enterprise: Breaking Microsoft's Grip", makes the keen observation that Microsoft is starting to lose their dominant grip in the corporate space. Apple's iPhone and iPad are breaching corporations the same way that Research In Motions Blackberry's did — through the Sales & Marketing Door. iPad's and iPhone's work well on most corporate networks, so it's been difficult for the IT department to prohibit the use of iOS devices within sales and marketing groups. The result has been an explosion of Apple's iOS devices being used in Microsoft's seemingly impenetrable fortress: corporate environments.

Bloomberg recently created a buzz about a forthcoming Apple HDTV, in conjunction with Sharp Electronics. But this is not where the immediate attention should be focused. Our information points towards a Tuesday, January 25 Apple's Special Event from Apple.

Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet was releasd today, and based on the initial reviews, the secret we T-GAAP-ers already knew about is now out of the bag: The Kindle Fire tablet is no tablet.

In the wake of Amazon's 7" Kindle Fire tablet launch, Barnes & Noble has shot back across the Amazon bow with their own vision of a 7" device. Yesterday saw the release of the 7" Nook tablet, which delivers a dual-core processor, 1 GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal storage with an SD card slot, and a 1024 x 600 dpi display. The new Nook delivers a bit more than the Kindle Fire, but it also runs $50 more at $249. But does this have any effect on what is actually a true tablet, the iPad?

Steve jobs ripped the 7" device market, stating they would die out, as they were too small to do real work on them, and that they are "...tweeners; too big to compete against a smartphone, and too small to compete with the iPad". This is akin to no-mans-land in Tennis. No one ever wants to be standing where the ball bounces. Go to the net or stay behind the baseline, it's that simple. But are 7" devices not worthy of the tablet moniker? Is there a market for this space?

Analysts are an interesting breed. They are paid to give their opinion on what the future will hold for a particular company or industry. However, often times they don't know what they are talking about or don't know their subject matter well enough to get it right. Think of an analyst like the local TV weatherperson. They may know about the weather and how high pressure relates to low pressure, but with all their knowledge, they keep their job as long as they're entertaining, not whether the forecasts are completely accurate.

Steve Jobs was an amazing visionary... or was he? If you think about it, the senior managers at Infinity Loop may just have been great fans of Star Trek. For example, we all thought the touch interface used on the iPhone and iPad was revolutionary. But you don't have to look far to see this was really just a copy-cat of something envisioned in the 80's...

It has been difficult for travelers looking for good Internet access on the road. It was once hard to find a Wi-Fi connection, since most hotels only had an ethernet port. However, times have changed as most hotels have decided to add Wi-Fi hot-spots. The issue is no longer Wi-Fi access, but Wi-Fi service. It can be very frustrating for travelers who find a very poor or nonexistent Internet service at a hotel that advertises "High-Speed" Bandwidth. Some are starting to blame the iPad.

In a recent New York Times article, iBAHN, an Internet provider for hotels and the meeting industry blames iPads for poor Wi-Fi service at hotels. They say the iPad consumes more than four times the amount of bandwidth than an average smart-phone. But is this the whole story?

I've been an advocate of Macs since my first introduction to a Mac Plus in dorm room back in 1986. Ever since then I've never seen the reason behind PeeCees — whether MS DOS or Windows. DOS was just plain ugly. I shutter to think if Apple hadn't brought us the Mac, then we'd probably all be running MS DOS version 31 — and would it ever be blazin' quick to see a directory! And then there is Windows. In my mind Windows has always just been a Mac user interface knock-off. Sure Windows improved on some items, but its essence is still a second rate knock-off. Let's not even get started with security woes or viruses (or is that viri?) that plague the PC world.

Adobe created the PDF document format back in 1993. Apple adopted it as an operating system standard format for Mac OS X. Since then, PDF has become the multi-platform standard for storing and sharing documents on any device, and Apple's Preview application is arguably the best basic PDF viewer and editor on the Mac.

With the release of iOS 5 and Mac OS 10.7.2, Apple has added iCloud features to both operating systems. One of the applications that has benefited is Safari, Apple's default web browser.

Let's waste no time and just dive right into why Apple's 'Let's talk iPhone' special event is going to be huge:

In the 60's, after President Kennedy's assassination, Simon & Garfunkel brought us the Sound of Silence. That tone can be sensed again this week in for the form of Fire, that has all but gone out. Amazon's gushing moment came from their new line of Kindle's launched this past Wednesday. But since Friday, the absence of any enthusiasm and chatter about the devices, specifically the Kindle Fire, has been deafening. 

On January 9, 2007 when Steve Jobs strolled onto the MacWorld stage and unveiled the first iPhone, he wrapped up the presentation by stating the iPhone had over 200 patents, and that Apple planned to vigorously defend their Intellectual Property (IP).

No kidding.

The latest cell phone market share figures should have tablet makers quaking in fear of what Apple may do to them once iPad 3 arrives. Currently, Apple is sucking all the profits out of the market. Moreover, many of Apple's competitors have taken their best stab at iPad by flooding the channel, but with weak sell-though results (just ask Samsung, HP or RIM how tablets are working out).

The latest figures peg Apple's global tablet market share at 61.3%. Like with iPhone vs Android phones, we saw Android quickly race out ahead in deployment numbers, which are flattening out or starting to work back in Apple's favor. New numbers for the iPhone comes from BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk, predicting up to 30 million iPhones could be sold in the September quarter. If iPhone sales are poised for this absolute explosion, what will halo effect be for iPads vs the rest of the pack?

This week's "App of the Week" is Catan By USM. Catan is available as separate downloads for both the iPhone and iPad. Both versions are $4.99 with an expansion pack costing $3.99. The game was updated recently with better graphic options and faster game play.

The Settlers of Catan is a fun and relaxing strategy game to play against the computer or with the family. I have played this game more than any other on the iOS this summer. Both of my elementary age kids love to play and watch me play it as well. If you never heard of this game, you have to give it a try.

 This article marks the start of a new series here at T-GAAP. Each week I will highlight a new or updated application for either the Mac or iOS.

This week I will be highlighting an education application for the iPad called Math Bingo. Both of my kids are in early elementary school and are working to improve their skills. I was unsure about the application at first, but it was only $.99, so it was an easy decision to give it a try.

It wasn't all that long ago when iOS was pretty much the standard mobile app development environment. But then along came Android, which took off like wildfire, as handset manufacturers were desperate for a challenger to iPhone. Android stormed the mobile castle, while RIM and Nokia have all but lowered the drawbridge in a series of missteps. As a result, iOS and Android have pretty much locked up the mobile development community, but there are more players in the offing.

The latest numbers by Charlie Wolf of Needham & Associates indicates that Android's market share is flattening out, and/or perhaps poised to fall over the coming quarters, due to increased competition from the likes of Apple and other forthcoming competition.  Wolf's assertions also fall in line with NPD's latest market share reports, adding further fuel to the fire that Android is getting the squeeze. 

Today, Google's Andy Rubin Tweeted that Android is seeing an average of 500,000 activations per day. First of all, what exactly does Google consider an activation? Is an Android activation an LG refrigerator with Android built-in for touch-screen control? Is an Android activation millions of China Mobile smart phones that have a core Android OS in them, but everything else Google stripped out of them?

Apple is very good at making hardware. They are also very good at making software that runs on that hardware. But what they are really good at is creating an eco-system that uses their hardware and software to solve a much larger problem.

What made Apple's lead in digital music sales and then the creation of an entire new industry — podcasting — so successful was this self-sustaining eco-system. For cool hardware Apple gave us the iPod; for cool software iTunes (desktop version); but it was the iTunes Music Store was the linchpin that made it so other companies couldn't just make cheaper hardware and/or software to compete on par with Apple. Sure one could buy a Samsung MP3 player and purchase music from Amazon, but the integration was always second-rate. Nothing ever just worked like the iPod, iTunes and the iTunes music store.

A long time ago I had the opportunity to accompany a friend to an Alcohol Anonymous meeting. It was a very sobering experience (pun intended). The building was old and the room looked like a beat up classroom. Light from outside peeked through the curtain drawn windows and smoke filled the air (this was way before any indoor smoking laws had hit the books).

I learned a lot that day. I learned that if not careful, anyone can slip into addictive, self-destructive behaviors. I learned the power of a support group and accountability. I also learned most of the people in the room were seemingly addicted to something else in place of alcohol. The smoke filled room was one clue. Another was "Bill" who needed to go from one support group to the next in order to stay sober. You may be asking, what does this all this have to do with Apple?

With Apple's announcement of OS X Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud, Ballmer and the Redmond collective must be picking themselves off the floor trying to figure out what just happened.

Alas, not all is lost for Microsoft — if they follow my simple advise. Well, thinking about that again, the chance Microsoft might listen to reason instead of the Windows/Office juggernaut is slim to none —and slim left town!

Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) is coming up on June 6. Products that are showcased at WWDC give developers who are going to the conference a chance learn how to incorporate them into their applications. Usually, Apple has come out with iPhone hardware about this time of year, so developers can add the new hardware features to their applications.

This year, Apple has not shown off the new iOS version yet, so don’t expect new hardware. This would mark a change in Apple’s annual iPhone update cycle. With the iPhone hardware rumored to be delayed until this fall, what is Steve Jobs going to announce during this keynote at WWDC?

Apple has improved their batteries in two ways over the past couple of years. In January 2009, Apple improved their battery capacity by as much as sixty percent in the MacBook Pro 17-inch. This was largely due to removing the packages that made the battery removable, which mainly allowed for a bigger battery. Apple also added a chip that controls each cell’s current for maximizing battery life.

Last fall, Apple debuted new battery technology which allows thirty days of standby power. While not as big of a feature on MacBooks, due to frequent use, it still changes day to day use by not requiring the battery to be charged everyday. With thirty days of standby power, mobile devices will have the power when the user needs it. These are nice advancements, but there are new battery technologies which Apple could incorporate into their products soon. Lets take a look at some of the more interesting potential battery improvements that are just on the horizon.

Whack! No, that wasn't Apple's Steve Jobs laying some open letter smack down on Adobe. This time the hammer on Flash comes from some former Apple engineering employees (according to 9to5mac.com). HTML5 is claimed to be converted on-the-fly from Flash, with no need for additional coding requirements via a new product called HYPE 1.0.

Conversion of Flash to HTML5 is a wonderful thing, but I wouldn't call this a Flash killer (at least not yet). The product allows for the lazy use of Flash to continue as a baseline authoring tool, being converted upon output for iOS and other HTML5-loving devices. But at some point the question will become (if it hasn't already) "Why can't I just design in an HTML5 authoring tool from the get-go, instead of designing in Flash and converting?"

HP's VP of European operations, Eric Cador, has claimed that HP will be better than number one in the tablet market. "We call it number one plus," said Cador.

Now that HP has thrown their skin in the game, this may mark the time I need to come back with a comprehensive article on why every tablet out there that's trying to be "iPad plus" absolutely stink. Cador also called Apple an expensive island, regurgitating a dated stereotype of the 90's (AKA Microsoft's diatribe against Apple).

Early reports (and videos) are pouring in, in what appears to be a Foxconn manufacturing facility which exploded a few hours ago. The initial reports are claiming the explosion occurred in an iPad 2 production building, and that the explosion has effected several floors.

Initial speculation as to what caused the explosion was thought to be a fine dust (think grain elevators), which ignited and caused the explosion. At this point it is not known as to how many people, if any, have been injured, and we certainly wish everyone the best and are hoping no one has been injured.

In the past, adding an external storage device was slow and cumbersome. Back in the day, users had to turn off the computer, plug-in and screw-in a connector, before turning the computer back on to add an external hard drive.

USB greatly helps the situation by allowing users to plug-in devices without having to turn off the computer. The connectors are smaller and don’t have to be screwed in. Laptop hard drives and USB 2.0 made it even easier by supplying power through the USB port, so these devices didn’t even need to be plugged into a power outlet. The next step is to remove one cable that is left.

Reuters is reporting that Apple isn't satisfied with the size of current SIM cards and is pushing for a smaller standard for the iPad and other iOS devices. The information comes to Reuters from an Orange executive. 

Orange is one of the UK's major carriers along with T-Mobile and O2. Any validity to this? Who knows, as Reuters is an odd rumor source, and this is not typical for them. This could simply be an Orange executive with loose lips sinking ships.

Based on BGR's claims, it appears Apple will actually be revealing pre-announcement information to a select group of Apple retail staff 12 – 24 hours ahead of a major announcement. This would be a first for Apple, and a bold move from the Cupertino machine. But this may be an Apple litmus test, and if successful may lay the groundwork for how future product launches roll out.

It appears Apple corporate does not trust their retail employees (smart move), in that BRG's source claims the 10-15 employees that will be pulling an all-night-er in the stores, must not only sign an NDA, but also lock their cell phones in the managerial office.

"Stay Tuned" says Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon. Stayed tuned for what? A tablet. But before diving into that topic, I want to make one thing perfectly clear. No one in the tech industry is better positioned to take on Apple in the mobile computing space than Amazon – no one.

According to the UK-based V3 publication, market research firm Context is claiming 3G iPads are a disproportionately large chunk of overall iPad sales figures. In fact, Context claims the 64GB 3G iPad totaled a third of all iPad 2 sales in Europe since its launch. The surge in 3G iPad sales is likely to have pushed Apple's average selling price (ASP) north, but to what extent?

The last known ASP for iPads came during Apple's January financial conference call, where Apple COO, Timothy Cook and Apple CFO, Peter Oppenheimer revealed a $600 figure. But Apple's figure was from the Christmas quarter, when entry-level $499 iPads were likely high volume sellers (when compared to other quarters). If Context figures hold true beyond Europe's boarders, iPad 2's ASP for the June quarter will land somewhere around $680. How much revenue does equate to for the June quarter? Mr. Cook gave us an idea last month.

The iPad is a very nice stand alone computer for basic tasks. Yet, it is a near ideal mobile computer for those times a full computer is not needed. The key to getting the most out of the iPad is the ability to access all those files on the main computer.

Apple uses iTunes to sync files between the iPad and the computer. This syncing with iTunes is very slow and cumbersome. It is unrealistic to regularly update frequently used files between the computer and the iPad due to its slow nature and use of a cable. The following is a list of files that are synced between the two and alternatives that break the dependence of iTunes sync. The same is also true of any iOS device.

Historically, desktop computers have been faster and cheaper than laptops. Recently though, laptop prices have fallen to desktop levels, and laptop performance has caught up and surpassed the needs of today's software. This transformation in the PC industry has led to an explosion in laptop sales.

These same trends have also occurred in the Mac ecosphere, with many people switching from Mac Pros or Power Macs to MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Now that the latest iMacs are out, it is time to compare the performance of the latest product line-up coming out of Cupertino.

Electronic Arts Inc. delivered a press release today stating they have an agreement in place to acquire Firemint Pty Ltd. Financial details were not disclosed, but it becomes abundantly clear that iOS games are rapidly becoming serious business.

Some may say this marks a maturing in the iOS apps industry, pointing to consolidation taking place, but it is more likely that EA is fortifying their walls, as larger players begin to take the iOS gaming stage. EA is simply getting ahead of the pack. Hundreds of additional startups, and traditional software companies alike, will continue to enter into iOS development in the years to come. Games are likely to be front and center as Apple's ecosystem rapidly grows world-wide and punches into the living-room.

Part I can be seen here. Part II continues with market share assumptions and the fallacies they advance.

iOS vs Android: The Market Share War That Is

Analysts and tech media alike have one central theme correctly identified. Apple and Google are in a heated market–share war, but declaring any victor in today's battle would be pure folly. Yet Henry Blodget advances his position that Android is now the victor and iOS is dead. Blodget flashes around Nielsen's latest purchasing intent survey as proof positive. I also recall a survey claiming nearly 54% of all Verizon customers would turn in their Blackberry's and Android's for iPhone 4 on day one of it's launch.

Lack of Security within mobile OSes isn't anything new. Developers have seen the gaping holes for quite some time an the public is just starting to become aware. Back on April 5th the WSJ did some pretty impressive research on Pandora's invasive practices within the Apple's iOS and Google's Android operating systems, and both seem to be unable in stop applications from taking what they want out of the phone (at least for now).

With the latest iOS is tracking you story making national headlines, the general consumer seems to be catching on that their devices are peeking in on what they are doing, or at least they think they are (and their apps are likely doing even more privacy damage). The whole buzz around this privacy issue is eerily similar to that of "antenna-gate" and it's best Apple get in front of this as they did with the iPhone 4's attenuation story. It is critical Apple blows holes in mis-information and rumor before it becomes an assumed fact the Apple is stealing your every move from iOS devices.

Recently a big stink over user privacy has reared its ugly head again, but this time about one of my favorite products and something I use daily, if not hourly — the iPhone. Security researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warde revealed last week that Apple was storing logs of users' geographic coordinates in a hidden file. The researchers didn't know why Apple was doing this or what it was using the data for, but they said Apple indeed is gathering this information about the whereabouts of its iPhone users.