Following Microsoft’s announcement of their Windows 8 Surface tablets, Apple has posted their latest commercial for the new iPad titled, “Do It All.” Panning over the new iPad’s Retina display, “Do It All” highlight’s the iPad’s bullet points for sending email, reading magazines, watching movies, and learning, while also touching on content creation with slideshows, managing photos, and painting. Demonstrated earlier in the evening, Microsoft’s Windows 8 RT Surface tablet will come with Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013, while Microsoft’s Windows 8 Pro Surface tablet features a pressure sensitive pen stylus and palm recognition. While Microsoft’s event focused on bolstering the tablet form factor with the power of a touch-sensitive desktop OS, unfortunately Microsoft did not announce pricing or availability amidst the applause. Apple’s timing with their latest commercial is impeccable, and as a response, it’s as if to remind their competitor that you can already do quite a bit with a tablet that’s available right now thanks to the iPad’s broad app ecosystem. You can check out Apple’s commercial past the break, on YouTube, or on Apple’s website.
Posts tagged with "iPad"
“Do It All” Highlights the new iPad’s Features in a New June Advertisement
Kickstarter: Hone for iPhone 4S: Never Lose Your Keys Again
During CES 2012 we were introduced to the BiKN, an iPhone case-dongle solution for finding and tracking your stuff. The BiKN was a hit at CES but it is expensive ($130 US) and burdened by a case that you must use. Louis Gerbarg and Geoff Litwack have come up with a much simpler and lighter solution called the Hone and now they have a Kickstarter project focused on getting it into the public’s hands. Video after the break. Read more
Apple Agrees It Misled Consumers With “WiFi + 4G” And Accepts AU$2.25M Penalty, Judge Yet To Approve Settlement
UPDATE: The Court has been adjourned and Justice Bromberg will receive confidential information from Apple (currently unclear what that will include, but presumably some sales and/or refund numbers) by next Wednesday. A decision about whether or not the penalty is appropriate can then be made.
In Australian Federal Court today, Apple has told the court it is willing to accept a AU$2.25 million penalty after agreeing it misled consumers by initially marketing the new iPad’s cellular capabilities as “with WiFi + 4G” in Australia. Apple accepted the penalty that the ACCC proposed which also requires Apple to contribute $300,000 to the ACCC’s legal fees. Colin Galvan, who is representing the ACCC noted that the “substantial” penalty would amount to a warning to the computer industry that “such conduct will not be condoned”.
Although both Apple and the ACCC have now agreed on a proposed settlement, Judge Mordy Bromberg must yet approve the deal. Judge Bromberg has said that he wants more information about the extent of misleading advertising after Apple has so far refused to provide any information about how many iPads have been sold, returned and how much revenue and profit Apple has earnt.
“I have some concern… that the agreed facts might be a little thin to allow me to do what I need to do and that is determine whether the proposed penalty is appropriate,”
Timeline of Events
- On March 27th the ACCC announced it would initiate legal action against Apple for making misleading 4G claims in its marketing of the new iPad in Australia. The issue arose because although the new iPad supports US and Canadian 4G networks, the hardware in the new iPad does not support any of the Australian 4G networks.
- Across Europe a few countries began to keep an eye on the issue and consider investigations into the issue after fielding complaints from consumers.
- On March 30th, Apple clarified its iPad marketing in Australia by explicitly noting that “it is not compatible with current Australian 4G LTE networks and WiMAX networks.
- On April 5th, Apple gave Australian customers the ability to get a full refund of the new iPad if they purchased it under the assumption of it supporting Australian 4G networks up until the 25th of April. They also informed Australian resellers to update marketing to explicitly mention the incompatibility with Australian 4G networks.
- On May 12th Apple decided to rename the WiFi + 4G model to WiFi + Cellular - across the whole world (including the US and Canada), eliminating the confusion over whether the iPad supported 4G in a particular country like Australia, where it did not.
[Information via @NorrieRoss, @LucyBattersby, @_kate_osborn and The Australian]
Agenda 3.0: Fast Event Creation, Custom Repeats and More
Agenda, by Savvy Apps, is a fantastic and minimal calendar replacement for iOS (universal) with many built-in options. We’ve covered Agenda a few times already but the new 3.0 update adds some excellent new features and updates.
The first, and most important update is a custom event creation screen that’s much faster than the default iOS one. It has a simplified layout that lets you access event elements without going into second and third screens. This means you only need to tap once to access the event title, start & end time, alerts, location, and notes. You can swipe between calendar months and the animation is very slick! The dots beneath the calendar identify what month you are in - past, present or future. Agenda now imports your contacts from iOS so once an event is created, you can attach them by tapping the calendar icon and choosing what contacts you want to add to your event for things such as text, email, calls, or status taps.
Another great feature that Agenda now has is a set of customizable repeat options. While on the event creation screen, tap the icon next to the repeat section to choose dates for ending repeating events, create repeating events for specific days or dates of the month, and much more.
Defaults, defaults, defaults! I wish more apps had a larger set of defaults — it makes data entry much easier if there is a predefined set of options. You can now pick defaults for calendar, event alert sounds, view, duration, alert, and all day alert time via Agenda’s built-in Settings > Defaults menu.
iPad users also get a few new options: swiping right or left will now change views, year and week view now move up or down instead of right or left and you can now change settings to a smaller modal view.
To read the complete release notes for Agenda 3.0, Savvy Apps has a listing for your viewing pleasure. They also have a great little Tips & Tricks section on the Agenda page to help you enter events even faster. If you don’t like the new “Fast Event Creation” screen you can always toggle back to the native iOS event creation from Agenda’s settings, but the new way is so much easier and more fun!
Agenda 3.0 is a great upgrade to a great product — anytime you can streamline manual data entry into one screen gets a big thumbs up from me. The Tips & Tricks are worth 2 minutes of your time to read so that you can fully understand the new “Fast Event Creation” screen. Agenda is a universal app and available in the App Store for 99¢, while existing users get the 3.0 update for free.
Airlines Increasing Fuel Efficiency By Adopting The iPad As An Entertainment Device→
Airlines Increasing Fuel Efficiency By Adopting The iPad As An Entertainment Device
Bloomberg reports today that startup airline Scoot Pte (their maiden flight is today) will save fuel and have increased profits by deploying the iPad as the passenger entertainment device. By cutting out old entertainment systems weighing more than two tons, they’ve saved fuel while still flying older airplanes and even expanding traditional seating capacity by 40 per cent. Increasing profit, the post-PC way.
The tablets helped the carrier cut 7 percent off the weight of planes obtained from parent Singapore Airlines Ltd. (SIA) even after a 40 percent increase in seating, Chief Executive Officer Campbell Wilson said. The savings will help Scoot, which makes its maiden flight today, cope with fuel prices that have jumped about 36 percent in two years.
Scoot Pte will rent the iPads for $17 a flight to economy-class passengers and offering them for free to those in business class. It follows moves by other airlines such as Jetstar, AirAsia and Qantas which have deployed the iPad in trials and small test runs since late last year.
Cutting costs and finding new sources of revenue will be key for Singapore-based Scoot as it seeks to make a profit flying older planes than other low-cost carriers and selling tickets as cheap as S$158 one-way to Sydney, a flight of more than seven hours. Singapore Air formed Scoot after budget operators led by Jetstar and AirAsia Bhd. won 26 percent of the city’s air-travel market.
By reducing fuel costs, parent company Singapore Airlines hopes that it can turn over a new leaf with Scoot after it tumbled 28 percent this year, exceeding the 14 percent decline for the Straits Times Index. It’s really crazy to think that something like the iPad can have such a huge impact on fuel efficiency of airplanes - today’s story is on top of the existing trend of airlines replacing flight manuals with iPads that Tim Cook gladly shared earlier this year.
Scoot plans to increase its fleet to as many as 14 777s by the middle of the decade. The carrier will be able to pare maintenance costs by working with its parent, Wilson said.
Inkflow Has One Great Idea
When we talk about hotly contested app markets for the iPad, we’re either talking about iOS text editors or sketching apps — today we’re focusing on the latter. Between Adobe, Autodesk, Paper, and Penultimate, something needs to be dramatically imaginative and different to make it stand out in a section of the App Store that is well contested and already populated with great apps. Sometimes an app like SyncPad stands out by providing new and interesting features (in this case it’s immensely useful for presentations), but very rarely does an app come along that can compete with these established tools on the iPad. Similar to how Instapaper and Pocket (once Read It Later) have captured the “read later” space, the aforementioned apps broadly cover everything you’d likely need or want when it comes to writing, drawing, and sketching.
The iPad Is The Future Of Education
For the past years, Apple has been showcasing the educational advantages of devices like Macs, iPhones and iPods on its Apple in Education website. Since the introduction of the iPad in 2010, however, the company has been making an effort to position the device as the best tool now available to teachers and students to improve the quality of education and level of engagement. The dedicated iPad in Education webpage showcases recent moves by Apple such as iBooks Textbooks and the iTunes U iOS app.
While we have covered schools and educational institutions adopting iPads in the past, the latest profile posted by Apple today on their UK website is quite possibly the best example of iPad in education to date. Those of you who have been following the progress of iPad deployment in schools may remember Fraser Speirs’ iPad Project, which made headlines throughout 2011 as it was the first one-to-one iPad deployment to every people in a school. Speirs documented the process of giving an iPad to every teacher and student at Cedars School of Excellence (Scotland) on his personal website, and today Apple has posted a video profile showing how “Cedars students boost learning with iPad”.
The full video is available here, and it shows teachers and kids using the iPad as a modern, regular tool in their daily lives that has improved the way they create and share content of any kind. One particular segment towards the end of the video struck a chord with me:
I don’t think we could ever go back from where we are right now with the iPad. The only way’s really forward – to more access to knowledge, more empowerment, more creativity…all these things in the classroom”.
As I wrote before, Apple’s education strategy will be interesting to follow. Actually seeing kids and teachers who have been using the iPad as a real substitute for and enhancement over old learning tools for over a year now, however, reminds me that, no matter Apple’s strategy as a company, software is the future of education, and the iPad is giving our kids a bit of that future today.
Detractors of the iPad as a learning tool point at the management required by connected devices to ensure that, in the classroom, the possibilities offered by the Internet don’t get in the way of teachers’ requirements and students’ attention. Fortunately, this is something Apple has been addressing since day one, and that has recently improved with more tools.
Every major change in our society and culture will be awarded an equal amount of optimism and skepticism. As someone who’s been lucky enough to find his dream job in the possibilities offered by the Internet and software, I tend to see skepticism as a challenge, rather than a roadblock. People like Fraser Speirs are proving that, beyond analysts and blog posts, a better education for our kids is possible, today, every day, with a device that’s making kids eager to learn.
Free of the constraints of paper and old, disconnected learning material, the iPad brings new challenges and practical issues to overcome. With time, patience, and willingness to look past rules established in societies different than ours, we must make sure these devices we have built and ecosystems we have nurtured won’t be remembered for Angry Birds, because among other things, our kids deserve a better, modern education. And we have to start building it today.
Apple Starts Changing “iPad WiFi + 4G” Name To “WiFi + Cellular”
As noted by 9to5mac, Apple has started changing the “iPad WiFi + 4G” name to “iPad WiFi + Cellular” in some countries. Currently, the change is live on several international versions of Apple.com, including the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and Hong Kong. Other countries, such as Italy or France, still report the new iPad as “iPad WiFi + 4G” in the Tech Specs page of the product in what appears to be a gradual update of the device’s name. On the websites where the change has already taken effect, a version cached by Google shows the old “WiFi + 4G” product name.
The new iPad, available in almost 90 countries, comes with “4G” networking capabilities, albeit only in some countries, and on selected carriers with support for LTE. Because of Apple’s initial marketing of the device as “4G” regardless of country availability, the company came under scrutiny from Australian and UK regulators, who claimed Apple was falsely advertising the iPad as “4G” and misleading customers without properly specifying such feature was dependent on carrier support.
In Australia, Apple was forced to change its marketing for the new iPad by stating on its website the device wasn’t compatible with Australian 4G networks. In spite of the iPad still working with 3G networks, however, Apple decided to keep the “WiFi + 4G” name even after the initial clarification. This appears to be changing now as the company rolls out an updated product name across all its international websites.
Apple’s iPad Tech Specs page carrying the new name is available here.
New iPad Launches In 30 Additional Countries This Week
Off to a “tremendous start”, Apple’s new iPad has also become the company’s fastest rollout to date, adding 56 launch countries in 42 days, and, later this week, 30 additional countries with two separate rollouts during the weekend. As confirmed by Apple’s Latin America website (via MacRumors), the new iPad will launch in 23 countries on Friday, May 11; MacRumors also examined other international Apple websites in the Middle East, and confirmed Apple will also roll out the new iPad in 7 countries (including Egypt and United Arab Emirates) on Saturday, May 12.
As usual, here’s a recap of the iPad’s launch dates, plus units sold until Q2 2012.
March 16 (10 countries): United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland and the UK.
March 23 (25 countries): Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macau, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
April 20 (12 countries): South Korea, Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, St Maarten, Uruguay and Venezuela.
April 27 (9 countries): Colombia, Estonia, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa and Thailand.
May 5: Turkey (quiet launch).
May 11 (23 countries): Argentina, Aruba, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, Costa Rica, Curaçao, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Kenya, Madagascar, Malta, Martinique, Mauritius, Morocco, Peru, Taiwan, Tunisia and Vietnam.
May 12 (7 countries): Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
With this week’s launches, the new iPad will be available in 87 countries worldwide (including Turkey) after 57 days. With 12 million units sold in the past quarter, Apple said the new iPad is “off to a great start”.