I haven’t posted to iPadWatcher for a while, but the temptation was too much when two of my favorite subjects, the iPad and Books were so much in evidence as they were this week.  When Apple introduced version 2.0 of its iBooks application for for the iPad with new enhanced support for interactive textbooks, a lot of people had a lot to say about it. I was one of them, but I decided to hold out a bit and better digest the news, before I started to write about it. Lets’s start with what was announced, regarding books.  Apple introduced both a new version of its eBook reading application...

A post about Gartner’s take on the tablet market and the iPad caught my eye today, on 9to5mac.com. It seems to have taken the folks at Gartner a good while to notice that it is really all in the software… While Android based tablets are considered to be expensive, the truth is that they are expensive for tablets that have very little software available.  After all, if Android and iOS applications ran the same applications, then having an Android tablet cost the same as an iPad would not be that bad for business.  It is bad for business because you pay pretty much the same, but get a...

This week a lot of people were saddened by the news that Steve Jobs was resigning as Apple’s CEO.  For many years Jobs has been seen as an integral and fundamental part of Apple and its driving force. While it is certainly true that Jobs was responsible for Apple’s turn around, he did it with the help of a group of dedicated professionals.  These people, who have been working for years with Jobs are part of his most impressive creation: Apple itself.  Apple is a company that works differently from just about every other company in the planet.  That is not simply the result of one...

Last year, when OS X Lion was first demoed to the public, I commented on the influence of iOS and the iPad on the new version of the Mac’s operating system.  Now that Lion has been released, and most people have had a chance to at least look at it, there can be no denying this influence. Now we should consider why Apple has let so much of iOS seep into OS X.  Does any one think that it was just due to a sense that these related systems should have similar behaviors?  If you do, I have some nice real estate on Mars that I can sell you at a bargain price. For many consecutive quarters Apple...

While there has been much commented on the introduction of Apple’s iCloud service, little has touched on its deeper implications.  Sure, iCloud is a replacement for MobileMe, and allows people to sync files between different devices, but what else does it do?  How is it different from MobileMe or other such services which are available from other companies? The most significant difference in iCloud is that it is being introduced not as a “drive” where you can save your files, but as a service accessible through a specific API, which will be present in every Mac, iPad and iPhone that...

I do a lot of my reading on the iPad through applications such as Flipboard, Zite and Instapaper.  These applications provide an easy way for you to keep up with your regular news and blog reading, without having to navigate to all the sites individually.  These applications also allow you to share whatever you are reading through a variety of means. My personal favorites for sharing content are email and Twitter. While I tend to email articles directly to just a couple of close friends, I do so quite frequently.  Twitter is also a great means of sharing interesting news and articles, but with a...

This Monday Apple delivered a clear shot across Google’s bow: iCloud.  Apple’s new service, announced today, demote’s the Web browser back to the status of a simple application.   In replacing MobileMe with iCloud, Apple has done away with the Web-based interface for accessing your information online. All changes to your information are handled through the native applications, with all devices getting the changes almost immediately. The most amazing thing is that they really seem to have managed to make it all “just happen”.  (Actual hands-on testing pending…) You...

I had heard rumors that Research in Motion’s Playbook tablet would not have its own email and calendar client applications.  That you would need to have a Blackberry connected to it so that you could access these services.  This seemed just too screwy an idea to be true. It turns out that someone at Research in Motion didn’t think that this was so screwy and decided that it might be a good way to sell both a tablet and a smartphone.  Well, I’ve got news for these folks but this is a totally screwed up idea. I don’t really see that many people, but extremely hardcore...

It’s now been a couple of days since the iPad 2 started selling and it has essentially sold out.  In fact it sold out in about 72 hours from the initial launch.  While Apple has not published any hard numbers on initial sales I guess we can safely say that the iPad 2 is a huge hit. A number of reviews by major tech sites have point in the same direction: the iPad 2 raises the standard that has to be met by other tablets.  While most people who’ve reviewed the iPad 2 have not found  it to be in any way revolutionary, it is a substantial improvement over the initial model in weight,...

It seems that Flipboard has a new competitor. The social magazine which got the awarded the App of the Year title by Apple has a direct challenger in an app called Zite. The interesting thing is that Zite seems to be having exactly the same kind of capacity problems that plagued Flipboard in it’s first weeks. After watching the demo video on Mashable I downloaded the App to check it out but was unable to create my personalized magazine as it kept giving me connection error messages. In the end, I could not get past the welcome screens and just got a screenshot of it. I’ll continue to...

Lately I have read a growing number of articles on how Android has been growing it’s market share very rapidly and how it has beaten Apple’s iOS in the US. When I read this for the first time it seemed a bit odd as it considers all phones from all manufacturers summed up as one competitor to Apple’s iPhone. Now that isn’t just silly, it’s dumb. Apple manufactures pretty much a single model of smartphone, storage capacity differences notwithstanding. They do continue to sell at a low price the previous year’s model as an entry level unit but, all focus is on the...

The iPad 2 has been announced, demoed and spoken off by just about anyone with access to an Internet connection over the past few days. Now that we generally know what the new version of the iPad looks like and what are its features it will be easier to consider Apple’s competitors’ strengths and weaknesses Motorola has recently introduced the Xoom, a competing product which has a configuration which matches most closely the second generation 32 GB iPad 3G, however it is significantly more expensive than most iPad versions.  In fact, as Steve jobs pointed out during his introduction of the...

In just a few more hours Apple will be introducing the next generation of the iPad at a media event in San Francisco. A lot of speculation has been going on about what changes to expect in this new device, as was to be expected considering how fast and widely the iPad has spread. I don’t expect to see earthshaking features appearing on the iPad 2. Apple will probably consolidate it’s position as the absolute leader in the market the iPad created by improving both the CPU and GPU and providing additional memory along with a pair of cameras. These changes will put the iPad 2 in the same...

Two UK carriers are offering the current generation iPad with large discounts over their regular selling prices.  Techradar reported that both Orange and T-Mobile are offering discounts in what can only be interpreted as a move to clear stocks of the current model before the release of the iPad 2. Whether the carriers have already been warned to expect the new release of the iPad or they are acting on the general expectation of a March release, it’s impossible to tell.  Both carriers now have offers of basic wifi+3G models at £99 when associated with 24 month contracts, down from £199 which...

Apple has finally introduced the in-app subscription service that has been long rumored. Subscriptions created through this service will incur the same 30% fee that Apple charges for other in-app purchases or sales of apps in the App Store. While the 30% fee makes a lot of sense for the app sales made through the App Store as Apple is effectively acting as both distributor and reseller, such a charge just for handling the order processing for content providers seems a bit too steep.  When Apple makes a sale through the App Store, it handles the hosting and bandwidth for the downloads in addition to...