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...

Apple has just announced that will introduce volume business sales to the App Store.  The announcement was made directly to developers and was not yet available on Apple’s website at the time of this writing. This initiative will probably receive a warm welcome from iOS App developers as it will make it a lot easier for businesses to acquire applications for a wide base of corporate users. Even more welcome will probably be the possibility having volume B2B sales of custom-made applications.  This development will make it easier for companies to place orders for specialized applications which...

This past Friday, May 27th, the iPad 2 went on sale in Brazil.  While there weren’t many long lines of people waiting to buy their iPad as soon as the shops opened, it still pretty much sold out on the first day. Store representatives were unanimous in reporting that the 64GB 3G model was the one with most demand, but at the end of the day few stores had any model still available.  These same representatives were also mostly in agreement in stating that Apple made available a smaller supply of devices than when the first generation iPad was introduced in the country in November of 2010.  

During its scheduled quarterly earnings call, yesterday, Apple executives reported record numbers for revenue and profits.  Revenue for the quarter was $24.67 billion while profits came in at $5.99 billion, a growth of 85% over the year ago quarter. These numbers are the result of exceptionally high iPhone sales, with over 18 million iPhones sold in the quarter and a much smaller number of iPads sold than almost everyone was expecting.  Apple reported sales of only 4.69 million iPads in the quarter.  This number seems to be directly related to a constraint in production of the new iPad 2,  rather...

Apple announced its 2011 developer’s conference this morning and before the end of the day it had already sold out. This year’s conference will have 5000 attendees. Many corporate developers will be left out of this conference because it sold out before they had the chance to secure approval to attend. While I was expecting that the conference would sell out quickly, it never occurred to me that it could happen so quickly. Just this afternoon I told a friend that he should register soon as it would probably sell out in a couple of days. Well, he won’t be going this...

As announced, Apple started the international release of the iPad today. Long lines formed in front os Apple Stores around the world, as Apple seems to have scheduled the start of sales at 5PM in the same way it was done in the US. Hundreds of people lined up in many stores in Australia where a lot of excitement has been building up over this launch. TUAW has gathered up some pictures of lines forming at Australian locations. It seems like the iPad 2′s international sales are off to a good start. Later today we’ll update with more information from around the...

WordPress recently released a new version of its Stats plugin which helps bloggers track how many people have read which posts in their blogs.  A significant change in the new version is that the charts that it displays are rendered in HTML instead of using Flash. The removal of Flash from the stats plugin allows iPad users to now have access to all information directly on their devices.  Previously anyone using an iPad was left with a blank area on the page, in place which should have been filled by the access chart. While I have no information that the folks at Automatic that write the plugin and...

As most people seemed to already be expecting the iPad 2 met with strong demand todays as Apple made it available to the general public.  During the day the lines in front of the company’s flagship stores all over the US grew into impressive crowds. It seems that as lines grew in front of the stores the analysts started to review their initial positions with initial weekend sales predictions moving from 600.000 to over 1 million...

Apple has released the iOS 4.3 update this morning.  The new iOS version arrives a couple of days ahead of the new iPad 2 which is expected to ship with this version of the OS. The update is over 590MBs in size and may take a while to download, if your are planning on being one of the first to update your device.  On my 10 Mbit cable connection the estimated time for the download to complete is almost up to an hour and a half. The documentation displayed by iTunes when offering to download the update confirms that the iPhone 4 will get a wireless hotspot feature with support for up to 5 simultaneous...

Today Steve Jobs introduced the iPad 2 personally during Apple’s special media event in San Francisco. There were few surprises in the device itself, but some very interesting twists in the accessory and software arenas. The iPad 2 will be available in the US on march 11th and it will come in two colors: black and white.  In a reference to the troubles Apple seems to have thad to ship the white iPhone, Jobs emphasized that the white iPad will be shipping from day one.  The new iPad will have a faster processor (up to 2x) and much a faster graphics processor (up to 9x the current model) in...

Apple has sent out invitations for a media event to be held on March 2nd, at 10 AM Pacific time.  The image included in the invitation could not have made it any more clear what the event is about as you can see in the image bellow. (As if anyone was expecting something different…) The event will be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the same venue that was used for the introduction of the original iPad and several other products. For the past three months everyone has speculated on what will be the feature set of the next generation of the iPad.  With a large number of tablets...

Following all the live blogs coming out of HP’s webOS event one thing seems clear: the Apple integrated software+hardware model crushes the Google/Microsoft generic OS model.  HP’s tablet shows unique features such as integration with webOS phones by proximity which will set it apart from all the iPad-wannabes running Android. HP clearly did the right thing in deciding to acquire Palm to take the same approach to tablets that Apple takes with all its products.  In the TouchPad and Pre 3 devices shown today HP scored points for its platform and helped Apple drive another nail in the coffin...

James Murdoch, head of News Corp.’s operations in Europe and Asia, confirmed that the iPad based digital newspaper should be available sometime in February.   A lot of rumors and speculation have been going around this subject over the past two months but it seems that it is now official. The newspaper will be available in subscription form for 99 cents per week. It will be interesting to see just how well iPad users will receive this initiative.  In order for the Daily to succeed it will depend heavily not only on having good content but on having a good app implementation which makes it...

This Saturday morning, January 22nd, Apple’s App Store reached the incredible number of 10 billion downloads.  A year ago Apple announced that it had reached the 3 billion downloads mark.  Within this single year the number of downloads grew at an amazing rate. On January 14th, Apple offered a U$ 10,000.00 prize for the person responsible for the 10 billionth download.  This morning the company published a message informing that the mark had been reached and that they will be announcing he winner of the prize.

Apple reported sales of  7.3 million iPads in the last quarter of calendar year 2010, corresponding to the company’s first quarter in the 2011 fiscal year.  If you add this number to the 7.5 million iPads the company had sold in the previous two quarters you get an astounding 14.8 million iPads sold in just 9 months. This number easily exceeds the 13.5 million of the highest analyst predictions for iPad sales in 2010.  Most analysts had been pointing towards 6 to 8 million units sold in 2010, until Apple announced that it had already sold 7.5 million units in the first two quarters of sales. ...