Apple has announced that iOS 4.2.1 will be available for download today.  This means it will be released two days ahead of the last date to be mentioned in the rumor mill. It certainly won’t be too soon for all the anxious iPad owners that have been eagerly awaiting this release. Apple has released a media statement with very confident tone.  One imagines that they have reason to take that stand as the iPad’s first 2 days of “pre-sales” in South Korea  had over twice the number of devices sold than the first week of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab selling on their home turf. The...

Apple has confirmed that the iPad will be released in China this nex Friday, September 17th.  It will be interesting to see how the Chinese market reacts to a device that has been taking the world by storm. Initially only the Wi-Fi models will be available to the Chinese customers, directly from Apple. Apple is the world’s most populous country and over the past several years has seen a lot of economic growth.   Apple is probably expecting to sell a good deal of iPads over the coming months in that country. A brand new Apple Store opened recently in Shanghai and it will be interesting to see if...

Adobe didn’t loose any time in announcing that it will resume work on its Flash to iOS translator/compiler.  Adobe had announced that they had suspended work on this feature of their CS5 suite when Apple changed  their developer agreement restricting the use of third party tools. Now we just have to wait and see the quality of the applications that get developed with Flash. If you liked this post, please take a moment to follow iPadWatcher on...

Apple has issued a press release indicating that it is relaxing the restrictions to the use of third party tools for creating Apps for iOS.  Applications created with tools not provided by Apple (freely) would have been automatically disqualified from being made available on the App Store. From Apple’s press release: We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 to...

Apple has sent out invitations for a special media event on September 1st. The invitation which figures an acoustic guitar seems to imply that the focus of the event is still in music, which is what could be expected from the event in which Apple usually presents its new iPod line. The rumors floating around had these past few days have had all been centering around the possibility that Apple might have a new version of its Apple TV to introduce.  It is still possible that this will happen, however the main focus of the event would seem to be the new iPods.

In an interesting turn of events, Oracle announced that it was suing Google over copyright and patent infringements on its Java intelectual property. While this is not directly linked to the iPad or Apple, it is certainly of interest to those that are  following the moves by several major electronics and computer makers to bring iPad competitors to market. Sun acquired the rights to Java along with Sun in April 2009.  The first statements by Oracle seem to indicate that they don’t intend to try to force Google to stop using Java and Java derived technologies in Android, but rather intend to...

During a conference call LG’s CEO Kwon Young-Soo stated that his company is having trouble keeping up with the demand for iPad displays, despite the fact that its factories are working at full capacity.  It seems that Apple was not the only company taken by surprise by the high demand that met the iPad’s release. According to LG the supply of iPad displays will continue to be tight until early 2011.  Back in March news came out that Apple had contracted with Samsung for 3 million LCD panels for the iPad in addition to 10 million that had been ordered from LG.  It is possible that Apple...

In both Singapore and Hong Kong the demand for the iPad was very strong as it went on sale this Friday.  In New Zealand initial demand seems to have been weaker as there was no clear information available on where the device would be available. In Hong Kong many people coming into stores to try to get a shiny new iPad were disappointed in finding that the best they could do was to put their names into multi-page waiting lists.  It seems that Apple’s Hong Kong resellers have no issues with people who want to buy large quantities of iPads, as they don’t seem to have problems in dispatching...

Apple has confirmed that the iPad will be made available in nine more regions this week.  If you have been waiting to get an iPad you might finally get the chance, if you live in one of the following places: Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore. Of course, if sales do as well as in these areas as elsewhere you might have to be alert to catch an iPad on the store shelves.  At many locations it is still hard to just walk into an Apple store and find the exact model you are looking for.  At several locations only the most expensive 64GB 3g...

Apple has made available an update to the iPad’s operating system.  With this update the version of the operating system goes from 3.2 to 3.2.1, but its name changes to iOS to match how it was already being called in version 4.  iOS 4 for the iPhone has also been updated to 4.0.1. The iPad update includes updates to wireless connectivity, a fix for a problem that could cause video playback to freeze and other small fixes.  This update also adds Bing as a search option in Safari.

The first iAds from Apple are here. Today is the first day of actual operations of Apples new mobile advertisement network and a video of how one of the first ads created work has been posted to YouTube. I’ve embedded the ad video below so that you can check it out. This ad is for the Nissan Leaf, a 100% electric car. iAd has an impressive concept, but we still have to see if users will engage with the ads as much as Apple expects them to. I look forward to seeing the first numbers on the effectiveness of these ads. This one is certainly very...

This week Hulu announced a new service called Hulu Plus which will allow users to watch full seasons of TV Series and movies on their iPads, iPhones and iPods.  This new service will not be free, carrying a monthly fee of $9.99.  This service will also be accessible from other devices such as Sony’s PS3, laptops and even LCD TVs. This service is a change in business models for Hulu who had been relying solely on advertising in shows it made  freely  to registered users to generate revenue.  With this change the company introduces a premium service which offers access to more content but the...

Amazon has introduced a new version of its Kindle application for both the iPad and the iPhone (and iPod) that supports embedded audio and video clips.  This move gives Amazon an interesting advantage with publishers wishing to bring to market multimedia enriched books without having to develop their own iOS applications. It is probably just a question of time before Apple matches this move by adding equivalent features to its own ebook reading application: iBooks. As Amazon and Apple both use different formats for the eBooks they sell through their stores, this means that we will have competing book...

In a press release issued today Apple announced that it had sold over 1.7 million iPhones in just the first 3 days of sales.  Those are the sales registered up until this past Saturday and all indications are that where supplies still last there is still high demand for the phone. With Apple selling  millions of  iPhones each quarter there could be little doubt that there would be strong demand for the new phone, so Apple ramped up production and had a huge quantity of devices available to buyers when it was officially released.  Even so, there are reports of locations where the phone is no longer...

It seems that many people are disappointed with their brand new iPhones.  Over at The Next Web, they’ve collected some comments from disgruntled users who ran into several problems in their first day of usage. Complaints about the iPhone 4 center around two main issues: spots on the display and bad reception. Both of these issues already have some tentative explanations, one of which is good for users while the other is truly disappointing.  There has been a suggestion that the spots on the display are related to a substance used in the bonding process for different layers in the glass and that...