Thursday, January 28, 2010

The Latest from TechCrunch

The Latest from TechCrunch

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The Meme That Will Never Die: Hitler Debunks The iPad

Posted: 28 Jan 2010 09:14 AM PST

While everyone is raving about the iPad, one person who doesn’t like it is Hitler. In the YouTube parody above, which takes the now all-too-common final scene from the movie Downfall and replaces the subtitles with a rant against the iPod. It’s the meme that will never die (there are at least 50 Hitler parodies using the same scene with different subtitles, here’s one about Facebook buying FriendFeed).

So what exactly does Hitler have against the iPad?

  • “The iPad won’t support multitasking”
  • “They didn’t give it a camera, fine. But it’s on AT&T!  How am I supposed to use their crappy network?”
  • “eBooks?  If I wanted eBooks, I’d buy a Kindle.”
  • “It could have single-handedly destroyed netbooks.  But what do we get instead? An oversized iPod Touch!”
  • “It can’t even make phone calls!”
  • “I wanted to watch videos of lolcats while laying on the couch. But no, they won’t even give it flash support.”

Somehow, it’s funnier when Hitler says it. Watch the video.

Michael Dell Shows Off the Mini 5 Slate, Confirms US Arrival?

Posted: 28 Jan 2010 09:12 AM PST

The Dell Mini 5, Dell's Android-powered Snapdragon slate, popped up at CES this year but we never got a clear look at it. However, when the CEO of Dell rolls into the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he can show off anything he wants and our boss got a quick hands-on in the Swiss slush. To recap, the Mini 5 is a 1GHz Snapdragon-powered netpad (did I just coin a phrase?) running Android 1.6 with 5-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 3G mobile. It should be selling for $1,098 before carrier subsidy.


After The Bloodletting, Deezer Appoints A New CEO

Posted: 28 Jan 2010 09:11 AM PST

Following controversial moves in which its CEO went missing from a major conference and initially appeared to have been ousted, the streaming music startup Deezer, has finally clarified the company’s new structure.

In a terse press release, the startup announced the appointment of Axel Dauchez as CEO, replacing former CEO Jonathan Benassaya. Dauchez was the CEO of leading European animation group Moonscoop for nine years. See our previous story for all the juicy background.

Why Carriers Didn’t Want to Allow 3G VoIP Before. And Why They’re Now Setting It Free

Posted: 28 Jan 2010 08:44 AM PST

I've used VoIP apps on the past few iterations of the iPhone as well as a number of other devices including some from Nokia, HTC, and Samsung. Those apps always only worked over WiFi and have mostly worked as advertised. Experience shows that if there's one thing cellular companies are good at it's ensuring a call can get from point A to point B (although AT&T has been sucking wind lately). It's what they've been doing for almost two decades. Now that Apple has lifted the ban VoIP over 3G - note it is Apple lifting these restrictions, not AT&T - you have to wonder what's going on. Won't 3G tear down the network around our ears? Won't dogs and cats start living together?


Top 10 Reasons The Apple iPad Will Put Amazon’s Kindle Out of Business

Posted: 28 Jan 2010 08:16 AM PST

Editor’s note: Ever since yesterday’s debut of Apple’s iPad, the debate has been raging about what it means for Amazon’s Kindle. Will it kill it? Will it not? Is comparing the two like comparing a computer to a typewriter? To add fuel to the fire and, well, because we love top 10 lists, we present this guest post from Ben Elowitz, who comes down very firmly on the Kindle-is-kaput side of the debate. Ben is co-founder and CEO of Wetpaint, a media company with an audience of 10 million monthly unique users; and author of the Digital Quarters blog. Prior to Wetpaint, he co-founded Blue Nile (NILE), the largest online retailer of fine jewelry.

1) The multi-functional capability. Buy a Kindle and you get… a reader. Another dedicated device to carry. Buy an iPad, and you get a whole new companion that can do pretty much anything. Games, movies, browsing, documents, and more—all in one. And zillions of iPhone apps. It's sooooo much more than a reader, it's a whole-life device.

2) The screen. Full color, multi-touch screen, gestures, and more. It's a pleasure to look at it – and we all can rely on Steve Jobs' aesthetics to know that it's a pleasure to hold as well.

3) The compatibility. iPad supports ePub out of the box, overcoming publishers' resistance to having to support a proprietary format such as Kindle's; and creating compatibility with books sold through a leading standard format through any channel. (Something tells me Amazon will be making an announcement about ePub support real soon…)

4) The iBooks store. Apple has captured the magic of shopping. Once again, whereas Amazon does great with the functional needs of buying a book, Apple goes beyond to create an experience.

5) The experience. The Kindle provides a good functional experience for readers—in a very Bezosian way, it meets all our needs. But Apple's creation goes beyond, to make the experience fun and cool.  You can swipe through pages on an iPad.  On the Kindle, you have to dutifully click a button.

6) The economics. Publishers have been deeply concerned about price erosion with Amazon's $9.99 pricing—and have been up in arms over Amazon's 70% revenue share take. Though Amazon has reversed the revenue share (to match Apple's reported offer at 30%), it would require publishers to cut prices and offer deep discounts. Considering the threat the publishing industry is under, the last thing that publishers want in a time of transition is to have their revenues crammed down further by Jeff Bezos.

7) The apps. In a digital age, a book is (finally!) becoming more than just words on a page. But the Kindle has been slow to recognize this. With the iPad, out of the gate publishers can create whole experiences. Want to create something unique in the market to draw consumers? Publishers can go beyond e-books, and create an app using one of the world's most popular SDK platforms.

8) The marketplace. Apple's iBook and App Store marketplaces will instantly be a must-attend venue for publishers. The anticipated sales of the iPad will mean exposure to so many more consumers than Kindle; and Apple already has 125 million consumer store accounts with 12 billion products already downloaded. Amazon won't even release the number of Kindles sold, because the number of consumers buying its device pales next to Apple's reach.

9) The price. For $10 more than a Kindle DX, consumers get an incredible ebook reader, and so much more: a device that they can use for, well, pretty much anything. The options, consumer experience, and flexibility for that $10 are a no-brainer.

10) The Apple factor (a.k.a. "sexy"). Let's face it, Apple is a brand people want to be affiliated with. It has a cool factor. Even those of us who are smart enough to know better still fall in love with Apple products, and carry them with pride. Amazon just doesn't have that. As Jason Kottke says, "the iPad makes the Kindle look like it's from the 1980's".

Apple has upped the game for Amazon.  Jeff Bezos and his team better start a clean sheet of design if they want Kindle to catch up again and play as a leader with consumers.

It's clear that Amazon is already scared: witness their recent moves in the last few days running up to Apple's announcement. Just this month, they've announced an app framework and a new royalty structure to be more attractive to publishers – and both moves are clearly defensive catch-up plays to respond to the threat of the iPad. Amazon is even trying to win love by giving away free Kindles to their best customers.

But the best plan for Amazon isn't to try to buy customers or try to match Apple's approach. Rather, they'll need to re-think their consumer experience from  start to finish. They've done a great job so far of digitizing books, but now if they want to compete with Steve Jobs' inventiveness, they'll have to step up to be a must-have device in consumers' digital lives.  Of course, they can also just surrender and continue to sell books through their existing iPhone app, which should be compatible with the iPad like all the other apps in the App Store.

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iPad
Amazon Kindle 2
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Social Shopping Site ThisNext Raises $1.2 Million

Posted: 28 Jan 2010 08:11 AM PST

ThisNext has raised $1.2 million in funding according to an SEC filing. This brings the startup’s total funding to nearly $9 million.

Launched in 2006, ThisNext’s social shopping site combines browsing for items online with comments, tagging, social recommendations, comment ratings and a wish list. Users can also create a website widget to show products they like to others via any website. The site faces competition from Polyvore, Kaboodle and Like.com.


AT&T Already Has One Million eReaders On Its Network, Without The iPad

Posted: 28 Jan 2010 07:25 AM PST

Mobile data devices are a boon for AT&T.  The company reported strong earnings this morning, seeing a 26 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit.  AT&T sold 3.1 million iPhones in the fourth quarter, with the device being called out as one of the key drivers of the success for the telecommunications company. Quarterly earnings increased to $3.01 billion from $2.40 billion from the previous year, matching Wall Street expectation. Revenue from wireless services was strong, rising 9.2 percent with the addition of 2.7 million net subscribers during the fourth quarter.

But another area of growth for AT&T is in wireless eReaders connected to its 3G data network.  Currently, the Amazon Kindle, the Sony Reader Daily Edition and the Barnes & Noble Nook are all using AT&T for data connectivity. During the fourth quarter, the number of these devices on AT&T’s wireless network increased by more than 1 million in the fourth quarter, which was the strongest quarter in this category to date.  And as we learned yesterday, AT&T will also provide internet connectivity for Apple’s new iPad.

It is expected that this category will continue to grow like gangbusters, especially with the addition of the iPad, which boasts an app called iBooks, Apple’s own collection of digital books formatted for the device. Apple partnered with five publishers to make books available for sale through the iBooks store. Jobs claimed yesterday that the iPad will take Amazon’s Kindle technology to the next level. The iBooks support the ePub format, allows readers to flip through pages and supports pictures, video, and other graphics. The first book available will cost $14.99. It’s expected that the eReader market as a whole will grow by millions in 2010, with Forrester predicting that 10 million e-readers will be sold in the coming year. The firm estimated that 3 million eReaders were sold in 2009.

So what does this mean for AT&T? More money, obviously.  The company said that its earnings were partly bolstered by the rapid growth of the e-reader device. AT&T only recently brought the Kindle on board, after Amazon dropped Sprint last fall for the Kindle 2.  However, while all Kindle’s come with a data plan, not all iPads will come with 3G connectivity.  Only the most expensive ones will.  All models also connect via WiFi.

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iPad
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Motally Brings Mobile Analytics To The iPad

Posted: 28 Jan 2010 05:52 AM PST

Once the iPad SDK is released, many developers will be in a mad rush to create apps optimized for Apple’s tablet device. Already, developers are flocking to update their apps with the new iPhone SDK optimized for the iPad. But it’s not only the developers of games and apps who are participating in this gold rush. Motally, a startup that provides analytics on mobile devices, is launching the extension of their user-action tracking services for mobile web and apps to include content developed on Apple's iPad. Their analytics will automatically work for iPhone apps accessed on the device with further support to be released specifically for the iPad SDK once it is available from Apple.

Motally’s offering allows developers to receive daily reports, web-based dynamic reports and user statistics such as unique users, page views, engagement time search keyworks, average pages/visit, etc. Currently using the iPhone SDK, Motally will support the iPad SDK once it rolls out.

Motally offers more advanced features that allows developers to troubleshoot and debug their products from anywhere in the world, without having to re-deploy apps and games to the Apple iPhone store. For a young startup, Motally has seen significant traction as a mobile analytics provider. Backed by renown investor Ron Conway, Motally’s clients include Twitter, Yelp, Fandango and Verizon.


Nokia’s Ovi Store Now Officially Serves More Than 1 Million Downloads A Day

Posted: 28 Jan 2010 05:27 AM PST

Buried in Nokia’s earnings release from this morning (PDF) is an interesting revelation about the Ovi Store, the centralized application shop for programs fit for Nokia devices that the Finnish giant debuted – not so stylishly – in May 2009.

The company now officially acknowledges that the Ovi Store is seeing more than 1 million downloads a day on millions of handsets around the world, after cautiously mentioning that it was approaching that milestone earlier this month at CES.

At a recent roundtable event in London to discuss the company’s app strategy with journalists, Nokia VP of Product, Media George Linardos, also shared that it is currently working a completely rebuilt version of the one-stop app shop, due to be launched in the Spring of this year. Linardos at the time of the event, early December 2009, said that Ovi Store download numbers were growing 100% month-on-month.

In another upbeat story about the Ovi Store, it was revealed earlier this week that the store has recently overtaken Apple’s App Store in territories such as Asia and Latin America. We should note in that regard that Nokia-carrying AT&T customers in the U.S. only got access to Ovi Store early January 2010.

One million downloads a day – or roughly 30 million per month – is admirable but not breathtaking growth any way you look at it. Just for the sake of comparison: Apple’s App Store went from 2 to 3 billion app downloads in the course of 3 months, which means the App Store serves more than ten times the amount of apps per month than the Ovi Store.

Nokia Shipped 127 Million Units In Q4 2009, Profits Soared 65%

Posted: 28 Jan 2010 04:40 AM PST

Nokia, still the world’s top mobile phone maker, reported a stronger-than-expected 65% rise in fourth-quarter net profit this morning. The Espoo, Finland-based company reported net profit of €948 million for the quarter or 26 eurocents a share, up from €576 million a year ago.

What caught our eye was the volume of devices the company shipped in Q4 2009: the total mobile device volumes of Devices & Services were 126.9 million units, representing an increase of 12% year on year.

The overall industry mobile device volumes for the same period were 329 million units (based on Nokia’s estimate), representing an increase of 8% year on year.

Broken down by region, Nokia shipped most of these phones and mobile computers to Europe and Asia-Pacific (68% of the total units shipped, combined). North America only accounted for 3.8 million units, while emerging markets like Middle East & Africa bought 24.3 million units.

Nokia estimates that its mobile device market share for the fourth quarter 2009 was 39%, compared with 37% in the fourth quarter 2008. The company says the increase was driven by higher market share in all regions with the exception of the United States and Canada, where market share remained flat.

Nokia shares are up a solid 12% in pre-market trading.

DFJ Frontier And City Of Ventura Launch Incubator For SoCal Startups

Posted: 28 Jan 2010 03:00 AM PST

Startup incubators such as Founders Institute and TechStars, are popping up outposts in various metropolises in the U.S. and even in internationally. Today, VC firm DFJ Frontier, an affiliate of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and the City of Ventura, California, are partnering to launch a new incubator in the region, the Ventura Ventures Technology Center.

Designed to help encourage technology startups to base or relocate their companies in the Southern California region, the fund will invest anywhere from $100,000 to $1 million in each startup. The venture will not be limited to investing in a particular sector . As a condition of the investment, the companies have to be based in Ventura. In return, the incubator has set up a technology-centric office center for startups that offer steeply discounted rents.

Of course, the Ventura Ventures incubator has a different model than many of the startup incubators that have emerged such as Y Combinator, TechStars or Founders Institute. Unlike these three organizations, the Ventura Ventures Technology Center doesn’t have the established education, guidance and mentoring curriculum that many of these incubators have received acclaim for. Though framed as an incubator, the SoCal-based program is more of a venture fund than an actual incubator. But the venture is still young and may add a curriculum-type program in the future. And the startups that the new fund is investing in seem to be later stage than those who join the other incubators.

One of the first startups to be funded by the new program is Lottay, a 2009 TechCrunch50 demopit company that lets you create an online gift that people can put money towards. Lottay, which received $475,000 in November 2009 from DFJ Frontier to open their Series A round, just received another $180,000 from the Ventura Ventures incubator. Lottay uses PayPal’s newly released Adaptive Payments API, to let anyone create gift pages with detailed descriptions and pictures of a particular goal or gift and then friends can contribute to the site via PayPal. The gift is sent instantly and securely, delivered as a surprise via email and Facebook. Givers can specify the gift they would like the money to buy – from a cup of coffee to a Caribbean cruise and beyond – while receivers are free to use the money to buy the intended gift or anything else they want.

Steve Wozniak Talks iPad (Video)

Posted: 28 Jan 2010 02:05 AM PST

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak paid a visit to California State University of Chico yesterday after the official unveiling of the iPad, and while there he was asked by the audience how he sees the device affecting the entertainment industry.

Videomaker caught his response on video, posted it to YouTube and voilà, one of the first official opinion of the Woz finds it way to us and more broadly, the Internet.

Wozniak foresees – but admits that it’s just a ‘total’ guess at this point – that in the future you’ll be able to subscribe to magazines and newspapers on the iPad via iTunes. In his view, such an endeavor would leverage the iPad to become much more than a hardware play.

In addition, he says he doesn’t see the iPad as fit for movie editing or music production or anything like that.

Nothing earth shattering, but always nice to get übergeek Wozniak’s opinion on Apple stuff.

if you happened to be there, we’d love to know what else was asked (and what Wozniak responded, evidently).

The iPad Is Like Holding The Future. But Only Because I Graduated From iPhone School.

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 07:16 PM PST

When the iPhone first launched in 2007 I was sure I wasn’t going to buy one. Then I played with one. 15 minutes later I was $600 poorer. It was arguably the best tech purchase I’ve ever made. After the Apple event today, I got a chance to play with the new iPad for quite a bit of time. My takeaway? The thing is beautiful and fast. Really fast. If you’ll excuse my hyperbole, it felt like I was holding the future. But is it a must-have? That’s a complicated question.

The quick and dirty answer is: for many people, right now, no. Unlike the iPhone, which filled an already well-established need (cellular telephone usage), there is no existing need the iPad fills. That is, unless you’re an iPhone or iPod touch user. If that’s the case, the iPad does fill a couple of needs — it’s the best way to use apps, and more importantly, the best way to browse the web in a style that is likely your preferred method: by touching it.

That’s the key that Apple only hinted at today. When it launches, the iPad’s initial target audience is iPhone and iPod touch users. Why? Because they are already very comfortable with the way you need to interact with this device. The moment I picked up the iPad today I knew exactly what to do with it. It was second-nature. It was the iPhone, only larger — and that felt good. Meanwhile, I watched some other people who said they didn’t use an iPhone regularly interact with the iPad for the first time and it was not nearly as seamless.

Towards the end of his keynote, Steve Jobs alluded to this idea when he said that the 75 million iPhones and iPod touches that have already shipped ensure that those users will already know how to use the iPad. During the hands-on demos, two different Apple employees said basically the same thing. “If you have an iPhone, you already know how to use this,” one said.

There has been much talk leading up to the iPad’s debut as to what its exact purpose would be. A lot of the buzz was that it would be a killer new way to consume print media. Apple did play that up a bit today, but not as much as you may have expected. They did devote a good amount of time to the new iBooks app and store, but if you think anyone is going to buy this thing just to be an e-reader, you’re mistaken.

In fact, a lot of the Kindle/iPad comparisons now just seem a bit odd. Comparing the iPad to the Kindle now sort of seems like comparing a computer to a typewriter. Having scrolled through a few books on the iPad today, there’s still definitely an argument to be made that the Kindle has an advantage in the one thing it does (thanks to e-ink). But the key point is that it only does the one thing (and those Kindle apps won’t help that much because the device is way too slow) — as many of us have long suspected, it’s going to be relegated to a feature of a device that does more. And that’s exactly what Apple is doing with the iPad (which we correctly translated Jobs as saying back in September when everyone else seemed to think he said he would never do anything with eBooks).

And more functionality is important because it gives Apple more ways to lure new users into this style of computing. But again, the first of those are going to be iPhone and iPod touch users because they will be the most comfortable with using the device. And as that user base keeps expanding, so too will the base of those that are interested in the iPad — many just don’t know it yet.

The thing is, as a heavy iPhone user, I immediately recognize the iPad’s appeal. If it can perform anywhere close to the promised 10 hour battery life, I’ll likely ditch carrying around a laptop most of the time and simply take an iPad with the keyboard accessory. The thing is that snappy — and, at a pound and a half and a half-inch thick, the weight and size savings will be substantial. Oh, and at $30-a-month for unlimited data (yes, sadly through AT&T), I can ditch my $60-a-month laptop 3G card.

Does it have Flash? No. But while that used to be an issue for me when the iPhone first launched, I never think about it anymore. All of YouTube is available through the YouTube app, and I’d bet that sooner or later we’ll see a Hulu app as well. So what am I really missing with Flash? Browser crashes, eaten CPU cycles, and some Facebook games? Good riddance.

What it comes down to for me is that when I don’t need to do something that’s typing-intensive (like writing), I’d much prefer to use my hands to move around applications and browse the web. The iPhone has taught me that. Meanwhile, the rapid movement of data to the cloud has taught me that I have next to no need for most desktop applications anymore. In other words, I’m perfectly primed for this device.

Most people won’t yet, but as long as Apple has its base that will buy and use the iPad, they have plenty of time for either themselves or third-party developers to create the killer uses that make the iPad a must-have product for a broader range of people. We already saw that happen with the App Store and the iPhone/iPod touch. And at $499 (for the low-end version), there will be no shortage of people willing to splurge on the device just to see what all the fuss is about. They’ll get hooked too.

The iPhone and the iPod touch have in a way served as training wheels for us to use this new type of device, the iPad. To a lesser extent, so have Apple’s multi-touch trackpads and the new multi-touch Magic Mouse. All of these devices are pointing towards what Apple obviously believes is the future of computing: touch. That is more clear now than ever before — the iPad is their biggest step yet.


 

 

 

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iPad
iPhone
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Google Renews Its Privacy Vows

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 07:13 PM PST

Google has just posted a set of core privacy principles to its official blog, in honor of tomorrow’s International Data Privacy Day. There’s nothing revelatory here, but it’s a bit reassuring all the same given just how much Google knows about most of us. If you’re interested in more of Google’s privacy stances, they’ve got an entire portal dedicated to them here.

  • Use information to provide our users with valuable products and services.
  • Develop products that reflect strong privacy standards and practices.
  • Make the collection of personal information transparent.
  • Give users meaningful choices to protect their privacy.
  • Be a responsible steward of the information we hold.

As Publishers Try To Adapt To The iPad, Startups Spring To The Rescue

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 07:09 PM PST


Now that the iPad is finally official, any publisher that wasn’t already figuring out how to bring their content to a color, touchscreen device is probably scrambling to do it now. That’s a bit easier said than done though — while it probably wouldn’t be too tough to simply scan in text and present it in a static format, converting it into something that actually takes advantage of the new platform is going to prove difficult. That challenge is giving rise to some new startups looking to help publishers make the transition from paper to digital.

One such company is called Inkling, a small startup that’s raised $1 million in seed money from Ram Shriram, Mitch Kapor, Aydin Senkut, and other angel investors. Inkling is looking to help textbook makers convert their content into digitized versions that are more than just static reproductions of the original text. In other words, they’re helping spur the kind of innovation that could change the way we learn (but could take publishers a long time to figure out if they’re left to their own devices).

So what exactly can the platform add beyond the text these publishers already have? CEO Matt MacInnis says that Inkling is building tools that give publishers a scalable way to add interactive and dynamic content. They’ll be able to include interactive figures and quizzes. And they’ll be able to give their texts cloud connectivity, allowing students to download new, updated content. Other benefits from connecting to the cloud include the ability to sync your work between multiple devices, and the ability to add social features to a text. Imagine if you had a question about a particular diagram in your text; you could send it to your professor, and they could leave an annotation in the book that would be visible to all other students.

Inkling is currently in talks with all four of the major textbook companies, though MacInnis wouldn’t divulge whether they’d signed any deals yet. He does say that the company is also interested in working with smaller publishers, including free projects like California’s free textbook initiative.

But Inking isn’t the only startup looking to help publishers take advantage of the iPad. Another player is PixelMags, which is looking to help magazine publishers make the leap themselves. PixelMags has actually been around for a while, offering to help magazines get their content on the App Store for consumption on the iPhone. As of today, they’re making the jump to the bigger screen. They company says that it will allow publishers to include both text and streaming media in their magazines, and they’ll take care of getting the content into the App Store.

It’s great to see companies that are looking to help publishers truly take advantage of the iPad, but I am concerned that Apple may soon step on their toes. During its event today, Apple showed off its native eBook reader, but it wasn’t clear if it would be offering a similar universal reader for magazines or textbooks. I suspect they will, otherwise each magazine and book could have an inconsistent user interface. And that means companies like Inkling will have to adjust their content to work within whatever file formats Apple allows for.

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Inkling Inc.
PixelMags
iPad
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Adobe: Flash Apps Will Run On The iPad, Even Full Screen At Some Point

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 03:28 PM PST

While Apple is being lamented here and there for not supporting Flash on its shiny new iPad – boy does Cupertino have a strong dislike for the platform – Adobe has already responded to the news on the official Flash Platform blog.

The blog post, unambiguously titled “Building iPad Applications with Flash”, is mostly just to remind people of the company’s Packager for iPhone product, which will enable developers to make Flash apps function on the iPhone / iPod Touch through a work-around whereby Flash apps can be easily converted into iPhone apps using Creative Suite 5 (CS5). Adobe also published a post on its Adobe Flash Platform blog addressing the apparent lack of Flash support in the iPad.

We’ve written before that this could turn 2010 into the year when approximately 2 million Flash developers could potentially start cooking up stuff for the iPhone en masse. You can now add the iPad to that, it seems.

The company notes:

We announced the Packager for iPhone at MAX 2009 which will allow Flash developers to create native iPhone applications and will be available in the upcoming version of Flash Pro CS5. This technology enables developers to create applications for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad (though applications will not initially take direct advantage of iPad's new screen resolution). It is our intent to make it possible for Flash developers to build applications that can take advantage of the increased screen size and resolution of the iPad.

For that latter part, Adobe points to this article by Christian Cantrell, Product Manager and Application Developer on the AIR team. The article goes in depth about how developers can build apps using Flash with authoring with multiple screen sizes and resolutions in mind.

Update: Adobe’s definitely frustrated with the non-Flash policy at the Apple headquarters. Read ‘Apple’s iPad — a broken link?’.

You won’t be able to fire up, say, Hulu through your browser on the iPhone or iPad any time soon, but Adobe appears determined to show the world that Flash has its place on Apple’s products one way or the other.

And it’s also sending a message to Flash developers that they can and should stick to the platform rather than look at other ways to join the App Store goldrush.

The iPad Vs. The Kindle: How Should Amazon Respond?

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 03:05 PM PST

Editor’s note: This a guest post written by Joff Redfern. Redfern is the co-founder of FlattenMe.com, a site for creating personalized storybooks. He was formerly a vice president of product at Yahoo, where he managed Yahoo Buzz and Toolbar.

Amazon Kindle: The Road Ahead

I'm a recent Kindle fan boy. I like the instant access to earth-friendly books, the paper-like display and the way it fits in my hand like a paperback. I've also deeply admired the crispness of the Kindle vision—"any book, any language, in minutes". But with Apple's iPad announcement the playing field on which the Kindle competes shifts and the disruptive technology itself gets disrupted.

If I were running the Kindle I would answer this question today: "Are we innovating the publishing or the entertainment industry?" Is the Kindle just for my reading entertainment or is it for watching, listening, gaming, browsing, sharing photos, and communicating with friends & family too? Ultimately the answer is shaped by consumer preference, competitors and time measured in years.

As a product guy this is a really intriguing question to try to unravel—which path should Amazon choose? Over time this is what may push the Kindle into being more than just a reader . . .

For the same price, more is better

Will consumers prefer a multi-purpose entertainment tablet over a single-purpose reading device as their prices converge? This is a religious question; sides will be drawn. I look to the evolution of my own personal technology habits for the answer.

When I wanted to manage my contacts I started with a paper-based Address Book, upgraded to a Digital Rolodex, upgraded to a Palm V, upgraded to a Blackberry, then upgraded to an iPhone. Fundamentally I was trying to solve how I manage and communicate with my contacts. With each upgrade I got more functionality yet the price point for each device was not radically different.

If consumers can eventually get an entertainment tablet that also has the core features of a great reader (screen, content catalog, ease of purchasing) at under $200 they'll want more.

Prices drop. Over time, price won't be a factor in the purchase decision.

Today, Kindle enjoys a price advantage over the iPad. It is nearly half the price, starting at $260 versus $500 for the iPad, although the cheapest Kindle DX with an equivalent 9.7 inch screen is $489.  That is pretty close already.  What happens when the price of iPad-like devices trend down to a point of consumer indifference?

Moore's Law and business model innovation will drive the iPad-like devices to sub-$200 pricing. Unrealistic? The retail price of the iPhone 8GB dropped ~83% in 3 years from $599 to $99.

Also keep in mind that entertainment tablets are using different math from the Kindle. The device pricing will be "subsidized" by multiple revenue streams—downloads of books, music, movies, games, apps, advertising, and more. Today I can get a cell phone device for "free", will my iPad be "free" some day?

Competitors are playing a platform war. Is Kindle?

Apple, Google and Microsoft have massive investments in their respective mobile platforms. In particular, Apple is king of the mobile mountain. As Jobs declared today, "Apple is now the largest mobile device company in the world".

This Apple sizzle has drawn 100,000+ developers and publishers to its iPhone (and now iPad) ecosystem. These apps are already available to entertain us in all sorts of ways on the iPad beyond what Apple exec Scott Forstall showed today.

Amazon knows this. Last week they announced a developer API is coming. So the question remains how robust is the API and will the developer community bite, or is it game over?

What would you do if you ran the Kindle?

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Apple Doesn’t Own A Single iPad Related Domain Name

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 02:55 PM PST

Perhaps Apple was just being extremely careful not to draw any attention to the widely speculated name of its new multimedia device prior to this morning’s announcement, but one simply cannot overlook the fact that the company doesn’t have ownership over any domain names related to ‘iPad’.

For now, that is.

Apple does not own iPad.com, as you may have noticed. Others have, in any case, and some even suggest that the person who registered the domain name (one Martine Bejasa) sell it to the Cupertino company to become an instant millionaire. Unlikely to happen, IMHO.

But what else doesn’t Apple own? Well, they don’t have control over even a single domain name that has iPad followed by a country or generic TLD. Out of Cupertino’s hands, at least for the time being: iPad.net, iPad.biz, iPad.info, iPad.fr, iPad.de, iPad.es, iPad.eu, iPad.se, iPad.cn, iPad.be and iPad.jp. To name but a few.

They also don’t own iBook.com, iBooks.com or iBookstore.com or anything like that, in case you were wondering.

It’s not that Apple doesn’t care about domain names. It paid heavily for iPhone.com back in 2007, and it owns iPod.com, iMac.com, iWork.com, iTunes.com etc. (but not MacBook.com, curiously). Run a search on UDRPsearch and you will find that Apple regularly fights to (re)gain control over relevant domain names that carry one of their trademarks – which it doesn’t have for ‘iPad’ (yet), just to be clear.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Apple moved to seize 16 domain names from a single individual. There’s no doubt in my mind that they’re going to be aggressively targeting the owners of the domain names listed above, once they secure or license use of the ‘iPad’ trademark.

Update: just to be clear, I’m aware that getting the iPad trademark does not guarantee that Apple will be able to take away the domain names from their current owners. But they’ll most certainly try and succeed with some, depending on what the owners do with the domain name. I’d also like to point out domain names like AppleiPad.com, AppleiPad.net, AppleiPad.info and so on are also not in Apple’s possession at this point.

Pictures: The iPad Being Manhandled

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 02:37 PM PST

Okay, we’ve all seen the iPad now. We’ve read all about it. We’ve seen video of it in action. But how is it to actually hold? I took a bunch of pictures of people playing with it in the demo pit today after Apple’s event. The consensus amongst those I talked to? It’s actually quite comfortable.

I played with one myself for a bit and have to agree. While it’s nowhere near as light as a Kindle, it feels much more solid and because it’s significantly larger, is easier to hold with two hands. But it’s also light enough that holding it with one hand is not a burden. And it’s extremely thin. Plus, unlike the Kindle, you can easily swap between portrait and landscape positions.

As for finger smudges, that’s another story. The Apple reps were quick to wipe it off after each demo as it was quite greasy after each hands-on. But the screen is bright enough that you don’t really notice it except around the black edges.

Note the pictures below of it next to the Kindle, as well as it next to an iPhone and an old school iPod.


 

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iPad To Ship In Europe In March Says Apple

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 02:29 PM PST

Apple’s European PR team have confirmed the impending of arrival inside two months of the Apple iPad to European shores.

“The Wi-Fi version will ship worldwide in March,” said an Apple Europe spokesperson, but she added, “Watch this space for Wi-Fi plus 3G.”

In other words it’s clear Apple is still in negotiations with mobile carriers over which will stock the new device.

Unfortunately there is no word yet on international pricing.

Think iBooks Looks Familiar? You’re Not The Only One.

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 02:02 PM PST

When Apple was demoing its new iBooks application for the iPad today during their keynote address, I just kept thinking to myself: this simply must have been designed by Delicious Monster, the shop behind the brilliant Mac app Delicious Library. I’m not the only one who thought that either. Delicious Monster founder Wil Shipley thought the same thing. The only problem? His shop didn’t make it.

In fact, Shipley was quite vocal on Twitter during the keynote today about the situation. “No, Apple didn't license iBooks from me. They just copied me. Ah well,” he wrote. Later, he added, “I guess it's not enough Apple has hired every employee who worked on Delicious Library, they also had to copy my product's look. Flattery?” While Shipley tries to play it off as not that big of a deal, clearly he’s pretty upset about it. And he should be. I mean, the bookshelf view in iBooks is nearly identical to the main bookshelf view used in Delicious Library. Not only that, but it’s not like this is a little-known app that Apple may have missed: it has won the Apple Design Award twice, and been a runner-up one other time. Apple gives out those awards.

Still, as Shipley notes, iBooks is only for eBooks while Delicious Monster is for all types of media, and has much more functionality. But if Apple really did hire much of Shipley’s team then just re-create the look, that’s a little shady. We’ve reached out to Shipley to confirm those hires and will update if we hear back.

Back in July, you may recall that Shipley had to kill the Delicious Library iPhone app because of a change to Amazon’s APIs for pulling product data.

You may wonder why Apple didn’t just hire Shipley if they poached his whole team? “They couldn't afford to hire me,” he writes.

Update: Shipley has responded with some lengthy comments.

Notably, he says, “[Delcious Monster co-founder] Mike Matas was a UI designer on the iPad, [former employee] Lucas Newman is an iPhone / iPad engineer, and [former employee] Tim Omernick was an iPhone / iPad engineer but left a while ago to work on games independently.”

“But the thing about iBooks is, it’s a book-reader. So, of course they looked around, found the best interface for displaying books (Delicious Library’s shelves), and said: yup, this is what we’re doing,” he went on to say. “Although Delicious Library was the first to do it, we didn’t try to copyright the idea of wooden shelves, or of showing books photo-realistically. ‘Look and feel’ is kind of an outmoded concept, I think.”

“Now, of course Apple couldn’t contact me ahead of time and say, ‘Hey, we’re taking your idea, thanks.’ Their lawyers would worry they’d open themselves to a huge lawsuit, for one, and they’d also be leaking a secret. Nor could they write me a check. Even a token one would be an admission (in their lawyers’ eyes) that they were copying something. They are a public company — they can’t write someone a check unless they got some value in return. And if they got value, the lawyers would ask, how much was it? How was it determined?,” he continues

“So their official policy has to be, ‘No, of course it’s a crazy coincidence that these shelves look almost entirely like Delicious Library’s shelves.‘,” he concludes

But this goes even deeper for Shipley:

“As a creator, part of what I seek is recognition, immortality. I don’t work for Apple, or Google (I’ve been offered jobs & buyouts) because I want the fame myself. It's my shot at immortality. My designs are my children. So it stinks when I feel like Steve might get the fame for my innovation. I lose my children, as it were.”

“But your children aren't really yours. They have lives of their own. So when your designs do change the world, you have to accept it. You have to say, ‘Ok, this was such a good idea, other people took it and ran with it. I win.’”

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Video: The iPad In Action

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 01:27 PM PST

By now you’ve probably seen the videos on Apple’s site showing the iPad. But those aren’t always indicative of the way it actually works in real life. Luckily, Apple had plenty of iPads in a demo pit area after the event today and we captured some footage of a few applications actually being used.

In the video below see Apple’s new Keynote app (built specifically for the iPad), as well as the new iBooks app, in action. As you can see, the device is very fast. Also note the Apple employee talking about using the iPad to make calls.

Nearly Half Of Netflix Subscribers Now Watch Streams Online

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 01:21 PM PST

Netflix has just reported its Q4 2009 results, and has performed pretty well as expected, although revenue was slightly below most forecasts.

What caught our eye is just how many Netflix customers are now streaming movies and TV shows online. The percentage of subscribers who watched instantly more than 15 minutes of a TV episode or movie in Q4 2009 was 48 percent, compared to 28 percent for the same period of 2008.

As for the numbers (PDF):

Netflix ended the fourth quarter with approximately 12,268,000 total subscribers, a 10 percent jump compared to end of the third quarter of 2009. Net subscriber change in the quarter was an increase of 510,000 for the third quarter of 2009.

The company earned $30.9 million, or 56 cents per share, in the fourth quarter of 2009. That compared to $22.7 million, 38 cents per share, in the same period of 2008.

Netflix’ Q4 2009 revenue rose 24% to $444.5 million, a 5 percent sequential increase from $423.1 million for the third quarter of 2009. The DVD-rental company was estimated to report revenues of up to $446 million.

Netflix expects revenue to climb to $490 million to $496 million this quarter.

Full earnings can be consulted in the press release.

Everything You Need To Know About The iPad

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 01:20 PM PST

The suspense is over! Today, Apple unveiled its new tablet computer, aptly called the iPad, here in San Francisco. Steve Jobs positions the tablet as a third computing device between a laptop and a smartphone geared towards the "key tasks" of Web browsing, email, sharing photos, watching videos, playing games, and reading digital books. All current iPhone apps will run on the device, as well as new games and digital books designed specifically for it. Here's a list of all our recent coverage from before, during and after the event.

  • Video: The iPad In Action (link)
  • The iPad: our take (link)
  • Apple has a solution for the iPad's missing SD card slot and USB port: adapters(link)
  • Investors Didn't Like The iPad Until They Heard Its $499 Price (link)
  • Apple Teams With AT&T For The iPad's 3G Connection. Ugh. (link)
  • The iPad Comes With iBooks And Will Cost $500 To $830 (link)
  • New iPhone SDK with iPad support coming today, 100% compatibility with iPhone apps (link)
  • Looks Like The Apple iPad Doesn't Have Flash, After All (link)
  • Apple unveils the iPad – at last – and it's $499 (link)
  • Our Live Notes Of The Event (link)
  • The Tablet Could Spur A Media Revolution, But It Will Be Out Of Apple's Hands (link)
  • Who Gets The First Hands On With The Apple Tablet? Maybe Jack Bauer. (link)
  • McGraw-Hill CEO Confirms Apple Tablet Is Coming Tomorrow (link)
  • The First Apple Tablet Commercial? No Way (link)
  • Apple Execs Downright Giddy About The Tablet (For Them Anyway) (link)
  • The Apple Tablet May Come With A Barnes & Noble Bookstore (link)
  • Breaking: Flurry Notices Cupertino-based Users Testing Apps on Apple Tablet (link)
  • Overheard: Steve Jobs Says Apple Tablet "Will Be The Most Important Thing I've Ever Done." (link)

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The iPad: CrunchGear’s Take

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 12:52 PM PST

Okay, so it exists. What do your favorite tech personalities, the CrunchGear team, have to say about Apple's latest opus? Join us as we pass judgment on the device sight unseen — though of course more in-depth analysis is forthcoming.


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