GarageBand: The iPad's killer demo
Every great Apple product needs an app that shows off its unique features
Image: Apple Inc.
The 1984 Macintosh had MacPaint. The 2007 iPhone had visual voicemail and Google Maps. The iPhone 4 had FaceTime.
Steve Jobs offered two tent-pole demos last week when he introduced the iPad 2. iMovie was cool, but GarageBand for the iPad is Apple's (AAPL) new must-have app.
According to a press release issued Thursday, the $4.99 program will be available for download before the end of the day. Meanwhile, the company has posted a slick guided tour here.
Google enterprise chief: Data is safer on our cloud than your PC
Google has an enterprise division? Yes, and here's how they're using every asset the company has, from Apps to Android, to beat the big players.
Dave Girouard of Google. Image by dfarber via Flickr
Dave Girouard first joined Google seven years ago, back when the search company wasn't even on the radar of corporate customers. Girouard now serves as president of Google's (GOOG) enterprise division, a fast-growing (though still tiny) part of the company's business. Over three million corporate customers subscribe to Google Apps, a suite of web services that includes customized email addresses, shared documents and calendars. And Google is determined to make its successful Android mobile operating system a viable competitor to RIM's (RIMM) BlackBerries and Apple's (AAPL) iPhones in the workplace. I recently caught up with Girouard to find out how his division is tackling reliability and security issues (not to mention competition from Microsoft (MSFT), Android's prospects as a business-ready device and what the upcoming management changes at Google could mean for the company's enterprise business.
Fortune: What's Google doing to address concerns about storing data in the cloud? More
Apple's iPad pop-up shop
A temporary retail outlet to service the tech enthusiasts gathering in Austin for SXSW
Image: SXSW
Last year, 35,000 people descended on Austin, Texas, for South by Southwest, a music, film and interactive technology festival that has become one of the premier social -- and drinking -- events in the high-tech calendar.
As it happens, this year's SXSW opens Friday -- launch day for the iPad 2. Anticipating that its two Austin-based retail stores might have trouble handling the crush of semi-inebriated iPad enthusiasts, Apple (AAPL) has come up with an ingenious solution.
According to the Austin American-Statesman, the company has rented a 5,000-sq.-ft. retail space in downtown Austin to create a temporary Apple store that will open on Friday, sell furiously for a week or two, and then leave town.
Pop-up stores -- or, in the U.K., pop-up shops -- are an idea pioneered by vendors of Halloween costumes, Christmas decorations, July 4th fireworks and ephemeral fashion brands. This is Apple's first experiment with the form.
According to the Statesman, the windows at Congress and West Sixth Street, are still covered with black plastic sheeting. I have a free subscription to Apple 2.0 for the first reader who snaps a photo of the finished shop.
Also on Fortune.com:
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]
iPad 2: The reviews are in
Apple seeded the usual suspects with its new tablet last week. A sampling of the reviews:
Photo: Apple Inc.
Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal: I've been testing an iPad 2 for about a week and I like it a lot. While it's evolutionary rather than revolutionary like the first model, the changes Apple has made are generally pleasing and positive, and the device worked very well for me... It never crashed in my tests, unlike every Android tablet I've tested.
David Pogue, The New York Times: On paper, Apple didn't do much. It just made the iPad one-third thinner, 15 percent lighter and twice as fast. There are no new features except two cameras and a gyroscope. I mean, yawn, right? And then you start playing with it... The iPad 2 is now 0.34 inches thick. Next to it, the brand-new Motorola Xoom — the best Android competitor so far — looks obese.
John Gruber, Daring Fireball: Every once in a while, Apple releases something brand-new. The original iPod. The 2007 iPhone. Last year's iPad. These original releases tend to be minimal technically, but radical conceptually. Then, generally on an annual schedule, Apple improves them iteratively and steadily over time. This is exactly what they've done with the iPad 2... If you didn't like the original iPad, you're not going to like the iPad 2. If you liked the original iPad, you're going to like the iPad 2 even better.
Today in Tech: iPad 2 reviews, AOL layoffs today
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AOL CEO Tim Armstrong and Arianna Huffington. Photo: Bloomberg
- AOL plans to layoff several hundred employees starting today in editorial and other media product groups, as well as jobs in India -- areas like network and ad sales should remain unaffected. The move comes as AOL restructures its editorial division after the $315 million acquisition of The Huffington Post and the appointment of founder Arianna Huffington as Editor in Chief of the newly-christened Huffington Post Media Group, which includes properties like TechCrunch and Engadget. (AllThingsD)
- Super troubled actor Charlie Sheen may have been fired from his show, but he's certainly not lacking for attention. Sheen, who recently landed Internship.com as a Twitter sponsor and Tweeted in search of a social media intern, received more than 74,000 applications from 181 countries. (Davis PR) More
Google's Eric Schmidt being considered for commerce secretary?
So much for "another decade at Google."
Feb 17th summit
Bloomberg this evening is reporting that the Obama administration is considering the soon to be departing CEO of Google (GOOG) for Commerce Secretary. The role will be vacated by Gary Locke who is being appointed U.S. Ambassador to China
Pfizer (PFE) Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Kindler and Ron Kirk, the U.S. trade representative, are also said to be in consideration for the role.
"The president will consider a range of qualified candidates, but we are at a very early stage in the process and no decisions have been made," Jen Psaki, an administration spokeswoman, told Bloomberg
Obama last publicly met with Schmidt at the "Silicon Valley Summit" last month (pictured) and has relied on the Google chief for tech and economic advice even as his own regulators have scrutinized the online-ad behemoth. (See Obama & Google, a Love Story)
In January, Schmidt said that his "next decade at Google will be better than his previous decade," suggesting that he'll be sticking around for a while.
His next decade might be shorter than his previous decade as well.
Google gave a cheerful "no comment" when asked about the possibility.
More at Fortune:
iOS 4.3 has landed
As predicted, it arrived a couple days early, for the iPad, iPhone* and iPod touch
Image: Apple Inc.
For a summary of the new features, see Apple's (AAPL) press release.
Between downloading, backing up and re-syncing, the procedure took me nearly 20 minutes to update my iPad. When I checked, iMovie and Garage Band had not yet appeared in the App Store.
* For AT&T (T) iPhones only. Apple has not yet said when iOS 4.3 will be available for Verizon (VZ) iPhones.
Also on Fortune.com:
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]
The $200 name-brand Android tablet
For the WSJ's Brett Arends, the Android-powered Nook Color with its sub-$200 price tag is the perfect tablet.
Who says you can't get a quality tablet for under $500?
It is certainly no iPad 2 or XOOM, but for a certain segment of the population, the Nook Color might be all the tablet they need. Apple's (AAPL) iPad clocks in at $499 (old models can be had for $100 less) and the XOOM currently clocks in at $800, with a lower-priced Wifi version looming. Arends writes that a simple hack enables a full Google (GOOG) Android capability by stripping away Barnes and Noble's (BKS) overlay.
...the tablet is perfect for what I want. I'm not talking about one of those junk tablets from a Chinese website, either.
I bought a Barnes & Noble Nook Color tablet (for $190 plus tax from a temporary online promotion, down from the usual $250). And then I downloaded a very simple, perfectly legal software fix from the Internet that turned it into a fully functioning tablet running on Google's Android platform. The fix, known as a "rooting," unlocks Barnes & Noble's proprietary overlay. The instructions came via Ars Technica, a reputable site devoted to technology, and were pretty easy to follow.
Before we get all high and mighty on what constitutes the perfect tablet experience, it is probably important to remember that not everyone has $500-$829 in their pocket for a new Galaxy Tab, Xoom or iPad purchase and a $200 option might be just fine for what many are after. For people who want to browse the web, go onto Facebook, watch YouTube videos, Email, use maps and other mediocre tablet type-things, this might be the sweet spot.
Arends even noted some advantages over the bigger tablets. "It actually slips into my overcoat pocket."
I expect many other name brand tablets that don't shoot for the high end to hit the market this year. But at the moment, this and some resistive (yuk) screen tablets from Archos are about all you'll find in the $200 range from the name brands.
The big question: If a bookstore like Barnes and Noble can build it and bring it to market for $200, why can't HTC, LG, Samsung or Motorola (MMI), or any of the other big device manufacturers? Some point to it being a loss leader. At under $200, perhaps. But at its $250 retail price there is some room for profit.
Arends concludes with another interesting question: More
iPad 2: The Wi-Fi vs. 3G dilemma
Do I buy an iPad 2 with 3G built-in, or will Apple's Personal Hotspot do the trick?
Image: Apple Inc.
Okay, so I've decided to buy myself an iPad 2. The entry-level model I bought a year ago for $499 has served me well, but I'm getting pinched by the limits of 16GB, and I know a family member or two who would be delighted to take the old iPad off my hands.
Meanwhile, I've had my head turned by the Wi-Fi+3G iPad that Rupert Murdoch's people loaned me for a few weeks last month to encourage me to read The Daily.
Suddenly I had an iPad I could use not just at home or at Starbucks, but anywhere within range of a cell tower -- which in the Northeast Corridor is pretty much everywhere. I felt like a parolee who was finally allowed to take off his electronic bracelet and leave the house.
Getting the extra memory I need is easy enough, though it pains me to pay Apple (AAPL) $100 for a chip that probably costs them less than a quarter of that. But there are nearly a dozen different ways to get 3G cellular access, and that's my dilemma -- and maybe it's yours, too.
Today in Tech: The 64 GB iPhone, how HP "lost its soul"
A curated selection of the day's most newsworthy tech stories from all over the Web. Sign up to get the newsletter delivered to you everyday.
"HP has lost its soul." -- HP CEO Leo Apotheker (Bloomberg Businessweek)
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Photo: M.I.C. Gadget
M.I.C. Gadget got its hands on what is likely a legit 64 GB iPhone prototype. Though, before you let your minds run wild, bear in mind it's a prototype of the iPhone 4 and not what ever Apple is cooking up next for its smartphone line. But at the very least, we know Apple will eventually roll out an iPhone with a larger capacity. (You know, to hold the increasing number of apps we're all downloading.) (M.I.C. Gadget)
- Could the Android app market be more profitable than Apple's? If Spacetime Studios' situation is anything to go by, then maybe. The Pocket Legends game maker publishes for both platforms but found that daily downloads for Android clocked in at 9,000, while iOS downloads only amounted to between 3,000 and 4,000, or less than half. As a result, Android has become the company's "primary interest." (Computerworld) More
