“Boycotting Apple because of working conditions in China makes about as much sense as boycotting The New York Times” because of journalism conditions in America.”

There are several stories floating around the web this week concerning boycotts planned against Apple, the result of stories floating around the web last week concerning working conditions in China. While in some cases the sentiment is good and the intention noble, in many cases its based on lazy, exploitive journalism and shallow, opportunistic activism, fed by a soundbite- and sensation-seeking readership.

And while Apple and China is just the latest example, it’s also one of the most tragic.

We’ve talked about it for the last couple of weeks during the iPhone & iPad Live podcast, but it’s worth going over again here.

The problems with working conditions are real. Absolutely. Apple’s role in the Chinese manufacturing system is real. Undeniably. But just as absolutely, just as undeniably, the real story here is about China and workers, not about Apple.

The pain isn’t of a situation but of a transition — the pain that come with the slow, steady growth through industrialization and the creation of a middle-class, manufacturing society.

Apple is only one of many, many, many companies that use factories in China to produce their goods. While some few token others listed are sometimes briefly listed in one sentence, the title, lede, and every other sentence in a lot of the recent coverage throws the spotlight entirely on Apple.

That misses the industry-wide nature of the issue, and the global economic nature of the issue. While Apple is certainly the most wealthy, influential, and likely powerful company in the industry, and in the world, at the moment, they aren’t the industry and are certainly not the global economy.

If Apple pulled out of China tomorrow, the entire rest of the industry would remain. The rest of the industry that hasn’t posted supplier responsibility reports like Apple has done. HP, Dell, Nokia, Samsung, Lenovo, Motorola, LG, Sony, and everyone else in consumer electronics who aren’t facing any media or pundit pressure to do so anyway.

All the other industries would remain as well, from jeans and shoes to toys household goods. The factories would no doubt be hurt by the loss of revenue from Apple, however, as would the workers, who typically earn more from these types of factory jobs than they can otherwise earn in the region. The increase in unemployment following an Apple pullout would probably only make that situation worse. But it would go on.

Once upon a time in the Western world, though not too long ago, we had children working in factories and mines for fractions of pennies. We had had working conditions as wretched as any found in China or other, similar, out-sourced locations. We had them until, as a society, they became intolerable to us and we forced the cultural and legal changes necessary to stop them. To say they would no longer be tolerated. (And sadly, we still have them in some places).

China will have to face this as well. With or without Apple. With or without the linkbait of major media outlets. With or the protests of the guilty-of-concience, opportunistic of cause, or patronizing of agenda. With or without the attention of a readership that increasingly only mortgages their attention for such things.

There’s a real story here. A story about China’s industrialization, of the political pressures within the government, the suicide rates in the country as a whole, the earning potential inside and outside the factory system, the ratio of worker pay verses management profit in the factories, the costs associated and benefits gained for in-sourcing vs. out-sourcing, and how the lives of Chinese workers would be affected now, and in the many potential futures with, without, and beyond the factory system.

But it’s a story that won’t be written, because it wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the amount of clicks, because absent Apple it wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the mainstream reaction, as the version that went to press. It’s a vicious cycle and it’s one of our own creation. And it won’t change until we change it.

That’s why boycotting Apple because of working conditions in China makes about as much sense as boycotting The New York Times” because of journalism conditions in America.

Apple has released two new iPhone 4S ads, and like most of the previous commercials, they focus on Siri, the virtual personal assistant.

Road Trip shows a couple planning a cross-country trip, and using Siri to learn the best route, to find the best barbecue and find out about rodeos along the way, to find out where they are, to learn how big the Grand Canyon is, to find gas stations within walking distance (d’oh!), to learn what the constellation Orion looks like, and to remind them to do it all again.

Rock God shows a young man planning a music carrier, and using Siri to find out where to buy a guitar, how to play certain songs, creating lists of potential band names, to send messages to the ladies about when and where his band will be practicing, and to call him “Rock God”.

With Siri still in beta, there have been arguments raised against Apple making it the staple feature of their iPhone 4S advertising, saying it doesn’t work in real life anywhere nearly as well. However, Siri is also the most impressive, most demonstrable, most advertise-able feature of the new iPhone.

Google has just released the too-long-in-coming Chrome for Android browser, and Phil from Android Central wasted no time loading it up on his Galaxy Nexus, and putting it up against an iPhone 4S running Safari, for a classic head-to-head, phono-e-phono, Mobile Nations browser showdown video.

Both browsers are based on WebKit, the project Apple adapted from the old Linux KHTML Konquerer browser and has been sharing back with the open source community ever since. So it’s no surprise both score 100/100 on the Acid3 rendering test. Safari makes use of Apple’s Nitro JavaScript engine, however, while Chrome has Google’s V8 under the hood. That let Chrome edge out Safari in the SunSpider JavaScript benchmarks.

Safari and iOS in general still offer smoother, more closely-tracked multitouch scrolling, panning, and zooming. (No doubt due to iOS placing priority on interface rendering tasks, while they’re left to fight as equals on Android.)

Interestingly, Chrome, like Safari, offers no support for Adobe’s Flash player, or any other internet plugin.

Chrome is still in beta and only available for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich right now. No doubt the release version will be even better still.

Likewise, Apple isn’t slowing down. With iOS 5.1 on the horizon, Safari will improve as well.

Heck, now that BlackBerry has their new WebKit-based Torch browser, and Microsoft has embraced modern Internet Explorer builds on Windows Phone, it’s getting harder to find a bad browser out there.

Check out the video below for full out web rendering showdown.

Source: Android Central

The quest to get thinner, stronger, faster, and healthier with iMore and Mobile Nations continues!

We’ve survived the first week. We’ve set our goals and whether we achieved them (yay!) or are still working on them (take that!), we’re feeling better and doing better because of it. And we’re getting tons of great feedback. This might just be the year where mobile and lifestyle fully come together, where eHealth and eFitness — or iHealth and iFitness — finally start making the impact we’ve all been waiting for. It’s gone from being a token arm band case to being an entire ecosystem of highly specialized companion apps and accessories.

Jared took a look at what he considers the best calorie-counter app on iPhone (and iPad), MyFitnessPal, last week, and we’ll be looking at a lot more cool stuff this week and next.

We recorded a special edition of ZEN and TECH with CrackBerry.com’ Kevin Michaluk, where we answered a lot of questions, cleared up some big misconceptions, and went over a lot of dos and don’ts to get things going.

Also Kevin produced the single greatest (or most terrifying) fitness video in the history of YouTube. Watch his Sexy and you know it workout.

So let’s keep it going! Once again, we’re setting reasonable, attainable goals, and we’re going to take advantage of our awesome community to make sure we attain them. We have a special edition of our Superfunctional podcast coming your way this weekend to help keep you motivated, and as always we’re running everything through our Health and Fitness Forum to keep us focused, keep us accountable, and keep us keeping on!

Oh, and we’re still giving away a lot of great prizes

• Weekly drawings for an iPod nano. We’re giving away 4 total, one each week!
• Grand prize drawing for an iPad 3 IOU! (You’ll get it when Apple launches it!)

Our ZEN and TECH podcast has also added to the pot with an Xbox 360 Kinect giveaway, so be sure to enter that as well!

So hurry up and jump into our new Health and Fitness Forum now and pick your goal for week 2.

Mobile Nations fitness month continues!

It pretty much sounds like a given that we’ll be getting a 2048×1536 Retina display, which means, at 9.7-inches it won’t be quite as dense as the iPhone 4S but you’ll likely be holding it further away from your eyes, effectively making the difference minor.

LTE 4G networking is harder to pin down. The Qualcomm chipset sounds like it’s ready, but LTE simply isn’t very widespread yet, and Apple has huge international sales. Apple currently offers three iPad 2 models: Wi-Fi, EVDO Rev. A, and GSM/HSPA. Could they switch to Wi-Fi, EVDO Rev A/HSPA+, and make the 3rd SKU an LTE model for carriers that support it (most importantly, Verizon?)

Quad-core Android tablets were announced earlier this year, does Apple have to meet that latest processor escalation? More cores open the door to more features, for example AirPlay uses the second core to mirror the iPad 2 display, but do we really need 4 yet? Since Apple controls both hardware and software, they can optimize the heck out of their processor and get performance that often feels better than greater spec’ed competition already.

Likewise 1GB of RAM and 128GB of NAND Flash memory storage. 1GB of RAM, especially with a Retina display, may open the door to even more spectacular gaming, especially if the GPU is also getting a boost as expected. The multitasking system could do with a healthy amount of available RAM as well. With Apple going to the iCloud it may not seem like on-device storage is as big a deal as it used to be, but with iBooks 2 making textbooks a reality, with the possibility of 1080p video support on the horizon, and with truly epic games needing a lot of storage space, it’s definitely something that should be on the radar.

Almost 3 years later, and USB ports and SDHC card readers are still something we get asked about. Apple has their Camera kit dongle and that’s likely all they’ll ever have. Wireless is their future for files. Thunderbolt, on the other hand, would be great for moving the largest of the large files, at least until next-generation Wi-Fi is ready. But Thunderbolt is based on PCI Express architecture, the kind you find in PCs, and doesn’t sound like it’s iPad compatible yet.

Better cameras, however, are certainly iPad compatible. Granted, few people will be replacing tiny, pocketable point-and-shoots with iPads, but the current cameras are barely serviceable. Facetime HD up front feels like table stakes at this point, and something in the 5 to 8 megapixel range would be much better in back. If either the Retina display or LTE radio requires a bigger battery, making iPad 3 even slightly thicker, hopefully Apple has the depth to put a decent piece of glass in as well.

The iMore Nation are a demanding people and we make no apologies for that. We love our Apple devices because they’re typically built beautifully and just work, and we’re going to keep Apple’s feet to the fire. Vote in the poll up top, and then tell us what’s most important to you and why in the comments below!

Marc, Seth, and Rene iterate about high-concept eBooks and page-curl API, Bjango’s Skala Preview, RealMac’s Clear, ScoreKeeper XL, and the Metro-fication of iOS apps, and interrogate Dave Wiskus of Black Pixel about design… and what’s wrong with PhotoShop.

• Our podcast feed
• Download Directly
• Subscribe via iTunes

• [KAIST ITC - Smart E-Book Interface Prototype Demo], a totally insane use of Apple’s page curl API (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVyBwz1-AiE)
• Skala Preview
• Clear from Realmac
• Scorekeeper XL

• Dave Wiskus of Black Pixel

Hosts

• Marc Edwards (@marcedwards) of Bjango
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford) of Nickelfish
• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) of iMore.com

Feedback

• Email: podcast@iterate.tv
• Twitter: @iteratetv
• Facebook: Iterate page

If you’re one of the best-of-the-best-of-the-best in mobile design for Android, BlackBerry, iOS, webOS, or Windows Phone, we’d love to get you on the show, or if you’ve found a drop-dead gorgeous app on any platform and really want us to talk about it, contact us and let us know.

The darling of hardcore iPhone twitter users comes to the iPad, but how does Tweetbot measure up on the big screen compared to Twitterrific and Twitter’s own app?

Twitter may not be as big a social network as Facebook, but you can’t turn on a television, let alone visit a website, without seeing an endless stream of @usernames and #hashtags. While smartphones are great for Twitter on the go, the iPad is perfect for sitting back and really getting engaged. But which Twitter app for iPad is the best to engage with? Not only do you have Twitterrific, the original iOS Twitter app, but you have Twitter’s official Twitter for iPad app, and now you have Tweetbot to consider as well, one of the most popular iPhone Twitter apps, just released for the iPad.

We’ve often said iOS and Twitter and like chocolate and peanut butter, two great tastes that taste even better together. And it’s true. Time after time, platform after platform, the best developers and designers always seem to gravitate towards making Twitter clients, and nothing proves that more than Twitterrific, Twitter, and Tweetbot.

So which one is best, or more importantly, which one is best for you?

Caveats

We’re going to be using a lot of Twitter-specific jargon here. If you’re not already familiar with Twitter and are reading this as a way to decide which app you should start with, be sure to check out our Twitter and social networking slang dictionary so you can get up to speed on also the latest terms. (Or just skip to the conclusion to find out which one you should get.)

Also, Twitter for iPad is currently still the version that began life as Tweetie for iPad by Loren Brichter of Atebits but was bought and rebranded by Twitter before release. Twitter has since redesigned the iPhone version of Tweetie/Twitter, and we expect will be redesigning the iPad version soon as well. When that happens, the pros and cons listed here will change dramatically, and we’ll do an update.

Similarities

Since Twitterrific, Twitter, and Tweetbot are all Twitter apps for iPad, there are a great many similarities. They all have timelines to see the tweets of the people you follow. They all show you mentions, lists, and direct messages. They all let you search and see favorites. They all let you compose new tweets and direct messages. But the way in which they go about doing this varies greatly.

Reading Experience

Twitterrific puts everything in one place with a unified timeline, full sidebar, and lots of popovers

Twitterrific has a combined timeline, so you see all the tweets of the people you follow listed alongside your @mentions and direct messages. You can read @mentions and direct messages as separate lists, but there’s no option to separate view just the tweets of the people you follow. The sidebar contains those tabs, as well as search, recent searches, lists, and current trends.

Twitterrific makes extensive use of popovers (a combination of popup and dropdown menu that Apple introduced alongside iOS for the iPad), but it can also make you feel boxed in, unable to expand content like pictures and lists to fill the screen. All this makes Twitterrific a good reading experience, but not a highly scalable one.

"Twitter for iPad uses sliding panels like something out of a sci-fi movie. It's innovative, even inspired, but it's not for everyone.

Twitter for iPad uses an almost futuristic feeling, highly table-optimized sliding panel user interface that’s also deeply divisive. Some love it, some loathe it. Everything you tap causes a new panel to slide in from the right, layer after layer, and you need to swipe them all away to get back to where you started. You can also pinch to zoom out on a tweet to bring up a user’s profile, and pinch to zoom in to fold it away again. Twitter’s sidebar contains a list of all your accounts (if you have more than one), and timeline, mentions, messages, lists, your profile, and search are shown for the currently active account. Overall, Twitter manages to feel scalable and spatial, but still simple to some, while annoying and needlessly fancy to others.

Tweetbot for iPad looks a lot like Tweetbot for iPhone, which lets them pack in the features while still keeping things clean, though not always immediately accessible.

Tweetbot has a charmingly distinct user interface that some adore and others feel is overly loud and heavy. Instead of popovers or sliding panels, Tweetbot simply replaces the main window content with whatever you tapped on, be it timeline, user, or picture. That makes it harder to quickly refer back to something, but also removes a lot of the visual clutter that can otherwise build up. Tweetbot’s sidebar presents tabs for timeline, mentions, messages, favorites, search, your profile, lists, retweets, and mute filters (so you can temporarily suppress people, hashtags, and even certain clients and services). The web view also has a toggle to switch between standard and Readability views.

Despite the distinctive design and gesture actions for more advanced users, Tweetbot behaves a lot like a standard iOS-app, making it easily accessible to new users as well.

Writing experience

Twitterrific keeps your tweets alive until you say to kill them, but doesn't offer as many auto-complete options.

Twitterrific’s compose window is unique in that the content persists, even after you close it. If you start typing a tweet, then close it to go do something else, when you tap compose or hit reply again, your text will still be there. (You have to tap the counter and then hit Reset Text to clear it.) There are no auto-complete buttons, but if you type an @ (at) symbol it will start offering username suggestions. If you type a # (hashtag), however, it won’t start offering trend suggestions, and you can’t change which account you’re replying from once you’ve begun to reply. Also, if you add a picture or video, no thumbnails are shown so if you come back later, you’ll need to go to the link if you want to remind yourself what it was.

Twitter for iPad keeps an enormous amount of information immediately at your fingertips, though it approaches visual overload

Twitter’s compose window can quickly start looking like an unruly stack of papers, one piled atop the other. However, it means you have instant, same-screen access to the contents of your timeline and of any conversations you’re joining, which makes checking references while you type a breeze. Twitter supports drafts, and offers auto-complete for both @mentions (which, ironically, brings up a popover in one of the few places Twitterrific does not) and #hashtags. If you add a photo or video with the camera button, you can preview it by tapping the camera button again, and there’s a location button to toggle your coordinates on and off as well.

Tweetbot is crisp and clean with great auto-complete options, but you have to exit out if you want to refer back to something.

Tweetbot has a clean, clear composition screen but, aside from the tweet you’re replying to, you lose out on the ability to reference any other content unless you cancel, save as draft, and come back later which is more cumbersome. There are buttons for auto-completing @mentions and #hashtags, and toggling location, and any photos you add are placed in the menu bar as thumbnails you can tap to view or remove.

Bells and whistles

Twitterrific's settings aren't found in Twitterrific but in the built-in Settings app. The dark theme is one of the standouts here.

Twitterrific doesn’t yet support native iOS Twitter integration, which means you have to authenticate through the web the first time you set it up. (I’m guessing this will be updated in the not-to-distant future). Twitterrific also doesn’t support push notifications, which means unless you have email or SMS alerts set up, you won’t know if you get any mentions or direct messages until you open the app.

Twitterrific’s settings are found in the built-in iOS Settings app, and there you can enable the Dark Theme for night-time use, set up Tweet Marker to sync your timeline position between different clients, like iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and toggle and customize services, including read later (called bookmark) and advanced features like custom media uploads as well.

Twitter for iPhone doesn't have a ton of options, but it does have push notification.

Twitter for iPhone supports native iOS Twitter integration and push notification, but not Tweet Marker. Despite having been on the market for a significant amount of time, it never got all the power features Twitter for iPhone enjoyed, and likely won’t given the almost certain redesign in its near future. You do have control over which image, video, and read later services you use. However, there’s still no pull-to-refrsh direct messages and while it marks messages as unread, frustratingly, there’s still no way to quickly mark them all as unread.

Tweetbot has an almost dizzying array of powerful options, and will even pause push notifications while you sleep.

Tweetbot supports a ton of features, including native iOS Twitter integration, push notifications, and Tweet Marker. For notifications, it not only has options for mentions and direct messages, but retweets, favorites, follows, adds to lists, and subscribes to lists. It’s almost too many, but they can be mitigated by sleep options that suppress them at night (just pick your start and end times).

You can also customize services, including read later and mobilizer (like Safari’s built in Reader feature, but with your choice of provider). Literally, the options threaten to burst out of their popover.

Cost

Twitterrific is free but requires a $4.99 in-app purchase to turn off ads and turn on tweet translation and multiple account support. A universal binary, it supports both iPad and iPhone.

Twitter for iPad is free and also universal for iPad and iPhone.

Tweetbot is $2.99. It’s not universal so the iPhone version will cost you another $2.99.

Conclusion

That part about there being an embarrassment of riches when it comes to iPad Twitter apps wasn’t fluff or filler — it was truth. Twitterrific, Twitter, and Tweetbot each come from brilliant designers and developers with sometimes very different visions for what the ideal Twitter app entails.

Twitterrific is great for new users who want a simple, stable experience, where everything is easy to find, and often all in one place. It doesn’t have as many features, and lack of push notifications might be a show-stopper for some, but those who have been using it since the beginning and like the way it works and syncs consistently across iOS and OS X will also do well to stick with it.

Twitter for iPad, in its current form, is great for those who want fast access to literally layer upon layer of information. It’s an audacious, inspired interface that’s likely going to be replaced with something much more like the Twitter.com website, which also makes it very difficult to recommend to anyone who isn’t already using it.

Tweetbot might feel over-designed to some, but it’s well-designed. It has a ton of features for power users, including the best push-notification implementation in the business. As far as general purpose Twitter apps go, Tweetbot hits the best balance for the widest range of our readers.

Twitterrific could update any time now, and Twitter for iPad will be going through a substantial change soon, but as of right now, if the $2.99 price tag — less than the cost of a fancy coffee, mind you — doesn’t give you pause, Tweetbot should be your go-to Twitter app for iPad.

- Twitterrific – Download now

- Twitter – Download now

- Tweetbot – Download now

“Tweetbot has made the leap from iPhone to iPad and brought with it’s excellent user-interface, best-in-class notifications, and powerful yet accessible feature set.”

Twitter is the social network antithesis of Facebook — limited amounts of content, no obligation to follow those who follow you, and most of the communication is done out in the open by default. Twitter launched around the same time as iOS, and the two platforms immediately seemed made for each other (something which became official with iOS 5 Twitter integration.)

Tweetbot came out only in the last year but has quickly become one of the most popular and most powerful Twitter apps on the iPhone, going so far as to sweep the social network category in both iMore’s readers choice, and editors choice awards. Now it comes to the iPad with the same distinctive, mecha-inspired interface, but not as a universal binary — meaning you have to pay for the iPad version separately, even if you own the iPhone version.

It’s only $2.99, which is less than the price of most burgers, but is Tweetbot worth it? Do the features and functionality that rocked the iPhone scale to match the bigger iPad screen?

Setup

Because Tweebot uses iOS 5 Twitter integration, you're only one "Authorize" tap away from getting started.

Thanks to support for native iOS 5 Twitter integration, setting up Tweetbot for iPad is as simple as tapping “okay” to the system popup requesting the access. Boom. All the accounts you’ve logged into in Settings.app are ready and waiting in Tweetbot.

Web-based authorization was always a pain, so this made for a delightful first impression.

Browsing for tweets

Twitter neatly organizes your navigation tabs in the sidebar and your tweets (or content) to the right

If you’ve ever used Tweetbot for iPhone, the biggest change you’ll have to get used to is also one of the easiest changes to get used to — instead of timeline, @mentions, messages, and the other tabs along the bottom of your tweet list, you now have them all available and un-nested in a handy sidebar. In landscape mode they’re fully expanded, with text labels and unread counts (where applicable), and in portrait mode they’re reduced to icons only but are no less easy to get to.

To switch accounts, just tap the tab at the top left with your name and avatar.

Simply tap your avatar to switch and manage accounts

If you’re new to Tweetbot, the sidebar is how you control what you’re looking at:

• Timeline shows you the tweets of everyone you follow
• @Mentions shows any public messages or replies other users have sent you
• Messages shows any private, direct messages (DMs) other uses have sent you
• Favorites lists the tweets you’ve marked as memorable
• Search lets you quickly find terms, people, #hastags and current trends (popular topics)
• Profile shows your information, including bio, locations, and link, as well as follower, following, listed, and tweets counts, and your most recent tweets.
• Lists shows your own lists, or groups of other users you’ve set up
• Retweets shows your tweets that others have retweeted (forwarded on to their followers), tweets you retweeted (forwarded on to your followers), and you tweets, retweeted (tweets of yours that have been forwarded on by others).
• Mute filters lets you temporarily and selectively suppress other users (such as the guy from work you can’t unfollow but who suddenly feels compelled to tweet an entire 2-day cricket match!), specific hashtags (like an event you don’t want spoiled or just find annoying), and clients (for example, if you don’t want to see any Instagram pictures)
• Settings, which lets to toggle and customize all the various options, including a lot of what appears in the sidebar.

The bulk of the screen is taken up by the tweets themselves. The rather heavy looking title bar on top tells you what you’re looking at at any given time. Tapping the list button at the top left gives you quick access to your Twitter lists. Tapping the compose button at the right opens up a new tweet, ready for you to write.

The layout was well thought out and it works.

Interacting with tweets

Tapping a tweet brings up all sort of options and actions

The tweets themselves function almost identically to Tweetbot for iPhone. Tap a tweet to get option to:

• Reply (or reply to all)
• Retweet (or quote a tweet)
• Favorite (or unfavorite)
• Get a popup list of actions (including Read Later services like Instapaper, Pinboard, Readability, or Read it Later), copy the link to the tweet, copy the contents of the tweet, email the tweet, or translate the tweet if it isn’t in a language you understand.
• Get a detail view, which includes the tweet by itself, a tab to get to the user’s profile, a list of replies to the tweet, a list of users who retweeted the tweet, and a button to go to the favstar.fm webpage for the tweet (to track who favorited or retweeted the tweet)

For more advanced users, Tweetbot gestures are also available on the iPad. Just swipe from left to right on a tweet to bring a view of the complete conversation, in context, if applicable, and swipe for right to left to bring up a list of all replies to a tweet, again if applicable.

Gestures are inherently hard to discover, but Tweetbot does a great job using them as shortcuts for those who do discover them, but leaving everything just as accessible via the tap-through buttons and tabs.

Composing tweets

While the compose window doesn't let you quickly refer back to any tweets, it does have a good set of options, well laid out.

With a tap of the compose button or quote button, you’re ready to type. And that’s about it. Unlike some other Twitter apps, in Tweetbot for iPad the timelines all disappear, and the text doesn’t stay persistent if you cancel out of the new tweet sheet (though you can save as a draft). If you were replying to a tweet, that tweet is shown below the typing area, which is very now.

It keeps the screen clear and focused, but it does make it slightly more cumbersome for those who like to refer back to other tweets and content.

Buttons along the top let you easily add location, auto-complete @usernames and #hashtag trends, and add pictures or video. The buttons aren’t the iOS default location arrow, @ symbol or # hashtag symbol proper, but rather icons of a compass, bust, and tag, which may make them less immediately recognizable but certainly not impenetrable.

While not easy to discover, users with multiple accounts can switch by tapping the avatar.

Speaking of which, you can switch accounts by tapping your avatar. New users probably don’t have multiple accounts, so the hidden nature of this feature isn’t a show-stopper, but throwing a visual bone our way certainly wouldn’t hurt.

If you have previous drafts, you can access them via the drafts button at the top right.

Searching for tweets

The search page lets you easily look for text, people, and trends.

Tap the search tab and your timeline is replaced by a search box, a Find People tab, a list of saved searches, and a list of worldwide trends (you can change that to country-specific trends in Settings). Having to tap through again to search for people may seem like a wasted step, but the find people search page includes a lot of additional options, like finding followers or people your following, as well as a list of interests such as music, sports, entertainment, and much, much more.

Finding people is just one extra tap away

While Tapbots’ implementation is good, Twitter focuses on real-time results which often means older tweets are frustratingly unavailable, even if you know exactly what you’re looking for. Also, tapping or searching for any trending topic is sometimes just as likely to produce an overwhelming abundance of useless, rather than valuable results. Again, Twitter’s fault, not Tapbots.

Muting tweets

If someone repeatedly makes fun of your math skills, or Canadian accent, you can give them a time out.

We’ve all been there — someone whose tweets we otherwise enjoy has gone off the deep end about sports, religion, politics, is spoiling a movie or TV show, has gotten drunk or is simply drowning out everything else in your timeline. You either can’t (boss, brother-in-law) or don’t want to unfollow them. That’s where mute filters come in. They’re like time-outs for Twitter, and Tweetbot excels at them.

You can mute or un-mute any user, at any time, by hitting the options button (which looks just like the location button), above their profile. You can choose to mute for a day, a week, a month, or forever. Once muted, the user appears under people in the mute filters tab.

Likewise, when #winning is driving you to #drinking, you can put it on pause.

You can also mute based on #hashtags, to stop anyone from ruining the game or the show, or otherwise filling your timeline with stuff you’d really rather not see. To mute or un-mute a #hashtag, just tap and hold down on it when you see it in the timeline.

You can even mute your boss when he won't stop tweeting his Smurf Village points... or whatever.

If there’s a particular service or platform you really don’t care for either for some reason, you can tap edit, tap + (add), and choose from a long list of easily mutable clients. Turning off tons of Instagrams, or game scores, or social marketers who live in TweetDeck are all potential uses, though you’ll likely miss some good stuff in the process.

Mute filters aren’t something everyone uses, but Tweetbot makes them so easy, I’m betting many more are about to start.

Settings

Settings are contained in the app, in an easy to access popup

To say Tweetbot has a plethora of settings is almost an understatement. There’s everything here from sounds (all, notifications, none), to display (font size, display name, date format, new tweets bar) to what’s in the navigation sidebar (you can toggle off everything but timeline, mentions, and messages), to quote format (standard, old style re-tweets, or via), triple-tap shortcut (set it to reply, retweet, favorite, translate, or launch Favstar), to post in background.

And that’s just the top level stuff. Phew.

Push notifications

Push notification options abound. Almost everything you can think of. Almost too much...

Account settings open the door Tweetbot’s phenomenal push notifications implementation. Not only can you turn on notifications for the standard @mentions (either everyone or just those you follow), or direct messages, but you can get notifications for retweets, favorites, follows, when you’re added to lists, or when your lists are subscribed to.

... Except for the fantastic sleep options that let you turn them off when it's time for you to turn off.

It’s almost too much, or it would be if Tweetbot for iPad didn’t also provide sleep options. Basically, you can tell Tweetbot to suppress all push notifications during certain hours of the day or night (depending on your schedule). You tell them when to go silent and when to come back on, and that’s what they do.

If you’re frantically waiting for an incredibly urgent tweet, and are paranoid the system will choose that exact moment to go down, you can even see when the last notification came in, and hit a test button and make sure it’s still working.

It’s not anything Tweetbot for iPhone users haven’t been enjoying for a while, but that doesn’t make it any less superb on the iPad.

Services

You can customize the services and there's support for Tweet Marker, Read Later, and Mobilizer.

All the usual services can be configured in Tweetbot for iPad, including your URL shortener of choice, image uploader, video uploader, Read Later host (they support Instapaper, Pinboard, Readability, and Read it Later), sync with Tweet Marker, and something akin to Safari’s super clean, distraction free Reader mode with Mobilizer (including support for Google, Instapaper, and Readability).

Tweet Marker stands out, especially if you have Tweetbot or another app that supports it on your iPhone or other smartphone, or your desktop Twitter app.

The good

• Features enough to make any power user happy
• Clean and accessible enough for new users
• Exceptional notification implementation
• Distinctive, charming user-interface

The bad

• Some might find the user-interface too distinctive and heavy
• Not as information-dense as some other Twitter apps
• No theme support

The conclusion

Tweetbot has made the leap from iPhone to iPad and brought with it’s excellent user-interface and best-in-class notifications. It’s not Tweetbot re-imagined for the iPad, but it’s Tweetbot brilliantly executed for the iPad. Powerful enough for the pro, accessible enough for the new user, it doesn’t have the audacity of Twitter for iPhone, but it has much more functionality — and everything needed to be the go-to Twitter client for the vast majority of iPad Twitter users.

2.99 – Download now

Georgia, Seth, and Rene talk about copy-cat apps, iMovie vs. Avid, Launch Center, Jailbreak apps for iOS 5, as well as cases with stands, iPhone guns, and glowing Apple logo mods. This is Apps & Accessories Live!

• Subscription information coming soon! Right now you can enjoy Apps & Accessories Live in the iPhone & iPad Live fees!

Meta

• February is fitness month at iMore and Mobile Nations! [iPad 3 giveaway!]
• Don’t forget we give away a ton of stuff!

App News

• Apple removes copy-cat apps from the App Store, doesn’t address larger issues
• iMovie vs Avid Studio: iPad video editing app shootout
• Readdle Remarks brings note-taking and PDF annotating in one to iPad
• Book Palette for Mac offers 10 beautiful templates for iBooks Author
• iMore app picks of the week for February 4, 2012 [Giveaway]

Jailbreak Apps

• BiteSMS vs Messages+ for iOS 5: which should you use?
• LockInfo vs IntelliscreenX for iOS 5 jailbreak: which should you use?
• Hands-on with Zephyr for the iPhone and iPod Touch [Jailbreak Apps]

Launch Center

• Launch Center puts Messages, Facebook, Twitter, a flashlight, more in your iPhone Notification Center

Accessory News

• Xappr Gun turns your iPhone into an FPS dream machine!

• Ten One Design announces Pogo Sketch Plus capacitive stylus for iPhone and iPad
• Hands on with the Jot Touch, a pressure sensitive stylus by Adonit

• Incipio SILICRYLIC case with kickstand for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 vs. Case-Mate Pop! Case with Stand for iPhone 4S, iPhone 4

iPhone Mods

• iFixit Thirsty Bag for iPhone, iPad review
• iFixit iPhone transparent rear panel mod kit review
• Hands on with the glowing Apple logo mod for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S

Hosts

• Georgia (@GeorgiaTiPb)
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford)
• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)

Credits

You can reach all of us on Twitter [@iMore](http://twitter.com/imore), or you can email us at , or leave a comment on the website when the show goes live.

We’re here every Sunday night at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern, 2am GMT, and our companion show — iPhone and iPad Live! — is at the same time, on the same channel, on Wednesday nights — www.iMore.com/live

For all our podcasts — audio and video — including iPhone and iPad Live, ZENandTECH and Superfunctional, Iterate and Girls Gone Gadget and more… see MobileNations.com/shows

If you haven’t already please subscribe to all our shows in iTunes and leave a rating. It helps people find the show and means a lot to us!

Thanks to the iMore Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Apple is increasingly playing defense against lawsuits from Samsung and Motorola that seek to take iPhones and iPads off the shelves and out of stores. Apple is trying to do the same to their competitors, of course, but there’s a subtle difference — Samsung and Motorola are suing Apple over FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory) patents and are apparently seeking licensing that’s anything but fair and reasonable, and may in fact be discriminatory.

FRAND patents are typically typically pledged as part of a standard, which makes them essential to a technology, the organizations that govern those standards require them to be equitably licensed back to everyone. That’s the whole point of having standards. If you want your invention to become a standard, you let it be used as a standard.

FRAND vs. non-FRAND

Apple doesn’t play the FRAND game with the iPhone or iPad. They don’t want their multitouch patents to be a standard. They don’t want other companies using them. (Unlike Microsoft, they don’t want to make their competitors’ products more expensive, they want them to stop being Apple-like.)

Samsung and Motorola did play the FRAND game, however, and did want their wireless patents — covering core 3G technologies, among other things — to be standards. However, when Samsung and Motorola infringe on Apple’s non-FRAND patents, they then demand outrageous terms from Apple to license their FRAND patents — which Apple has to use for their products to work on existing networks — hoping Apple will cave and cross-license their non-FRAND patents as part of the deal.

Put another way, it’s like the owner of your local public pool refusing to let you swim there unless you let them swim in your private pool at home. Worse, it’s like the manager of your local public pool demanding you pay him $1,000,000 dollars to swim in a pool you’re supposed to have fair and equal access too, unless he gets to swim in your private pool at home. Worse still, it’s like the manager of your local pool has made agreements that force anyone who wants to swim anywhere to get a license from his pool first, then demands you pay him a fortune for it, and give him access to your private, home pool. (In one case, in a swim-suit that looks surprisingly like yours. Only bigger.)

What can Apple do?

According to Florian Mueller over at FOSS Patents, this means Apple has to be careful, and iterative in their defense.

Apple won’t get a deal that meets its needs unless Samsung and Motorola (or Google) are forced to recognize the fundamentally greater strategic and commercial value of Apple’s non-standards-related patents, which are the fruit of independent innovation and independent commercialization as opposed to a company’s ability to push its patented ideas into industry standards everyone is forced to implement after a collective of major industry players defines them.

Samsung and Motorola (or Google) would like all patents to be treated in more or less the same way. They give nothing more than lip service to their FRAND licensing obligations. They may hope that the law on this isn’t sufficiently settled in major jurisdictions. They look for loopholes in the rules — including certain opportunities in Germany, where the case law on this is more favorable to them than elsewhere. If they realize at some point that this strategy doesn’t work out because of a combination of court rulings, regulatory intervention and Apple’s determination to stand its ground, then — and only then — Apple will ultimately get the kind of deal it wants. Until then, Apple doesn’t even have much to talk about with Samsung and Motorola (or Google).

Sure, you can say Apple is being selfish by not licensing multitouch to one and all, but they never agreed to in the first place. (Are you being a selfish by not letting everyone who wants to come swim in your private home pool?) Samsung and Motorola did agree to let everyone use their patents under FRAND terms so those patents would be become essential to the standard.

Enter the European Union

Now Samsung and Motorola are certainly free to do and to sue what and who they want… up to a point. The European Union has already announced they’re investigating Samsung for FRAND abuse, and Motorola may not be far behind. With pressure from Apple on one side, and anti-trust action on the other, it puts them in a delicate position.

In the meantime, Apple can’t give in to Samsung and Motorola’s unfair, unreasonable, and discriminatory demands, and they can’t risk injunctions like the one that was temporarily in effect in Germany last week, becoming permanent before the EU sorts everything out.

Whether or not there will ultimately be a settlement, like the one they achieved with Nokia over similar FRAND patents, only time will tell. All Apple can do for now is continue the careful, iterative defense.

Mueller’s whole article, which delves into the patents and legal issues in great detail, is worth a read.

Source: FOSS Patents, x2

Samsung has aired another of their good-natured iPhone attack ads, which should be an occasion for merriment and ego-deflating good fun. Yet once again the commercial feels like it missed it’s mark. Rather, the whole series of commercials still seem awkwardly in search of a mark. This one stars the latest in Samsung’s broad-range of devices, each separate by a different Galaxy monicker and roughly 0.25-inches of screen size, the Galaxy Note. It’s something that can’t quite make up it’s mind between being a phone and a tablet — I’m not going to call it a phablet — and that’s either the best of both worlds… or the worst. The jury is still out. How big is it? 5.3-inches of HD Super AMOLED big, baby. (Yes, that’s exactly inverse the iPhone’s traditional 3.5-inches.)

It’s also got a stylus.

Now, I’m not religiously opposed to a stylus — I’m an artist by trade and I’ve used several types of stylus on the iPad since it came out. However, a stylus by itself is not a differentiator. It’s what you can do with it that’s a differentiator. It’s all about the software. I’m also not going to deny that, for some things, a bigger screen is not just bigger, it’s better. Hey, I’ve got a 9.7-inch iPad and Steve Jobs spent over an hour in 2010 telling us what that meant in terms of the type of apps it could run.

But Samsung never makes the case for either in their Galaxy Note commercial. They never show off a lick of innovative, compelling software in the whole damn ad. They’re too busy, once again, making fun of iPhone users. (Not iPhones, mind you. iPhone users.)

This time we’re giddily missing the Super Bowl (presumably on the west coast because it’s still light outside) by standing in line for an iPhone launch (which never happens any time near Super Bowl time), and the massive size and pen-ly charm of the Galaxy Note makes us break out into the worst Van Halen-meets-the-Simpsons-style tribute number. Ever.

They’re copying the spirit of the old Get a Mac ads without any of the substance. Shocking, really, given their history.

Samsung couldn’t have used any of those multi-million dollar minutes to show us the advantages of the Galaxy Note having such a big screen? To show us how absolutely killer a stylus makes the mobile experience? They flashed some photos, doodled on the screen, and did the equivalent of a FaceTime call. The motorcycle jump got almost as much screen time as the software.

And that’s disappointing. Google’s Galaxy Nexus commercial showed you can highlight Android hardware and software features in a compelling way. Samsung shows you can mock iPhone users, call us baristas, and convert us to the world’s biggest ass phone just by waving it at us.

The girl in the commercial sums it up best when she says, “I don’t know what to believe anymore.” As much as Samsung bashes the iPhone, they give no reason to believe in the Galaxy Note.

If you want to court iPhone users, don’t do it by making fun of us or insulting our intelligence. Do it by making us jealous of your phone… er… tablet… er… phone.

Sounds like Google has hired away Simon Prakash, formerly Apple’s senior director of product integrity, to work on a “secret project” deep in the heart of the Googleplex. Reports VentureBeat:

Simon Prakash worked at Apple for more than eight years and was most recently the senior director of product integrity at Apple, according to his LinkedIn page. That means he was responsible for product quality across all of Apple’s products, from iPhones to Macs. Apple has the best reputation for product quality, according to consumer satisfaction surveys by J.D. Power.

The hiring is notable for a couple of reasons. First, Apple and Google had an infamous no-poaching pact in place for many years, a gentlemanly if potentially actionable agreement not to actively solicit or hire each other’s talent. The U.S. Justice Department is still investigating the arrangement on the grounds it unfairly limited employee work options and compensation. Combined with the strains in Apple and Google’s relationship, that agreement seems no longer to be in place.

Second, it shows Google is continuing to evolve into a company that values design and polish as much as features and engineering. The knock on Google used to be that their stuff worked great but wasn’t much to look at — that it felt designed by committee and that no one had tried using it before it shipped. Over the last year they’ve given facelifts to all their major online properties, and it looks like they’re only getting started.

With Prakash’s hire, the burning question is, what “secret project” will he be working on? He’s a hardware guy in a company that’s so far been content to let partners like Samsung, HTC, and Motorola make all their hardware. Google is in the process of buying Motorola, but claims they’ll be running it as a separate business. Merely helping oversee the quality of partner hardware doesn’t seem that “secret” however.

With co-founder Sergei Brin running all sorts of experimental initiatives over at Google, it really doesn’t have to be phones or tablets — it could be flying saucers. But everyone’s going to think it’s phones and tablets, right?

Source: VentureBeat

Following up on the information iMore received yesterday on potential ZFS hooks in iOS 5.1, a reliable source let us know that Apple has been investing heavily in ZFS appliances from Oracle. (Whether or not this will be made public is unknown; it doesn’t seem to be right now.)

Also, several of our readers familiar with ZFS wrote in to speculate as to why Apple may be exploring ZFS for use on iPhone and iPad. Broadly, it may have something to do with ZFS’ snapshot technology. ZFS snapshots can be easily compressed and encrypted, de-duplicated, and can transfer delta (bit differential) updates between cloud and device. The snapshots can also work like Time Machine, easily and efficiently providing incremental backup and restore capability from an hour ago, a day ago, a week ago, or more, asynchronously and block by block. Here’s what Wikipedia says about ZFS snapshots:

An advantage of copy-on-write is that when ZFS writes new data, the blocks containing the old data can be retained, allowing a snapshot version of the file system to be maintained. ZFS snapshots are created very quickly, since all the data composing the snapshot is already stored; they are also space efficient, since any unchanged data is shared among the file system and its snapshots.

Writeable snapshots (“clones”) can also be created, resulting in two independent file systems that share a set of blocks. As changes are made to any of the clone file systems, new data blocks are created to reflect those changes, but any unchanged blocks continue to be shared, no matter how many clones exist. This is an implementation of the Copy-on-write principle.

Snapshots is only one of the features of ZFS (Zettabyte Files System), the advanced file system created by Sun, now owned by Oracle. Apple included a partial port of ZFS in earlier versions of Mac OS X but pulled it before the official release. It’s a file system particularly well suited for cloud environments and storage pools, which might be why Apple is looking at it again in the post iCloud.

Apple is an incredibly private company that works hard behind the scenes in order to present a beautifully packaged, highly polished product to consumers. No doubt there is a lot of really cool, really geeky technology at the core of iCloud, for example, but all most of us see are elegant interface elements in Settings.app that, when tapped, all but transparently backup and restore our iPhones or iPads.

If indeed Apple is planning on using ZFS to make iCloud backups and restores better, it will probably be invisible to end users. One day, iCloud will simply work better, faster, and even more reliably.

More: Wikipedia

Rene, Georgia, and Seth talk about Macworld|iWorld 2012, the latest iPad 3 rumors including quad-core and LTE, and what it all means for iPhone 5. Plus, new retail boss John Browett, Steve Jobs quotes, and Jailbreak troubleshooting. This is iPhone & iPad Live!

• Subscribe via iTunes: Audio | Video
• Subscribe via RSS: Audio | Video
• Download directly: Audio | Video
• Show notes

META

• February is fitness month at iMore and Mobile Nations! [iPad 3 giveaway!]

Macworld|iWorld 2012

• This was our Macworld
• Complete Macworld coverage
• What new hardware are you most looking forward to from Apple in 2012?

iPad 3

• Could Apple release a separate 4G LTE iPad 3 and Phone 5 in select markets?
• Supposed debug leak shows iPad 3 with quad-core A6 chip and LTE
• Foxconn plans to build five additional iPad production plants in Brazil

iPhone 5

• 40,000 petition Apple for “ethical” iPhone 5 manufacturing
• Tim Cook speaks out against claims of factory worker mistreatment
• iPhone 5 counter claims: not going into production yet, not going to be longer or wider

Grab bag

• Apple posting Steve Jobs pictures, quotes at Cupertino Campus
• Apple appoints John Browett as Senior Vice President of Retail
• China Telecom aiming to launch iPhone 4S in February
• Apple’s iPad not affected by Amazon’s Kindle Fire

Jailbreak

• How to troubleshoot common jailbreak issues on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
• How to take a screen recording on your iPhone or iPad [Jailbreak app for that]

Hosts

• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)
• Georgia (@GeorgiaTiPb)
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford)

Credits

You can reach all of us on Twitter @iMore, or you can email us at podcast@imore.com, or leave a comment on the website when the show goes live.

We’re here every Wednesday night at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern, 2am GMT at www.TiPb.com/live

For all our podcasts — audio and video — including iPhone and iPad Live, ZENandTECH and Superfunctional, Iterate and Girls Gone Gadgets and more… see MobileNations.com/shows

If you haven’t already please subscribe to all our shows in iTunes and leave a rating. It helps people find the show and means a lot to us!

Thanks to the iMore iPhone Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Just like with the iPhone and iPad, Apple provides a way for developers to send ad-hoc versions of Mac App Store apps out for beta testing purposes. Since there are many apps out now that have iPhone and/or iPad versions as well as Mac versions, even if you’re beta testing an iOS app, you might need to know how to install the companion Mac App Store beta version, and its provisioning profile, as well. As long as you gave the developer the proper hardware UUID for your Mac, the process is fairly simple, and not dissimilar from the process of installing iOS beta software on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

Install the provisioning profile

1. Download the file to your Mac.
2. If the file came zipped, unzip it. (Yeah, obvious, but we try to be complete.)
3. Double click the .provisionprofile file
4. System Preferences will launch; click on Install
5. When prompted, enter your admin password
6. The provisioning file should then show up in your profiles

Install the binary

1. If you have an older version of the app already on your Mac, play it safe and trash it
2. Drag the beta app to your Application folder

That’s it. If you have any trouble — it’s a beta app, after all — check with the developer. You made need to trash some other, previously installed files, or do some other configuration first. When you do have it working, enjoy.

The Mac App Store isn’t the only way to distribute software on OS X, so many developers may never need to send UUID-locked beta builds. But if the Mac App Store is the only way the developer intends to distribute their software, this may well be the beta road they take.

• More tips and how-tos
• Mac help and discussion forum

Georgia and Rene are joined by CrackBerry Kevin Michaluk to kickoff Mobile Nations Fitness Month. We break down how best to get started, set attainable goals, and get results, and address some of the most common questions and misconceptions. This is ZEN and TECH!

• Our podcast feed: Audio | Video
• Download Directly: Audio | Video
• Subscribe via iTunes: Audio | Video

Related episodes

A lot of the material discussed in this show has been gone over in more detail in previous episodes. Here are some handy links.

• Breathing
• Sleep
• Exercise
• Nutrition
• Goal Setting

Hosts

• Georgia (@GeorgiaTiPb)
• Rene (@reneritchie)
• Kevin (@crackberrykevin)

Contact

You can reach all of us @ZENandTECH, via email at podcast@zenandtech.tv, or leave a comment below!

Thanks everyone, you’re the best community on the web and we love having you with us!

Disclaimer

While Georgia is a therapist, she’s not YOUR therapist. Everything said or implied on this show is for informational and entertainment purposes only. And shouldn’t be taken in any way as a replacement for proper, professional care.

Credits

Music is Peace on Earth by wellman.

Scammers never miss an opportunity to scam, and while Twitter, forums, and email have long been subject to disgusting “test & keep new iPhone/iPad/whatever” spam, it looks like the iPhone 5 version has taken to SMS. That’s right, not only are they content to waste your time and attention, they’re now also wasting your text message totals.

A couple of our Twitter followers received identical scam spam today:

Apple is looking for iPhone 5 testers! The first 1000 users that go to [scam web address] and enter [scam code] will get to test & keep a new iPhone 5.

Needless to say, no they won’t. If you get the text message, let us know in the comments, report it to your carrier, and by no means do anything it requests.

Source: @AKMolin, @MDSaunders

Trying to figure out just exactly how to find your Mac UDID so you can get in on an ad-hoc Mac App Store beta? Just like with iPhone and iPad, your Mac has a UDID (technically a Hardware UUID) that developers can use to send you app builds before they become publicly available. Luckily, it’s easy to locate once you know where to look.

1. Click on the Apple logo at the top left of your Mac menu bar
2. Click on About This Mac
3. Click on More Info…
4. Click on System Report
5. Make sure Hardware is selected at the top left
6. The very last entry in the list on the right will be your Hardware UUID

Copy and paste it and mail it off to the developer, then wait for your ad-hoc app to arrive and start beta testing!

Of course, since the Mac App Store isn’t the only way to distribute software on the Mac, developers can also choose to simply send you a non Mac App Store — i.e. regular-style apps. If they’re developing specifically and only for the Mac App Store, however, this might be the way they choose to go. If it is, you’re all set!

• More tips and how-tos
• Mac help and discussion forum

Via: @lucvandal

Likely exactly why Siri is still in beta and not localized for Scotland. Definitely NSFW due to language, but just as definitely safe for a belly laugh. Ach, aye.

Source: YouTube via The Loop

iMore heard a while back that the iPad 3 would be coming March 2012, and several other outlets have heard the same thing. Macotakara is is the latest. However, in their version there was also a “strange” report about a “strange” event, scheduled for February.

I reported that Apple was going to hold Special Event in early February according to Asian supplier and source from united states, but this report told a half-side of truth. Apple will hold “Strange” event at February instead of Special Event.

Jim Dalrymple of The Loop, however, says when something smells “strange”, it usually is.

This is not going to happen, according to my sources. Apple will not hold an event in February, unusual or otherwise. That’s it.

Dalrymple’s sources are typically excellent, so if you were holding hope for a February surprise from Apple, stop holding.

Source: The Loop, Macotakara

Apple has released Mac OS X Lion version 10.7.3 and while there doesn’t seem to be any new goodies for iPhone or iPad users, if you’re running Apple’s desktop OS, it’s waiting for you via Software Update.

OS X Lion was first shown off at Apple’s Back to the Mac and presented as taking iPhone and iPad innovations back to Apple’s traditional computer lines. While some of the changes have been welcomed with open arms, others have experienced birthing pains, and hopefully this and future updates help take the rough edges off. Either that, or 10.8 better give us another solid Snow Leopard-ing of the OS.

Details below.

The 10.7.3 update is recommended for all OS X Lion users and includes general operating system fixes that improve the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac including fixes that:

-Add Catalan, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukrainian language support -Address issues when using smart cards to log into OS X -Resolve issues authenticating with directory services -Address compatibility issues with Windows file sharing

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5048.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222.

Get thinner, get stronger, get faster, get healthier with iMore and Mobile Nations in February!

New Years is over, January has come and gone, and for many of us, our get fit and get healthy resolutions have come and gone with it. Rather than leaving them lying in ruin with what’s left of our waist lines and good intentions, however, we want to do something about it. And we want you to do something about it with us!

Whether CrackBerry challenged Android Central, WPCentral threw down the gauntlet on webOS Nation, or iMore called them all out, who remembers? The important thing is this — we’re using February to get off our collective apps and get into shape.

Think about it — mobile is where it’s increasingly at for health and fitness. Our iPhone go everywhere we go and are the perfect way to record everything from our activity to our diet to our sleep cycles. And our iPads let us look at all that data on a bigger screen and really see where we are and where we need to be. Mobile has become lifestyle.

So… Want to eat better? iMore is with you! Want to get stronger? We’re spotting! Want to get into better cardio shape? We’re so there!

Each week we’re each going to set reasonable, attainable goals, and each week we’re going to take advantage of our awesome community to make sure we attain them. We’re going to have special editions of our ZEN and TECH and Superfunctional podcasts to help us get going and stay going, and we’re going to use our brand new Health and Fitness Forum to keep us focused, keep us accountable, and keep us keeping on!

Oh, and you could win an iPad 3!

You, the iMore Nation, are our motivation. And to keep you motivated, we have some great prizes lined up. Anyone and everyone who participates, who shares their goals and keeps us up-to-date with their regular progress will be automatically entered to into our:

• Weekly drawings for an iPod nano. We’re giving away 4 total, one each week!
• Grand prize drawing for an iPad 3 IOU! (You’ll get it when Apple launches it!)

There will also be some great app and accessory giveaways along the way to keep everyone on their toes.

Sound good? Sound great? Sound like you just can’t wait to get fit? Good! Jump into our new Health and Fitness Forum now and pick your goal for week 1.

Mobile Nations fitness month has begun!

New images have leaked showing what may be code-name London, or the first of the next-generation BlackBerry 10 superphones expected to ship from RIM at the end of 2012 and… they look like Android phones that look like iPhones. Kevin Michaluk from CrackBerry.com pitches them a phone-sized PlayBooks but after being teased with the far more original looking, Porsche Design-style concepts we saw a few weeks back, I can’t help but be a little disappointed.

Sure, Apple didn’t invent the black slab form factor, but in an era that was then dominated by front-facing QWERTY devices, including the Treo, Windows Mobile Standard, Nokia communicators, and, yes, BlackBerrys, Apple inarguably popularized them. They popularized them to such an extent that Google smartly, swiftly switched gears from making Android BlackBerry-like to iPhone-inspired. RIM dabbled in that form factor as well, with the near disastrous Storm line, and now the expanded Torch line.

But to lead with it into the new generation of BlackBerrys, and now, some 5 years later? (And yes, once again, I informed you thusly.)

A big part of me hopes not. I’m tired of iPhone clones. Sure, Samsung has proven that the closer you are to copying Apple without being Apple, the more money you make in the not-Apple market (just look at Motorola and HTC profits by way of comparison), but Apple didn’t get to where they are — sitting on one of the largest bankrolls in history — by copying the BlackBerry or Treo back in 2007.

They looked at the market. They saw a problem with existing offerings. They tried to solve it with something new. RIM has had 5 years since then — 5 years to study Apple, look for the iPhone’s weaknesses, and figure out how to take then next great leap forward. To figure out how to do to Apple what Apple did to Palm and RIM.

They wasted a lot of that on the Storm and Torch and PlayBook. Hopefully they’re not wasting one precious moment of it now.

I want BlackBerry back. I want them putting pressure on Google and Apple. I want more great phones to choose from. I don’t want Jonathan Ive to be the lead designer-by-proxy of yet another me-too phone line.

Delight me RIM. Surprise me. You’ve got a new CEO. He has great contacts. I’m holding out hope for you.

Source: CrackBerry.com

B is for Bluetooth, a wireless technology that lets your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad talk to headsets, keyboards, speakers, computers, and other accessories

If you’re new to iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad and are wondering just what exactly Bluetooth is and what it means to you, worry not — iMore has you covered. Bluetooth is an open standard wireless communications protocol, which just means that it’s a commonly available way for devices to talk to each other, and to other electronics, without having to be plugged in together. The most common things iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users do with Bluetooth include connecting to headsets and speakers.

Bluetooth works over short-wave radio (between 2400 and 2480 MHz if you’re techie) and has a range of about 30 feet. If you move further away than that, say leave your iPhone in your car and go into a store, you’ll lose connection.

There are several different Bluetooth profiles, each of which enables its own type of functionality. iOS doesn’t support all Bluetooth profiles, but it does support several important ones.

• HFP 1.5, the hands-free profile for connecting to hands-free headsets and speakerphones
• PBAP, the phone book access profile to allow for car kits to download contacts or display caller information (iPhone only).
• A2DP, the advanced audio distribution profile, which enables higher-quality audio, including stereo audio, to be sent to remote speakers
• AVRCP, the audio/video remote control profile, that lets pause, play, stop, next track, and previous track commands to be sent to headsets and speakers
• HID, the human interface device profile, or the protocol that connects to a wireless keyboard.
• PAN, the personal area network profile, which lets you tether to a computer and share your cellular internet connection. (Part of the Personal Hotspot system.)

Most previous iOS devices, including iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch support up to Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (enhanced data rate). EDR allows for faster data transfers, meaning smoother, better sound support and internet speeds (between 2 and 3mbps).

Bluetooth 4.0, a newer specification is supported by the iPhone 4S and will presumably be supported by future devices like the iPad 3. Bluetooth 4.0 allows for BHS (Bluetooth high speed) and BLE (Bluetooth low energy), which aim to provide better, faster data with lower battery drain.

There are very few Bluetooth 4.0 accessories available yet, for example the Find My Car Smarter. However, Bluetooth 4.0 offers the potential for more ubiquitous, persistent, and useful peripherals than ever before.

Want to know more? Check out more of our iOS A-Z words-of-the-day, or jump ahead to our complete iPhone and iPad glossary for the full on dictionary list!

• Bluetooth accessories for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

Facebook, the massive social network that counts one of the most popular iPhone apps of all time in their portfolio, is rumored to be readying a $5 billion IPO (initial public offering). Yes, Zuckerberg and co. might finally be ready to hit the stock market. The New York Times reports:

The Internet giant plans to list a preliminary fund-raising goal of about $5 billion, one of these people said. Another cautioned that any such number was largely a placeholder for determining filing fees, and that the final amount could differ significantly. And the company could still decide to delay its filing.

While huge, it narrowly misses out on being the biggest tech IPO ever — that distinction belongs to Infineon. That is, of course, unless Facebook raises the stakes to $10 billion, then they’ll own all the records. And the money.

Facebook has enjoyed enormous growth but not without growing pains, including and especially in regards to user privacy and transparency. Along with Google and Twitter — the former public, the latter still private — Facebook faces Federal privacy oversight for the foreseeable future.

Still, if Facebook does pull the trigger on this IPO, will that change anything? If any of us could buy stock and become a shareholder, does that make trusting our data to Facebook any easier, or any more difficult?

Source: New York Times

We’ll likely get a new iPad 3 sometime this March and an iPhone 5 later this summer or fall, but will either or both of them run on the new, ultra-fast 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) networks? And if they do, will LTE be built into every device, or will there be special models made for just those networks that support it?

Right now there’s only one iPhone 4S and it runs on both GSM/HSPA+ and CDMA/EVDO Rev. A, on every carrier that offers it. That’s a change from the iPhone 4 that debuted as GSM/AT&T only and later had a different model, with a different antenna, released for Verizon. Likewise, the iPad 2 still doesn’t come in a unified model, having on version for AT&T/GSM and one for Verizon alone.

So, while Apple has moved to unify their manufacturing for iPhone 4S, they have in the past, and still to this day, made separate models of iPhone and iPad to handle different network technologies.

And they could do it again for LTE.

Size and power consumption

Previous generation LTE chipsets were deemed unusable by Apple due to their size and battery-draining power demands. Early Android LTE handsets like the HTC Thunderbolt bled power at an almost comical level. Early devices were also chunky, but soon thinned out again and grew in length and width instead of depth, like the Nokia Lumia 900, letting larger screens take advantage of that extra space.

While rumors persist of a 4-inch iPhone 5, it’s hard to imagine that Apple would let the iPhone 5 casing grow very much if at all just to accommodate an LTE radio and its battery. And they wouldn’t put one in the iPad 3 now if they weren’t planning on putting one in the iPhone 5 later. The phone is still the flagship, for now.

Qualcomm is releasing new chips, however, and it’s possible they’ll have one ready in time for the iPhone 5 that’s small and power efficient enough to meet even Apple’s demands. Let’s grant for a moment that that proves true. There’s still a much bigger problem when it comes to LTE.

Availability

Verizon has a decent U.S. LTE roll out, claiming coverage in 190 markets of varying size. AT&T claims 26 markets with large scale deployment not complete until the end of 2013. Sprint will have 4 markets on LTE by mid 2011, but it will likewise take years to roll out nationally.

Internationally things get worse. Both Rogers and Bell have a handful of LTE cities each. In Europe and Asia there are a smattering of cities, but many huge markets are still years way.

LTE simply isn’t very common yet, and Apple is the company that didn’t even add 3G to the iPhone until the second generation version launched in 2008.

Models

Would adding the expense — both component and engineering — of an LTE radio, along with any remaining size and power demands, make sense to Apple if there are so few markets able to make use of it? Apple sold the one-iPhone 4S-model-to-rule-them-all faster and further than any other handset in the history of the business, getting it into more countries, on more carriers, for more users than ever before. Would that be possible if the iPad 3 or iPhone 5 similarly included LTE all in one model?

Instead, what if Apple kept the current radio stack in place for the iPad 3 and iPhone 5 and but also launched separate models for LTE in the markets where they make sense, like the U.S., Canada, and those European and Asian countries that support it.

Not all LTE operates on the same frequencies, so engineering even an international LTE radio wouldn’t be dead simple, let alone a GSM/CDMA/LTE across all bands. Letting HSPA and CDMA continue to do what they do now, in markets that don’t have other options, isn’t a bad idea.

But if complexity and scarcity are still the case, why worry about LTE at all in 2012? Why not just wait until 2013?

Verizon

The current iPad and iPhone run at up to 14.4mbps on AT&T and GSM carriers. They run at 2-3mbps on Verizon’s CDMA network. Apple went out of their way to avoid calling the HSPA+ iPhone 4S a “4G” phone last year, knowing if AT&T and others claimed it as such, Verizon’s version would be made to look less-than by comparison.

That hasn’t hurt Verizon’s sales yet — iPhone 4S set records on every carrier including Verizon, eclipsing devices with bigger screens and LTE radios on the same shelves — but it likely hurts Verizon pride. With the best LTE deployment in the U.S. and a desire to use it that’s so strong Verizon reportedly won’t let Windows Phone and BlackBerrys on their network without LTE anymore, how happy would they be to sit on CDMA for another year, to again have to market an EVDO Rev. A iPad 3 and iPhone 5?

Apple could pull the trigger on LTE in 2012. In most markets they don’t need to, but in the U.S. in general and Verizon in specific, there’s reason to consider it. Doing two models — HSPA+/CDMA for most of the world and LTE for Verizon and the other carriers that support it — wouldn’t be unprecedented for Apple, and could indeed be the best of both worlds.

This was our Macworld. Other Macworlds were different. But this one was ours.

Macworld | iWorld 2012 was not the event of old, where Steve Jobs put sneaker to keynote stage and introduced us to everything from the iPhone to the MacBook Air, and where Apple’s massive booth, and the massive booths of countless accessory makers, filled Moscone to capacity.

Apple has held their iPad keynotes — and just recently the education event — outside of Macworld, at a time and place of their own choosing. And CES has made a concerted effort to steal away the accessory booths, and now has more iPhone and iPad cases in their halls than any person, sane or otherwise, would ever want to walk through at any one time.

Some would say they tried to take the heart from Macworld, but all they took was the keynote and the bigger booths. Macworld’s heart, it turns out, was never in either of those things. It was in the community. And it endures.

Those who only ever bothered to fly in for the keynote and fly out again no longer bother. Those who only scoured the booths for deals no longer show up to scour. Now it’s the dedicated media who stay the week. It’s the fans who show up and want to find out about what’s going on. And we all had a great time.

After dealing with travel delays, Leanna and I arrived on late Thursday and enjoyed only the briefest glimpse of the show floor before it closed. But Macworld didn’t end at Moscone. That night we met up with a veritable who’s-who of fellow Apple bloggers and journalists, developers and designers, accessory makers and advertising/PR reps. We drank, we ate, we shared stories and opinions — we shared Macworld.

The next two days we hit the show — hard. We recorded a bunch of videos and a ton of interviews you’ll see over the course of the coming weeks. And those two nights we kept meeting up with our fellow Apple enthusiasts, our community.

Because that’s what Macworld is and really always was. A reunion of those who cover and create and consume the Apple experience. A homecoming.

That’s not to say everything is perfect now. It isn’t. Macworld has transformed into Macworld|iWorld and turned from a traditional expo into a modern fan event. But they haven’t fully embraced that change yet. A lot of the talks, a lot of the panels, were filled with the same Mac pundits that have always filled them. Just like Macworld has added iWorld, the agenda needs to add the energy and insights of the new iOS-centric generation. Don’t lose the old guard, but add the new blood. We’ll all be richer for it. Likewise, build on the smaller accessory makers and the developers, the kickstarters who don’t fit in at CES, and the indies who want to network with each other and with their most enthusiastic consumers in a way WWDC could never allow.

The new Macworld|iWorld is just getting their footing. Just like we envision iMore to be the ultimate online site for iPhone and iPad enthusiasts, Macworld|iWorld is aiming to do that for the entire Apple community in the real world. I expect great things ahead. So great, in fact, I don’t really miss Apple or the big accessory makers at all anymore. So many things, smaller, more delicate, more unusual things have blossomed in their absence. If IDG can keep up what they’ve started, if the community can realize the benefits of coming together like this, of being a community together like this, there will be many more amazing Macworld|iWorld events to come.

And I for one can’t wait to attend.

Apple has updated the Airport Utility for Mac OS X Lion to version 6.0, and once again went back to the Mac by making it look just like the iPhone and iPad version released earlier this year. Used to manage everything from the Airport Express and Airport Extreme Wi-Fi base station routers, to the Time Capsule router + hard drive Time Machine backup companion, here’s what Apple has to say about Airport Utility 6.0 for OS X Lion.

Use AirPort Utility to set up and manage your Wi-Fi network and AirPort base stations, including AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and Time Capsule. See a graphical overview of your Wi-Fi network and devices. Change base station and network settings, or manage advanced features such as security modes, wireless channels, and more.

iOS for iPad and iPhone has taken huge strides in making all kinds of computing tasks easier and more accessible to mainstream users, and the Airport app for iPhone and iPad is no exception. OS X Lion, however, hasn’t always successfully transitioned that accessibility to the older Mac platform, with some re-interpretations working magnificently and others feeling like they need a few more revisions worth of polish (or even a solid Snow Leopard-ing)

The Airport Utility for OS X Lion, however, looks solid and should make something as potentially intimidating as managing and Airport Extreme or Time Capsule

Source: Apple.com via MacStories

There’s an interesting debate taking place about the merits and virtues of modern electronic books like Apple’s iBooks or Amazon’s Kindle books and their traditional counterparts — old fashioned paper bound and proper.

They’re qualitatively different, inarguably. The feel of board and cloth and leather is warm and textured compared to the crisp coolness of glass, aluminum, and plastic. The gentle sound of pages flipping is vastly different than a tap or swipe or click. The sharp smell of a fresh new novel or musky scent of an old tome exists in a different dimension from the relative sterility of chips and displays.

Yet the weight, permanence, and nostalgia of traditional books can be a disadvantage when it comes to carrying them, correcting them, and moving the state of the art of knowledge forward once again.

Ben Brooks laments this, almost romantically.

I can tell you from first hand experience that the reading experience is very different on each of the different mediums and that’s why the distinction matters to me. I don’t care which version you bought because it changes what you read, but I do care because it may not be the same as the book I read (sometimes in the minor content differences, but always in experience and layout).

Marco Arment does not, functionally.

When I start reading, the form of the book quickly disappears. Just as I don’t notice the individual letters in each word, I stop noticing the layout, the font, the paper, the binding, and every other physical artifact because I’m focused on the writing.

Dieter Bohn thinks we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

With ebooks, we’re still looking at the equivalent of the day after Gutenberg printed his first Bible. We need to decide which paper book “specs” are important and ensure that they get recreated in our new digital world. We also need to ensure that these digital equivalents are at least as free and unfettered as paper books are now. We’ve already surpassed paper technology in a number of areas. However we are not giving nearly enough attention to the very things that made paper books flourish in the first place. The most important specs are the ones you take for granted.

Here’s the thing — once upon a time we passed down our stories between generations. Then we carved them into stone, brushed them on papyrus, illuminated them on scrolls, and eventually pressed them into print. We lost the voices of our parents, the lines of our hand, the power of our art, the uniqueness of our craft. But we gained volume and the democratization of information. Beauty gave way to volume.

Each transition has been painful. Each transition has been decried and denounced. Yet, inexorably, the new has overtaken the old. Even if it’s never fully supplanted it. We still tell stories. We still practice calligraphy. We still work at leading and kerning. iBooks and eBooks won’t wipe out traditional books any more than non-traditional books wiped out message mediums older than they. Those mediums will shrink, perhaps, and become the providence of craftsman and collectors, enthusiasts and artists, and the very same folk who still enjoy wooden toys, vinyl albums, and pre-iPhone phones.

Meanwhile, iBooks, Kindle books, and other forms of digital books will continue to crawl out of the primordial ooze and make more content more available to more people (and children) than ever before. And perhaps they’ll recapture some of the magic of mediums past, the way Audible has voice and InDesign has done digital press.

iBooks, Kindle books, and their ilk are not perfect, not yet and maybe never, but they’re the future. Until the next transition.

Apple is continuing to enculturate the legacy of Steve Jobs, this time by placing memorable quotes and iconic images of their late co-founder around their Cupertino campus. The images include everything from the original Mac to the lasted MacBook Air, from Jobs’ earliest days to his final appearances.

Mark Gurman from 9to5Mac reports that they’re meant to serve as guidance and motivation for the next generation of Apple employees.

I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.

Previously, Apple recruited prominent business school professors to compile and teach case studies on Apple, for Apple, and to Apple, to ensure future management would share the same vision — the same stance at the cross-roads of technology and liberal arts — that Apple was imparted under Steve Jobs. Termed Apple University, it was intended to keep the unique start-up-like mentality first and foremost at Apple, now as Tim Cook has taken over as CEO, and one day when he’s succeeded as well.

Most companies don’t endure, at least not at the heights of their influence, power, relevence, and growth. It will be interesting to see if Apple’s conscious, focused efforts to productize themselves and institutionalize their co-founder’s values lets them avoid the same pitfalls IBM, HP, Microsoft, and others have faced.

Check out more posters via the link below.

Source: 9to5Mac

iStopMotion brings the power and magic of stop motion animation to the iPad. Stop motion, and the slightly more advanced go-motion animation techniques, are what brought everything from the original Clash of the Titans and Star Wars movies to Wallace and Gromit to our screens, and now you can do it right on your iPad.

iStopMotion helps with a lot of the heavy lifting. Set up your stage, place your actors, and put your iPad in place and you’re good to go. Snap a picture, slightly move the scene, then take the next picture. Repeat. Once you have all your frames, you have your movie.

Live from Macworld 2012, Boinx shows us how you can set a time in iStopMotion to automatically take the frames for you at regular intervals, and even set up your iPhone as a better, more positional remote camera. An overlay shows you the last frame so you can more easily place the next, and if you take a bad frame — who’s hand is that?! — and once you’re done you can ad a soundtrack and share your creation, including to YouTube.

Yes, you can finally take that old AT-AT Walker out of storage, get the kids’ lego Batman sets all built up, or put the classroom Transformers toys to work. It’s Harryhausen time.

• $4.99 – App Store link

Remarks is a brand new handwriting note-taking, and PDF annotating app for iPad from Readdle. I’m convinced the team at Readdle never sleeps because they release new apps, and update their catalog of existing apps, at pretty fast pace. They’ve focused on PDF lately, seeing a need for good editing, form filling, and annotating on iPad, and Remarks extends that expertise in a really interesting way.

Live at Macworld 2012, Readdle takes us hands on with their new handwriting style not-taking app. Whether you use a finger or a stylus, Remarks records your every stroke and because the iPad’s capacitive screen isn’t ideal for fine-grain, fine point detection, Remarks provides a handy “zoomed-in” mode so you can write out your notes in large scale, complete with scroll and new-line detection.

PDF editing and annotation is also built right in. You can add text, lines, and all the other standards, as well as move pages around and extra pages for easier, smaller-sized sharing. Not having to mail a full, 20MB file when all you marked up is a couple pages is most welcome. Add in Dropbox support and you start to get close to productivity nirvana.

Remarks has been submitted to the App Store and should be available in the next couple of days for $4.99.

Hit the link below to browse all of Readdle’s apps for iPhone or iPad, and read on for the details on Remarks.

• Readdle on App Store link

Write down your thoughts, sketch new ideas and diagrams, or annotate PDF documents during the university lectures, brain storming or just on the sofa at home.

• Add Notes Quickly. Only one tap is needed to start new a note.Exchange files with Mac/PC
• Use a USB cable and iTunes File Sharing to copy notes.Edit your notes on the Mac/PC
• Make changes into your notes using any PDF editor like Preview or Adobe Reader.Annotate Email Attachments
• Open PDF attachments directly from the Mail app to annotate them.Share Notes With Your Friends
• Email notes to friends with remarks and they will be able to edit it like their own.Import PDFs from Dropbox
• Use “Open In” to transfer documents from Dropbox, Box.Net, Safari and other applications.

With their new UltraFit line of sports headphones for iPhone, iPad, iPod and other devices, Polk Audio is really putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to their SecureFit, “stays in place” promise. Rather, they’re putting Olympic-calibur athletes on a trampoline smack-dab in the middle of Macworld 2012. There are several different sport-optimized headsets in Polk Audio’s UltraFit line. All of them share iPhone, iPad, and iPod compatible 3.5mm connectors, tangle-free, planar audio cables, and Strainguard moisture shields, along with 41-inch cables for those who want to keep their device on a belt, in a pocket or otherwise further away, and 14-inch cables for those who want them on an armband, or clipped or stowed closer to the collar. Here’s the breakdown:

• UltraFit 500 are in-ear, lower end headsets in black/red, black/gold, white/gray, and white/orange with 3 pairs of StayFit tips. They go for $49.95.

• UltraFit 1000 are in-ear, mid range headsets in black/red and white/gray, with the iPod-style remote control and three pair of StayFit silicone tips. They go for $69.95

• UltraFit 2000 are on-ear, mid range headsets in black/red or white/orange, with the iPod-style remote control, two pairs of foam ear pads, and one pair of cold-weather pads. They also go for $69.95.

• Ultrafit 3000 are in-ear, high range headsets black/red, white/gray and white/orange, with iPod-style remote control and 2 pairs of StayFit, 3-flange silicone tips, and three pairs of memory foam tips. They go for $99.95.

If the trampoline demos at Macworld were any indication, where the athletes jumped, flipped, spun, and otherwise shot themselves across the sky — with and without snowboards — are any indication, when Polk Audio says these new UltraFit headsets stay in place, they mean just exactly that.

As someone whose ears have been mangled by years of grappling, and whose standard headsets continuously fail to stay in place, I’ll definitely be checking them out.

• $49.95 – $99.95 – Amazon link

Polk Audio's new UltraFit athletic headsets will make you jump

Launch Center, a new shortcuts app for iPhone, aims to make everything from sending messages and mail to posting on Facebook and Twitter, to turning on your LED flashlight, faster and easier via an extremely clever, borderline audacious use of URL schemes and iOS 5′s Notification Center.

Produced by David Barnard of App Cubby fame, it boasts an absolutely gorgeous user interface that lets you easily set up which actions you want to appear in your Notification Center from a robust set of shortcut that include Phone, SMS/iMessage, Email, Twitter, Facebook, Flashlight, Google search, and Custom URL schemes. (That last one, for more advanced users especially, should make Launch Center an instant buy.)

Live from Macworld|iWorld 2012, David showed off some of the new features in the recent Launch Center 1.1 update, including scheduled launch actions — for example if you know you need to SMS your wife every morning or email your boss the report every friday at noon.

David’s keeping Launch Center in his dock now, since using Launch Center to quickly call a favorite or send a message is faster than tapping and pecking through screens of apps and layers of menus.

Hopefully Apple finds a way to balance security and accessibility in the next version of iOS so apps like Launch Center can start to do even more fantastic, time saving things.

• $0.99 – App Store link

Probably like many of you, I received my new Google Privacy Policy via email this week, and while couched in language about creating a more “beautiful” experience for us, the users — read: products — it’s also clearly about Google leveraging their popular services like Search and Gmail to help their new services, like Google+, become competitive with Facebook and Twitter.

Because Facebook and Twitter scare the shit out of Google and when companies, like people, are scared they do dumb things.

Google in particular, once the brash, brazen upstart that gave the proverbial middle finger to old, portal-style search sites and promised to always deliver the best results, not just the best Google-owned results, is struggling with their inner demons now. They don’t want to be replaced by social search the way their authoritative search replaced Yahoo! and Alta Vistas of old.

I’ve riffed before that any company sufficiently large is indistinguishable from evil. As they grow, as they face competitive pressures, the interests and agendas of their shareholders, stakeholders, and executives increasingly and more noticeably diverge from the interests of their users. From us.

They, like many of us, become the parents they used to despise.

Why does this matter to me and why am I posting it on iMore, an iPhone and iPad focused site? Because I’m a huge user of Google services and iPhone and iPad users in general are huge users of Google’s services. We use Google Search, Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and other services every day. We give Google massive amounts of personal information. We give them our trust. And that absolutely means we have both the right and obligation to hold them to that trust.

According to Sarah Lacey at PandoDaily, Google’s new, “don’t be don’t be evil” direction has become a concern even for many Googlers past and present, and the silence surrounding it is stymying even internal PR.

Good. This shouldn’t be easy. It should be messy and public and painful, and if Google wants to keep getting and using our data, they should keep earning that privilege.

Hopefully the rumors of Larry Page not wanting to hear any opposition to their new Google+ strategy are false, and like Apple and Facebook have sometimes done in the past, Google’s more unpopular new policies will be reversed, and soon.

Check the source link below for more on the issues surrounding Google’s new, more publicly evil direction, and read on for the new privacy policy in full.

More: Page Rage Escalates As Google Cancels Twitter Android Meeting

Dear Google user,

We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google.

We believe this stuff matters, so please take a few minutes to read our updated Privacy Policy and Terms of Service at http://www.google.com/policies. These changes will take effect on March 1, 2012.

One policy, one Google experience

Easy to work across Google

Our new policy reflects a single product experience that does what you need, when you want it to. Whether you’re reading an email that reminds you to schedule a family get-together or finding a favorite video that you want to share, we want to ensure you can move across Gmail, Calendar, Search, YouTube, or whatever your life calls for with ease.

Tailored for you

If you’re signed into Google, we can do things like suggest search queries – or tailor your search results – based on the interests you’ve expressed in Google+, Gmail, and YouTube. We’ll better understand which version of Pink or Jaguar you’re searching for and get you those results faster.

Easy to share and collaborate

When you post or create a document online, you often want others to see and contribute. By remembering the contact information of the people you want to share with, we make it easy for you to share in any Google product or service with minimal clicks and errors.

Protecting your privacy hasn’t changed

Our goal is to provide you with as much transparency and choice as possible, through products like Google Dashboard and Ads Preferences Manager, alongside other tools. Our privacy principles remain unchanged. And we’ll never sell your personal information or share it without your permission (other than rare circumstances like valid legal requests).

Got questions?

We’ve got answers.

Visit our FAQ at http://www.google.com/policies/faq to read more about the changes. (We figured our users might have a question or twenty-two.)

Notice of Change

March 1, 2012 is when the new Privacy Policy and Terms will come into effect. If you choose to keep using Google once the change occurs, you will be doing so under the new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

Please do not reply to this email. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. Also, never enter your Google Account password after following a link in an email or chat to an untrusted site. Instead, go directly to the site, such as mail.google.com or www.google.com/accounts. Google will never email you to ask for your password or other sensitive information.

Could Apple have an Siri-powered, OLED equipped iTV television set to debut this April or May? So a source within a “major electronics retailer” would have TechnoBuffalo believe.

Speaking on conditions of anonymity, the source said they’ve seen “gorgeous, very thin” pre-production versions of the set in person, and that they employ OLED panels at various sizes up to 42-inches.

In addition to Siri artificially intelligent, voice controlled assistant, they claim it will sport facial recognition, and be able to use the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad as a fallback controller. But wait, there’s more!

Our source said Apple is exploring the notion of using the set to control other connected devices in the home; think along the lines of ovens that pre-heat while you’re watching TV before dinner, and garage doors that can be closed by voice command while you sit on the couch. No details were given as to whether Apple would consider manufacturing such devices, though given their history, a “Made for iPod” style accessory program would be a natural fit for a TV-based connected home system.

In Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography, the late Apple co-founder did claim he’d “cracked” the television interface, and rumors of an Apple television have certainly picked up steam ever since. However, Jobs has also spoken about how difficult a challenge it is to deal with regional cable and satellite monopolies and oligopolies, never mind paranoid, anachronistic Hollywood executive who believe Apple is out to destroy their business, and consumers to steal their content.

The part about “other connected devices” is interesting in so far as Google’s Android at Home might one day compete at doing just that.

With iPad 3 likely to be the star of Apple’s spring schedule, however, it’s hard to see a new product like an iTV television getting jammed in alongside. Still, these kinds of rumors do get us thinking, even as we wait for them to get smashed. Or for a follow up claiming it will be exclusive to Sprint. Or that an iTVS Pro with Retina display will also hit before the end of the year. Whichever comes first…

Source: TechnoBuffalo

Rene, Georgia, and Seth talk Apple’s massive Q1 2012 financial results, go over the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 Absinthe jailbreak, and discuss the latest iPhone 5 and iPad 3 rumors. This is iPhone & iPad Live!

• Subscribe via iTunes: Audio | Video
• Subscribe via RSS: Audio | Video
• Download directly: Audio | Video
• Show notes

Hosts

• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)
• Leanna Lofte (@llofte)
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford)

Credits

You can reach all of us on Twitter @iMore, or you can email us at podcast@imore.com, or leave a comment on the website when the show goes live.

We’re here every Wednesday night at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern, 2am GMT, and our new companion show, Apps and Accessories Live is on Sundays, same Bat Time, same Bat Channel — at www.imore.com/live

For all our podcasts — audio and video — including ZENandTECH and Superfunctional, Iterate and Girls Gone Gadgets and more… see www.mobilenations.com/shows

If you haven’t already please subscribe to all our shows in iTunes and leave a rating. It helps people find the show and means a lot to us!

Thanks to the iMore iPhone and iPad Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

iPad Live has merged Transformers-style with iPhone Live and our newer, better, badasser all news, all how-tos iPhone and iPad Live combined podcast can is coming to you tonight at 6pm PT, 9pm ET, 2am GMT.

If you have any questions or topics you’d like us to discuss, just leave them in the comments then come be part of the show!

Want to watch via iPhone or iPad? Grab the Ustream app and search for “mobilenations”!

Daring Fireball‘s John Gruber has weighed in on the supposed iPhone 5 leak from earlier today, saying the iPhone 5 has not yet gone into production, and throwing cold water on the idea that the overall form factor will be larger.

Longer and wider? Sounds like bullshit. I can see Apple putting a bigger display on a device of the same size. I can’t see them making a bigger device.

iMore has independently heard that the iPhone 5 may stay on a fall schedule, similar to the iPhone 4S release in October of 2011. That makes a certain amount of sense, given how well Apple’s iPhone 4S sales persisted despite a 15 month window between launches last year. A June/WWDC 2012 launch would be only 9 months between devices, and might not maximize Apple’s earnings potential. However, with Android 4.0 devices expected to hit the market starting in the March quarter, competitive pressure won’t be letting up any time soon.

As to the design, Apple has had multiple prototypes in contention before, including more conservative and more audacious models. If fall 2012 is and remains the target, it’s likely far too early to tell much if anything for certain. However, a similar sized device with as big a screen as Apple can fit into it certainly sounds nice.

Following their Q1 2012 results, Apple now has a staggering, mind-boggling, almost unbelievable $97 billion dollars in the bank. That’s cash reserves bigger than most other companies and countries… combined. That’s a money bin even Scrooge McDuck could drown in.

What would you do if it were your money? Return it to the shareholders? (Pfft, what fun is that?) Buy all of Apple’s competitors? Buy a Hollywood studio or carrier network? Buy your own subcontinent? Buy the moon? Or just blow it all on candy and dancers?

Seriously — or at least as seriously as such a question could be posed! — what would you do with Apple’s $97 billion in the bank?

Leave a comment below with your best, most comedic, most tragic, most utterly entertaining answer and you’ll be entered to win a $97 gift certificate for the iMore Store. (Yeah, $97 dollars, not $97 billion — we’re not made of Apple bucks!) Contest starts now and ends Sunday, Jan. 29 at midnight PT.

Enter now!

Adam Lashinsky’s Inside Apple, wish purports to go behind the scenes of Apple’s magic as the world’s biggest start up, and lay bare the secrets of their success, is now available for purchase and, if you go the electronic route, immediate download.

You can pick it up via the links below, or if you’re feeling especially lucky, go enter our Inside Apple contest — we have three (3) copies to give away, and one might just have your name on it. Regardless of how you get it, get it, and then hop on over to the iMore book club and let the discussion begin!

• $12.99 – iBooks link
• $12.99 and up – Amazon link

iOS devices combined — including iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch — may have outsold Android devices combined — including Android phones and tablets — by a narrow margin last quarter. During the Q1 2012 Apple conference call today, Tim Cook pegged the iOS device number at 62 million. Android numbers are harder to come by, but last month Andy Rubin said 700,000 were now being activated a day. Given the prior two months were likely less, the following month perhaps more, it probably works out to 60 or 61 million.

During the same call, Tim Cook also revealed that the Amazon Kindle Fire had no affect on iPad sales, far he can tell. Sprint ultimately paid dearly to get the iPhone on their network in order to remain competitive. Verizon announced their results today, and revealed that slightly more than half of their smartphone sales were iPhones.

Apple has long dominated their competitors in terms of smartphone profit share but recently Android was assumed to have a big lead in market share. I’ve long discounted that, saying it’s irrelevant.

And nothing that was announced today changes that.

Apple released the iPhone 4S last quarter, almost 3 months later than many people anticipated. There was massive pent up demand for the iPhone 4S and it sold gangbusters. But Apple probably isn’t releasing another new iPhone this quarter. Or next. Or the one after that. But there will be new Android phones. Maybe not next quarter, but certainly the one after, running Android 4.0 and likely once again upping the spec fight.

Carriers, who can control Android in ways Apple will never allow them to control iPhones, will push these new devices heavily — like they did the original Droid and a plethora of devices since — and many buyers, geek tweakers and feature-phone replacers alike, will buy them.

The market share trends and figures will change and likely change again.

But they’ll constantly be irrelevant. Because they ultimately don’t matter.

Earlier this month I walked into an Apple Store with scratches on my iPhone 4S screen and walked out 30 min. later with a new iPhone 4S and a stern lecture about taking better care of my gear. And without paying a dime.

Last week Apple released iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U, taking the first steps towards mainstreaming digital education.

Just this week, as is almost always the case, I downloaded apps with UI so well designed, UX so thoughtful, they made me smile and delight in using my iPhone and iPad again.

The best devices, the best software, the best service. That’s relevant. As a consumer, that’s what matters. Not Apple’s numbers. Not Google’s numbers. That’s what all companies should be fiercely fighting over. Delighting us. That’s the metric they should all be measured by.

That should be the competition.

Steve Jobs, the late founder and CEO of Apple, was mentioned tonight by U.S. president Obama during the 2012 State of the Union address. As Laurene Powell Jobs watched on from the First Lady’s box, Obama said:

we should support everyone who is willing to work, and every risk-taker and entrepreneur who aspires to become the next Steve Jobs

A beautiful tribute and a fitting one, no doubt. Though we bet any entrepreneur with that type of universe-denting ambitions have no desire to be the next anybody, even Jobs. They want to be bigger, better, and have even more of an impact. They want to be the first of their kind.

UPDATE: The republican response from Gov. Mitch Daniels batted the Steve Jobs references right back, including a frankly awkward play on the name “jobs”.



9to5Mac‘s Mark Gurman got his hands on an email, purportedly from Apple CEO Tim Cook, that congratulates team Apple on a blockbuster Q1 2012. In the email, Cook plugs Apple’s education initiatives launched last week, and goes on to tease “some exciting new things going on at Apple” that will be revealed at a Town Hall meeting tomorrow.

Read the full email via the link below.

Source: 9to5Mac

As part of Apple’s Q2 2012 conference call, CEO Tim Cook was asked what, if any effect low-cost, feature-reduced tablets like Amazon’s Kindle Fire had on iPad 2 sales over the holiday quarter. Technically, he was asked a more leading question — did he think people went to the store, looked at Kindle Fire and its ilk, and then bought the more functional iPad?

Cook responded that he pays attention to US sales data on a weekly basis, he saw no change, plus or minus, on iPad sales following Amazon’s introduction of the Kindle Fire. He had, however, heard that theory anecdotally from customers.

It’s a common belief touted in some markets — that low cost or free entrants spur interest among consumers who ultimately opt for a more premium option. In terms of Mac sales, Cook re-iterated that Apple is seeing cannibalization by the iPad, but he still believes low-end Windows PCs are being hit much harder. And he loves that.

With 15.43 million iPads sold in the last quarter, 55 million since launch in 2010, and with 170,000 iPad-specific apps in the iTunes App Store, Cook thinks the overall offering and ecosystem are hard to beat and that, long term, iPad is a huge opportunity for Apple. Overall, Cook doesn’t see limited functionality, lower cost tablets or e-readers as even in the same category, and doesn’t think customers who want the iPad would settle for less. In fact, Cook quoted IDC as saying the tablet market had outgrown the desktop PC market.

Last year, Cook said, wasn’t the year of the tablet. It was the year of the iPad 2.

(Hey, where did we read that before?)

Below are notes of interest from Apple’s just-completed 2012 conference call. Some interesting comments — or non-comments — from Tim Cook on Apple Television, bigger 4G Android phones, and Microsoft. Dig in!

• Jan 24 2012, 4:59 PM: reneritchie: Apple Q1 2012 results: $46.33 billion in revenue, 37.04 million iPhones, 15.43 million iPads, 15.4 million iPods

• Jan 24 2012, 5:02 PM: reneritchie: Call starting now.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:02 PM: reneritchie: Oppenheimer likely up first. Read out the results.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:03 PM: reneritchie: And here’s Op.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:03 PM: reneritchie: Biggest Q in history, new records. Highs for iPhones, iPads, Macs. (Poor iPod).

• Jan 24 2012, 5:03 PM: reneritchie: 46.3 billion in rev. 73% growth. Feuled by iPhone, iPad, Mac. Aided by 14th week in quarter. 17 billion margin. 13.1 billion income.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:04 PM: reneritchie: Equalling half the income of half of 2011.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:04 PM: reneritchie: Going over stocks now.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:04 PM: reneritchie: Macs.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:04 PM: reneritchie: New record with 5.2 million Macs. New records for desktop and portables.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:05 PM: reneritchie: Average weekly sales up strongly. Outgrew market in all geographies, especially Asia/Pac. Fueled by MacBook Pro, Air, iMac strong.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:05 PM: reneritchie: 3-4 weeks of inventory.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:05 PM: reneritchie: Mac App Store a success. Over 100 mil apps in less than a year. Thousands of apps.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:05 PM: reneritchie: (Not as big as iOS app store by far)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:05 PM: reneritchie: 15.4 million iPods. Down from 19 last year.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:06 PM: reneritchie: Ahead of expectations. IPod touch more than 50%. Over 70% of MP3 market. Top selling MP3 player in most countries.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:06 PM: reneritchie: 4-6 weeks of inventory.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:06 PM: reneritchie: iTunes store generated 1.7 billion

• Jan 24 2012, 5:06 PM: reneritchie: Launched iTunes Music in Brazil and 27 other countries.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:06 PM: reneritchie: iTunes customer busy on Xmas, 140 million downloads

• Jan 24 2012, 5:07 PM: reneritchie: iPhone sold 37 million. 128% growth. Way ahead of market.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:07 PM: reneritchie: Very strong growth in all segments thank to iPhone 4S. Customer captivated by Siri.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:07 PM: reneritchie: (Talking up Siri)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:07 PM: reneritchie: iPhone inventory up 200k, 6 mil in channel, below 4-6 weeks.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:07 PM: reneritchie: iPhone revenue was 24.4 billion inlcuding accessories. 133% up

• Jan 24 2012, 5:08 PM: reneritchie: Nearly all Fortune 500 companies use/test iPhone. Changing way companies use mobile devices.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:08 PM: reneritchie: Developing, deploying mission critical apps.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:08 PM: reneritchie: (Listing tons of companies using iPhone, including Facebook)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:09 PM: Bla1ze: That’s a lot of companies.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:09 PM: reneritchie: Pleased to be shipping in China, 90 countries, fastest rollout ever

• Jan 24 2012, 5:09 PM: reneritchie: 15 million iPads. 111% increase.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:09 PM: reneritchie: iPad popular with holiday buyers.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:09 PM: reneritchie: iPad + accessories up 99%, 9.1 billion

• Jan 24 2012, 5:09 PM: reneritchie: iPad sales exceeded expectations. 4-6 weeks inventory.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:10 PM: Felichiomo: hello

• Jan 24 2012, 5:10 PM: reneritchie: Unprecendented adoption in business. Nearly all fortune 500 companies.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:10 PM: reneritchie: iPad enables business to change the way to work. (Giving examples.)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:10 PM: Bla1ze: Heck, even my bank uses iPads

• Jan 24 2012, 5:11 PM: reneritchie: 1.5 million iPads in use in education

• Jan 24 2012, 5:11 PM: reneritchie: 1000 one-to-one deployments.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:11 PM: reneritchie: Announced iBooks 2 last week. (Giving marketing pitch)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:11 PM: reneritchie: (Listing publishers)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:11 PM: Bla1ze: And with iBooks 2, that number will grow.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:11 PM: reneritchie: iBooks Author means anyone with a Mac can create books, publish them.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:11 PM: reneritchie: (How many copies? Missed that!)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:12 PM: Bla1ze: 600,000

• Jan 24 2012, 5:12 PM: reneritchie: Thanks!

• Jan 24 2012, 5:12 PM: reneritchie: 3 million copies of iTunes U downloaded

• Jan 24 2012, 5:12 PM: reneritchie: 315 cumulative iOS device sales. 62 million last quarter.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:12 PM: reneritchie: iOS and iCloud launched last quarter. Customer loves it!

• Jan 24 2012, 5:12 PM: reneritchie: 85 million iCloud customers.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:12 PM: reneritchie: (Giving iCloud pitch)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:13 PM: Bla1ze: 85 million customers signed up for iCloud?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:13 PM: reneritchie: App Store includibly succesful. 170,000 iPad apps, half a million total

• Jan 24 2012, 5:13 PM: reneritchie: Chris — is that what he said?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:13 PM: Bla1ze: I believe so, yes.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:13 PM: reneritchie: Apple retail had record sales.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:13 PM: reneritchie: iPhone sales robust, doubling. IpHone 4S launch.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:13 PM: reneritchie: iPad 2 was strong over the holidays.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:14 PM: reneritchie: 1.1 million Macs. Half the Macs sold are still to new Mac customers.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:14 PM: reneritchie: 4 new stores including Grand Central.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:14 PM: reneritchie: 358 stores open. 17.1 million average per store. 43% up.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:14 PM: reneritchie: 45% increase in visitors.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:14 PM: Bla1ze: (Still waiting for my Halifax store, cause you know — obviously Apple needs my money lol)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:15 PM: reneritchie: 22,000 visitors per store, per week on average.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:15 PM: reneritchie: Easy pay checkout has helped handle the traffic.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:15 PM: reneritchie: Personal pickup let’s them pick up in-store products in an hour, makes shopping easier/faster.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:15 PM: reneritchie: Lower commodities, leverage on higher revernue, one-time (something?), higher iPhone sales.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:16 PM: reneritchie: (Getting into the financial stuff.)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:16 PM: reneritchie: Cash on hand is now 97.6 BILLION

• Jan 24 2012, 5:16 PM: reneritchie: 64 billion is off shore.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:16 PM: reneritchie: 17.5 in cashflow. Actively discussing use. Nothing to announce. Very disciplined. Not letting it burn a hole in their pocket.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:17 PM: reneritchie: Next quarter is 13 weeks. Expect 32.5 billion. Gross margins to be 42%, OPEX 3.05 billion.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:17 PM: reneritchie: 25.25% tax rate, eps of 8.25

• Jan 24 2012, 5:17 PM: reneritchie: Closing. Very please. (Yeah, I’d be please too!)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:17 PM: Bla1ze: 8.50

• Jan 24 2012, 5:18 PM: reneritchie: TThanks!

• Jan 24 2012, 5:18 PM: reneritchie: Strongest product lineup in Apple history.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:18 PM: reneritchie: Q&A time!

• Jan 24 2012, 5:18 PM: Bla1ze: Excited for the new product pipeline..

• Jan 24 2012, 5:18 PM: reneritchie: Can you describe iPhone momentum? Enthusiasm for H1 2012?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:19 PM: Bla1ze: Looking for details on metrics

• Jan 24 2012, 5:19 PM: reneritchie: Cook: Thrilled with sales. Substantially above previous. Breathtaking customer receptuon of iPhone 4S/iOS 5/camera/Siri

• Jan 24 2012, 5:19 PM: reneritchie: Customers loving it

• Jan 24 2012, 5:20 PM: reneritchie: Made a bold bet as to what demand would be, despite bold bet, Apple was short of supply. Ended with significant backlog. Improved some since end of Q. Still short in key geographies.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:20 PM: reneritchie: Also attibuted to delayed purchases from prior quarter, people anticipating new iPhone. Made a correct decsion to go with broad range, turned out to be good. 14th week was part of this, factored that in.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:20 PM: reneritchie: Strength in every key region, US and Japan particularly.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:21 PM: reneritchie: Many more sales days than most countries.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:21 PM: reneritchie: iPhone sale sin greater China especially since iPhone 4S didn’t start in PRC until Jan.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:21 PM: reneritchie: Could not be happier

• Jan 24 2012, 5:21 PM: reneritchie: Bet bold but not high enough, customers loving it, Apple happy.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:21 PM: reneritchie: Q: ASP is up for iPhone, good mix of higher capacity 4S?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:22 PM: reneritchie: TC: iPhone 4S was most popular iPhone. Consistent with most launches. See higher mix of front end.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:22 PM: reneritchie: Q: Pent up demand at end of December is US, Japan, or new countries?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:23 PM: reneritchie: Q: Component environment, production capacity, can you address catch up demand, China? Help you rebuild inventory in March?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:23 PM: reneritchie: TC: Demand in China has been staggering. Selling through reseller and online. Not currently in retail. Demand off the charts.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:23 PM: reneritchie: Very happy.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:24 PM: reneritchie: Other countries were smaller countries in terms of demand. Will see how it goes. Did make progress.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:24 PM: reneritchie: Caught up in some countries, still some to catch up on.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:24 PM: reneritchie: Component environment is favorable, one of the things that let them overachieve on gross margin. Predicts it will stay favorable except for hard drives affected by tragedy in Thailand.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:25 PM: reneritchie: Doesn’t predict issue but will pay more, reflected in guidance.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:25 PM: reneritchie: Q: More detail on hard drive? Impact on sales? Impact on revenue?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:25 PM: reneritchie: TC: Was not material supply or cost for December quarter.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:25 PM: reneritchie: March quarter not expecting any material supply impact but prices have increased, included in guidance.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:26 PM: reneritchie: Q: December quarter NAND down 10%, DRAMM down 40%(?) How favorable will pricing be in March quarter?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:26 PM: reneritchie: TC: Not confirming percentages but did receive better cost, particularly on displays, NAND flash, DRAMM. Continue to have supply exceed demand.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:27 PM: reneritchie: HD big exception, constrained industry wide basis. Can navigate supply issue, paying more for them.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:27 PM: reneritchie: PO: Loss of leverage on lower revenue, non recurrence of 1 time items, stronger US dollar.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:28 PM: reneritchie: PO: How big were 1 time items?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:28 PM: reneritchie: (Not PO, Q

• Jan 24 2012, 5:28 PM: reneritchie: PO: Better mix, largely iPhone sales

• Jan 24 2012, 5:28 PM: reneritchie: Q: iPad — very strong numbers december quarter, any impact from lower price tablets? How do you think of competition from Amazon?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:29 PM: reneritchie: TC: Really happy with 15 million iPad sales, took down inventory slightly. Consistent with long term belief that this is huge opportunity for Apple over time.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:29 PM: reneritchie: Truly believe that tablet market in units is bigger than PC market. Interesting to note it’s clear on IDC data on desktops, tablets exceeded desktop sales in US.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:30 PM: reneritchie: Significant momentum. Competitiveness — ecosystem is in a class by itself. Larger canvas. 170,000 apps for iPad. A few hundred for the competition.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:31 PM: reneritchie: People really wnat to do multiple things with tablets. Don’t see limited function tablets/e-readers in teh same categories. Will sell a far enumber of units but iPad wanters won’t settle.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:31 PM: reneritchie: Last year year of tablet. Was year of iPad for second year in a row.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:31 PM: Bla1ze: No iPad killers? I’m shocked.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:31 PM: reneritchie: Q: Digging into iPad, what are you learning in terms of elasticity?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:31 PM: Bla1ze: Looking at iPhone numbers now.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:31 PM: reneritchie: Pre-paid market.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:32 PM: reneritchie: TC: Each model, 3GS, iPhone 4, was important in achieving total units.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:32 PM: reneritchie: Glad to cover broad range of products. IPhone 4S most popular.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:32 PM: reneritchie: Post paid market much smaller difference between models. Larger in pre-paid market.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:32 PM: reneritchie: Too early to tell. Just started in Oct.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:32 PM: reneritchie: Thrilled with total result.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:33 PM: reneritchie: Q: Discussing uses of cash? Any difference than historical behavior? Thinking more constructively?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:34 PM: reneritchie: PO: Always discussed internally in management and board. Recognize it’s growing for all the right reasons. Today, discussions are active.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:34 PM: reneritchie: Nothing to announce.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:34 PM: reneritchie: Q: Time frame? Will you tell us when you finish? Process? Ending?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:34 PM: reneritchie: PO: When they have something to announce, they’ll announce it.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:35 PM: reneritchie: Q: Gross margins. Saying it’s going 270 basis points, bucking trends. Loss of 1-time item that significant.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:35 PM: reneritchie: PO: (Giving same answer to same question. Sigh. Analysts, up yo game!)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:35 PM: llofte: such lame questions

• Jan 24 2012, 5:36 PM: reneritchie: (How about asking what they think of the television market?)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:36 PM: reneritchie: (They won’t answer, but the non-answer will be interesting)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:36 PM: Bla1ze: Here we go Rene

• Jan 24 2012, 5:37 PM: reneritchie: Q: Congrats! At CES, everyone has connected TV, trying to solve problems only Apple can solve. Apple TV looks outdated. What’s your strategy?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:37 PM: Bla1ze: Sold 2.8 million Apple TV’s

• Jan 24 2012, 5:37 PM: reneritchie: TC: Apple TV doing well. Sold 2.8 million last year. December quarter new record, 1.4 million. (Including Leanna!). Still classified as hobby.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:37 PM: Bla1ze: (and me)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:37 PM: reneritchie: Continue to add things to it. Couldn’t live without it. Fantastic product. Pull strings, see where it takes us. No comment.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:37 PM: reneritchie: TC: New job as CEO, any surprises?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:38 PM: reneritchie: (Q, not TC)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:38 PM: reneritchie: TC: I love Apple, priviliege to work with incredible team. Lucky.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:38 PM: reneritchie: Q: Strategic, first 4 months?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:38 PM: reneritchie: TC: Look at our results, team doing terrific job.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:38 PM: reneritchie: Q: (Montreal!) Cash balance, perspective on framing different opportunities?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:39 PM: Bla1ze: Again with the cash balance questions.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:39 PM: reneritchie: PO: Examining all possibilities — acquisitions, supply chain, otherwise, nothing to share on dividends or buy backs. Actively discussion. Not burning a hole in their pockets.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:40 PM: reneritchie: Q: iCloud? What’s your perception on value add? What are the metrics used to determine if its driving success?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:40 PM: reneritchie: TC: Shared number of customers – 85 million in just a few months.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:40 PM: reneritchie: Solved a lot of problems

• Jan 24 2012, 5:40 PM: reneritchie: (Doing marketing pitch on iCloud)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:41 PM: reneritchie: Not a product, it’s a strategy for the next decade.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:41 PM: reneritchie: Q: iPhone distro in the Q, moving forward

• Jan 24 2012, 5:41 PM: reneritchie: Where are you? Prospects for expansion in China, carriers?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:41 PM: reneritchie: TC: 130,000 points of sale, up 35%

• Jan 24 2012, 5:42 PM: reneritchie: Captured carriers, key retailers

• Jan 24 2012, 5:42 PM: reneritchie: Extremely pleased.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:42 PM: reneritchie: Incumbant carriers did incredbly well, proud of new carriers. Nothing to announce on China expansion. Extremely important market for Apple.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:43 PM: reneritchie: Q: Revenue guidance for March quarter?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:43 PM: reneritchie: (Interesting no one is asking about Google competition this time?)

• Jan 24 2012, 5:44 PM: reneritchie: PO: Would expect to have yearly increase on iPhone, down sequentially. iPad same thing.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:44 PM: reneritchie: Mac, iPod, same thing, seasonality.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:45 PM: reneritchie: PO: Five reaosns why he expects greater down: 1) 14th week, 1/14th of revenue, 2) 14th week fell in March Q last week, not included this week, typically higher than average. 3) iPhone inventory increased 1.7 mil unites. 4) benefited from launch of iPhone 4S, pent up demand. Fastest roll out ever.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:46 PM: reneritchie: 5) US dollar up against Euro. Last year was flat.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:46 PM: reneritchie: Q: Acquisitions? Strategy? Annobit?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:47 PM: reneritchie: PO: Done acquisitions that were small, medium with great talent, great start on product/technology/IP.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:47 PM: reneritchie: Tend to do several a year. Very diciplined. track record very strong.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:47 PM: reneritchie: Q: How are they integrated in? Run as stand alone?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:48 PM: reneritchie: TC: We don’t believe in lots of divisions. One company, not a lot of mini-companies. Semi conductors work for Mansfield like rest of hardware. Bob integrating Annobit. Fantastic technical talent. Lucky they joined.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:49 PM: reneritchie: Q: Focus on China, 500 carriers in the world? Adding them? Country rollout, China on rollout side, Brazil next, what about Russia, India retail?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:49 PM: reneritchie: TC: Key online, carrier, retailer partners. Russia, india through partners. In all thoe countries.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:50 PM: reneritchie: Clear in the past, ton more energy in the China market today doesn’t mean lack of focus or effort in other countries, just less.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:50 PM: reneritchie: Brazil is huge opportunity.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:50 PM: reneritchie: Doesn’t invision retail in near term.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:50 PM: reneritchie: Beginning to see traction, recognize they have to focus to deeply understand, get to large revenue figure like greater China.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:51 PM: reneritchie: More carriers, anticipate adding them. Nothing specific but looking at the same list you are. Major carriers, number much smaller.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:51 PM: reneritchie: Same thing with countries. All are important. Wants to get into all of them.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:52 PM: reneritchie: Q: tablet market? iPad growth outpaced expectations. Think Apple benefitted from lower cost, reduced feature tablets? Checked them out, traded up to iPad? Same thing with MacBook Air? Ultrabook clones?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:52 PM: reneritchie: TC: Data in US looked at on weekly basis after Amazon launched Kindle Fire. Wasn’t obvious effect plus or minus. Heard your theory from some customers who did just taht.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:52 PM: reneritchie: Whether that’s happening on large basis, he doesn’t know. No obvious change.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:53 PM: reneritchie: Is cannibalization of Mac by iPad but continue to believe much more cannibilzation of Windows. Love that trend.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:53 PM: reneritchie: TC: iPad is very diffrent: Can see it nbegiining to appear everywhere. Business has adopted it. Fortune and global 500. K12 sold 2x iPads to Macs.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:54 PM: reneritchie: Education adopts tech slowly so surprising.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:54 PM: reneritchie: Consumer has moved in huge way to iPad.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:54 PM: reneritchie: Winning market by market by market.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:54 PM: reneritchie: Consumers who think about ecosystem, customer experience, Apple will win a fair number. See that in the results.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:54 PM: reneritchie: 55 milllion iPads, only in business since April 2010.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:55 PM: reneritchie: Q: Customer data, because of refresh cycle, Apple vs. competition? iPhone buying quicker or halo effect?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:55 PM: reneritchie: TC: In enterpise, iPhone is catalyst, iPad moves after. Mac follows in several accounts. Clear examples.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:56 PM: reneritchie: Macro level, how much it’s happening is difficult to put their fingers on, but all segments pointing that out. Seen that before with iPod halo for Mac in early 2002-2004. Not new to Apple.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:56 PM: Patrick Finger: http://9to5mac.com/2012/01/24/aapl-blows-by-450-in-after-hours-trading/

AAPL blows by 450 in after hours trading. Market cap at $420B, passing Exxon | 9to5Mac | Apple Intelligence

• Jan 24 2012, 5:56 PM: reneritchie: Q: Android vs. iPhone — this the year of a 2 horse race? Can your integrated model survive?

• Jan 24 2012, 5:57 PM: reneritchie: TC: Not like Mac and Windows. Mac has outgrown market for over 20 Q in a row. Still has single digit percentage. iOS look at phone, tablet, touch, over 315 million sold.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:57 PM: reneritchie: 62 million in last quarter.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:57 PM: reneritchie: Don’t have numbers on Android, hasn’t found a way to get transparent numbers on Android.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:58 PM: reneritchie: Momentum, NPD data in the US, Oct-Nov, part of launch, just phones not total iOS, iPhone at 42, Android at 47

• Jan 24 2012, 5:58 PM: reneritchie: Nielsen Oct-Dec, iPhone 45, Android 47

• Jan 24 2012, 5:58 PM: reneritchie: Comscore, Oct-Nov. iPhone 42, Android 41

• Jan 24 2012, 5:59 PM: reneritchie: All of the data he’s seen in US say it’s a close race. On iPad side, no specifci numbers, all of them believe iPad is way ahead. No comparable product to iPod touch. iOS doing exrememly well.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:59 PM: reneritchie: Horse in Redmond always suits up, always run. Other players can’t be counted out.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:59 PM: reneritchie: Apple focuses on innovating, making world’s best product. Somewhat ignore how many horses. Just want to be the lead one.

• Jan 24 2012, 5:59 PM: reneritchie: Q: 4G and larger screens?

• Jan 24 2012, 6:00 PM: reneritchie: Has popularity of Android changed you point of view?

• Jan 24 2012, 6:00 PM: reneritchie: TC: Won’t comment on future roadmap, not a shock. 37 million iPhones sold, incredible number could have sold more if more supply. Really love what Apple is doing.

• Jan 24 2012, 6:00 PM: reneritchie: AND THAT’S IT!

• Jan 24 2012, 6:01 PM: reneritchie: Thanks everyone for joining us!

• Jan 24 2012, 6:01 PM: reneritchie: Cook didn’t really hint at much this time. Even the snark level was down.

• Jan 24 2012, 6:01 PM: Brad Morris: Noooo, I missed it!

• Jan 24 2012, 6:01 PM: reneritchie: You can get the replay off iTunes. Or just scroll up.

Apple has just announced another record breaking quarter, coming off the holidays with $46.33 billion in revenue, $13.06 billion in net profit, and a whopping 37.04 million iPhones, 15.43 million iPads, and 15.4 million iPods sold.

“We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.”

“We are very happy to have generated over $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 13 weeks, we expect revenue of about $32.5 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $8.50.”

Apple’s live conference call starts in about 10 minutes and we’ll be doing play by play right here on iMore. Full PR after the break.

Conference call: apple.com

Apple Reports First Quarter Results

Highest Quarterly Revenue and Earnings Ever

All-Time Record iPhone, iPad and Mac Sales

CUPERTINO, California—January 24, 2012—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2012 first quarter which spanned 14 weeks and ended December 31, 2011. The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $26.74 billion and net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 44.7 percent compared to 38.5 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

The Company sold 37.04 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 128 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, a 111 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 5.2 million Macs during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.4 million iPods, a 21 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

“We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.”

“We are very happy to have generated over $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 13 weeks, we expect revenue of about $32.5 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $8.50.”

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q1 2012 financial results conference call beginning at 2:00 p.m. PST on January 24, 2012 at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq112. This webcast will also be available for replay for approximately two weeks thereafter.

This press release contains forward-looking statements including without limitation those about the Company’s estimated revenue and earnings per share. These statements involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ. Risks and uncertainties include without limitation the effect of competitive and economic factors, and the Company’s reaction to those factors, on consumer and business buying decisions with respect to the Company’s products; continued competitive pressures in the marketplace; the ability of the Company to deliver to the marketplace and stimulate customer demand for new programs, products, and technological innovations on a timely basis; the effect that product introductions and transitions, changes in product pricing or mix, and/or increases in component costs could have on the Company’s gross margin; the inventory risk associated with the Company’s need to order or commit to order product components in advance of customer orders; the continued availability on acceptable terms, or at all, of certain components and services essential to the Company’s business currently obtained by the Company from sole or limited sources; the effect that the Company’s dependency on manufacturing and logistics services provided by third parties may have on the quality, quantity or cost of products manufactured or services rendered; risks associated with the Company’s international operations; the Company’s reliance on third-party intellectual property and digital content; the potential impact of a finding that the Company has infringed on the intellectual property rights of others; the Company’s dependency on the performance of distributors, carriers and other resellers of the Company’s products; the effect that product and service quality problems could have on the Company’s sales and operating profits; the continued service and availability of key executives and employees; war, terrorism, public health issues, natural disasters, and other circumstances that could disrupt supply, delivery, or demand of products; and unfavorable results of other legal proceedings. More information on potential factors that could affect the Company’s financial results is included from time to time in the “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” sections of the Company’s public reports filed with the SEC, including the Company’s Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 24, 2011 and its Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2011 to be filed with the SEC. The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or information, which speak as of their respective dates.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

Inside Apple is a new book from Adam Lashinsky that aims to reveal some of the secrets behind the success of America’s premiere consumer electronics company — Apple. Lashinsky wasn’t given the access that Walter Issacson was given for the Steve Jobs biography, but he did lots of interviews and paints a compelling portrait of one of the most secret companies in recent history. How much of the Apple magic he ultimate manages to expose is anyone’s guess, but for Apple enthusiasts and business students alike, it certainly looks like a must read.

Check out the full description — and giveaway! — after the break, and pre-order now to avoid the virtual rush. (We’ll also be discussing this in the iMore book club, so head on over!)

• $12.99 – iBooks link
• $12.99 and up – Amazon link

INSIDE APPLE reveals the secret systems, tactics and leadership strategies that allowed Steve Jobs and his company to churn out hit after hit and inspire a cult-like following for its products.

If Apple is Silicon Valley’s answer to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, then author Adam Lashinsky provides readers with a golden ticket to step inside. In this primer on leadership and innovation, the author will introduce readers to concepts like the “DRI” (Apple’s practice of assigning a Directly Responsible Individual to every task) and the Top 100 (an annual ritual in which 100 up-and-coming executives are tapped a la Skull & Bones for a secret retreat with company founder Steve Jobs).

Based on numerous interviews, the book offers exclusive new information about how Apple innovates, deals with its suppliers and is handling the transition into the Post Jobs Era. Lashinsky, a Senior Editor at Large for Fortune, knows the subject cold: In a 2008 cover story for the magazine entitled The Genius Behind Steve: Could Operations Whiz Tim Cook Run The Company Someday he predicted that Tim Cook, then an unknown, would eventually succeed Steve Jobs as CEO.

While Inside Apple is ostensibly a deep dive into one, unique company (and its ecosystem of suppliers, investors, employees and competitors), the lessons about Jobs, leadership, product design and marketing are universal. They should appeal to anyone hoping to bring some of that Apple magic to their own company, career, or creative endeavor.

The Giveaway

Leave a comment below telling us what secret you’d most like to learn about Apple and you’re automatically entered to win one of three (3) copies of Inside Apple, courtesy of your friends here at iMore! (Must have a U.S Apple Store account to redeem — Apple’s rule, not ours!). Contests starts now and ends Sunday, January 29 at midnight PST.

“It’s not quite iTunes for comic books yet, but Comics and the comiXology apps like Marvel and DC are getting terrifically close.”

Comics is the best app for buying comic books — and graphic novels — on your iPad. Well, that’s not exactly true. Comics is one of the best places to buy comics, but the developer, comiXology also makes dedicated versions of the app for Marvel, DC, Dynamite, IDW, Image, and other publishers. They claim over 16,000 titles, more than enough to delight anyone’s inner Sheldon. Comics itself has a great selection of titles from several of their partner publishers and, taken together, the comiXology apps are everything you need to get your weekly fix of new releases and classic back issues alike.

comiXology's dedicated DC Comics app opens up with all the latest titles.

When you first load up Comics, or any of the dedicated comiXology apps, you’re taken straight to the store and will have various options up top for featured titles, new or recently added title, popular or best-selling titles, and sometimes free titles as well. Browse your way through or use the tabs at the bottom to jump to series (like trade paperbacks, they’re several issues collected into one easier-to-manage edition), story arcs (related issues you still have to buy and keep separately — why not just make these into series, folks?), creators (if you’re looking for specific titles by your favorite artist or writer), as well as the option to search, and My Comics/purchases to see what you’ve already bought.

The option to buy series (think trade paperbacks) in the dedicated apps like Marvel and DC is a nice addition.

There’s a ton of content to be found. Comics proper has a good sampling of titles from the various publishers. The dedicated apps for Marvel, DC, et al have loads of current stuff, most of the popular arcs and series from the last few years, and a smattering of classics (though why I can only find something like Batman: Year One as a set of individual issues in a story arc and not as a collected series is irksome — fix that DC!).

When you find what you like, it's just one in-app purchase away, just like iTunes.

When you find something you like, just tap the price to buy, same as you would in iTunes, and the familiar in-app-purchasing system takes over. Your comic issue or collected edition is downloaded straight into the app and made available on your reading shelf.

Pricing is okay. Individual issues are often $1.99 though some newer/hotter titles are $2.99 which is too high. As Steve Jobs told the music industry a decade ago, their competition is free — price things fairly and make them easily available and the market will flourish. Also, while Marvel offers true collections in their series, DC doesn’t seem to have embraced that yet which is baffling. (Prices for the Marvel series range from $6.99 for smaller, more obscure 130 page collections all the way up to $24.99 for large, popular 330 page collections like Planet Hulk). There’s also no subscription model, let alone all-you-can-eat offering.

Thumbnails of all the pages in your issue or series are just a tap away.

The reading experience is excellent. Pages are shown one at a time, or side-by-side for double-page spreads. You can also double tap to “zoom in” and show only one panel at a time. There’s no page flipping animation but swiping between pages is a breeze. You can also tap to bring up the controls which let you get info on the title, go to a thumbnail view of all pages, pull up the option for transition speed, letterboxing, etc. and get help on how the reader works.

While not extensive, basic options let you tweak the reading experience.

You can’t load your own comics, or comics you’ve bought in PDF form (for example, on Marvel’s extensive DVD volumes), but that’s what apps like Comic Zeal are for.

Overall comiXology has done an amazing job. Marvel, DC, and the other companies are also tepidly inching their way into digital confidence. It would be nice to have everything all in the Comics app and not need the separate Marvel, DC, et. al apps, for example (could you imagine if Warner, Sony, etc. were all separate iTunes app clones and we couldn’t keep our music or movies in one place?). It would also be great to see the bigger collections, absolutes, omnibuses, etc. available, discounted the way they are for trade paperbacks in comic book specialty shops. (Speaking of which, the comiXology apps go out of their way to point out where you can go buy real-world paper versions of the comics, which is both awkward and charming.)

Double page spreads look especially great on the iPad

The good

• Excellent availability of titles, especially in the dedicated apps
• In-app purchases are quick and efficient
• Reader is fluid and functional

The bad

• Having dedicated Marvel, DC, etc. apps is annoying, all content should also be in the main Comics app
• Can’t load your own comics into the reader

The conclusion

It’s not quite iTunes for comic books yet, but Comics and the comiXology apps like Marvel and DC are getting terrifically close. If you’re a general fan, get the Comics apps proper. If you’re a Marvel or DC purest, get the dedicated Marvel or DC apps. If you love everything, get them all. With day-and-date new releases and an expanding back catalog of classic stories, Comics makes iPad the premiere device for any comic loving geek.

FREE – Download

• Marvel version
• DC version

Verizon has released their Q4 2011 financial results and they seem to have done fairly well for themselves — 18.3 billion in gross profits, up 7.7%. Wireless revenue was up 13% with data revenue up 19.2%. (And yes, in case you were wondering, that’s why carriers want data-hungry devices like iPhones on their network.)

iPhone sales numbers weren’t disclosed in the results but Verizon had previously stated 4.2 million of Apple’s handsets went out the door last quarter. That’s double the previous quarter, which is impressive considering overall smartphone sales were short. Verizon did take a slight hit on the iPhone, however, having paid out higher than average subsidies.

It will be interesting to see the next few quarters when the iPhone 4S isn’t the newest, hottest handset on the market and rival platforms start to release their big hero devices.

Apple reports their Q1 2012 results later today.

Source: Verizon

Are you using Google’s digital magazine-style news aggregator, Google Currents on your iPad or iPhone? Google Currents is going on 2 months old and while it got to the market with Flipboard well ahead of it, it does have Google’s brand and power behind it. It’s also got a brand new iMore editions for your reading pleasure. Along with the launch-day Android Central edition, we’ve also added a Mobile Nations super edition, so you can keep up with all your platforms, all in one place, all for free.

If you haven’t used Google Currents yet but want to check it out, it’s as simple as downloading it from the App Store, logging in with your Google ID, and hitting the subscribe links below. If you’ve already used it, let us know if you’re still using it, or if it’s dropped off your radar.

• Google Currents – App Store link

Subscribe on Google Currents: Android Central; iMore; Mobile Nations

A is for AirPlay, a way to share everything from your music and movies to apps and games from your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad to your Apple TV

If you’re new to iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad and are wondering just what exactly AirPlay is and what it means to you, worry not — iMore has you covered. AirPlay is Apple’s term for their audio and video streaming technology. It’s what lets your iOS 5 device, or iTunes on Mac or Windows, beam videos over Wi-Fi to your Apple TV so you can watch movies and play games on your big screen TV, or music to your AirPort Express router, so you can listen on your higher quality speakers.

AirPlay Mirroring is a more recent addition to iOS that works with iPad 2 or iPhone 4S and lets you not only beam music or video, but entire iPhone or iPad apps. Anything from Facebook to your favorite crosswords, racing, or fighting game can be sent via Apple TV to your HDTV, with your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad remaining active as the controller. Some games, like [Real Racing 2](http://www.imore.com/tag/real-racing 2) even let you participate in multiplayer games using AirPlay, with each person using their own device to control their own car, all displayed together on the big screen TV.

AirPlay is proprietary and not an open standard, which means Apple gets to control who uses it. Several other companies have licensed AirPlay, however, and you can find a growing range of AirPlay-compatible audio equipment. There’s also some software out there that can run on your computer and tie into AirPlay, like BananaTV that lets you beam to your Mac instead of a TV.

Your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or computer running iTunes needs to be on the same Wi-Fi network as your Apple TV, Airport Express, or other hardware for AirPlay to work, but because Wi-Fi has high bandwidth it usually makes for a solid, stable connection. It’s real time. It’s encrypted. And most of the time, it “just works”

Want to know more? Check out more of our iOS A-Z words-of-the-day, or jump ahead to our complete iPhone and iPad glossary for the full on dictionary list!

• Apple TV – Amazon link
• AirPlay compatible speakers – Amazon link

iMore is heading over to the newly rebranded 2012 Macworld | iWorld Expo in San Francisco next week, to check out the accessories and talk to the awesome app developers that make us all the iPhone and iPad stuff we love. We’ll be bring the very best to you in video and post form, so if there’s something you want to see, something you want to show off, or if you just want to say hello, let us know!

You can follow all the action right here:

www.iMore.com/tag/macworld2012.

Team iMore will be represented by yours truly, Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) and Leanna Lofte (@llofte).

So, keep your browsers locked on iMore.com for all the news, and follow us crazy kids for the behind the scenes shenanigans. (There tends to be lots of both!)

Want to join us at Macworld | iWorld? Here’s all the information you need!

Birkley Breathed’s Bloom County was my two favorite comic strips growing up, and now it’s starting to become available in iBooks. From Bill the Cat’s run for president to Milo’s skewering of Senator Bedfellow to Oliver’s landing the space shuttle to Opus’… everything, it delighted me on a daily basis.

The iBook’s implementation isn’t ideal, at least in my brief skim-through — the pages don’t turn as easily as a regular iBook and instead the double page spread slides and flops, and only the first three volumes are currently available, but I applaud them getting it into the iBookstore to begin with and look forward to the whole series.

Hopefully Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, my other favorite, will join it in iBooks soon. (Like Bloom County, I bought the complete series the day it went on sale but would dearly love it in digital form as well.)

Adorn your virtual shelf with it now.

• Bloom County Vol. 1 – $7.99 – iBookstore link
• Bloom County Vol. 2 – $7.99 – iBookstore link
• Bloom County Vol. 3 – $7.99 – iBookstore link

It’s actually happened — after bringing BlackBerry from pager to the top of the smartphone world only to see the iPhone and Android all but demolish their share, RIM today announced founders and co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie would be stepping down, and current operations head Thorsten Heins would be taking over as the new, unified CEO.

And one of his first official acts was to call our own Kevin Michaluk, founder of CrackBerry.com and #1 BlackBerry fanboy.

It’s hard to express just how big of a change this is for RIM. Let’s put it this way. Since launching CrackBerry.com in 2007 I have been wanting to get an interview with RIM’s CEOs. It has never happened. With Thorsten, it happened in literally minutes, and it wasn’t even me who asked for it to happen, but rather it was the CEO wanting to do it. I have nothing but the utmost respect for Mike and Jim and all they have done for BlackBerry over the years, but it’s clear that for BlackBerry to thrive again RIM needed a shake up, and I think Thorsten is going to do an amazing job leading the way.

With their marketshare continuing to slide, lackluster PlayBook sales, and QNX/BlackBerry 10 superphones still months away, it’s clear RIM needed to do something to reassure investors and enthusiasts alike. Here’s wishing Heins every success. Strong BlackBerry competition is good for everyone. Bring it on.

Source: CrackBerry.com

iPad Live has merged Transformers-style with iPhone Live and our newer, better, badasser all news, all how-tos iPhone and iPad Live combined podcast can now be found on Wednesday nights at 9pm ET. But what to do with our traditional Sunday slot then? Why an all-new, all awesome podcast devoted to the latest and greatest apps and accessories! So join us tonight for the debut episode of Apps & Accessories Live!

(And yes, ZEN and TECH will still be following on at 10pm!)

Place: www.imore.com/live

Time: 9pm ET, 6pm PT, 2am GMT.

If you have any questions or topics you’d like us to discuss, just leave them in the comments then come be part of the show!

Want to watch via iPhone or iPad? Grab the Ustream app and search for “mobilenations”!

802.11ac, sometimes referred to as 5G or gigabit Wi-Fi, hasn’t been finalized and Apple seldom if ever speaks ahead of time about the incorporation of new technology into the iPhone, iPad, or Mac lines, but they were aggressive in adopting 802.11n while it was in the draft stages and 802.11ac appears to have even more to recommend it.

The new 802.11ac standard achieves much faster wireless networking speeds than the existing 802.11n specification (in use on the latest Mac, AirPort and iOS devices) by using 2 to 4 times the frequency bandwidth (from 80 to 160MHz), more efficient data transfers through sophisticated modulation, and more antennas (up to 8; existing standards support up to 4, while Apple’s Macs currently use up to 3).

With everything from AirPlay to iTunes Wi-Fi sync to the downloading of content from iTunes Netflix and other online repositories becoming increasingly front and center in iOS, better, faster Wi-Fi will be huge plus. (Especially if when we see the eventual move to 1080p content on the rumored Apple TV 3.

The link below says Apple’s working on 802.11ac, though the article doesn’t say where that assertion comes from. Still — I want it, and hopefully we’ll indeed get it sometime this year if not the next.

Source: AppleInsider

Marc, Seth, and Rene iterate about the iPhone mute switch (sigh), Android interface guidelines, Windows Phone at CES 2012, and PNG compression redux, and interrogate Mike Rundle of Flyosity. Plus, we sneak a question to Joe Belfiore of Windows Phone. This is Iterate!

• Our podcast feed
• Download Directly
• Subscribe via iTunes

• Google’s Android Design site… user interface guidelines for Android 4.0
  • Don’t make your apps look like iOS or Windows Phone 7 on Android
  • The Verge interview with Matias Duarte
  • Khoi Vinh on Android Design guidelines
  • Recap of the Windows Phone $100 “smoked” challenge at CES
• PNG compression and iOS apps

• Mike Rundle of Flyosity
• Joe Belfiore of Microsoft
  • Complete interview with Microsoft and Nokia at CES 2012

Hosts

• Marc Edwards (@marcedwards) of Bjango
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford) of Nickelfish
• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) of TiPb.com

Feedback

• Email: podcast@iterate.tv
• Twitter: @iteratetv
• Facebook: Iterate page

If you’re one of the best-of-the-best-of-the-best in mobile design for Android, BlackBerry, iOS, webOS, or Windows Phone, we’d love to get you on the show, or if you’ve found a drop-dead gorgeous app on any platform and really want us to talk about it, contact us and let us know.

According to The New York Times, not the cost of labor, not the cost of components, but rather the speed and flexibility with which Chinese factories can respond to iPhone and iPad manufacturing demands is reportedly the reason Apple prefers them over their U.S. counterparts.

One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

This isn’t unique to Apple, of course, but Apple’s popularity and profile, fueled by their exceptional supply-chain management, gets their name in the headline.

For a complete run down of the realities of modern manufacturing, and examples including Steve Jobs’ response to U.S. President Obama, give the full article a read.

Source: New York Times

According to Nielsen, the amount of all smartphones running iOS — namely the iPhone — rose from 30% to 37% over the last 3 months, compared to the share of all smartphones running Android OS — namely 8 googlezillion at last official count — rose from 46.3% to 51.7%. The growth came largely at the expense of BlackBerry, which shrank from 14.9% to 6% over the same period.

Among recent smartphone purchasers, Apple jumped from 25.1% last quarter to 44.5% while Android slowed from 61.6% to 46.9% and BlackBerry slid from 7.7% to 4.5%.

Given the tremendous success of the iPhone 4S last quarter, which ended prior to the launch of the next-generation Android 4.0 devices, and saw RIM still stuck in the great desert of the QNX/BB10 platform transition, the numbers aren’t surprising. Once we get deeper into Apple’s typical year-long product cycle, and new Android 4.0 devices start hitting the market in earnest, the figure will almost certainly change again.

However, that Apple continues to have the most popular single phones on the market, and a phenomenally disproportionate profit share, should perhaps be an indicator that better, more nuanced, and more contextual analysis are needed from metrics companies.

Source: Nielsen via Android Central

At Apple’s education event they announced two initiatives: iBooks 2 and iBooks Author designed to bring textbooks into the digital age, and an all new iTunes U to create and share lesson plans, and follow and complete course work. As education initiatives from publicly traded companies go, they’re big and bold — but they’re also just the beginning. There will be struggles and successes, breakthroughs and missteps. And while many of us here at iMore and Mobile Nations could speak about the implications from purely technical and business standpoints, we’re lucky to have several teachers and educators, past and present, on staff. They were kind enough to share their thoughts on Apple’s new initiatives, specifically and importantly where they impact most — our kids in the classroom.

Seth Clifford

Apple’s move to advance our shamefully archaic system was met with a lot of debate on Thursday morning. On one side, we heard from utopian education advocates (myself included to some degree), extolling the virtues of a centralized e-textbook platform, and Apple’s commitment to engaging our youth. On the other hand, I had a few spirited conversations with those who feel that by making great educational opportunities “expensive” (meaning only upper-class schools may even be able to apply these new techniques, leaving inner-city and less-privileged districts behind) Apple has driven a wedge between the haves and the have-nots, making education less democratized and less accessible to all. Personally I feel that both sides have points, but quite honestly, nothing is fair. Education has, in the past decades, grown more and more to be the bastard child of the federal budget, despite the headline-grabbing initiatives that get introduced to fanfare and few results. Kids are taught only to pass tests, so that funding can be applied to districts who have “earned” it. Kids are getting the short end of every stick they see in school, and nothing is changing. And what if Apple’s entire move here is not about changing the entire education system, which it most likely understands is irreparably flawed, but rather to disintermediate education the way it did carrier control with the mobile market? What if Apple’s ultimate play (with products like iBooks Author) is to put education back in the hands of students (and the actual individuals they interact with on a daily basis), obviating the need for a bloated, antiquated system in much the same way that it saw the carriers as a necessary evil in bringing iOS to the hands of users?

Certainly not every district is hopelessly broken, and not every kid’s education suffers at the hands of an ever-shrinking budget. Children who seek out learning will always learn, and those who do not will make their way in the world. It has happened for years and will always be the case, no matter what costs we apply. Apple’s attempt to shake up a system so mired in early 20th century standards is merely a shot across the bow of a huge vessel that’s been in motion for as long as any of us can remember. It will not be panacea to all the ills of our society, nor should people expect Apple to fix every problem. Apple is a business; they exist to make money and sell merchandise. Those who are decrying its attempts to make learning better are missing the bigger picture. Should we all shun this advance because only rich kids might get a chance to use it at first? Education needs disruption, and all it takes is a cursory look at the developing countries of the world to know that mobile computing is the future for our society. Not everyone will get an iPad or an iPhone, but at some point, everyone will be exposed to learning in a better, mobile capacity, and we’ll have Apple to thank for jumpstarting the efforts of those who would sit idly and let our children continue on the endless march to mediocrity.

Seth worked for five years as a computer instructor in a public middle school (grades 6-8), for six years with kids with autism, and was a member of district-wide technology planning committees.

Alli Flowers

All that was missing was the old tagline – this changes everything. Again. In a way it does. But before I explain why I think it might, I must explain why it won’t – at least not yet. So I must begin by stating that I take exception with Phil Shiller’s comment at the beginning of his presentation when he stated that iPad is, amongst other things, affordable. In today’s economy, $500 is just not what I would define as affordable. This thought will temper what follows.

Instead of bridging the digital divide, programs like Apple’s will only serve to deepen the chasm. Is a $15 textbook a great deal? Heck yea! The text I’m supposed to teach from costs $65, and that doesn’t include the workbook. But we hold onto our textbooks for seven years or more. Our school system (the largest in the state), can’t afford to purchase new texts for each subject at the recommended five year increments. Could we afford to purchase iPads for each student instead? It’s doubtful. Besides, even though you would then be looking at a tremendous discount for the textbook (and workbooks would be rolled right into the new format, right?), that’s still a lot of money.

Some of the concerns I’ve often heard about providing all students with iPads include the fear that student iPads will be stolen. I don’t believe this is as big a deal as other factors – if everyone has one, there will be no one left wanting one. The bigger concern is how children take care of their belongings. Most of my students have broken their cell phones at least once. How would we take care of broken iPads? Would we need to spend twice as much as what is needed to cover the student body so that when someone does break (or misplace) his iPad, we can replace it, like we do with a textbook? Can we demand that a family pay to have a $500 iPad replaced, when they can’t currently afford a $65 lost textbook fine?

But I rant. I love the very concept of iBooks Author. The potential here is limitless. For those of us who already prefer using custom content, the possibilities here are limitless. I have not used a textbook this year, and my students haven’t minded at all. I prefer providing them with small lessons and activities on the Smartboard so that they remain engaged, but aren’t overwhelmed. Would I like to give each of my students my custom designed text with practice activities? Heck yea! Do I see it happening any time soon? Probably not. On the other hand, I have an iPad and I can still use this valuable tool. There is no reason I can’t share the screen of my iPad with my students by connecting my iPad to my Smartboard either through an HDMI connection, or by placing the iPad under a document camera. Do I really want all my students touching my personal iPad? Not really. They are not concerned enough with the well being of other people’s property. And if you’re merely showing students the screen of an iPad, you may as well be showing them a traditional textbook. If they’re not the ones using it, the point of it being interactive is lost.

Ahhhhh…interactive textbooks. Again, the concept is brilliant. To have all my videos and exercises (with instant feedback!) in one place is a dream. But it’s a dream for a teacher. I have been lucky enough to both teach and facilitate several distance learning classes over the last three years. Distance classes can be great, and they do what Apple is proposing, but on a computer via a website. The biggest downside is the required Internet connection. The difference in our online course offerings, and the interactive texts presented yesterday by Roger Rosner is small. Each course is packed with links to videos, java games, and Flash activities (that will, no doubt, be replaced by HTML5 activities). Are the students more engaged with the material presented in their online classes? The average student is not. And the below average student simply needs a teacher to fill him with the information one to one. Just yesterday I had a student ask if he had to watch the whole video – referring to a 6 minute video presenting the Industrial Revolution. Really? I cannot believe that students will be more engaged watching a video on the iPad than on a laptop. And digital content won’t be changing for a while.

As a secondary teacher, I cannot speak to iTunes U. However, I have used it for my own professional development several times and love it. I will definitely be using it more often as a stand alone app.

In summary, yes, I love the basic concept of all Apple is doing for education. However, by making it all Apple centered, they are restricting America’s promise of a free and accessible education. The privileged will get Apple products and a better education, and those who can most benefit from a good education will be left out.

Alli is a high school teacher.

Leanna Lofte

I’ll admit that the Apple Education Event has left me feeling a little giddy inside. As an educator, interactive textbooks on the iPad, iTunes U on the iPhone and iPad, and iBooks Author all make me very excited.

I’ve spent a little time in a few textbooks in iBooks and I have been nothing short of impressed. When talk of these interactive textbooks first began to surface, I was concerned that they may not run very well and be a little laggy, but boy was I wrong! Content? Fantabulously engaging! Obviously the text hasn’t changed, but textbooks filled with multimedia such as slideshows, videos, 3D diagrams, and quizzes – definitely a game changer.

I teach at a small community college and will be doing everything in my power to get those in charge on board with iTunes U. I am planning to use a website for my courses this semester to post course documents and videos, but iTunes U does it much better than I could on my measly little website.

Last, but definitely not least, I am very excited about iBooks Author. One of my not-so-little lifetime goals is to write a Calculus textbook (yep, I’m that crazy), and iBook Author gives me some hope of actually achieving this goal. I’ve only spent a little time with the app, but have been able to do so much with it. I plan to actually start writing some mini books to have available for free as supplementary material for my courses. I have a real passion for teaching, and iBooks Author will help me be the better teacher I strive to be.

I know, I sound like a raging fangirl right now, but I truly am excited about all this news. Is it perfect? No. iPads filled with textbooks may not be in the classrooms tomorrow, but the first step to making that a reality has happened. Good job, Apple.

I’m also starting to believe those rumors of low-budget iPads may not be that farfetched after all…

Leanna teaches math at a California college.

Keith Newman

I’ve been a teacher for 12 years now, and I remember having a hokey tablet PC hooked up to a projector 10 years ago. Apple’s move towards the educational experience is breathtaking. I love what I am seeing and feel that the impact of such tools in the classroom is probably what education needs at the moment (besides parents who actually care, but that’s a whole other article). Motivation in the classroom is possible with old-school means but let’s be honest, retention is at its all time lowest for this generation. Apple is attempting to speak the “student language” in the classroom for the first time I can remember. It’s nice… it’s refreshing… it’s not going to work.

I’m not trying to be negative, but these tools in the classroom need SERIOUS monitoring. Remote Desktop is a must for me when I have kids in a Lab or have a computer cart; otherwise, it’s Twitter and ESPN videos all period long. As of now, there isn’t this type of software to overlook iPad carts. It’s one thing for a student to not be on the correct page and goof off, that happens everywhere; now we are giving the entire class, whom the majority are doing the right thing, a tool to entice them to not be on the right page.

Cost is also a factor. Yes, I know we aren’t getting free iPads. Districts will have to spend that money upfront to save money on the back end. I understand. However… iPads get lost. They get stolen. They get broke. Each one costs the district $500 to replace. Students in my poor, urban school district do not have the money to replace an $80 textbook let alone an iPad.

I want to see this happen. I really do. But realistically it won’t happen with Apple prouducts. Their devices have way too much of a markup for this to be economically fesible in an urban school district (that is already in a financial crisis of $629 million dollars). I do see this happening realistically with an OLPC tablet that’s not as swanky as Apple’s but is far more accessible.

Keith is a high school teacher.

Chris Vitek

As an educator, I am really excited about the potential that eBooks have, along with the interactive potential of having textbooks on an iPad. I am happy that Apple has decided to push the envelope, and I am eager to see college textbooks publishers join in the effort. It looks like Apple has really tried to make the textbooks as interactive, engaging, and as learner-centered as possible, but a lot will depend on how strongly publishers pursue this. While I think there are some hurdles to overcome, I hope that with Apple pushing publishers and authors along it will only get better. I have seen some publisher’s attempts at interactive eBooks, and for the most part, they have been disappointing. If publishers and textbook authors can really use the tools Apple has provided, then I think that eBooks may be the future of textbooks. One thing that would be great to see is a teacher’s version of the book, that would enable teachers to incorporate the material into teaching lessons (such as putting material in a PowerPoint or Keynote slide).

With iTunes U (which I am sad to say I have never really looked at) it looks like Apple is trying to steal business from Blackboard. I will admit that I have doubts about online learning (I am a little old-school and feel that classroom interaction is an important part of learning). I do use online features to supplement a course, however, and will certainly take a look at iTunes U. I wonder if it can be integrated with school systems so that only registered students can get access to the course (I know our administration won’t want to offer all our courses online for free). But it looks like a promising option for online courses and for some course content.

Chris is an assistant professor at a Texas university.

• Complete coverage of Apple’s education event

According to livemint.com, a recent change in retail laws that will allow for 100% foreign ownership of single-brands may result in Apple expanding their highly successful retail chain into India. Apple has reportedly been in discussions with the department of industrial policy and promotion for some time and is “keen” to enter the market, but not firm plans or timelines are in place.

“They have not told us how many stores they will open,” the official said. “We have made the policy. The doors are now open.”

Apple Stores in Indian would certainly be a boon for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users in the subcontinent, likely allowing them direct access to all of Apple’s customer services, including the Genius Bar and One-to-One training.

Apple had no comment on the rumors.

Source: livemint.com via Fone Arena via iPhone Hacks

Rene, Leanna, and Seth bring you live color, commentary, and analysis of Apple’s New York education event, including iBooks 2, Textbooks, iBooks Author, and iTunes U. What does it mean for schools, for Apple, and for the future? This is iPhone & iPad Live! (Note: Show number has been incremented to reflect all previous iPhone Live and iPad Live podcasts — since they merged like Devastator!)

• Subscribe via iTunes: Audio | Video
• Subscribe via RSS: Audio | Video
• Download directly: Audio | Video
• Show notes

Hosts

• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)
• Leanna Lofte (@llofte)
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford)

Credits

You can reach all of us on Twitter @iMore, or you can email us at podcast@imore.com, or leave a comment on the website when the show goes live.

We’re here every Wednesday night at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern, 2am GMT, and our new companion show, Apps and Accessories Live is on Sundays, same Bat Time, same Bat Channel — at www.imore.com/live

For all our podcasts — audio and video — including ZENandTECH and Superfunctional, Iterate and Girls Gone Gadgets and more… see www.mobilenations.com/shows

If you haven’t already please subscribe to all our shows in iTunes and leave a rating. It helps people find the show and means a lot to us!

Thanks to the iMore iPhone and iPad Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

The (now digital) ink has dried on Apple’s education event, we’ve met the new apps, we’ve seen the new services, and we’ve gotten an idea of where Apple is heading when it comes to schools, textbooks, and learning. But just an idea. Like any 1.0 product, this stuff is the broad strokes and there are tons of details left for Apple hammer out over the next year — heck, over the next decade.

If you missed any of iMore’s extensive coverage, we can’t blame you — there was a ton of it! — but we will give you a chance to catch up. Below you’ll find links to Apple’s video of the education event itself, along with our live commentary podcast, and all of our hands-on videos, reader feedback, and quick takes on iBooks 2, Textbooks, iBooks Author, iTunes U, and everything else that went down today. We’ll have a bit more follow up tomorrow, but this is it for now. Put your feet up, grab a tasty beverage, and have at it!

Event & commentary

• Apple education event now available via streaming, iTunes download
• iPhone and iPad Live 276: Apple education event, iBooks 2, and iTunes U
• Teacher and educator reactions to Apple’s iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U
• Stock Talk: Why Apple’s textbook announcement matters
• Apple’s education event was just the beginning
• So what did you think of Apple’s education event?
• Forums: iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U

iBooks 2

• Apple announces iBooks 2, tackles textbooks and the education market
• Apple posts iBooks 2, Textbooks-centric education video
• Apple adds Textbooks to the iBookstore
• Apple to offer high school books priced at $14.99 or less

iBooks Author

• Apple announces iBooks Author for Mac OS X
• Hands on with textbooks in iBooks for iPad
• Apple posts iBooks Author FAQ
• iBooks Author EULA claims all paid content is exclusive to Apple

iTunes U

• iTunes U gets its own app, includes course syllabus, assignments, prof hours, and more
• Hands on with iTunes U for iPad

Related news

• iTunes 10.5.3 released, includes support for syncing iBooks textbooks

Following Apple’s iBooks Author announcement today, word started to circulate that content made with Apple’s app could only be sold in Apple’s iBookstore. Authors could freely distribute their work, but they couldn’t sell it elsewhere.

After digging through the licensing PDF, Leanna thinks she might have found the pesky paragraph in question, namely, section 2.B.(ii).

If your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions: (a) you will be required to enter into a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary) before any commercial distribution of your Work may take place; and (b) Apple may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.

It wouldn’t be unusual for Apple to exert this level of control over content, but that doesn’t make it any the less irksome. Given the pushback they faced following subscriptions, if this isn’t an error from the outset, Apple will need to walk it back and soon.

Fresh from the Apple Education event, Apple has posted the video they showed off highlighting iBooks 2 and their new Textbooks initiative. It starts off with teachers and educators railing against everything wrong about traditional textbooks — they’re expensive, heavy, immediately outdated. Then they go into full iPad sell mode. Fast and fluid navigation, beautiful graphics, and better, easier note taking.

While we’ve been referring to Apple’s next generation iPad as iPad 3, according to 9to5Mac Chinese accessory maker Chinee has gone and gambled on iPad 2S — not only the name, but the form factor as well, producing what might just be the first case for the unannounced, unspecified tablet.

Case producer “Chinee” of China has begun selling cases for a device that it called “iPad 2S.” The name obviously stems from the name iPhone 4S, where the S notes an internal technical specification update rather than a re-design. Based on previous “iPad 3″ rumors, the new tablet will follow that naming convention. The new iPad is rumored to look identical to the iPad 2, but it will be slightly thicker. The seller of these “iPad 2S” cases said its new products fit a design that is 1MM thicker than the iPad 2′s form-factor. The case maker also claimed such design knowledge came from sources within Apple’s supply chain.

Having your accessory ready to go on launch day can make for much higher profits, but if they end up banking on the wrong form-factor — something that happened with iPhone 5 cases last year — it can cost them a bundle.

Even betting on a name on the packaging — iPad 2S in the case — can be a risk. The “S” in Apple iOS device marketing usually used to reduce expectations and push-back when new devices don’t look as significantly updated as their internals suggest, like the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4S.

With a 2048×1536 resolution Retina display boost, would Apple really call their 3rd generation iPad an iPad 2S?

Today at 10am ET, 7am PT, 3pm GMT Apple will be holding their education event in New York City, and we’ll be following on meta-live blog style, adding our commentary and offering color and analysis, right here on iPhone & iPad Live! Pre-game show will start roughly 15 minutes before the big event. If you haven’t already, go leave us your predictions before the show starts. Then hurry back here to experience it all with us!

No word yet on Apple streaming the event, which means they probably won’t be. Sigh.

Want to enjoy the show on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad? Be sure to download the Ustream app App Store link, and then search for “MobileNations”.

Click/tap here to enter chat

While CES 2012 has come and gone the technology shown off will have a lasting impact throughout the year ahead. As usual, Apple did not have an official presence, but also as usual iPhone and iPad accessory makers we boundless. This year, however, we began to see a real move away from the tradition protective cases, charging cables, and other, terribly boring accessories. When we geeks were the main market, all we wanted was the basics. Now that the mainstream is the main market, the basics are table stakes. They want to see what’s next, what’s special, what’s different. From the fun and frivolous speakers, copters, cabinets, and drones to full on automotive integration, to the oncoming wave of eHealth accessories, the iPhone and iPad are becoming the de facto interface for the future.

Amid Androids aplenty and a couple gorgeous new Windows Phones, it was still the iPhone and iPad that lead the way in consumer electronic accessories. For the iPhone a large part of that is uniformity. Case makers could cut one mold and use it for years on succeeding generations of iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, potentially selling millions of each one. With Android they have to cut a new one every few weeks as each new device comes onto the market, none lasting long or having anywhere near the individual unit sales. (One enterprising manufacturer resorted to developing a rubber-band mount they could use to attach the same peripheral to a wide variety of Android devices.)

For the iPad, even in the face of quad-core competition, it appears there’s still no tablet market. Just like Tablet PC never gained traction, the mainstream market right now seems to prefer something simple and intuitive like the iPad over the more desktop-like, even more powerful and functional alternatives. iPad 3 will no doubt raise Apple’s spec stakes, but also no doubt keep the device as accessible as ever, and that’s something no other tablet vendor with the exception of Amazon is competing against yet. Microsoft is coming, though, and if Windows Phone is any indication, they might just give Apple a run for their money soon in elegance and design. Who’d a thunk it?

And that’s just CES from the mobile perspective, from one section of one hall devoted to iOS. The show entire spilled through three halls and into adjacent hotels and contained more technology than any human — or even team of humans — could possibly see in a week.

Still, from the show floor and from back at home, the staff here at iMore checked out as much as we possibly could, and we’ve chosen our favorites to round up — our best of CES 2012.

• Complete 2012 CES coverage

Leanna Lofte: Lamborghini… no, wait, Olloclip

The olloclip lens accessory for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S was my favorite thing at CES. This little accessory attaches to the corner of your iPhone, over the camera, and converts the lens to a fisheye, wide angle, or macro lens. Rene and I used the olloclip while filming interviews on the showroom floor so that we could have a wider field of view while standing close and I was impressed with the results. I’m really looking forward to spending more time with the olloclip and seeing what kind of photos I can get with it.

• More on olloclip

Jared DiPane: Octa WhaleTail and Vacuum Dock

With tons and tons of things being announced and showcased at CES this year, one of my favorite things was the Octa WhaleTail and Vacuum Dock. Sure it may not be something that is used everyday but it was pretty awesome that they studied the comfort of an object in the hand and molded around that. With tablets increasing in popularity and models always changing it is convenient to have something that is universal and can work on more gadgets than one. Check out the post for more details and you may wan to snag one for yourself.

• More on Octa WhaleTail and Vacuum Dock

Chris Oldroyd: iCade

My favorite thing from CES 2012 has to be the new iCade accessories. The hand held iCade mobile looks awesome and if iCade can garner more app developer support, these things could and should be the future for iPhone and iPad gaming!

• More on iCade

Ally Kazmucha: Waterproofing technology

The announcement that really impressed me this year at CES was circuitry level waterproofing. Considering I run a repair business, I see a lot of customers come through with liquid damaged devices. It’s also my least favorite type of repair to diagnose. Most of the time several components have to be replaced and it’s really just a guess and check scenario. Not to mention cleaning corrosion off logic boards is not my idea of a fun Friday night.

After all that work, there’s still no guarantee the device will even be salvageable. While it won’t solve all types of liquid damage, it could save a lot of devices that come into contact with high or neutral pH fluids. But let’s face it – if you drop your phone in your morning glass of orange juice, this still won’t save it.

• More on waterproofing technology

George Lim: Parrot A.R. Drone 2.0

The Parrot A.R. Drone has always been one of my favourite iOS accessories. The fact that they were able to make it better by adding a 720p camera and by improving the stability and control, makes it even more awesome. Just. Wow.

• More on the Parrot A.R. Drone 2.0

Chris Parsons: 7-inch ASUS Transformer Prime

For a long time now, I’ve been feeling that tablets are all over priced. If ASUS is going to push out a premium Tegra 3 tablet for $250 that’s a big move and if they are successful with it — it could lead the pack for everyone else which ultimately, is great for consumers. Even if you’re not an Android fan, the prospect of a $250 iPad from Apple should be enticing…

• More on the 7-inch ASUS Transformer Prime

Georgia: Samsung Smart Window

Wake up. Yawn. Peak outside. Stretch. Lightly brush the window. And it turns into a video game machine! Well, maybe not, at least not yet, but what Samsung showed off to Ashley at the show is on of those bits of Star Trek tech that I just can’t wait to have in my home. Throw Siri on it and I’m good.

• More on the Samsung Smart Window

Rene: Automotive integration

Georgia totally stole mine. Luckily I anticipated this transgression and made sure I had a backup in place. Actually, more than one — an entire trend. Last year at CES when car companies showed off their mobile integration they were hesitant. They didn’t want to scare off consumers with automatous, automated, automobiles. This year they went for it. From Ford to Toyota to Mercedes to Cadillac to… you get the idea. All of our cars have computers for brains and more and more of those computers interface with the iPhone. I can’t wait until the day comes when I walk in and the car pulls my profile right from my iPhone, adjusts all the settings, and gets me where I’m going. And I bet the wait won’t be too long now.

• More on automotive integration

AppleInsider is rumoring that Apple’s education event will include a textbook initiative codenamed “Bliss”, inspired in part by current Apple board member and past Vice President of United States, Al Gore’s Our Choice ebook app.

The person who contacted AppleInsider indicated that Apple’s Internet software chief, Eddy Cue, is responsible for the distribution side of the new e-textbook initiative. But Rosner is said to be in charge of development of the editor used to create digital textbooks, as well as the reading software that will allow students and teachers to view the files. The person said the internal code-name for the project is “Bliss,” and said the software will allow publishers to make textbooks more interactive.

Gore’s “Our Choice” ebook app was built by Push Pop Press, which was subsequently bought out by Facebook. If true, the combination of iTunes/App Store/iCloud head Eddy Cue on the content delivery side, and iWork shepherd Roger Rosner on the content creation and consumption side could be powerful.

We’ll find out tomorrow. In the meantime, check out a video of Our Choice, and then hit the link below for all the details.

Source: AppleInsider

That’s right, we’re postponing our usual Wednesday night iPhone and iPad Live podcast tonight so that we can bring you a special edition tomorrow at 10am, where will be following along with Apple’s special education event in New York, and offering up commentary, color, and analysis both during and after the announcements.

So put your snacks on hold, keep your spicy drinks on ice, because we aim to rock your internet socks come tomorrow morning.

Time: 10am ET, 7am PT, 3pm GMT tomorrow!

Place: http://www.imore.com/live

If you’re browsing Wikipedia, Reddit, or some other sites today and notice it’s either blacked out or otherwise differently-functional, don’t worry, they haven’t gone down, they haven’t been hacked, they’re just protesting some wrong-headed U.S. legislation known as SOPA and PIPA (and I’d ask kindly they add ACTA to the list).

In a nutshell, Hollywood considers us all content thieves and their inexplicable hostility towards their own customers has caused them to expend tremendous time, effort, and money trying to get the U.S. government to cram through anti-consumer legislation that doesn’t really fight illegal and unlicensed content distribution, but sure does trample individual rights, fair use provisions, and in general the whole concept of due process. To combat this, people who actually know what the internet is and how it works have applied equal and oppositional force back, up to an including today’s black out. Fear of informed, engaged citizens has caused some politicians to rethink their support of these bills (though why they supported them to begin with should be a question asked pointedly and repeatedly come reelection time). But there’s more work to be done.

Intellectual property violations are real. More than a decade ago I walked into a store in Hong Kong and saw a book I’d spent years researching, photographing, and writing photocopied and offered up for discount sale. I’ve been creating content most of my life. I understand it’s value. It’s Hollywood that doesn’t — that inflates and infantilizes it, that makes reasonable protection impossible in the face of their unreasonableness.

The defensiveness of movie makers and music labels, of myopic media throwbacks, of technophobes and all but disintermediated middlemen should never be put before the rights of the people who — by the way — are the very consumers who buy their products and provide them the very money they spend to lobby for such insane legislation to begin with.

Apple broke this conundrum years ago with iTunes: Make things easily available and price them fairly.

How about we make that the law?

Source: Wikipedia SOPA and PIPA resource page, Wikipedia ACTA page

“Should I buy an iPad?” is a question we’re getting asked a lot these days at iMore, especially with the iPad 3 just around the corner. The holiday gift-giving season may have passed, but a lot of people who didn’t get an iPad are still looking at them, considering them, and wondering if they should get an iPad in general, and get an iPad 2 now or wait for an iPad 3 in specific.

Should I buy an iPad?

Apple introduced the iPad as a device that sits somewhere between smartphones like the iPhone and laptops like the MacBook. They believe the tablet form factor combined with iOS software allows the iPad to do certain things better than either the phone or laptop. These things include email and web browsing, watching movies and playing games. It’s not the phone you can easily carry in your pocket, small of screen but hugely portable. And it’s not the laptop you need to put on a table and keep plugged in, hot and noisy, and overly complex for most tasks. It’s a 9.7″ piece of glass that turns on instantly, lasts for up to 10 hrs between charges, and is easy enough for a toddler or grandparent to use, but powerful enough to delight geeks and gadget-lovers alike. Apple truly succeeded in changing the game — for the first time it’s not about specs, it’s not even about content, it’s about the experience. It’s about using it.

If Windows or Mac OS X frustrate or annoy you, and you just want something simple to use the internet and apps, you’ll like the iPad. If you want to be able to curl up on the sofa or in bed and read an ebook or watch a video, or often find yourself on a long, cramped plane or train ride and need to get work done, you’ll like the iPad. If you’re the creative type who just wants a clean canvas to record music, paint with digital bits, or map minds with your fingers, you’ll like the iPad. If for any reason a phone is just too small and a laptop is just too much of a pain, you’ll like the iPad.

Should I buy an iPad 2 or wait for iPad 3?

iPad 3 is probably coming in March. While Apple doesn’t always stick to their yearly product cycles, they stick to them often enough that a new iPad this spring is high likelihood. With a new iPad there come new features, usually at the same price as the old iPad. In this case, with the iPad 3, we’re probably going to be seeing a double density Retina display, meaning 2048×1536 resolution in the same 9.7-inches the current iPad uses for 1024×736. So text will look sharper, more like reading ink on paper, and graphics will look crisper. The pixels will all but disappear.

It will probably also have an Apple A6 processor. Whether or not that means quad-core, it will certainly mean faster — faster rendering web pages and much faster — and hence better — graphics. It may or may not offer super fast 4G LTE connectivity, and if you live in one of the relatively few areas that have 4G LTE, that might matter to you. It could also have better cameras than the current, rather pitiful iPad 2 cameras.

So if a new iPad is only a couple of months away, is there any reason to buy an iPad 2 now? Sure, if you need it badly enough now. If you need an iPad today, this week, or this month, then get it. If your netbook broke and you need a portable PC, if you’re about to leave on a business trip or vacation and need a way to stay connected, if you’re going to move from developing iPhone apps to iPad apps, if your child or significant other really wants one for his or her birthday, if your parents are about to be grandparents and you’d give anything to be able to place FaceTime video calls to them, get an iPad now. It’s a great device, it has tons of great software, and just because a new one comes out in a few months doesn’t mean your current one will spontaneously combust. Get it, be happy, and if the new one entices you, give or sell the current one to friend or family member and make the upgrade.

If you’re still on the fence, if you’re still undecided, check out the link below and then head on over to your local Apple Store or electronics retailer and try one out. Try out the web and the apps and the games. See how it feels and how it feels to use it. Then make up your mind. Chances are that within a few minutes you’ll find out if you should buy an iPad.

• iPad 2 review
• iPad 2: Everything you need to know
• iPad 2 forums
• iPad 3 news and rumors
• iPad 3 forums

“If you already have comics in a digital format, Comic Zeal is simply the best way to read them on your iPad.”

Comic Zeal is currently the best app for reading comics on your iPad. Whether you’re a member of the mighty Marvel marauders, a dedicated DC-for-lifer, or someone who prefers the alternative and independent sequential art scene, if you already have your comics in a digital format — especially if you bought those massive Marvel DVDs containing all the early issues of Avengers, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, X-Men, etc. in PDF — Comic Zeal should be your go-to reader.

While reading, needful settings are only two taps away

You can sync PDF, CBR/RAR, or CBZ/ZIP files straight over to Comic Zeal from iTunes via file sharing if you absolutely have to, and with Wi-Fi sync it’s easier than ever. I just drop mine into Dropbox, hit the Dropbox app on iPad, download them, hit the action button, and tell Dropbox to open them in Comic Zeal. It would be nice if Comic Zeal could hook into Dropbox (and other online storage pools) directly, eliminating a step. Here’s hoping we get that in the future.

Grid view and display settings offer powerful organization and presentation options

Comic Zeal also has a lot of great options for organizing and displaying your comics, including by series and in a grid, so you can more easily find the issue you want, when you want. You can choose between swiping or tapping — or both — to change pages, tapping or hitting a button — or both — to show and hide the navigation tools, and a variety of other features, including zoom. Alas, you there’s no tactile way to manipulate your comics (you can’t put them into “jiggly mode to re-arrange or delete them, or put them into folders), and turning pages lacks the iBooks-style animation and doesn’t feel as crisp as it ought to.

Sadly, even the built in help can't explain the lack of iPad-like direct object manipulation

The good

• Fast, well organized, good options and controls, and did I mention fast?
• Supports popular formats like PDF, CRB, and CBZ.

The bad

• Lacks iPad-like tactile manipulation and page turning.
• Lacks integration with popular online storage services like Dropbox.

The conclusion

If you already have comics in a digital format, Comic Zeal is simply the best way to read them on your iPad.

$7.99 – Download

Georgia, Rene, and Seth talk iMore (that’s our new name!) at CES 2012, Apple’s education event, supplier responsibility, iPad 3 rumors, and the return of the mute switch debate. Join us for the last iPad Live ever!

• Our podcast feed: Audio | Video
• Download directly: Audio | Video
• Subscribe via iTunes: Audio | Video

Show Notes

• iMore at CES 2012
• Apple announces January 19 media event in New York
• Apple posts Supplier Responsibility progress report
• 5 years ago today, Apple re-invented the phone
• iPad 3 on schedule for March release, might include quad-core chipset, LTE
• iOS 5.1 beta 3 reveals Siri dictation coming to iPad?
• iPhone marimba alarm tone stops New York Philharmonic performance

Hosts

• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)
• Georgia (@GeorgiaTiPb)
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford)

Credits

You can reach all of us on Twitter @iMore, or you can email us at podcast@imore.com, or leave a comment on the website when the show goes live.

For all our podcasts — audio and video — including iPhone and iPad Live, ZENandTECH and Superfunctional, Iterate and Girls Gone Gadget and more… see MobileNations.com/shows

If you haven’t already please subscribe to all our shows in iTunes and leave a rating. It helps people find the show and means a lot to us!

Thanks to the iMore iPad Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Hosts

• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford)

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPad Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Music Hear me Roar by iPad Live theme song contest winner, DieselJesus!

Lifeproof cases can protect your iPhone from impact and even water exposure, but what good is that if you can’t have a little fun? Enter Lifeproof’s new GoPro adapter and Bike and Bar mounts that let you do everything from mounting your Lifeproof’ed iPhone on your head, to your bike, to your waist so you can take it with off-road and off-ramp.

It’s an interesting move from Lifeproof but it shows that once you’re not as worried about dropping your iPhone or getting it splashed or muddy, a whole new world of outdoor activity and extreme sports opens up to you.

Lifeproof and their range of accessories are available now.

Source: Lifeproof

Popular iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad jailbreak tool, redsn0w has been updated to version 0.9.10b4 and now includes a fix for the iBooks issue that has long been plaguing jailbreak.

The b4 version of redsn0w incorporates the 5.0.1 fix for iBooks, and also for sporadic problems with launchctl. Thanks to @xvolks for merging the iBooks (sandbox) fix from @comex’s github into the overall corona untether from @pod2g! As usual, you can choose to install the fix either by re-running redsn0w over your existing jailbreak (de-select Cydia if you do that), or by installing the corona package from Cydia (it’s the same set of files no matter which way you choose).

If you need help, check out our redsn0w 0.9.10 how-to and our jailbreak forums.

Source: iPhone Dev-Team via @musclenerd

Live at CES 2012, accessory maker Incipio showed us their new lineup of iPhone cases, including their first cases made of recycled materials.

• Code is a three part case that includes interchangeable, shock absorbing, translucent hexagram inserts for extra shock-absorbing power.
• Le Deux has a padded aluminum backplate that provides a subtle, simple design with interter-changable parts for a customized look.
• Kross incorporates a mechanical shock-absorbing design and a Santoprene center to provide extra protection against drops and impact.
• Specialist is also shock absorbing and ready for rugged use, but is slimmer and sleeker for those who want easier portability.
• Eco Case is the traditional Silicrylic design with a new, environmentally friendly bio-plastics and recycled plastics materials.
• Hive Response brings the honeycomb look and extra-grip feel of Incipio’s iPad and iPod line to the iPhone in a variety of fun colors.

Again, we’re seeing case makers trying to figure out what they can do now that protection is covered and differentiation is the key.

Live at CES 2012, accessory maker Incipio shows us their next-generation Offgrid Pro case for iPhone. The big difference with the Offgrid Pro is that it has user-swappable batteries so that if you’re going to be away from power for a really long time, you can back just as many 1700mAh cartridges as you need.

The Offgrid Pro will be available “soon”, and will ship with two batteries, the charger, the case, and the band.

White Diamonds is continuing their line of artistically printed, Swarovski crystal emblazoned iPhone and iPad cases, and at CES 2012, they showed us just what they have in store this year. They fit both the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S now, and range from the simple yet elegant Arrow to the more elaborate pink grid.

Once again, it highlights how iPhone and iPad accessories have made the transition from utilitarian protection to fun, fancy fashion.

Source: White Diamonds

The International Trade Commission (ITC)’s Administrative Law Judge has ruled in favor of Motorola Mobility, saying the new Google acquisition and maker of fine, Corellian-styles Android phones doesn’t violate 3 of Apple’s multitouch patents. Scott Offer, senior vice president and general counsel for Moto, had this to say:

We are pleased with today’s favorable outcome for Motorola Mobility. Motorola Mobility has worked hard over the years to develop technology and build an industry-leading intellectual property portfolio. We are proud to leverage this broad and deep portfolio to create differentiated innovations that enhance the user experience.

Apple had claimed Motorola’s Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, Cliq, BackFlip, Devour and Charm infringed on tapping, swiping, and pinching gestures. What this means for the viability of the patents moving forward is unknown, but likely not good for Apple.

Steve Jobs considered Android a stolen product and said in his biography that he would spend every last dollar in Apple’s massive money bin to destroy it. Results so far, however, have been decidedly hit and miss. Still, the legal wrangling persists and no doubt the lawyers on both sides are already picking out new hypercars in anticipation of the next round.

Source: Motorola PR via Android Central

Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore has taken a red pen to IDC’s graph of the personal computer market and corrected it to include Apple’s iPad. The difference, of course, is striking.

2011 was supposed to be the year of the Android tablet. One year later, Android tablets have failed to meet expectations and for the most part have been unsuccessful. This year, tablets had a much smaller presence as vendors appear to be placing greater emphasis on Windows 8. We expect Windows 8 ARM tablets to ramps slowly as most Apps require rewriting for ARM-based tablet hardware. We remain skeptical that Win 8 tablets will gain much traction this year (App rewrites take time / developer ecosystem support). As a result, we expect the move away from Android tablet investment and a slow ramp of Win 8 tablets to create a favorable competitive backdrop for Apple’s forthcoming iPad 3.

IDC and other metrics companies have struggled comically with their reporting since the introduction of the iPad, classifying it as a “media tablet” and inventing a “non-iPad tablet” space (where, apparently, no one can hear rival executives scream). When Windows 8 tablets begin to ship over the course of the next year, they’ll either have to reassess how they handle the iPad… or come up with an even more distorted “non-iPad possibly ARM-based Windows tablet” market.

Source: Fortune

MacGenerations claims to have gotten their hands on an email to Apple employees, purportedly from CEO Tim Cook, which follows up the supplier responsibility report issued earlier today. It reads, in part:

Finding and correcting problems is not enough. Our team has built an ambitious training program to educate workers about Apple’s code of conduct, workers’ rights, and occupational health and safety. More than one million people know about these rights because they went to work for an Apple supplier. Additionally, Apple offers continuing education programs free of charge at many manufacturing sites in China. More than 60,000 workers have enrolled in classes to learn business, entrepreneurial skills or English.

Read it in full via the link below.

Source: MacGenerations

While we often complain about Apple’s over-curation of the App Store, here’s a cautionary tale about what happens when a $500 BlackBerry App World “app” meets a CrackBerry.com founder left alone in Vegas without adult supervision.

I’ll save the back story of how I decided I needed to buy the app for our next CrackBerry Podcast (for now let’s just say I was triple dog dared into it), but buy it I did. And you know what they say, What happens in Vegas ends up on Youtube, so check out the video above to see this Limited Edition desktop clock app get purchased and installed onto my BlackBerry Bold 9900. While at the time of purchase I thought this was the most expensive app in App World, turns out there are quite a few overpriced clock apps in there. And while I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in the world to have bought the Cesar HQ app, looking at the other clock apps I discovered one review by another person on another $600 clock app, so it looks like there is at least one other sucker out there.

Apple yanked the notorious I Am Rich app from the App Store a short time after it launched and has made it a policy not to allow similar apps since. While RIM evidently doesn’t enforce similar restrictions, and it was nice of Kevin to single-handily double App World sales last night, bottom line, Adam is never allowed leaving Vegas before Kevin does again.

Source: CrackBerry.com

Bloomberg is reporting that Apple has begun production of the iPad 3 for an expected March 2012 release.

[iPad 3] will sport a high-definition screen, run a faster processor and work with next-generation wireless networks, according to three people familiar with the product. [..] The tablet will use a quad-core chip, an enhancement that lets users jump more quickly between applications, two of the people said.

The March date is spot on, and the 2042×1536 Retina display screen is an easy bet at this point. Apple could go quad-core with the A6 chipset as competing tablets have recently done, but Apple’s integrated hardware/software approach has thus far let them do more with less.

LTE still feels like a wildcard to me. While Verizon has better deployment and AT&T is starting to ramp up, Sprint and T-Mobile are behind and international carriers are hit and miss (and just like 3G GSM, frequencies are not always compatible).

The Retina display and A6 alone will make for a compelling upgrade, but for those in LTE areas, it could make it a no brainer.

Source: Bloomberg

With our shiny new iMore name comes a shiny new YouTube account — iMoreVideo — but Google doesn’t let us just bring you over with us from the old one. Unfortunately, to keep enjoying app and accessory reviews, and some of the cool new stuff we’ll be bring your way soon, you need to subscribe to us all over again.

To help ease the transition and to thank all our subscribers, current and new, we’re offering you a chance to win $200 in iTunes money — good for music, movies, TV shows, apps, iBooks, and games!

Simply jump on over to our new iMore YouTube Channel and hit subscribe and you’re entered! That’s it! Nothing could be simpler!

Go, do it! Or I’ll sing again!

(And don’t forget to enter our huge Facebook giveaway as well! So. Much. Stuff!)

• Our podcast feed: Audio | Video
• Download directly: Audio
• Subscribe in iTunes: Audio | Video
• Subscribe in Zune

Mobile Nations editors Kevin Michaluk, Phil Nickinson, Rene Ritchie, Daniel Rubino, Derek Kessler, Simon Sage and Jared DiPane join Mickey and Joey of The Cell Phone Junkie to wrap-up the biggest events of the 2012 CES. Listen in!

Hosts

Feedback

Got something to say? Agree or disagree with something we said? Have something you want us to discuss on a future show? Don’t just sit there yelling at the screen, dammit, let us know!

• Email: podcast@mobilenations.com
• Twitter: @mobilenations
• Web: www.mobilenations.com

Credits

Our music is pROgraM vs. Us3R by by morgantj. Introduction by Joseph Holder.

Thanks to the Mobile Nations network of store for sponsoring this podcast.

I’m still at CES 2012 with the rest of the Mobile Nations team, so there won’t be an iPhone or iPad Live tonight. However, to follow up on our CES Kickoff podcast from Monday night, we’ll be doing another special edition later this very evening.

We’ll also be making some big announcements about our iMore podcasts really soon, so stay tuned!

Not at CES 2012 but wish you could check out all the cool iPhone and iPad accessories? We got you covered! Here’s a lightning fast tour of the main iPhone and iPad booths. Give us a couple minutes, we’ll give you the show. Ish.

According to Jim Dalrymple of The Loop, Apple has sent out the above invitation to a special media event to be held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City on January 19.

Join us for an education announcement in the Big Apple.

No word yet on the exact agenda but rumors have circulated that it may involve text books, easier iBooks publication, iTunes U, and other related initiatives.

Source: The Loop

iCade by Ion, which made the Bluetooth arcade cabinet case for iPad a reality last year, has come back with three new versions for CES 2012, the iCade Core, iCade Mobile, and iCade Jr.

• iCade Core strips away the cabinet to give you just the controls — joystick and buttons — you need to get your iPad game on.
• iCade Mobile turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a full PSP-style handheld gaming console fit for any button masher
• iCade Jr. brings the traditional iCade look and feel — only smaller and cuter — to the iPhone and iPod touch.

Coming this spring, for $89, $79, and $49 respectively.

Live from CES 2010 we talk with Jawbone about the past, present, and future of their highly portable, enormously entertaining JAMBOX.

• iMore JAMBOX giveaway — Like our new Facebook page now for your chance to win one free!

Not content with merely making some of the best Bluetooth headsets and wireless speakers in the business, Jawbone expanded their product line this year with the Jawbone UP. A small, light bracelet, you wear it around your wrist and along with an iPhone companion app, it keeps track of how you’re sleeping, how much exercise you’re doing, and what you’re eating.

Live at CES 2012 we talk to Jawbone about the future of UP, the updated they’re pushing out, and why they feel mobile lifestyles encompass more than the traditional product lines.

• Jawbone UP app — Free — App Store link

• Our podcast feed: Audio | Video
• Download directly: Audio
• Subscribe in iTunes: Audio | Video
• Subscribe in Zune

Mobile Nations teams up with The Cell Phone Junkie to talk CES 2012 — all the pre-show news from BlackBerry, Android, iPhone and iPad, and Windows Phone including Playbook OS 2.0, 18 new Android devices — today! — Apple’s non-presence, and the Titan 2 and Nokia Lumia 900. Listen in!

Hosts

Feedback

Got something to say? Agree or disagree with something we said? Have something you want us to discuss on a future show? Don’t just sit there yelling at the screen, dammit, let us know!

• Email: podcast@mobilenations.com
• Twitter: @mobilenations
• Web: www.mobilenations.com

Credits

Our music is pROgraM vs. Us3R by by morgantj. Introduction by Joseph Holder.

Thanks to the Mobile Nations network of store for sponsoring this podcast.

While Nuance can’t comment about any relationship with Apple, it’s widely believed their technology powers the voice recognition and dictation behind Siri, the iPhone 4S artificial assistant. It also powers several of their own apps in the iPhone and iPad App Store, including the industry leading Dragon Dictation and the new Dragon Go.

Live from CES 2012, we talk to Nuance about the current state of voice recognition, how it’s helping to re-define mobile, and where it’s heading in the future.

• Dragon Dictation – Free – App Store link
• Dragon Go – Free App Store link

It might look like a drop ship but the A.R.Drone 2.0 is really Parrot’s re-invention of the original, show-stealing iPhone and iPad controlled air ship. This one ads a 720p camera to the mix, has the ability to go much higher than the original, and can be kept steady or tilted far more easily.

All of that combines to make the A.R.Drone 2.0 a fairly amazing airborne camera perfect for fly by shots, or just fun and games.

Check out the video above, live from CES 2012 and hit the link below for more.

Source: Parrot.com

5 years ago today, Steve Jobs took to the Macworld 2007 stage and introduced 3 new products — a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communicator. An iPod, a phone, an internet communicator. We got it. They weren’t 3 seperate devices. They were one device.

They called it iPhone.

Rather than banning iPhones from the car, the way the National Transportation Safety Board recommended, iOnRoad by Picitup aims to use mobile technology to keep you safe and sound behind the wheel. It uses the live camera stream and image detection to monitor for tailgating, cars slowing ahead of you, or lane drift, and sends visual and audio alerts to get you back to the proper distance, speed, and lane where you belong.

With a big, easy-to-tap interface iOnRoad has a bevy of features to help you with everything from your daily commute to occasional road trip. Check out the video above for our live interview from CES 2012 with Pictitup CEO, Alon Atsmon.

Already available for Android, iOnRoad is coming soon to the App Store for iPhone and iPad.

Source: iOnRoad.com

Netflix is now available in the UK, and that means it’s now available for iPhone and iPad in the UK App Store (and Android too). One month of service will run you £5.99 which isn’t too far off the US or Canadian prices.

Content is… content. It sounds like it’s okay at launch but stuff will come, stuff will go, so if you see something you like, start watching it now.

It’s a universal binary, so if you’re in the UK and you try it out, let us know how it works for you.

• App Store link

Marc, Seth, and Rene iterate about the Windows 8 app store, Twitter 4.0, and Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich multitouch tracking, and interrogate Global Moxie’s Josh Clark about the future of gesture-based interfaces. This is Iterate!

• Our podcast feed
• Download Directly
• Subscribe via iTunes

• Window Store announced. Has some great rules that favour developers and customers alike
• New new Twitter, iOS app, Android app, website etc
  
  • Brent Simmons’ take
  • Mike Rundle’s take
  • John Gruber’s take
  • Ross Rader’s take

• Josh Clark of the Global Moxie

Hosts

• Marc Edwards (@marcedwards) of Bjango
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford) of Nickelfish
• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) of TiPb.com

Feedback

• Email: podcast@iterate.tv
• Twitter: @iteratetv
• Facebook: Iterate page

If you’re one of the best-of-the-best-of-the-best in mobile design for Android, BlackBerry, iOS, webOS, or Windows Phone, we’d love to get you on the show, or if you’ve found a drop-dead gorgeous app on any platform and really want us to talk about it, contact us and let us know.