Steve Jobs gave pre-release iPad 2 to President Obama

iPad 2

U.S. President Barack Obama revealed recently that one of the perks of his job includes having received an advance copy of Apple’s iPad 2 directly from Steve Jobs himself.

Obama revealed the fact in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulous (via NetworkWorld).

“Steve Jobs actually gave it to me, a little bit early,” he said. “Yeah, it was cool. I got it directly from him.”

Jobs may have had an opportunity to present Obama, a self-professed fan of Research in Motion’s BlackBerry phones, with the device at a dinner in San Francisco in February, just two weeks before the unveiling of the iPad 2 in early March.

The dinner included several other prominent Silicon Valley executives, such as Google’s Eric Schmidt, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Oracle’s Larry Ellison. A photo of the gathering shows that Jobs was seated to the president’s left.

In late March, Obama revealed in an interview that he owned an iPad and had tethered it to his BlackBerry smartphone.

Obama has indicated that he holds Jobs in high regard. Last December, the president praised him as an exemplary model of the “American dream.”

“We celebrate somebody like a Steve Jobs, who has created two or three different revolutionary products. We expect that person to be rich, and that’s a good thing. We want that incentive. That’s part of the free market.”

The two also met last year to discuss issues regarding technology, the economy and education in U.S.

After leading what some have called the greatest corporate turnaround in the history of the U.S., Jobs stepped down as Apple’s CEO in August, saying that the day had come when he could no longer meet the “duties and expectations” of the role. He remains with the company as Chairman of the Board, director, and employee.

Jobs has battled several significant health complications, including pancreatic cancer and a liver transplant, in recent years. Prior to stepping down as CEO, he had been on a medical leave of absence since January of this year.

iPad 2 dominates, as Android tablets lose ground

Apple iPad 2

Apple’s iPad 2 continues to dominate the tablet market, shipping 9.3 million units and achieving a 68.3 percent share of the worldwide market in the second quarter, IDC found. That’s up from 65.7 percent in the first quarter.

RIM managed to reach 4.9 percent market share for its PlayBook, which has been widely criticized in part for lacking key software like an email client and for having relatively few available applications.

The competition from Apple and RIM put pressure on Android tablets, which lost share in the second quarter, slipping to 26.8 percent of the market from 34.0 percent in the first quarter, according to IDC.

In the current quarter, Android will face even more competition, as people snap up fire-sale HP TouchPad’s. HP recently announced it would discontinue the TouchPad, dropping the price to $99. As a result of the subsequent frenzy that sold out the device in days, HP decided to manufacture an additional run of the devices. IDC expects nearly 1 million TouchPads to ship into the channel before the end of the year.

That means in the third quarter, TouchPads are expected to make up 4.7 percent of the market and that additional competition will further shrink Android’s share of the market to 23 percent, IDC said.

However, by the fourth quarter, without the TouchPad competition, Android should start growing again and will reach 25.9 percent, IDC said. By the first quarter next year, TouchPad market share will reduce to zero, IDC said.

Overall, tablet shipments reached 13.6 million, up by 88.9 percent in the second quarter compared to the first and 303.8 percent compared to last year, IDC said. The researchers have upped their forecast for 2011 to 62.5 million tablets, up from a previous expectation of 53.5 million units.

IDC also said that Amazon continues to lead the ereader market, with its Kindle taking 51.7 percent share, followed by the Barnes & Noble Nook with 21.2 percent of the market. IDC expects that significant holiday sales will result in a total of 27.0 million ereaders sold this year. It previously projected 16.2 million units would sell.

British Airways to give Apple iPad 2′s to cabin crew

iPad 2

British Airways has begun field testing iPad 2′s as replacements for the old paper manifest while also offering passenger profiles, live seating layouts and special food requests.

The airline has decided to make the move from paper to ‘pad in a bid to not only provide ‘better customer service’ but also to better equip the cabin crew.

The iPad 2′s are all 3G and have specialised software onboard which shows the full passenger manifest, where each passenger is sat and any special dietary requirements they might have. Not only that but the Apple tablets are fully laden with timetables, safety manuals and live customer service updates, meaning that even when the plane is on the runway, they’ll still be getting information sent to them.

BA’s head of inflight customer experience Bill Francis believes this is just the start however pointing out that ‘the possibilities for future development are endless’. At present it’s simply a trial with 100 staff testing out the scheme however BA is planning on bringing the tablets to all 1,800 senior cabin crew members in the next few months.

The Apple iPad 2 offers unrivalled versatility

iPad 2 Home Screen

One of the key features that is most admired about the iPad is the fact that it is extremely versatile and can utilise a wide selection of applications to enhance the user experience. The tablet measures 241 mm x 185 mm whilst being 8 mm thick and weighing 607 g in weight that utilises a dual core 900 MHz A9 processor in conjunction with its own iOS 4 operating system.

The unit comes with a 9.7 inch LED backlit IPS TFT display screen which is capacitive in nature and provides outstanding touch screen functionality and capability. The screen has a resolution of 768 x 1024 pixels, within which it is able to display an impressive 16 million colours. The screen comes with a fingerprint, scratch resistant surface, whilst an accelerometer sensor and a three axis gyro sensor are also incorporated a standard.

The unit comes in 16, 32 and 64 GB versions as well as Wi Fi only or Wi Fi and 3G options. In terms of connectivity the unit comes with GPRS, EDGE, blue tooth and USB connectivity whilst also offering, dependent upon the version, Wi Fi and HSDPA connectivity.

In addition the tablet provides a 0.7 megapixel camera which operates at 960 x 720 pixels and can also record video at 720 pixels and at 30 frames per second, or those who prefer video functionality rather than still imagery. One of the enhancements of the new unit is the fact that it also offers a secondary camera which is VGA quality. The tablet also comes with satellite navigation, a variety of games including downloadable options, a digital compass, a PDF reader, Google maps as well as an MP4/MP3 multimedia player in conjunction with a useful TV-Out connection.

The Apple iPad 2 3G 32GB White is one of the more popular options, with the alternative options being differing memory sizes and black rather than white. The iPad provides style, aesthetic appeal and a versatility that is unmatched in any tablet within the increasingly popular tablet market.

iPad 2 To Fuel Apple Tablet Shipments Growth In 2012

iPad 2

Apple may sell up around 55 per cent more iPad tablets in 2012 according to market watchers cited by Taiwanese news outlet, Digitimes.

These analysts reckon that Apple will sell 36 million iPad 2 units and around 55 million next year. Interestingly, last week, Digitimes Research estimated that 40 million iPad tablet will be sold in 2011 which means that next year, that number may rise to 62 million units, just short of the 65.2 million tablets that it reckoned will be sold this year.

Shipments of non Apple tablet devices, on the other hand, is expected to far outstrip that of Apple with a triple digit, year on year growth with Android tablets being the main drivers (and winners).

The arrival of a new generation of system on chip combined with the launch of Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich will fuel the growth in shipment of Android-based tablet PCs from around 20 million units to up to 45 million units.

The Nvidia Tegra 3 is likely to be the first member of the new generation of quad core SoC that will be launched from the end of September onwards. The chip is said to provide with five times the graphics performance of the Tegra 2.

Read more: http://www.itproportal.com/2011/08/09/ipad-2-fuel-apple-tablet-shipments-growth-2012/#ixzz1Udnkhegd

1time Airline to use iPad 2 in pilot’s flight deck

Pilots on South African budget air travel company 1time Airlines will become the first airline in Africa to use the iPad 2 tablet computer as an Electronic Flight Bag (EFB).

Apple’s latest version of the tablet acts as a paperless application which includes crucial information such as exchange/mail capacity, the most recent weather updates, passenger information and performance manuals, all of which would normally be carried in a flight bag.

The iPad 2 can also calculate weight and balance electronically and has been cleared by the American Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) as a device that doesn’t interfere with airplane electronics.

1time Airlines are only the third in the world to use the devices, after Alaska Airlines and American Airlines and has been cleared by the American Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) as a device that doesn’t interfere with airplane electronics.

“The EFB application for the iPad 2 is truly unique, and will help our flight crews perform flight management tasks more easily, swiftly, and efficiently. It also results in the creation of a paperless environment,” said 1time’s Chief Executive Officer, Rodney James.

An EFB is an electronic management device used onboard flights to simplify aviation operations and perform calculations such as fuel and performance data of the aircraft.

Apple iPad dominates Android tablets in enterprise markets

Apple’s iPad may be the dominant tablet in the consumer market, but it is also winning over the enterprise market at a much faster rate than its Android competitors.

Good Technology, a company that provides mobile device management services for many Fortune 500 companies, has revealed that 27 percent of the devices activated by its enterprise clients during the second quarter of this year were tablets. Apple’s iPad accounted for more than 95 percent of those tablets.

It is not an entirely surprising number, as many companies are now allowing employees to bring their own devices to the workplace and hook them up to the company infrastructure. “We attribute the large gap between iPad and Android tablet activations to the combination of user preference among our ?BYOD’ (Bring Your Own Device) users and large deployments of company-owned iPads, especially in verticals like financial services and healthcare,” said John Herrema, Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy at Good.

It is interesting that despite the availability of Android tablets like the Motorola XOOM or Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Android activations actually declined for Good’s customers in the second quarter. Good does not have access to BlackBerry device activations, like the PlayBook tablet, since RIM controls all of the back-end of the BlackBerry system, though it seems a safe bet to say that far more iPads are in use in the enterprise than PlayBooks. Good does anticipate other tablets catching up to the iPad’s seemingly insurmountable lead, but it doesn’t expect that to happen until at least 2012.

iPad sales are “absolutely a frenzy,” Apple exec says

Apple has been barely able to keep up with demand for its iPad 2 tablet — exactly the kind of difficulty every manufacturer dreams of.

“We sold every iPad we could make,” chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer said during Apple’s fiscal Q3 earnings call Tuesday. The company has around 1.05 million iPads in channel inventory, well below the company’s target range of 4 to 6 weeks’ inventory.

“Sales of the iPad 2 have absolutely been a frenzy,” said Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook.

Cook elaborated on iPad sales later in the call, saying that the company has come closer to meeting demand in the first week or two of the next quarter.

“As we stepped into July, we have been able to increase the supply further, and some SKUs in some countries are at a supply-demand balance,” Cook said.

“This is a good sort of problem to have,” he said.

Asked whether the iPad was cannibalizing sales of the company’s more expensive computers, Cook acknowledged that there might be some overlap but suggested that it was cannibalizing Windows PC sales more than his own company’s computers.

“We believe that some people chose to buy an iPad over a Mac in the quarter, but we believe that even more people chose to bought an iPad over a Windows PC,” he said.

Still, the company is now making more revenue from iPads ($6 billion) than it is from Macs ($5.1 billion), as tech journalist Dan Frommer pointed out.

Oppenheimer said that it’s not just a consumer fad, either, stating that 86 percent of Fortune 500 companies are deploying iPads, up from 75 percent of companies on the Fortune 500 list in the last quarter.

“It doesn’t appear that other tablet makers have been able to get any traction to speak of,” Oppenheimer said.

CNN live news comes to iPad

Live news coverage from CNN and Headline News is now available on iPad and mobile devices to subscribers of certain paid TV services.

Time Warner, which owns CNN and Headline News, announced today that its regular news channel programming will be streamed live over the Internet and available for people to view on their laptops, smartphones, or tablets if they subscribe to certain paid TV services.

Cable, satellite, and telco TV providers offering the service to their subscribers include: AT&T, Comcast, Cox Dish Network, Suddenlink, and Verizon Communications. Notably missing from this list are Cablevision and Time Warner Cable. Time Warner Cable is the second largest cable operator in the country.

The live TV streaming from these channels is available through a browser at CNN.com and on dedicated apps for the Apple iPad and iPhone. Time Warner said the service will also be available for other smartphone and tablet operating systems later.

The way it works via a browser is that people can go to the CNN.com video page and click the “Live” tab. Then they’ll log in through their cable, satellite, or telecom provider with a username and password. Mobile device users can download the CNN App for iPad or the CNN App for iPhone and iPod Touch (or update their app to version 1.2 for iPhone, 1.1 for iPad), and authenticate in the same way.

Time Warner has been at the forefront of the “TV Everywhere” effort that allows people to watch TV programming as part of their existing paid TV subscriptions on their mobile devices. The company has already been offering its HBO Go service to people already subscribed to certain paid TV services, such as DirecTV.

The idea behind offering TV content on multiple screens, such as tablets and smartphones, is to keep TV viewers subscribed to paid services by offering them more variety and flexibility in how they view their favorite programs and channels.

“A principle goal for CNN is to make more of our content available to more people on more platforms, and CNN’s participation in the TV Everywhere initiative is another step forward in that effort,” Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide, said in a statement. “We have long believed that our growth depends on keeping CNN essential and relevant to consumers wherever they are.”

But making content available to consumers in this way isn’t as easy as it seems. Some media companies have been battling paid TV providers over rights to offer certain video content on mobile devices. Viacom has actually sued Time Warner Cable and Cablevision for offering its content on its iPad apps. Viacom and Time Warner have suspended their lawsuit as they try to come up with a solution.

A big part of the dispute is that media companies feel they are entitled to additional compensation for allowing their content to be viewed on mobile devices, even when those devices are limited to viewing content in the home. Meanwhile, cable operators believe that their current licensing deals should apply to content viewed at home regardless of the device.

Media executives are also concerned that viewing TV shows on a tablet or laptop will not be counted as part of the current Nielsen TV rating, which is used to set advertising rates. Those issues are currently being worked out.

Pope gets tech savvy, uses Twitter on iPad 2

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a church Web portal using iPad2 and used Twitter for the first time to send the news about the portal on the 60th anniversary of his ordination.

News.va will aggregate news from various church departments across the world.

The Pope, 84, used Apple’s iPad2 to activate the portal and send the tweet.

The Pope’s debut tweet was on the Vatican news Twitter account.

The Vatican now uses social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter for religious purposes.

Earlier this year, Pope Benedict XVI had urged Christians to participate in digital communication, saying that it was not a sin to use social networking sites.

In his World Communications Address on 24 January, he said, “I invite young people above all to make good use of their presence in the digital world.”

However, he had added that it is important to remember that virtual contact cannot and must not take the place of direct human contact.

Clever case turns your iPad 2 into a netbook

Do you keep looking at your shiny new iPad 2 and wishing that it was more like a netbook? Well, you can stop sighing because the ClamCase will fulfill all your dreams.

The ClamCase is a clever little product which basically makes an iPad 2 look and feel a bit more like a netbook by acting as a stand, case, and Bluetooth keyboard accessory.

Of course, the product has been available for the first-generation iPad for some time, but now it’s received an iPad 2-specific makeover. This means that there are cutouts in the case’s shell which expose the back camera and built-in iPad speakers as well as integrated magnets which will let your iPad 2 know whether the case is open or closed.

Not a bad way to add a keyboard and hinge to your iPad 2!

iPad 2′s weight loss secrets bared

When Apple put the original iPad under the knife, it yielded a fetchingly slimmer iPad 2. IHS iSuppli shows how they did it.

“Thinner is better” is an Apple mantra. And the popularity of the MacBook Air, iPhone, and iPod proves that consumers agree. The iPad is no exception.

By shaving off a sizable 34 percent of the original iPad’s body fat–to 8.8 millimeters from 13.4 millimeters–Apple got the weight down to 600 grams, down 15 percent from 700 grams for the iPad 1.

How did it do it? The biggest reduction in thickness came in the iPad 2′s battery subsystem, wrote Kevin Keller, a teardown analyst at IHS iSuppli, in a research note today. This part of the iPad 2 is 2.5 millimeters thick, a 59 percent reduction from the 6.1 millimeters of the original iPad, according to Keller.

Read the full article here:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20043933-64.html

iPad 2 costs USD326 in parts

The iPad 2 costs US$6 more than its predecessor in parts, according to a research firm’s teardown.

The 32GB, 3G version of Apple’s updated tablet has a bill of materials (BoM) of US$326.60, while the original edition cost US$320 to make as of last April, according to iSuppli.

The analyst firm speculated that manufacturing would add another US$10 to the cost. The 32GB, 3G version is priced at US$729 in the US.

The Motorola Xoom, the Android 3.0 tablet tipped to be the biggest rival to Apple’s market leader, has a BoM of US$359.92, according to iSuppli, and is selling for US$799 in the US.

The most expensive part in the iPad 2 is the touchscreen, which costs US$127. The A5 processor is manufactured by Samsung to Apple’s design and costs US$14 – 75 percent more than the last generation’s A4.

Read the rest of this article:

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/251190,ipad-2-costs-us326-in-parts.aspx