As we approach late March for the Wi-Fi iPad launch, Apple readies to ramp up marketing for the iPad and prepares Apple Store employees for iPad training. According to a new report on examiner, Apple Store training for the iPad will begin around March 10. The actual iPad release date has not been set in stone yet, but we’ll looking at a very likely March 26 launch. It was also noted that the 3G iPad may see an April or May release now, we reported that there may be an iPad shortage yesterday.
In addition, we learn that iPad commercials will start to air on March 15, with focus to show off the iBooks Store and the iPad’s capability as an E-Reader with the iBooks App.
Lastly, folks camping out for the iPad at launch day will receive a “special gift.”
According to AP sources, Associated Press is working on an app for the iPad. Unlike the free AP Mobile app that iPhone users are enjoying now, the iPad version is reportedly to be a paid subscription news app, generating content from Associated Press and 1000 other media outlets. The development of the new app will be led by AP Gateway, a new business division at AP that focuses on mobile platforms such as the iPad.
“AP Gateway will serve as the launching pad for new products and services from AP and other interested news publishers,” Tom Curley, president and CEO of The Associated Press, said in a statement. “It will allow the news industry to deliver the news directly to the consumer in a variety of exciting new ways.”
There wasn’t a mention of when the news app hits or how much users will have to pay, although it may be initially free to strike up interest at the app.
“The AP already has drawn up plans to charge for an application designed for the iPad, a 1.5-pound tablet computer that Apple Inc. is scheduled to release at the end of March. The price of the application has yet to be determined, although it might start free, according to Jane Seagrave, a senior vice president who becomes the AP’s chief revenue officer Monday.
Much like the AP Mobile news product, the iPad app will show custom packages of headlines, stories, photos and video from the AP and from newspapers and broadcasters that choose to contribute their content and share the revenue. AP members also could use the same system to offer their own iPad apps that show their own content.”
It goes without saying that the apps is what will make or break the iPad’s success. According to a report from The Sydney Morning Herald, The ABC (not to be confused with America’s ABC) has spoken with tech companies to bring content on the iPad this year.
It was revealed that Adobe was approached by the ABC to develop content for the company, seeking a similar partnership to the one with Wired. Even though Apple blacklisted flash technology on the iPad, it looks like companies are taking advantage of the immanent Action Script 3 to iPhone/iPad port.
”They think they have a lot of interesting content that they’d like to get out to tablet devices,” said Jeremy Clark senior experience design manager of Adobe.
Abigail Thomas, head of strategic development in ABC Innovation, confirms their talk with Adobe. No detail was given as to what The ABC wants to build for the iPad.
With iPad’s bigger screen and faster processor, iPad apps will be more sophisticated and therefore larger in size compared to the iPhone counterpart. In preparation for the launch of the 3G iPad in April, Apple has increased the cellular download cap to 20MB from 10MB for all downloads from the App Store and iTunes Store. Giving developers more flexibility for their applications.
Though very limited, one of the things you can do with the iPad SDK 3.2 is checking out its Safari web browser.
The geeky folks at 9-to-5Mac posted a video walkthrough of iPad Safari via the iPad simulator. The iPad is arguably a hybrid between an iPhone/iPod Touch and a MacBook, and the same thing goes for the refreshed Safari. When you pop open Safari on the iPad, you are presented with a fully functioning web browser that looks like something you’d find on a traditional computer.
As expected, Flash is not supported. You access the tabs in the tabs window, which has a bit of resemblance to the ‘top sites’ page from the full Safari. Another new feature in the iPad Safari is the “Replace” option when highlighting a word, offering a more advance spelling correction.
We know that the Wired Magazine iPad App lands in the summer, and subscription plan is still unknown. We’ve also seen a blurry concept video of it. But now with the official demo of the magazine app posted by Adobe above, you get a clear idea of how the iPad/slate devices revolutionize how you experience ‘Print -Media’ and even the advertisements.
I can’t wait to check this app on the iPad. Just amazing.
Symantec published a press release today detailing its upcoming Norton 360 iPhone/iPad app. No, it won’t protect your iPad from those pesky “viruses, Trojans, spyware, and other threats.” Nor will it “Warn you of dangerous downloads” with Norton Download Insight. But what it will do is give you access to your backup storage from Norton 360 or Norton online backup.
The beta version of the app is planned to be released on the App Store for free in a couple of weeks.
Although the app is free, you’ll have to shell out $79 for Norton 360 Version 4.0 which comes with a 2GB online storage. Alternatively, you can get a 25GB online backup account for $50.
There’s always other cheaper or Free options such as DropBox (2 Gigs Free) or MobileMe.
At TED on Friday, Wired Magazine Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson announced that Wired will be launching the iPad Wired Magazine App by this summer.
“Im from the media world, Anderson told the audience and as you may have heard, we have lots of questions about our future. The good news I think we found part of the answer. We think this is a game changer.”
The attendees at TED got a demo of the up coming application, which won’t look too different from the iPad Wired App concept that was shown last november in New York. (Below)
And according to a report by Cult of Mac, apparently, the working prototype was built on Adobe Air, which like Flash is not supported on the iPad, so either they develop a native /iPad App or port the app over from AIR via Adobe Flash CS5.
No word on pricing or exact release date, but the digital version of the Wired magazine will likely have a cheaper subscription plan vs. the print.
Always Innovating, the makers of the Touch Book, has successfully ported the iPhone game ‘Crazy Tanks’ on to their device. From the video, the game ran pretty smoothy with decent resolution on the Touch Book. iPhone apps on the Touch Book would be a great selling point, but Apple’s legal team won’t be too friendly about this at all, being that this is an iPhone App.
iPhone developers will also have to do some tweaking to the screen size and resolution to their app, especially games unless Apple plans to run all iPhone apps in an iphone-sized window on the tablet, which seems likely at this point.
Update: All iPhone apps are resized to fit the iPad.
Though very limited, one of the things you can do with the iPad SDK 3.2 is checking out its Safari web browser.
