Apple

Apple iPad 2 online sales will start in wee hours

If you're in the market to buy an iPad 2 online tomorrow, you're going to have to wake up a bit early.

Apple this morning announced that online sales of the iPad 2 will begin at 1 a.m. PT/4 a.m. ET, many hours ahead of when the new tablet goes on sale at the company's retail stores.

The company had previously told customers that online sales would begin the same day as the iPad 2's retail release, but had not provided the start time.

Retail availability of the iPad 2 remains unchanged, with … Read more

Apple saves SXSW, set to open pop-up store

Austin, Texas, is one of the most civilized cities in America. Except, I am told, when the South by Southwest Interactive Festival comes around. Then, youthful hubris mixed with inebriation can cause the odd ego-laden fracas.

Perhaps mindful of the need to maintain peace and harmony, Apple has, according to the Austin American-Statesman, decided to open a temporary pop-up store in downtown Austin.

SXSW Interactive, you see, part of the broader SXSW music and film event, starts tomorrow. That's precisely the day that the iPad 2 shows off its diminished weight and post-dietary sleekness.

So you can imagine what … Read more

Analyst: iPad 2 could lead to glut of rival tablets

Demand for the iPad 2, which goes on sale tomorrow, could hurt rival tablet makers by sticking them with an oversupply of products they may not be able to sell.

That's the outlook of J.P. Morgan Research analyst Mark Moskowitz, who yesterday voiced his opinions in an investors report, which was sent to CNET.

In a race to catch up with the iPad 2 and gain ground in the tablet market, other manufacturers will rev up the launches of their own devices. But they could hit an oversupply bubble during the second half of this year, says the … Read more

IDC: Apple will continue to dominate tablet market

Apple's success in the tablet market in 2010 will continue at least through this year, a new report from market researcher IDC predicts.

According to IDC, 10.1 million tablets were shipped worldwide during the fourth quarter of 2010, easily overshadowing the 4.5 million tablets vendors shipped in the third quarter. During the fourth quarter, Apple's iPad secured 73 percent market share, down from its 93 percent share in the prior period. IDC found that the Samsung Galaxy Tab boasted 17 percent market share in the fourth quarter, well behind Apple, but ahead of a "number … Read more

SSD vs. HDD: How low will hard drives go?

Hard-disk drives are becoming so inexpensive that prices alone--seemingly improbable a couple of years ago--garner headlines. So, how will speedy yet pricey solid-state drives keep up?

Beyond the above-the-fold "2TB for $75" attention-getters, laptop hard disk costs have also been dropping like a rock, pushing mobile hard drives far below solid-state drives. The laptop market is one of the primary markets for flash memory-based SSDs, which are generally faster--in some cases much faster--than HDDs.

Case in point: the Hitachi Travelstar 7K500 HDD. The $64.99 price at Newegg.com not only gets you a 500GB capacity drive in … Read more

iOS 4.3 code hints at A5 processor in next iPhone

Apple released the latest update to its iOS operating system just this morning, and already savvy coders have found signs that the company may be testing dual-core processors in the next version of the iPhone.

The iPad 2 is the first iOS device to ship with the A5, Apple's new dual-core processor that succeeds the A4. The A4 had been released first on the iPad before making its way to the iPhone 4, then later to the iPod Touch and Apple TV.

Riffing off the discovery of the A5 processor's code name within iOS 4.3's code by Chronic Dev group member Chronic, iOS developer Filippo Bigarella found mention of "N94AP," a code name that would signify a yet-to-be-released iPhone based on past device code names. The N94AP mention was then linked up with "S5L8940," the name for the A5 within the iOS code.

Is this a definitive sign the next iPhone will sport a dual-core processor? Certainly not, but it would jibe both with last year's processor refresh pattern of the iPad's chip trickling down to other iOS devices, and advanced notice of other Apple products from within development code. That was most recently the case with the Verizon iPhone, which was referenced in iOS 4 code back in August, some five months before it was officially announced.

(Via 9to5Mac) … Read more

Microsoft knocks font size in 'App Store' trademark spat

Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs is a big fan of typography. Before dropping out of Reed College and starting Apple, Jobs took a calligraphy class that he's since attributed to the inclusion of various fonts that are a part of the Mac OS. As it turns out, Microsoft is pretty interested in fonts, too, so much in fact, that font size has become a point of contention in the legal spat between the two companies over Apple's attempts at trademarking the term "App Store" as its own.

In a motion filed this morning with the … Read more

New sports channels signal shift in Apple TV

It's becoming obvious that Apple TV is not a hobby anymore.

The company had famously referred to its set-top device that way when it premiered four years ago as a way of keeping expectations low. But with today's software update, Apple is being more aggressive about making Apple TV competitive with its set-top rivals.

As part of the iOS 4.3 update released today, Apple TV owners will now have access to MLB.TV and NBA League Pass. Both are subscription services for streaming live games over the Web, and like Netflix, which is already on Apple TV, … Read more

Safari 5.0.4 update addresses plug-in compatibility, more

Apple has released an update for Safari for both OS X and Windows operating systems that addresses a number of outstanding bugs with the Web browser. These include stability and page rendering problems with sites that load browser plug-ins, implementations of VoiceOver text-to-speech technologies, image effects, and other visual options. The update is recommended for all systems (Mac and Windows) that have Safari 5 installed, but be sure to back up your system before updating.

Specifically, the update fixes the following issues:

Mac OS X

Improved stability for webpages with multiple instances of plug-in content Improved compatibility with Web pages … Read more