Apple

You might have heard that last week, Apple announced the follow-up to its iPad, the iPad 2. There's a lot to say about the iPad 2, but I'm going to hold off until I actually get to hold one before I write about it. Below, however, is the promotional video that Apple put together for the iPad, and it's worth a watch, if only to see the extraordinary ways that they are being used around the world.

This morning Apple announced updates to their MacBook Pro laptops, and while some of the rumored upgrades didn't make it in this time around (where is my SSD boot partition?), the new systems are still an improvement from the previous models. All three sizes of MacBook Pro were carried forward (13", 15", and 17") with processor upgrades on the 13" and 15" taking the total number of possible prices to five, ranging from $1199 at the low end to $2499 at the high.

From the technical point of view, these new systems are exciting because they are the first Macbooks to use the newest Intel chipset, Sandy Bridge. Very fast, and with a new architecture that promises to make these new laptops blinding for most common operations, these laptops are the equal of most desktop systems for even processor intensive tasks like rendering video.

For the average user, two new features are likely to make the most difference. Apple has upped the resolution on the built in webcam, which promises HD video quality for recording and for apps like Facetime. The other upgrade is harder to get a handle on just yet, but promises to be potentiall important for the future: Thunderbolt (the protocol formerly known as Light Peak).

Thunderbolt seems to be Apple's next-generation connection, co-developed by Intel, and hopefully soon to be seen in lots of other laptops, desktops, and peripherals. It leapfrogs USB 3.0 in terms of overall connection speed (Thunderbolt starts at 10Gbps, USB 3.0 at 3Gbps or so), and in technical versatility (Thunderbolt is also capable of carrying video signal a la Displayport). More than anything else, it seems poised to change the way we deal with peripherals, since it has the bandwidth to be capable of being a single connection that carries everything; display, external hard drive, camera connections, and more. USB will still be around for a good long time, and it's entirely possible that Thunderbolt may end up being the Firewire of the next decade…really useful if you need it, but ignored by the vast majority of the world. 

Somehow, it looks like retailers TJ Maxx and Marshalls have scooped the tech world with the cheapest price yet seen for the iPad … $399 for the 16GB Wi-Fi model, a full $100 cheaper than anywhere else. No real word on how long this will last, or how many each store is getting, but this is definitely going to be your best bet for a cheap iPad for the holidays. In-store only, I’m sure, but definitely worth some phone calls to stores in your area if you’re in the market.

Apple pushed out an update today for the iWork 9 suite that patches a lot of issues within each of the apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote). But the big news as far as I’m concerned is that Apple added native ePub support into Pages, which means that you can use it to prepare eBooks for publication. Up until now, the only real option for full layout control over ePub was Adobe InDesign… . Pages support will make it that much easier to get your work into ePub, and onto your iPad, Nook, or Sony Reader!

From Aug 24-30, Kaplan study guides are FREE at the iBook store on your Apple iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch! Caveats are: the only way to access the iBook store is via the iBook application, which requires iOS 3.2 or higher. If you or your library have devices that meet this criteria (and if you don’t, you really should update your devices), go take a look!

Via: MBA Online

I’d apologize for the amount that I’ve been talking about the iPad here on Perpetual Beta, but it’s only because I really do believe that it has the potential to be a genre-defining device, something new that changes the technology landscape. I hope that you can put up with just a bit more.

Last night, the Apple press embargo lifted on the iPad, and several of the digiterati showed off the device, as well as posted their reviews. Here’s two good videos of the device, the first from Walt Mossberg, tech guru from the Wall Street Journal, and the second is a special edition of MacBreak Weekly featuring Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times showing off what he’s learned while having an iPad for a week longer than the rest of us mere mortals.

Things I think are really key for libraries: the consolidation of the various eBook stores onto a single device, the ability, for the first time, to really have a good experience with Graphic Novels on a digital device, and the all-in-one media consumption that the iPad provides.

Walt Mossberg Video Review

MacBreak Weekly 188: iPad Revealed!

More details emerged about Apple’s upcoming iBook app just a few days ago when the iPad preorders began. Two things were confirmed that will be of interested to libraries and librarians, I think.

The first is that Apple finally confirmed that you will be able to load non-DRM ePub books onto the iPad via iTunes syncing, in addition to being able to purchase DRM titles directly from Apple. This is great news for anyone who likes reading the classics, as sites like Feedbooks already have nearly all their titles up in Non-DRM ePub format. It’s also good news for booksellers who deal in non-DRM titles, as they will be compatible with Apple’s new “magical” device.

The second, and for my money, more interesting bit of info is that it looks like Apple is defaulting to allowing text-to-speech functionality, the same thing that got the Amazon Kindle into trouble with the Author’s Guild. According to the page linked above:

iBooks works with VoiceOver, the screen reader in iPad, so it can read you the contents of any page.

If I’m parsing this tiny bit of information properly, that sounds like iBook hooks into an OS level text-to-speech convertor, which means that the iPad may be a very capable device for the visually impared. I will be very, very interested to see whether the Apple VoiceOver technology is controlable at the individual book level, and whether publishers can choose to disable it for given books as they do for the Amazon Kindle.

 Here’s a demo of the sorts of ebooks that Penguin is developing for the iPad. Honestly, I find this a little uninspiring…really not very innovative. Let’s hope that other publishers can really find new ways of producing and presenting content.