Apple has made it official! WiFi models of iPad are coming to US on 3rd April, and you will be able to pre-order it starting from March 12th. The 3G models of iPad however wont be available anytime before late April or May. WiFi model will be starting for as low as $499 for the 16GB version, while the WiFi + 3G model will cost $629 for the 16GB version.
In January this year, Steve Jobs unveiled the much hyped iPad to the world. He, however, was somewhat ambiguous about the shipping date which he mentioned as “late March” for the Wi-Fi version of the device. Since then, no further information about a specific shipping date or pre-order options were given. For the last few days though, strong rumors were buzzing the web-world that iPad launch has been delayed by a month or so. This unspecified production problem was attributed to bottle-necks at the manufacturer’s end. Everyone was worried why Apple was keeping so mum on the subject.
The all time hit - iPhone was launched back in 2007, followed by its successor models each year like iPhone 3G and 3GS. We also know that the 4th-generation model is expected mid this year at the WWDC 2010. By following the principle of "Bigger is Better", Apple recently introduced a new product called the iPad, which in a nutshell is slightly bigger in size than iPhone.
The newly released iPhone 3.2 SDK Beta 3 has revealed even more info on what is to come in the upcoming iPhone OS 3.2/4.0 for iPhone and iPad. In addition to supporting video conferencing through a front facing camera and external LED flash, the new firmware will also include built-in tools which will enable to do basic photo editing like crop and rotate directly on device without any third party app.
Just a few days ago, we posted a conceptual image of next-gen iPhone 4G which had video conferencing and iChat options. And now, 9to5mac has found out strong evidences in the latest iPhone 3.2 SDK for iPad which reveals the possibility of video chat/calling options coming to the future version of iDevices.
Apple has announced the availability of iPhone SDK 3.2 Beta 2 for developers to make sure that their apps are ready for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch when the WiFi only models of iPad are released in the last week of March. Members enrolled in the iPhone Developer Standard or Enterprise Program can access the development bits for iPhone OS 3.2 Beta 2 for iPad by signing into Apple Developer Connection.
Some second hand sources have informed TechCrunch that Apple is already working on a OS X based tablet which is scheduled to hit the stores later this year. This tablet in question will be powered by Intel processor, unlike iPad which runs on Apple’s A4 processor.
Mobience of Korea has announced a new portable physical keyboard named “smallQWERTY” for almost all kinds of touchscreen devices like tablets PCs, iPhone and iPads. The company thinks that soon when every other device will transform into a touchscreen as a standard for input mechanism, there maybe a revolt and folks would like a change. According to the company officials, their “smallQWERTY” physical keyboard solution will then come to the rescue.
Steve Jobs surely didn’t tell us everything about the iPad when it was unveiled last Wednesday. This must be part of his business strategy to keep some of these features for the future version of iPad, just like what they did with the original iPhone, iPhone 3G and then 3GS.
The birth of iPad on January 27 has created waves all over the tech. world. In a sudden and surprise move, noticed Friday evening by many bloggers, books from Macmillan, one of the largest publishers in the United States, have been removed from Amazon.com. The disappearance came in the wake of a dispute between Amazon.com and different book publishers that have been brewing between them for the last year or so. Macmillan, like other publishers, demanded Amazon to raise the price of electronic books from $9.99 to $15. Amazon expressed its strong disagreement reacted by temporarily removing Macmillan books. If this doesn't signal the upcoming eBooks/price war between Apple and Amazon? then I wonder what will.
