Ipad

Apple has been challenging Google on many fronts this week — first with its mobile platform, then with its advertising platform. Earlier today, its developers launched the first volley in the battle’s third front, releasing the first public code for the next WebKit rendering and processing kernel that will likely drive the Safari 5 browser. With Google Chrome using a reworked form of WebKit, the Apple team did something that perhaps any other free and open source developer would be publicly stoned for doing, but which Apple might just have the savvy to get away with: It openly one-upped another developer’s open contribution. ...

Sure, that Apple-flavored brushed aluminum finish might work for most iPad owners, but what if you’re a unique snowflake whose extremely non-conformist identity must be reflected in every item of consumer electronics you own? Enter the folks at ColorWare, who want to help add some serious Technicolor flair to your shiny new Apple tablet. You can customize your own look and feel by picking your a color scheme for the back, logo and home button separately using the company’s web-based Design Studio. ...

The new release rental is officially dead. As expected, Netflix has signed new deals with Twentieth Century Fox and Universal Studios Home Entertainment — similar to its deal with Warner Bros. — that delay new release rentals by 28 days and add new titles to its streaming collection. Both deals go into effect later this month; Netflix will start the 28-day hold for Fox titles with Avatar’s release and Universal flicks with It’s Complicated. ...

Steve Jobs has just taken the stage at Apple’s iPhone OS 4.0 press event. Before getting to the anticipated product announcements, Jobs took the opportunity to highlight the immediate success of the iPad, which launched on Saturday. As of today, Apple has sold 450,000 iPads — 150,000 more than total sales on the first day. That’s a phenomenal figure on the hardware sales side, but Jobs wasted no time celebrating some the iPad’s software accomplishments as well. ...

Apple is hosting an event at 1 p.m. EST to unveil the next-generation iPhone 4.0 OS. Take a look at some of the features Apple might just unveil today: Multitasking *Last year, it was all about copy and paste; this year, it’s all about multitasking. While native iPhone applications like iPod, Mail and Safari can take advantage of backgrounding or multitasking (i.e., you can listen to music using the iPod app while playing a game or surfing the web), third-party applications can’t do this. ...

Today, Apple revised its iPhone Developer Program License Agreement to effectively ban the use of the Flash-to-iPhone converter. Throughout 2010, Steve Jobs and Apple made it very clear that they do not like Adobe. At all. They prominently left Flash off the iPad, instead promoting HTML5 at every opportunity. For some time now, though, Adobe’s had a tool to circumvent Apple’s ban on Flash for the iPhone and iPad: the Adobe Creative Suite 5 Flash-to-iPhone converter, which would have allowed developers to create apps in Flash and then port them over into iPhone. ...

Today, Apple unveiled a major update to the iPhone OS which is expected to reach iPhone 3G/3GS and 2nd/3rd gen iPod users sometime this summer, and iPad users in the fall. While the banner feature of this release is its multitasking capability, the announcement that Apple will open a web-based gaming network akin to Xbox Live and PlayStation Network has potential to be the biggest coup. Game Center lets users invite friends to play games, start multiplayer games through matchmaking, track achievements, and compare their high scores on a Web-based game network. This is a huge addition to the iPhone ecosystem which puts it on par with the two major home consoles, and actually catapults it past BOTH Nintendo’s Wii and its DS. ...

Qualcomm’s mobile broadcast television service called FLO TV existed for about five years under different wireless carrier brand names: Sprint TV, Verizon V Cast TV, and AT&T MediaFLO TV. But the carriers didn’t push it very hard, so it did not break through into the public’s consciousness. But then Qualcomm began advertising FLO TV on its own, with its own smartphone-sized pocket TVs made by HTC, and it looks like it is finally beginning to stick. ...

If you’ve updated iTunes to the latest version, 9.1, you may have noticed that iPad and iPhone apps are now separated by a tab at the top of the page. Switch tabs and you will pull up device-specific views of the App Store, which renders the entire experience a bit more elegant and better-organized than before. This is a slight change from the old method, which previously divided apps into categories like “New and Noteworthy” and “Staff Favorites.” There is a downside to the new design, however: If you are browsing a category of iPhone apps and want to begin looking at similar apps for the iPad, you have to start your search over on the front page. ...

It was only a matter of time before the merest of “iPad” mentions on sites such as Twitter would result in autospammed messages like this: These bots will fire a message claiming “we need someone to test and keep one iPad” (or simply “Free iPad here”) to anyone discussing the latest gadget to hit the streets, sending you to various promotional sites like the one below: ...