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Dear Aunt TUAW,

Has there been any information on the likely storage capacity of the “iPad 3?” Is it likely to keep the 16/32/64 paradigm, or might we see a doubling at current prices of $499/$599/$699?

Your loving nephew,

Dave

Dear Dave,

Auntie rather doubts that the storage options are going to change this time, especially if we continue seeing the current price points for retail. The iSuppli iPad 2 teardown indicates that there’s flexibility in costing for storage expansion, but Auntie isn’t counting on it. That’s because she feels that other component enhancements will put pressure on keeping current prices.

Instead, Auntie is looking forward to better onboard technology such as an improved chip and display. There isn’t much broken in the current iPad 2 — it’s an absolutely brilliant device — and the iPad 3 will likely offer much the same in terms of geometry, storage, and price. If anything, Auntie is hoping for slightly better cameras and speakers. The current camera is so grainy — Apple doesn’t really need to go for more pixels, just slightly better sensing.

The cumulative effect of the anticipated component upgrades, especially the CPU and screen, represents a big jump in cost — enough so that Apple may find it hard to stay at the current price points even leaving aside storage differentials. That’s why she’s betting that the storage won’t change.

Of course, Auntie is happy to be proven wrong and hopefully we’ll know the answer in a month or two.

Hugs,

Auntie T.

Dear Aunt TUAW: Will the iPad 3 double its memory options? originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today would have been Steve Jobs’s 57th birthday. In memoriam of the man who inspired us to think different, we’ve assembled a few of Jobs’s most memorable moments. Get out the tissues as we remember the life and achievements of the Apple co-founder in the videos below. For even more memories, you can visit the Computer History Museum’s tribute page to Steve Jobs, the Ultimate Steve Jobs Collection and Folklore.

Steve Jobs introduces the Mac

Steve Jobs talks about thinking differently after his return to Apple

Steve Jobs and the Death of Mac OS 9

Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

Steve Jobs visits a Palo Alto store in 2007

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates on stage together at AllThingsD 2007

Steve Jobs: One More Thing

And Boom!

Steve Jobs’s Funniest Moments

It’s the 57th anniversary of Steve Jobs’s birth originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The touchscreen keyboards on Apple’s iOS devices are great space savers, as they’re never around when you don’t need them. For all the great leaps forward Apple has made with Multi-Touch technology over the past five years in both its iOS devices and Mac touchpads, its physical keyboards still use some well-established and comparatively old technology. Apple has apparently turned its eye on the traditional mechanical keyboard and tried to figure out ways to shrink that down, too.

AppleInsider discovered a patent filed in August of 2010 that shows Apple is brewing up ideas to shrink its physical keyboards even farther than it has already. Current keyboards rely on a somewhat elaborate system consisting of a “scissor” mechanism that keeps keys suspended over a rubber dome switch, which when pressed, completes a path on the underlying keyboard circuitry, sending that key’s signal to the computer’s logic board. Apple has been thinking of ways to improve that system.

All keyboard design is fundamentally about a spring-loaded pressure switch completing an electrical circuit. When pressure is applied — usually via an intentional keypress, sometimes by a wandering cat — the switch completes a circuit and sends an input signal. When pressure lets off, the circuit breaks. Older keyboards relied on actual spring mechanisms, which is why those older keyboards were quite large, heavy, and loud (clackety clackety CLACK).

Some companies briefly experimented with membrane-style keyboards, but in a way those are almost worse than touchscreen keyboards; they have the same suboptimal level of tactile feedback to the user, but they also generally require more pressure to operate than a capacitive touch-style keyboard.

Apple’s proposed new keyboard design replaces the currently prevalent “scissor” style mechanical lever with a setup that reminds me of a device that pre-dates even the original typewriter: a telegraph machine. Like one of the old-style telegraph generators, the assembly consists of a key at the end of a long lever which, when pressed, completes a circuit and sends a signal. The support lever in Apple’s proposed design would be made of a flexible material with good tensile feedback to the user.

Design for an electric Morse key, patented in 1837

The upshot of this design? Traditional spring-loaded keyboards required a key travel of between 4 and 5 millimeters, with the “scissor” style setup in current notebook and portable keyboards requiring a smaller travel length of 1.5 to 2 millimeters. Apple’s patent allows for a keyboard that needs only 0.2 millimeters of key travel.

This obviously has implications for the design of Apple’s notebooks. So far the keyboard itself hasn’t been an especially important constraint on the overall thickness of Apple’s notebooks — battery design and the need to keep motherboards from spontaneously combusting has been more of a factor — but it’s not hard to envision a point where that 1.3 to 1.8 millimeters of potential space savings does indeed come in handy for an even thinner version of the MacBook Air.

Apple patents design for ultra-thin keyboard originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple was handed a setback in Germany recently when a court ruled in favor of Motorola in a patent infringement case involving Apple’s iCloud and MobileMe push email service. A new support document on Apple’s German website confirms the company is halting push email for its customers that are inside German borders. The document gives customers instructions on how to setup email to be delivered at regular intervals. The support page notes that iCloud email will resume its push behavior outside Germany, while MobileMe push email will be disabled until further notice.

This change in iCloud and MobileMe is the result of a lawsuit Motorola filed against Apple in April 2011. Judge Andreas Voss of the Mannheim Regional Court ruled that Apple infringed on Motorola’s European patent, EP (European Patent) 0847654 (B1). This patent describes a “multiple pager status synchronization system and method.” Motorola was awarded a preliminary injunction and exercised its right to enforce the patent by putting up a 100 million euro bond. Apple will likely appeal this ruling, but until then iCloud and MobileMe push email will be unavailable to those who live in or travel to the European country.

[Via Macerkopf]

Apple halts iCloud push services in Germany originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Desi Leaves Town, available on the App Store now, has done something remarkable. It surprised me. The colorful screenshot above might suggest that it’s a kids’ storybook app, but it’s not. In fact, most of the kids I know would find its story boring. Instead, Desi Leaves Town is an experiment that combines art, literature, and puzzles in a compelling way.

Compelling but not perfect. The story, which is based on a French novel, is sometimes hard to follow, with many flowery words. Some puzzles are confounding, too. That could be a result of the game’s style, but a few smarter design choices would make them more fun.

But even the questionable design choices are bold and interesting. The charming script is well acted, and the game’s absurdity (Desi is an aristocratic frog determined to improve his tiresome urban existence) is excellently counter-weighted by the heavy themes being dealt with.

There’s a lot to experience in Desi Leaves Town, a fascinating title that’s more than it seems. I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, but if you favor art and the intellectual, and are willing to forgive a few design errors, spend the $3.99 to give Desi Leaves Town a try.

Daily iPad App: Desi Leaves Town is a surprisingly elegant puzzle game originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OnLive Desktop originally went live back at CES earlier this year, and since then it’s been making magic happen on iOS devices everywhere, whether you’ve used it yet or not. The cloud-based service provides a Windows computer packed with standard software, streamed right to your iOS device, practically whenever and wherever you need it.

Seriously, if you have not tried OnLive yet, it is just as amazing as we’ve said it is. The gaming side of things will allow you to play all sorts of PC games on your Mac, and while the gaming app hasn’t yet been released on the App Store, the Desktop app is out and working right now. Go sign up on OnLive’s site and use it for completely free to see for yourself.

Back when the Desktop service was first announced, OnLive also promised that a subscription service was coming, and now it’s here as well: OnLive Desktop Plus is available on OnLive’s website as well. For the cost of $4.99 a month, you get priority access to the service, a cloud storage option (so you can actually save your files out on the server), the option to attach files to webmail services (so you can send them back to any computer you like through email) and a full installation of Adobe Flash to play with.

This also means that Flash is installed on the Windows computer, so you can pull up a browser on the cloud server’s Windows setup, pull up a Flash-based website, and browse Flash over the web, right on your iPad. There have obviously been solutions for this before, but this is as easy as it gets.

As you can probably tell, I’m a huge fan of the service — there is still a little bit of lag occasionally (and I unfortunately haven’t had a lot of luck using the service over a bad Wi-Fi connection, which really limits the possibilities while traveling, I’m sorry to say), but otherwise it’s very impressive to see, and it really opens up what you can do with your iPad in terms of playing PC games and using Windows software. If you haven’t given OnLive a shot yet, definitely try it out for free and see what you’ve been missing.

OnLive Desktop Plus out now, $4.99 a month for extra software and features originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CNBC was at the Apple shareholders annual meeting that took place February 23 in Cupertino, and you can read through detailed notes of the summit on its site. There were only a few official matters to discuss, and the first was whether or not the company would adopt majority voting for its board of directors, requiring a majority vote for each director to stay.

Shareholders decided to approve the measure, meaning board members would have to resign without a voting majority, but that ruling didn’t matter much; all of the directors were elected with over 80 percent of the vote anyway.

Other matters voted on included asking directors to further declare any conflicts of interest, a measure allowing for shareholders to set director pay, and another measure requiring Apple to disclose any political contributions. All of those suggestions ended up failing, with just a small percentage of the vote.

Finally, Tim Cook and his fellow executives took part in a presentation and Q&A. You can read through all of the notes on CNBC, but it’s worth recognizing that Cook definitely came out against Apple using its vast cash reserves to buy any type of content, whether that means picking up a record label or even buying access to sell TV shows or movies. Cook says that Apple aims to sell devices; while the board is still determining what to do with all of the cash, Apple has already spent billions on things like supply lines and components, and it will probably continue to focus on that in the future.

Cook also called Facebook a “friend” of the company and said Twitter has also had a lot of integration with Apple’s products lately. So far, feedback on that integration has been good. Cook also spoke about Apple’s passion for education and said while Apple does donate money and time to supporting education, the company primarily supports schools and teachers with its products and by creating services and devices to enable learning in as many places as possible. The whole event sounds like business as usual while Apple continues to roll on through 2012.

Tidbits from Apple’s shareholders meeting originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Having an App Store means never having to say “Sorry, there’s no app for that” — or at least not very often. With the massive success of the iOS App Store, however, there’s also a discoverability problem: how do you find the apps you need? Searching by name or keyword doesn’t always help, and some gems may be hiding just around the next page of results.

The search tool Chomp, available currently for both iOS and Android, aimed to change that equation. Via the company’s app or web tool, you can search for apps by what they do rather than what they’re called. A proprietary algorithm digs into the app descriptions, reviews and capabilities to figure out what makes an app useful, and then exposes that analysis to eager app searchers and would-be purchasers.

Such a capability, if it worked as advertised, would be very valuable. Seems like it does work and it is valuable, because our sibling site TechCrunch is reporting that Apple has bought Chomp. Chomp’s current deal to provide Android app search features for Verizon’s phones (awkward!) and its standalone app will probably go away once the Apple integration is finalized, according to MG Siegler’s post.

Like Apple’s past high-profile acquisition of Siri, the Chomp technology could make its way into a future version of iOS alongside the obvious integration into iTunes & App Store search. In fact, putting a Chomp backend behind Siri’s active assistance would be a natural synergy for iPhone users. “Siri, I need an app for web meetings that supports multi-person videoconferencing.” Easy as can be.

Update: Bloomberg reports the acquisition of Chomp cost Apple about $50 million.

Apple to acquire Chomp app search platform originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 21:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Protestors delivered letters to Apple Stores around the world asking Apple to re-examine its use of Foxconn production factories overseas. Apple decided (relatedly or otherwise) to step up its inspections of those factories, so you probably won’t be surprised to hear that protestors planned to do it all again. SumOfUs aimed to deliver a letter to Apple during its recent shareholder meeting, allegedly written by two factory workers who claim they were poisoned while working on the line.

The protest and the meeting were both held the morning of February 23, so hopefully the handoff went off without a hitch. Apple hasn’t officially acknowledged these protests, and I’m sure it would rather not have these kinds of claims bouncing around in public. Still, Apple hasn’t been closed off to the issue; the company often runs inspections on overseas factories and has consistently said that every facility where its products are built adheres to all standard regulations.

So far, all these protestors have asked for is to “reform working conditions,” but exactly what that means, or what form of action that might mean for Apple, is unclear. As long as these protestors remain civil and Apple continues to hear their concerns and act on them as best it can, hopefully everyone will do what’s right for any workers dealing with unfair or possibly harmful conditions at these plants.

Protesters aimed to deliver new letter to Apple during shareholders meeting originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to an NPD DisplaySearch report, Apple was the top mobile PC vendor for the fourth quarter of 2011 and the rest of the year — if you consider iPads to be mobile PCs.

In the fourth quarter, Apple shipped almost 23.4 million MacBooks and iPads, and over 62.8 million for the entire year. The NPD numbers show that almost 80 percent of the Apple totals consisted of iPads (18.7 million in the fourth quarter, 48.4 million for all of 2011).

The analysis for that final quarter of 2011 shows that when considering tablets alongside notebooks, Apple had a 59.1 percent share of the market. Amazon shipped an estimated 5.3 million units (about a 16.7 percent market share) during that time, showing the popularity of the Android-powered, US$199 Kindle Fire.

When looking at notebook computers only, HP was the winner, shipping 8.7 million notebooks in the fourth quarter. Apple was in fifth place behind Dell, Acer, and Lenovo with only 4.6 million MacBooks sold. NPD said that the numbers for notebooks were flat for the fourth quarter, while the year-over-year numbers showed sales up about 11 percent.

Apple tops 2011 mobile PC sales if iPad is included originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You’ll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what’s happening in the Apple world.

You can listen to today’s Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here.

No Flash? Click here to listen.

Daily Update for February 23, 2012 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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T-Mobile announced its quarterly earnings on Thursday and in its Q4 2011 financial statement, the carrier used the word iPhone seven times. In T-Mobile’s case, the iPhone wasn’t the bearer of good news, but the scapegoat for the carrier’s less-than-stellar performance this past quarter.

T-Mobile now has 33.2 million customers, down from the 33.7 million in the previous quarter. It lost 526,000 net customers in the last three months of 2011 and its churn rate climbed to 4.0 percent. When explaining these negative changes, Philipp Humm — CEO and President of T-Mobile USA — said, “not carrying the iPhone led to a significant increase in contract deactivations in the fourth quarter of 2011.

T-Mobile is in a tough situation. Even if it wanted the iPhones 4S, it couldn’t carry it because the handset does not support T-Mobile’s flavor of 3/4G. T-Mobile is the only carrier in the US which uses the 1700/2100 AWS band for its HSDPA+ network and Apple has not opted to build an iPhone with a compatible radio.

This might change as carriers start to transition over to LTE. T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon all own portions of the AWS spectrum and may use a portion of it for their LTE networks. If enough carriers choose AWS for LTE, then T-Mobile has a shot at getting the iPhone in the future. This is still at least a year away as T-Mobile announced on Thursday that it won’t launch its LTE network until 2013.

T-Mobile blames lack of iPhone for deactivations originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mac Rumors recently got its hands on a component that’s allegedly the display from the forthcoming iPad 3. After putting it under a microscope, the site was able to confirm that the display has a 2048 x 1536 resolution, double the horizontal resolution and quadruple the number of pixels on the iPad 2’s current 1024 x 768 LCD.

iFixit has been able to confirm Mac Rumors’ findings; Mac Rumors actually mailed iFixit the same display and let them have a look at it. iFixit confirmed that the display has the same overall dimensions as the iPad 2’s display (though the “iPad 3” display is 0.6 ounces lighter), and microscopic examination of the display confirmed a 2048 x 1536 resolution at 260 pixels per inch, far higher than the current iPad’s 132 ppi.

In its examination iFixit confirmed that this display features a different display connector from the iPad 2 display, so even if you could secure one of these displays on the aftermarket, there doesn’t appear to be any means of successfully hooking it up to an iPad 2 or original iPad. No surprises there.

iFixit suggests the new display’s ppi might be too low to qualify it as a “Retina Display,” while others have quite erroneously suggested that the iPad 2’s current display is already Retina quality (in spite of Apple never classifying it that way and despite the current iPad’s pixels being easily discernible even with my less than stellar vision). However, we did the math on this last year, when the iPad 2 was rumored to be getting a Retina upgrade, and the numbers tell a different story.

The only consistent definition Apple has ever given about the Retina Display is that individual pixels are indistinguishable from one another. This statement comes with several implied asterisks: pixels are indistinguishable for people with 20/20 vision when held at a reasonable distance. An Air Force bombardier holding an iPhone 4S four inches from his face is going to see those pixels easily, but his 87-year-old grandma isn’t going to see them no matter how hard she looks.

Running the numbers shows that this display would meet the “Retina Display” requirements of indistinguishable individual pixels for someone with 20/20 vision if held at a distance from the eye of 13 inches or greater. I don’t see too many people holding their iPads closer than that, so despite having a lower ppi density than the iPhone 4S display, the “iPad 3” display easily meets Apple’s somewhat fuzzy Retina Display qualifications.

Standard caveats apply: the iPad 3 hasn’t even launched yet, so this is all speculative. However, it’s worth noting that the iPhone 4’s display leaked through the same channel — aftermarket component resellers — months before its debut in summer 2010.

iFixit examines alleged iPad 3 display, confirms doubled resolution originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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