Friday, June 10, 2011

The baby iPad is born

Did you know that the iPad was planned before the iPhone? But seeing an iPad prototype, Jobs said "this would make a great phone!" So they put the 'pad on the backburner.

It is  clear Apple knew they had something big...



Steve Jobs presents building plans to Cupertino City Council

That's going to be one kewl building. Holding 13,000 people, completely circular, most parking underground, and of course state of the art all through.






from Yahoo:

"There is not a single straight piece of glass in this building," says Jobs.
The grounds will be transformed from primarily asphalt to green. Parking will go underground and the CEO says Apple plans to almost double the 3,700 trees on the property. He wants to add apricot orchards like the ones he recalls growing up with nearby.
The structure will also be fueled primarily by natural gas.

They will supply their own electricity and use the grid as backup!

Personally I'd have said that in a building that size, it would not be visible if the glass panes were not curved. And it would be much, much, cheaper. But Steve does not do anything by halves, and they are having their own huge glass panes made, and they will be curved, dammit!      :-)

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Kobo and Barnes & Noble Offer New E-Readers

Kobo and Barnes & Noble Offer New E-Readers, NYT article.

The touch-screen (not multi-touch though) is the most important feature, an important advantage over the Kindle.
For now at least. Let's see what Amazon will dish out in the coming few months.

About TidBITS

About TidBITS, post on my main blog.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Buy books in the iTunes store

You can finally buy e-books in the iTunes store. At least in the U.S. so far.

I never got why they didn't do that from the beginning? Everything else had been shoe-horned into iTunes, films, TV-shows, audio-books, podcasts, university lectures, music social networks, dinosaurs, antique airplanes, parts for nuclear bombs... but e-books? Nah, need a separate app for that. Silly.

One thing missing yet, though: we still can't read the books on a Mac or PC so far as I can see. Need an iOS device for that. That has to change too. Even though I prefer an iPad for reading, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to read on my MacBook Air if that's what I have with me. It needs a table or stand, but otherwise it's a perfectly serviceable reading device with a very good screen, outstanding screen in fact, even better than the iPad's.

Fortunately Kindle already has an excellent app for Mac, so I'll just have to use that one instead of buying my books in the iBookstore...      :-)

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Apple says Yes

[Thanks to geekbeat.tv.]

True story: a guy had bought an iPad 2 in an Apple Store, but the next day he returned it for domestic reasons, most probably "are you crazy, we can't afford that!". Apple likes to know why any returns happen, so the stores report to them in each case. So this iPad went back to Apple with a sticky on it saying "Wife says No".
So somebody at Apple made a decision, and the guy got a free iPad shipped, with a note saying "Apple says Yes".

An Interactive Learning Tablet

An Interactive Learning Tablet, article/video.

Quite cool.