IT Director for a non-profit in Washington, DC. Man About Internet.
This was Apple's promo movie as shown during yesterday's event. I cannot think of one other company that I buy products from that does such a good job of tastefully promoting its own products such as this. And although I like to scold my wife from time to time by saying "you're falling for their marketing!", when I watch this video, I do not feel that it's marketing (of course it is) because I agree with it. Let's see Microsoft, Google, Motorola or HP do that.
Andrew Tait made a video of him upgrading every version of Microsoft Windows from Windows 1.0 to Windows 7.
Surprising many people with his appearance, Steve Jobs took the stage today at Apple's iPad 2 event to talk about the success of the first iPad and to announce the iPad 2. Rumors that started yesterday had suggested he might make an appearance at the event, but few thought he would do the whole presentation himself.
Jobs' first bit of news was to announce that Random House was coming to the iBook store, and that to date, Apple had sold over 100 million books in the iBooks store during the first year. During this same narrative, he announced that iTunes now has over 200 million user accounts tied to credit cards. It goes without saying this is their way of saying they have 200 million potential customers in their ecosystem for developers and content providers to sell to. Job also announced that, to date, the iTunes Store has paid over over 2 billion dollars to iPhone app developers in profits. He also highlighted the stat of having sold over 100 million iPhones to date.
All of this these business updates came before the big announcement of the day, iPad 2. He began his reveal of the iPad 2 by reciting a few iPad stats in its first year. Apple has sold over 15 million iPads in its first 9 months, which was more than every Tablet PC ever sold. Apple generated $9.5 billion in revenue for Apple during its first 9 month - again - April through December folks. Less than 1 year of time. Jobs was quoted to say, "and our competitors were just flummoxed."
Jobs next showed a slide on screen showing the App Store has over 65,000 apps for the iPad at the time of this writing. He then displayed a slide poking fun at the Android Honeycomb tablets with the number 100 on the slide saying, "and I think we're being a little generous here."
After a quick video that chronicled the first year of the iPad and is worth watching, Steve moved on to the reveal of the iPad 2. The key features are as follows:
iPad 2
* All new design
* Dramatically thinner - 33% thinner, 8.8mm down from 13.4mm (the new iPad 2 is thinner than the iPhone 4 which is 9.3mm)
* Lighter - 1.3 pounds (down from 1.5 for iPad 1)
* New curved sides
* Comes in White or Black
* Faster - A5 Dual-core Processors
* 2X faster CPU
* 9X faster graphics
* Same power consumption as A4
* First dual core tablet to ship in volume
* Video Cameras
* Front-facing camera, captures VGA
* Rear-facing camera, captures 720p HD
* Gyroscope
* Verzion & AT&T Models Available (separate devices)
* Same 10 hour battery life
* Same price points as the first iPad (Wifi: $499, $599 and, $699 & 3G: $629, $729, and $829)
* Ships March 11 in US
* Ships March 25 internationally
After finishing his list of features, he moved straight on two discuss two new accessories Apple would be releasing along-side iPad 2. The first accessory was a new HDMI adapter. This adapter is tailored for the iPad 2 but is also backwards compatible with the iPhone 4 and iPad 1. It, however, only does mirrored video output for the iPad 2. It's full feature list is as follows:
HDMI video out adapter
* HDMI mirrored video output
* Up to 1080p
* Works with all apps
* Supports rotation
* No setup or configuration
* Charge iPad 2 while using it
* Priced at $39
Steve then revealed their new Smart Covers which thoroughly impressed me. If you haven't done so already, be sure to check out the demo video of Smart Covers. These new covers are designed to be ultra-light weight and very utilitarian. Using magnets, Apple insures the covers align up perfectly on the device and snap into place perfectly. If they work as well as the demo video shows, I think that they will be a treat to use. It seems as if Apple spent more time designing these covers than most iPad competitors did the exterior of their devices. Smart Cover details are as follows:
Smart Covers
* Multi-colored
* Two types of material, leather and polyurethane
* Magnets grasp and auto-align it
* Adds minimal weight and thickness
* Micro-fiber lining cleans screen
* Wake on open - sleep on close
* Easy to remove or change
* Polyurethane priced at $39, leather priced at $69
Next, Steve introduced Scott Forstall on stage to overview the next version of iOS, 4.3. Scott wasted no time in listing the new features of iOS 4.3:
iOS 4.3
* Safari performance
* Nitro JavaScript engine
* iTunes home sharing
* AirPlay improvements
* Preference for iPad switch
* Mute for rotation lock
* Personal hotspot
* iPhone 4 only
* New apps
* Photobooth (universal - free)
* Facetime (universal - free)
* iMovie (coming to iPad - $4.99)
* Precision editor
* Multitrack audio recording
* New themes
* AirPlay to Apple TV
* Share your videos in HD
* Universal app
* Garageband (coming to iPad - $4.99)
* Touch instruments (Grand piano, organ, guitars, drums, bass)
* Guitar amps and effects
* 8 track recording and mixing
* 250+ Loops
* Email ACC file of your song
* Compatible with Mac version
Scott, Steve, Randy Ubillos (Chief Architect, Video Applications), and Xander Soren (Director of Music Marketing) showed off demos of each of these apps in succession. Again, if you want to see them in action, check out their demos during the Keynote itself. I think the improvements to iPad are killer. One of my problems with editing videos on iPhone 4 was due to the fact that the screen was so small it made video editing difficult. iMove on iPad 2 looks absolutely killer. I'm more of a still photography enthusiast myself, however I have the urge to try to make a nice movie on the iPad.
Am I going to buy one? Because my wife will likely read this, probably not.[^1]
[^1]: Is she gone now? Okay, good...yeah, I'll probably get one.
Maybe, perhaps, but the episode is well worth listening to. As Jason Kottke puts it, "I've never heard Ira Glass quite so on-the-edge-of-his-seat giddy."
The formula for Coca-Cola is one of the most jealously guarded trade secrets in the world. So we were surprised to come across a 1979 newspaper article with what looked like the original recipe for Coke. Talking to historian Mark Pendergrast, author of For God, Country and Coca-Cola, we were even more surprised when we found reasons to believe the recipe is real.
If you'd like to mix up your own batch of Coca-Cola, here's the original recipe and instructions.
President Barack Obama joins a toast with Technology Business Leaders at a dinner in Woodside, California, Feb. 17, 2011.
Here’s the full list of attendees according to the NY Times, LA Times and SF Chronicle:
Going around the circle, starting from the President's right: Mark Zuckerberg, Unknown, Dick Costolo, Carol Bartz , John Hennessy, Reed Hastings, Larry Ellison, John Doerr, John Chambers, Art Levinson, Eric Schmidt, Unknown, Steve Westly, and Steve Jobs.
Also posted to the official White House Flickr account, a photo of the President speaking with Mark Zuckerberg.
I missed 95% of the Grammys last night, instead allowing my wife to watch them for me. When Cee Lo Green came on stage though, she called me into the living room to watch. It's nice that artists who actually make enjoyable music still get to come to the Grammys too. Unfortunately the below video is not the complete song and has some sort of celebrity gossip talking head providing commentary but it was the best I could find. Enjoy.
