AllThingsD » multitouch

New iPad: A Million More Pixels Than HDTV

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 01:02:47 +0000

Apple’s iPad could be described as a personal display through which you see and manipulate text, graphics, photos and videos often delivered via the Internet. So, how has the company chosen to improve its wildly popular tablet? By making that display dramatically better and making the delivery of content dramatically faster.

[ See post to watch video ]

There are other changes in the new, third-generation iPad — called simply “iPad,” with no number, which goes on sale on Friday at the same base price as its predecessor, $499. But the key upgrades are to those core features — the 9.7-inch screen and the data speed over cellular networks. These upgrades are massive. Using the new display is like getting a new eyeglasses prescription — you suddenly realize what you thought looked sharp before wasn’t nearly as sharp as it could be.

Boosting those particular features — the screen and the cellular speed — usually has a negative impact on battery life in a digital device. But Apple has managed to crank them up them while maintaining the long battery life between charges that has helped give the iPad such an edge over other tablets.

Objects, like the trees in this photo of Glacier National Park in Montana that Walt made his screen wallpaper, look sharper on the new iPad.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t other trade-offs. Mostly to make room for a larger battery, the new iPad weighs about 8% more and is about 7% thicker than the prior model. That means the company can’t claim to have the thinnest and lightest tablet, as it boasted last year with the iPad 2. (It’s still thinner and lighter than the original iPad.)

I’ve been testing the new iPad, and despite these trade-offs, its key improvements strengthen its position as the best tablet on the market. Apple hasn’t totally revamped the iPad or added loads of new features. But it has improved it significantly, at the same price.

It has the most spectacular display I have ever seen in a mobile device. The company squeezed four times the pixels into the same physical space as on the iPad 2 and claims the new iPad’s screen has a million more pixels than an HDTV. All I know is that text is much sharper, and photos look richer.

If you already own an iPad 2, and like it, you shouldn’t feel like you have to rush out to buy the new one. However, for those who use their iPads as their main e-readers, and those who use it frequently while away from Wi-Fi coverage, this new model could make a big difference.

The optional, extra-cost, 4G LTE cellular-data capability made it feel like I was always on a fast Wi-Fi connection. I loved the photos and videos I took with the greatly improved rear camera. And the battery life degraded by just 11 minutes, a figure that is still much better than on any tablet I’ve tested.

Letters that seemed sharp on the iPad 2, far left, suddenly felt fuzzier when compared with the new iPad’s ‘retina’ display, left. (It’s hard to reproduce on a web page.)

Along with the unmatched collection of 200,000 third-party programs designed for its large screen, and the large catalogs of music, books, periodicals and video content available for it, I can recommend the new iPad to consumers as their best choice in a general-purpose tablet.

The exceptions would be people who prefer a smaller size for one-handed use, or those who find the weight a burden. While the weight gain was noticeable, I didn’t find it a problem even for long reading or video-watching sessions. The extra thickness was barely discernible.

For the weight conscious, and for those who can’t swing the $499 entry cost, there is an out. Apple for the first time is making and selling the prior iPad model at a reduced price. The iPad 2 will now be available starting at $399, with just one choice of storage capacity — 16 gigabytes. The new iPad can be bought in 16, 32 or 64 GB capacities, at prices up to $829. The optional cellular capability costs the same as the slower 3G capability, both up front and in monthly fees from Verizon and AT&T.

The Display

It’s not as if people are complaining about the screens on their iPads, a device so attractive and useful that Apple sold about 55 million of them in two years. But this display is a big leap forward.

It’s hard to illustrate on a Web page or in print how brilliant this new display is. You have to see it. Apple calls it a “retina” display because, at normal viewing distance, there are so many pixels per inch, the human eye can’t pick them out individually. This display packs 264 pixels into every inch, twice as many as on iPad 2. Overall, the resolution is 2048 x 1536, versus 1024 x 768 for the iPad 2.

My epiphany came when I placed my iPad 2 next to the new model, with the same text on the screen. Letters and words that had seemed sharp on the older model five minutes earlier suddenly looked fuzzier.

As I tested the new model over five days, I found I was able to use smaller font sizes to read books and email. The same photos I had enjoyed on the older model looked much better on the new one, not only because of the increased resolution, but because Apple claims it increased color saturation by 44%. One thing Apple hasn’t fixed: like all glossy, LCD color displays, this one still does poorly in direct sunlight.

The new iPad’s 4G LTE cellular speeds are faster than many home Internet connections, as seen in this speed test showing how fast it would take to download data.

The Speed

The new iPad is hardly the first device to use 4G LTE cellular technology, but it marks a huge difference from the iPad 2. On Verizon’s network in Washington and Austin, Texas, I averaged LTE download speeds of over 17 megabits per second, faster than most home wired networks. A colleague using a new iPad on AT&T’s LTE network averaged over 12 mbps. My iPad 2 running Verizon’s 3G network averaged just over 1 mbps. Of course, you can get a Wi-Fi only model, at $130 less. The base $499 model is Wi-Fi only.

There is another dimension to speed: the overall responsiveness of the device. The new iPad is just as buttery smooth to use as the iPad 2. Apple beefed up the processor, especially its graphics capabilities.

The Battery

Apple claims up to 10 hours of battery life between charges, and up to nine hours if you are relying strictly on cellular connectivity. In my standard battery test, where I play videos back to back with both cellular and Wi-Fi on, and the screen at 75% brightness, the new iPad logged 9 hours and 58 minutes, compared with 10 hours and 9 minutes for the iPad 2. Other tablets died hours sooner in the same test. In more normal use, the new iPad lasted more than a full day, though not as long as the iPad 2 did.

The Rear Camera

Like the iPad 2, the third-generation iPad has front and rear cameras. The front camera, meant mainly for video chats, hasn’t changed. But the rear camera, which was awful for photos on the iPad 2, and was estimated at less than a single megapixel of resolution, has greatly improved. It’s now a 5-megapixel shooter with improved optics. I loved the photos and videos it took, indoors and out.

Other features

The new iPad is the first that can be used, like many smartphones, as a personal hot spot — a base station to connect laptops and other devices to the Internet. In my tests, this worked fine.

It also allows you to dictate, rather than type, emails and other text. I found this surprisingly accurate. And Apple now has a brilliant new version of its iPhoto software that has been rewritten for the iPad, reviewed this week by Katie Boehret.

Bottom Line

Since it launched in 2010, the iPad has been the best tablet on the planet. With the new, third-generation model, it still holds that crown.

Write to Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Mobile Device That's Better for a Jotter Than a Talker

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 02:02:55 +0000

Lots of folks carry a smartphone, and, at least some of the time, tote a second mobile device—an iPad or other tablet. But some people might prefer a product that combines the two. Similarly, many have come to love the finger-controlled interface popularized by Apple, but might prefer at times to use a stylus, a common tool in the pre-iPhone days.

[ See post to watch video ]

Samsung is hoping to offer all of the above. On Sunday, it’s introducing to the U.S. a phone-tablet hybrid with a large 5.3-inch screen that uses a stylus as well as your fingers. It’s called the Galaxy Note and costs $300 with a two-year AT&T contract.

While the Note could be mistaken for a small tablet, Samsung insists it’s a phone that merely offers some of the roominess of a tablet. And in fact, it runs the last purely phone-oriented version of Google’s Android operating system, called Gingerbread. This product positioning may be due to bad memories of another company’s effort to sell such a ’tweener: Dell’s 5-inch Streak, which was marketed as a tablet that could make calls and failed miserably in 2010.

After testing the Galaxy Note, I have decidedly mixed feelings about it. It isn’t a very practical phone and, as a tablet, it can’t match the experience of the iPad, which is more spacious and has over 150,000 apps designed for it. However, I can see where some folks might consider the 5-inch screen a good trade-off for much better portability than other tablets, and Samsung has done some very interesting work in making the stylus, which is stored in a slot on the device, useful.

The S Memo app lets the Note’s stylus draw in different colors and to emulate a brush or marker.

As a mobile phone, the Galaxy Note is positively gargantuan. It’s almost 6 inches long and over 3 inches wide. When you hold it up to your ear, it pretty much covers the entire side of your face. You look like you’re talking into a piece of toast.

The Note is so big, an iPhone can almost fit within its display. And it dwarfs even the more-bloated crop of recent Android phones, like Samsung’s own Galaxy S II series, whose screen can be as large as 4.5 inches. And while it can fit into a large pocket or handbag, the Note isn’t going to slip unobtrusively into your jeans or a small purse. It weighs 6.28 ounces, nearly 30 percent more than the iPhone and nearly 50 percent more than some Galaxy S II models.

For people who use Bluetooth earpieces all the time, or who primarily use the speakerphone function, the Note’s size may not be a problem. But for the rest, the Note is just too large to go without a more reasonably sized phone, which defeats the one-device argument.

Voice quality in normal use was good. But, in my limited tests of its Bluetooth voice capabilities, the caller on the other end felt the Note sounded significantly worse than the iPhone or other Android models I’ve tested.

However, as a data device, I liked the Note a lot. Its screen sports a high resolution that made photos, videos and text look very good. It uses AT&T’s high-speed LTE data network, where available, and in my tests it was very fast. The larger screen enabled more of a Web page to be visible without scrolling than on typical phones.

Like all Android devices, it has fewer, and, in my opinion, generally lower-quality third-party apps than the iPhone. But those I tried worked well. The Note was consistently speedy and responsive.

The 8-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front camera both did a good job. Photos and videos I shot from the rear camera were excellent. But I found the sheer size of the Note undercuts its convenience as a camera and there’s no dedicated camera button or quick way to launch the camera when the screen is locked, as there is on some other phones.

In moderate mixed use, where I played music and videos, surfed the Web, texted, used email constantly and took pictures, the Note’s battery lasted more than a full day between charges.

Unlike Apple, Samsung allowed AT&T to load a bunch of its own apps you might not want on the Note, like a $10 to $15 a month program for locating family members via cellphone GPS. A particularly egregious example is a Yellow Pages app that’s jammed into the very top of your contact list.

Another drawback: While other Android phones I’ve tested can be plugged into either a PC or a Mac so you can manually transfer files onto them, I couldn’t get the Note to do this with either of two Macs I tested with it. It did work with Windows machines.

The stylus is a big plus, at least for users who like to jot down notes, create sketches or annotate documents in a way that’s much more precise than using a fingertip. Even on the iPad, which wasn’t designed for a stylus, third-party styli have become quietly popular, but Samsung has taken the idea much further.

The Note’s stylus, called the S Pen, can be used instead of a finger to launch and operate apps. But that isn’t its main purpose. It’s meant to work closely with a special app called S Memo that allows you to take notes or make sketches. These can be saved or shared via email or text messaging, or uploaded to sites like Facebook. They can include photos or typed text.

The software allows the stylus to draw in different colors and widths and to emulate a brush or marker.

A button on the side of the stylus can be pressed while tapping the stylus on the screen to bring up a light version of S Memo for quick notes, or to capture whatever is on the screen as a photo that you can annotate with the pen and send off to others.

Samsung plans more pen-oriented apps, and there are some games and drawing apps for the stylus. Some similar apps are available for the iPad and iPhone, but Samsung is investing more in the stylus and what it can do. For people who like jotting notes or sketching, the stylus alone could be a reason to buy the Note.

The Samsung Galaxy Note isn’t for everyone, and I can’t recommend it as the main mobile phone for most people. But as a stylus-driven small tablet, it might be just what some users are looking for.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Beyond Tablets: The Next Five Computing Form Factors

Sarah Rotman Epps — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:34:17 +0000

With the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2012 a few short weeks away, it’s a good time to look ahead at what’s next for consumer technology. All eyes have been on tablets: Apple sold 40 million iPads in just 18 months, with 11 million sold in this past quarter alone — phenomenal growth for a new form factor. With the Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet finding their own successful markets, it’s easy to see why tablets attract so much attention and excitement. But computing evolution doesn’t end here — tablets, while still growing rapidly as a category, are not the final form factor.

Product strategists in the PC industry are gearing up for 2012 to be the year of the “ultrabook” — very thin, very light laptops, usually with solid-state drives (SSD), that compete with Apple’s MacBook Air — such as the Asus Zenbook and Lenovo U300s. We agree that ultrabooks’ lighter, thinner form will appeal to many consumers. Already, 21 percent of U.S. online consumers say they’re interested in owning one, according to a Forrester Research survey fielded in September. But we see the ultrabook as an evolution of the laptop rather than an entirely new form factor. So what is the next big thing in consumer computing?

The “next big thing” is likely to be many things — we anticipate accelerating form factor diversification beyond the desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablets and smartphones we have today, as we advance deeper into the Post-PC Era. Based on what we see in research and development labs, new products beginning to come to market and gaps in consumer computing experiences, we’ve identified these five form factors as the best candidates for what comes next:

Wearables: Wearable devices, or “wearables” for short, are devices worn on or near the body that sense and relay information. Many wearables, like the heads-up display (HUD) contact lenses in development at the University of Washington, are years from marketability. But other wearables are already available as consumer products, for uses such as communication and health and fitness. An increasing number of wearables in the health-and-fitness space interact with Apple iOS devices, such as the Lark Technologies vibrating wristband that doubles as an alarm clock and a sleep sensor; and BodyMedia FIT Armbands, which have four sensors to track activity, sleep and calorie intake. WIMM Labs, a Foxconn-funded start-up in Los Altos, Calif., has designed multifunctional wearables, based on Google’s Android software, that it will license to other companies.
Embedded devices: We define embedded devices as physical objects that incorporate computing processors and sensors, excluding those worn on the body, which we classify as wearables. Like wearables, embedded devices are diverse in form, ranging from devices such as Livescribe smartpens that fit into your pocket, to LG Thinq refrigerators that sit in your kitchen. Embedded devices may or may not have a display — Livescribe pens don’t; the LG Thinq appliances do. Today, embedded devices are widely used in industrial automation and automotives, and they have emerging consumer uses in home automation, entertainment and productivity.
Surfaces: Surfaces are large interactive displays, which may incorporate multitouch, voice and gesture control, facial recognition, near field communication (NFC), quick response (QR) codes or other input/output mechanisms. Today, surfaces are found mostly in public places such as hotels (Microsoft Surface tables in Sheraton bars) and conferences and events (Obscura Digital’s custom multitouch video installations), as well as in education (interactive whiteboards) and news media (red state/blue state maps), but we see potential for additional uses, especially in retail and marketing. For example, retailers such as Victoria’s Secret have commissioned the design firm frog design to create interactive displays for their retail stores. In Seoul, South Korea, retailers use surfaces to extend their reach beyond their stores: Tesco Homeplus, the No. 2 grocery retailer in South Korea, built “virtual malls” in subway stations to reach more customers without building more stores. Commuters take pictures of QR codes under the groceries they want to buy, and the groceries are delivered to their homes.
Flexible displays: Flexible displays are computing screens that can be rolled, folded or flexed. Flexible devices can take the form of personal devices, such as an e-reader, or larger surface displays, such as furniture or wallpaper. Flexible displays are likely the farthest from becoming commercialized products because of the lack of a defined use case or customer: Polymer Vision, a spinoff of Philips Electronics, promoted its flexible eBook Reader for years, but declared bankruptcy before bringing the device to market. HP has been developing printable Mylar displays that it imagines could be used for candy wrappers, armband computers for the military or living room wallpaper, but the displays are still several years from commercialization.
Miniprojectors: Miniprojectors are small devices that project a larger image onto another surface or, in the case of holographic projection, into 3-D space. Miniprojectors can be combined with cameras that recognize gesture to become interactive, similar to the Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360. Today, miniprojectors such as the Brookstone Pocket Projector are gaining in popularity as iPhone accessories. But they’re still niche products, as consumers must purchase them separately. Apple has already filed a patent to embed interactive projectors into its iPhones, iPads and Macs. Embedded miniprojectors would appeal primarily to information workers, but there could be broader consumer uses as well, such as impromptu photo slide shows or YouTube viewing in a group.

It’s easy to read about computing wallpaper, or contact lenses with embedded heads-up displays, and think that these form factors have no bearing on what product strategists are doing today. But product strategists who see what’s coming can anticipate disruption — or even innovate and become disruptors themselves. As you think about what’s coming in 2012 and beyond, know that none of these devices will operate in isolation. The most successful products will work with other products — for example, wearables that talk to smartphones and TVs; surfaces that are activated by the presence of your smartphone. We’re living in a multidevice, multiconnection world, and the best experiences will be those that work across devices and platforms. In that sense, the next phase of the Post-PC Era doesn’t look so different from today.

Sarah Rotman Epps is a senior analyst at Forrester Research, serving consumer product strategy professionals. Follow her on Twitter at @srepps

To Steve, With Love

Nitrozac and Snaggy — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:36:04 +0000

Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site. (Click on the image to see a bigger version.)

Screen Industry Success Is a Touching Story

John Paczkowski — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 11:37:37 +0000

Here’s a truism: 2010 was a banner year for the touchscreen industry.

Driven by the steady proliferation of multitouch smartphones and tablets–one in particular–the worldwide touchscreen industry will probably see 30 percent year-over-year growth in 2010 by the time the year is over. So says NPD DisplaySearch, which figures suppliers shipped 6.3 million tablet/mini-note touchscreens in the first half of 2010 and more than 20 million in the second half. Quite the upward trend and one that we’ll almost certainly see continue next year as the iPad juggernaut rolls on, more Android tablets arrive at market and consumer and enterprise demand for all of them grows. Wintek and TPK Touch Solutions have a lot to look forward to next year.

Pen Computing Backers Hope to Write New Chapter With Android

Ina Fried — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 18:00:36 +0000

Pen computing seems to be on the wane with the rise of the decidedly stylus-free iPad. However, those who maintain that the pen is mightier than the finger aren’t throwing in the towel just yet.

N-trig, a company whose technology is used in many touch-based Windows laptops, now hopes to convince Android tablet makers to embrace the notion of pen support.

By doing so, N-trig maintains companies can stand out from the pack and make their tablets good for content creation in addition to Web browsing and media viewing.

The company plans to announce as early as Tuesday that its DuoSense technology, which allows for both pen and multitouch input, now supports Android. N-trig said it expects next year to bring several Android tablets using its technology, with at least one shipping in the first half of next year.

In an interview with Mobilized, N-trig Vice President Gary Baum said that adding support for a pressure-sensitive pen like N-trig’s adds about $50 to the cost of the device, but offers advantages like pressure sensitivity and sub-pixel accuracy. But even if companies make the pen an option, adding that support could help them avoid getting lost in the pack and becoming “just another Android slate.”

Whether users value a pen any more on an Android tablet than they have on Windows remains to be seen, however. Another key question is whether software emerges to take advantage of pens.

“To do that, you need more apps, applications that can facilitate drawing and note-taking,” Baum said.

Adobe, though, seems intrigued by the concept. In an interview, Vice President Michael Gough said he has been playing around with various pen-based prototypes and finds the notion very compelling.

Gough, who leads Adobe’s user experience design efforts, said he has carried a Moleskine notebook around for years and has never found a tablet that was thin enough and of high-enough quality to replace old-fashioned pen and ink. With the latest prototypes, Gough said he feels a shift coming.

“The personal computer was actually impersonal,” he said. “The tablet is personal. It’s connected to you. Every time I have to use my laptop I feel it is a compromise.”

As for what software Adobe comes out with and when, Gough said the company will take a somewhat wait-and-see approach.

“I would say that it is obvious that there is going to be an explosion of devices in the coming year,” he said. “Adobe will follow that, I think, just as much as they lead it. It all depends when the devices are in people’s hands.”

Adobe is excited, though, since tablets like the iPad that are mainly for media consumption don’t offer a lot of business for Adobe. Although he isn’t on the business side, Gough said he expects the business model will shift. Instead of selling a big suite of software for several hundred dollars, Gough said, he imagines smaller titles that might offer only a few features, with additional features sold separately.

But cheaper software and the accessibility of tablets might open up more people to trying out creative work, he said.

“One of things that I feel like we did over the past 20 years is convince a whole generation of people they couldn’t draw,” Gough said, noting that software has gotten more powerful, but also harder to learn and use. “What I think is going to happen with these more natural interfaces is we are going to have this explosion of creativity. It could be quite an exciting time.”

Multitouch Pioneer Jeff Han Starts to Think Small (Devices)

Ina Fried — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:00:35 +0000

For years now, Jeff Han has been working on large-screen multitouch displays.

Han and his company, Perceptive Pixel, are best known for creating the giant touch wall that John King and others at CNN use to break down elections.

While Apple, Microsoft and others have targeted consumers, Perceptive Pixel has focused on niche professional markets, especially the defense and government sector.

But, after years of watching the small touchscreen device market from the sidelines, Han said he thinks he is pretty close to creating his first products that will run on those devices.

“Mobile is interesting,” he said in an interview last month at his New York offices (in the Manhattan building that Google is buying, with the amazing roof view seen below). “How can you ignore a billion devices being sold every year?”

Han said there is a reason he has stayed focused on the high end of the market.

“I have a personal bias,” he told Mobilized. “I want computers to be functional, not just playful.”

The modern tablet, he said, is the first consumer device that has enough pixels and the precision sensors to potentially be of interest to Perceptive Pixel. In particular, Han said he is intrigued by the idea of using tablets to allow meeting participants to interact with a nearby larger touchscreen that might be in use by someone leading a meeting.

“We’re looking at mobile and slate devices as a way to tie into this family of collaboration [products],” he said, noting that’s where Perceptive Pixel is spending its energy when it comes to mobile, as opposed to coming up with some killer app that works only on smaller screens. “There are a lot of smart people creating mobile apps.”

Han said his first mobile efforts should come out early next year–in the first quarter or early in the second quarter, though he wouldn’t give more specifics.

Whatever Perceptive Pixel ends up doing in the tablet space, Han said his plan is to eventually have it support multiple operating systems, though Han said the company will probably only qualify certain devices. So far, he said, Apple’s iOS and the iPad seem best suited to the applications he has in mind, while the real-time touch performance on Android has certain issues.

“We’re not going to just let it run on anything out there,” he said. “Some of them just can’t guarantee a good user interface.”

Here is the video interview Mobilized did with Han:

[ See post to watch video ]

Live at Dive–Microsoft Talks Windows Phone 7

Ina Fried — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:45:33 +0000

So just how is Windows Phone 7 doing, and what is next in Microsoft’s effort to get back into the phone game?

In the hot seat next at D: Dive Into Mobile is Joe Belfiore, one of the Microsoft VPs in charge of the company’s phone effort. We’ll see what he has to say on these and other topics, including a planned January update that would bring copy and paste, among other things.

11:48 am: Joe Belfiore gives a quick résumé. Windows Media Center, Zune, etc.

11:49 am: Walt: Why so late?

Belfiore: We’ve certainly been doing phones for a long time. A lot changed in the industry with the iPhone. Belfiore says Windows Phone 7 tries to respond to what Apple has done with the iPhone and Google with Android.

11:50 am: Walt: What makes you think you are right up there when you don’t have a lot of things?

Belfiore: (Points to Andy Rubin’s comments that Android is really for tech enthusiasts.) Belfiore says he agrees and that Windows Phone is built more for everyday people, to do the key tasks average users do and do so in an elegant way. “There are certainly some functionality shortfalls, and we are going to work to address them,” he says.

Copy and paste coming in “early 2011,” he reiterates.

As for multitasking, he says some tasks are there, such as background fetch of email and Web pages. Music playing works (but only if you are using Zune).

Walt points out that is where iPhone was when it launched and it got away with it because it was so different from what was on the market.

11:53 am: Belfiore says that some of Windows Phone 7′s features are worth the tradeoffs. As an example, he cites a feature that takes a picture with one click even if the phone is locked.

“We’ve focused on valuable scenarios that are different,” he says. “Some set of users will choose the value of those scenarios.” Belfiore says that Microsoft still aspires to fill the gaps.

Walt: How many have you sold?

Belfiore: We’re not talking about numbers yet.

Walt: Other people do.

Belfiore: We’re four weeks in. At some point we’ll get to that. “It’s just too soon to talk about numbers.”

11:55 am: Talk shifts to Microsoft’s ad campaign that suggests Microsoft’s phone provides at-a-glance information so that people can go back to their “real” life.

“Being late to do this type of experience,” Belfiore says, allowed Microsoft to go back and see what was working and what wasn’t with existing software. “Can people accomplish the most common tasks more quickly?”

That, he says, is how the company was led to the dedicated camera button. Another good example, he says, is Live Tiles–icons that can update with notifications, photos or other data.

11:58 am: He’s talking more about the Live Tiles and the fact that you can have a tile for the people who are most important to you and then contact them in any way you want (text, photos, call, Facebook).

12:00 pm: Walt: How many apps do you have?

Belfiore: I think the marketplace now has between three and four thousand.

12:02 pm: Walt: (Google Android chief) Andy Rubin said that parts of Windows Phone 7 have been around a long time. Is it old or new?

Belfiore: It’s mostly new. It is true we have kernel code that has been around for a long time.

But that’s not a bad thing, he says. The code has been tested, the bugs have been fixed. It’s true on the desktop with Windows. It’s true of Linux as well.

It’s probably true of Android, since it is Linux-based, which is based on Unix.

But a lot is new, such as Silverlight and XNA, in which developers build their apps. “He implied we were encumbered by legacy…I don’t think that’s true.”

12:06 pm: Walt: Why not build your own phone?

Belfiore: Our view is that both Microsoft’s core capabilities and our ability to affect more people would be greater with third parties building diverse hardware.

But, Belfiore says, the company recognized the challenges that come when you don’t make both software and hardware. In the past, Windows Mobile was wide open. This time around, Belfiore says, the company aimed for “the right amount of specified variation in hardware and the right amount of specified sameness.”

12:08 pm: Over time we expect to increase the variation that you see. “We are trying to get the benefits of constraint,” such as better user interface and making things easy for developers while still giving choice to consumers.

12:09 pm: Walt: How long will it take you to again become one of the big players in terms of market share.

Belfiore: It will certainly take some time. He points out that current Windows Phone software runs on only about 10 phones, all high-end devices. Over time, they want to get to lower price points.

Walt: So, how long?

Belfiore: I don’t know how long it will take.

Walt: Months?

Belfiore: It will probably take longer than that.

Walt: A couple of years?

Belfiore: Yeah, maybe.

Walt: Who will be the leaders three years from now?

Belfiore: It’s certainly the case that there are a lot of people building good products. My personal feeling is things won’t change that dramatically that quickly.

I do assume we’ll be in it. The question has to start with whether you have a great product….I think we have that so far. We’ll see how this plays off. BlackBerry has done that in the past. Nokia has done that in the past. We’ll have to see about the future.

12:13 pm: Walt: What about tablets, an idea Microsoft has championed for a long time. But what is the strategy? Seems to be desktop Windows is not a variation of the Windows Phone.

Belfiore: Historically, Microsoft has tried to adapt Windows for other uses (e.g., Media Center, tablet).

So far we’ve continued down that path.

The work we have done on the phone has been focused on very small-screen devices.

Walt: Why not just scale up? Both Apple and Android are working from their phone OSs in doing their tablets.

Belfiore: We’re four weeks out of introducing this new thing. The state of the world today is Windows, is our broad operating system. Runs on same screen size as tablets.

12:15 pm: On to Q&A

Q: How can phone makers really differentiate beyond apps and things like a keyboard and a camera?

Belfiore says the company aims for elegant co-existence. Dictates certain screen sizes, three buttons, four-point capacitive multitouch. “We really want all users to get a great touch-typing experience.”

There’s no upper limit on what they can add in terms of hardware features. For example, a hardware maker could add near field xommunications or some other peripheral not already supported.

12:17 pm: Joshua Topolsky from Engadget asks about tablets again, says last answer a bit of a cop-out. “You can’t possibly be this blind” that Windows 7 isn’t going to work on tablets in the way you want it. Is that really the strategy?

Belfiore hints that the announced strategy focuses on Windows for tablets, but says the company will evaluate that going forward.

Topolsky: Courier?

Belfiore; I wouldn’t count on that.

Last question, from a mobile video calling app. As of today, no native access for developers that need things like native access to the camera.

Belfiore: Individual software makers don’t, but phone makers and operators do, so software makers could work with them. He reiterates the platform is new and the goal is to open things up.

Goal is that all of these creative things can be built. “We’re going to move as fast as possible.”

12:21 pm: Walt: One last question on carrier craplets. There’s a limited number of tiles on Windows Phone 7. On the two phones I saw, some of the space I saw was taken up by carriers.

Belfiore: I really like our approach. I think it is really well considered. When AT&T sells a phone it is AT&T selling the phone. Makes sense for them or hardware makers to be able to showcase their differentiation. Both phone makers and carriers can create tiles, but the user can choose to remove the tile or even uninstall the app.

Let's Get Mobilized

Ina Fried — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 13:00:20 +0000

Welcome to Mobilized, the latest All Things Digital blog devoted to all things mobile. Mobilized will cover the wireless world from cell phones to tablets, as well as the networks they run on (or drop calls on).

In other words, all the issues raised by having the tiny little machines with us at all times.

If you are reading this on your Apple iPhone, Amazon Kindle, BlackBerry from Research in Motion, Google Android or other non-PC device: Congratulations, you are already Mobilized.

But, if you are sitting in front of a laptop or desktop as you are reading this–you might be a little behind the times, although on the plus side, you don’t have to squint nearly as much.

And, even if you printed this article out, I am happy you took the time to read it (Hi, Dad!).

In any case, I am hoping to cut through the jargon and the hype, so that this will be a spot that both the early adopters and the merely curious will be able to find items of interest.

And whether you are a mobile geek or not, mobile technology is poised to reshape your life. Cell phones aren’t just mini-computers and tablets aren’t just notebooks with their keyboards cut off. These products are reshaping not just how we consume media, but also the ways we interact with each
other.

Let me take a moment to introduce myself.

For those that don’t know me, I spent the last decade at CNET, covering everything from Apple and Microsoft to ill-fated products from the Audrey to the Foleo.

While mobile hasn’t been my full-time beat, I have always been a device junkie. I owned a Windows CE 1.0 device and several of the first attempts to marry a phone with a Palm Pilot. Most recently, I have spent the past several years covering Microsoft full-time and recently did a three-part series on the birth of Windows Phone 7.

I am passionate about technology and telling the stories about the people making the products that are changing the way we live. I hope to find room to tell all kinds of different stories in these pages.

I plan to start things off with an interview I did last week in New York with Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci. I also had a chance to catch up there with multitouch pioneer Jeff Han, who is beginning to shift some of his work from giant touchscreens to mobile devices.

Meanwhile, next week is the inaugural D: Dive into Mobile conference. I’ll be providing lots of coverage, of course, including backstage interviews with many of the speakers.

So, that’s my spiel. Be sure to sound off in the forums, whether you think I am right on track or completely off base. You can also drop me a note at the easy-to-remember email: Ina@AllThingsD.com.

Toshiba's New Tablet: Success or Faileo?

John Paczkowski — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:04:09 +0000

Add Toshiba to the list of consumer-electronic manufacturers developing a tablet for Google’s Android OS. The device, which is to be called the Folio 100, will run Android 2.2 (Froyo) and will feature a 10.1-inch multitouch display, a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor and support for Flash. Initially, it’s to be Wi-Fi-only, though the company is considering a second model with 3G support. The Folio 100 will debut in Europe, the Middle East and Africa by year-end. No word yet on a U.S. launch.

New iPods: Touch Gets FaceTime, Nano Gets Multitouch, Shuffle Gets Click Wheel

John Paczkowski — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:05:27 +0000

Apple’s (AAPL) refreshed lineup of iPods, introduced by Steve Jobs today, looks pretty much as anticipated.

The iPod touch–the No. 1 portable gaming machine in the world, Jobs said–is getting the Retina Display and A4 chip of the iPhone 4, along with HD video recording and a front-facing camera with support for FaceTime video chatting. And there’s a new ad tagline for the touch: “All kinds of fun.” The 8GB is available for $229, the 32GB for $299 and the 64GB for $399. Preorders begin today.

The new iPod nano is 46 percent smaller and 42 percent lighter than its predecessors, thanks to the elimination of all those bulky controls and the addition of a little multitouch screen. A colorful selection will go for $149 for 8GB, $179 for 16GB.

As to the iPod shuffle, Jobs said customers missed the controls on the current buttonless model, so the new version is getting a click wheel. Price is $49 for the 2GB gadget.

Dell's Streak: a Tiny Tablet That Takes Calls, Too

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 02:02:23 +0000

In just a few months, Apple’s iPad has established that there is indeed a consumer market for a multitouch tablet computer.

The 1.5-pound slate with a 10-inch screen has already sold more than 3 million units, even though it costs $499 for the cheapest model, surprising many analysts. And Apple (AAPL) says over 20,000 third-party apps have been written especially for the iPad’s large screen and features, in addition to the more than 200,000 iPhone apps it can also run.

[ See post to watch video ]

As a result, other companies, big and small, are racing to produce multitouch tablets that go beyond the narrow functions of e-readers such as Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle. Like the iPad, they are meant for a wide variety of uses, including Web surfing, social networking, email, games, productivity, navigation, book reading, and playing music and videos. And, like the iPad, they will pose a threat to the primacy of the laptop for portable computing, and especially to the smallest laptops, the netbooks.

This week, a second big computer company, Dell (DELL), is joining the new tablet war in the U.S. But Dell’s first offering in the category, called the Streak—first introduced in the U.K.—is very different from the iPad, and somewhat peculiar. It’s much smaller—with just a 5-inch screen—and makes cellular voice calls, something the iPad can’t do.

It is really a tweener device, a design compromise. Depending on how you use it, the Streak can be considered a giant smartphone or a minitablet. Dell is positioning it as a tablet, but, to me, it’s more of a very large smartphone, but one that, for many, will be too large to carry around comfortably.

Depending on how you buy it, the Streak can cost either less or more than the base $499 iPad. It goes on sale Aug. 13 at $300 if you sign up for a new two-year AT&T (T) contract, which must include a data plan. (The cheapest iPad with cellular data connectivity is $629.) Or, you can get a Streak for $550 without an AT&T contract. Dell says neither U.S. version can be used with any other phone carrier, though the $550 model can be used as a Wi-Fi-only device, just like the $499 iPad.

Dell’s Streak runs on Google’s Android operating system, with access to some 70,000 thirdparty apps available in the Android Market store.

The Streak will be available only through Dell’s website, not at any stores, not even AT&T’s.

The Streak runs on Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system, and has access to the 70,000 or so third-party apps available in the Android Market app store. But I couldn’t find, and Dell couldn’t identify, any apps written especially for its larger screen. In fact, a few Android apps I tested seemed to crowd all their icons into just a portion of the Streak’s screen, especially when the device was held vertically, leaving lots of white space.

The Streak’s 5-inch screen is much larger than the iPhone’s 3.5-inch display, or the 3.2-inch screen on the new BlackBerry Torch. But it didn’t feel radically larger to me than the 4.3-inch display on some of the newer Android smartphones, such as the HTC EVO, which, while bulky for a phone, is still much easier to fit in a pocket than the Streak is.

The Streak is a long, skinny device. It’s 6 inches long and 3.11 inches wide, about a fourth the footprint of the iPad, which isn’t meant to go in a pocket, but considerably longer and somewhat wider than the EVO, which is. It’s much lighter than the iPad, at just under half a pound, but heavier than many smartphones.

In my tests, I found I could carry the Streak comfortably in the pocket of loose jeans, or in a suit jacket’s inner pocket, but not in a shirt pocket or the pocket of more fitted pants. It would take up a lot of room in a small or medium-size woman’s handbag. And it looks somewhat ridiculous when held up to the ear to make a phone call.

And, despite the larger physical size of the Streak’s display, its screen resolution, which governs sharpness and how much content can fit on a screen, is lower than even the iPhone 4′s much smaller screen, and is too low to display high-resolution video (though an optional dock can output hi-res video to a TV.)

Also, the Streak comes with the outdated 1.6 version of Android, though Dell says it will eventually be upgradeable to the latest edition.

In my tests, the Streak delivered both moments of pleasure and moments of frustration. When held horizontally, the screen felt luxurious, with lots of room, and good sharpness and color, for playing video or viewing photos. Even in portrait mode, reading books using the Amazon Kindle app was a much better experience than on any smartphone I’ve tested, though not nearly as good as on the iPad or Kindle e-reader.

The screen also holds plenty of app icons and more large widgets than other Android phones I’ve tested. And there are convenient bars at the top for quickly checking notifications, adjusting wireless settings, managing screens and accessing apps that aren’t on the main screens.

The Streak also has generous memory for an Android phone. It comes with 19 gigabytes of total memory, including a removable 16 gigabyte memory card. Two gigabytes of the internal memory can be used to store apps—excellent for an Android phone, but much less than on the iPad.

Its 5-megapixel rear camera took sharp photos and fair videos, and phone calls sounded clear. The large screen was a big plus for Google’s free voice-prompted navigation app. Battery life was very good, easily lasting a full day, and the battery is removable.

But the Streak also crashed on me several times. On one occasion, it started vibrating endlessly, only stopping when I removed and replaced the battery.

The device has a front-facing camera—unlike the iPad, which has no camera at all. But video calling isn’t integrated, unlike on the new iPhone, and requires you to sign up for a third-party service.

Twice the device proclaimed it couldn’t find the memory card and had to be restarted before it could. Twice, the YouTube app failed to load any content.

Also, the buttons on the top edge for turning the Streak on and off and for taking pictures are very close together and easily confused for each other. And the camera button eventually stopped working for me altogether. The speaker, located on the back, sounded tinny when playing music. And it was too easy to block the rear camera with a thumb or finger when holding the Streak naturally.

Dell sees the Streak as a tablet first, with phone calling as a secondary function. It may well appeal to people for whom the iPad is too large to carry around, yet want some of the tablet experience coupled with a phone. But tweener devices can be hard to love and Streak buyers will have to overlook some of the shortcomings I encountered.

Find Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Apple Adds Touches to Its Mac Desktops

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:03:36 +0000

Last fall, I watched in awe as my friend’s 1-year-old picked up an iPhone, swiped the screen with her pudgy pointer finger and scrolled through a list of emails. I had a similar reaction last month when my computer-challenged aunt discovered the joy of two-finger scrolling on a MacBook Pro’s large, multi-touch trackpad. “Now this,” she said without a trace of the frustrated tone she usual reserves for discussing technology, “is very cool.”

[ See post to watch video ]

Just what is it that makes gesture technology so very cool? For one thing, it’s more satisfying and intimate to use your own fingers to control something on a screen rather than punching buttons or maneuvering a mouse to do so. And touch gestures are easy to remember because, more often than not, they work using intuitive movements you already know, like flicking a finger across a screen to page through an electronic book.

It’s hard to find a consumer-technology company that doesn’t use touch gestures in at least one of its products. Some Microsoft (MSFT) Windows PCs have touch screens, and certain Windows laptops have emulated at least some of the Mac’s multi-touch trackpad features. But Apple Inc. (AAPL), in particular, has made a concerted effort to spread multi-touch gestures across all of its product categories from the iPod touch to the iPhone to the iPad to MacBook laptops with oversized touchpads that accept various gestures for controlling things on the screen.

The Magic Trackpad, which has a glass-top surface, is propped up on one end by a thin tube that holds two AA batteries.

Now, the Mac desktop can have a touch of fun, too. Apple’s latest gadget, the $69 Magic Trackpad (apple.com/magictrackpad), is essentially a freestanding touchpad that brings multi-touch features to desktop Macs, which lack touch screens. Its entire surface also functions as a button for selecting and it measures about the size of a mousepad. The Trackpad connects wirelessly via Bluetooth to any Apple desktop PC running Snow Leopard, the latest iteration of the company’s operating system. It works in addition to, or instead of a mouse.

I’ve been using the Magic Trackpad on two different iMacs, one that’s about five years old and another that’s less than a year old. In both cases, I found its glass surface to be cool and smooth, and it worked well as a solution for small work surfaces where a mouse can’t move around much. I was also glad to finally bring the same touch gestures that I use on my MacBook Pro laptop to these desktops. For instance, I placed four fingers down on the Trackpad and pushed up to hide all opened programs and reveal my computer desktop. Then, by swiping four fingers down, I showed all opened windows, a feature Apple calls Exposé. When photos are opened, moving two fingers apart or together will zoom in or out on an image. Turning two fingers clockwise or counterclockwise on the Trackpad rotates the image.

But $69 is a lot to spend for the added pleasure of touch gestures, especially considering that the mouse already does some of these things—though not as cleverly—and keyboard shortcuts do others.

Installing the Magic Trackpad is a pain, as far as Apple standards go. First, users must be sure they’ve upgraded to the latest version of the Snow Leopard operating system—the most recent version is 10.6.4. Second, people must also go to http://support.apple.com/downloads to download a driver update for the Trackpad, a step that can be easily overlooked by users who are anxious to get going with their new gadget.

The Magic Trackpad weighs about 5 ounces and measures a bit more than 5 inches by 5 inches. It’s slightly tilted, propped up on one end by a thin tube that holds two included AA batteries. If you happen to also own the $69 Apple Wireless Keyboard, the Trackpad design is in line with that of the Magic Trackpad so when the two devices sit beside each other, it’s easy to move from the keyboard to the Trackpad and back.

A button on one end of the Trackpad’s battery tube turns the device on, and a blinking light indicates it’s ready to pair via Bluetooth with your Mac desktop, assuming you’ve downloaded the two necessary software updates.

Apple’s $69 Magic Trackpad brings multi-touch gestures to the Mac desktop and connects wirelessly via Bluetooth.

If you don’t pair the device within three minutes, the Magic Trackpad turns off to conserve battery. An Apple representative estimates that the Magic Trackpad’s batteries will last about four and a half months with alkaline batteries.

My Magic Trackpad easily paired with my iMacs over a Bluetooth connection. After installing, a screen displayed settings and animated tutorials on how to use the touchpad. Settings included options like telling the Trackpad to enable right-clicking with a two-finger tap on the touchpad or just by touching its bottom right corner. All other gestures, which will be familiar to MacBook owners but not everyone else, are demonstrated in helpful animated videos.

If you can afford it, or if touch gestures simply make you a more productive computer user, the Magic Trackpad is a real asset. It can co-exist with a mouse or totally replace it, if you want. After just minutes of use, I stopped using my mouse altogether.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com.

Droid X Drops July 15

John Paczkowski — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:50:35 +0000

If you haven’t already, it’s probably best to resign yourself to Apple (AAPL) and its new iPhone 4 sucking all the air out of the news cycle this week. That said, there is another big mobile device launch today: Verizon’s (VZ) Droid X.

Uncrated this morning at an event in New York, the new Motorola (MOT) handset is pretty robust specwise, with a 4.3-inch, 854×480 multitouch display, eight megapixel camera, 1GHz TI OMAP processor and 8GB internal storage (plus microSD). It will ship with Google’s (GOOG) Android 2.1 OS and arrive at market on July 15. Price: $199.99 with two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate.

Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs Live at D8

John Paczkowski — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 22:25:37 +0000

Qualcomm may not be a household name, but it probably should be.

The company commercialized the CDMA mobile standard and its chips can be found in many of today’s smartphones. If things play out as CEO Paul Jacobs would like, Qualcomm (QCOM) chips will soon be showing up in a wide variety of consumer electronics devices as well. As Jacobs said at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, “consumer electronics devices will essentially be phones inside–different shapes, different software, but fundamentally, inside they’ll be phones.”

With its latest chips, which ably bridge the performance gap between smartphones and larger devices like netbooks and tablets, Qualcomm is delivering on Jacobs’s prediction. And that is increasingly putting the company at odds with some formidable rivals in the ultramobile computing market–Intel (INTC), for example.

Liveblog

3:28 pm: Off to a bit of a late start here. The interview should begin momentarily.

3:31 pm: A few quick words of introduction from Walt, who notes that most of the folks in the audience have likely used Qualcomm products at one time or another, and Jacobs takes the stage.

3:32 pm: Walt–You make chips, right?

Jacobs: We ship 36 chips every second for cellphones around the world. These chips handle radio communications, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, all sorts of things. They essentially run mobile phones.

3:33 pm: Jacobs–Does anyone in this room have a simple GSMA phone? [No one does.] Then you’re all using our intellectual property.

3:35 pm: Some discussion of licensees. Jacobs notes that Foxconn is among them.

3:35 pm: Walt: Typically, your technology is buried in these devices, but now you’re introducing something that will be out front.

Jacobs says the company is working on a new display technology that uses the same thing a butterfly’s wing uses to make color. Because it’s reflective in that way, you can see it outside and in bright light. It does color and it does video. This isn’t a lab project. We’ve got a fab [fabrication], and it’s being developed.

Walt wonders when we’ll see it. Jacobs says Qualcomm hopes to get it to its partners next year.

3:37 pm: The display is called Mirasol, and it employs a bunch of tiny mirrors to display images.

Jacobs has brought a demo with him, and the display does seem impressive, certainly a big improvement over today’s e-ink.

3:39 pm: Walt–Unlike a Kindle, this thing has color, plays video and better battery life.

Jacobs: If we’re using a still image outdoors, the battery will last for a very long time–it uses very little power. If we’re running stuff, animations for example, it won’t run quite as long. But it will still be a significant improvement over what we see in devices like the Kindle and iPad today.

3:41 pm: Walt–What about downsizing these screens? Will they work on cellphones?

Jacobs says they will. In fact, Qualcomm is working with someone to develop a watch that uses it.

Walt: And this can support multitouch?

Jacobs: Yes. The display, because its MEMS technology, there are other things we can integrate into it–antennas and whatnot.

3:43 pm: Walt–So will this be a Qualcomm reader or will you build it for someone else?

Jacobs: We’ll be developing this for partners

3:44 pm: So why did you get out of the device business, asks Walt.

Jacobs: Because we sucked at it. I just said, you know this is not our core competency. So today we’re focused on chips. Technology is moving so quickly these days that if you’re not focused, you just end up doing things badly. We’re very focused on the chip business.

3:45 pm: Walt–You’ve jumped into the brains of the phone business, yes?

Jacobs: Yes we have. It’s called Snapdragon and its a microprocessor that uses ARM. These are very lower-power chipsets.

3:47 pm: Walt–But these chips are going into high-power devices. They can’t have wimpy processors.

Jacobs agrees and notes that Qualcomm is developing multicore processors for smartphones. “You think about the phone, why do you need the phone to turn on to do stuff? You don’t need to turn on the entire user interface to do something like email. So we’re managing power very carefully to extend usage time.”

3:49 pm: Walt–Is Intel (INTC) your biggest competitor?

Jacobs: That depends. Intel is on the high end. There are other smaller companies though that are low-end threats.

Walt: Do you power BlackBerrys?

Jacobs: The Verizon (VZ) Blackberrys run our chips.

3:50 pm: Walt asks for Jacobs’s thoughts on Intel’s “Intel Inside” campaign, which made the company a known brand. Has Qualcomm considered doing something similar?

Jacobs: You know we have Qualcomm Stadium, says Jacobs. And sometimes people think we make beer, not chips. The truth of the matter is, I sell to the manufacturers and the operators, but we don’t sell directly to the consumer, so a big branding campaign like that isn’t a big concern.

3:53 pm: Conversation moves on to Qualcomm’s FlowTV service. Walt notes that it hasn’t really been successful, and Jacobs agrees. But he adds that it has great potential for the future, particularly in terms of broadcasting information to smartphones, a la PointCast.

3:56 pm: Jacobs: Today when you think about FlowTV, you think about cable TV on your phone. Tomorrow, it will be more of a data service.

3:57 pm: Walt–Obviously, we’re heading toward a bandwidth congestion problem. Is there a solution?

Jacobs: Fixing the backhaul problem already helps. We’re now going to more and wider spectrum, and that helps as well. Fourth generation will feel like you’re getting a better experience as a user. The big issue, though, is getting more access to spectrum, moving people off of it. Adding additional Wi-Fi access points that are integrated into the cellular network will help as well.

Walt: Is it a good trade-off in our country to reallocate the broadcast spectrum?

Jacobs: That’s a tough question because there are people who still use it.

Q & A

Q: Qualcomm seems to be involved in a lot of sensor work. Can you talk about that?

A: One of the things we’re involved in is the development of sensors, sensors that can be stuck onto your body and can talk to your phone. Glucose monitors, for example. But battery life is very important here. So we’re spending a lot of effort developing these technologies for health care with that in mind.

Q: Can you compare SnapDragon to Apple’s A4?

A: I don’t know a lot about that because we haven’t done a tear-down of Apple’s (AAPL) processor.

Q: Can you talk about your BREW [binary runtime environment for wireless] OS and where it might be heading?

A: We actually have a lot of demand for it now. In addition to Verizon, it’s going into AT&T (T) and into Chinese operators. HTC actually just built a phone that’s BREW-based. If you had asked me a couple of years ago, I would have said BREW was headed to emerging markets. Now I think it’s headed to the low-end of the high-end market.

Q: Do you think there are other areas in which your technology might be used, education, for example?

A: Jacobs notes an experiment in education where one classroom was given cellphones running Qualcomm tech and others weren’t, and the group with the phones showed a marked improvement in its grades. “The cellphone is humanity’s biggest platform. If we can’t use it to change education or health care, then shame on us.”

A note about our coverage: This liveblog is not an official transcript of the conversation that occurred onstage. Rather, it is a compilation of quotes, paraphrased statements and ad-lib observations written and posted to the Web as quickly as possible. It is not intended as a transcript and should not be interpreted as one.

D8 Video: Steve Jobs on the Origins of the iPad

John Paczkowski — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 04:47:19 +0000

Apple’s (AAPL) iPad may have followed the iPhone to market, but it preceded the smartphone conceptually. During a Tuesday evening interview at D8, CEO Steve Jobs said the idea for the iPhone was born of a very early tablet prototype that would years later become the iPad.

Below, a video of the anecdote.

[ See post to watch video ]

More Coverage on the Steve Jobs D8 Speaker Page »

Apple CEO Steve Jobs Live at D8: All We Want to Do is Make Better Products

John Paczkowski — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:45:49 +0000

Much has happened since Apple CEO Steve Jobs last appeared on the D stage. At that time, in May 2007, the iPhone had not yet arrived at market, the app ecosystem it would usher in was still gestating and the iPad was simply a long-running rumor.

So the conversation onstage focused largely on the iPod, iTunes and Apple’s (AAPL) relationship with the music industry, and the forthcoming launch of the iPhone. A few months earlier, Jobs had penned a widely read open letter, “Thoughts on Music,” calling on the “big four” music companies to sell their music without digital rights management. iTunes was already the world’s largest online music distribution system, so his thoughts generated quite a bit of discussion–and a fair bit of controversy.

Today, the iPhone is nearly three years old. It has sold 50 million units worldwide, and the multitouch interface and app ecosystem it pioneered have arguably revolutionized the smartphone industry.

Today, the iPad is no longer a rumor. Launched just two months ago, it has already sold two million units and seems poised to revolutionize an industry or two of its own.

And today, Jobs is once again shaking up an industry with another open letter, “Thoughts on Flash,” a withering rumination on Adobe’s (ADBE) Flash platform and the future of online video.

Much has changed in three years. But one thing has remained constant: Apple, under Jobs, continues to drive innovation in every industry it touches.

Liveblog

5:54 pm: In a few moments, Steve Jobs will once again take the D stage for the opening session of D8.

6:21 pm: Following a welcome from News Corp. (NWS) CEO Rupert Murdoch and a few introductory remarks from Walt and Kara, the pair welcome Jobs to the stage.

6:22 pm: The first question is about Apple surpassing Microsoft in market valuation. Jobs says “It’s surreal, but it doesn’t really mean anything.”

6:23 pm Walt references Jobs’s recent “Thoughts on Flash” essay. Even if everything you say is true, is it really fair to consumers to be so abrupt and cut them off, he asks? Jobs doesn’t seem to think it’s unfair. “Apple is a company that doesn’t have the most resources in the world, and they way we’ve succeeded is to bet the right technological horse, to look at technologies that have a future. We try to pick things that are in their springs. And if you choose wisely, you can be quite successful.”

Apple has a history of doing that, Jobs says, noting that Apple was the first company to dump the floppy and later, to adopt USB. “Sometimes when we get rid of things, people call us crazy….But sometimes you just have to pick the things that are going to be the right horse to ride forward….And Flash has had it’s day…but HTML5 is starting emerge….The video looks better and it works better and you don’t need a plug-in to run it. And while 75 percent of the video on the Web may be available in Flash, a lot of it is available in HTML5 as well.”

6:29 pm: What about developers, asks Walt. How are they impacted? Jobs draws a quick parallel to Apple’s HyperCard. “HyperCard was huge in its day,” he says, going on to note that the thousands of apps on the iPhone OS platform are testament to developer involvement.

6:31 pm: Jobs: “We didn’t set out to have a war over Flash. We made a technical decision. And it wasn’t until the iPad that Adobe raised a stink. They came after us….That’s why I wrote “Thoughts on Flash.”…We were getting tired of being trashed by Adobe in the press.”

6:32 pm: Walt: What if people demand Flash. What if they say the iPad is crippled without Flash. “We’re just trying to make great products,” says Jobs again. “We don’t think Flash makes a great product, so we’re leaving it out. Instead, we’re going to focus on technologies that are in ascendancy. If we succeed, people will buy them and if we don’t they won’t….And, so far, I have to say, people seem to be liking the iPad. We are selling an iPad every 3 seconds.”

6:35 pm: Ah! The inevitable lost-iPhone question. Walt quickly recounts the history of the discovery of the iPhone prototype, its revelation on Gizmodo and the subsequent police investigation that involved the seizure of a blogger’s computers. Where do you come down on this, asks Walt. “To make a wireless product work well, you have to test it. And one of our employees was carrying one and there’s a debate about whether it was left in a bar or stolen….And the person who found it decided to sell it…and it turned out this person plugged it into his roommate’s computer and that roommate called the police.”

6:40 pm: Jobs continues, “And the police showed up and took this guy’s computers…and the DA is investigating it…and I don’t know where it will end up.” In other words, it’s a police matter. That said, Jobs is very clearly irked by the whole debacle.

6:40 pm: Any comments on the Foxconn suicides which we’ve been hearing so much about, asks Kara. Apple is extraordinarily diligent and rigorous about vetting its manufacturing partners, Jobs answers. “Foxconn is not a sweatshop,” he adds. “They’ve got restaurants and swimming pools….For a factory, it’s a pretty nice factory.”

6:42 pm: Jobs notes that the recent suicides at Foxconn, which number 13 at last count, I think, are still below the national average in the U.S. “But this is very troubling to us,” he says. “So we send over our own people and some outside folks as well, to look into the issue.”

6:44 pm: Walt: You spent a significant portion of your career involved in a platform war with Microsoft (MSFT). And you lost. But now there are new platforms out there and you’re doing quite well on them, as are others–Google (GOOG) and Facebook. So there’s a new platform war going on. Do you see it like that?

No, we don’t see ourselves in a platform war says Jobs. “We never saw ourselves in a platform war with Microsoft, either…Maybe that’s why we lost. … But we never thought of ourselves in a platform war; we just wanted to make good products.”

And what about Google, asks Walt. The relationship has clearly changed there, hasn’t it? “Well, they’re competing with us,” says Jobs, referring to the mobile space. “We didn’t go into search.”

6:47 pm: Kara: How do you look at Google as a competitor? Eric [Schmidt, Google CEO] was on your board.

Jobs: “They decided to compete with us and got more and more serious.”

Walt circles back, asking if Jobs doesn’t feel betrayed by Google. Jobs, clearly not buying in to this line of questioning, parries: “My sex life is great, how’s yours” he says trying to end it.

6:50 pm: Kara asks if Apple might remove Google from the iPhone and iPad. Jobs says no. Again, he notes that Apple is simply trying to make the best products it can and that the market will decide whose is better. “Right now, we have the better product.”

6:52 pm: Walt wonders why Apple bought Siri, a search company. “I don’t know if I would describe Siri as a search company,” Jobs says. “They’re not in the search area…they’re in the AI area.” Then he adds, a bit vehemently: “We’re not going into search.”

6:53 pm: Walt asks about AT&T (T), whose network continues to face criticism. Jobs: They’re doing pretty good in some ways and in others they could do better. We meet with them once a quarter. Remember, they deal with way more data traffic than anyone else. And they’re having trouble. But they have the fastest 3G network and they’re improving. I wish they were improving faster….I’m convinced that any other network, had you put the iPhone on it, would have had the same problems.

6:56 pm: Jobs continues: We found a way to sell the phone that we wanted to sell and to define it the way we wanted to define it. We were able to change the rules of the game, and that’s what got us excited about the phone business….AT&T took a big leap on us and decided they were going to trust us to do the right thing with the phone. And that’s worked out quite well for both of us.

6:59 pm: The conversation moves to talk of tablets. Walt asks if Apple knew it would build a tablet before it built the iPhone.

Jobs: “I’ll tell you a secret. It began with the tablet. I had this idea about having a glass display, a multitouch display you could type on with your fingers. I asked our people about it. And six months later, they came back with this amazing display. And I gave it to one of our really brilliant UI guys. He got [rubber band] scrolling working and some other things, and I thought, ‘my God, we can build a phone with this!’ So we put the tablet aside, and we went to work on the iPhone.”

7:01 pm: What does the iPad mean for the publishing industry, Kara asks. Is it the savior that some are touting it as?

“One of my beliefs very strongly is that any democracy depends on a free, healthy press, and so when I think of the most important journalistic endeavors in this country, I think of things like the Washington Post, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and publications like that,” Jobs replies. “And we all know what’s happened to the economics of those businesses. I don’t want to see us descend into a nation of bloggers. Anything that we can do to help the news-gathering organizations find new ways of expression so that they can afford to keep their news-gathering and editorial operations intact, I’m all for.”

7:03 pm: Jobs adds that he believes people are willing to pay for content and that content providers are not pricing their offerings as aggressively as they should.

7:05 pm: When you did your presentation on the iPad, you described it as a new category of device, says Walt. But in order for it to succeed, people have to feel that it’s worth carrying around. Do you think the tablet will succeed the laptop, he asks.

Jobs: “When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that’s what you needed on the farm. But as vehicles started to be used in the urban centers, cars got more popular. Innovations like automatic transmission and power steering and things that you didn’t care about in a truck as much started to become paramount in cars. … PCs are going to be like trucks. They’re still going to be around, they’re still going to have a lot of value, but they’re going to be used by one out of X people. … I think that we’re embarked on that. Is the next step the iPad? Who knows? Will it happen next year or five years from now or seven years from now? Who knows? But I think we’re headed in that direction.”

7:10 pm: What are your thoughts on content creation on the iPad, Walt asks, noting that some people believe tablets aren’t good devices for content creation.

“Well, why wouldn’t they be good for content creation,” asks Jobs. “It can’t be that the software isn’t powerful enough, because the software is improving….These devices over time are going to grow to do new things. … You know, people laugh at me because I use the phrase “magical” to describe the iPad. But it’s what I really think. You have a much more direct and intimate relationship with the Internet and media, your apps, your content. It’s like some intermediate thing has been removed and stripped away. …. I think we’re just scratching the surface on the kind of apps we can build for it. I think one can create a lot of content on the tablet.”

What sorts of apps, asks Kara.

Productivity apps…video-editing software, says Jobs.

7:12 pm: Now a question about App Store rejections: Isn’t there a downside to Apple’s efforts to protect its customers from porn, malware, etc.

In reply, Jobs first notes that Apple, by supporting HTML5, supports a completely open platform. But it also supports a curated platform–iPhone OS. And that platform has rules. “We approve 95 percent of the apps that are submitted to the App Store every week and we approve them within in seven days.”

So what happened with that political-cartoon app you declined to approve a few weeks ago, asks Walt.

“We have a rule that says you can’t defame people,” says Jobs, noting that political cartoonists by virtue of their profession sometimes defame people. The cartoon app was rejected on those grounds, he adds. “Then we changed the rules…and in the meantime, the cartoonist won a Pulitzer….But he never resubmitted his app. And then someone asked him, ‘Hey why don’t you have an iPhone app?’ He says we rejected it and suddenly, it’s a story in the press….Bottom line is, yes, we sometimes make mistakes…but we correct them….We are doing the best we can, changing the rules when it makes sense. What happens sometimes is that some people lie, we find it, and reject it, and they run to the press, and get their 15 minutes of fame and hope it will get us to change our minds. We take it on the chin, and we move on.”

7:20 pm: Kara: “What do you do all day?”

Jobs: “I have one of the best jobs in the world. I get to hang out with some of the most talented, committed people around and together we get to play in this sandbox and build these cool products….Apple is an incredibly collaborative company. You know how many committees we have at Apple? Zero. We’re structured like a start-up. We’re the biggest start-up on the planet. And we all meet once a week to discuss our business…and there’s tremendous teamwork at the top and that filters down to the other employees…and so what I do all day is meet with teams of people and work on ideas and new problems to come up with new products.”

7:24 pm: Are people willing to tell you that you’re wrong, asks Walt.

Of course, Jobs answers. The best ideas have to win, no matter who has them.

7:25 pm: What do you imagine the next 10 years of your life is going to be about?

Oddly Jobs replies with a comment about Gizmodo and the lost iPhone prototype. “When this whole thing with Gizmodo happened, I got a lot of advice from people who said you’ve got to just let it slide…you shouldn’t go after a journalist because they bought stolen property and tried to extort you….And I thought about that and I decided that Apple can’t afford to change its core values and simply let it slide….We have the same core values as when we started, and we come into work wanting to do the same thing today that we wanted to do five years ago.”

7:27 pm: But you are going into new businesses, says Walt, trying to redirect Jobs back to the question at hand or at least get him to comment on any new markets that the company is eyeing. Advertising, for example, with its new iAds initiative.

Jobs concedes that Apple is pursuing new businesses like iAds. But he suggests the main reason it’s doing that is to make its developers more money. “We want to help our developers make some money so that they can keep providing free or really low-cost apps to customers,” he says. “That’s why we’re doing it. We’re not going to make much money in the ad business.”

7:29 pm: Jobs continues on the mobile advertising theme. “Something really interesting is happening on mobile phones,” he says. “They’re not mirroring desktops or laptop PCs. If people want to find out what restaurant to go to, they’re not going to their search engine typing in “Japanese” and “Palo Alto,” they’re going to Yelp or whatever app they want. Ads in mobile apps today, you touch them, and what is the first thing they do? They rip you out of your app, send you to the browser and then you’ve got to figure out a way back to your app. So, wouldn’t it be great if mobile ads didn’t take you out of the app, but rather took over the screen, gave you this great experience of an interactive ad, but anytime you wanted you could hit a little button that takes you right back to where you left off in your app? We figured out we could build something like this into the operating system so the apps don’t have to do it. We can make it so that an app developer can add these interactive ads in their apps with 30 minutes’ worth of work versus working with every advertiser to do some custom thing in their app, which is crazy.”

7:31 pm: A question about privacy. Is privacy looked at differently in Silicon Valley than in the rest of the world?

“We’ve always had a very different view of privacy than some of our colleagues in the Valley,” Jobs says. “We take privacy extremely seriously. That’s one of the reasons we have the curated apps store. We have rejected a lot of apps that want to take a lot of your personal data and suck it up into the cloud. Privacy means people know what they’re signing up for. In plain English, and repeatedly, that’s what it means. Ask them. Ask them every time. Make them tell you to stop asking if they get tired of your asking them. Let them know precisely what you’re going to do with their data.”

Q&A

Q: Given the events of the past few years, what would you add to the Stanford graduation speech you gave a few years ago?

A: I’ve no idea. I’d probably just turn up the volume a little bit because the past few years have reminded me how precious life is.

Q: I’d like you to put your Disney hat on for a moment….How do you preserve the value of content?

A: The way that we market movies is undergoing a radical shift. It used to be that you spent a fortune on advertising on TV running your trailers. But now you can advertise on the Web….When we went to the music companies, we said “who is your customer?” And they said, “Best Buy, Tower”…their distribution partners. But that wasn’t their customer. They needed to recognize who their true customer was….So what changed in the music business was not the back end, but the front end. The way that you market to the consumer….The film industry needs to embrace that. And it needs to let people watch the content they want to watch, when they want to watch it and where they want to watch it.”

Q: A complaint about dropped calls on AT&T’s networks. Is someone from Apple working on that?

A: You can bet we’re doing everything we can do….I can tell you what I’m told by reliable people: To make things better, people reallocate spectrum and they do things like increasing backhaul and they put in more robust switches…and things in general, when they start to fix them, get worse before they get better…and if you believe that, things should be getting a lot better real soon.

Q: How is HDCP helping the antipiracy effort?

A: We didn’t invent the stuff. The problem is that Hollywood doesn’t want what happened to the music industry to happen to them. You can’t blame them. But content protection isn’t their business and they’re grasping at straws here. But we’ve got to deal with their restrictions….I feel your pain.

Q: What’s your vision of social gaming?

A: Clearly, iPhone and iPod touch have created a new class of gaming and it’s a subset of casual gaming, but it’s surprising how good the games are. Typical console games cost $40, but on the iPhone, they cost somewhere between free and $10, and gaming on the platform is taking off. We’re trying to do the right things to enable more gaming and social gaming.

Q: Is it time to throw out the interface for TV? Does television need a new human interface.

A: The problem with innovation in the TV industry is the go-to-market strategy. The TV industry has a subsidized model that gives everyone a set top box for free. So no one wants to buy a box. Ask TiVo, ask Roku, ask us… ask Google in a few months. The television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business model that gives everyone a set-top box, and that pretty much undermines innovation in the sector. The only way this is going to change is if you start from scratch, tear up the box, redesign and get it to the consumer in a way that they want to buy it. But right now, there’s no way to do that….The TV is going to lose until there’s a viable go-to-market strategy. That’s the fundamental problem with the industry. It’s not a problem with the technology, it’s a problem with the go-to-market strategy….I’m sure smarter people than us will figure this out, but that’s why we say Apple TV is a hobby.

More Coverage on the Steve Jobs D8 Speaker Page »

Gaming WWDC: A New iPhone–But Not on Verizon

John Paczkowski — Wed, 26 May 2010 12:45:32 +0000

Now that a pair of lost next-generation iPhone prototypes has robbed Apple of the element of surprise, the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference is likely to be a “non-event” for its stock.

So says Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who doesn’t expect the WWDC to have much in the way of big “Oh, One More Thing” moments. According to Munster, Apple will probably announce a fourth-generation iPhone at the conference, and the device will probably look a lot like the prototypes we saw earlier this spring.

“Consistent with recent media reports, we expect the new iPhone to feature a front-facing camera for video conferencing, along with a new, thinner design, an improved rear camera, and better battery life, with higher capacity (32GB/64GB) at the current $199/$299 price points,” Munster writes. “We expect the new version to be popular among current iPhone 3G owners (a 2 year-old device) with a significantly different design and feature set (unlike the 3GS).”

The company is also likely to offer an update on iPad sales. Since that device’s launch in April, Apple (AAPL) has announced iPad sales figures three times. WWDC would be a perfect time to do so again.

And Apple may offer a peek at the next version of Mac OS. “Apple may choose to provide a limited demo of the next version of Mac OS X (10.7) at WWDC,” Munster says.

“Software is a key differentiator for Apple but the Mac OS has not seen the same level of innovation as iPhone software in recent years,” the analyst adds. “With the next version of Mac OS X, we expect Apple to bring some of the same innovation to the Mac platform. Multi-touch technology, for example could be a key feature of Mac OS 10.7.”

But beyond these offerings, don’t expect much. As for rumors that WWDC will see the announcement of a Verizon (VZ) iPhone: Don’t pay them much heed.

Certainly, Munster doesn’t put much faith in them. “We believe it is unlikely that the next generation iPhone will be available at Verizon (or Sprint) at launch,” he says. “Rather, it is more likely that it remains exclusively available at AT&T in the US at launch.”

Apple Adds a Bit of Pro to Low-End MacBook

John Paczkowski — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:59:54 +0000

With no fanfare whatsoever, Apple refreshed its entry-level MacBook this morning, swapping it out for a faster machine featuring longer battery life and a better video chip.

With a 2.4GHz Intel (INTC) Core 2 Duo processor, an Nvidia (NVDA) GeForce 320m graphics chip and 10 hours of battery life, the updated MacBook is similar in spec to the 13-inch MacBook Pro, though with the more budget-friendly price that has made it successful in the education market–$999.

A nice update to a machine that was last tweaked in October 2009, when Apple (AAPL) gave it a new polycarbonate unibody design, LED-backlit display, and multitouch trackpad.

Not much more to point out beyond that, though it’s worth noting that the machine is identical to the one described in a leak to Vietnamese Web site Tinhte earlier this week.

Apple iPad 3G Arrives in U.S. on April 30

John Paczkowski — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:50:49 +0000

When Apple (AAPL) said the 3G-enabled version of its new iPad slate would ship by “late April,” it wasn’t kidding. In a press release issued moments ago, the company said the device will arrive at market and in the hands of U.S. customers who pre-ordered it on Friday, April 30.

The official announcement below.

iPad Wi-Fi + 3G Models Available in US on April 30

CUPERTINO, California—April 20, 2010—Apple® today announced that the Wi-Fi + 3G models of its magical iPad™ will be delivered to US customers who’ve pre-ordered on Friday, April 30, and will be available in Apple retail stores the same day starting at 5:00 p.m.

iPad allows users to connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before. Users can browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch HD videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more, all using iPad’s revolutionary Multi-Touch™ user interface. iPad Wi-Fi + 3G models are just 0.5 inches thick and weigh just 1.6 pounds—thinner and lighter than any laptop or netbook—and deliver up to 10 hours of battery life for surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching videos or listening to music, and up to nine hours of surfing the web using a 3G data network.*

Apple retail stores will offer a free Personal Setup service to every customer who buys an iPad at the store, helping them customize their new iPad by setting up their email, loading their favorite apps from the App Store, and more. US Apple retail stores are also hosting special iPad workshops to help customers learn more about this magical new product.

Pricing & Availability
iPad is available in Wi-Fi models in the US for a suggested retail price of $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB and $699 for 64GB. The Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available on April 30 in the US for a suggested retail price of $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for 64GB. iPad is sold in the US through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores, most Best Buy stores, select Apple Authorized Resellers and campus bookstores. AT&T is offering breakthrough 3G pre-paid data plans for iPad with easy, on-device activation and management.

iPad will be available at the end of May in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. Apple will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders for iPad on May 10.

For the iPad, Apps With Their Own Wow Factor

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 23:01:46 +0000

In the days since the launch of Apple’s iPad Saturday, there has been an explosion of apps to run on it—3,000 and counting. They are mostly free and incorporate new ways of navigating one of the largest screens on a mobile device that relies solely on touch technology.

On this large canvas, people work differently and apps can behave differently depending on which way the device is turned. Apps can (and must) incorporate creative ways of navigating—in addition to the usual multi-touch gestures like flicking, two-finger swiping and pinching. Thus, although it runs most of the 150,000 apps already available for the much smaller iPhone and iPod touch, the iPad is spawning a new type of tablet-specific app.

[ See post to watch video ]

This week, I’ve been testing some of these iPad apps that give users novel ways to interact with the device. These are designed to take advantage of a larger touch screen by using things like fly-out menus, multi-panel layouts, 3-D images intermixed with text and newspapers that can be read almost as easily as their paper counterparts.

Since most of us haven’t used apps like these or a device like this before, many apps install with brief tutorials on how to navigate them. It’s obvious that the makers of these iPad apps are still tinkering with what works best for a large touch surface. And ads appear in several digital newspaper and magazine apps. Unless otherwise noted, the apps listed below are free.

News

Multi-tasking isn’t yet possible on the iPad, but the NPR app allows people to do certain things simultaneously. While browsing news stories, a player in the bottom portion of the screen lets you listen to programs, interviews or songs. I played Jakob Dylan’s “Women and Country” song while reading an article about NCAA basketball. Content can be saved to a playlist for future listening.

The Marvel Comics app

The Wall Street Journal app’s home page displays a horizontal row of newspapers representing the past seven days’ editions and a “Now” edition, with late-breaking news, all of which can be read when the iPad isn’t online. These editions are designed to use the full screen to display easy-to-read newspaper layouts and videos that play right within the articles. A finger swiped from the top down skips to a different section of the paper, while pinching any screen with two fingers returns to the home page. And you can save articles and sections. The WSJ iPad app also can access saved data from a WSJ.com account.

The app is free to download but requires a subscription for full access, which costs $4 a week or is free for a limited time to existing online or print subscribers.

The New York Times (NYT) app is called Editors’ Choice and looks like a roomier version of the newspaper’s iPhone app. Five icons at the bottom of the screen instantly jump to different sections of the paper, or you can flick a finger across these screens to page to more articles. It doesn’t require a subscription.

The USA Today app brings the Gannett Co. (GCI) paper’s color-coded blue, green, red and purple sections to the iPad. Its popular charts of information (called “Snapshots”) pop out from the bottom left of the screen and include polls that can be voted on using the device. The USA Today app looks less like the print edition of the paper and more like a list of news points with color photos beside each. This list can be scrolled with a simple finger flick up or down.

Magazines

Digital magazines on the iPad seem to be experimenting with different payment methods. Rodale Inc.’s Men’s Health, for example, is a free app and includes previews of magazine issues, but then it charges $5 to download the actual issue. Bonnier Corp.’s Popular Science app costs $5 up-front and includes an issue that must be downloaded within the app.

Popular Science really uses the iPad’s larger surface in creative ways. Instead of just letting you page ahead with each finger flick as if reading a regular magazine, you can read articles by flicking a finger down or across a screen. In some articles I read, images appeared to be floating in the background behind text. Two fingers flicking up from the bottom of the screen show shortcuts for a table of contents and previous magazine issues.

Music

Pandora’s iPad app makes good use of the device’s screen real estate by showing artist information, now-playing details, album art and a list of personalized radio stations all on the same screen. I found myself more likely to read about artists on the iPad than on my smaller iPod touch. But like many Pandora users, I like playing music in the background as I work on other tasks, and this isn’t possible on the iPad because it doesn’t allow third-party apps like Pandora to multi-task.

Entertainment

Scrabble app

The Marvel Comics app displays stunning, large illustrations and moves you across the screen to see them as if the comic is one continuous strip and there’s no division between one screen and the next. A finger swipe moves you ahead in a guided view that jumps you from one character’s dialog cloud to the next in the correct order. This app is a free download and a handful of free comic books come with it, but each additional book costs around $2.

Scrabble for iPad costs $10 and includes options for playing with friends by passing the iPad back and forth, and an additional free app enables connecting an iPhone or iPod touch to the iPad to use these smaller screens as tile racks. You can play against your Facebook friends or the computer, and things like “Best Word” and an option to shuffle tiles make the game a little easier to play for some. Scrabble will even play your iTunes music in the background while you’re dragging tiles onto the board using your finger.

With Real Racing HD, you see a 3-D view of racetracks and steer a car by leaning the iPad in the direction you need to turn (a built-in accelerometer senses where you’re moving the iPad). I played this $10 game while sitting in the back seat of a moving car and got a bit dizzy since the race is so realistic.

Education

A great example of how the iPad can be used for education can be seen in an app titled “The Elements: A Visual Exploration,” developed by Touch Press. This costs $14 and displays the periodic table of elements stretched across the screen. Selecting one element brings it forward and spins a dazzling image of it so you can see all sides of it. A link to the Web pulls in real-time information about that element.

iPad apps like The Elements: A Visual Exploration, above, make good use of the larger touch screen.

Others

Apple’s (AAPL) iBooks and Amazon.com’s (AMZN) Kindle are two terrific e-reader apps that bring digital books to the iPad. There’s a strong argument for using the Kindle app, since books bought through it can be accessed on a variety of platforms in addition to the iPad, all in sync right where you left off reading, while iBooks are currently limited to the iPad. But the books in iBooks are displayed in an arresting way, with animation that resembles real pages turning.

Pages, Keynote and Numbers are Apple’s versions of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel and they cost $10 each. When installed, these programs can convert documents from Microsoft’s (MSFT) formats and let you work on them. They present rich, PC-like features controlled by touch. Pages, also lets you convert the documents back to the original Microsoft format.

TruPhone and Skype will make calls over the Internet using the iPad when you’re online, and in one test, this worked relatively well.

The Houzz Inc. app is a digital look book for interior-decorating ideas that’s updated with current images of decorated houses. It displays large images of decorated rooms across the iPad’s screen, allowing you to search and save certain looks for offline access or sharing with others.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

More iPad Coverage »

Apple iPad Review: Laptop Killer? Pretty Close

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 02:01:38 +0000

For the past week or so, I have been testing a sleek, light, silver-and-black tablet computer called an iPad. After spending hours and hours with it, I believe this beautiful new touch-screen device from Apple has the potential to change portable computing profoundly, and to challenge the primacy of the laptop. It could even help, eventually, to propel the finger-driven, multitouch user interface ahead of the mouse-driven interface that has prevailed for decades.

[ See post to watch video ]

But first, it will have to prove that it really can replace the laptop or netbook for enough common tasks, enough of the time, to make it a viable alternative. And that may not be easy, because previous tablet computers have failed to catch on in the mass market, and the iPad lacks some of the features—such as a physical keyboard, a Webcam, USB ports and multitasking—that most laptop or netbook users have come to expect.

If people see the iPad mainly as an extra device to carry around, it will likely have limited appeal. If, however, they see it as a way to replace heavier, bulkier computers much of the time—for Web surfing, email, social-networking, video- and photo-viewing, gaming, music and even some light content creation—it could be a game changer the way Apple’s iPhone has been.

The iPad is much more than an e-book or digital periodical reader, though it does those tasks brilliantly, better in my view than the Amazon Kindle. And it’s far more than just a big iPhone, even though it uses the same easy-to-master interface, and Apple (AAPL) says it runs nearly all of the 150,000 apps that work on the iPhone.

When held horizontally, the iPad’s virtual keyboard is roomy and easy to use.

It’s qualitatively different, a whole new type of computer that, through a simple interface, can run more-sophisticated, PC-like software than a phone does, and whose large screen allows much more functionality when compared with a phone’s. But, because the iPad is a new type of computer, you have to feel it, to use it, to fully understand it and decide if it is for you, or whether, say, a netbook might do better.

So I’ve been using my test iPad heavily day and night, instead of my trusty laptops most of the time. As I got deeper into it, I found the iPad a pleasure to use, and had less and less interest in cracking open my heavier ThinkPad or MacBook. I probably used the laptops about 20% as often as normal, reserving them mainly for writing or editing longer documents, or viewing Web videos in Adobe’s (ADBE) Flash technology, which the iPad doesn’t support, despite its wide popularity online.

My verdict is that, while it has compromises and drawbacks, the iPad can indeed replace a laptop for most data communication, content consumption and even limited content creation, a lot of the time. But it all depends on how you use your computer.

If you’re mainly a Web surfer, note-taker, social-networker and emailer, and a consumer of photos, videos, books, periodicals and music—this could be for you. If you need to create or edit giant spreadsheets or long documents, or you have elaborate systems for organizing email, or need to perform video chats, the iPad isn’t going to cut it as your go-to device.

The iPad is thinner and lighter than any netbook or laptop I’ve seen. It weighs just 1.5 pounds, and its aluminum and glass body is a mere half-inch thick. It boasts a big, bright color 9.7-inch screen that occupies most of the front. As on all Apple portable devices, the battery is sealed in and nonreplaceable. It has a decent speaker, and even a tiny microphone.

Memory, also sealed in and nonexpandable, ranges from 16 gigabytes to 64 gigabytes. And you can order one with just a Wi-Fi wireless connection to the Internet, or Wi-Fi plus an AT&T (T) 3G cellular connection. The Wi-Fi models will be available Saturday and the 3G models, which I didn’t test, about a month later.

Prices start at $499 and go to $829, with the costlier models having more memory and/or 3G. The cellular models don’t require a contract or termination fee. You can pay AT&T either $15 a month for 250 megabytes of data use, or $30 a month for unlimited data—a significant reduction from typical prices for laptop cellular connectivity.

I was impressed with the iPad’s battery life, which I found to be even longer than Apple’s ten-hour claim, and far longer than on my laptops or smart phones. For my battery test, I played movies, TV shows and other videos back-to-back until the iPad died. This stressed the device’s most power-hogging feature, its screen. The iPad lasted 11 hours and 28 minutes, about 15% more than Apple claimed. I was able to watch four feature-length movies, four TV episodes and a video of a 90-minute corporate presentation, before the battery died midway through an episode of “The Closer.”

Walt’s mountain-view wallpaper with app icons arranged during his tests.

Oh, and all the while during this battery marathon, I kept the Wi-Fi network running and the email downloading constantly in the background. Your mileage may vary, but with Wi-Fi off and the screen turned down from the fairly bright level I used, you might even do better. Music plays far longer with the screen off. On the other hand, playing games constantly might yield worse battery life.

Apple says video playback, Web use and book reading all take about the same amount of juice. When I was doing the latter two tasks for an hour or two at a time, the battery ran down so slowly for me that I stopped thinking about it.

I also was impressed with the overall speed of the iPad. Apple’s custom processor makes it wicked fast. Screens appear almost instantly, and the Wi-Fi in my home tested as fast as it does on a laptop.

I found email easy and productive to use, and had no trouble typing accurately and quickly on the iPad’s wide on-screen keyboard. In fact, I found the iPad virtual keyboard more comfortable and accurate to use than the cramped keyboards and touchpads on many netbooks, though some fast touch typists might disagree. Apple’s $39 iPad case, which bends to set up a nice angle for typing, helps.

The Web browser also works beautifully, and takes advantage of the big screen to show full pages and cut down on scrolling. It even now has a bookmarks bar at the top. As noted, however, it doesn’t support Adobe’s Flash technology.

I also was able to easily sync the iPad’s calendar and contacts apps with Google (GOOG) and Apple’s MobileMe.

Watching videos, viewing photos, listening to music, reading books and playing games was satisfying and fun. I used the device heavily for Twitter and Facebook. And I even got some light work done in the optional iPad word processor, called Pages, which is part of a $30 suite that also includes a spreadsheet and presentation program.

This is a serious content creation app that should help the iPad compete with laptops and can import Microsoft Office files. However, only the word processor exports to Microsoft’s formats, and not always accurately. In one case, the exported Word file had misaligned text. When I then tried exporting the document as a PDF file, it was unreadable.

Apple created a touch version of its Pages word processor for the iPad.

The iPad can run two types of third-party apps, both available from Apple’s app store. It can use nearly all existing iPhone apps. These can either run in a small, iPhone-size window in the middle of the screen, which makes them look tiny, or blown up to double size. The larger size makes them fill the screen, but can make type inside them look blocky. Still, the dozens I tested all worked properly. And it can run a new class of specially designed iPad apps, of which Apple hopes to have 1,000 at launch. I successfully tested the revamped App Store, which features the iPad apps most prominently when you’re on an iPad.

Based on my very small sample, some app developers may be testing higher prices for iPad apps than the 99 cents or $1.99 typical for paid iPhone apps. The paid iPad apps I saw ranged from $3.99 to $49.99. Others were free.

Apple has rebuilt its own core iPhone apps for the iPad to add sophisticated features that make the programs look and work more like PC or Mac software. For instance, there are “popover” menus that make it easier to make choices without leaving the screen you’re on. And, when the iPad is held horizontally, in landscape mode, as I often preferred to use it, many programs now have two panels, making them faster and more useful. For example, in email, a left-hand panel shows your message list, while a larger right-hand panel shows the message itself.

The photo app is striking, and much more like the one on the Mac than the one on the iPhone. The device can even be used as a digital picture frame. The iPod app is beautiful, too, as are the calendar and contacts app. Unfortunately, Apple excluded some of the more familiar apps from the iPhone, including Weather, Clock and Stocks.

I tested a small selection of the new third-party iPad apps Apple hopes to have available at launch, and most were also rich and feature-filled, beyond what iPhone apps offer. These included games such as Scrabble and “Touch Hockey,” a database app, news services and more.

I was able to try a pre-release version of The Wall Street Journal’s new iPad app (which I had nothing to do with designing), and found it gorgeous and highly functional—by far the best implementation of the newspaper I have ever seen on a screen. Unlike the Journal’s Web site, or its smart-phone apps, the iPad version blends much more of the look and feel of the print paper into the electronic environment. Other newspapers and magazines have announced plans for their own, dramatically more realistic iPad apps.

I also found iBooks, Apple’s book reader and store, easy to use, and read a couple of books on it. I consider the larger color screen superior to the Kindle’s, and encountered no eye strain. But the iPad is much heavier than the Kindle and most people will need two hands to use it. The iBooks app also lacks any way to enter notes, and Apple’s catalog at launch will only be about 60,000 books versus more than 400,000 for Kindle.

I did run into some other annoying limitations. For instance, the email program lacks the ability to create local folders or rules for auto-sorting messages, and it doesn’t allow group addressing. The browser lacks tabs. And the Wi-Fi-only version lacks GPS. Also, videophiles may dislike the fact that the iPad’s screen lacks wide-screen dimensions, so you either get black bars above or below wide-screen videos, or, if you choose an option to fill the screen, some of the picture may get cut off.

All in all, however, the iPad is an advance in making more-sophisticated computing possible via a simple touch interface on a slender, light device. Only time will tell if it’s a real challenger to the laptop and netbook.

Find Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email mossberg@wsj.com.

More Apple iPad Coverage »

The Complete Works of Bing Gordon: Odes to the iPhone and iPad

John Paczkowski — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:23:25 +0000

At a Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers event this morning to announce the doubling of its $100 million iFund, KPCB team member Bing Gordon read two poems–the first, a 2008 paean to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, the second an ode to its forthcoming iPad. Below is the full text of both: “Welcome to the World, iPhone” and “Welcome to the World, iPad.”

Welcome to the World, iPhone
(Summer 2008)

Welcome to the world, my new friend and pocket master.
Your 3-G-ness makes my world so much better and lots faster.
Your App Store is the killer app of mobile D-to-C,
Although you are surprised that 90 percent of apps are Free.

100 Million is a frighteningly awesome number,
And threatens to eclipse Nintendo, put PSP in your penumbra.
Who’d have expected games like Rolando would have put you on the map,
Or that a virtual beer mug would become a killer app.

Your baby brother iPod Touch is rustling, restless in the wings,
With tens of millions multi-touchers browsing iTunes for new things.
With so much excitement already, your future’s hardly hazy;
Christmas Season in the Apple Stores this year will be, like, crazy.

Thanks, iPhone, for giving us a White to go with Black.
Thanks, iPhone, for making Leopard mobile, and connecting to my Mac.
iPhone, you’ve launched into the world, like a Cupertino rocket!
Steve envisioned computers on each desk; now it’s iPhone in every pocket!

Welcome to the World, iPad
(April 2010)

Welcome to the world, iPad, we’ve been awaiting you for months.
You give my hands an article of lust they both can touch at once.
3 Billion downloads in two years from 150,000 titles in App Store,
We’ve seen previews under NDA that will drive many billions more.

You’ve inspired new computer scientists on every college campus,
Who invented killer apps for toddlers, texting teens and check-in grampas.
Entrepreneurs without previous experience are creating jobs and wealth,
If they skip class to finish their new app, do they have to keep in stealth?

Thanks, iPad, for giving us a Cinerama screen.
Thanks, iPad, putting soul into your new machine.
iPad, you are the next chapter in the Apple Computer lore,
But we have to take our tent and leave now, the line is forming at the store.

Headed straight for The Norton Anthology Of Poetry, I imagine …

Windows Phone 7 Series Even More Impressive Than Previously Thought

John Paczkowski — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:55:34 +0000

Microsoft added a bit more to its Windows Phone 7 Series story at its MIX10 event this morning, revealing some of the mobile operating system’s features and detailing how developers can write software for it. While it’s obviously far too early to make any big declarations about it, the OS certainly seems competitive–and compelling. Consider this feature list:

accelerometer support
a Microsoft Location Service for the phones
Microsoft Notification Service, known to other smartphone users as push notifications
hardware-accelerated video playback with digital rights management
internet information services smooth streaming for live video
multitouch support
camera and microphone support

Table stakes at this point, I suppose, but a robust feature list just the same. Announced along with it: A free suite of application development tools and a solid list of launch partners that includes the Associated Press, EA Mobile, Namco, Pandora and Sling Media, among others. One of the OS’s showcase apps: Netflix with “Watch It Now” 3G video streaming.

Impressive, no? Could this be the beginning of another application development gold rush? Microsoft (MSFT) clearly hopes so.

“More than half a million Silverlight and tens of thousands of XNA Framework developers are now Windows Phone developers,” Windows Phone 7 boss Charlie Kindel wrote in a post to The Windows Phone Developers Blog.

“Developers and designers can now build their code once and optimize it to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the phone, Web, PC or Xbox 360,” Kindel added. “Due to common shared libraries, controls and runtimes across these many screens and the cloud, developers now have the opportunity to reach over 1 billion customers.”

Still, it’s far too early to say what’s to come. It seems clear, however, that with Windows Phone 7, Microsoft could make the jump from mobile OS also-ran to contender fairly quickly–assuming the market’s willing, of course.

Google's Nexus One–Now With Multitouch

John Paczkowski — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:04:34 +0000

Apple and Google both issued updates to their respective super-smartphones today, Apple (AAPL) rolling out iPhone OS 3.1.3, Google (GOOG) an unnumbered point release to the Nexus One’s software.

The new iPhone release is a bit of a yawner, resolving an issue that caused some third-party applications to have difficulty launching, improving the accuracy of reported battery level on the iPhone 3G S and fixing some security issues.

The Nexus One update is quite a bit meatier. It adds Google Goggles to the All Apps menu, improves 3G connectivity (or promises to) and, significantly, enables multitouch in the phone’s Browser, Gallery and Maps applications. Seems the Nexus One dev team got over whatever aversion it had to pinch-to-zoom.

This update is being rolled out gradually, so some Nexus One owners may not see it until later this week.