iPad Liveblog Archive
6:46 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: It's early. But never too early for pie. I'm eating pie.
7:11 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Did anyone get in on that Klingon invasion in Star Trek Online yesterday?That must have been GREAT. Pew pew.
7:19 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Gotta say, the Palm Pre Plus Wi-Fi hotspot is pretty useful. I'm Wi-Fi connected to it from an iPhone now.
7:29 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: It's not totally unprecedented, so I wonder what celebrities will be attending today. John Mayer? Ralph Macchio? Yoko Ono?
7:31 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Or Kanye West, as he runs up on stage, slapping the tablet out of Steve Jobs' hands, exclaiming that the Handspring Visor was the best tablet of all time.
7:35 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Think of all the product placements on TV shows in a few months. Jack Bauer using a tablet to peep on terrorists, House playing tablet games when he's supposed to be diagnosing lupus, and Heroes, being a lousy show.
7:38 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: None for Lost, because they're supposed to be in 2004...or 2037. I can never keep their time traveling straight.
7:45 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: I just saw two cops pull over an unmarked white van. This is not the start of a horribly tasteless joke, just an observation.
7:48 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Gawker boss Nick Denton is really excited about this tablet. This is as of yet unconfirmed, but I hear he's going to buy one for everyone in the company. Don't tell anyone.
7:59 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: Good morning, Jason; gadget fans.
8:01 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Uh oh a tunnel.
8:03 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: The last time I was in New York, Nick Denton took Blam and I out to lunch. We sat in some sort of Mexican dungeon while Denton stared down at the thick wooden table and said of the tablet, "It's the gadget I've been waiting for all my life." Mostly true story! Then today he sent out some lines from Shakespeare. All I'm saying is can someone in the New York office check on him? I'm worried about him.
Joel Johnson: It's strange to be receiving last minute leaks on what the tablet looks like. At this point it's almost impossible to get excited about something we'll see for certain in a couple of hours.
8:05 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: I wish I were typing this on a tablet right now. It would be more entertaining by $600.
8:08 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: Jason: You wish it'd only be $600 more entertaining. I'm betting on this thing costing upwards of a grand. Or as I call it "ten large, but not the extra large, right just hundreds."
8:11 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: Richard Lawson over at Gawker is musing about the scavenger hunt they ran:
Like blockbuster movies! That's sort of sweet in an irredeemably nerdy way, isn't it? There is something about the grandeur and anticipation of one of these keynote magic shows. Yes it's all nasty and capitalistic and cold and inhuman, but a little bit of excitement never hurt anyone, especially in these penurious times, when a Cosmo centerfold has assumed the regency and rules us all from his throne made of the bones of the New York Yankees.
http://valleywag.gawker.com/5458127/the-apple-tablet-and-the-joy-of-anticipation
8:16 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: So a lot of people have been kind of chuckling up to me, being totally nice if misguided, and asking, "So are you totally sick of this tablet stuff yet?" And I mean, I appreciate it, but I have to say that in this case no I am not. I am legitimately excited to see what Apple pulls out today. Although I will cop to being slightly mentally prepped for learning that they've cracked some magical new haptic/physical feedback QWERTY typing solution. If it's just a really nice touchscreen device I'll survive, but I will shed a tear privately.
8:19 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: Really bad puns ahoy:
@Lea_Hernandez RT @gdwessel Nice. RT: @EddieRobson: Wouldn't it be great if Apple made a comics reader called the iSner?
It's funny because of this guy named Will Eisner who was sort of an important comics guy who...fine. But I would love love love to see some comics stuff announced today for this thing. Actually, I should call one of my sources now just for a last second check up.
8:23 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: Ooh, we just got in some pictures of what looks like the unibody aluminum back of the tablet. Posting here in a sec.
8:23 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: We're here, along with the usual cast of unemployables.
8:24 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Attendee baldness ratio remains unchanged. No more, no less. But there is no sun, so the glare isn't too bad.
8:26 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: Okay, Hermann got pictures of the back up: Is This The Outside of the Apple Tablet?. Looks legit to me!
Joel Johnson: @Jason: What about the beard|baldness ratio?
8:27 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Some guy just came up and asked me if I was Jason Chen:. After I confirmed, he said he was a big fan. I thanked him. Was I just punk'd?
8:30 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: A few standard outfits here. You've got your jeans, shirt and a blazer, your "running down to Dennys" windbreaker and sweatpants, your "I'm on network TV" suit, and your randomly sprinkled hipster uniforms.
8:33 am ON Jan 27 2010
Mark Wilson: I hope Apple announces a 9lb tablet with hand crank power only.
8:36 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Beard to baldness ratio is about 1:3, unless you're talking about the other kind of beard, in which case there are no women here.
8:40 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Hey look, it's Matt Buchanananan, who some random stranger called the Gizmodo albino one time. That wasn't nice, random stranger. You take that back.
8:42 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: Jason, Mark. I don't want to get all I-told-you-so, but wouldn't you really be loving a van-cooked tablet-shaped sausage patty right now?
8:42 am ON Jan 27 2010
Mark Wilson: I hope Apple announces a 180lb tablet that's six feet tall and only displays a lifesized animated gif of Steve Jobs waving to me at all times.
8:45 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Joel, I believe I would be more interested in a sausage shaped tablet party.
8:45 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Oh you said patty. That too.
8:48 am ON Jan 27 2010
Mark Wilson: I hope Apple announces the 10-inch tablet we've all imagined but the only supported language is Wingdings.
8:49 am ON Jan 27 2010
matt buchannan:
8:51 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: Wow, Haiti really cleaned itself up for this one. (That is Haiti, right?)
8:53 am ON Jan 27 2010
Mark Wilson I hope Apple announces a tablet that Bootcamps into a Microsoft Courier.
8:56 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: I have a dirty secret: I've never actually ever been to an Apple event. Here's a worse one: I got this email bounce of the invite that Apple sent to Gizmodo, and for like 24 hours I thought they were inviting me specifically. I crowed about it ever so subtly to the rest of the Gizmodo crew, until I realized that I didn't actually know how to read email headers properly. Hence, me home in my bathrobe. (P.S. MSF can still use funds that you can't spend on a tablet today anyway. I'll stop now.)
9:00 am ON Jan 27 2010
Mark Wilson I hope Apple announces a tablet that renders Call of Duty at full resolution but requires a MobileMe subscription to play online.
9:01 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: I regret shaving my beard off last night.
9:02 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: I was about to make fun of Earth2Tech for this post where they talk about how "green" the Apple Tablet will be without ever having seen one, but then I realized: 1) I write for Gizmodo, which has paid for several of Denton's wigs this month by Apple speculation alone 2) Atoms are the new bits! So don't worry about anything. I'm pretty sure Apple harvested the raw materials from wandering asteroids.
9:04 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: OMG Jason. My beard is so bad right now because I'm growing it out for this article on shaving I'm doing for Mark. But what's worse is that now it has been so long since my skin has seen sunlight that when I finally do shave my face will be so buttery it'll look like I just went down on Paula Deen.
9:04 am ON Jan 27 2010
Mark Wilson I hope that Apple announces a tablet with a display that shakes clean like an Etch a Sketch, but ruins 70% of the emails you type handheld.
9:06 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: If I could grow a 70s moustache like some of these guys, I would be seven times as manly. Plus, I would never go hungry.
9:08 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Whoa, one man looks like he just got back from a Himalaya expedition. It's working for him.
9:10 am ON Jan 27 2010
Mark Wilson I hope Apple announces a tablet that runs 7 hours on lithium ion battery, or 7 1/2 hours on 1 gram of unobtainium.
9:10 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: Pics! I hear that dressing up in quasi-steampunk worsted fabrics is what the cool kids in the Bay Area are wearing these days. And to think we gave up tight-rolled jeans for beards in the last '80s revival.
9:11 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: We just saw Jon Ive, and he is drinking brandy like a classy son of a bitch.
9:13 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Joel, I don't understand half of the words in your last update.
9:14 am ON Jan 27 2010
matt buchannan:
9:14 am ON Jan 27 2010
matt buchannan:
9:16 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: Jason: That usually means that I'm trying to get into your pants. Seduction-by-thesaurus is way undervalue, lowball, do an injustice to, be wrong about, sell short, play down, understate. Whoa, it's Fry and Ive! Take that, House!
9:16 am ON Jan 27 2010
Mark Wilson I hope Apple announces a tablet that is 99% compostable, save for a highly radioactive nuclear core with half life of 2,000,000 years.
9:16 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Also pictured next to Ive, Stevie Fry, who is unfortunately not drinking.
9:18 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: And if you stare at that JPG and whisper, "Bloody ginger, bloody ginger" five times the specter of matt buchannan: Buchanan will appear.
9:18 am ON Jan 27 2010
matt buchannan:
9:23 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: If you're not already following us on Twitter, it's @gizmodo and @diskopo for me, personally.
9:24 am ON Jan 27 2010
Mark Wilson I hope Apple announces a tablet that's really just 6 iPod touches glued together, bezels and all.
9:25 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Joel, while it's true most gingers have souls, it's undertermined if matt buchannan: Buchanan does. My money is on him stealing the soul of an intern when we weren't looking.
9:26 am ON Jan 27 2010
Mark Wilson I hope Apple announces a tablet that functions exclusively in select Starbucks locations.
9:26 am ON Jan 27 2010
matt buchannan:
9:28 am ON Jan 27 2010
Mark Wilson I hope Apple announces a 10-inch tablet that can double as a colorful vanity plate.
9:30 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: Mark: I heard that Jason Calacanis has an Apple tablet that is powered entirely by an encapsulated ego dynamo that orbits the black hole in his brain where most people have a sense of humor.
9:31 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: OH WHAT IS THAT fruit table! Brian was all "They always serve food; there's no need for sausage patties." Well clearly there is. God, the editorial sense in this place!
9:32 am ON Jan 27 2010
Mark Wilson I hope Apple announces a tablet free from the yellow, flickering screens of the latest iMacs.
9:33 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: People are lining up to go inside, and I am drafting behind someone who is guaranteed to get in fast.
9:34 am ON Jan 27 2010
Mark Wilson I hope Apple announces a tablet that makes us all understand why we inexplicably crave a tablet.
9:39 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: We've lost contact with our away team as they begin the death shuffle to seats. These guys have been training for today for weeks. You'd think I'm joking because that sounds so pathetic but I'm totally not. This is our Bowie-meets-Bing-Crosby moment.
9:40 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: (In that metaphor we are Bing Crosby's sweater.)
9:44 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: There are simultaneously too many and too few pictures of beards in the liveblog comments.
9:45 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: We're inside. I'm liveblogging from the bathroom.
9:45 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
9:46 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: I was willing to bet a lot of money that Apple was going to play Phoenix before the show started, but it doesn't seem like they will be.
9:49 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Oh and don't forget to post your comments and predictions in our post here. Besides the Tablet, any guesses on what's going to be announced? My last minute ones: iLife, MacBook Pro i5/i7 upgrades and an upgrade to MobileMe that allows you to live stream your day to anybody who is interested.
9:50 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
9:50 am ON Jan 27 2010
Joel Johnson: Before things really get cooking, you can also track all the stories that we'll be doing over the next couple of hours Twitter and Facebook. Or you could also go to the front page but that's not very social.
9:51 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: We're still about 10 minutes away from the event starting. I wonder if the guys backstage are vomiting from nervousness. I would be.
9:53 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
9:53 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: I swear the guy who was on Rescue Me (the fat lieutenant guy) is here, in the front, talking to someone. SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS.
9:54 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
9:54 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: There are so many video cameras here from so many TV stations that I'm afraid to pick my nose, lest I end up on some station's B-Roll that they'll air some time tonight. Ahh, screw it, here I go anyway.
9:55 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: I'm willing to bet half the people here will be liveblogging the next Apple event on a tablet, possibly with a keyboard attachment peripheral.
9:56 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: People are taking their seats, and the announcer is asking us to silence our cellphones and paging devices.
9:58 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Apple's playing a live recording of a Dylan concert. Unless Dylan is backstage, complete with an audience, that is. You never know!
10:00 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: I would love to liveblog a Dylan presentation. I could make up any text I wanted and nobody would doubt it, since nobody could decipher his mumblings anyway.
10:00 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: The lights are dimming and the show should start soon.
10:01 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: There are three bottles of water on stage, because Steve Jobs never drinks from the same water bottle twice. (This is not true.)
10:01 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Steve Jobs is on stage, and he looks about the same as we last saw him (kinda skinny, but not unhealthily skinny).
10:02 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: "We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical products today."
10:02 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:03 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: But first he is going to talk about some other updates. A few weeks ago, they sold their 250 millionth iPod.
10:03 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: The second update (he's going preetty fast here). Apple has 284 retail stores. They've had 50 million visitors to their stores.
10:03 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Their 4th store in NYC is on Broadway in Lincoln center, with a huge glass front and a bunch of tables inside.
10:03 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:04 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Next update: App Store. There are over 140,000 applications in the App Store. "A few weeks ago we announced a user downloaded the 3 billionth app from the App Store."
10:04 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:05 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Lastly (a photo of Woz and Jobs is on stage), Steve says 34 years after they started in 1976, they have $15.6 billion of revenue.
10:05 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:05 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: So now Apple is over a $50 billion company. "It is pretty amazing."
10:05 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: They get their revenue from three product lines, iPods, iPhones and Macs. (A fourth coming today?!)
10:05 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:06 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: By revenue, Apple is the largest "mobile devices business" in the world now. Larger than Sony, with digital cameras camcorders, bigger than Samsung's, and bigger than Nokia. Again, by revenue.
10:07 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: And now, the main event.
10:07 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:07 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Steve's showing a quote from the WSJ on the tablet.
10:07 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:07 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Before he's going to talk about the tablet, he's going to go back to 1991, when they shipped the first Powerbooks. It was the first laptop with a TFT screen, putting the keyboard up to create palm rests, and a pointing device.
10:08 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:08 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: And three years ago, they invented the iPhone.
10:08 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:09 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: "Is there room for a third category of device in the middle? Something that's between a laptop and smartphone."
10:09 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Things like browsing the web. Email. Photos. Videos. Music. Games. eBooks.
10:09 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: "In order to create a third category of devices, these devices will have to be far better at doing some key tasks. What kind of tasks?"
10:09 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: This device needs to be BETTER than a laptop or a smartphone at these types of devices. "Or it has no reason for being."
10:10 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: But what about Netbooks? "Netbooks aren't better at ANYTHING! They're just like cheap laptops."
10:10 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: "And we call it, the iPad." It's official.
10:10 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:10 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:11 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:11 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: A quick overview: "it's very thin", and you can change the background of the device.
10:11 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Here's what it looks like, and Steve Jobs has one. The icons are like the iPhone's, complete with a tray at the bottom (like the Mac OS X dock).
10:11 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:11 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: "It is the best browsing experience you've ever had."
10:11 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:11 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: You can turn iPad, and an accelerometer will adjust by itself. "You can see the whole webpage. "
10:11 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:12 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: And here's the keyboard: "it's a dream to type on", and it looks like a giant iPhone keyboard. "It's almost life size."
10:12 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:12 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:12 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: You can flick through photos and emails just like on the iPhone, basically. There's a built-in calendar (like a datebook married the desktop OS X calendar).
10:13 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: The music player is also very similar to the iPhone's, but also very similar to actual iTunes. It's a hybrid.
10:13 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:13 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: You can also watch YouTube (even in high def), and you can watch TV shows and movies. It's not widescreen though, and looks closer to 4:3 than 16:9.
10:13 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: And here's a demo.
10:14 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: You slide to unlock, just like an iPhone. "It's so much more intimate than a laptop."
10:14 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:14 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:14 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: First up, he's showing up Safari, going to Apple.com. Now he's visiting the New York Times website. The page renders just like a browser's, and there are the navigational buttons on the top.
10:15 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Jobs clicked a story and there is a missing plugin error (is this flash? Does this mean that the iPad won't have flash?)
10:15 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:16 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Now, Time Magazine. Next, Fandango, because Steve Jobs wants to buy some tickets for a movie. "Grab the tablet that's in the kitchen, go to the iPad and buy your tickets."
10:16 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:16 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: And next, National Geographic's website. This could a flash plugin, I'm not sure. And Steve Jobs hasn't said anything about it yet.
10:17 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: He's zooming in and swiping around just like an iPhone.
10:17 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Next up, email. He's looking at a message, and he can bring up a pulldown menu of the inbox on the left by clicking the inbox button. He can swap to landscape view and view things in widescreen, with the inbox on the left and the message on the right.
10:17 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:18 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Now, demonstrating how to open a PDF. Tap on it and the PDF opens in a new window, just like on the iPhone.
10:18 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:18 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: And to compose a message, click on compose and "up pops this gorgeous keyboard here." Steve Jobs is typing actually NOT with his thumbs, but with fingers, like on a real keyboard. He's placing it on his lap and typing away semi-naturally. But not without errors.
10:19 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:19 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: It's a cross platform device, because he can sync photos with Mac and Windows, but if he's on a Mac, you can get photo data like events from iPhoto.
10:20 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: He's showing a vacation photo of someone's kids. And some girl named Liz.
10:20 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Now, photos. He's swiping around and tapping photos, very similar to the way the iPhone works—but with a bigger screen, naturally.
10:20 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:20 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: He can also zoom out to map mode, for photos, and see all the photos he took in a particular location in the world. There are pins representing different cities, with popups for each photo set.
10:21 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:21 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Jobs is showing a photo slideshow with backing music and decent-looking transitions. He's sitting cross-legged on his little loveseat.
10:21 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:21 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: He holds the iPad with one hand and manipulates it with the other.
10:22 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Now, iTunes. He can pull up songs similar to the new Album Cover view in iTunes, and he taps different album covers to bring up a list of songs in that album. Tapping a song there plays the song. It's more similar to iTunes on the desktop than iPod on the iPhone.
10:22 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: And the iTunes store? He's showing JOHN MAYER's Battle Studies.
10:23 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:23 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: There are movies, TV shows, podcasts, audiobooks, iTunes U and a topless Alicia Keys.
10:23 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:23 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Jobs jumped over to calendar, which looks really like the one on the desktop, except for a couple more views like Day and List, which looks more like an organizer book (a physical one).
10:24 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:24 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:24 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: But what else? There's a maps app, which is Google Maps (he doesn't mention Google by name though!) Not yet, anyway.
10:24 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: He's loading up his current location, that means this has GPS or some kind of location sensing. But, there's no icon on the top next to the Wi-Fi icon that shows a 3G connection.
10:25 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Brian says don't go to the Sushi Boat place that Jobs just mentioned, because you will get food poisioning.
10:25 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
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B. Lam
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B. Lam
10:26 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Jobs may have just said "that's fucking YouTube" while demoing YouTube, but I didn't quite get that middle word and heard what I wanted to hear. So, unconfirmed.
10:26 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:26 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
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B. Lam
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B. Lam
10:27 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: As for movies, Jobs is bringing up Star Trek, selecting a chapter and watching it in widescreen landscape mode. The movie only takes up about half the screen's display area because it's widescreen, and the tablet is not. p.s., lens flares.
10:27 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Now he's showing the movie Up, which is also in widescreen (not quite as wide as Star Trek).
10:27 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: There's also a lot of bezel around the device for some reason. I'd say 20% of the device is bezel, if you're measuring in one direction?
10:28 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: "And that's an overview of what the iPad can do."
10:28 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:28 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Now, the hardware. "It's half an inch thin and weighs just 1.5 pounds."
10:28 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: It has a 9.7-inch IPS display, which has "great angle of view."
10:28 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:29 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: "As you know, Apple builds the same multitouch sensors in the world." And it has multitouch on this. It's powered by a 1GHz Apple A4 chip, and has 16GB to 64GB of flash storage.
10:29 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: It has 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. 30-pin connector, speaker, microphone, accelerometer and compass.
10:29 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:29 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: "And it screams."
10:30 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:30 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: He can "fly to San Francisco to Tokyo and watch video the whole way on one charge." That's ten hours of VIDEO. And 1 month of standby charge.
10:30 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: "And it's got battery. What is the battery life of this remarkable new device?" 10 hours of battery life.
10:30 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: And the environmental checklist, pretty much the same as the laptops Apple's currently building.
10:31 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:31 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:31 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: But what about third-party applications? The App Store. Now he invites Scott Forstall, the SVP of iPhone Software.
10:31 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:31 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: This means it's going to run from the same App Store as the iPhone, but we're not sure about what TYPE of apps yet.
10:31 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:32 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: The iPad can run "virtually every one of these apps, unmodified, right out of the box." They can either run it very small, 10:1 pixel, in the center of the screen. Or they can "pixel double" it and run it full screen, in a low resolution mode.
10:32 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:32 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
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B. Lam
10:32 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: He's downloaded all these apps unmodified from the App Store. First, Facebook. He runs it in a tiny iPhone-size window oin the middle of the screen. But he can tap the "2x" button and run things full screen. It's the same resolution, but just bigger.
10:33 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:33 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: "But what about a game?" Here's an ESPN game called Snocross.
10:33 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:33 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Again, so far he's just running iPhone programs that are just uprezzed to the resolution of the iPad.
10:34 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: It's an unmodified game "right off the app store," emphasizing the fact that you're going to be able to play all these games that are already in the App Store, so that the iPad won't launch with a tiny library.
10:34 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:34 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: He also has Flight Control installed on there, which is Nick Denton's favorite iPhone game.
10:35 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: But, what if the developer modifies their game for the larger display? "We rewrote the user interface of every one of our apps to take advantage of the larger display that comes with the iPad."
10:35 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:35 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: "We've enhanced the iPhone SDK to support development for the iPad as well, and we're releasing the SDK today."
10:36 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:36 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: You can go to Apple.com today and "get going". The SDK includes an iPad simulator to run the iPad apps on the Mac.
10:36 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:37 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Apple will highlight apps that are created explicitly for the iPad in the iPad store as well. You can get iPhone apps, of course, but they will highlight the special ones.
10:37 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Scott is inviting some people on stage, starting with gameloft, to show what they can create especially for the iPad in just a few weeks.
10:38 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: First up, Nova, which is already on the iPhone. For the control scheme, you can slide the D-Pad up and down the screen, or move the controls around to your liking. The demo person is holding the iPad like a big iPhone, in two hands.
10:38 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: You can also do motions like sliding two fingers across the screen to throw a grenade.
10:39 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: They can "interact with the game world in ways that weren't possible before," like sliding three fingers on the screen to interact with a door.
10:39 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Another new innovation, drawing a targeting box around enemies and firing on them simultaneously.
10:40 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:40 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: The higher resolution actually looks pretty good, and the textures don't look the same as on the iPhone's version.
10:40 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Next up is New York Times.
10:40 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: And here's a person from the New York Times to talk about their app.
10:40 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:41 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: The NYT will create a customized application for the iPad like they did for the iPhone.
10:41 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:42 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Here's the app. It's very similar to the actual paper, but can skip around like on the iPhone version. The formatt buchannan:ing is similar to a paper, and you can change the number of columns, resize text, flip through slideshows and go into landscape mode.
10:42 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:42 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: AND, you can play a movie, like on the website.
10:42 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:43 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: It's like the New York Times reader, basically.
10:44 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Next up is "Brushes". It's a "one person shop", and that one person, Steve Sprang, is coming on stage now.
10:44 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:44 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:45 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: It's a simple paint app (the invite for this event looked like a painting app too). And, he's showing off how you can paint on the screen with brushes, swatches and other tools painters should be used to.
10:45 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:45 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: You can pinch and zoom in up to 32x, and you can eyedropper as well. There's even support of in-app playback on the paintings.
10:46 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: And Brushes will be available at the iPad launch.
10:46 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Now, Electronic Arts.
10:46 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:47 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:48 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: EA says the first thing they wanted to check out was the device's performance, and for that, Need For Speed. They're showing off a BMW M3, which looks quite good (definitely better than the iPhone), but not as good as on a PC. It looks somewhere inbetween, which is kinda the point of the device. Though it's closer to the iPhone. "It's like holding an HD screen up to your face."
10:48 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: The game is also "fully touch enabled." To see inside the car, just tap inside the car, and swipe up and down on the shifter to change gears, and tap on the mirror to look behind you.
10:49 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Now he's showing off the framerate, which is pretty smooth actually, even if the graphics aren't very impressive compared to a laptop.
10:49 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:49 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Last up is MLB.com.
10:50 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:50 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:50 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: MLB says they had to create a "whole new experience" for the larger display. There's the "live game experience", which looks at scores, and even stuff like the trajectory of every pitch thrown, being able to tap on the ball to see details, or tapping on a person to see their baseball card.
10:51 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:51 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: You can even replay games in a small window on the screen. There are game controls, to see the box score, the field, the matchup and the lineup.
10:51 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: You can even watch live with your choice of home or away announcers.
10:51 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:52 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:52 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Scott from Apple is back on stage.
10:53 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Steve Jobs is back on stage. "Isn't it awesome? And these guys only had two, two and a half weeks to work on this thing. Imagine what they're going to do in the next few months." Does this mean that it's not coming for a few months?
10:53 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: And now, an eBook reader app. "Amazon's done a great job of pioneering this technology with their ebook reader." And now, a new app called iBooks.
10:53 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:54 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:54 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:54 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: It's got a bookshelf, and the screen actually looks like you're looking down at a book, with extraneous stuff on the side that looks like the side of a book. It's called iBooks. And, there's even an iBook store that has Penguin, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Hachette book group.
10:54 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: And here's a demo of it.
10:54 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:55 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: Jobs is showing off the bookshelf. You can hit the store button, and the bookshelf flips around to show the iBooks store. It's basically the same as the App Store or the iTunes store.
10:55 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: He's browsing the NYT bestseller book, and he's going to buy the Edward Kenney True Compass book for $14.99.
10:55 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:55 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: The book downloads directly onto his shelf, just like on the Kindle.
10:56 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: "It's just so simple."
10:56 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: And here's what the book is like. You can flip the page by tapping anywhere on the right, change the size, or flip back by tapping on the left. Or, drag the page over manually using touch.
10:56 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:57 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: You can skip directly to chapters from the table of contents, and there are photos, as you'd expect.
10:57 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:57 am ON Jan 27 2010
Jason Chen: It's still unsaid whether or not you can import your own books from other libraries.
10:57 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam
10:57 am ON Jan 27 2010
B. Lam