Apple Official Press Release:
CUPERTINO, California-March 5, 2010-Apple® announced that its magical and revolutionary iPad will be available in the US on Saturday, April 3, for Wi-Fi models and in late April for Wi-Fi + 3G models. In addition, all models of iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.
Check out the video created by Transparent House for Apple above, which act as a tribute to a company they greatly admire on the occasion of the iPad release. The idea was to show a glimpse into the history of this product giant by modeling some of the innovative products they’ve developed in their 3+ decade history. I thought that the animation is very well done up, quite inspiring to look at. However, I’m surprised that they didn’t include iMac into the video.
Since its initial launch back in Nov 2005, Aperture has actually went through quite a lot of major changes before it reaches the current version. With version 3, I can see that things are starting to take shape, whereby integration is much better now. Below are some of the key new features for version 3:
After many months of rumours, the new Apple iPad is finally here! My first impression is that it looks just like a bigger size iPod touch or iPhone. There are 6 different models available, the Wifi option (16GB/32GB/64GB), as well as the Wifi + 3G option (16GB/32GB/64GB).
For the User Interface (UI) part, Apple has re-designed some of the key applications to make reading more easily on screen, other than that, I don’t find any difference with the iPod touch/iPhone at all. As for the features part, many things are pretty much expected, for examples the browser, email, music, maps, photos, videos, music, calendar, contacts and etc. According to Apple, the iPad is designed for people who just require basic function from the Internet, and therefore a full-fledged OS is not necessary.
Another breakthrough that Apple has made this time round, is to design their first chip called A4. According to Apple, the A4 chip inside iPad is extremely powerful yet extremely power efficient. The performance is unlike anything you’ve ever seen on a touch-based device. Which makes iPad fantastic for everything from productivity apps to games. At the same time, the A4 chip is so power efficient that it helps iPad get up to 10 hours of battery life on a single charge.
It’s too early now to give any more comments, until I have tried out the real unit, which is suppose to be launched around April. However, I can see that in some ways, the device will surely attract lots of senior users, whereby the simple UI, together with the big screen, touch-gestures and light weight design will help to get them into the IT World.
Official site: http://www.apple.com/ipad/
Since the day when I started using Mac back in 2004, I have been struggling with the mouse acceleration problem. It’s not exactly a problem, but more like a feature included in Mac OSX to allow the mouse pointer to change speed over time while you are moving the mouse across the screen, the reason why I still cannot get used to it, is that I find it very difficult to control the mouse, especially when highlighting texts, placing cursor in between texts or trying to click on an icon or button. One thing I don’t agree with Apple is that, they should allow people to enable or disable mouse acceleration.
According to many people, its a matter of getting use to it, but I do not agree. I have tried for many years, but still prefer the constant curve on the mouse. For the past few years, I have been researching online, and even asked my Mac user friend, but to no solution. Some of the software I tried, including iMouseFix, SteerMouse, USB Overdrive, ControllerMate are of no help at all, if yes probably just improve a bit only, but still not good enough for me.
Yesterday, while I was doing my usual shopping and looking for a desktop+notebook mouse, and by chance, I saw this new Microsoft Arc Mouse. It’s a mouse designed for both desktop computers and notebook, one unique feature about this mouse is that it can be folded to 60% of its fully expanded size while you’re on the go, so its pretty convenient and save space. And when its folded, the mouse will be in off mode, which can help to conserve battery, so its pretty eco-friendly. According to Microsoft specs, the battery can even last for more than 6+ months.
So in the end, I decided to give it a try and purchase it on the spot, it’s a little pricey, costing SGD 70, but I really like the design and hope that it can at least help to ease the pain on my hands while using the laptop for a long period of time. And to my surprised, after plugging in and installing the Microsoft IntelliPoint 7.1 software for Mac, I realized that the mouse acceleration on my Mac is completely gone too!, it’s not something that I expect at all (especially after so many years), because I have tried the IntelliPoint software (older version) last time with another Microsoft Optical Mouse, but with no help. I really think that its worth the time and money for me, and one thing for sure, I love my Mac even more now, and will certainly be more productive while using a Mac than ever before. This time round, Microsoft has done something helpful, and hopefully one day, Apple can consider adding in the Mouse Acceleration setting for its users.
More Information:
Microsoft Arc Mouse
Mac OSX Mouse Acceleration Petition
Projected to be on sales for the first quarter of 2010, very soon Apple will be unveiling its next revolutionary product, probably a new Tablet based device. According to many sources online, Apple may design the tablet to support the more than 100,000 applications currently available on its iPhone. It’s probably another strategic move by apple to expand its mobile apps market, in order to encourage more people to sell their products through the App store. Another possibility is that, Apple may turn e-books and magazines into interactive experiences, with links that call up videos such as author interviews, photos, audio, Web sites and other content, including advertising, according to Kathryn Huberty, an analyst with Morgan Stanley in New York. She expects a 10-inch (25-centimeter) touchscreen device with built-in WiFi for connecting to the Web. Although there are many rumors and speculations going on about the tablet, but I guess most people (including myself) are more interested in its form factor. Does it look like an enlarged version of iPhone, iPod touch or something else never before. Just a few more months, hopefully we will be able to witness something that can revolutionize the way we work again.
