Apple's iPad 2 made its official debut in Japan on Thursday along the white iPhone 4. The second generation tablet debuted for 44,800 yen (US$500) and was available from Apple Stores and the wireless carrier Softbank Mobile.

Apple has a good week in the Asian-Pacific region. The iPhone 4 flew off the shelves in China and customers in Japan lined up in droves for the iPad 2. Early adopters in Japan began to line up as early as 9 pm the night before the launch and, sometimes, had to endure heavy rain while they waited. The rain was not a deterrent as the flagship Ginza Apple store in Tokyo; it had a line over three blocks long when the store opened at 9 am.

While customers in Japan were greeted with long lines for the iPad 2, folks at the Andheri Imagine Store in Mumbai, India were greeted with a bouquet of flowers. The retailer went above and beyond to make sure its customer's line-waiting and buying experience were delightful and not drudgery. It likely worked -- who can't help but smile when they are handed a colorful, aromatic bunch of flowers?

iPad 2's Japan, India release draws big crowds originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Patently Apple's got another USPTO-sponsored bulletin from the R&D Department in Cupertino, and this time it's for a brand new app designed to help you stay in touch with your local gym. A recently published patent details a Fitness Center App that will do things like track your workouts from exercise machines, mark down when and where you visit the gym, and even find a workout partner with social networking or set up appointments for personal trainers straight from the app. [Maybe they'll call it "QuadsSquare." -Ed.]

In short, Apple's idea is that one app would govern all facets of an exercise program, with a heavy back-end system to work with different gyms all over the country. You'd be able to get news and information straight from your local gym, as well as custom reminders when you miss a workout or haven't been in a while.

It all sounds good to us. While most of Apple's patents are usually just the company covering its bases, this one seems awfully in-depth -- everything from concepts to layouts is covered here. That doesn't mean this idea is any more likely to actually be implemented, but it does mean that Apple has put lots of thought and effort into an app like this. Maybe we will see it implemented as an actual release.

Apple patents Fitness Center App for iPhone originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 28 Apr 2011 19:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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YouTube user PSPfano has posted a video of GarageBand for iPad running on an iPhone 4. He accomplished this by using a hack (detailed on 9to5) which allows users to modify jailbroken iPhones and allows them to run most iPad apps on them. After applying the hack, PSPfano moved the GarageBand for iPad app with altered metadata to an iPhone 4 via OpenSSH.

The hack isn't perfect though. As PSPfano states on his YouTube page, "I got GarageBand running on my iPhone 4. Obviously, it isn't properly formatted, but for some reason the track editor worked really smooth and is fully functional." As always, with any hack or jailbreaking, proceed with caution, less you end up with a non-functioning iPhone. You can check out the video of GarageBand running on an iPhone 4 after the break.

Continue reading GarageBand for iPad running on an iPhone 4

GarageBand for iPad running on an iPhone 4 originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here's an interesting note that's not exactly new, but might be news to a lot of movie fans anyway: Apple apparently has been passing out movie screeners for Oscar voters via iTunes. That fact came to light in an FBI raid earlier this week chasing down a man who allegedly uploaded illegal copies of movies like The King's Speech and Black Swan to pirate filesharing services. Among the documents in the case were a few comments on bittorrent site The Pirate Bay, where the suspect allegedly identified himself as an Academy member, and said that "SAG now sends out iTunes download codes for screens." A movie studio contract firm did the footwork, connecting a digital signature on the pirated screener back to the FBI's suspect, as well as lining up the IP on The Pirate Bay's uploads.

Piracy case aside, the interesting part here is that Apple is apparently coordinating distribution of Academy screeners with special iTunes codes. This likely isn't true for all screeners -- I have friends here in LA who still get their screeners the old fashioned DVD way -- but it makes sense that SAG would want to simply email out codes to share movies early, as well as use any digital signature information to track down anyone illicitly sharing these copies. Especially for these two movies, already available on the service, it's probably easier to just give out codes than actually print DVDs.

You wonder what Apple's role in this deal is, if they have one at all (SAG might just buy the movies and pass out codes themselves). It could be like the movie trailers on the Quicktime site, just one of those roles Apple happened to take over, or maybe it's in conjunction with some other agreement Apple has already made.

Academy members get screeners through iTunes originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 26 Apr 2011 19:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Get ready to say goodbye to the current form factor of the MacBook Pro family. MacRumors is reporting that the next MacBook Pros will sport an entirely redesigned case. A redesign next year isn't such a surprise, as Apple does tend to redesign their laptops about every three years. However, the next MacBook Pro design, according to the rumors, could be the most significant to the line in years.

In February before the latest MacBook Pros were unveiled, iLounge stated that the 2011 MBPs would be the last to sport the current form factor and that next year's MBPs were already under development at Quanta in Taiwan. The next MacBook Pros are reportedly a big "milestone" release for the Pro family. There's no hard details yet on what the redesign will include, but given the popularity of the MacBook Air, it's not a stretch to assume that Apple is going to eliminate the optical drive in hopes of making the MacBook Pro family as thin and light as possible.

Rumor: Next MacBook Pro to sport completely redesigned case originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 (CS5.5) upgrades various individual software products and suite editions of popular Adobe digital publishing tools to version 5.5. Adobe CS5.5 which currently only available for pre-order [...]

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As if we needed any more proof that the white iPhone 4 is about to be unleashed, 9to5Mac posts screenshots from a Best Buy inventory system that shows the white iPhone 4 will be released on Wednesday, April 27th. This latest hint comes after a week long series of reports and leaks from Italy, the Netherlands, the UK, and even Verizon's systems in the US.

9to5 notes that the white iPhone 4s are already en route to Best Buy stores across the US and should arrive by Monday or Tuesday. The model in the screenshot is the AT&T GSM model, but Verizon models are expected to be available on the same day. With a delay of almost a year, the white iPhone 4 seems to lack the punch it once did. But with the iPhone 5 rumored not to be appearing until September, the white iPhone 4 could be enough of an incentive for those wanting one not to hold off until the next model.

White iPhone 4 listed in Best Buy's inventory with April 27th launch date originally appeared on TUAW on Sat, 23 Apr 2011 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today representatives from Conde Nast told AdAge that they are slowing the addition of any new Conde Nast magazines to the iPad. Why? According to AdAge, Conde Nast feels "conditions aren't quite right yet to deliver the ideal app editions at the kind of scale that advertisers want." In other words, sales aren't stellar.

Sales won't get stellar until magazine publishers wake up and reduce the per-issue prices of their magazines by 60-80%. An issue of GQ on the iPad costs $4.99, but the same issue of GQ through a subscription is priced at little more than a buck. Everyone knows magazines don't make most of their money from selling issues to consumers; they make it from ad revenue, and that ad revenue is going to lack big time until more people start buying magazines on the iPad. That won't happen until magazine publishers lower their subscription prices.

Continue reading Conde Nast decision exemplifies why publishers need to rethink iPad magazines

Conde Nast decision exemplifies why publishers need to rethink iPad magazines originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 22 Apr 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pingdom has pointed out some interesting stats culled from browser data. It appears that there are now more iPads surfing the web than Linux-based machines.

The chart above features stats from Statcounter and are based on visitor statistics averaged from over 3 million websites. As you can see the top operating systems in the US for the first 19 days of April are Windows with 82 percent of the market, Mac OS X with 19 percent of the market, then iOS with 1.18 percent of the market, followed by Linux with 0.71 percent of the market.

What's interesting about these stats is that the iOS market share only includes iPads according to Statcounter. iPhones, iPod touches, and other smartphones were left out. It was only just last year that all iOS-based devices claimed 1.13 percent of all browsing platforms compared to just 0.85% for Linux. Now just one iOS device has achieved the same thing.

iPads surfing the web outnumber Linux machines originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 21 Apr 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There were a few interesting apps demonstrated at the LA App Show last night, but the one that most interested me was an app that Black Entertainment Television's Brandon Lucas showed off, the official app for the network's 106 & Park music video show. BET teamed up with developers Bottle Rocket to make it, and I don't think I've seen a more interesting combination of old school media (in this case, a popular cable network) and new school mobile programming.

106 & Park is a daily music video request/pop culture show. Lucas described it as the BET version of MTV's Total Request Live (which itself was the MTV version of Casey Kasem's radio countdown show). 106 & Park (named for the original studio location in Harlem) runs for two hours every weekday, and Lucas said his company wanted to design an app for their very mobile-aware viewers that could be used not only to promote the show, but drive engagement with the network at large, and "go for a whole new level of interactivity" with the way these things are done.

And so what they decided to do was deep dive into how their viewers watched the show and interacted with each other. From that came a whole bunch of fascinating features, from some really surprising social media integration to even a "fame lottery" that allows their on-air personalities to directly connect with app users.

Continue reading BET's 106 & Park app impresses with promotion and social network integration

BET's 106 & Park app impresses with promotion and social network integration originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 20 Apr 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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