iPad

Week in review: Tech goes to court

One tech giant settled a legal spat this week, while others are just warming up.

Court filings released recently in the bitter $1 billion copyright fight between Viacom and Google's YouTube show just how far apart the companies remain, as the 3-year-old case winds through federal court.

Viacom, in 108 pages of court documents, portrays YouTube's founders as reckless copyright violators who were far more concerned with increasing traffic to their site than obeying the law. Even executives at Google, which acquired YouTube for $1.7 billion in October 2006, questioned the ethics of building a site through … Read more

iPad: Screenwriter's best friend?

Are iPads and slates trying to forge a new territory between reading and writing?

I've written a screenplay or two in my life, and have as such become a fan of Final Draft screenwriting software. That's why my last trip to the company's Web site caught my attention: a Final Draft app is in the works for Apple's iPad.

I became somewhat excited and interested by this news, because it suggested a possible functionality I can't currently easily get with my laptop: a screenplay reader with the ability to casually edit.

Final Draft sent me … Read more

Report: iPad preorders numbering in 'hundreds of thousands'

Few outside of Apple have seen an iPad in person, but that hasn't stopped a rush of preorders for the touch-screen tablet device.

Sources have told The Wall Street Journal that Apple has "sold hundreds of thousands" of iPads since the device went on presale March 12. If this keeps up, Apple could end up selling more iPads in the first three months than original iPhones sold the first three months after its debut, according to those sources.

It's unclear if that means actual sales only, or if that includes reservations for in-store pickups of the … Read more

iPhone OS 3.2 Beta 5 released, Application Loader updated

With yesterday's release of iPhone OS SDK 3.2 beta 5 less than a week after the release of beta 4, Apple has kicked its launch cycle into warp speed. (Prior to yesterday, betas were being released every two weeks.)

Beta 5 is a significant milestone for the iPad, due to be released in a little more than two-and-a-half weeks. We suspect that early iPad adopters will find a firmware update available for new devices on launch day or shortly after.

In addition to the SDK update, Apple has released version 1.3 of its Developer Application Loader utility, … Read more

Ingenious proof that publishing may have a future

We read so that we can experience something true. You remember true--it's the thing you see so little of during a day at work.

So why do so many believe that books, publishing, and even reading are dead? Steve Jobs, after all, made books a considerable feature of his iPad launch presentation a few weeks ago.

Still, the management at U.K. educational publisher Dorling Kindersley asked a production company called the Khaki Group to create a film that showed what publishing would be like in the future, if anything.

The filmmakers came up with an enchanting piece that … Read more

iWork.com beta sports iPad-friendly interface, sharing features, more

Apple has updated it's document viewing and sharing Web site, iwork.com (currently in beta), to include an iPad- and iPhone-friendly mobile site and extra sharing features to enhance compatibility with the iWork suite for iPad.… Read more

Could lack of iPad accounts put kids, data at risk?

Writing for TheStreet.com, Anton Wahlman observed that the iPad's "user log-in flaw" could pose a problem for families and others who are sharing the device. The iPad, according to Walhman, won't allow owners to set up multiple user accounts as is the case with PCs and Macs.

If true (no one has yet reviewed the iPad), it could pose a problem for parents wishing to keep their kids away from certain material and data.

Apple didn't immediately return requests by phone and e-mail for a comment.

Windows, Macs, and most other PCs have the … Read more

iPhone app tracks your iPad--or any other delivery

If you ship a lot of packages or find yourself sitting in your front window waiting on the delivery truck--or perhaps if you're obsessively calendar-watching for the day (April 3) to come when some new gadget (iPad) will be delivered--you should consider a tracking app for your iPhone.

Junecloud's Delivery Status Touch does the trick, sells for $2.99 (iTunes link), and lets you track multiple packages from UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL, and more than 20 additional global delivery services.

The feature I like the most in Delivery Status Touch is the ability to track orders from Amazon, … Read more

A cheesy Steve Jobs tribute--in mozzarella

It's not often I come across something on the Web that makes me cringe, but it happened earlier Wednesday when I spotted a sculpture of Steve Jobs' head made out of mozzarella cheese.

The sculpture (if we can call it that) was created by "Ken" over at The Cooks' Den. Dubbed Steve Jobs Cheese Head, the Apple CEO's dome is made from two blocks of mozzarella cheese, ground pepper (for the hair, people, c'mon!), and glasses to finish off the look.

Ken calls himself a "Mac fanboy" and plans to be in line … Read more