Ultimate Apple

Before two years ago, we didn’t yet know much about the hypothetical Apple tablet device, prescient leaks and rumors aside. We didn’t know for sure which OS it would run (although we were pretty confident it would be iOS and not Mac OS X). We didn’t know what it would cost — the WSJ hinted at pricing near the $1,000 mark — and we didn’t know what it would look like. We certainly didn’t know what it would be called, even though there were strong suggestions; apparently the Mad TV writers and some Dubai architects had some good sources.

We couldn’t have guessed that our most extravagant estimates of sales would prove to be woefully meager. We could not foresee that Apple’s tablet would come to dominate its own category in a manner similar to the iPod’s remarkable run through the 2000s, and contribute to a level of financial success the company has never seen before (and that few companies ever have).

We didn’t imagine that both consumers and businesses would gravitate to the iPad’s flexibility and power, with enterprise customers adopting it at a breakneck pace. We probably could have anticipated a revised and updated version months later. And we did not expect that case polishing operations at two iPad suppliers would suffer deadly explosions, deepening concerns and questions about workplace safety and employee treatment at the factories owned by Foxconn, a manufacturing partner to Apple and scores of other electronics companies.

What we did know, in early 2010, was who would be introducing it to the world. Below, a video clip of Steve Jobs announcing the iPad.

iPad announcement anniversary: January 27, 2010 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Launch Center, a new shortcuts app for iPhone, aims to make everything from sending messages and mail to posting on Facebook and Twitter, to turning on your LED flashlight, faster

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Rene and I are at Macworld 2012 and had the pleasure of talking to Penultimate developer Ben Zotto. You, the iMore nation, asked us to ask Ben his thoughts on styli for the iPad, so we did! Check out the video above for Ben’s insights on the personal decision of choosing an iPad.

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Probably like many of you, I received my new Google Privacy Policy via email this week, and while couched in language about creating a more “beautiful” experience for us, the users — read: products — it’s also clearly about Google leveraging their popular services like Search and Gmail to help their new services, like Google+, become competitive with Facebook and Twitter.

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Yahoo has been in the mobile space for quite some time and as such, they’ve managed amass a good amount of apps, but now — Yahoo is looking to cut some of their weight and move on.

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“How Siri is ruining your cellphone service.” That’s the searing headline from the Washington Post in an article by Paul Farhi. Farhi claims that “Siri’s dirty little secret is that she’s a bandwidth guzzler, the digital equivalent of a 10-miles-per-gallon Hummer H1.”

Where’s he coming up with this? Apparently, the “Siri eats bandwidth” claim is based on a study by Arieso that reports that iPhone 4S owners consume twice as much cellular data as iPhone 4 users and 3 times as much as iPhone 3G users. Recent Android phones are also chewing up twice as much data as the iPhone 3G, while 3G and 4G mobile hotspots are by far the biggest download hogs (26x the baseline).

At least in the press release summary of the study, however, there’s no mention of Siri at all; just the increased usage for the 4S, which just happens to support a faster download standard on AT&T’s network. Our sister site Engadget helped put that study in perspective by pointing out that Arieso has a vested interest in the results of the research. We’ve asked for a full copy of the report to see what, if any, linkage there is between Siri and data volume.

If we take the study at face value, though, why more data on the 4S? The likely answer hasn’t much to do with Siri and a lot more to do with the profile of the iPhone 4S buyer.

The people who buy the latest phone are also the power users who take the most advantage of their devices. We’ve seen that happen before with new technology, and once people stop amazing themselves and their friends, the consumption of bandwidth drops off. I haven’t seen any convincing data that says the iPhone 4S inherently uses more data than an iPhone 4, and iOS 5 iCloud features, also available on the iPhone 4 and 3GS, probably play a role in increased bandwidth use.

As for Siri, most of the heavy lifting goes on at the Apple servers, where your query is translated into data and then sent back to your phone in a quick burst. Streaming radio, Netflix and a host of other apps can use way more bandwidth, and they are utilizing the network for minutes or hours at a time, not seconds.

Of course Siri is on every iPhone 4S, so it is getting used more than some 3rd-party apps, but it’s hard to believe that the average user doing perhaps 2-3 queries a day is destroying our cellular infrastructure. GigaOm this morning also poured cold water on the Post story, and there will probably be more to come.

One thing is for sure. Smartphones, and the iPhone in particular, are using more data than the dumb phones of old. Compare that to the internet connections in our homes, where Netflix has been identified as the biggest user of bandwidth in the U.S. It’s up the internet providers, both wired and wireless, to keep growing their networks so they can continue to charge those premium rates; it’s also up to Washington regulators and cellular carriers to make efficient use of bandwidth and future spectrum technologies.

Readers, are you heavy Siri users, and are you destroying our cellular networks?

Siri probably isn’t the bandwidth hog the WaPo warned you about originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RIM’s new CEO, Thorsten Heins, spoke to Kevin Michaluk of our sibling site, CrackBerry.com, about some his thoughts and ideas on where RIM and the BlackBerry platform are heading. When the iPhone launched, BlackBerry was the biggest, baddest competition on the planet but in recent years, Android has taken much of their place, and given Apple’s recent results it’s going to be tough for RIM to regain their relevancy in the mobile space.

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Probably like many of you, I received my new Google Privacy Policy via email this week, and while couched in language about creating a more “beautiful” experience for us, the users — read: products — it’s also clearly about Google leveraging their popular services like Search and Gmail to help their new services, like Google+, become competitive with Facebook and Twitter.

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Could Apple spend its $100 billion in cash to create a virtual cable operator to compete with Comcast and the like? Sure. But it would have a really hard time offering a competitively priced service and building a profitable business out of it.

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Sam and Max, the quintessential dog and bunny duo, are coming back to iPhone to start the next season of their episodic game series. Episode one of “Beyond Time and Space” is called “Ice Station Santa”.

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