MacRumors

Silicon Alley Insider reports that it has received information from Clayton Morris of FOXNews.com claiming that Apple and Verizon are still in talks to bring the iPad to Verizon's wireless network. An Apple-Verizon partnership for the iPad had been the subject of many analyst claims and rumors in the months leading up to the device's introduction, and many observers were surprised to see that only AT&T was announced as a cellular data provider for the iPad.

Apple is working with Verizon on a version of its iPad tablet, despite Apple only announcing an AT&T partnership, according to Fox News Channel's Clayton Morris, who just spoke with a Verizon source.

No additional details are given, although Morris is reportedly in the process of preparing an article for publication on FOXNews.com.

Morris has become a relatively frequent commenter on Apple and the iPad, having claimed confirmation of Apple's media event as early as late December (albeit off by one day) and noting that it would be focused on the "mobility space". His source was incorrect, however, in its claims that the media event would include discussion of iPhone OS 4.0 and iLife 2010. Just days before the event, Morris' source claimed that both AT&T and Verizon were in last-minute discussions to offer service for the iPad.

Hardmac reports that Apple has halted production of 27-inch iMac models pending a fix for several display issues that have been affecting the machines.

According to one of our sources, the company completely stopped the iMac 27" assembling lines, the production will not resume before Apple has finally found a reliable and definitive fix for the remaining past (flickering and flashing display) and new issues (yellowish panel and flickering display) affecting those models.

In mid-December, shipping lead times for the 27-inch models slipped to two weeks amid complaints of flickering screens amid other issues with the machines. Apple quickly offered a firmware update designed to address the issue, although users have continued to report similar problems even after applying the update. While reports have suggested that Apple is working on a second fix for the flickering screen, more recent reports of yellowish screens have surfaced, with an internal Apple service memo indicating that the company is aware of the situation.

While shipping times for the 27-inch models did improve to one week around the holidays, they slipped back to a three-week margin earlier this month, with speculation centering around continued display issues as a cause for the delays, although Apple has indicated that it has simply had trouble keeping up with tremendous demand for its iMac line.

MacRumors has received a number of reports from readers who have seen their 27-inch iMac orders delayed in recent weeks, although we did receive a report yesterday of several orders that had been delayed until mid-February for which Apple had just issued shipping confirmations, suggesting that production may already be getting back on track.

DigiTimes reports on comments from Scott Lin, president of the Taiwanese division of netbook market leader Acer revealing that the company has no plans to compete with Apple's iPad tablet device. Lin noted that while an iPad-like product would be relatively simple technologically for Acer, such a device does not fit into the company's business strategy. In addition, the iPad's iTunes Store/App Store integration offers a key differentiating feature that other hardware manufacturers can't match.

Lin pointed out that designing an iPad-like device would not pose any technical challenges for Acer, but said such a product does not fit into Acer's business model.

Apple is able to support the iPad through its iTunes ecosystem, while few other makers, including Acer, have comparable experience in operating an online store, Lin noted.

Lin also pointed to the closed nature of Apple's iPhone/iPad ecosystem, which makes it difficult for other companies to replicate. Lin believes, however, there is likely to be little overlap between the iPad and traditional notebook and netbook markets, suggesting that Acer does not view the iPad as a significant threat to its business.

During the iPad's introduction, Apple CEO Steve Jobs built the case that a product targeting the space between smartphones and notebooks needs to do some things better than either of those types of devices, pointing to browsing, email, photos, video, music, games, and eBooks as examples of tasks at which such a device might want to excel. In addressing the current popularity of netbooks, Jobs claimed that netbooks "aren't better at anything" and are just cheap notebooks, opening the door for the iPad to define the new product category.

With the launch of the Apple iPad, we can finally put to rest long running rumors of the Apple tablet. We've been talking about the possibility of an Apple tablet for nearly a decade with an early MacRumors forum poster from 2001 even labeling a rumored Apple PDA at the time the "iPad". Most surprisingly, this rumor predated the launch of the iPod by 6 months.

Given the large number of tablet predictions leading up to the iPad launch, we aren't going to bother rehashing every single report. Unsurprisingly, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal had the most specific and reliable information about Apple's plans, while analyst reports remain widely varied and unhelpful.

Here are a few of the more interesting reports that turned out to be correct:

- Apple must be behind the Delaware corporation IP Application Development, LLC (IPAD) which applied for international trademarks on the term "IPAD" in the weeks leading to the launch. Given all the media attention on Apple, the company is clearly making efforts to hide its moves with dummy corporations.

- Alex Albrecht of Diggnation may have been right that the Apple tablet was priced "shockingly low". A somewhat vague, but memorable rumor that seemed to come true with the launch price for $499 for the iPad.

- Mobile Analytics firm Flurry's analysis that approximately 50 iPhone OS based tablet devices were in testing was correct. They pinpointed iPhone OS 3.2 as well as the ability to run existing iPhone applications. We had some doubts about their conclusions at the time, but it turns out they were right.

Finally, with all the rumors about a 10-11" screen for the Apple tablet, only one report accurately pinpointed the fact that the iPad actually houses a 9.7" screen. China Times predicted that Apple would launch a 9.7" device by the end of January. While this fact alone may only be of passing interest, the same article reported that Apple is also preparing to launch a 22-inch touchscreen iMac in the second half of this year.

So, if we believe they knew about the 9.7" iPad, then we should also believe that multi-touch will be coming to the Mac line later this year.

Apple's iPad made a surprise appearance at tonight's 52nd annual Grammy Awards when Stephen Colbert pulled out an iPad to read the nominees for song of the year.

The iPad was clearly a real unit that must have been provided by Apple. The screen rotated as expected to match the device's orientation. Apple launched the iPad just last week but the product has not yet gone on sale. The iPad is expected to start shipping in late March.

Even before the launch of the iPad, there had been rumors that Apple was working with publishers to allow them to set their own prices for ebooks. This could result in bestselling ebooks being priced as high as $14.99 vs the current selling price of $9.99 on Amazon. Jobs was even questioned by Walt Mossberg about this possibility after the media event. Steve Jobs said that Amazon and iPad ebooks would be priced "the same".

Macmillan publishing found itself at the heart of the debate when the company had found its ebooks had been pulled from Amazon late last week. A message from Macmillan CEO John Sargent confirmed the disagreement and explained that they wanted to adopt an "agency" model for book pricing:

Under the agency model, we will sell the digital editions of our books to consumers through our retailers. Our retailers will act as our agents and will take a 30% commission (the standard split today for many digital media businesses). The price will be set the price for each book individually. Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition. Pricing will be dynamic over time.

Today, it appears that Amazon has relented with an announcement today, but placing the blame fully on Macmillan for the higher prices:

We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books.

Amazon claims that they don't feel that other publishers will take the same route as Macmillan and that consumer demand will decide the matter in the long run.

Steve Jobs held a town hall meeting with Apple employees late last week following the iPad launch. Wired reports on what was said at the meeting by Steve Jobs. Two of the biggest topics included Google and Adobe.

On Google, Jobs confirms the much-reported competition between the two companies.

On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won't let them, he says.

As for Adobe, Jobs said they are lazy and Jobs blames Adobe for a buggy implementation of Flash on the Mac as one of the reasons they won't support it.

Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it's because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.

Those are the main points covered by Wired's article. We had received a more detailed report of the Apple meeting, but hadn't been able to corroborate it until now. Many of the details of the Wired report were identical to our anonymous submission, so we believe it to be accurate. Some additional key points that we learned:

- Apple will deliver aggressive updates to iPhone that Android/Google won't be able to keep up with
- iPad is up there with the iPhone and Mac as the most important products Jobs has been a part of
- Regarding the Lala acquisition, Apple was interested in bringing those people into the iTunes team
- Next iPhone coming is an A+ update
- New Macs for 2010 are going to take Apple to the next level
- Blu-Ray software is a mess, and Apple will wait until sales really start to take off before implementing it.

In a blog post, Omni Group has committed to bringing five of their productivity apps to the iPad including OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, OmniPlan, OmniFocus, and OmniGraphSketcher.

Remember how Macintosh was intended to be the computer "for the rest of us"? That's what we feel Apple's iPad is: the best computing device for most of the things people use computers for. (Or, as Apple puts it, "the best way to experience the web, email, and photos.") It's the computer people can sit down and start using immediately, without training, whether they're 2 or 92.

We're really excited about Apple's iPad, and we want to make all of our products available for it as soon as we can.

The Omni Group started life as NeXTStep developers back in 1989. The company made the transition to Apple when Apple acquired NeXT in 1997 and made NeXTStep the basis for Mac OS X.

Omni Group had only previously brought OmniFocus to the iPhone which won a Best of Show Award at Macworld 2008. Obviously, their iPad commitment is far more significant which includes applications which range from project management, diagrams/flowcharts, outlines, and personal task management. Their plans to aggressively move to the iPad will actually delay some future Mac versions of their software.

In response to confusion surrounding the iPad promotion video, Apple has replaced the video with a more accurate version.

The iPad promo video originally had mocked up scenes showing the iPad browsing the New York Times complete with visible Adobe Flash content. The finding generated some hope and speculation that Apple might incorporate Flash in the future. In response to the confusion, Apple has replaced the video now showing the broken Flash plug-in icon that would show up in real world use.

Apple's decision not to incorporate Flash into their iPhone OS has been a controversial one, but a stand they've remained consistent with over time.

LA Times reports that Apple has confirmed that it is now allowing the iPhone and newly released iPad to make voice over IP (VOIP) calls over AT&T's 3G cellular network.

"We revised our Program License Agreement in conjunction with our updated Software Development Kit for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad Apps," wrote an Apple spokesperson.

Skype reportedly has a 3G-enabled version of their app ready to submit once they get final clarification from Apple. In the meanwhile, Fring has already enabled Skype calls over 3G in their application.

This also means that new iPad users will be able to make outgoing phone calls with just the 3G data plan. An unlimited 3G data plan for the iPad will cost $30/month.

With the launch of the Apple iPad, there has been no shortage of reactions and opinions on the device. We feel the most promising aspect of the iPad is that there is now a relatively inexpensive full-sized multi-touch platform that is open to a massive audience of developers. Apple's multi-touch iWork implementation seems to be just the beginning, and it would come as no surprise if Apple were to port more of their applications (iMovie, GarageBand, etc..) over to the iPad in time. The implementation of a File Sharing system for the first time opens up support for these sort of file-based applications.

Joe Hewitt, a prominent developer who had given up the App Store, is excited about the prospects of the iPad.

iPad is an incredible opportunity for developers to re-imagine every single category of desktop and web software there is. Seriously, if you're a developer and you're not thinking about how your app could work better on the iPad and its descendants, you deserve to get left behind.

iPhone game developers have been particularly vocal about their enthusiasm for the iPad. Firemint, the developers behind the massively successful Flight Control game have already committed to an iPad adaptation. Meanwhile, they also believe that the iPad could offer more personal multi-player experiences:

There's something very satisfying about sitting in a circle with family and friends and sharing an experience, whether it's gathering around a camp fire, around the kitchen table or around an iPad. At the moment multiplayer games often physically separate people from each other. You might be in completely different places playing World of Warcraft over the Internet. You might be sitting on a sofa playing console games with friends, but facing a large screen instead of each other. iPad could be different, and once a family has gathered around it to play a board game, we think they are far more likely to try other kinds of games too.

Several forum readers have expressed excitement that music tools akin to the Jazz Mutant Lemur will be possible. In fact, any of the impressive large screen multi-touch videos that we've seen over the past few years could be possible in some form on the iPad: Missile command, Jeff Han, TouchGrind, Warcraft III, MIDI controller.

While the App Store has been a massive success, the scope of individual iPhone applications have restricted in scope by its the 3.5" screen. We expect to see more ambitious titles for the iPad over time.

Engadget reports that evidence has been found in the iPad 3.2 SDK that Apple had been working on the possibility of video conferencing for their new tablet device:

We're told that there are hooks to accept and decline a video conference, flip a video feed (which suggests a front-facing camera) and -- most importantly -- run the video call in either full screen mode or in just a portion of the screen. That means you'll be able to chat and do other things at the same time, which could mean there's at least some type of multitasking going on here.

We'd also heard late reports that Apple had been working on models with front-facing video cameras, though it seems that Apple must have nixed this possibility at some point.

Of course, software hooks will do no good without an actual camera embedded in the device itself. We're not sure why Apple decided to cut this feature, but we may see it in a future iterations of the iPad or iPhone.

DigiTimes reports that several Asian notebook manufacturers were taken by surprise by the unexpectedly low entry-level $499 price point for Apple's iPad, forcing them to reconsider how they will price upcoming tablet models.

The vendors originally planned to offer prices pegged at 20-30% lower than the Apple iPad, while they generally expected the device to cost as much as US$1,000. The US$499 entry-level price has caught vendors by surprise and means they will now need to adjust their price scales even lower to attract consumers, the sources pointed out.

The report notes that manufacturers are reluctant to undercut the iPad price and start a pricing war for fear of eliminating profit margins even before the industry can really take hold. The fears seem justified in light of plunging netbook prices, which have reduced profits in that segment to razor-thin margins even as unit sales have exploded.

Reports as long ago as last August claimed that tablet manufacturers were holding off on new designs for their products until they could see what Apple's contribution to the market would be.

A discovery that Apple's promotional materials for the iPad show properly-displayed Flash content while Web browsing in contrast to the "broken plug-in" icon observed on-stage at Apple's media event has generated a great deal of interest and discussion today, with some wondering whether Apple is yet planning to incorporate Flash support into the shipping product.

This is unlikely for various reasons, as Apple is likely to follow the precedent set by the iPhone and not offer Flash support for the iPad. First, as several observers have noted, Flash content was similarly shown in promotional materials for the iPhone prior to its introduction, leading to speculation at that time that Flash would be supported. The iPhone, of course, still has not supported Flash to this point.

Second, Adobe's Flash team, which would likely be aware if Apple were planning to offer Flash on the iPad, has already reacted and is apparently resigned to the fact the Flash support will not be included on the iPad.

It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers. Unlike many other ebook readers using the ePub file format, consumers will not be able to access ePub content with Apple's DRM technology on devices made by other manufacturers. And without Flash support, iPad users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web.

If I want to use the iPad to connect to Disney, Hulu, Miniclip, Farmville, ESPN, Kongregate, or JibJab -- not to mention the millions of other sites on the web -- I'll be out of luck.

Finally, several readers have noticed that in many shots the URL shown in Safari on the iPad in Apple's promotional materials is actually an apple.com gallery page rather than the real New York Times page it appears to be at first glance.

Consequently, it appears that the presence of Flash support in Apple's iPad promotional materials is either the result of video editing tricks or a specially-configured Flash-compatible iPad used for the video and image shoots.

Update: MacRumors has heard from a source that The New York Times itself generated high-resolution images of several of its pages, including Flash and ad content, in order to improve the look of the pages for Apple's use in iPad marketing materials.

One of the major complaints so far about Apple's new iPad tablet device has been a lack of support for Flash content, a limitation also placed on the iPhone. At several points during Apple CEO Steve Jobs' demonstration of the iPad at Wednesday's media event, the device displayed a "broken plug-in" icon on Web pages such as The New York Times where Flash elements were included on the page.

9 to 5 Mac noticed that demonstrations of Web browsing in Apple's iPad promotional video reveal properly loading Flash content on similar Web pages, suggesting either that the iPad device used in the video supports Flash or that Apple has manipulated the promotional video in order to hide the fact that the iPad does not support Flash.

AppleInsider followed up with a similar analysis also showing a promotional image of the iPad on Apple's site displaying Flash content from The New York Times. The newspaper's The 31 Places to Go in 2010 feature includes a Flash-based slideshow that displays properly on a Mac and in the iPad promotional rendering, but not on an iPhone, which lacks Flash capabilities as the iPad did during Wednesday's presentation and in the media hands-on that followed.

As pointed out by 9to5Mac, the 3G version of the iPad is pictured in Apple's online gallery and carries a cosmetic difference to the Wi-Fi version. The 3G version has a black plastic strip that extends to the top of the device and is visible from the front. This plastic is necessary to allow the 3G cellular signal to transmit outside the aluminum enclosure.

Such a cosmetic requirement was described by iLounge prior to the device's release, though they also believed the iPad would have dual dock connectors -- which it does not.

The Wi-Fi version of the iPad will be shipping in late March, while the 3G-enabled version will arrive in April.

Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg attended the Apple Media event where Steve Jobs announced the Apple iPad. Swisher has posted a video where Mossberg questions Steve Jobs after the event.

Mossberg brings up the issue of e-book pricing which was reported to be as high as $14.99 as compared to Amazon's $9.99. Jobs assured him that the prices would be "the same".

Meanwhile, on battery life, Jobs states that the iPad will have 140-something hours of continuous music playback (presumably with the screen off). Steve Jobs had said that the iPad would offer 10 hours of video playback during the keynote yesterday, and with one month of standby power. Some have already expressed doubt that the iPad could even achieve 10 hours of playback given the power requirements of the high quality IPS screen. Obviously, we'll get actual battery life testing information once the product is released.

The iPad was announced on Wednesday, and will be shipping in the next 60 days.