MacRumors

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.

Bright Side of News claims to have information on Apple's "A4" chip unveiled as the brains behind the company's new iPad tablet device. Unsurprisingly, the CPU included in the chip is said to be based on the ARM Cortex A9 licensed by Apple and implemented by its team of chip designers acquired as part of its 2008 purchase of P.A. Semi.

While it should be no surprise that the Apple A4 processor is based on the ARM Cortex A9 design which will begin shipping to many manufacturers this year, the article incorrectly states that the Qualcomm Snapdragon and nVidia Tegra were also based on this design. Those processors were based on the Cortex A8 -- the same processor design found in the iPhone 3GS. This new potentially multi-core processor has only recently been introduced in the Tegra 2 first demoed at CES 2010.

The site also makes a dubious claim that Apple is using the ARM Mali 50-Series GPU for its graphics hardware which would represent a departure (and potential downgrade) for Apple from the PowerVR chips that they've used in the past. Apple is a licensee and major stakeholder in Imagination Technologies, the company behind the PowerVR chipset.

Amongst the varied reactions to the Apple iPad, one common impression has been the notable speed increase of the device compared to the existing iPhone and iPod Touch. We would expect Apple to adapt the A4 design into the next generation iPhone which is expected later this year.

Last week, we uncovered evidence of Apple seeking to trademark the "iPad" name in a number of countries, foreshadowing the name of Apple's tablet device announced yesterday. At the time, we noted that Apple had not applied for an "iPad" trademark in the U.S., ostensibly due to Fujitsu already holding a claim to the name there. Further investigation soon revealed, however, that Apple has filed multiple requests to extend the allowable time period for it to oppose Fujitsu's still-pending trademark application. In addition, an Apple shell company finally did apply for the "iPad" trademark in the U.S.

The New York Times reports, however, that Fujitsu does not appear to be going down without a fight, seeking to protect the name of its iPad device for retail inventory management.

"It's our understanding that the name is ours," Masahiro Yamane, director of Fujitsu's public relations division, said Thursday. He said Fujitsu was aware of Apple's plans to sell the iPad tablet and that the company was consulting lawyers over next steps.

The report notes that Fujitsu's iPad bears a number of similarities to Apple's iPad, including a color touchscreen, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, as well as support for VoIP calling. Apple currently has until February 28th to file its opposition to Fujitsu's "iPad" trademark application, although it could request a further extension with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Apple's choice of the "iPhone" name similarly stepped on others' toes with its announcement in January 2007, and Cisco quickly sued Apple upon Apple's iPhone introduction after negotiations regarding the iPhone trademark owned by Cisco and used for its line of Web-enabled telephones had not resulted in an agreement to that point. The dispute was quickly resolved, with both companies allowed to use the iPhone name.

On Tuesday, less than 24 hours before Apple's media event to introduce the iPad, publishing giant McGraw-Hill's CEO Terry McGraw confirmed that Apple would be introducing a tablet at the event. McGraw also confirmed earlier reports that Apple and McGraw-Hill had been working closely together on e-books, particularly e-textbooks, for the device.

McGraw-Hill's content was, however, nowhere to be found in Apple's presentation at the media event, and VentureBeat reports that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had immediately removed McGraw-Hill from the presentation after McGraw's disclosure on CNBC.

McGraw-Hill is bigger than most of the publishers on this slide. But insiders say as soon as Terry shot his mouth off on CNBC, Jobs had the company cut from the presentation. We won't know for a few weeks if McGraw was only wrist-slapped, or if he's been thrown out of the game.

The move is reminiscent of Jobs' reaction after a leak by graphics card manufacturer ATI just prior to Macworld San Francisco 2000 that revealed Apple's plans to introduce new iMac and Power Mac models using the company's graphics cards. In that case, Jobs reportedly pulled all mention of ATI from his presentation at the last minute, although the products obviously continued to ship with ATI products inside.

Update: According to Digital Daily, McGraw-Hill has denied that it was scheduled to be a part of Apple's media event presentation and that the company had advance knowledge of the iPad's details.

"As a company deeply involved in the digitization of education and business information, we were as interested as anyone in the launch of the new device, although we were never part of the launch event and never in a position to confirm details about the device ahead of time," Steven Weiss, VP of Corporate Communications for The McGraw-Hill Companies said in a statement given to Digital Daily.

According to Weiss, McGraw's speculative comments were simply rehashing the many rumors about Apple's tablet introduction and were misconstrued by others as a confirmation. Digital Daily also notes that its sources have indicated that McGraw-Hill had not seen a demonstration of the iPad prior to Apple's media event.

AT&T today released its earnings report for the fourth quarter of 2009, revealing that the company activated 3.1 million iPhones on its network during the quarter, just shy of the record 3.2 million iPhone activated in the previous quarter. The iPhone continues to be a major contributor to AT&T's "integrated devices" segment of smartphones, which have grown to 46.4% of the company's postpaid subscriber base and who continue to generate 1.8 times the average monthly revenues of traditional phone users.

Overall, AT&T experienced a net gain of 2.7 million wireless subscribers for the quarter, the company's second highest net gain in history. Over 4 million postpaid integrated devices were added to the company's base during the quarter, and while the activation of 3.1 million iPhones might suggest that Apple was responsible for approximately 75% of the total smartphone additions, the company has in the past noted that not all iPhone activations represent new devices sold. AT&T's "activations" term includes existing handsets transferred to new owners, making comparisons between new activations and device additions invalid.

Not addressed in AT&T's earnings release is Apple's new iPad tablet device. Apple and AT&T have partnered on the 3G-capable versions of the iPad in the U.S., with AT&T offering no-contract data plans for the device at $14.99 (250 MB) and $29.99 (unlimited) monthly price points. The 3G-capable iPad models are not expected to begin shipping for another 90 days.

One of the major surprises for many people with yesterday's iPad launch was the lack of a camera anywhere on the device. As noted by CrunchGear, however, the iPad simulator included as part of the newly-released iPhone SDK 3.2 contains references to the ability to take photos for addition to entries in the device's Contacts application.

Tucked away within the iPad's contacts application is an "Add Photo" button, purposed with.. well, adding photos. Everyone likes having photos assigned to their contacts, and there's more than enough space on this thing to sync photos of all your friends - so nothing too strange there. What is odd, however, is the prompt that pops up: do you want to "Choose Existing Photo", or do you want to "Take Photo"?

Unfortunately, the reason for the inclusion of a "Take Photo" option in the iPad simulator is unknown, leading to a number of theories. While it is possible (and maybe likely) that Apple simply ported much of the iPhone version of the Contacts application over to the iPad development tools and neglected to remove the "Take Photo" option, more optimistic spectators may be hoping that a camera could be added as a last-minute feature before shipping. Other speculation includes possible plans by Apple to include a camera in the iPad that were scrapped at the last minute as with the iPod touch last year or the potential release of a camera accessory for the iPad.

iCall announced today that Apple had made changes to iPhone SDK that makes Voice over IP (VOIP) over cellular networks possible.

With the latest revisions Apple has made to the iPhone developer agreement and Software Development Kit, iCall for the iPhone and iPod Touch now enabled unrestricted free local and long distance calling over 3G data networks.

iCall claims to be one of the few VoIP applications that has been permitted by Apple to operate on the iPhone platform. This allows users to make telephone calls over AT&T's 3G data network without using their plan's minutes.

The no-VOIP-over-3G restriction had been in place since the launch of the iPhone SDK due to Apple agreements with AT&T. AT&T announced that it would allow such applications back in October and Apple promised to make the necessary changes.

The change comes with the launch of the Apple iPad which suggests that these same applications could be used to make voice calls on the new device. The 3G enabled iPad notably does not include any voice service with its $30/month unlimited data plan, but it does include a microphone and speaker. We're not sure if these iPad data plans will be somehow excluded from the VOIP apps, but it would otherwise offer an inexpensive contract-free way to make mobile phone calls.

Apple has posted the January 2010 media event video stream from today which saw the introduction of the company's much-anticipated iPad tablet device.

- Apple Tablet Media Event Today: "Come See Our Latest Creation"
- Apple Releases iPad Tablet, New SDK, iBooks and iWork Apps
- Hands-On Impressions of Apple's New iPad
- iPad SDK 3.2 Details: External Display, File Sharing System, No Multitasking

Apple has unleashed iPhone OS 3.2 SDK to developers today to prepare for the launch of the Apple iPad. The new iPhone OS 3.2 only runs on the iPad device and will not run on the iPhone or iPod Touch. The accompanying documents are said to have revealed a number of interesting features about the iPad and the latest version of the iPad operating system.

- External Display Support. iPad applications will be able to display content specifically targeted to an external display connected to the iPad via the Dock connector. This sort of external monitor support has never been allowed with the iPhone SDK.
- File Sharing. A shared file directory is provided that will mount on your Mac or PC. This is presumably how files such as iWork documents will be transferred to and from the iPad. iPad applications will be able to access this shared directory.
- No Multitasking. Only one application runs at a time according to official documentation.
- Universal Apps. There will be support for universal apps that support both iPhone and iPad.

Of course, a lot of questions remain, and we'll certainly hear more as we approach the iPad's ship date.

Engadget and Gizmodo have both posted early hands-on impressions of Apple's new iPad tablet, having had the chance to play with the device after today's media event in San Francisco.

Both reviews rave about the iPad's speed, calling it "blazingly fast" with no lagging at any point. Responsiveness of the system and applications, as well as loading of web pages, is seen as excellent by those who have handled the device. The 1024 x 768 screen is also well-regarded in both reviews, described as "stunning" with the ability to show small text "crisply".

Reports on the feel of the device are mixed, however, with Engadget calling it "not light" and "pretty weighty" and Gizmodo calling it "substantial but surprisingly light". Notable drawbacks experienced in the few minutes of testing include the lack of Flash, multitasking, and camera. Also noted is the lack of "razor sharp" graphics for scaled up iPhone applications, although it seems to be a decent solution to allow Apple to offer immediate full-screen compatibility for existing iPhone applications.

iLounge is in the early stages of putting together an extensive "first look" feature, but has already shared pricing for a number of accessories, including the basic dock ($29), keyboard dock ($69), and case/stand ($39). They also note that while the iPad was fast, there was a bit of bugginess in their time with the device.

From a gaming perspective, Joystiq similarly notes that the iPhone games "are scaled up and look like it", although the iPad does seem to allow for greater accelerometer sensitivity for iPhone games and also allows less of the screen to be obscured by the user's thumbs while gaming. Of particular note, Apple is planning to feature iPad games in a separate section of the App Store, leading to questions about whether users with both an iPad and iPhone/iPod touch will have to purchase two separate applications or whether developers will be able to find a way to "bundle" versions together for the two device sizes. In the absence of such a program, Joystiq wonders whether iPad users will opt to spend the money for the dedicated apps when their iPhone apps will be playable on the device.

Visit our new iPad forum for more discussion.