MacRumors

Consumer electronics retailer Best Buy has reportedly begun preparations for the launch of Apple's Wi-Fi iPad models on April 3rd, providing its retail store employees with details of events leading up to the launch. Sources report that the iPad will initially be carried only at Best Buy locations offering devoted "store-within-a-store" Apple Shop sections. Approximately 675 of the company's over 1000 U.S. locations offer such dedicated sales areas for Apple products, and other locations and bestbuy.com will not carry the iPad at launch.

Best Buy locations will also not be opening early on launch day, as the company believes that it would offer little benefit due to a lack of sales competition while incurring additional operational expense. It appears at this time that only Apple and Best Buy will be carrying the iPad in retail stores at launch.

Display materials for the iPad launch are reportedly scheduled to arrive at participating Best Buy stores early next week, and store planograms indicate that two notebooks and an iMac will be displaced from the usual Apple Shop layout to accommodate four iPad demo units and associated accessories for display.

Reports curiously indicate that the demo units encompass four separate SKUs, while Apple is launching only three Wi-Fi iPad models on April 3rd. The identity of the fourth model to be demoed is unknown, although it is possible that stores may be receiving a Wi-Fi + 3G model, scheduled for launch in late April, for demo purposes.

Apple is obviously also gearing up for next week's iPad launch, with many customers today noting preauthorization holds being placed on their credit card accounts for iPad pre-orders.

A number of MacRumors readers have reported that Apple has placed preauthorization holds on their credit card accounts for iPad pre-orders placed earlier this month. The holds represent a check to ensure that sufficient credit is available for the pending transactions as Apple prepares to begin shipping out iPad orders.

Interestingly, customers are seeing preauthorization holds placed on their credit card accounts for both Wi-Fi-only and Wi-Fi + 3G iPad orders. The Wi-Fi + 3G iPad models are not scheduled to become available until "late April", and it is unclear why Apple has initiated the transaction process for those orders so early. Wi-Fi-only models are scheduled to launch on April 3rd.

PadGadget has discovered that several new App Store titles apparently representing iPad-specific applications have appeared in Apple's web-based iTunes Preview listings. The new titles are frequently versions of existing App Store titles but carrying "XL" or "HD" designations, presumably to designate them as for the iPad, which offers a significantly higher resolution display than the iPhone and iPod touch.

We did a quick scan and were able to find several titles clearly marked as "HD", a common label developers are now using to indicate an iPad specific version of their app. HD is not a universal title for iPad apps, some developers are instead choosing "XL" to denote their iPad version or simply creating a universal build so that both the iPhone and iPad versions are contained in a single app. There are probably many more titles in the database that have been approved by Apple for the iPad that we haven't yet stumbled upon.

Attempting to click through to the individual titles results in dialog boxes popping up to state that the items are currently not available. The titles are also not visible within the iTunes-based version of the iTunes Store.

The fact that the "HD" and "XL" titles are appearing in iTunes Preview suggests that they have already been reviewed and approved for sale by Apple, although it is obviously planning to wait until the iPad is available to customers to deploy them for sale. As a result, their appearance in the company's iTunes Preview listings is likely the result of an oversight on Apple's part.

Following up on yesterday's report regarding $9.99 price points for most best sellers in Apple's iBookstore, App Advice now reports that it has observed a significant number of free titles from Project Gutenberg included directly in the store.

If you're not familiar with the Gutenberg Project, it's a free online digital library supported by volunteers. This library already includes over 30,000 free eBooks from the public domain; it is an amazing popular resource.

Well, when checking out Apple's iBookstore, I noticed that Apple has decided to include these directly. I obviously haven't had the chance to count them, but it appears that the entire catalog is available for free download.

Apple's iBooks feature page posted earlier this month confirmed that the iPad's iBooks application will support the open ePub standard used by Project Gutenberg, so its contents' compatibility with the iPad is not unexpected. Integration of Project Gutenberg content directly into the iBookstore for free download, however, is undoubtedly welcome news for many readers.

iBooks and the iBookstore are scheduled to launch in the U.S. alongside the iPad on April 3rd.

A rather strange patent application published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (via Patently Apple) reveals that Apple has looked into the possibility of using reflecting "light harnesses" as a means to gather ambient light for backlighting purposes in notebook computers. In particular, the patent application proposes harnessing sunlight while the user is outdoors on a bright day and the device's own backlight is overwhelmed by the incoming sunlight.

In some embodiments, external light may be collected to illuminate a display screen of an electronic device. The external light may originate from any source or combination of sources sufficient to at least partially illuminate the display screen, such as an accessory light bulb, the centralized illumination system in a vehicle cabin, or the sun. The electronic device may be any device capable of presenting information to a user on a display screen. The display screen may include any suitable screen, such as a liquid crystal display ("LCD") screen, that may present visual information to a user of an electronic device and, in some instances, accept user input information (e.g., a touch screen).

The patent application describes several implementations of the "light harness" concept that would serve to focus or route light from an exterior source to the display, including what appears to be a bulky reflector that would sit on the back of the display and could be rotated to an "open" or "closed" position depending on whether it is gathering light from an external source such as the sun or an internal source from the device itself.

The patent application was filed in September 2008 and is credited solely to Pete Mahowald, a member of Apple's illumination group.

The Wall Street Journal reports that advertisers are gearing up for next week's launch of the iPad in the U.S. by committing to spots in iPad-formatted content from magazines and newspapers. At the same time, pricing for the magazines and some newspapers are being firmed up.

Time magazine has signed up Unilever, Toyota Motor, Fidelity Investments and at least three others for marketing agreements priced at about $200,000 apiece for a single ad spot in each of the first eight issues of the magazine's iPad edition, according to people familiar with the matter.

At Cond Nast Publications, Wired magazine is offering different levels of ad functionality depending on how many pages of ads a marketer buys, according to a person familiar with the matter. Advertisers that agree to buy eight pages of ads in a single issue of Wired magazine will be able to lace video and other extra features through the iPad version, say people familiar with the matter.

According to the report, while most magazines are looking at offering iPad content very similar in appearance to print editions for the time being, they are embracing more advanced media such as videos and social networking integration for their advertising spots in an attempt to lure marketing dollars. As an example, Sports Illustrated has been pitching several media-heavy ad prototypes, including one involving a Ford Mustang in a mini "arcade-style driving game" that can be steered by tilting the iPad.

When it comes to pricing for magazine content on the iPad, publishers are taking a variety of routes to incorporate advertising revenue and consumer pricing into the mix. Men's Health is reportedly offering ten free pages each from its April and May issues through an advertising partnership with Gillette, but those looking to download the full issues will have to cough up the full $4.99 newsstand price. Esquire is apparently planning to forgo advertising in its iPad versions at first and will charge $2.99 per issue, a $2 discount from the newsstand price.

In the report's final paragraph, the WSJ looks at its own situation, noting that six advertisers including Coca-Cola and FedEx have signed on for four-month ad packages with the publication costing $400,000. And in what is seemingly an afterthought, the report notes that The Wall Street Journal is apparently planning to charge readers $17.99 per month for access to the newspaper's content on the iPad.

Last month, it was reported that The New York Times' print and digital units were jockeying for control over iPad content, with the former seeking monthly subscription fees in the $20-$30 range while the latter was pushing for a $10 price point. It remains unclear what route that newspaper will be taking when its content launches on the iPad.

With the imminent arrival of the Apple iPad, it seems at least one major television network is updating their website to provide video playback support for new tablet device -- without Flash. CBS.com's website began displaying a couple of strange "iPad - test" video links, first noted by The Other Mac Blog.

We investigated further and found that clicking on these "iPad" labeled links in your normal desktop browser brings you to the usual Flash versions of these videos. Of course, these wouldn't properly play on the Apple iPad due to Apple's well known decision not to support Flash. However, if you visit CBS.com using the iPad SDK Simulator or spoofing your browser's User-Agent to impersonate an iPad, you are sent to a different version of the video:

This new version of the video does not yet work but appears to be based on HTML5. The css files reference HTML5 and have a number of "webkit" specific calls. Webkit is the browser engine used in the iPad's mobile safari. While the videos don't currently play, the "fullscreen mode" reportedly already works in the iPad simulator.

Apple has been a strong proponent of HTML5 and has suggested it as an alternative solution to Flash. It appears at least one major network will be supporting HTML5 alongside Flash video to deliver their content at iPad launch.

The Wall Street Journal publishes a profile (subscription required) of Apple's Board of Directors, focusing on the lack of independent executives on the board in the wake of Jerry York's death last week. The report notes that Apple CEO Steve Jobs holds a remarkable amount of sway over both the company operations in general and specifically the Board of Directors that is supposed to help guide the company, a situation that many investors have seen as undesirable.

Investors have long urged Apple's directors to be more independent of the company's powerful CEO, even as Apple has continued posting strong financial results. An independent board represents the interests of shareholders and can challenge the CEO when necessary, said David Nadler, a corporate governance expert and senior partner at consultants Oliver Wyman Group.

Mr. York's successor should be somebody "with sufficient stature and importance to take the CEO on," said Roderick Hills, a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, who has led a dozen audit committees.

York joined Apple's Board of Directors in 1997 when Steve Jobs took on the "interim" CEO title after the ousting of Gil Amelio in a boardroom coup. Jobs blamed much of Apple's troubles on the existing board and demanded that the majority of them resign, allowing new directors such as York to come on board to help achieve Jobs' vision.

Today's report notes that Apple's directors have rarely challenged Jobs in boardroom meetings, even when many of them disagreed with his handling of his medical leave of absence for a liver transplant during the first half of 2009. York was reportedly "disgusted" that Jobs failed to reveal his medical issues in Apple's announcement that Jobs would not present at its final Macworld Expo keynote in January 2009, with York even contemplating stepping down from Apple's board over the incident.

Looking forward, it seems likely that Apple will seek to add at least one more member to its Board of Directors, as the current count of six members is now among the smallest of Fortune 500 companies following York's death and the resignation of Google CEO Eric Schmidt in August 2009. Apple, however, has made no public signs that it has begun the process of searching for new members for its Board.

Apple is continuing its rapid-fire seeding of Mac OS X 10.6.3 builds today, pushing out Build 10D573 to developers. The new build is only a single increment over the previous build issued last Thursday. World of Apple details the seed notes, which reveal that Apple has asked developers to continue focusing on GraphicsDrivers, Images & Photos, Mail, QuickTime, and Security Certificates for testing.

The seed notes also reveal one additional fix since the last build, involving an issue with recurring events in iCal when working with Exchange servers. The new build also continues to carry a single documented known issue involving the reoffering of the Safari 4.0.5 update issued earlier this month.

We have continued to expect an imminent release of Mac OS X 10.6.3, but Apple's release schedule remains unpredictable as it puts the finishing touches on the update. Late last week, an iMac user reported receiving a prerelease version of Mac OS X 10.6.3 via Software Update. That version was the previous Build 10D572, and it is unknown why the user's machine was able to access the download, although it does suggest that work on Mac OS X 10.6.3 is very close to completion.

AT&T today announced that next month it will begin a nationwide rollout of its 3G MicroCell service that allows users to route their cellular phone calls around the house onto their broadband Internet connection as a solution for spotty cellular coverage. Supporting both voice and data services, the 3G MicroCell device carries a price tag of $149.99, although AT&T is offering rebates to users signing up for monthly MicroCell service plans to augment their existing cellular plans or switching to the company's DSL or U-Verse broadband service.

AT&T today announced that AT&T 3G MicroCell plans to begin its national roll out beginning in mid April, with new markets activating in cities across the continental U.S. for the next several months. AT&T 3G MicroCell is an innovative solution that allows residential customers to route wireless phone calls and data connections (or sessions) across a home broadband connection. This solution is designed to benefit customers who live in homes that have coverage impediments that consistently interrupt wireless spectrum, such as dense wall and roof construction or unfavorable terrain.

Customers have the option of using minutes from their normal cellular phone plan or signing up for a $19.99/month companion plan that allows unlimited calling over the customer's MicroCell without utilizing their cellular minute allotment.

AT&T's 3G MicroCell began service in the Charlotte, North Carolina region last September and has expanded to other test markets in recent months as the company has geared up for full nationwide availability. AT&T, currently the sole iPhone carrier in the U.S., has received a significant amount of criticism over its network performance, particularly in high-density areas such as New York City and San Francisco. The company has, however, seen improved performance in recent months putting it on par or ahead of other carriers in many major markets.

Adobe Photoshop project manager John Nack yesterday pointed to a new demo video posted by a member of his team showing off an impressive new feature in Photoshop known as "content-aware fill". The feature utilizes complex mathematical algorithms to analyze digital images and assist users in filling in areas of complex scenes where undesired content has been removed.

The video shows a number of applications for the feature, from simple tweaks such as removing extraneous trash from an image of a park scene to far more complex tasks such as generating realistic looking desert landscapes and cloud formations.

While Adobe has been careful to specify only that the technology is set for inclusion in "a future version" of Photoshop, we have been told to expect it to make an appearance in the next version scheduled for introduction as part of Creative Suite 5 on April 12th.

App Advice reports that earlier this week it had an opportunity to view Apple's forthcoming iBookstore and saw that the vast majority of titles from The New York Times' best sellers list currently appear priced at the same $9.99 price point favored by Amazon's Kindle Store.

Anyway, at the moment, out of the 32 eBooks featured in the New York Time's Bestsellers section, 27, including the entire top 10 are priced at $9.99.

Of the remaining five titles from the best sellers list, the highest price listed is $12.99.

Apple's iBookstore pricing model, based on that used in its App Store, involves publishers setting sales prices with Apple taking a 30% cut of revenue. That model had been thought to be pushing most best seller eBook titles to a range of $12.99 to $14.99, above the $9.99 price point seen with Amazon's offerings. But a subsequent report suggested that the higher price range is merely a ceiling and that publishers will be permitted and even encouraged to offer lower price points such as those apparently being seen in the iBookstore.

The iBookstore is set to launch in the U.S. alongside the iPad on April 3rd.

Financial Times reports that Random House, the world's largest book publisher, has yet to sign on to Apple's iBookstore and may not do so before the iPad's April 3rd launch as it weighs fears that Apple's agency model for eBook pricing will result in a price war, eroding publisher profits.

Markus Dohle, Random House chief executive, did not exclude the possibility of reaching a deal before the iPad goes on sale on April 3, but said he was treading carefully, as Apple's pricing regime could erode established publishing practices.

Rather than allowing retailers to set their own pricing for books, Apple is building on its existing App Store model to allow publishers to set retail sales prices, with Apple taking a 30% cut of revenue. Apple has argued that the change will allow publishers to create more sustainable business models than the current system of relying on the willingness of distributors such as Amazon to sell content at little profit or even a loss, and a number of major publishers have accepted Apple's proposed tradeoff in view of their long-term viability. Random House, however, remains unconvinced and is still working with its authors and agents to assess the potential impact of a shift to Apple's agency model.

Developer Marco Arment yesterday announced that his popular Instapaper service for saving Web content for later reading will be coming to the iPad, hopefully in time for the device's launch on April 3rd. The service, which currently offers a pair of iPhone/iPod touch applications including the limited Instapaper Free and the more powerful Instapaper Pro ($4.99), downloads text-only versions of Web content and saves them to a user's free account for later reading on a variety of devices.

In his blog entry, Arment offers some preview screenshots and discusses his motivations for developing iPad-specific versions of Instapaper. (Instapaper Pro will be a universal application for both iPhone and iPad, requiring users to only purchase the application once.)

Once I nailed down a few definite iPad-friendly features, I realized that I could port all of them to the iPhone version of Instapaper Pro. And if I did that, all of my customers (and I) could use these great new features now.

So, rather than rewriting my entire interface for the iPad over the two months that we've had, I spent the first few weeks finishing and launching the 2.2 update to my iPhone app, a major undertaking that added a lot of great features, using techniques that would allow me to easily adapt all of the features to the iPad. And I spent the remaining time adapting my interfaces, rewriting or modifying where necessary, for this new platform.

Arment also discusses the quandary faced by the many iPhone developers who are looking to move their apps to the iPad but have not had access to an actual device for testing. Consequently, developers have to either trust the iPad simulator in the iPhone SDK 3.2 and Apple's reviewers in order to have their applications ready for the iPad launch or hold off until the device comes available and have customers make do with iPhone versions of their applications for several weeks or months until iPad versions can be created.

For Arment, seeing the pixel-doubled display of the iPhone version of Instapaper Pro in the iPad simulator was enough to convince him that he needed to have an iPad version of the app ready to go as soon as possible.

It sucked, and it was completely unusable by my standards. I don't think I'll want to run any pixel-doubled apps on my iPad in practice.

As far as I'm concerned, Instapaper isn't really available on the iPad until it's native. (This also influenced my decision to make it a universal iPhone/iPad app: I don't want anyone subjecting themselves to the iPhone edition in pixel-doubled mode.)

As a result of this decision, Arment is prepared to accept that a few minor issues may exist with the iPad version of Instapaper Pro and that he can fix them soon after the device launches. But that risk is outweighed in Arment's mind by the opportunity to have an iPad-specific Instapaper experience from day one.