The iPad is finally coming to an Apple store near you. As Apple announced last week, the device will go up for sale on March 12th and will start shipping on April 3rd. You know we are getting close to an Apple release date when Apple’s marketing machine starts coming up with fun commercials. The iPad may not have too many commercials at this point, but its very first was aired last night during the Oscars. It has already generated quite a buzz around the Web. We all know that Apple gadgets look much more tempting in Apple ads. This latest ad was no different.

Some people are going to love the iPad based on the above app, and some are just going to save their money and wait for Microsoft’s tablet, which could go on sale on June. Apple bringing out its latest ad during the Oscars shows why the company is so successful in marketing its product. Putting the right product in front of the right audience usually pays off big. Read the rest of this entry »

Things are not as rosy as they used to be for Apple. Not after the company had to admit child labor was used to manufacture Apple products in 3 factories which supply Apple. The issue of children working in factories for such a famous company could be very scandalous. And you can always count on the media to take such a story and spin it to create even more controversy. As Telegraph put it, 11 children were used in 3 factories that work with Apple, something that somehow slipped through and escaped Apple’s attention. The issue of underage workers working in factories is nothing new, especially in China. Those who choose to get work done in that country are aware of this practice, so Apple was probably ready for this bombshell in one way or another.

Apple for its part has done the best a company can to address this PR problem. The company is working towards identifying the source of the issue and is taking measures to minimize the practice:

In each of the three facilities, we required a review of all employment records for the year as well as a complete analysis of the hiring process to clarify how underage people had been able to gain employment

It’s not clear how companies should deal with child labor issues. Apple doesn’t have to face that issue in the U.S., but that is a serious issue in Asia. Do you fire all the underage workers? Could these people be seriously hurt by such actions? Now, I am against underage workers getting work in factories. But these problems are well documented and nothing new. To somehow put the problem on Apple is preposterous. The company could have been more vigilant in identifying issues with its factories. But it’s not as if Apple set out to take advantage of underage workers to keep its manufacturing costs low.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jailbreak iPhones have been an aggravating issue for Apple. The company has tried hard to stop people for getting around its measures, but hackers always find a way to help those who want to jailbreak their phones get the job done. Till now, Apple decided to combat those hackers by releasing security updates once in a while. Now the company is going after their iTunes accounts as well. After all, if you can’t beat them, just cut off their access to iTunes and hope for the best.

Sherif Hashim, an iPhone developer who developed a hack for the latest iPhone OS 3.1.3, and iH8Sn0w, who developed the XEMN tool designed to unlock iPhone 3.1.3 radio baseband both had their accounts suspended. Both individuals posted a message to their Twitter account talking about their accounts being closed by Apple for “security reasons.” Of course, some of these people have multiple iTunes accounts, so I am not sure Apple can close them all. Read the rest of this entry »

A guest post by Mike Smithwick, author of Distant Suns 2 for the iPhone and blogger at distantsuns.com. Mike is a seasoned iPhone developer who has developed numerous iPhone applications. Follow Mike’s work on Twitter for more information.

In 1987, Steve Jobs introduced to the world the wonderful and somewhat puzzling NeXT “Cube.” It was designed as the computer for the college student who could also afford a $6000 machine with no floppy drive.  For all of the ridicule and head scratching the machine provoked, it pioneered a number of great technologies. Perhaps the most well known of these powers every Mac and iPhone now being made today: OS-X.

One of the other less successful aspects of the NeXT episode was Jobs’ software distribution model. Considering that the Cube was meant to be a networked based system, all software distribution would be via the net (either that or via the $150 Canon “floptical” disks that would price most applications out of the reach of the demographics). Jobs’ proposed electronic means of purchasing and distribution of NeXT applications would have been pretty cool. Except for one small detail: there was no general solution for handling small secure transactions over the Internet. That is, no way to pay. His dream quickly vanished and vendors ultimately would have to sell their wares by permitting stores to copy them onto the customer’s own disks.

It would take 22 years, but finally that vision would be realized in the form of the iPhone’s App Store. It’s not bad…for a first attempt that is. But there remains a lot to be done from both the developer’s and customer’s standpoints.

For developers, managing the app and gleaning sales trends is unwieldy at best. For customers, discovering great apps is tedious and a hit-or-miss affair. Go with the safe stuff, the stuff on the top-100, and you’ll be okay. If your app is one of the 134,115 other apps not on the list, tough.

I imagine that the success of the store and the SDK caught Apple by surprise, and as such the store worked fine for small numbers of applications, but in the end proved not to be very scalable and soon started bustin’ the seams. Read the rest of article…

Microsoft has done a lot of great things in its illustrious history, but it has managed to pull of some very dumb moves as well. The company has had to fight hard to replicate the success it used to had with Windows OS just a few years ago. XBox has become a successful project for Microsoft but you could make the argument that Zune has failed to get going. So these past few years have been a mixed bag for the company. Nevertheless, Microsoft seem to have gotten something right with Bing. In a world that Google dominates, Bing has certainly held up its own.

The troubles between Google and Apple have been well documented in the media. It seems the saga will move to the next chapter as Apple is poised to bring Bing to iPhone as its default search engine. Google has been somewhat dismissive of its rivalry with Apple, but Apple giving the go to Bing on iPhone (and perhaps Apple tablet) could sting Google.

Read the rest of this entry »