iPad 2 and iMovie Enable “Citizen Journalism” For Breaking News

By Federico Viticci

Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens was driving to work yesterday when he witnessed a large gas explosion a couple of blocks away. To see if someone had called 911 yet, he drove with his car near to the explosion site and started recording a video with his iPhone 4. A couple of minutes later, the video was edited and uploaded to the Internet to become the first semi-professional footage used by media organizations to break the news of the Minneapolis explosion.

How did the video end up on TV if it was simply shot with an iPhone? People shoot videos with their smartphones every day, but they’re not chosen to be broadcasted. It turns out, Stephens quickly transferred the video file over to his iPad 2 through the Apple Camera Connection Kit, and started editing it. He added a map, subtitles, and cleaner voice over. All of this using iMovie for iPad in a parking lot while he could still feel the heat of the explosion on his face. Once done editing, he sent the video to Youtube and CNN iReport over 3G and was one of the first eye-witnesses to tweet about the explosion and post footage. He also tweeted permission to use the video, which ended up on MSNBC and CNN coverage in a matter of minutes.

The story here is a great example of “citizen journalism”, with an Apple twist. Everyday devices like an iPhone and an iPad become indispensable tools when it comes to quickly capturing a particular scene, and uploading the results on to the Internet so everyone can see it. Furthermore, semi-professional videos edited in software like iMovie can be used by major news organizations without looking like “yet another amateur Youtube video”.

Something is also very clear: Apple needs a better way to transfer files between iOS devices without the need of hardware. Perhaps AirDrop for iOS. Check out the video below. [TwinCities via TUAW] Read more

Here Come The Angry Birds iPad 2 Cases

By Federico Viticci

In a trip to the Apple Store back in December I noticed something really curious (and colored) on the shelves: official Angry Birds cases for the iPhone were heavily featured by Apple inside the retail space like no other case. The accessory section in the Apple Store is trafficked all day by customers willing to enhance their iOS or Mac experience, and especially with the iPhone 4 third-party cases of all kinds saw an explosion in demand and popularity. But the promotion reserved to these Angry Birds cases was unprecedented.

Now the same is about to happen all over again with the iPad 2, which doesn’t need a case according to Apple but still it’s going to experience the invasion of third-party accessories like the iPhone 4 did. Whilst most manufacturers are ramping up production for their cases, folios and stands now that the iPad 2 is available, Gear4 has once again signed Rovio over to release official Angry Birds hard-plastic cases for the iPad 2. Available in three different flavors at $49.99, the cases feature holes to let you access all the buttons and hardware cutouts of the iPad 2: camera, speaker, dock connector, and so forth. You can check them out here. And , of course, they have your beloved pigs and birds.

The iPad 2 is a beautiful piece of hardware and Steve Jobs wants you to use the elegant Smart Cover to carry it around, without actually covering the device’s beauty. But trust me: your wife kids are going to love the Angry Birds case. [via iPadevice]

AT&T Slashes Price Of Original iPad 3G by $100 →

Linked By Federico Viticci

AT&T Slashes Price Of Original iPad 3G by $100

The press release isn’t available yet in AT&T’s news room, but Jim Dalrymple at The Loop reports:

AT&T on Friday slashed the price of the original iPad 3G by $100 throughout its U.S. retail stores.

The iPad 3G now costs $429, $529 and $629 for the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models, respectively.

The change is only for AT&T retail stores for now as the Apple online store still reports the old (already slashed) prices for the iPad 1. This sounds like a clever move for AT&T to get rid of stock now that the iPad 2 is available, and very hard to find this week. Perhaps some users will settle with an original iPad 3G at the lower price point.

Earlier this week, we reported several original iPad owners on AT&T experienced issues when trying to migrate their data plan to the iPad 2.

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I Want This Tetris-like Stand For iOS Devices On My Desk

By Federico Viticci

This product will likely never see the light of day on retail stores’ shelves, but it’d be so perfect on my home desk next to my iMac. The Polyply is a multi-device stand designed by Andrew Kim, and it’s made out of acrylic plastic and birch plywood. Realized as a two-week project by Kim to see how such an accessory would fit on an Apple’s fan desk, all parts were cut on a laser cutter. The Polyply could easily keep in place an iPad, an iPhone, and iPod and a stylus. It’s got room to plug in your Apple 30-pin dock connector and it even lowers for a better typing angle.

The design is simple and clean and, in spite of the times, it’d be just right for my desk that is daily cluttered by iPad, iPhone and, yes, an iPod Classic.

Like I said though, this was just an experiment. But I’d be ready to open my wallet if it was a Kickstarter project. [via Cult Of Mac]

Rumor: New MobileMe Launching Next Month

By Federico Viticci

Two weeks ago we reported a rumor from a German blog that claimed Apple was in the process of organizing a media even in April to demo the upcoming major new version of iOS, and the new MobileMe. The new cloud service from Apple, according to several reports surfaced in the past months, is rumored to become free and include a “locker” functionality for media storage like photos, music and videos. Code strings spotted in the early developer betas of iOS 4.3 pointed to a new feature in the works called “MediaStream” that would allow users to broadcast photos and videos through the cloud.

Today iLounge reports the new MobileMe is launching next month, in April, and it will indeed be free. According to the website the new version will be radically different from the existing one, and Apple will keep providing support for subscribers that recently bought a MobileMe subscription for at least a year to ease the transition.

In addition, the source was told that Apple will be supporting the existing version of MobileMe for the next year, suggesting that the new version will be quite different from the existing service; the extra year of support would likely cover those who recently paid for a full year of MobileMe, prior to Apple removing any method through which a user could pay for the service.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs allegedly said in an email to a customer that MobileMe would get a lot better in 2011. Last month, Apple discontinued retail boxes of MobileMe making the services only available for purchase online, with a 60-day free trial. Also last month it was reported that Apple was on schedule to launch its new iTunes and MobileMe services powered by the data center in Maiden, North Carolina this Spring.

Monitoring Space On My Backup Drives with Daisy Disk

By Federico Viticci

I’m serious about backups. If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you might have read I recently subscribed to Backblaze for my offsite backups: Backblaze is a service that, starting at $5 per month, can save the contents of your Mac on the service’s remote and secure servers. You can restore at any given time, and access all the service’s functionalities and settings from the preference panel that you can install on your Mac. Combined with Dropbox, Backblaze has become my ideal solution for offsite backups that don’t reside on my local setup, and thus are less likely to be subject to damages and other kinds of problems – say my home office got robbed, Dropbox and Backblaze wouldn’t be affected by the issue.

But I don’t just rely on online services for my backup needs. For as much as storing files online is convenient and fast enough these days, I’m a strong believer that local, incremental backups on external drives need to be performed at a regular daily schedule. For this reason, I bought an AirPort Extreme station months ago to put to better use the external drives I own: Time Machine backups to an AirPort disk on my local network all the time, other media is automatically copied through Hazel to another disk shared via WiFi. With these shared disks, the extra advantage is that everyone in my house who’s connected to my same network can access media (and backup through Time Machine) whenever they want. On top of that, I’ve got two USB / FireWire 800 drives that I use for SuperDuper – which keeps a bootable copy of my Mac and runs its automated backup session every night. Read more

iPhone 5 To Have NFC, Says Person Who Knows A Man With A Friend Who Works At Apple

By Federico Viticci

The iPhone 5 will feature NFC capabilities. The iPhone 5 won’t have NFC. The iPhone will indeed feature NFC, according to people familiar with the matter. That is, if you follow the Apple rumor mill you might have heard stories like these in the past months.

But the latest rumor posted by Business Insider is just so good and confusing at the same time that I could not post it here, for the sake of reference and sarcasm. Who knows, perhaps this person familiar with Apple’s plans may be right. Or not. But how familiar anyway?

If meeting with an entrepreneur who says iPhone 5 will have NFC because a friend who works at Apple said so is enough for you, there you have it. According to a tweet from Forbes reporter Elizabeth Woyke, that’s what the next-generation iPhone will do: magical near-field communication. Take it with a (huge) grain of salt, of course.

If I were to look deeper into this tweet and over-contextualize it, I’d say Woyke herself doesn’t quite believe the story, too. In fact, she said “Huh”.

For what it’s worth, several reports in the past suggested the iPhone 5 would come with NFC capabilities, although recent rumors dismissed those reports. Furthermore, a European carrier even mentioned an iPhone with NFC in a slide used at a press conference weeks ago.

Rumors are floating around about this iPhone 5 with NFC, and at this point it is unclear whether or not the device will have such a feature. Personally, I just wish there was a BlackBerry PlayBook reference in that tweet.

iPad: The Microwave Oven of Computing →

Linked By Federico Viticci

iPad: The Microwave Oven of Computing

Matthew Guay nails it in his story at Techinch: the iPad is the microwave oven of this computing era, a new device for everyone that might seem useless at first, but creates a new category for consumers.

The microwave isn’t easier for every cooking task, and perhaps it takes longer to prepare a complicated meal in a microwave. Perhaps no award winning meal will be created in one, unless it’s a special contest for microwave cooking. But it simplified simple cooking, and consumers around the world saw it as a necessary piece of equipment within in years of it becoming popular.

Decades later, the same concept works for computers and the iPad:

The world has discovered that the iPad doesn’t have to be a full computer to be successful. It’s a new form factor that makes computing more accessible to more people than ever. Sure, you might not create a new app on it, and there’s still not Photoshop on iOS. You can’t bake a medium-rare roast in a microwave, either. But now instead of waiting for your computer to boot, you can read the news, type a short document, and get on with your day all in the time your aging desktop takes to boot.

Maybe you won’t be able to manage your WordPress blog entirely from the iPad, not even in 2012, and perhaps you’d like to turn yourself to the Xbox 360 if you want motion-based games. But for anything else, you’re just as good with an iPad as millions of people were with a microwave oven when it first came out. And by the way, I also happen to get lots of things done on my iPad.

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Scribd To Switch Millions of Old Embeds Over to HTML5, iOS Devices Rejoice

By Federico Viticci

Social document sharing service Scribd has made a major announcement today: they’re in the process of switching millions of old Flash-based embeds scattered around the web over to the new HTML5 layout they started implementing last year. The conversion process will be automatic, shouldn’t break anything for publishers and website owners and, most of all, will dramatically increase the quality and speed of Scribd embeds.

As Scribd swaps Flash with HTML5 on old document embeds, iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad will benefit from the change: the HTML5 tool developed by Scribd is fully compatible with iOS’ Mobile Safari and now every webpage containing a new or old Scribd document will be perfectly viewable on Apple’s phones and tablets.

When Scribd launched its HTML5 reading platform last summer, they said user engagement with the Scribd experience “surged”. The conversion of 20 million embeds to HTML5 should definitely make things even better for Scribd.