The Power Of The iPad Illustrated In Infographic

If there was any doubt the iPad is a very strong product among consumers, an infographic by Yudu Media is here to confirm Apple achieved a huge success with its first tablet. The full image is available here, but let’s break it down a bit. 9 out of 10 consumers are aware of the iPad, not a surprise considering Apple’s massive advertising strategy. Those consumers who have bought an iPad, however, have made 9 in 10 app purchases from the App Store (this is not very clear), and 91% of them have downloaded at least one app. 63% of iPad owners have downloaded at least one paid app. That’s not a bad number – I can tell you many of my friends are that kind of users that refrain from entering their credit card information in iTunes and only download free apps on their iPhones. Perhaps the iPad shows bigger paid app numbers than the iPhone? This is an interesting subject.

The infographic also reports Apple is expected to make $15 billion from app revenue in 2011, 3 times the total of 2010. Overall, iPad owners “are more likely to view, interact with, and buy as a result of viewing advertising than other device users”. Whatever that means in our daily iPad usage, we’re pretty sure Apple’s commercials play an important role in this.

Check out the infographic here.

Wunderlist HD For iPad Goes Live

Last night, Wunderlist HD launched on the iTunes App Store with thunderous applause (I figured that fit the theme for this morning). And I’m not exaggerating: the Wunderlist HD update was well received on the local Twitter channels, and team deserves a fine pat on the back for bringing their desktop task-manager into the frame of the iPad.

You’ll notice that Wunderlist HD keeps its charm in this latest iteration, despite the disorienting placement of the sidebar on the right-hand side (on the desktop it’s on the left). Connecting to your Wunderlist account, Wunderlist HD delivers all the same collaboration features and still free note syncing that makes the service so valuable to many. Using the filter controls at the bottom of the sidebar, you can view all of your tasks, starred tasks, tasks due now, overdue tasks, and you can bring up other filters that allow you to prioritize for the future. Lists can be created with a tap of the add button at the top, and as always you have your choice of beautiful backgrounds.

Download it free right now from the iTunes App Store.

Image Editing and Photo Booth for iOS Surface in Apple Patent

A few days after Apple released the first beta of iOS 4.3, several developers and bloggers did a little bit of digging into the SDK and new firmware file to find out whether Apple had  managed to hide references to new hardware and features into iOS 4.3. iPad camera files aside, icons for FaceTime and Photo Booth surfaced, as well as strings in the code that pointed to new camera effects finding their way to iOS. These effects looked very similar to the ones used by Apple in the iPod nano fifth generation: X-Ray, thermal, light tunnel, kaleidoscope, and so forth.

A new patent design uncovered by Patently Apple today confirms that engineers and designers at Cupertino have been studying the implementation of Photo Booth with image effects for iPhones and iPads, but the most interesting part is perhaps the adoption of image editing features system-wide, configurable in the settings, that users will also be able to manipulate with sound, motion, GPS and touch. Read more

Lion To Feature “UI Overhaul”, Developer Beta Soon?

OS X 10.7 Lion was first shown off in October last year at the ‘Back to the Mac’ event with an expected launch of summer 2011. As we near the beginning of spring, TechCrunch has reported that it has seen a significant spike in traffic from computers running Lion. This, along with what TechCrunch has heard, suggests that Lion is being widely tested internally at Apple, perhaps in anticipation of a beta soon, they also note that:

And while we already know some of the new features thanks to Apple’s preview, there are still a few surprises, apparently. One of these is a much-anticipated UI overhaul. But that means that developers are going to need to be ready when it rolls out. And along those lines, we’re hearing that a developer beta should begin soon. There’s no firm timetable for this yet, but again, we’re only 4 months away from the summer.

This makes some sense to us here at MacStories; Apple would likely want to release a beta before WWDC so that some of the training sessions at WWDC can be about Lion, particularly if there are any significant changes to UI and then launch Lion at WWDC or soon after.

[Via TechCrunch]

Sixth Beta of 10.6.7 Now Available in Mac Dev Center

A sixth beta of Mac OS X 10.6.7 has been seeded to developers, and it’s available now for download in the Mac Dev Center. Build number is 10J860. No known issues have been reported in the build’s seed notes, and like the previous beta focus areas include Safari, Bonjour, Mac App Store, AirPort, SMB and Graphic Drivers.

The fifth beta of OS X 10.6.7 was seeded 5 days ago to developers. Apple is clearly accelerating the development of the new version of the OS, which should come out soon.

MacBook Pro Spec Sheet Leaks, Light Peak To Be Called Thunderbolt

Well this morning we’ve seen a multitude of leaks regarding Apple’s implementation of Light Peak and some specs of the upcoming MacBook Pro refresh. Thunderbolt will be the name Apple uses for Light Peak and it seems to take the form of the Mini DisplayPort, in fact it also replaces the Mini DisplayPort on the MacBook Pro as can be seen after the break.

The spec sheet for the updated MacBook Pro 13” has also been leaked in both German and English so it seems to be virtually confirmed that the 13” MacBook Pro will have a; 2.3Ghz Dual Core i5 processor, 4GB RAM, integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics unit.

Some interesting additional specs are that it will include an SDXC card reader which has the ability to read a card of 2TB and a reference to a webcam that is described as a “built-in FaceTime-HD camera” which begs the question, why is ‘HD’ appended to that? It could be as innocent as a higher definition webcam than is used in the iPhone for FaceTime or perhaps the suggestion that FaceTime calls could become higher quality. Jump the break for the spec page.

[Via Engadget, Mac4Ever, MacRumors]

UPDATE 4: With all the updates so far on these leaks, I have cleaned up the post, check the break for all the photos.

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Gameloft’s VP Talks Premium Games, Maturing iOS Gaming Market And EA’s Sale Tactics

Last week over at Mobile World Congress Gameloft’s vice president Gonzague de Vallois spoke to PocketGamer and had some interesting remarks regarding iOS gaming. One of the things he spoke about was iOS gamers gaining an increasingly high expectation for games on the platform, particularly in regards to graphics and utilizing the full potential of the device.

He says that taste’s of iOS gamers are maturing and are moving on from supporting the small developers who make small, casual games to the games that are more fully featured and more fully use the potential of the device. To me at least, this seems like a bit of an odd comment given the continuing success of games such as Angry Birds and the caliber of indie games that are continuing to come to the App Store such as Rockin’ Rockets.

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New “Drastic And Ambitious” Final Cut Pro Launching In Spring?

There is some speculation that the next release of Final Cut Pro which is part of the Final Cut Studio suite of video editing applications, will be coming sometime this spring according to sources that spoke to TechCrunch. Some people had been speculating that Apple may stop working on the far more professional-orientated Final Cut Pro and focus on the consumer iMovie program but Steve Jobs sent some of his trademark short and vague emails last year saying to “Stay tuned and buckle up” and also “Next release will be awesome.”

Supposedly Apple recently held a preview of the next version of Final Cut Pro on its Cupertino campus in which a small group of video editors were invited for feedback. This forthcoming version of Final Cut Pro, the eighth, is said to be “the biggest overhaul to Final Cut Pro since the original version was created over 10 years ago.”

A source told TechCrunch that the release would have a multitude of extensive changes from low-level architectural changes to a complete user interface redesign. 64-bit support is also expected to be on the list of improvements, something that its users have been quite vocal about. Those that have seen a demo of the product have said that the changes can be classified as “drastic and ambitious”.

[Via TechCrunch]

Apple Cuts The Minimum iAd Buy In Half

Now that the first run of iAd campaigns has concluded, AllThingsD is reporting that Apple has decided to cut the minimum required spending in half from a steep $1 million to $500,000. The change has presumably been made because whilst it has been reasonably successful, the number of ads being presented and filling ad spots actually decreased this year. As a result Apple may be wanting to attract some smaller scale advertisers which couldn’t afford to enter the platform previously and fill those ad spots.

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