Time Warner and NBC Won’t Adopt HTML5 For iPad

According to the New York Post, several media companies including Time Warner and NBC Universal told Apple that they won’t adopt HTML5 for iPad playback and that they will stick with Flash. As sources report, “such a reformatting would be expensive and not worth it because Flash dominates the Web.”

The New York Post goes even further and reports:

“In addition, one media executive pointed out that Apple’s ability to dictate terms to the media giants will be weakened further by Google TV, a software product that enables viewers to watch online video on their big-screen TVs.”

I’d wait until this fall season to see what’s going to happen with media companies and their playback offers. If the iPad will turn out to be a bigger success than the iPhone, of course they will jump on the HTML5 wagon.

Barnes and Noble now has a Piece of iPad too

The iPad’s bookstore is starting to get a little crowded, now that both Amazon & Barnes and Noble are competing for homescreen domination. It’s not a surprising move as the iPad takes up considerable market share (last we checked 13%) in the e-reader market, but when the Nook isn’t selling, what do you do?

Gizmodo reports that this may be the best e-book store and reader on the iPad right now, thanks to its synching ability across devices; lending (borrowing) features; a myriad of customization options; and dictionary prowess. But don’t take their word for it: download the app yourself and tell us what you think.

Apple Market Share In Europe Rises to 6.8%

According to Hardmac, Apple market share in Europe has risen to 6.8%, two percentage points higher than last year. Ok, maybe Europeans are not so into the whole Apple thing, at least not as much as American people are, but still these results are promising and I wonder what’s going to happen this summer and fall with the iPad and new iPhone. 10% market share by May 2011?  I would bet on it. [via TUAW]

Valve Working On Source SDK Update to Bring Mods to OS X

Steam for Mac is doing great (the latest updates should have fixed the few bugs we encountered with first release for Mac) and users seems to be very satisfied with the performance of the platform on their Macbooks. Still, there’s one big feature missing: an update to the Source SDK to compile mods for OS X.

As you can see from the screenshot after the break that’s exactly what Alfred Reynolds (software developer at Valve) is confirming: “a code update so you can compile your mods for OSX”. This should bring the whole Steam / Source platform at the same level of Windows’ one, and we’ve got the feeling this update will be out by the WWDC.

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Firefox Home sends Bookmarks to your iPhone

Unfortunately it’s not Fennec, but at least it gives me access to the hundreds of Firefox bookmarks I’ve collected since 2004. Firefox Home (why not just call it Weave Sync?) is a Mozilla iPhone application that lets you sync bookmarks between your favorite mobile device, and your favorite web browser. While I’m more interested in the NES case in the video than the application itself, those few dozen iPad case links you saved (of which I’m guilty) can now follow you wherever you take you an iPhone. Click past the break for a demo vid.

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Steve Ballmer To Show Up At The WWDC Keynote?

So here’s the big news guys: Steve Ballmers might take the stage at the upcoming WWDC keynote and talk about Visual Studio 2010, the development tool that will allegedly allow devs to write native apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac OS.

As Barron’s reports:

“Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with tiny Global Equities Research, contends that 7 minutes of the June 7 keynote by Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been blocked off for a presentation by Microsoft (MSFT) to talk about Visual Studio 2010, the company’s suite of development tools.”

So, what was the story about surprises, again? Seriously, this is gonna be interesting.

Yes Houston, an iPod Nano Phone was Patented

Remember the year 2006? Me neither. But Apple apparently begun plans to turn their iPod Nano into an eventual mini-iPhone. I’m not terribly surprised, considering that Apple has bestowed the Nano with a wonderful little VGA camera before the iPod touch. Perhaps a phone may be in lieu as 2010 plays out, but didn’t the rotary dial die some years ago?

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