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Why the iPad 3 Rumors Are Premature, At Best
If you’re on the lookout for iPad 2 news, which, if you’re an Apple fan, you probably are, then you may have come across the smattering of stories about a possible iPad 3 release sometime in fall of 2011. Look closely, and you’ll see they all stem from one source: an educated guess made by John Gruber [LINK?].

Gruber laid out the possibility of an iPad 3 arriving ahead of schedule in the fall, following the iPad 2′s release this spring, in an article about the tablet scene and Apple’s plans within that picture for 2011. For the record, I’m not questioning Gruber’s predictive abilities or the value of his having made an educated guess in this instance, but I am questioning how quickly other outlets took up the report as gospel, without even considering alternate possibilities. The Atlantic’s vanilla reblog is typical of most stories coming out of Gruber’s post.

In the interest of balance, I’d like to offer some counterpoints to Gruber’s prediction, because in many ways, Apple releasing two iPads in one year (especially this year) doesn’t make sense at all. Take, for example, Gruber’s opinions regarding the comparative merits of April and September as release dates:

I don't think April is a particularly good month for an annual iPad release. I don't think it's a particularly bad month, either, but it doesn't make as much sense as September. April is four months into the new year, but still feels like "early" in the year. That leads to whispers and rumors during the holiday season that people should wait. Shipping new hardware in April adds another milestone to the iOS release schedule, too.

I’d actually argue just the opposite. An April (or spring) release makes sense for the iPad, precisely because, as Gruber notes, “[t]he iPad was a massive hit during the past holiday season.” Apple stands to gain little from positioning the iPad as a fall release, since it already enjoys a huge sales bump from holiday shoppers. With an April launch, the iPad then stands to see higher-than-average sales periods twice a year (once at launch and once again around the holidays) rather than just one enormous one. And despite the fact that there are inevitably suggestions that people should wait for new hardware releases when the end of a cycle draws near, I’d argue that by and large, the average consumer will still go out and buy what they want to, leaving those of us closest to the tech pulse to worry about upgrade cycles. The iPad’s 2010 holiday success is testament to that belief.

Another argument that came up in favor of an iPad 3 release in September was that iPods, which currently get their annual refresh then, don’t have the kind of consumer appeal they once did. The iPod touch is great, but it’s a known quantity, argues Gruber, and not likely to generate the kind of enthusiasm a new iPad would. It’s another good point, but it ignores the fact that Apple may have intentionally put the iPod and Mac releases (new Mac hardware often comes in October) just ahead of the holiday season because they’re the products that stand to gain the most from pre-holiday hype. Announce a new iPod line in the spring, and not only does it run the risk of being seen as less than exciting by consumers, but it also might be forgotten by Christmas. If Apple uses an iPad 3 to steal the show from its other fall releases, their mindshare among consumers might dwindle even further than they already have. I don’t think Apple’s willing to let that happen just yet.

Consider, too, that the iPad was released at a specific time of Apple’s choosing the first time around. Because Apple faced no competition, and no competitor devices were even really imminent, it had absolute freedom regarding when it chose to ship the device, and it chose April (following a January introduction). Admittedly, Apple had no way of knowing the iPad would be the success it has been, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of company that would be caught unprepared for that eventuality. I think Apple chose April knowing full well that it might become a marquis device for the company, and that it had and continues to have very good reasons for doing so.

There’s also the issue of the supply chain implications resulting from a two-model single year release for the iPad. Apple maintains its price advantage over its competitors in the tablet game largely because it knows how to effectively manipulate the supply chain to its advantage, making component scarcity and pricing an issue for other manufacturers. Ordering parts for an iPad 2 and iPad 3 that need to be released within months of each other, and have to be different enough in terms of their hardware capabilities to convince buyers to upgrade early could seriously endanger Apple’s cost advantage.

Finally, there’s another outside possibility that my colleague Kevin Tofel suggested which might make more sense than a fall iPad 3 introduction: a fall 7-inch iPad product announcement. Steve Jobs is on record against a 7-inch iPad, but he’s been known to contradict himself in the past. The introduction of a 7-inch iPad would manage to reinvigorate Apple’s fall announcements without aggravating consumers who purchased the iPad 2 in spring, and would steal focus from any competitor tablets released in the interim. The 7-inch form factor has yet to really prove itself, but Apple is in the best position of any tablet maker to take a risk and see if it strikes a chord when combined with the usability of OS X. Jobs’ disparaging comments about 7-inch devices could even be an intentional misdirect aimed at competitors. It’s a long shot, but not any more of one than Gruber’s suggestion.

Gruber’s track record is good, and MG Siegler of TechCrunch did back him up with some information from anonymous sources (which isn’t conclusively tied to a fall shipping iPad 3), so it’s quite possible that he’s right. But the evidence above, and Apple’s track record with product releases suggests it might be wise to exercise a little caution before becoming a true believer.

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Verizon iPhone Arrives in Stores, Brings Lineups [Updated]

[Updated: Now with gallery, which we'll be updating through the day with user pics. Check it out below the post.]

Those craving immediate satisfaction probably waited until Thursday to pick up their Verizon iPhones, the first day the device is available for sale in brick-and-mortar stores. If you did wait, you might have to wait in line to pick up your device, though the size of that line will vary greatly depending on where you are.

Business Insider has a nice little gallery showing lines at various Apple retail and Verizon locations. Some lines seem pretty long, while some are non-existent. Overall, none so far look to match the ones we saw at the original launch last summer, but there are still obviously plenty of people willing to queue up for their Apple fix, which is especially impressive given the weather conditions at some of these locations. One line appears to be in New Jersey, where temperatures are at around 12°F. They had it easy compared to the 16 people who lined up in Fargo, N.D., where it’s -13°F right now. On the other hand, in some warmer climates, there were virtually (or literally) no lines at all, like in Palo Alto, Calif., where only two people are reportedly waiting at the Apple Store for the Verizon iPhone.

Weather may be keeping some home in bed, but there’s also the fact that Verizon’s pre-orders (which may have sold as many as 500,000 units) are arriving at customer doors today, and that online sales began yesterday. The crazy lines surrounding new hardware launches are at least partly due to wanting to be first, so it’s possible customers are happy to wait until online orders ship on Feb. 18 to receive their devices. Also, many seem to be reporting short lines specifically at Apple Store locations, which makes sense because customers could order their devices yesterday for in-store pickup, so they can just go in whenever it’s convenient and collect their spoils.

You can get the Verizon iPhone either at Apple or Verizon Stores (which open at 7 a.m. today in each U.S. time zone), as mentioned, but also at many Best Buy locations (which are reportedly getting about 100 units each) and over 600 Walmart locations. If it’s out of your way, call ahead to find out if they have stock, but judging by current reports, I don’t think we’ll see mass sellouts anytime soon.

Is there a line near you? Are you waiting in said line? Share your Verizon iPhone launch day stories with us in the comments.
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Brad Feldman - Philadelphia, PA

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Is Adobe Flash 10.2 Right for You?
Flash Player 10.2 is beta no more, and the general release promises better performance and less CPU usage through Stage Video. Stage Video provides for “a full hardware accelerated video pipeline,” building on the H.264 decoding of Flash 10.1, reducing CPU utilization by as much as 85 percent.

Flash 10.2 requires an Intel Mac with a 1.33 GHz Core Duo processor or better, at least 128MB of graphics memory, and OS X 10.4 or above. Supported browsers are Safari 4, Firefox 3, Chrome 2, and Opera 9.5 and above. According to Adobe, a two-year old Mac mini used less than 8 percent of the CPU playing “smooth full HD 1080p video.”

That sounds like it would be a Mac mini using the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M. Conveniently, I have a unibody 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook with the same integrated graphics solution, so I looked forward to a precipitous drop in CPU usage when playing HD video with Flash. To my surprise, I got it; not 8 percent, but 16 percent playing 1080p video, which is still a big improvement from punishing CPU usage of the past. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of a MacBook Air from 2008 using Intel GMA X3100 graphics card. Even taking into account the difference in CPUs, the same video used 125 to 150 percent the CPU usage of the 1.6GHz Core Duo machine.

The takeaway here is that if your Mac supports hardware acceleration for Flash, Flash 10.2 can provide real gains in performance and better battery life for mobile Macs. Those using Flash 10.1 can test their performance before and after upgrading using test videos from Adobe. It should also be noted that performance gains won’t materialize unless websites update to take advantage of Stage Video, but some sites, like YouTube, already have.

For those who don’t want to tolerate Flash ads, there’s always the blocking plug-in ClickToFlash for Safari. For those with Macs that can’t take advantage of hardware acceleration in Flash 10.2, or for those who just hate Flash, there also a “dual browsing” option. Get rid of Flash on your operating system, use Safari or Firefox for normal browsing, and just use Chrome (which has the plug-in built-in) when you absolutely need Flash.

Steven Frank explains how to remove Flash from Safari. In both your root directory and your home directory, go to “/Library/Internet Plug-Ins” and remove “Flash Player.plugin,” “flashplayer.xpt,” and “NP-PPC-Dir-Shockwave,” (if it’s there). You can create a folder for them like “Internet Plug-Ins Disabled.” Rebooting Safari, you will now see “missing plug-in” where Flash used to play. For workarounds for still being able to play Flash video in Safari, there’s the excellent Safari Extension YouTube5.

However, if your Mac supports Flash 10.2′s hardware acceleration, perhaps it’s time to consider letting Adobe back on your Mac.

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iPhone 4 Antennagate Returns, Still a Non-Story
You know when you see a story appear, but it isn’t a real story, and you know it isn’t a real story, but you also know it’s going to appear everywhere? Well, that’s how I felt today when I saw an article on The Inquirer titled “Apple fails to fix Iphone [sic] 4 antenna for Verizon.” The sub-title wittily added “Can’t keep a faulty design down.”

Article author Lawrence Latif opened with the following totally-not-inflammatory statement;

JUST HOW LONG does it take for Apple to fix an antenna? That is the question Verizon Iphone [sic] 4 users must be asking after finding that the problems that plagued the device at launch over six months ago still persist.

I’m still trying to remember what problems “plagued” the iPhone 4 back when it was launched. All I could think of were those interminable queues of eager customers snaking away from the Apple Store on London’s Oxford Street. Thousands of us, standing there for hours, not getting anywhere fast, burning gently in the summer sun. But our new iPhones? They were just fine. No plagues, as far as I can remember, not that day, or since.

However, my problem isn’t with biased (read “negative”) coverage of the iPhone (or even “Iphone”, if you prefer) but with the utter lack of critical thinking that fuels this sort of coverage, and the gossip that follows. First, let’s do an experiment. If you own a “shiny toy” of your own, go grab it and follow-along; we’re going to reproduce the infamous Death Grip!

The Grip of Death, in Three Easy Steps

STEP 1. Grip your iPhone in your left hand. No, grip it. No, really, really grip it. Smother its left-edge as much as you possibly can. It doesn’t matter how uncomfortable that feels, just do it. I know — that’s a completely unnatural way to hold any phone, but look, this is just how it’s done, ok? Are you gripping/smothering the thing so hard you’re actually obscuring your view of the screen? Good. Move to Step Two.

STEP 2. Try loading a web page. Yeah, I know, it’s not so easy to tap the screen because of the impractical way you’re gripping the thing, but, please, in the name of scientific discovery, persevere!

STEP 3. Behold! If you’ve got your smother-hold just right, you may notice a slow-down when loading web pages. Congratulations — you’ve done it! You have proved that the iPhone 4 is obviously fatally flawed and we can all agree our honeymoon with Apple is well and truly over! Let’s ditch our iPhones for Blackberry and Android devices instead!

Admittedly, I’m overstating things, but I’m trying to make a point here about how silly this whole non-story is. Here’s the deal: Absolutely every wireless device suffers some signal attenuation when smother-gripped by big, fleshy human hands. That’s pesky physics stubbornly obeying its own immutable laws, not, as some bloggers and tech press would prefer to believe, an egregious oversight by Jonny Ive and Apple’s engineers.

Interesting, But Insignificant

While demonstrating the Death Grip (or Death Hug, as people are referring to the Verizon version) in a video is obviously great for clocking-up YouTube views and exciting the tech blogosphere with a non-story, what really is whether this is an issue for ordinary people in everyday use.

So, how many people are truly suffering from the death grip in normal, non-crazy, smother-grip everyday use? So far — we don’t know. We may never know. What we do know is that the iPhone 4 is the best-selling iPhone ever, and has the lowest return rates of any model of iPhone produced so far.

Being able to significantly attenuate the iPhone radio signal in a lab or a YouTube video is academically interesting; but unless signal attenuation is causing real-world problems for ordinary people whenever they use their iPhone, it’ll remain academically, but not generally, interesting.

And then there’s that other teeny-tiny little matter of Apple’s iPhone R&D. Apple uses state-of-the-art testing facilities to ensure that new designs or configurations don’t fundamentally compromise normal functionality. None of this is cheap, by the way. Apple has never revealed how much the iPhone has cost them in R&D, but it’s safe to assume many millions of dollars have been spent to-date. Seems like an awful waste of money if the iPhone is truly so poorly designed it can’t function under normal circumstances, right? That’s the kind of resource mis-management that could get a CEO sacked.

So — what’s more probable? That, despite all their top-flight engineers, antenna experts and exhaustive testing and quality assurance procedures, Apple still creates and sells a fatally flawed phone incapable of maintaining a signal in normal use or that this whole Antennagate issue is (and always has been) little more than tabloid nonsense and breathless blogo-gossip?

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Sparrow Review: A Gmail Client That Feels at Home on the Mac
I’m a known devotee of Apple’s Mail.app, despite its failings, so it’s rare that a Mac mail client will tempt me away from it. Postbox is my client of choice when I’m depending on the kindess (and Macs) of strangers, but Sparrow could give both a run for their money when it comes to Gmail.

Sparrow has been available in public beta for a while now, but as of Wednesday, it’s available in the Mac App Store as a proper 1.0 full version release. The polished shipping version brings with it a new price tag, so here’s what you should consider before deciding whether it’s worth your $9.99.

Is This a Twitter App?

The first thing many will notice about Sparrow is that it doesn’t really feel like Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird or any other desktop mail client for the Mac that’s come before. Instead, its developers went for a much cleaner, minimalist approach that more closely resembles the UI of recent Twitter apps like the official one and Echofon.

In fact, with the message reading pane collapsed (which is how the application opens by default), Sparrow is just like one of those apps, listing your accounts (identified by pictures of your choosing), inbox, starred items, sent folder, drafts, trash and search in a vertical toolbar on the left, and a list of email messages currently sitting in your inbox on the right. As in the iPhone or iPad mail applications, each message lists its sender, subject, the time it was received, and a brief excerpt of the body of the email. Sparrow also supports threaded conversations, so if you’ve been going back and forth with replies, a number will show you how many emails you have in that particular chain.

I really like that if I don’t expand the viewer window (which can be done using an icon in the bottom right of the Sparrow interface), I don’t have to see anything else. I can use the arrow keys to scroll through my messages, archiving, labelling, deleting and replying as necessary. If I need to dig deeper, there’s always the option to expand the message preview pane or just hit enter to see the full message, but the beauty of Sparrow is that you’ll often find it isn’t necessary. In terms of both looks and navigation, Sparrow feels like a Twitter app, which for my relatively light Gmail usage is a good thing.

Everything You Need, Unless You Need a Lot

Sparrow isn’t a power email client. None of the frills like image and attachment indexing and filtering that something like Postbox offers is available here, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If what you’re looking for is an out-of-browser experience for Gmail that’s light, fast, responsive and looks great alongside your other Mac apps, this is the client.

Maybe Sparrow’s greatest strength is the fact that it keeps everything contained. With the message preview pane expanded, you can reply to emails without ever opening a separate window. You can drag and drop attachments to the same window, quickly add labels and switch between accounts with a click or keyboard shortcut. Sparrow may not be as versatile or deep as other clients, but by reducing visual clutter and simplifying the email experience, it could help to save your sanity when dealing with an inbox avalanche.

Mail’s Misses Are Sparrow’s Gains

Sparrow does two wonderful things Mail doesn’t. It provides Growl notifications out-of-the box (provided you have Growl installed), and it provides Menu Bar access and notifications without the need for any third-party extensions. I love that Sparrow provides the option to only use a Menu Bar icon, so I can keep my dock clutter free and have the option to receive only subtle visual notifications if I’d rather turn off Growl notifications for some extensive, head-down working sessions.

Gmail for Now, Everything Else Later

For the time being, I’m happy to use Sparrow as a dedicated Gmail client, which is good because the current version of the app only supports Gmail accounts. Sparrow 1.1 will support IMAP email from a variety of sources, including Yahoo, AOL and MobileMe. Even when that support comes, I doubt I’ll ever retire Apple Mail entirely, since it works so well with MobileMe, but Sparrow will definitely be a permanent fixture for all my Gmail needs.

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New Apple Rules Underscore Problems With Digital Libraries
About a month after I bought my iPad, one thing became clear to me: I’d no longer be buying paper books. Sure enough, almost a year later the only physical books I’ve bought are a textbook or two and a couple of glossy picture books on baseball. But is it wise to go all-in on the future of e-books?

For the most part, the limitations of e-books — primarily the lack of letting someone else read it — haven’t bothered me. I don’t tend to loan my books out often. Platform lock hasn’t been an issue, since the Kindle app is cross-platform. But Apple’s recent statement that they want their cut from third-party purchases reminded me how vulnerable our digital libraries are to the dealings and fortunes of the companies who provide them.

What Happens When Your Retailer Goes Away?

Businesses fail. Can any of us really say for certain that Amazon or Apple are going still be in business 10, 15, or 20 years from now? Or that you’ll always be able to read your e-books on your favorite device? If you’ve been computing for more than 10 years, it’s likely you’ve got a floppy or two in a format unreadable by your current machine. My early fiction writings are likely on an old SCSI hard drive buried in my closet at my parents’ house. If Amazon shuts down the Kindle store, or completely goes out of business, we could be screwed in terms of getting access to our purchases. While I use Amazon as an example, any e-book retailer is vulnerable (and quite possibly e-book authors, too).

DRM Is a Problem, Not a Solution

I’m going to be honest here; in addition to being cross-platform and having a better library than the iBookstore, the other reason I purchase Amazon books is because it’s fairly easy to get around their DRM restrictions. Now, I’m not advocating piracy in any way, but when I break the DRM on my personal purchases I’m ensuring I (just me, not someone else who didn’t pay for the thing in the first place) can read the book on any device. It also helps me back up my e-book library in different locations and formats so I’m confident that if I lose a device or a format stops being supported, I’ll still have access to my library.

While I understand the need for publishers to protect their property, the fact is DRM does more harm to legitimate consumers than it does to would-be pirates. It’s time for the publishers to follow the music industry and sell e-books DRM free. The excellent Take Control e-books use this model, and I’d love to see more publishers follow their lead.

Archiving Your Library Is Key

The biggest thing you can do to protect your library is to archive it. If you buy your books through the iBookstore, your purchases are in the \iTunes Music\Books folder. If you purchase your books through ereader.com, you can re-download your files from the site. Make copies of these files and keep them stored on separate devices to make sure they’ll always be accessible to you. With Amazon, unless you’ve got a physical Kindle, I don’t believe you can directly download the files.

My Plans Going Forward

Until I see a tangible downside resulting from the new App Store e-book guideline implementations, I’m not changing my purchasing habits. Amazon will continue to get all my e-book purchases, and Zinio will continue to be my sole source of magazines because both storefronts are platform-agnostic. Unless the new in-app purchases lock the content to my iPad, I don’t expect my purchasing habits to change, but I’ll be even more careful about ensuring that my personal library survives intact, no matter the whims and corporate clashes of the companies that filled them to begin with.

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Verizon iPhone Now Available for Order Online
If you weren’t an existing Verizon customer, you couldn’t get in on the iPhone 4 pre-order that began and sold out on Feb. 3, but starting today, you can order your CDMA iPhone online directly from either Apple or Verizon. In both cases, the expected shipment date for the iPhone is Feb. 18.

The Verizon iPhone pre-order sales are estimated to be somewhere around the 500,000 unit mark, so it’ll be interesting to see how sales of the smartphone go today and tomorrow, Feb. 10, when it’ll be available for in-store purchase at Apple, Verizon and Best Buy locations. Users looking to avoid the terror of uncertainty tomorrow can also reserve the Verizon iPhone online at the Apple Store and pick it up at their nearest retail location tomorrow.

What are your predictions for tomorrow? Panicked frenzy or calm, orderly frenzy?

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