iPad

Nintendo rises after report Pokemon game to debut on iPad

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This is a tricky piece of news.

Nintendo Co. (7974) jumped in Tokyo trading after its new Mario Kart 8 video game surpassed 1 million units in U.S. sales and affiliate The Pokemon Co. said an online trading-card game will be released as an application for Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPad.

The Pokémon game is owned by The Pokémon Company, which is affiliated with Nintendo (Nintendo has certain licensing and marketing rights) but not owned by Nintendo.

“We have been here many times before in regards to Nintendo’s tentative plans to introduce some of its characters for smart devices,” Amir Anvarzadeh, a manager of Japanese equity sales at BGC Partners Inc. in Singapore, said by e-mail. “This latest Pokemon cards plan which is already out on PCs is hardly a change in its direction.”

This is not quite correct.

Apple’s new “Achieve big things” iPad email campaign

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The ad features links to buy an iPad Air and a retina iPad mini, as well as sections that highlight Apple’s productivity suite (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote), Microsoft’s Office iPad apps, and the Your Verse campaign.

Finland Prime Minister: Steve Jobs took our jobs

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This article was translated from Swedish using Google Translate.

After the financial crisis of 2008, the country has not recovered.

“We had two pillars that supported us. Nalle Wahlroos described it pretty well when he said that iPhone struck down Nokia and iPad hit the forest industry. “

So Steve Jobs struck Finland?

“Yes, Steve Jobs took our jobs,” said Alexander Stubb.

How to quickly put your apps in alphabetical order

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My iPhone is a bit of a mess. My front page contains the apps I use the most, but the rest of my pages are in a random order that slightly resembles the order in which I purchased the apps, shuffled in my attempts to move apps to my front page. Sound familiar?

The linked article talks you through the relatively simple process of sorting all your apps in alphabetical order. This might not work for all people, but it does make it much easier to home in on an app when you have 9 pages of apps.

Read the full post for an exception and solution.

Review of Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Tab S

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The kicker:

More than three years after Google first got serious about tablets with Android 3.0 Honeycomb, it’s not even the league next door to the league inhabited by the iPad, which now has more than a half-million apps designed especially for it.

Patent troll on the verge of winning 1 percent of iPhone revenue

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This is simply incredible.

In 2012, Apple won the year’s biggest patent verdict—more than $1 billion against Samsung. The company also lost one of that year’s biggest cases when an East Texas jury ordered it to pay $368 million to a company named VirnetX for infringing patents related to FaceTime and VPN On Demand functions used in iPhones, iPads, and Macs. VirnetX is a company some call a “patent troll” because its only business is now patent enforcement. Then, in March, US District Judge Leonard Davis ordered (PDF) an ongoing royalty to be paid to VirnetX. The number was downright stunning: 0.98 percent of revenue from iPhones and iPads sold in the US.

Osmo connects iPad gaming to physical world

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[VIDEO] At first blush, this might seem an unnecessary complication. In order to play Osmo games, you sit your iPad in a stand in portrait mode, then place a clip over the iPad camera that contains a small mirror. A tangram puzzle appears on the screen, and you slide blocks on the table in front of the iPad to complete the puzzle.

No big deal, right?

But there’s something more to this than simply reflecting puzzle pieces onto the screen. There’s a real interaction between the actions in the physical world and a model’s representation in the virtual world. Kinda, sorta, an augmented reality, but done very simply, cleanly, just perfect for a series of kids games.

The video in the main post is a marketing piece, for sure, but it does a good job of getting the point across.

Microsoft selling Office 365 within iPad apps, Apple getting 30 percent cut

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While one of the big holdups for Office for iPad was getting the software just right, another was Apple’s policy that apps that sell things — including subscriptions — use Apple’s in-app purchase mechanism and hand over 30 percent of that revenue to Apple.

This had been a big sticking point historically, so it was one of the key question marks looming over this launch.

Indeed, Microsoft does offer Office 365 subscriptions within the just-released Word for iPad and the other Office apps and, yes, it is paying the 30 percent cut, Apple confirmed to Re/code. Microsoft declined to comment on the matter.

Wonder if that was the real sticking point that kept iPad versions of Office in the can? Maybe the previous regime refused to budge, newer thinking prevailed? Just a thought.

Satya Nadella and the iPad Office rollout video

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Follow the headline link to watch Satya Nadella discuss Microsoft’s cloud and mobile strategy and, more importantly, watch the rollout of Microsoft Office for iPad.

I have to say, I find Nadella likable. Certainly more likable than that last guy.

Apple patents iPad smart cover with built-in gesture aware keyboard

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On March 27, 2014, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals an all-new iPad smart cover configuration that includes a keyboard panel. One of the aspects of this design which differentiates itself from Microsoft’s Surface tablet cover is that Apple’s keyboard has been uniquely designed to double as a multi-touch gesture keyboard eliminating the need for a touchpad.

I like the premise, the idea that you can gesture on the surface of the keyboard itself.

Apple resurrects the iPad 4 at $399, retires the iPad 2, adds 8G iPhone 5c

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From Ars Technica:

This morning Apple made a couple of new additions to its iOS lineup, where “new” in this case means “old stuff that is nevertheless better than what it is replacing.” It has finally removed the iPad 2 from its lineup and replaced it with 2012’s fourth-generation iPad. For its second tour of duty, the 16GB iPad 4 will set you back $399 for a 16GB Wi-Fi version or $529 for a cellular version, $100 less than the equivalent iPad Air models and equal to the 16GB Retina iPad mini. There’s also a new 8GB model of the iPhone 5C, which as of this writing is only available in certain territories.

iPad: Magical Lessons

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It’s 2010. A crowd of inner city school teachers have gathered inside the principal’s office. On his desk sits what seems like a giant iPhone to some, a silly device without a physical keyboard to others. To me—someone who had watched Steve Jobs’s iPad unveiling a few weeks before—it looks exactly what Steve called it: a magical thing. […]

Apple expands “Made for iPad” program to include iBeacon

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Smart move on Apple’s part. They have opened enrollment for an iBeacon version of its Made for iPad program. If you want to use the iBeacon name, you have to meet the iBeacon criteria. This insures the level of quality stays high.