Apple picker In tonight's Apple Week, you'll read about failed iPad resellers, new findings about this recently launched tablet, upcoming MacBooks or Tim Cook's visit to China.
Dealers lined up to return iPads (March 25)
One customer sent us a story about his trip to Fifth Avenue on the day the new iPad went on sale in the states, March 23rd.
I drove to 5th Avenue and saw how Apple had set up a separate line to handle the Chinese dealers. The branch manager maintained a separate line to ensure the customer experience was not affected, with some people returning thirty times.
Representatives of the organizations wrote about The trafficker phenomenon, inclusive The New York Times:
They show up in the early hours of the morning, Chinese men and women, waiting quietly and a little nervously next to the Apple Store. The queue they occupy can be very long on some days. These are not typical Apple fans. Instead, they are participants in a complicated trade driven by China's huge demand for accessories for Apple products. Products that are made in China then travel a long way to customers all over the world.
Resellers try to buy as many iPads as possible to make a profit on high-margin sales. In the end, however, it seems that Apple succeeded in fulfilling the demand, thus the resellers, who speculated about a possible delay in deliveries, did not succeed. Now they started using the fourteen-day period for returning goods guaranteed by Apple.
Source: MacRumors.com
The Chinese may be waiting for the Baidu search engine in iOS (March 26)
On a Chinese server Sina Tech there have been speculations about a search engine change in the next iOS update. According to this server, the latter should integrate the local search engine Baidu, which holds a full 80% of the market, into iDevices intended for China. If that speculation became reality, it would cause some trouble for Google. China is a huge and still unsaturated market in which the popularity of Apple devices is growing rapidly. It could also be a sign that Apple is no longer dependent on Google services. It's new iPhoto for iOS it does not use those from Google as a basis for the maps, but OpenStreetMap.
Source: TUAW.com
iPad lasts 25 hours as an LTE hotspot (March 26)
Any device that can last more than a full day as a personal hotspot distributing LTE connectivity? No problem – the 3rd generation iPad is just such a device. Specifically, an iPad performing only this activity lasts exactly 25 hours and 20 minutes. We can thank new battery, which has an impressive capacity of 42,5 Wh, which is roughly 70% more than the iPad 2 battery.
Source: AnandTech.com
Apple reacts to the inaccuracy of the charge indicator of the new iPad (March 27)
In the last Apple Week, we you informed about the inaccuracy of the battery charge indicator on the new iPad. According to several foreign servers, the iPad was charging even after the indicator reached 100% after two hours of charging.
As expected, Apple didn't ignore the issue, and Michael Tchao, the iPad's vice president of marketing, revealed that it's by design. According to him, all iOS devices indicate a full charge a little before they are actually fully charged. The device continues to charge for a while, then consumes a small percentage of the battery, and so on and on. "These electronics are designed so that you can use your device for as long as you want," Chao said. "This is a great feature that has always been part of iOS."
And why doesn't Apple inform users about this? For the simple reason that it doesn't burden them with disk defragmentation, Spotlight indexing, and the like. Users don't need to know this, and the charging and discharging cycle might confuse many of them. The pointer therefore prefers to stop at 100%.
But it's a bit surprising that Apple didn't start supplying more powerful chargers along with the radical increase in the battery. The new iPad actually charges relatively slowly compared to its predecessor, and can even discharge when connected to the network under load. The new Apple tablet has a 42 Wh battery and still comes with a 10 W charger, whereas the 35 Wh MacBook Air, for example, is powered by a 45 W adapter. This is certainly not just a minor design flaw, and many users are certainly waiting to see if Apple will solve this problem in some way.
Source: AppleInsider.com, 9to5Mac.com
Kiosk app earns $70 a day (000/28)
In less than six months, when the Kiosk was introduced with iOS 5, this virtual newsagent generates a profit worth 70 US dollars a day. This number refers to the hundred most successful publishers. Three, one might say, expected applications placed on the podium, namely The Daily, NY Times for iPad a The New York Magazine. Of course, Kiosk sales cannot be equal to games and applications, however, a certain trend can already be seen in the growing popularity of electronic "prints".
Source: TUAW.com
New slim MacBook Pros in April or May? (March 28)
Due to Apple's relatively regular product update cycles, new iMacs and MacBook Pros should appear within a month. It is expected that the computers should see twice delayed quad-core processors Intel Ivy Bridge, which will replace the current generation Sandy Bridge and will bring higher performance and lower consumption. At the same time, there has been speculation for a long time about the slimmer design of the current MacBook Pros, which should be closer to the series Air. Sandy Bridge processors should hit the market on April 29, so new laptops cannot be expected before that date. The launch is expected in late April or early May.
Source: CultofMac.com
Tim Cook visited China, also stopped at Foxconn (March 29)
Apple CEO Tim Cook traveled to China, where he met with government officials and also visited the Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou. Cook's visit to China was confirmed by Apple spokeswoman Carloyn Wun, who said that the Chinese market is very important to the company and that Apple is going to make big investments in this area in order to continue to grow. However, the Californian company refused to provide further details. One of the topics discussed could be the availability of the new iPhone at the largest operator China Mobile, where about 15 million users already use the iPhone, although the Chinese operator does not officially sell the Apple phone.
During his stay on the Asian continent, Cook also stopped at the Apple Store in Beijing, where fans took pictures with him. Then the successor of Steve Jobs headed to Zhengzhou, where the new Foxconn factory is located, which is responsible for the production of iPhones and iPads. Carolyn Wu confirmed the factory visit again.
The true purpose of Cook's visit to Foxconn is not known, but it is already clear that the current CEO of Apple has a slightly different approach to presenting himself and the entire company than Steve Jobs.
Source: AppleInsider.com
Another test build of OS X Lion 10.7.4 (29/3)
Less than two weeks after first beta release OS X Lion 10.7.4 Apple has sent out a second test build to developers, in which there are no significant changes. Apple reports that there are no known issues, with developers to focus on the Mac App Store, graphics, iCal, Mail and QuickTime. Builds marked 11E35 can be downloaded from the Apple Dev Center by registered developers.
Source: CultOfMac.com
The largest Apple Store in the world should be built in Talien, China (March 29)
It's nothing official, but according to advertising banners, it looks like a new Apple Store, the largest in the world, could grow in the Chinese port city of Talien. The apple store should be located in Parkland Mall. Ta-lien is a rich city where many investors come from Korea and Japan, which is definitely interesting for Apple.
Speculation began with an advertising banner in the shopping center that read: "World's Largest Flagship Apple Store Coming Soon to Parkland Mall." Parkland Mall is one of the largest shopping malls in Talien, where the world's most famous brands are located.
Source: AppleInsider.com
Are avatars waiting for us in Game Center? (March 30)
One of Apple's patents suggests that we could create our own avatars in a future version of Game Center. A hint of character creation has appeared before, but the new patent directly shows a screenshot of the editor in which the avatars will be created. It will be 3D animated characters not dissimilar to those from Pixar films. It goes without saying that Steve Jobs owned Pixar before selling it to Disney. However, avatars could breathe some life and personification into the integrated game center that players have been crying out for for a long time.
"Sandy Bridge processors should hit the market on April 29th, so no new laptops before that date." Couple of mistakes.
With the charger for the iPad, Apple really didn't do it very well if it had at least 20W of power, because with the current iPad it takes about 6 hours to charge and it is impossible to fully charge it from a computer.