The iPad has actually outsold the iPhone in the first month!

This weekend’s launch of the iPad 3G is expected to add another 300,000 units to that number.

CUPERTINO, California—May 3, 2010—Apple® today announced that it sold its one millionth iPad™ on Friday, just 28 days after its introduction on April 3. iPad users have already downloaded over 12 million apps from the App Store and over 1.5 million ebooks from the new iBookstore.

“One million iPads in 28 days—that’s less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Demand continues to exceed supply and we’re working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers.”

iPad allows users to connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before. Users can browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch HD videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more, all using iPad’s revolutionary Multi-Touch™ user interface. iPad is 0.5 inches thin and weighs just 1.5 pounds—thinner and lighter than any laptop or netbook—and delivers up to 10 hours of battery life.*

Developers have created over 5,000 exciting new apps for iPad that take advantage of its Multi-Touch user interface, large screen and high-quality graphics. iPad will run almost all of the more than 200,000 apps on the App Store, including apps already purchased for your iPhone® or iPod touch®.

*Battery life depends on device settings, usage and other factors. Actual results vary.

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With the advent of the web, comic books experienced quite a revitalization after fans started scanning them, posting them up in online comic communities and making them available for everyone to read. To avoid being late for the party as music publishers were with online music sharing, comic publishers like Marvel quickly stepped in and started publishing their comics digitally. Marvel has been selling them through its store Digital Comics since 2007 already.

Your PC display won’t cut it

Just like with e-books, a computer screen just isn’t the most comfortable way to read a comic. Computer displays tire your eyes quickly, especially when you’re reading content. And the fact that you can’t really hold your computer like you would a comic doesn’t help the viewing experience either.

Panelfly on the iPhone

Now the iPhone was mostly meant to be used as phone, a digital communication device and to quickly browse the web. However, data shows that a high proportion of users actually use their iPhone to read e-books, comic books and magazines; and lots of them. Applications like Panelfly make it possible to download, save and read comics on the iPhone with great simplicity. All good, right? Well, that iPhone screens just seems a tad bit too tiny to read a comic on that is supposed to be the size of a Letter or A4 page.

The iPad and comics

Here’s the good news: Panelfly announced they are developing an iPad version of their comic book application. The iPad is perfect read comics on. Just like with your comic book you can walk around, lie down or put it against the wall while you read it. The app will feature an interface matched to the iPad; details are scarce but it seems to be looking really good according to Gizmodo. Panelfly already supports Marvel Comics, so you can buy those with ease. Details on how purchasing comics will happen on the iPad with Panelfly are still unknown.

Apple has remained silent if it will include comic books in the announced iBookstore. Many sources say they won’t, as the iBookstore app just is not optimized for the multimedial experience comics can bring.

The future is dynamic content

Seeing how magazine publishers are already mentioning adding dynamic multimedia objects in their magazines like audio and video, I can only speculate that the same thing might happen to digital comics in the future. What about moving to the next page of your comic and seeing Batman jump in to the page fighting the Riddler for some seconds, then slowing down and changing into a still comic book page again? I can’t wait!

Have you been reading comics on your iPhone or other mobile device? Does it work for you and how do you expect the iPad to change things for comic readers around the world? Tell me in the comments!

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The Apple Tablet has supposedly received future content backing from the New York Times, Wired Magazine, Vogue and GQ (being not just these publications, but these companies as publishers of many more publications), Apple clearly sees the market opportunity here. Users do not like a stand-alone device with one function, such as an e-reader or a PMP. Giving them the ability to work with a device as comprehensive as the potential Apple Tablet on which they can browse the web, write notes, work on spreadsheets and for leisure listen to music, watch movies and read books is a much better solution for mainstream multimedia users.

(Above is solely an artist’s rendering, courtesy of AppleTablet.net)

Specifications

Apat from the content backing news, an industry analyst has previosuly reported to Apple Tablet the possible specification sheet for the Apple Tablet to be launched very soon:

[Update: the iPad has already been launched and actual Apple iPad specifications have been updated]

• Display:
  • 9.6″ widescreen multi-touch display (by WinTek)
  • 1440-by-1050-pixel resolution at 489 ppi
  • Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.13GHz
• Memory: DDR2 2 GB @ 667 MHz
• Video: nVidia GeForce 9400M
• Storage: 64 GB flash drive
• Optical drive: Apple SuperDrive with DVD±RW and CD-RW
• Wireless:
  • Integrated Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
  • 3G: HSDPA (through AT&T)
  • Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Location tools:
  • Assisted GPS (aGPS)
  • Digital compass
• Battery: Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery (by DynaPak)
• Usage time:
  • Internet: up to 6 hours on 3G
  • Internet: up to 12 hours on Wi-Fi
  • Video playback: up to 12 hours
• Sensors:
  • Accelerometer
  • Proximity sensor
  • Ambient light sensor
• Colors:
  • black with silver or
  • white with silver
• Software:
  • Mac OS X 10.6 with touch-enabled interface
• Price level:
  • $899  USD, 799 EUR

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Back in 2007, HTC already offered a wide-array of smartphones that offered nearly identical functionality to Apple’s iPhone, albeit lacking a smooth interface. This did not stop Apple from revolutionizing the industry in this segment. With their focus on aesthetics, build quality and a superior interface experience, they won over a 30% market share in the United States alone.

It is a unique moment in time where the cost of parts is low and consumers are ready. The costs are low because suppliers have already experienced a huge demand for touchscreen parts for use in smartphones and are able to produce them now quite well. However smartphone screens are at most 5 inches in diagonal. Suppliers are therefore ready to try larger sizes such as 10 or more inches (the size rumored for the upcoming Apple tablet). In addition consumers are also ready. They have experienced touch interfaces on their smartphones and especially on the iPhone. Everybody knows it and everybody has played with it, or even owns it.

This unique combination will pave the way for tablets in 2010 and making it therefore the year where the tablet computer became a household device.

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The rumored Apple tablet is due for a February 2010 release date. Previous accounts also reported a release date in 2010. This time the information comes from a newspaper in Taiwan According to Tawian’s Economic News, Apple will be receiving parts from suppliers in December and it will then start assembling the first batch of devices for shipment in February. Mentioned is a long-lasting battery from DynaPack, it expects to make around 300,000 batteries a month for Apple. This number translates into the expected number of tablets on the market in the first months.

The newspaper also mentions some new specifications:

• ARM-processor from Apple-acquired PA Semi
• A 3G HSDPA connection through AT&T’s network
• Long-lasting battery (up to 10 hours) from DynaPack
• Price between $799 and $999

The touchscreens for the iPhone and iPod are produced by WinTek. This supplier is said to be supplying Apple with the tablet screens.

See the full updated Apple tablet specifications for more information:

• Display:
  • 9.6″ widescreen multi-touch display (by WinTek)
  • 1440-by-1050-pixel resolution at 489 ppi
  • Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.13GHz
• Memory: DDR2 2 GB @ 667 MHz
• Video: nVidia GeForce 9400M
• Storage: 64 GB flash drive
• Optical drive: Apple SuperDrive with DVD±RW and CD-RW
• Wireless:
  • Integrated Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
  • 3G: HSDPA (through AT&T)
  • Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Location tools:
  • Assisted GPS (aGPS)
  • Digital compass
• Battery: Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery (by DynaPak)
• Usage time:
  • Internet: up to 6 hours on 3G
  • Internet: up to 12 hours on Wi-Fi
  • Video playback: up to 12 hours
• Sensors:
  • Accelerometer
  • Proximity sensor
  • Ambient light sensor
• Colors:
  • black with silver or
  • white with silver
• Software:
  • Mac OS X 10.6 with touch-enabled interface
• Price level:
  • $899 USD, 799 EUR

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PCMCIA cards

Laptop computers since history have been supporting PCMCIA slots. These slots made it possible to extend your sometimes limited laptop computer with extra functionality, like soundcards, GPS radios, hard drives or add-on solid-state memory. The PCMCIA slot has advanced in the past years into the faster 2.5GBit variant called ExpressCard. The card uses a 26-pin 34mm wide connector. There are two ExpressCard sizes: 75mm by 34mm and 75mm by 54mm.

From ExpressCard….to SD.

Technology devices like smart phones, cameras, media players and even laptops (in the form of netbooks) have increasingly become smaller and smaller. The majority of devices are simply smaller than the ExpressCard itself. Thus, they are not able to support card. Thus, for extending your device with extra memory many of these devices now use the smaller SD card. Its size is 32mm x 24mm. It has a micro variant which is only 11mm x 15mm. A standard SD card can hold up to 4 Gb, however SDXC (extended capacity) cards have been released which move the maximum up to 2 Tb (that’s 2000 Gb). The format has become highly popular and is widely suppported.

So Apple adopted SD in their MacBook Pro’s

Finally, Apple has started to add SD card support into their MacBook Pro line up. The MacBook Pro 13″ and 15″ laptops have an SD card slot.  The MacBook Pro 17″ still has an ExpressCard slot. What is the reason for Apple changing their mind all of a sudden and abandoning ExpressCard’s? Because Apple thinks the SD card adoption in mobile internet devices (MIDs) and netbooks is so ubiquitous and its advances in memory are going so fast, that this is going to make it the only standard for removable storage in these devices. Did you hear that? The only one in. No hard drive, but just a removable solid state drive (SSD) in the form of a high-capacity SD card.

So why is this important?

The reason they are implementing SD is because of its high adoption in tablets and MIDs! But Apple does not have any tablets or MIDs right now! It seems highly likely according to Savolainen, that within the next 12 months, Apple will be announcing an Apple media tablet or MID and a netbook. A tablet is supposed to be as thin as possible, thus they will not have CD, DVD or Blu-Ray drives at all. These devices will all solely rely on SD cards for storage.

SanDisk is well-positioned to benefit from greater adoption of the standard. If other laptop manufacturers, envious of the internal dimensions taken up by an ExpressCard slots, move over to the SD Card standard so that they can make their laptopsthinner and lighter, then SanDisk, Toshiba and Panasonic should all benefit.

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• Multi-touch sensitive 15.4-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display with support for millions of colors
• Supported resolutions: 1440 by 900 (native), 1280 by 800, 1152 by 720, 1024 by 640, and 800 by 500 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio stretched; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio stretched
• All models: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory³
• Selected models: NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR3 memory on 2.66GHz configuration; or 512MB of GDDR3 memory on 2.8GHz and 3.06GHz configurations

• Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in multi touch-sensitive display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors
• Built-in iSight camera
• Built-in full-size backlit keyboard with 78 (U.S.) or 79 (ISO) keys, including 12 function keys and 4 arrow keys (inverted “T” arrangement)
• Multi-Touch trackpad for precise cursor control; supports two-finger scrolling, pinch, rotate, swipe, three-finger swipe, four-finger swipe, tap, double-tap, and drag capabilities

• Mini DisplayPort
• Pure digital video output
• DVI output using Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter (optional)
• VGA output using Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter (optional)
• Dual-link DVI output using Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter supports 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display (optional)

• Mac OS X v10.6 Leopard supporting multi-touch (includes iTunes, Time Machine, Quick Look, Spaces, Spotlight, Dashboard, Mail, iChat, Safari, Address Book, QuickTime, iCal, DVD Player, Photo Booth, Front Row, Xcode Developer Tools)
• iLife ’09 (includes iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, GarageBand)

• MagSafe power port
• Gigabit Ethernet port
• One FireWire 800 port (up to 800 Mbps)
• Mini DisplayPort
• Two USB 2.0 ports (up to 480 Mbps)
• SD card slot
• Audio line in
• Audio line out
• Kensington lock slot

• Line voltage: 100V to 240V AC
• Frequency: 50Hz to 60Hz
• Operating temperature: 50° to 95° F(10° to 35° C)
• Storage temperature: -13° to 113° F(-24° to 45° C)
• Relative humidity: 0% to 90% noncondensing
• Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet
• Maximum storage altitude: 15,000 feet
• Maximum shipping altitude: 35,000 feet

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