An earlier story claiming Apple will properly unveil the iPad 3 during a special media event scheduled for sometime during the first week of March is now confirmed by a second source. And this time around we have a date for you, March 7.

Moreover, iMore also reveals various specs and features for the upcoming iPad 3, Apple’s future flagship tablet part of a brand that will surely continue to kick ass in the tablet business for the company this year, with no clear rival rising from the Android tablet pack – we’ll not even count the Galaxy Tab 2 as a serious contender.

According to the publication, the iPad 3 will feature a 2,048 x 1,536 Retina Display, a quad-core A6 system-on-a-chip and “possibly 4G LTE networking.” Other features could include better cameras, from 5- to 8-megapixels on the rear, to FaceTime HD on the front. In other words, there’s nothing new here, since we’ve seen these specs and features mentioned before.

The Retina Display seems to be almost a certainty, an iPad 3 feature that we’ve seen in various rumors for quite a few months now. But we’re certainly interested to see whether the A6 chip will offer quad-core or dual-core capabilities, since there are rumors that support both versions. As for 4G LTE, considering that we’ve recently seen leaked AT&T micro SIM cards for 4G LTE devices, mainly iPhones and iPads that will be sold by the carrier this year, we’d expect Apple to finally support LTE in its 2012 line of iOS devices.

What we don’t have at this time is an actual release date for the next-gen iPad. The iPad 2 was announced on March 2 and launched nine days later on March 11. A similar scenario could occur this year, starring the iPad 3, naturally. So if Tim Cook & Co. will indeed unveil the device on Wednesday, March 7, we could see it hit stores on March 16.

Are you lining up your cash to buy the device already?

They’re considering, at last word, a purchase of somewhere between 63 and 18,000 (which is an absolutely enormous range that makes little sense, but then, it is the government we’re talking about) “iPad 2 or equivalent devices” to serve much the same purpose that they currently do in commercial flights. Specifically, reduce the weight and workload of pilots and flight crews by providing manuals and charts in easy to access (not to mention super lightweight) digital format.

And of course, by doing that, they in turn reduce the amount of weight that has to be taken on flights. Earlier reports suggest that manuals, navigation charts and the like can weigh up to 40 pounds, so pulling 40 pounds out of the cockpit can pay off big dividends in the form of fuel savings, and thus, cash savings as well.

If the Air Force goes with the iPad 2, and goes with it in the upper range of the forecast, it will reportedly represent one of the largest such purchases the government has ever made. While I’m not a big one for government spending, I like this idea just fine; spending a big wad today to save money for years to come, well, that strikes me as less an expense and more an investment.

But what do you guys think of this one? Is it smart for the Air Force to purchase a passel of iPads? Or do you think this is more pork-barrel waste spending from the folks who bring it our way so often? No matter what your thoughts on this one, head on down to the comments section below and tell us what you think!

Inevitably, new mobile devices unveiled at MWC will be immediately compared with available, and future, Apple mobile devices, especially the upcoming iPad 3 which will probably cast a long shadow over the event. While we wait for the third-generation tablet to be unveiled, alongside its main Android rivals which could be announced just a few days before the iPad 3 becomes official, we’re being hit with a plethora of new iPad rumors. One of them says that Apple is in “crunch mode” working on the apps that will be demoed on stage and on the new iPad 3 ads that will surely air during the show and thereafter. The Next Web reports:

Apple’s pre-event weeks are often spent soliciting demonstrations from many app developers and preparing demonstrations of those apps for the live event. Our sources tell us that this selection process is continuing at an increased rate as Apple looks to finalize the lineup for the iPad 3. There is also emphasis on graphics-oriented applications with high-definition assets, which appears to be in line with the new iPad featuring a ‘Retina’ display.

In addition, some apps that Apple is impressed with are being forwarded on to its long-time advertising partner TWBA/Chiat/Day for possible inclusion in the initial iPad 3 commercial spots. This process is entering its final phase as well, with the company on a tight deadline to deliver assets for playback during the presentation and later, television broadcast.

We’ll be thoroughly covering the iPad 3 event, but in the mean time keep us bookmarked for more next-gen iPad news, rumors and reports. As for the iPad 3 rivals, we’d certainly be surprised to see one emerge at MWC 2012, but one can always hope.

Anyone already planning to buy the iPad 3 next month?

We’ve seen the first LTE smartphones and tablets debut last year, most of them, if not all of them, being Android devices. Apple has explained at the time that the then-current state of the LTE chips was not satisfactory for its needs, although the fact that LTE adoption among consumers was very limited when the statement was made is probably another reason that explains why the company seemed never interested to make the iPhone 4S its first LTE device ever.

But things will change this year, as Apple’s next-gen iPad and iPhone are reportedly going to be LTE-ready thanks to a new, slimmer Qualcomm chip that will be employed by both devices. The company has not confirmed such plans yet, but with the iPad 3 media event scheduled to take place in the first week of March, we’ll probably find out more details about Apple’s LTE plans very soon.

In the mean time, today we see the first 4G LTE micro SIM cards from AT&T getting leaked, a move that indirectly implies the upcoming iPad 3 and the sixth-generation iPhone 5/6 will indeed come with LTE support. Furthermore, Apple’s smartphone and tablet are the main devices that use a micro SIM card on AT&T’s network, if not the only ones, so we certainly expect the company to confirm LTE support starting with its 2012 generation of iOS devices in the weeks to come.

In addition to 4G LTE, the iPad 3 and iPhone 5/6 are likely to also offer support for AT&T’s HSPA+ network, also labeled as fake 4G. The iPhone 4S, while lacking an LTE chip, does come with such fake 4G powers, which make AT&T iPhone 4S units the fastest iPhones in the U.S. since neither Verizon nor Sprint offer HSPA+ support.

Anyone excited to buy an LTE-enabled iPhone or iPad?

But that being said, there appears to be another voice control app that has come available for iOS devices. More specifically for iOS devices aside from the iPhone 4S. The app is called SpeakToIt Assistant and for lack of a better description, it brings Siri-like functionality to the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

SpeakToIt Assistant is available by way of the iOS App Store and is priced at $1.99. The app requires iOS 4.0 (or higher) for use and is currently sitting at version 0.2. Just one note on the iPad compatibility, while it is supported and will run — it is not a universal app and therefor is a doubled up iPhone version.

According to the iOS App Store listing, here is what you can expect from SpeakToIt Assistant;

“Speaktoit Assistant is a virtual buddy for your iPhone or iPod that uses natural language technology to answer questions, find information, and connect you with various web services, such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Evernote, and many others.”

Otherwise, it was also noted that you will be able to speak in an “everyday language” and perhaps a bit more important — the Assistant will “constantly improve” so that it becomes “smarter every day.”

Those who download the app will be able to set the Assistant as a man or woman (see the screenshots included in this post) and will be able to get information such as maps, news searches, image searches, weather reports, currency conversion and “much” more. And last and perhaps what we feel would be the most useful, the Assistant is able to compose emails and text messages as well as update your status on social sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is a pretty important government agency that monitors, researches and studies the weather and Earth’s oceans. They operate the National Weather Service and should be known by everybody as “the hurricane people” for they work they do in monitoring hurricanes. The news that they’re changing to Apple products comes via a leaked memo written by Joseph Klimavicz, NOAA’s CIO.

The company will be furnishing their workers with new iPhones and iPads, although they’ll continue to support BlackBerry devices until May 12, 2012. There’s no word on when NOAA’s people can expect to get their iPads, but the leaked memo was dated February 3, 2012. The news was broken by LoopInsight.com.

Government agencies have usually continued to favor BlackBerries because of their reliability and rock-solid security when it comes to email. I suspect that NOAA won’t be the last government agency to switch to the iPhone and iPad for its mobile phone needs.

What do you think? Is it cool that the government is giving iPhones to its meteorology, or should it be spending our tax dollars on other things? Tell us what you think in our comments section.

Technology Business Research Ezra Gottheil has it on good authority that the upcoming 9.7-inch iPad 3 will offer the following set of specs and features:

• Retina Display resolution – 2,048 x 1,536 or double the resolution of the iPad 2
• Faster dual-core system-on-a-chip rather than a quad-core processor – a faster A6 chip
• Siri support

These are expected features for the iPad 3, which have been revealed in various other reports, so far so we’re not surprised to hear one more analyst mention them, especially since analysts don’t always get things right.

Gottheil also expects Apple to keep selling the iPad 2 alongside the new iPad 3 model, with pricing expected to drop to $400 “for an iPad 2 with Wi-Fi only and 16GB of flash-based storage space.” That’s also something we have heard more than once in the recent past, and we wouldn’t be surprised to hear Apple is interested in keeping around a top-selling device after seeing the same thing happen with older iPhones a few months ago.

A cheaper iPad 2 will be a great competitor to entry- to mid-level Android devices, including the Kindle Fire that has been selling very well during the past quarter, but would Apple also need to make a smaller iPad 3 to better compete against smaller tablets? I don’t think that’s the case, but here’s what Gottheil said:

Gottheil went out on a smaller limb for another pair of predictions, saying that he expects Apple to roll out a smaller 7-in. iPad — though not at the upcoming event — and perhaps tout a specially-designed wireless keyboard-case accessory for its tablet.

“I believe that’s always been in the plan” said Gottheil of a small iPad, contradicting past comments by Jobs, who had rejected seven inches as too small for a tablet. “Actually that’s a good form factor for some users, and although they will also charge a premium above other similar-sized tablets, they want to protect that price flank.”

During last year’s iPad 2 announcement event, Apple quickly dismissed existing rumors that a new device will launch at some point in the fall by saying that 2011 was the year of the iPad 2, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the company hinted that 2012 will be the year of the iPad 3, the regular size. Would you buy a 7-inch iPad 3?

In fact, according to AllThingsD, the iPad 3 special media event will take place in the first week of March, although a clear date is not available at this time. Once it becomes official, the iPad 3 should hit stores in the following days or weeks, just like it happened with the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S which were launched right after their official announcements:

Sources say the company has chosen the first week in March to debut the successor to the iPad 2, and will do so at one of its trademark special events. The event will be held in San Francisco, presumably at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Apple’s preferred location for big announcements like these.

No word yet on a street date for the iPad 3 (assuming that’s what it’s called), though my guess is retail availability will follow roughly the same schedule as that of the iPad 2: Available for purchase a week or so after the event.

The publication also notes that Apple will not schedule any “unusual” press event in February, as it was previously rumored. What’s also interesting to note is that Samsung will not hold any press event during MWC 2012, which is quite surprising and significant since it means the South Korean carrier will not announce any new major mobile device, whether smartphone or tablet. With Samsung not ready to announce any new device at MWC, the eyes of the mobile ecosystem will surely be focused on Apple’s upcoming event.

By comparison, last year the iPad 2 was announced on March 2 and sold nine days later, on March 11. And Samsung unveiled one Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 version (10.1v) at MWC 2011 in February, before the iPad 2 announcement, and a second one at CTIA 2011 in March after the iPad 2 launch, with the second device a lot more similar to the second-generation tablet.

Specifically, the Scosche bassDOCK is going to bring together speakers–2.1 channel, 40 mm speakers, specifically–and a three inch subwoofer, and put it all together on an iPad dock that will let you display the iPad itself at your choice of portrait or landscape modes. You’ll also be able to not only charge your iPad with this at a 10 watt connection, but you’ll also be able to use the iPad while it’s charging, meaning that you can hook it up, watch a movie with those extra speakers from a couple feet off, and then take the iPad and go without losing any charge off the battery and possibly even gaining a bit in the bargain.

And, as our tipsters told us, it now works with not only the iPad, but also the iPad 2. Though whether or not it will work with the iPad 3 now rumored to be coming our way in just a matter of weeks remains to be seen.

For those interested in getting a little more audio into their iPad experience, you’ll be able to pick these up right now for $149.99. This in turn seems a bit on the pricey side to me, but then again, being able to turn your iPad of choice into an alarm clock that might actually wake you up does leave me at least a bit tempted. Though if it doesn’t work with the iPad 3, still likely to emerge soon, there may not be much point in picking this up right away, especially if you have plans to upgrade.

But what do you guys think about this one? Figure that the Scosche bassDOCK is going to provide the kind of sound experience you want from your iPad? Or do you think this is $150 worth of nothing special? No matter what you think, head on down to the comments section below and tell us what you think about the Scosche bassDOCK!

The commercial, which we’ll embed below, shows a man with an iPad walking by a woman with a Kindle reader at a pool. iPad man is impressed by the Kindle reader’s $79 price, but says he can watch movies and TV shows on his iPad. The woman points out that her kids have two Kindle Fires, which can do the same thing. Then, she drops the heavy-hitting marketing line of the commercial: The two Kindle Fires plus the Kindle reader (at $129 and $79 respectively) are still cheaper together than the $500 iPad. I don’t work on Madison Avenue, but that’s a pretty strong argument to me.

We’ve seen a lot of Android tablets in the past few years, and despite some early issues, they’ve actually gotten quite good (thought they all obviously lack the iOS App Store). Despite that, none of them have managed to gain any sales traction on the iPad, save for the Kindle Fire, which Amazon is aggressively pricing. They’re losing money on every Kindle Fire sold, in favor of hoping to get it into hands of customers and making money back on sales from the Kindle Store, Amazon Instant Video store and the Amazon Appstore.

It seems the other tech companies are really starting to take swings at Apple. Last year, the Motorola Xoom’s initial marketing campaign mocked all the “Apple sheep”. Samsung’s recent ad campaigns have been making fun of all the people waiting in line for new iPhones and whatnot, and now this Amazon commercial is pointing out the fact that Apple products are pretty darn expensive. It looks the advertising companies representing Apple’s biggest competitors are starting to go directly at Apple.

What do you think about this commercial? Does it make a strong case for the much cheaper Amazon Kindle Fire?

The picture shows the back case of the iPad 3, which is fairly similar to the one found on the iPad 2 model but does have a few notable differences including a different logic board, a bigger battery, a new camera and a bigger LCD:

A. You can see here that the mounts for the logic board are very different, which means the logic board shape will be different allowing for . . . .

B. More battery. The width of where the logic board sits on the iPad 2 appears much larger than that of the iPad 3. We have long heard that the iPad 3 was going to provide longer battery life, and this back housing seems to support that. [Ed: Actually, this could be to compensate for the additional power draw of the screen and possibly a faster processor]

C. The camera is different. It is hard to make a judgment just by looking at the casing, but what we can expect is a different camera on the iPad 3 than what we had on the 2.

D. LCD will be different than what we have had before. Whether or not it will be the super screen we have seen reported will have to wait. But the different mounting does mean that the LCD has been redesigned at the very least.

Another report says that the iPad 3 will not feature a quad-core processor as previously rumored but that it will offer an improved GPU. The iPad 3 is expected to offer a Retina Display resolution, feature that will require additional resources when it comes to processing and graphics power, RAM and therefore battery juice. Would a dual-core processor combined with an improved GPU be enough to offer a seamless Retina Display performance?

From a different point of view it’s worth remembering that Apple is not interested in beating Android rivals when it comes to its devices’ hardware capabilities, so we wouldn’t be surprised not to see a quad-core A6 chip inside the iPad 3 (and iPhone 5/6 ?) at a time when more and more quad-core Android tablets and smartphones will hit stores.

They didn’t drop the iPhone 4S from a dizzying height, folks, but what they did was something almost as extreme. Basically, the folks at G-Form took to an ice hockey rink, encased the iPhone 4S in the X-Protect case (so dubbed because it refers to the layers of X’s on the front of the case–there’s a separate similar model that’s covered in squares and is dubbed the Extreme Grid), and proceeded to use the iPhone 4S as a hockey puck.

Not too surprisingly–especially after seeing an iPad get dropped from a six-figure height and survive when similarly encased–the iPhone 4S came out quite intact, despite having been hit at least once with a slap shot sending it forward at speeds of around 82 miles per hour. Perhaps the crowning achievement of the entire demonstration was when the demonstrator fired the iPhone 4S into the net, with sufficient force to bounce it out of the net and send it skidding merrily across the ice, and then proceeded to pick up the phone from the ice and answer a call received on the phone as though nothing had happened.

The case is constructed using what’s called RPT material, a proprietary blend of different substances including Poron XRD and several other equally proprietary substances. And if you want this kind of protection for your iPhone, you can start pre-ordering right now at $39.95, with delivery expected at the end of February.

So what do you guys think about the G-Form X-Protect? Seem a little unnecessarily potent to you? Or do you figure this kind of protection can never really hurt, especially for an expensive piece of hardware like the iPhone? No matter what you think, we always like hearing from you, so hit the comments section and tell us what you think!

Richard Gardner, a Citigroup analyst, met last week with Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CEO and CFO, respectively, who seemed to imply that future MacBook Air will not use ARM processors:

“Tim Cook reiterated his view that rapid innovation on the iOS platform (and mobile OS platforms in general) will significantly broaden the use case for tablets, eventually pushing annual tablet volumes above those of traditional PCs. We have wondered whether Apple might offer an ARM-based version of MacBook Air at some point; we walked away from this meeting with the impression that Apple feels iPad satisfies–or will soon satisfy–the needs of those who might have been interested in such a product.”

CNET reports that while Apple may have been interested in moving “almost everything to its A series” that may not be the case anymore especially with Intel’s power-efficient Haswell family of chips on track to be launched at some point in 2012.

From a different point of view, Intel, a long-time Apple partner, is slowly becoming an Apple rival, not only by encouraging PC makers to adopt the MacBook Air-like Ultrabook design, but also by signing a partnership with Motorola (and hence, Google?) to create Android-based mobile device this year. But could Apple completely move away from Intel at some point in the future?

We have no details on the future generation of Air laptops, and we’re certainly interested to learn more about Apple’s 2012 ultraportable devices, especially since the company is rumored to also launch a 15-inch version at some point in the future. As for iPad 3-related plans, we’ve seen so far plenty of related rumors, but nothing is confirmed yet. Here’s what CNET proposes for the upcoming iOS tablet:

• A more powerful iPad, aka iPad 3: Packing a faster A6 chip, a high-resolution 2,048-by-1,536-pixel Retina display, and LTE “4G” broadband (this falls into the “likely” rumor category, as a number of credible reports point to this kind of feature set for the next iPad).
• A more elegant physical keyboard solution for the iPad from Apple. That could mean a lot of things but something possibly akin to the Asus Transformer Prime.
• An expanded line of iPads, e.g., another model, possibly with a different screen size. That might include something smaller or even a bit larger. Samsung, for instance, is already showing off an 11.6-inch tablet with a 2,560-by-1,600-pixel display and a fast 2GHz ARM processor.

Are you buying an iPad 3 or a 2012 MacBook Air this year?

Basically, Motorola Mobility landed a whopping great hit against Apple, gaining a sales injunction against Apple’s 3G products. The end result was that the original iPhone 4, the iPad 2, and similar devices were pulled from circulation. This was said to be in response to a court case that concluded back in December of last year, rather than the more recent case that landed today featuring a permanent injunction on a different patent matter. The December win was related to what’s called FRAND technology–Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory–patents that relate to hardware that becomes essential throughout an entire industry, such that any company that uses the patents must in order to operate, and does so by paying a small royalty to the company who holds the FRAND patent.

It’s somewhat questionable, however, just how much damage this will actually do to Apple, considering that Motorola put up a $131 million bond (100 million in Euros) to get the injunction in play. Moreover, the injunction doesn’t apply to the iPhone 4S, as that uses a wholly different kind of 3G connectivity, following Apple’s switch from Infineon to Qualcomm components, and the sales ban applies to online locations only, meaning you could walk into an Apple Store in, say, Berlin and walk out with your choice of hardware as was available.

The overall damage to Apple on this one will likely be minimal, and Motorola’s costs to get it were substantial to say the least. So why do it?  It may well be just a shot in the dark to let Apple know that it’s not alone out there in the mobile phone market, or it may be a way to put any kind of hindrance possible in front of the Apple juggernaut. Strictly speculation, of course, but anything’s possible these days.

So what do you guys think? Why did Motorola take on Apple like this? Will Motorola get anything out of it? No matter where you land on this issue, head on down to the comments section below and tell us what you think!

Basically, the folks out at Changewave put together a survey and made some fairly interesting, though not really unexpected, discoveries. Changewave, for starters, found that 29 percent of Kindle Fire users plan to spend more money on Amazon for their media over the next 90 days, while iPad users said they would only about 19 percent of the time. This was largely to be expected, especially given that Amazon’s goal with the Kindle Fire was to get people in and shopping, something that definitely wasn’t Apple’s goal with the iPad 2.

But the big point came out when Changewave asked the critical question: are you happy with your purchase? As it turns out, fully 54 percent of Kindle Fire users said that they were “very satisfied” with their purchase. But that number downright pales against the 74 percent of iPad users who were happy with their purchase.

Changewave’s respondents seemed most displeased with the Kindle Fire’s overall design, as nearly half of the respondents were upset about the lack of a hardware-based rocker button for volume control and the similar lack of a camera. Interestingly, though, only ten percent of the respondents thought that the seven inch screen was too small. But despite this, it turns out that Kindle Fire users on the average are happier with their purchase than the average purchaser of “other tablet devices”, most of which are Android.

Basically, the Kindle Fire is doing quite a bit of damage to the iPad line. Not too much, of course, but among those people who pick up Android–or other–tablets, they’re more satisfied than not with the Kindle Fire. This in turn means that anyone considering a tablet, or a new tablet, is probably more likely to go with a Kindle Fire because they have the best chance to be happy with their purchase.

So what do you guys think here? Does the Kindle Fire have an edge on the iPad? Or will it just prove to be first among losers? No matter what you think here, head on down to the comments section and tell us what you think about the Kindle Fire and its competition with the iPad!

After suggesting a few weeks ago that the iPad press event is scheduled for February, Japananese blog Macotakara now says that’s just a “half-side of truth” as Apple will indeed have a February event. But the February press conference is not product-related. Instead the company will hold a “strange,” “unusual” event this month.

The iPad 3 announcement is now going to take place in March, according to the same source, with an actual launch also scheduled for the same month:

Special Event for new products will be hold in early March and will release products during March as usual.

Apple already held a special media event this year to announce various education-related products iBooks 2, iTunes U and iBooks Author, without unveiling any new hardware during the New York City-based event.

Meanwhile various rumors suggested that the iPad 3 is already in production, as Apple is preparing for a March release. With that in mind, and considering the fact that the company launched the iPhone 4S 10 days after its official announcement last October, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple announce the new iPad in early March and then start selling in the weeks thereafter.

But what could that “unusual” event be about? Is it in any way related to Steve Jobs and his February 24 birthday? Is the company preparing some sort of special commemorative service for its iconic leader who passed away on October 5 last year?

Basically, what we’d been envisioning roughly since the iPad 3 was first rumored for launch is looking to come to pass. Based on snapshots from iBoot, a development tool that gives a lot of information about a piece of hardware’s specs, the iPad 3 looks like it will come out in two different versions. One version will pack in not only a quad-core A6 processor, but also 4G LTE capability, as well as wi-fi, GSM, and CDMA capability. A second version, meanwhile, will boast that quad-core processor, but only have wi-fi connectivity, a distinction that has been commonly done with tablet PCs for some time now.

But notably missing from the leaked specs was any mention as to whether or not either new iPad would boast the Retina Display that many have been looking for an Apple tablet to pack in for some time now. And of course, putting in a quad-core A6 would make this Apple’s fastest device yet, but as is the case with just about everything that isn’t directly from Apple, it’s best to take this with the grain of salt you believe sufficient, up to and including the official Apple Rumor Salt Lick.

I like the way this sounds, in all honesty; they’re clearly going for power tablet here, but the issues of battery life can never be far from mind, especially given that this is supposed to be an ultra-portable platform. And an ultra-portable platform that needs to hit an AC outlet every couple of hours or lose charge isn’t exactly the most portable thing there is. Still though, there are plenty of ifs and maybes to go around here, but if (see, I told you!) these figures bear out toward the release–still expected sometime this month–we may well be in for a big shakeup in the tablet market, again.

But what do you guys think about this one? Is a quad-core A6 tablet going to be a good idea? Will it pull too much juice too quickly? Or will it be a smart idea to get the extra power running through the next iPad? No matter what you think, head on down to the comments section below and tell us how you’re feeling about the possible new specs on the upcoming iPad 3!

What’s most interesting is that the court invoked other legal reasons to keep the initial ruling in place instead of recognizing Apple’s design rights, which the Cupertino-based company has been using against Samsung in various international courts including Germany:

But this doesn’t mean that Samsung lost all the way: the appeals court based its decision on a violation of German unfair competition law (Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb, UWG), while the lower court’s ruling was based on a finding of a violation of a Community design, the European equivalent of a U.S. design patent.

However, FOSS Patents explains, this is not a total loss for Samsung yet, as the company is still free to sell the modified Galaxy Tab 10.1N in Germany, at least until February 9 when the Duesseldorf Regional Court will decide whether an injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1N is also due. What’s more important for the South Korean company is the fact that Apple did not win this one on its design claims, and this legal victory can’t be replicated in other countries in which Apple is suing Samsung for similar reasons:

Apple can’t replicate the German decision in other countries since German unfair competition law is pretty unique. A win based on an EU-wide design right would have been strategically more valuable to Apple. Even though Samsung formally lost its appeal because the preliminary injunction remains in force, it succeeded in defeating Apple’s design right.

At the same time, it’s worth noting that the legal fight between the two companies is far from over, even though Apple continues to score small victory after small victory against Samsung.

No one’s saying just how many iPads will be deployed for the primaries, but Everyone Counts, the company behind the initiative to get the iPads in play, was quick to point out a variety of serious advantages involved with using iPads in elections.

First on the list was a serious cost savings. Everyone Counts figures that using iPads in elections can save roughly fifty percent of the cost associated with having an election, and that was only where things began. Benefits to efficiency, voter turnout, and of course, support for handicapped users are all part of the equation here.

Naturally, there are concerns here that generally don’t exist with paper ballots–like issues of security, accountability, and the ever-present specter of voter fraud–and for their part, Everyone Counts was quick with answers to these potential problems. They cited, among other things, an “impenetrable infrastructure” that relies on multi-layered protection starting with military-grade encryption methods and carrying on from there.

Though there will always be doubts, and the necessity for heightened vigilance, I personally find myself looking for more places to use iPads in voting. It only makes sense, in all honesty, for voting locations–especially cash-strapped municipalities–to start turning to unusual methods to provide normal services at lower prices. Though I’m skeptical whenever anyone uses words like “impenetrable” without bringing out phrases like “by current methods”, “by known methods” or anything else that acknowledges that hackers are constantly trying to figure out new ways to get into things that were thought to be impenetrable, but were discovered to be anything but.

But what do you guys think about this one? Figure that we’ll see more iPads land at elections? Or will they be thrown over for the good old fashioned paper ballot? No matter where you land on this issue, we always like hearing from you, so hit the comments section and tell us what you think!

Basically, the patent calls for an underlayer of what’s called “ferrofluid” to be placed under the display of an iPad in the future (yet to be numbered and possibly lettered, of course) along with a series of magnets that allows the fluid to form bulges and necessary hillocks to make you feel like you’re actually touching something besides that flat expanse of screen.

Apple has, reportedly, had similar patents emerge previously, involving piezoelectrics and the like, but none of that made it to production either. It’s a development that bears watching, though, especially considering the number of cases out there that incorporate keyboards in their design.

Personally, I like the idea. Aside from the fact that touch screen keyboarding can be a cramped and difficult affair, adding onto it the uncertainty of whether or not you actually struck a key when you’re trying to type something is just as frustrating in its own right. Sure, there’s usually some visual counter-feedback going on as well, but not always, and for those times when you can’t look and see the visual cue, it’s good to have the click of a keyboard or, failing that, at least the feeling that you actually hit a key stepping in to tell you you haven’t lost your mind and are indeed typing.

Getting that extra shot of control in there to provide a little extra feedback can’t hurt as far as I’m concerned, but what do you guys think? Figure that adding a touch sensitive control to your touch screen keyboard is a smart idea? Or an idea that’s plain old unnecessary? No matter what you think, head on down to the comments section below and tell us what you think!

Tim Cook may not have the visionary skills of his predecessor but he certainly knows how to organize the company and sell millions of iconic products. Yesterday, after Apple’s earnings call, the CEO announced the team via a short email that it will make an important announcement for the company a Town Hall meeting today:

Team,
Thanks to everyone’s hard work, we’re off to a great start in 2012. Last week in New York we launched a groundbreaking initiative for education with iBooks textbooks, and today we reported the strongest quarter in Apple’s history.Please join me tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. in Town Hall. We’ll review our record-setting results and discuss some exciting new things going on at Apple.The meeting will be broadcast live to many sites in Cupertino and other Apple locations. Please check AppleWeb for details.
Tim

According to 9to5mac, Cook had quite an announcement to make today during the meeting. He announced that Apple employees will soon be able to enjoy some significant discounts on important Apple products, including the iPad and the Macs. Apple employees can already take advantage of a 25% discount on Apple products, but the new program will certainly be a lot more appreciated.

Apple employees that have been with the company for at least 90 days will get $250 off when purchasing an iPad and a $500 discount for the purchase of any Mac except for the Mac Mini. As you expect there are some provisions in place in order for Apple employees not to game the system. They’ll be able to use the discount program only every three years starting with this June, so it’s not like they’ll buy loads of devices only to resell them on eBay to turn a profit.

This Cook initiative shows that the Apple leader is not afraid to take such decisions. After taking office, Cook announced a shift in Apple policy towards giving away money to charity, with the company matching up to $10,000 donated to charity per employee, which is something that wasn’t available in the Jobs era.

Anyone excited to hear they’ll be able to save some serious cash on their next Apple product purchase?

Ballistic’s cases are unique in the market because they offer up not only very high yields of protection, but do so through a series of multiple layers. The Tough Jacket is no exception on that front, as it offers up a three-layer system to provide protection for your tablet of choice. It starts out with an inner layer of silicone to serve as shock absorption between the tablet itself and the second level of protection, a layer of impact-resistant hard plastic. And then to top it all off, it uses a third layer of shock absorbent polymer to offer both shock absorption and impact resistance all at the same time.

It even boasts a removable cover that not only provides screen protection, but also lets you use it as a kickstand so you can set your iPad 2 down on a flat surface and use it hands-free while sitting down. And just to top it all off, the Ballistic Tough Jacket uses Ballistic’s standard corner design, such that, when you lay it face down, the screen never comes in contact with the flat surface, but rather rests on pillars made by the corners of the Tough Jacket itself.

They’re available right now for $69.99 each, and having seen several Ballistic cases before, if you want peace of mind with your iPad 2, then this is a great place to start looking.

Admittedly, a $70 iPad case in a downed economy may not get a whole lot of attention, but when it comes to protecting a device against standard bumps, jolts and jarrings, a Ballistic case goes a long way. But I’ll open things up for you guys–any Ballistics case users out there want to weigh in in support? Or do you guys think that they’re asking way too much for protection on your iPad 2? No matter what you think, head on down to the comments section and tell us what you think!

• $46.33 billion revenue, up from $26.74 billion in the year-ago quarter
• $13.06 billion net profit or $13.87 per diluted share, up from $6 billion or $6.43 per diluted share in the year-ago quarter
• $97.6 billion in cash and marketable securities in total, up 16 billion from previous quarter, with $64 billion of cash offshore
• 37.04 million iPhone sales – 128% growth over the year-ago quarter
• 15.43 million iPad sales – 111% growth over the year ago quarter
• 5.2 million Macs – 26% growth over the year ago quarter
• 15.4 million iPods – 21% decline from the year ago quarter
• 315 million cumulative iOS devices sales, 62 million during the December quarter
• $1.7 billion revenue from the iTunes Music store
• 20 million songs available from iTunes
• 140 million music downloads on December 25
• 1.5 million iPads used in educational institutions
• 85 million iCloud customers
• 550,000 iOS apps in the App Store, 170,000 iPad apps
• $4 billion paid to developers, $700 million in the December quarter
• 358 stores open – average $17.1 million in revenue per store, 110 million store traffic, 22,000 visitors per store each week

Apple had a remarkable quarter, driven mainly by iOS device sales. Out of those, what’s really impressive is the total number of  iPhone sold since October. Earlier reports said that Apple would report anywhere from 30 to 35 million iPhone sales, especially considering that Verizon alone sold over 4 million iPhones in the December quarter. With over 37 million iPhone sales, that means Apple activated over 400,000 iPhones each day during the quarter. Add to the iPhone numbers the iPad and iPod touch numbers – since, after all, they are iOS devices – we end up with a total number of activations of over 670,000 iOS devices per day during the quarter. Comparatively, Google is activating 700,000 Android phones per day according to its most recent report, which means Apple is doing quite well, overall, in the mobile business.

Apple’s main rivals, Google, Microsoft, Samsung or Amazon probably hate to see those numbers, but the fact remains Apple’s selling performance can hardly be reached.

The hackers have been keeping track of the number of installed jailbreaks and it looks like around 1 million iOS device users have downloaded and installed Absinthe as follows:

• 491,325 new iPhone4,1 devices
• 308,967 new iPad2 devices
• 152,940 previously jailbroken (at 4.x) iPad2 devices

How can these numbers be so accurate you ask? Are the hackers monitoring your devices in any way? Yes, but you don’t have anything to worry about, as they describe the process:

The reason these numbers can be so precise is that one of the housekeeping activities that happens when you launch Cydia is a query to @saurik’s server for the list of available SHSH blobs. (Even if you have none on file, the query is still made).

That’s how the jailbreak programs work, in order to help users save their SHSH blobs to Cydia so that they’ll be able in the future to rollback to an iOS version that can be jailbroken on their device.

The iPhone Dev Team is also reminding everyone using such jailbreak tools to keep away of Apple’s upcoming firmware versions until a new jailbreak for the newly released iOS versions is available. Apple’s upcoming iOS update is iOS 5.1, currently in beta, which is expected to hit at some point in the future.

What’s interesting to note is that plenty of iOS device users choose to jailbreak their devices a procedure that gives them access to various tweaks and apps available in the Cydia store and which Apple didn’t/wouldn’t approve. At the same time, some jailbreak users simply use such jailbreak programs to download pirated copies of existing paid apps, something we definitely don’t condone over here.

What about you, have you jailbroken your A5 device yet?

Luckily for them Absinthe for Windows has been also released and it’s available for download from the Chronic Dev Team’s website, Greenpois0n.com, while a Linux version will be launched at a later date. Here’s what you need to know about Absinthe:

To jailbreak your iPhone 4S (running iOS 5.0 or either 4S version of 5.0.1**) and/or your iPad 2 (all Wi-Fi only, GSM & CDMA devices supported; must be running iOS 5.0.1**) – select one of the links below to download your Absinthe A5 untethered jailbreak. Simply unzip the file, then install on your iOS A5 mobile device with one click of a button! As always MacOSX version is being released first, and Windows and Linux versions will be released shortly after. […]

**NOTE: If you haven’t yet heeded the advice I gave weeks ago – before you take one step further, upgrade your firmware to iOS 5.0.1 NOW! (Unless you need an iPhone4s Unlock) Also, we don’t mean to beat you over the head with this warning, but please remember: you should not update to iOS 5.0.2 when it’s released, or you will lose your jailbreak! Bookmark our GreenPois0n blog now, and be the first to know the next time we advise our jailbreak users to safely update their iOS firmware.

The program should be fairly simple to use, just install it on your machine and follow the instructions. That doesn’t mean that we’re in any way advising you to jailbreak your iOS device because that’s hardly the case. We’re simply keeping you updated on all things related to unlocking, jailbreaking and rooting various devices, all legal procedures, but which could void your warranty. But since you’re entitled to do whatever you want with your iOS devices, and not only, we’ll remind you to back everything up before using the Absinthe tool and that you will be the only person responsible for the outcome of such procedure.

So, have you jailbroken your iOS device?

Like various other companies, Apple started building its computers in the U.S., in its own plants, a story you might be familiar with from the official Steve Jobs biography. But as the company grew and it started to produce more and more devices, it had to expand to Asia, where it would find a cheaper, better-trained and more efficient workforce that would be able to manufacture a large number of devices, whether smartphones, tablets or computers.

The Times report is based on several accounts from “more than three doezen” current and former Apple employees who wished to remain anonymous but did explain why Apple is making its iPhones and iPads abroad and why it can’t be done at home. What’s interesting is that it also details an episode from the early manufacturing days of the original iPhone:

In 2007, a little over a month before the iPhone was scheduled to appear in stores, Mr. Jobs beckoned a handful of lieutenants into an office. For weeks, he had been carrying a prototype of the device in his pocket.

Mr. Jobs angrily held up his iPhone, angling it so everyone could see the dozens of tiny scratches marring its plastic screen, according to someone who attended the meeting. He then pulled his keys from his jeans.

People will carry this phone in their pocket, he said. People also carry their keys in their pocket. “I won’t sell a product that gets scratched,” he said tensely. The only solution was using unscratchable glass instead. “I want a glass screen, and I want it perfect in six weeks.”

After one executive left that meeting, he booked a flight to Shenzhen, China. If Mr. Jobs wanted perfect, there was nowhere else to go.

Those of you that read the Jobs biography know that Jobs met with executives from Corning to hire the company to manufacture the special glass used by the original iPhone and its successors. Jobs gave them six weeks to do it and Corning delivered.

But when it comes to manufacturing, Asia is the place to go as the region provides cheap, trained labor in very high numbers, which is why companies like Apple will probably not return to the U.S. anytime soon:

They could hire 3,000 people overnight,” said Jennifer Rigoni, who was Apple’s worldwide supply demand manager until 2010, but declined to discuss specifics of her work. “What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?”

In mid-2007, after a month of experimentation, Apple’s engineers finally perfected a method for cutting strengthened glass so it could be used in the iPhone’s screen. The first truckloads of cut glass arrived at Foxconn City in the dead of night, according to the former Apple executive. That’s when managers woke thousands of workers, who crawled into their uniforms — white and black shirts for men, red for women — and quickly lined up to assemble, by hand, the phones. Within three months, Apple had sold one million iPhones. Since then, Foxconn has assembled over 200 million more.

While Apple has not officially commented the article published by the newspaper, some executives argued that Apple’s job is not to create more jobs in the U.S. – although it does that too directly, by hiring more people year after year and indirectly, as many companies including shipping services, applications developers and electronics resellers have hired an increasing number of people as a direct response to the increasing demand of iPhones and iPads. The report reveals that in the U.S. it would take Apple up to nine months to hire 8,700 industrial engineers and 200,000 assembly-line workers to manufacturer the iPhone while “in China, it took 15 days.”

The iPhone and other iconic devices are “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.” That’s what the printed sticker on their back says, and now you know why: it’s the cheapest, and most efficient way to do it for a company that wants to produce as many devices as popular as fast as popular. Just like Apple other companies including Amazon, Dell, HP, Nokia, Nintendo, Samsung and Sony have hired Foxconn to produce various electronics. And for the giant Chinese supplier business is booming, with 40 percent of the world’s consumer electronics coming from its plants.

The video below shows us how an HDTV is hooked to a RaspBerry Pi Model B prototype via HDMI and how an AirPlay application on the device is used to stream a YouTube video over Wi-Fi from the iPad. That’s quite a remarkable feature for such a cheap computer and we’re certainly interested to see it in stores. It’s even more important to note that the video streaming appears to be running flawlessly, with no glitch whatsoever, which is what we’d expect from an AirPlay-ready device.

Naturally we expect it to be capable of offering other interesting features in addition to AirPlay. As for this iOS 5 feature, we’ll remind you that AirPlay lets you stream videos, photos and music directly from your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch with a supported television or speaker set that are connected to Apple TV or an AirPort Express unit, respectively. The same feature lets iPad 2 and iPhone 4S users mirror the contents on their screen on a big-screen TV, but again an Apple TV is required.

Now, we’ll remind you that the Apple TV is not exactly an expensive gadget – currently priced at $99. But the Raspberry Pi Model B would be even cheaper than an Apple TV, and we all love good deals, don’t we? The device will reportedly cost $35, although there’s no launch date for it at this point.

We don’t have all the details on this Linux-running tiny beast yet, but we’re definitely follow its progress until we see it in stores. In the mean time let us know whether you’d buy such a tiny computer to take advantage of such AirPlay capabilities. What else would you like it to do?

9to5mac reports that case maker Chinee has already started production for iPad 2S cases, and that’s certainly an interesting detail. Recently we’ve heard all sorts of details regarding the iPad 3’s specs and features, and most people seem to agree that the second and third iPad generations will look fairly similar. That would be one good reason to believe Apple will baptize the new iPad the “iPad 2S.”

But would that be a correct commercial name for the new device? Traditionally – and maybe that’s not a good word since we’ve only had two “S”-branded iOS devices so far, the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4S – the “S” devices are not major upgrades, although I’d argue that the iPhone 4S has quite a few interesting new features. But the iPad 3 is said to offer Retina Display support, a quad-core processor, even better graphics, iPhone-grade cameras, Siri support and, most importantly, 4G LTE speeds. These are all important features which could be somewhat overlooked by the casual buyer if an iPad 2S product name would be used instead of iPad 3.

These “iPad 2S” cases will accommodate a device that’s going to be 1mm thicker than the iPad 2, and while they have been featured in leaked images, that doesn’t mean we’re looking at genuine iPad cases. Let’s remember the plethora of iPhone 4S/5 cases we’ve seen before witnessing back in early October how Apple unveiled a single iPhone model, one that can’t use those cases.

It’s a strange place to be looking for information about the upcoming iPad, but the word that’s emerged is actually pretty compelling in its own right. See, the iBooks 2 app that got released yesterday also reportedly came with a new bookmark icon labeled simply “iPadx2″.

And this by itself might not mean so much, until you consider that the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S have been getting icons with “x2″ labels for some time now, which was done to reflect their own need for extra-detailed graphics for use with the phones’ Retina Displays. Thus, a small bit of logic was applied, and more than a few now wonder if the iPad won’t get the Retina Display, and thus have a use for those x2-labeled icons.

Reports say that Apple, not surprisingly, pulled the icons in rapid fashion, and a new set of icons was released to cover Apple’s possible slip-up, but that wasn’t done nearly quickly enough to prevent the new icons from being not only caught, but also image-recorded, as the spotted pic from MacRumors shows above.

It’s entirely possible that this was a labeling mistake or the like, which would explain why the icons were pulled, but whether or not it will follow up into an iPad with a Retina Display will remain to be seen.

But what do you guys think here? Figure that the next iPad will have a Retina Display after all? Or do you think that this was an innocent labeling mistake by Apple? No matter what you think about this one, head on down to the comments section and tell us what you think!

Those of you that read Steve Jobs, the official biography of Apple’s co-founder and iconic leader, know that Jobs was very interested in reinventing education. Walter Isaacson revealed in his book various instances in which Jobs discussed the future of text books with various people. But was he the person that originally came up with the idea? We may never find the answer to that question.

Before we show you an episode related to textbooks from Apple’s recent past, we’ll tell you that McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw considers that the digital textbooks concept is Jobs vision. In an interview with AllThingsD he said:

Sitting and listening to all of this, I wish Steve Jobs was here. I was with him in June this past year, and we were talking about some of the benchmarks, and some of the things that we were trying to do together. He should be here. He probably is [gesturing up and around]. This was his vision, this was his idea, and it all had to do with the iPad.

While Jobs did everything in his power to convince publishers to get on board with the digital textbook idea, and he definitely deserves credit and recognition for what he manage to achieve – and we’re just at the beginning of the reinvention of the education system – it’s worth noting that other Apple employees have come up with a version of this idea a few years ago, well ahead of the iPad launch. In fact, a team of interns won an internal Apple contest in 2008 for presenting that idea during the yearly iContest to a jury made of mid-level Apple management.

Talking to The Wirecutter, Joseph Peters tells the story of how it all went down, without looking for specific credit for Apple’s current education products for iPad:

Well the original idea came from my frustration with how much Textbooks were and I did some research about the market which showed that prices were artificially inflated because publishers were losing revenue from the resale of used textbooks.

I originally pitched the idea to some fellow interns, but they all thought it was stupid because they all wanted to talk about the “iCar” or something “bigger”. Keep in mind most of these guys were engineers so business models aren’t necessarily important to them. […]

The presentation started in the afternoon and there were to be 10 ideas presented in front of a handful of mid-level executives. We we’re scheduled to be the 5 group to present.

The first 5 were awful and the executives would kill every idea in the Q&A. Anyway, we presented and answered the Q&A pretty flawlessly. I mean they said they really liked it and every other presentation received mostly sarcastic remarks.
I remember answering a handful of questions and getting the impression that the exec’s were totally on board. It was a pretty awesome feeling. Afterwards I knew that we clearly we’re going to win so that last 5 presentations were pretty much screwed. Again, another awesome feeling.

At the end, they announced that we won, they gave us all a MacBook Air and it was great (for interns anyway). I was more excited about the opportunity to talk to more people about the idea. They scheduled a meeting with John Couch, head of Education a few days later. We met John and a few the people on his team in a small board room and we just gave the same pitch as before.

The story is definitely interesting and provides further insight on how Apple functions as a company. Sure, a team of interns could have come up with the idea well ahead of Jobs, but at the end of the day it was Jobs that put the puzzle together by joining various important pieces such as the iTunes content distribution platform, the evolving iOS mobile operating system and the iPad, all necessary items that made yesterday’s digital textbook event possible.

Peters certainly doesn’t claim he was the first person inside Apple to come up with the concept:

I want to clarify one thing – I’m not claiming that I invented the idea, just that I may have helped push management down a direction that they were already contemplating. It’s very possible that they were thinking about Textbooks well before I did. I just want that to be clear because I certainly don’t want people thinking that I’m trying to take all the credit. There’s a lot of work that has been done to advance the idea.

You can look at it this way – here’s a college aged kid telling you that this is a service he’d like.

The gallery below contains images of the digital textbooks concept presented during the iContest three years ago.

Well, folks, that day has come! The Chronic Dev Team and iPhone Dev Team will release the new jailbreak to the crowds, with the first team already making it available today. Called Absinthe, the A5 untethered jailbreak can be downloaded from the group’s Greenpois0n.com website. In fact, the website is currently down as plenty of iPhone 4S and iPad 2 owners have probably assaulted in search of the new jailbreak tool.

The iPhone Dev Team will also release its own A5 jailbreak, and they’re still calling it Corona. While the team has not made the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 jailbreak available to the crowds, it offered various details on the new tool ahead of the official launch:

To be as flexible as possible, the A5 version of the corona jailbreak will take multiple forms:

• Chronic Dev have incorporated the overall flow into a GUI that runs on your Mac or PC. The goal is for the GUI to be enough for most cases.
• iPhone Dev have also incorporated the exact same flow into an alternative command-line interface (CLI). This will allow us to help users through individual steps of the jailbreak manually, to both help the user and help improve the overall flow. Although the CLI will also allow the user to perform the entire jailbreak from beginning to end, we anticipate it will be more useful in debugging the occasional errors. The CLI currently has over 20 individual options (in addition to the single “jailbreak” option) that should be useful during debug after the GUI release.
• Once all the bugs in the flow are worked out, we’ll also incorporate it into the redsn0w GUI (but still leave the CLI freely available too). In order to maximize the chances of the jailbreak working for everyone, the redsn0w GUI will use native Apple iTunes libraries — this technique is slightly different than how the Chronic Dev GUI handles communications, and should provide nice combined coverage for all the odd computer configurations out there.

Furthermore, here’s what you need to know regarding this new jailbreak when it comes to supported firmware and iPhone 4S carrier unlocks:

The supported firmware versions will be:
• iPhone4S: 5.0 (9A334), 5.0.1 (9A405) and the “other” 5.0.1 (9A406)
• iPad2: 5.0.1 (9A405)

iPhone4S owners looking to maximize their chances of achieving an eventual software-based carrier unlock should be staying at 5.0. Everyone else should be at 5.0.1. If you’re an iPhone4S owner who already updated to 5.0.1, it’s too late to go back down to 5.0, but if you’re on 9A406 it is possible to downgrade the BB by going to the 9A405 version of 5.0.1 while the window is still open.

We’ll remind you that while we keep you updated on the progress of various jailbreak tools, we certainly don’t encourage you to go for such procedures even if they’re legal, and you’ll be the only person responsible for whatever happens after jailbreaking Apple’s latest iOS devices.

Apple has partnered with various publishers including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson, and will charge up to $14.99 for its new iBooks. The new iBooks 2 app will be available as a free download from the App Store and it will bring some impressive features “including gorgeous, fullscreen books, interactive 3D objects, diagrams, videos and photos, the iBooks 2 app will let students learn about the solar system or the physics of a skyscraper with amazing new interactive textbooks that come to life with just a tap or swipe of the finger.” While there are only eight textbooks available in iBooks 2 so far, we’re certainly going to see even more titles hit iTunes soon – the gallery below holds sample images from the Geometry textbook.

iBooks Author will also be available as a free Mac App Store download, and users will be able to create “stunning” textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books and more and have them published in the Apple iBookstore. The iBooks Author app offers a wide variety of page layouts, support for adding text and images, multitouch widgets for adding interactive photo galleries, movies, keynote presentations and 3D objects.

By binding its popular iOS devices, and specifically the iPad, with content geared towards students, Apple is making sure that more and more teachers and youngsters will be interested in purchasing an iPad for school-related purposes. Sure, some can argue that the iPad will also distract students both during the class and when learning at home, but you can’t deny the fact that Apple’s idea is rather brilliant. Let’s see now whether other tablet makers will scramble to offer similar content to their customers.

Anyone excited about the new school-ready features of the iPad?

A new study shows that the iPad doesn’t have any contestants, and of all the Android devices the Kindle Fire is the most popular with the crowds, although Amazon’s Kindle Fire sales are incomparable to Apple’s iPad sales, at least for now. While the Kindle Fire has been available for about two months, it has apparently outsold more impressive contenders like the QNX-based BlackBerry PlayBook and the Android-based Motorola Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy Tabs. In fact, the Kindle Fire seems to be a Google Android tablet killer, something we talked about in the past – where by Google Android tablet I mean Honeycomb and Ice Cream tablets as Amazon’s device runs a custom OS version.

But what does Chitika’s graph above tell us? Analyzing Internet activity based on ad impressions during December 30th and January 9 in the U.S. and Canada for the iPad, Kindle Fire, BlackBerry Playbook, Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab, the company discovered that for every 100 iPad ad impressions the other mentioned tablets get less than 7.50 ad impressions as follows:

• Kindle Fire – 2.4 ad impressions per 100 iPad impressions
• Playbook – 1.8 ad impressions per 100 iPad impressions
• Motorola Xoom – 1.55 ad impressions per 100 iPad impressions
• Samsung Galaxy Tab – 1.60 ad impressions per 100 iPad impressions

In addition to the impressive performance of the Kindle Fire – and I’m using “performance” very loosely here since the iPad is killing the competition – I’ll also notice the poor “Samsung Galaxy” numbers. Chitika doesn’t refer to a specific Galaxy Tab version, but rather condenses the whole family under the “Samsung Galaxy” moniker. And Samsung’s family isn’t doing that great, at least in the U.S. and Canada, according to this study, which used a sample of hundreds of millions of impressions.

In a few days Apple will share more details about iPad sales in the fourth quarter of 2011 and we certainly expect the company to report new record sales while the competition can only dream about such numbers, at least for now. In the mean time, let’s hear it from you, what tablet did you purchase?

Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu believes, according to reports, that the iPad line could see fully 48 million units sold over the course of 2012. Perhaps more interestingly, Wu doesn’t think that it’s going to be particularly difficult for Apple to pull off that kind of impressive sales run, as he reportedly calls that a conservative estimate.

What’s driving these incredibly potent numbers for Apple? Well, from Wu’s standpoint, it’s actually pretty simple. One, we’re expecting a new iPad this year, in the form of the iPad 3, and while no one’s sure just when exactly it will hit, many are expecting it early in 2012. Two, said iPad is likely to be a significant step up in terms of hardware, with a quad-core processor and an improved display as well as 4G LTE capability. Three, there are further reports that suggest that Apple will carry right on selling the iPad 2 whilst selling the iPad 3, giving them something of a multiplier effect as everyone who wanted an iPad 2 but didn’t want to pay iPad 2 prices will likely be able to get in for much cheaper.

And in addition, there’s also the competition to consider, which, according to Wu, just isn’t that competitive. Wu basically regards the Kindle Fire as the iPad’s only real competitor, referring to the Android lineup as, essentially, a jumbled lot struggling for third place (he actually referred to them as a myriad, so you can take the meaning you like from that).

I find myself hard pressed to disagree with much of Wu’s suppositions, though I think his numbers are a bit over-optimistic given the struggling economy. But considering that he’s talking about all iPads, not specifically iPad 3 units, he may be on to something.

But what do you guys think? Do you expect big numbers for the iPad this year? Or do you think that people may be keeping a tighter grip on their wallets this year? No matter what you think, head on down to the comments section and share it with us!

Apple is known for releasing product updates every half year or so. This means that six months after you buy your newest iDevice, it’s likely to be obsolete. And with users upgrading their iPhone, iPod, iPad, MacBook and other device, every so often, Apple is finding ways to help you dispose of these guilt-free. Programs like Apple’s Reuse & Recycle program let customers turn their old, unwanted devices into credits that can be used toward the purchase of an upgrade. Even third parties have taken advantage of such a practice, by letting consumers sell their pre-owned devices at fair market value, such as Amazon and Gazelle.

In Europe, though, the program is a bit different. Apple’s partner Dataserv will actually pay in cold cash in exchange for your old, recycled device. In contrast, most other programs in the U.S., Asia Pacific, Africa, Australia and elsewhere will give you a gift certificate or credits.

European users can send back their used iDevices by keying in their details on Apple’s UK recycling site. Dataserv will then send a pre-paid shipping label, and will be the one to estimate the value of the device. The company will then deposit cash into the device-sender’s bank account once they get the gadget and estimate its value.

Apple products are accepted, including the iPhone, iPad, MacBooks, iMacs. Apple says even non-Apple products are eligible, which may include PC desktop computers, and the like. What’s certainly attractive with this model is that consumers get cash for their devices, which can be as good as selling it in the secondary market, instead of being limited to getting in-store credits. Time to take out those old iPods, iPads, MacBooks and iPhones gathering dust in your desk drawer?

The visual news comes from Pod2g, one of the hackers that’s working on the untethered jailbreak for Apple’s 2011 iOS devices, the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. In a short blog post entitled “iPad 2 5.0.1 untethered” and containing only the text “No more to say!” right after the image above, the hacker showed everyone that the tool he has been working on actually works on Apple’s latest tablet too. For some unknown reason the hacker pulled the post, but the whole thing is still safely stored in Google’s cache, including the full size picture of the jailbroken iPad 2.

Those of you not familiar with the jailbreaking universe, the iPad in the image displays the home screen of Cydia, the unofficial iOS app store that provides users various tweaks, tricks, and unapproved iOS apps. Under the left-hand column you can easily see that Cydia identifies the devices as an iPad 2 – the front-facing camera and the white color, distinctive iPad 2 features also tell us we’re looking at a second-generation tablet – running iOS 5.0.1 and Cydia 1.1.3 on top.

This is not the first time we’ve seen such images, as the iPad 2 has been jailbroken before. But the tool, JailbreakMe 3.0, developed by comex, only works on iPad 2 devices running iOS 4.3.3. Similarly, Pod2g’s tool will work only on iPhone 4S and iPad 2 devices with iOS 5.0.1 on top, at least for now, as reports suggest that Apple’s iOS 5.1 patches up current jailbreak exploits. However, that doesn’t mean current jailbreak programs will not work on older devices, or that the hackers won’t be able to come up with an iOS 5.1 jailbreak tool in the future.

In the mean time we’ll be waiting for Pod2g and his team of hackers to finally make this iPhone 4S and iPad 2 jailbreak official, as the program is not available to download yet; not that we’d ever advise you to use such programs on your iOS devices. In case you do jailbreak your iPhones, iPod touches and iPads then remember you’re be the only person responsible for whatever happens.

A new iPad 3 report is now suggesting that Apple will officially announce the tablet during a special media event in early February, with the device expected to be launched a month later, in early March.

The news comes from Japanese site Macotakara, a source of reliable Apple reports in the past. Apparently “Asian supplier and a source in United States” have confirmed that Apple will announce the new tablet next month during a special press event. We’re certainly expecting the company to hold an iPad 3 presser ahead of launch but it’s very interesting to hear that that the device will be launched only a month later considering Apple’s most recent press events.

The iPad 2 was announced on March 2nd last year and launched on March 11, while the iPhone 4S was made official on October 4, with sales starting on October 14. Why would Apple break such a pattern and release the iPad 3 a month after the official announcement? At the same time, let’s not forget that the original iPad was announced in January two years ago, and launched only in April, so Apple could be unpredictable when it comes to scheduling such announcements.

February is also the month of MWC 2012 and during the event we expect to see plenty of new smartphones and tablets including some direct iPad 3 rivals. Would Apple show those rivals what its new iPad 3 will have to offer? Last year at MWC Samsung unveiled one Galaxy Tab 10.1 model, which ended up being called the Galaxy Tab 10.1v, only to show us a totally different, iPad 2-like tablet in March at CTIA, the device that we know today as the Galaxy Tab 10.1, not long after the iPad 2 was officially announced.

We’ll be back with more iPad 3 news once we have them, in the mean time don’t forget to bookmark us and follow us on Facebook and Twitter in order not to miss out on more detailed iPad coverage.

Apple has traditionally kept previous-generation iPhones in stores alongside current-generation models until this year when, in an unprecedented move, decided to continue selling three iPhone models simultaneously, the 2009 iPhone 3GS, the 2010 iPhone 4 and the 2011 iPhone 4S. By dropping the price of the older devices Apple managed to somewhat fight the plethora of cheap Android devices that are currently available for mobile operators. At the same time the company made sure the older models also supported iOS 5, and its following updates, unlike cheap Android handsets that aren’t always upgradable to Google’s latest mobile OS version.

But this is the first year in which Apple will sell two distinct iPad models in stores, at least according to existing reports, the iPad 3 and iPad 2. Just like with the iPhones, the older iPad model should be sold for a cheaper price. That way Apple could fight the mid-ranged Android devices that pose a mild threat to the iPad – and an even greater one to high-end Android tablets – the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet with a cheaper, but new, iPad model, one that can offer a lot more in terms of features and reliability than these 7-inch tablets.

Digitimes, reporting on new display shipments plans reports that Apple will continue manufacturing the iPad 2 through 2012 alongside the all new iPad 3:

The shipment volume of iPad 2 panels will decrease from 48.0 million units in 2011 to an estimated 25.0 million units in 2012, while an estimated 40.0 million panels for use in the new version of iPad will be supplied in 2012, the sources pointed out.

If the report is to be believed, Apple could be on track of selling 65 million tablets in the coming year, a figure that would probably help it maintain its huge market share in the tablet business.

The codenames are J1AP and J2AP, or J1 and J2 according to some sources, as seen in the image below:

Unfortunately these iPad 3 codenames do not reveal any details about the upcoming tablets, nor do they confirm any of the recent reports that have mentioned the iPad 3 in the previous weeks. What’s more interesting is that iOS 5.1 beta 3 could include some deep Facebook integration features, similar to the current Twitter integration that’s already available to iOS 5 users, according to the same code – see image below. At the same time, Facebook integration could only arrive in iOS 6, considering that this can be considered a major feature of a new OS and Apple would rather release it as part of a major iOS update.

Apple reportedly wanted to offer iOS device users Facebook integration features since iOS 4 but frictions between the two companies delayed everything, at least until now. At the same time, the fact that developers find hidden Facebook traces inside Apple’s iOS beta versions only prove the fact that the company is actively working on various new features for the OS, but that doesn’t mean Facebook integration is coming soon.

Apple’s iPad 3 announcement event is yet to be scheduled, although the word on the street is that the device will be launched at some point in March, with Foxconn and Pegatron already producing next-gen tablets for Apple. By then we could find out more details about iOS Facebook integration, not to mention that iOS 5.1 could be released way ahead of the actual iPad 3 launch.

Anyone interested in deep Facebook integration on iOS devices?

First, outrage aside — realize that you would not be alone. It seems that some scammers have been taking advantage of the system and have been buying iPad 2′s only to return the box with a similarly weighted item inside. And just to clarify, that item they are returning may feel similar to an iPad box from the outside, but looking inside tells a completely different story.

Bottom line here, both Best Buy and Future Shop have reported this scam. As for the scam, the iPad 2 is being purchased with cash and then later returned. And while that alone does not sound all that bad — the actual item being returned is not the iPad 2. It seems these scammers are buying and then opening the iPad box. From that point they are removing the iPad and then replacing it with bags of model clay. After that, they simply reseal the box and then return the iPad 2 for the cash.

Sounds like a good deal for the scammer. They get the money from the purchase and then get to resell the (now stolen) iPad 2 for some additional cash. Of course, it all sounds like a good deal until you get caught — something that we hope happens soon. On that front, both Best Buy and Future Shop have confirmed this happening, though before anyone gets super worried about making a purchase, it does not appear to be all that widespread. The details coming from Future Shop and Best Buy include that as many as 10 fakes may have been sold out of their Vancouver stores and perhaps more important, Future Shop spokesperson Elliott Chun has stated that;

“Customers don’t expect to receive this kind of product from Future Shop, so it’s a very serious matter and something we are addressing right away for anyone who has been impacted,” spokesperson Elliott Chun told CTV British Columbia.

Bottom line here, if you are thinking of buying an iPad 2 in the not to distant future, you may want to open and verify your purchase before leaving the store. After all, we say better to be safe than sorry.