Apple's iPad being used in new high-tech homes

 in the Overlook in Lone Tree is equipped with two built- in iPads that can control all of the electronic systems. (Heritagehillscolorado.com )

Apple's iPad revived the long-struggling tablet-computer market.

Now it's invading the custom-home industry.

A model home in the Overlook neighborhood in Lone Tree's Heritage Hills is equipped with two built- in iPads that can control all of the electronic systems in the home, including lights, motorized shades, music and television systems, baby monitors and closed-circuit cameras.

The iPads, featuring 10-inch screens, are designed to remain docked in the wall but can be removed.

The dual iPad control system costs roughly $5,000, said Travis Deatherage, a partner with Denver-based Solstice Multimedia, the company that built the system. Audio, video, security and other equipment takes the overall cost to about $60,000.

"The iPad has brought the entry-level price point down significantly, because an 8-inch in-wall touch screen before cost upwards of $3,000 or more," Deatherage said. "Now we can get a $500 iPad and still provide most of the functionality that an in-wall touch panel can give."

The brain of the system is built into the home's mechanical room and communicates with the iPads via Wi-Fi.

The system can be controlled by a third, mobile iPad or via an iPhone or iPod Touch using an application designed for the devices' smaller screens.

"It can run everything in your house, including your thermostat and your swimming pool," said Dan Verdoorn, co-owner of Celebrity Custom Homes, the home's builder. "It's a totally integrated and flexible system."

The base price on the 3,400-square- foot model home featuring the built- in iPad technology is $718,000.

Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209, avuong@denverpost.com or twitter.com/andyvuong

 

Apple's iPad 2 Smart Cover color conspiracy

 The Apple Smart Cover for iPad 2 comes in 10 colors, but arguably the best colors cost more.

(Credit: Apple)

The other day I noticed that one of our tech editors here, Joe Kaminski, had a light blue Smart Cover on his iPad 2. Now Joe prides himself on being kind of a macho guy--some of you might know him from the Digital City podcast--so a little ribbing was in order.

I said, "Dude, why does a guy like you have baby-blue iPad cover?"

"I know, I know," he said. "It's kind of lame, but it's the best color they had in the cheaper version. What, I'm gonna get that DayGlo orange or green one? No way. All the colors suck and I wasn't gonna pay no $69 for the friggin' leather version after already paying $750 for the iPad [he has the 64GB white Wi-Fi-only version]. So I went with the blue. At least it's blue."

"Light blue," I reiterated.

"I know, I know," he said. "But I'm telling you, man, Apple did it on purpose. They made the good colors in the leather version so you'd pay the extra $30."

He then showed me Apple's Web site and forced me to assess my color options for the Smart Cover. Now I'm sure plenty of people out there like pastels, but I had to agree with Joe, none of the colors in the cheaper $39 polyurethane version were appealing to me (I probably would have gone with orange if I had to). However, I did like both the carbon and navy blue in the "aniline-dyed" Italian leather version. Black would have been fine, too.

We took the matter to Senior Editor Scott Stein, who owns an iPad 2 with a lime-green Smart Cover. He agreed with our theory that Apple, in its own subtle way (or not-so-subtle way, depending on how you look at it), was nudging people to step up to the more expensive leather covers. However, he said that the Apple salespeople at the store where he bought his iPad 2 didn't try to upsell him on a more expensive cover. They actually said the polyurethane on the lower-priced covers would hold up better over time than leather, which was more susceptible to cracking and scuffing.

I don't know if that's really true, but Stein ended up with a lime-green cover. He says he has no problem with it and it doesn't threaten his masculinity, even if it does run a little "Easter egg-ish" for his tastes. Joe, however, pines for a little leather--or at least, the darker, more muted colors of some of the leather Smart Covers.

This may all seem silly and highly superficial. And it is--until you stop to consider that Apple is selling millions of these things and that an extra $30 starts to add up after you do the multiplication.

Maybe down the road you'll see a slate or black polyurethane version of the Smart Cover and guys like Joe won't end up feeling like they had to settle because they didn't want to pay an extra $30 for a cover. The other option, of course, is to wait for some other company to make a Smart Cover-style case for the same price as Apple's or even less. As you can see from the growing number of options below, one probably isn't too far away.

View the original article here

IPad Puts Microsoft Profit Below Apple's

April 29, 2011, 4:07 PM EDT By Dina Bass

(Updates with closing shares in fifth paragraph.)

April 29 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp.’s Windows sales slumped last quarter as the iPad crimped demand for consumer laptops, marking the first time in 20 years that the software maker reported a smaller quarterly profit than Apple Inc.

Revenue in Microsoft’s Windows division fell 4.4 percent to $4.45 billion, the Redmond, Washington-based company said yesterday in a statement. That missed the $4.6 billion average prediction of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Net income was $5.23 billion, eclipsed by the $5.99 billion reported by Apple last quarter.

Consumer PC shipments dropped 8 percent in the quarter, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein said. Netbooks -- the cheap laptops that became popular during the recession -- plunged 40 percent, partially because of defections to tablet computers, he said. The decline overshadowed a better-than- anticipated performance from Microsoft’s Office unit and increased PC demand from corporations.

“You have to live underneath a rock not to know that the iPad has taken share from the netbook,” said Pat Becker Jr., principal of Portland, Oregon-based Becker Capital Management Inc., which holds Microsoft shares as part of its $2.5 billion in assets. “It’s a problem on the consumer side, and that’s a market where Microsoft continues to give up territory to Apple.”

Microsoft fell 79 cents, or 3 percent, to $25.92 at 4 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. The shares have declined 7.1 percent this year.

Less Than Apple

Net income rose to 61 cents a share, from $4.01 billion, or 45 cents, Microsoft said yesterday. Excluding a 5-cent per-share tax benefit, earnings matched the 56-cent average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

The results underscore the ascendance of Apple, which surpassed Microsoft as the world’s most valuable technology company last May. The last time Apple’s profit was bigger than Microsoft’s was 1991.

While PC shipments to corporate customers rose 9 percent, tablet competition accounted for some of the sluggishness in consumer sales, Klein said in an interview.

“It’s fair to say tablet is some of that,” he said.

Total PC sales declined 2 percent last quarter, Microsoft said. That the Windows business performed even worse adds to the concern over Microsoft’s performance, said Brendan Barnicle, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities in Portland.

Office Sales

“That’s suggesting some market share loss, some real deterioration,” said Barnicle, who rates Microsoft’s stock “sector perform.”

Microsoft’s overall sales rose to $16.4 billion, compared with the $16.2 billion average projection. That reflected demand for such products as Office business-productivity software and programs for servers -- the computers that run networks.

“We are seeing businesses invest in technology,” Klein said. “They are buying hardware and they are buying Microsoft software.” Microsoft expects corporate PC shipments to outpace consumer sales for the rest of the year.

Sales in the business division, which sells Office software and is the company’s biggest unit, rose 21 percent to $5.25 billion, compared with the $4.9 billion average estimate of analysts. Revenue at the Server and Tools unit was $4.1 billion, compared with the $4 billion analysts projected.

“There is a tale of two cities going on here,” said Brent Thill, an analyst at UBS AG in San Francisco, who recommends buying Microsoft shares. “You have consumers who say an iPad is good enough for consuming data, but for the enterprise side, those enterprises are continuing with Microsoft. The thing that has hurt Microsoft is that tablets are no question the must-have item for consumers.”

--With assistance from Ian King and Adam Satariano in San Francisco. Editors: Tom Giles, Nick Turner

To contact the reporter on this story: Dina Bass in Seattle at dbass2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net

View the original article here

Apple's iPad miss prompts cuts in forecast

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc surprised no one with yet another quarter packed with spectacular numbers. But a miss in sales targets on the iPad may prompt some to temper their lofty views.

Apart from the iPad hiccup, investors appeared uniformly delighted with the near-doubling of the company's profit, sending its stock up 2 percent.

The stunning showing -- again -- alleviated Wall Street's main concern: pressure on margins from Japan's disaster. And it seemed a sterling report card for Tim Cook, the heir apparent to Steve Jobs, now on his third medical leave and widely expected not to return.

But Apple will face some tough year-over-year comparisons in coming quarters. Its double-digit growth rate on sales, which skyrocketed 83 percent to nearly $25 billion last quarter, may be hard to sustain.

"They are going to have comparison issues on the growth side," said Michael Walker, portfolio manager at WP Stewart. "They can't grow 83 percent forever. There's no way."

Apple sold fewer-than-expected iPads, at a little under 5 million versus estimates of up to 6 million, as the transition to a new model and Japanese supply chain tangles triggered shortages of critical components.

IHS iSuppli now estimates Apple will ship 39.7 million units for all models of the iPad this year, slashing 9.2 percent off its February figure of 43.7 million.

"While Apple is now on track to significantly increase its production volume in the second quarter, the company reportedly is still falling substantially short of its target production goal for April," said Rhoda Alexander, director of monitor research at IHS.

Still, at 39.7 million, IHS' forecast is on the higher side of Street estimates. BofA Merrill Lynch took down its forecast for iPad sales a tad to 26.4 million from 26.8 million. JPMorgan now estimates Apple selling 27.3 million, down from 28.9 million.

Investors remain wary of the dangers a prolonged logistics disruption in Japan -- which supplies more than one-tenth of the world's electronics -- pose to the global tech supply chain. Apple is said to rely on Asia's second-largest economy for crucial touchscreen and internal components.

Shares of Apple ended last week up 2.4 percent at $350.70. But that only brings the world's most valuable technology company back to where it was before the March 11 earthquake.

BENCH STRENGTH

Cuts aside, the company is on a tear and demand has never been an issue. Sales of the iPhone more than doubled, and made up almost half of revenue in the March quarter. On the iPad 2, Apple said it sold every one it could make.

On Thursday, more than 10 brokerages raised their price target on the stock, with Ticonderoga Securities expecting the shares to touch $612 in the next year.

"Is (Apple) a grown-up company? Yes. Is it a well managed company? Absolutely," Alex Gauna, analyst with JMP Securities, said. "Does it have talent internally beyond Steve Jobs? It sure does."

Under Cook, Apple embarked on a global roll-out of one of its most high-profile products, the iPad2, that was largely successful despite a slow global economy and a major earthquake in Japan, which houses hundreds of its parts suppliers.

Apple saw a limited impact in the quarter on supply or component pricing from the disaster and said it did not see any unsolvable problems.

"The fact that they keep performing quarter in, quarter out, is a testament to the bench strength of management talent," said Barry Jaruzelski, a partner with Booz and Co who leads its global technology practice.

The big growth story, though, is causing him to wonder if the law of large numbers may soon catch up.

"To grow 10 percent of a $100 billion company, which is now their run rate ... you need to find $10 billion of new revenue," Jaruzelski said. "That means you need to find one and half Fortune 500 companies each year just to grow 10 percent."

But investors are not too worried for now, given its enviable place with well-designed products and market dominance.

"People who worry about the size of Apple don't understand the sheer size of the markets they are selling in," Walker said. "One way we look at it is that there is about $950 billion spent on IT every year."

"Apple addresses almost $600 billion of that $900 billion."

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

View the original article here

iPad Touch - Apple's Latest Fruit

Is there anyone who doesn't want to have an iPad touch?

Apple has once again produced a fruit of genius---the iPad touch. The fresh product of Apple, iPad touch, is one of the most coveted multi-purpose devices that allow users to peruse the Web, use email, play music and games, store pictures and watch videos, TV and movies. The iPad touch looks very like a bigger iPhone, but is not simply an iPhone. It also features a portable or a netbook but it is smaller in comparison to that. In fact, iPad is a new, exciting technology that works as a full laptop and an iPhone yet is a class all its own.

In addition, the device is 0.5 inches thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds - lighter than any netbook and includes a 9.7-inch LED-backlit display with IPS technology. It also includes a 1GHz Apple-built A4 processor which incorporates the CPU and graphics. It's got a 178-degree viewing angle and sports a 1024768 pixel resolution display at 132 pixels per in.. That implies iPad permits you to execute things you can't do on any other machine. Plus it has the following features for such a sleek and light device:

Safari

The large multi-touch screen on iPad lets you see webpages as they were intended to be seen - one full page at a time.

Mail

by using a split-screen view, you can see both an opened email and all the messages in your mail.

Photographs

iPad is an extraordinary way to enjoy and share stills. For instance, you can collect and display your stills in an album like they're in a stack. You can flip through your photos, zoom in or out, watch a slideshow, or even use iPad like a digital photo frame. One of the other good features of iPad is easily importing and synchronizing stills from your personal computer.

Video

any sort of video can simply be observed on the big and high-resolution screen on the iPad. IPad has a huge screen with no buttons and no other distracting features. So you can watch your HD movies, television shows or any videos by feeling completely immersed.

iPad is integrated with iPod apps.

iTunes

To skim and buy podcasts, TV shows or music, just tap on the iTunes Store icon. You will quickly find thousands of television shows, movies, songs and podcasts. iPad also enables you to preview songs before you purchase them.

App Store

iPad is virtually integrated with 140.000 apps from the App Store. By drumming the App Store icon on the screen, apps can be perused, bought, and downloaded wirelessly without delay to the iPad.

iBooks

iPad offers us another a great way to read or buy books.?t is even possible to see topography with the new terrain view. But there's more: you may also search for a close-by business type and tap the business to see the route and directions from where you are.

Notes

iPad uses an expansive display and large, onscreen keyboard to make jotting down notes straightforward for you.

Calendar

iPad supplies the calendar you need by showing Day, Week, Month or List perspectives. In this fashion, iPad allows for a top level view of a whole month, or the details of a single day.

Spotlight Search

you can search your mail, contacts, calendar, iPod, and notes across iPad. Its spotlight Search feature even permits you to search apps you have downloaded from the App Store. This allows you to quickly find what you're trying to find. I mean, just imagine how such a light contraption could carry a large amount of hi-tech features in its body; you certainly won't expect it to be as inexpensive as you want it to be. Or certainly you could not expect Apple to create such a device only to give away free iPad touch to us, right?

However, there are sites that offer to offer you free iPad touch if you complete their offers and if you are actually prepared to have one, you can check for free iPad touch offers in the net; Or if you can afford to purchase one, why not? Either way, the iPad touch will not give you any regrets for purchasing it. I suspect those wonderful features, fascinating and classy design is reason enough as to the reasons why you should buy one right now!

For more information about free iPad touch visit us at http://free-iPad-today.info

Apples iPad Hype - Why it Was Worth the Wait

The Apple iPad has been touted as the next big thing in personal computing for months prior to it's release date. As a former staunch supporter of everything Microsoft, I consider myself to be one of the newly enlightened. Only recently converting to a Mac Mini for most of my applications, did I consider what a device like the iPad could do for me in terms of productivity. Following are five reasons that the Apple iPad successfully lives up to the pre-release hype, with a few minor quibbles in the interest of full disclosure.

*The iPad is revolutionary and has introduced a new way of computing

As with many Apple products, there are different price points (from $429.00 to $829.00, according to Apple's official site, depending on the model you choose). This aids in allowing more people to purchase the product, thus getting more people to buy the product and acclimate to the technology overall. What this means is that this very convenient way of computing will affect more people's lives in a positive way.

As an affiliate marketer, I appreciate the ability to take a break from my computer chair or couch/ laptop to have a lighter, more portable computing solution. As light as the iPad is, it can be a bit awkward to hold for long periods of time, depending on your position. The long rumored technology of flexible screens would be a giant leap forward. As innovative as Apple is, it wouldn't be ridiculous to assume that this technology would be implemented as soon as possible on the iPad.

*Easy web browsing from anywhere (just about)

The integration of the Wifi/ Wifi 3G solution for access has been a mostly successful affair, with the exception of some users complaining on message boards about problems connecting. Certainly a new product is going to have some bugs to work out and firmware/ other software updates will likely fix most users' issues. I personally find the dimmable backlight to be very handy for webpages that use a lot of bright space and graphics, which can be tough on the eyes. The lack of a webcam is a minor annoyance for some, but will almost certainly be provided on future models, allowing face to face chatting on your iPad.

*Most responsive screen

Although there are benchmarks set for screen responsiveness, the best experience for most people (myself included) is actual experience with the device. I am a fast typist, so I appreciate a keyboard that's easy on the fingers and can handle the speed with which I type. I have tried many touch screen keyboards and have always been disappointed with them, relegating them at least in my mind to acceptable use only on phones.

Especially when rotated to the landscape position, the keys are large (pretty close to full size and just about right for me) and spaced like a physical keyboard. Typing ahead of the buffer is a problem for me with many devices, but not with the iPad. Someone could make a lot of money inventing a system to keep the screen from getting so many fingerprints on it, which is one reason why I prefer a physical keyboard. The next generation iPad will be even better, if the leap forward in improvement from the original iPod to the iPod touch is any indication.

*The iPad is intuitive to use

This is the point where the engineers and designers working on the iPad should be congratulated. Just about anyone can pick it up and understand how to use it in just a few minutes. Especially if you're used to the iPod Touch or iPhone interface, this interface will come very naturally to you.

With just a few minutes, I was able to show an older adult in my life how to use the iPad. It bears mentioning that this person had a difficult time with both the iPod Touch and iPhone previously. I'd think a market would exist for older folks who like to have larger buttons to work with.

*The iPad is better than the Kindle for reading ebooks

Particularly for those of us who read a lot of e books, the previously mentioned dimming backlight makes the iPad easy on the eyes. Putting e books on the device is simple in the tradition of Apple user interfaces. As with other e book readers, the iPad supports different methods of doing just this and that make it a pleasure to use as an ebook reader. The entire layout of the iPad is superior to the Kindle, from the ability to rotate to a large screen. With some very minor (at least to me) quibbles that will likely be worked out in revisions to software, the Apple iPad has lived up to the hype preceding it's release.

You can read more about the Apple iPad at my Apple iPad Hype Blog. You may also find my Apple iPad Hype Lens interesting. My name is Jim McClinsey and writing helpful articles is my passion.