According to Wired and several other media outlets, Steve Jobs held a town hall meeting with Apple employees sometime late last week. Reportedly the two biggest topics were Google and Adobe.

Steve Jobs on Google:

We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says.Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.” Audience roars.

Then Jobs proceeded to call Adobe lazy and stated that Adobe’s shoddy implementation of Flash on the Mac is why they won’t support it on either the iPhone or iPad.

Jobs on Adobe:

Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.

Here are some points that MacRumors has received from insiders at the event.

- Apple will deliver aggressive updates to iPhone that Android/Google won’t be able to keep up with
- iPad is up there with the iPhone and Mac as the most important products Jobs has been a part of
- Regarding the Lala acquisition, Apple was interested in bringing those people into the iTunes team
- Next iPhone coming is an A+ update
- New Macs for 2010 are going to take Apple to the next level
- Blu-Ray software is a mess, and Apple will wait until sales really start to take off before implementing it.

Excellent, some exciting new updates await us in 2010.

With the launch of the long-rumored iPad this week, I was surprised by the device’s lack of camera. CrunchGear is reporting that the iPad simulator included in the new iPhone SDK 3.2 contains hints pointing to the ability to take photos in the Contacts app.

Tucked away within the iPad’s contacts application is an “Add Photo” button, purposed with.. well, adding photos. Everyone likes having photos assigned to their contacts, and there’s more than enough space on this thing to sync photos of all your friends – so nothing too strange there. What is odd, however, is the prompt that pops up: do you want to “Choose Existing Photo”, or do you want to “Take Photo”?

The “Take Photo” button could be included for several reasons. The least likely would be that Apple ported over much of the iPhone code to the device and neglected to remove the button. More likely is the idea that Apple is already working on the second-generation iPad with a camera built in. Another possible hypothesis is the idea that Apple scrapped the inclusion of a camera in the product at the last minute. Only time will tell.

With the dust around the newly-launched iPad barely settling, it appears Fujitsu is preparing to fight Apple over the iPad name. As MacRumors uncovered, prior to the launch of iPad, Apple had been filing for the iPad trademark in several countries, but not in the U.S. because that trademark was held by Fujitsu. Later investigation by MacRumors however uncovered that Apple had filed multiple extension requests to extend the allowed timeframe for Apple to oppose Fujitsu’s still-pending trademark application. That said, it does appear that Apple has finally filed for the iPad trademark in the U.S.

The New York Times is reporting that Fujitsu doesn’t intend to allow Apple to go unchallenged, hoping to protect the iPad name of Fujitsu’s retail inventory management device.

“It’s our understanding that the name is ours,” Masahiro Yamane, director of Fujitsu’s public relations division, said Thursday. He said Fujitsu was aware of Apple’s plans to sell the iPad tablet and that the company was consulting lawyers over next steps.

Apple still has until February 28th, 2010 to file its opposition agains Fujitsu’s iPad trademark application. Or they could just file for another extension.

This reminds me of the spat Apple and Cisco had over the “iPhone” name right after the introduction of the first iPhone.

Crafty little bugger.

Nice new blog featuring predominately white/grey photography.

Thoughtful and insightful as always. It’s apparent that de With has a deep understanding of his art.

Funny and Knowledgeable.

I wish my current client would read some of these rules.

I didn’t realize that Panic Inc. cofounder Steven Frank was British-born. Regardless, here is the awesome video of him becoming a U.S. citizen.

In conjunction with today’s launch of iPad, Apple also launched the iBooks store. iBooks is a virtual bookstore built the iPad. With the applications 3D bookshelf to display the user’s collection of books, a simple tap and you’re in the iBooks store where you can download book previews before you purchase them.

When reading a book, users can tap to the right to flip a page forward, and tap to the left to flip a page back.

The store will open with five major book publishers on board. They are, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Penguin, Macmillion, and Simon & Shuster. More are reportedly on their way.

This might just be crazy enough to save the print industry.

Apple has released it’s much rumored iPad tablet device.
Here are the core facts:

General
-9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology
-0.5 inches thick
-1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi)
-Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating
-Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously
-Storage: 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash drive
-Processor: 1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed, high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip
-Accelerometer
-Ambient light sensor
- On screen keyboard. Can use iPad keyboard dock accessory
-Runs all existing iPhone apps
-iBooks (books purchasable from online store. More details forthcoming)

Two models:
Wi-Fi model
-Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n)
-Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR technology

Wi-Fi + 3G model
-UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz)
-GSM/EDGE (850, 900,1800, 1900 MHz)
-Data only
-Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n)
-Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR technology

Location
-Wi-Fi
-Digital compass
-Assisted GPS (Wi-Fi + 3G model)
-Cellular (Wi-Fi + 3G model)

Battery and Power
-Built-in 25Whr rechargeable lithium-polymer battery
-Up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching video, or listening to music
-Charging via power adapter or USB to computer system

Input and Output
-Dock connector
-3.5-mm stereo headphone jack
-Built-in speakers
-Microphone
-SIM card tray (Wi-Fi + 3G model only)

In all, I feel that iPad is an evolution and not a revolution. It is striking, but it really does appear to be a big iPhone.

The Wi-Fi iPad model ships in 60 days, and the Wi-Fi+3G model ships in 90 days.

In the mean time you can watch Apple’s official video on there new product.

10AM: Steve Jobs is on stage.
10:03AM: Apple has 284 retail stores.
10:04AM: Over 140,000 Apps now in the App Store.
10:05AM: $15.6B in FQ1 2010 revenues.
10:06AM: Apple is the largest mobile product company in the world.
10:08AM:Talking about the first Powerbook
10:08AM: “SO all of us use laptops and smartphones… the question has arisen; is there room for something in the middle. We’ve wondered for years as well — in order to create that category, they have to be far better at doing some key tasks… better than the laptop, better than the smartphone.”
10:09AM: “What kind of tasks? Browsing the web. Doing email. Enjoying and sharing pics. Watching videos. Enjoying music. Playing games. Reading ebooks.”"If there’s gonna be a third category, it has to be better at these tasks — otherwise it has no reason for being.”
“Now some people thought that was a netbook — the problem is that netbooks aren’t better than anything!”
10:10AM:

10:14AM:

10:15AM: NO Flash Support.

10:18AM: “Next, photos… this is what photos looks like. I can look at everything as a list of photos. I can tap on it…” Flicks and gestures just like the iPhone.

10:22AM: iTunes on iPad

10:24AM: Maps app.

10:25AM: YouTube and Movies

10:30AM: Tech Specs Runs 1Ghz Apple A4 Chip. Apparently designed in-house.

10:32AM: Runs all iPhone apps right out of the box. Can pixel double games to full screen.

10:35AM “So all of the iPhone apps will run on this. In fact when you buy it, download all the apps you have right onto the iPad. Now if the developer spends some time modifying their app, they can take full advantage of this display.”

10:36AM “We rewrote all of our apps for this display. the iPhone SDK supports development for this now… and we’re releasing it today.”

10:36:AM: App Store

10:40AM: Game Demos

10:45AM New York Times and other print media demos.

10:49AM: Need for Speed Shift. Graphics are reportedly smooth.

10:50AM: 10:50AM Chad Evans from MLB.com — “We were excited to build something for the iPad. We had to create a whole new experience for this display.”

10:52AM: Scott: “While we wait for those apps to come out, we can all run our existing apps… and that is the app story for the iPad.” Steve Jobs is back on stage.

10:53AM “Isn’t that awesome? These guys only had two weeks. So we’ve seen some really great apps. Let me show you another… one of our apps. That’s an ebook reader. Now Amazon has done a great job of pioneering this… we’re going to stand on their shoulders for this. Our new app is called iBooks.”

Book shelf.

Five big partners.

10:56AM: Book Store is similar to iTunes.

10:58AM “Now, something very exciting… iWork. A little over a year ago I asked the head of our team about creating iWork for the iPad. The reaction was… ‘ahhh they require a lot of horsepower’”

10:59AM “Could the tablet handle that? You betcha. But they required a new UI — here’s Phil Schiller to tell you about it.”

11:00AM Phil Schiller SVP Product Marketing is on stage. “Good morning everyone. iWork is a suite of apps that millions of customers love.”

iWork for iPad.

Totally redesigned interface for iPad.

It appears iPad has different keyboards for different needs. Spreadsheet keyboard is different than, text entry keyboard.

11:11AM: “So what are we going to charge for applications like this? We’re gong to charge just $9.99 each.” $10 for Keynote, $10 for Pages, etc

11:12AM “Isn’t it great?” Some slight hesitation. “A few other things. I’d like to talk for a minute about iTunes. The iPad syncs over USB just like an iPhone or iPod.”

11:13AM “Now I’d like to talk about wireless networking. Every iPad has WiFi… but we’re also going to have models with 3G.”

11:14AM “Now what does it cost for the data plans? Well in the US carriers charge about $60 a month. We have a real breakthrough. Two awesome plans for iPad owners. The first one gives you 250MB of data a month for $14.99.”

11:14AM “We have an unlimited plan for just $29.99 a month.”

11:14AM “We have a breakthrough deal with AT&T.” Wow. Some serious sharp intakes of breath here.

11:15AM “So how do you turn this on and manage it? You can activate this right on the iPad. And there’s no contract — it’s prepaid.”

11:16AM “So we have a breakthrough deal in the US. We hope to have our international deals in the June / July timeframe. However, all of the iPad 3G models are unlocked, and they use the new GSM microSIMs.”

11:17AM “WiFI plus 3G if you want it. So iPad. It’s phenomenal. Email is fantastic, best device for photos, great for music, great for video. It runs almost all of the 140k apps on the app store, as well as a whole new generation of apps.”

11:17AM “And the new iBooks application. You can carry literally thousands of books around. And the iWork suite of apps with the best UI we’ve ever seen for something like this.”

11:17AM “What should we price it at?”

11:18AM “And just like we were able to meet or exceed our tech goals, we have met our cost goals… iPad pricing starts at $499.”

11:18AM “If you listen to the pundits, we’re going to price it under $1000, which is code for $999. When we set out to develop this, we had ambitious tech goals, but we had aggressive price goals.”

11:18AM “And just like we were able to meet or exceed our tech goals, we have met our cost goals… iPad pricing starts at $499.”

11:20AM “So $499 for 16GB of iPad. That’s our base model. 32GB is $599, 64GB is $799. 3G models cost an extra $130. $629, 729, and 829 with 3G.”

11:20AM “We will be shipping these in 60 days. 3G models will ship in 90 days.”

11:21AM “We’ve got some really great accessories. First one is a dock. You know the slideshow I showed you? When it’s in the dock you have a great picture frame. We have another dock that’s interesting… the keyboard dock.”

Now playing a demo video. No multitaksing, no phone calls (as far as I can tell)

11:30AM “Do we have what it takes to establish a third category of products?”

11:31AM “We think we’ve got the goods. We think we’ve done it. Another thing we’re excited about is that there’s already 75m people who know how to use this because of how many iPhones and iPod touches we’ve shipped.”

And that’s a wrap.

Most of these updates came from Engadget’s live update feed.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are moments away from the start of Apple’s scheduled media event, wherein it is widely expected Apple will unveil their widely-rumored tablet device.

I will attempt to keep Day & Age up to date with semi-live updates. So don’t turn that dial.

Boy, this stuff is exciting. I hope this crack-pot gets what’s coming to him.

I applaud anyone that is any good with water colors, I’m certainty not.

Financial Times is reporting that Apple has been pushing TV networks to lower the prices of their content on the iTunes store, in an effort to bolster what Apple considers low sales of TV episodes. This move would reportedly cut episode pricing in half from the current $1.99 to a new price of $.99.

The plan is seen as an integral part of the iPhone maker’s strategy for the tablet computer, which it is expected to unveil tomorrow.

However, networks are resisting the move as they fear a repeat of the music industry’s pact with Apple in 2003 to sell individual songs for 99 cents on iTunes. The price helped to simplify and boost downloads of digital music but dented album sales .

The report goes on to claim that Apple has been more concerned with print publishers ahead of tablet launch, but Apple will soon be turning their attention once again to the television networks hoping that the tablet will be a suitable platform to leverage against TV networks.

It’s also worth re-mentioning that Apple is rumored to be working on “best of television” packages of TV content that would in effect replace the need for cable TV subscriptions.

John Gruber explains what he believes is Apple’s reasoning for not allowing Flash on the iPhone, or why Flash doesn’t run very well on Mac OS X. Insightful as always.

This is easily the best HTML5 video implementation I’ve seen yet. HTML5 + H.264 video is the open video standard of the web, and in my point of view far superior to Flash video. I suspect HTML5 video will overtake Flash in a few years. That’s just my guess though.

EggWatchers is a cute little webpage that helps you determine how long you should boil your egg, and then keeps you entertained with a random YouTube video while you wait.

LaterBro is a neat little web app that allows you to schedule Twitter and Facebook posts.

This is a feature I wish was built into Twitter already, or at least a Twitter client.

HotHardware is reporting that AT&T might be losing their iPhone exclusivity at the upcoming Apple media event.

According to an inside source close to the going-ons involved in all of this, a new tablet of some sort may not be the only thing on deck for next Wednesday though. We have been led to believe by an inside source that AT&T will lose their iPhone exclusivity on the same day, though it’s not yet clear what other carrier (or carriers) will be stepping in to also carry the phone

Needless to say, AT&T is the exclusive carrier for the iPhone here in the U.S., and due to some of the company’s recent 3G woes, it has been a long standing rumor (hope?) that Apple would bring the iPhone to another carrier such a Verizon.

Many of you have heard me say this before, but I doubt Apple would bring the iPhone to Verizon simply because Verizon uses a cell technology that isn’t as widely used as AT&T’s. Thus, Apple would have to make a Verizon-specific iPhone, an added expense. Also worth noting was AT&T’s, and to a certain extent, Apple’s recent attack ads on Verizon’s network. In the mad, mad world of business, this doesn’t seem likely to me.

Apple has announced their financial results for fiscal Q1 2010, which would be the fourth calendar quarter 2009. Apple reported revenue of $15.68 billion and net quarterly profet of $3.38 billion, which works out to be $3.67 per diluted share. Compare these numbers to the year-ago-quarter’s $11.88 billion revenue, and net quarterly profit of 2.26 billion, or $2.50 per diluted share. International sales accounted for 58% of this quarter’s revenue. This is the most profitable quarter ever for Apple, with record-breaking revenue, which included the highest Mac and iPhone ales in company history.

Apple shipped 3.36 million Macs throughout the quarter which is a unit increase of 33% over the year-ago quarter. Apple also sold 21 million iPods throughout the quarter which works out to be an 8% decline over the year-ago quarter. Lastly, Apple sold 8.7 iPhones during this quarter which is a 100% increase over the year-ago quarter.

“If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”

Apple has also adopted new accounting standards which put an end to Apple spreading revenue out over a 24-month period after the date of purchase of iPhones or Apple TVs. Apple has also revised previous quarterly results to reflect this change.

It just so happens that I use the Gillette blades mentioned in this article, and have been raped with a 4750% markup.

Also, my friend Taylor Martin recently tried out a straight razor. He liked it too. Something fishy is going on here.

A hand-crafted initial cap everyday by Jessica Hische.

This week the Macalope looks at the idiot comments from PCWorld(imagine that), and the different announcements coming from Amazon.