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While most of our top stories this week were about the iPad, our number one post was about how Google Street View is now, no joke, available in 3D. Go get your glasses and check it out. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010: Verizon, AT&T and Cisco are talking up the Internet of Things , Gowalla added real-time feeds, and augmented reality cartoons are going to save our kids. Read on for more. Sponsor Story of the Week: Google Street View in 3D Google Street View in 3D: More Than Just an April Fool's Joke You Are Not a Gadget: The Continuing Case Against Web 2.0 E-Books on the iPad: iBooks vs. Kindle for iPad iPad Problems Begin to Surface Digg Plans to Kill the DiggBar & Unban all Domains iPad: The First Real Family Computer More coverage and analysis from ReadWriteWeb ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit Join us for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit on May 7 in Mountain View, California as we explore the latest mobile development trends, both the technology and the emerging business applications. Be a part of the discussion on geo-location services , augmented reality , native app vs. browser-based , commerce and marketing , mobile social networking and the Internet of Things. Sponsorship enquiries: sales@readwriteweb.com . Mobile Web Why iAds Could be Bigger Than iPads Apple Announces iPhone OS 4 with Support for Multitasking? Farewell, Keyboard - Generation I Will Grow Up on Touchscreens More Mobile Web coverage Augmented Reality "Do Crew" Augmented Reality Cartoons Help Get Kids Off the Couch More Augmented Reality coverage Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Our Newest Research Report We're pleased to announce ReadWriteWeb's latest premium report, Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Analysis of the Leaders, the Challenges and the Future . This report will help you develop a sophisticated understanding of Augmented Reality (AR), the mobile and Web technology that places data on top of a user's view of the physical world. The research included will help you decrease your AR development time to market by learning from the first wave of early adopters. AR offers a new marketing and product paradigm for a high impact, high value customer experience. More than 1,000 AR campaigns were kicked-off last year and we expect to see many more in 2010. In this report, we profile key AR development companies, their campaigns as well as development lessons learned. For more information or to buy the report, visit here . Internet of Things Verizon, AT&T & Cisco Talk Up Internet of Things Our Network is Alive More Internet of Things coverage Real-Time Web Gowalla Adds Real-time Feeds and Activity Streams For Maximum Mashup Action Twitter's Translation Problem More Real-Time Web coverage . Don't miss the next wave of opportunity on the Web supported by real-time technology! Get ReadWriteWeb's report, The Real-Time Web and its Future . Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App We recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app . As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we've made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes . ReadWriteStart Our channel ReadWriteStart , sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark , is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs. Internet of Things: Opportunities For Entrepreneurs Why You Need to Be Developing for the iPad Right Now NYC Startup Job Fair: How Graduates Can Get a Great Job at a Startup ReadWriteEnterprise Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise is devoted to 'enterprise 2.0' and using social software inside organizations. Is the iPhone Now as Enterprise Ready as the Android? Google Executive Says Google Buzz Coming Soon to the Enterprise ReadWriteCloud Our channel ReadWriteCloud , sponsored by VMware and Intel, is dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing. How Cloud Computing Can Help A Small Business Get Out of the Recession Does the iPad App Give Rackspace An Advantage? This Tweet is Priority 1: SalesForce.com's Chatter is Transactional Social Media That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone. Discuss
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Weekly Wrap-up: 3D Street View, the Case Against Web 2.0, iPad Problems, And More...
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During today's iPhone OS 4 event , Apple announced that it plans to bring iBooks and the iBookstore to the iPhone once the new OS becomes available later this year. It is not clear, however, why Apple plans to wait this long to bring its e-reader software and e-book store to the iPhone. After all, being able to sync books between the two devices would put Apple's feature set close to being on par with Amazon's Kindle platform. Sponsor Just like the Kindle apps, iBooks will be able to sync pages and bookmarks between the iPad and the iPhone versions. Judging from what we have seen so far, iBooks on the iPhone basically looks like an exact copy of the iPad version - with a few concessions to the smaller screen. Isn't iBooks Just Another App? At its core, the iBooks application is nothing else but just another iPhone app. As far as we can see, iBooks doesn't rely on any special abilities that are only available in the iPhone OS 3.2 on the iPad or the newly announced iPhone OS 4. Given that Apple is tying iBooks so closely to the next OS release, chances are that iBooks for the iPhone won't work on the original iPhone and older iPod touch models and won't be available as a stand-alone download. Maybe the team behind iBooks was just to preoccupied with developing the iPad app in time to also focus on the iPhone app. Maybe Apple doesn't want to blur the lines between the iPad as an e-book reader and the iPhone. None of this, however, really explains why Apple plans to wait until the release of the iPhone OS 4 to launch iBooks for the iPhone and forgo all the possible e-book sales it could get from iPhone users. One of Amazon's big advantages over iBooks and the iBookstore (besides the fact that some people simply prefer the Kindle app and that Amazon has a larger book selection), is that users can easily read and sync their Kindle books between the iPhone, iPad, Kindle and desktop. There is also a good chance that Barnes & Noble will soon release an iPad version of its iPhone e-reader. With this, the company's e-books will then be available on the B&N Nook, a number of third-party e-readers, the iPhone and the iPad. By not releasing iBooks for the iPhone for another few months, Apple will probably lose quite a few customers to Amazon. After all, Apple has already sold close to 80 million iPhone OS devices and less than 1 million iPads. Image credit: gdgt Discuss
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iBooks is Coming to the iPhone this Summer - Why the Wait?
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During a presentation on Apple's Cupertino campus this morning, the company's CEO, Steve Jobs, announced the next version of the iPhone operating system: iPhone OS 4. Apple will release a preview version to developers today and plans to release the OS to consumers in the summer. Among the new features in the OS are multitasking with the help of a new set of APIs. Developers will get access to over 1,500 new APIs, and users will see over 100 new features. Jobs also announced that Apple has already sold 450,000 iPads. Sponsor Note : This is a breaking news story. We will update this story throughout the morning as more news becomes available from the iPhone OS 4 event. Just reload this page to see the updates. iPhone OS 4 New in iPhone OS 4 Fast task switching Multitasking Folders Enhanced mail app Local push notifications Background location services Task completion in the background iBooks for iPhone Enterprise enhancement Game Center social gaming network iAd advertising network In total, Apple has now sold close to 85 million devices that run the iPhone OS. Developers, who will get access to the new OS today, will be able to access over 1,500 new APIs , including better APIs for in-app SMS, smarter ways to access the accelerometer and access to new users features like 5x digital zoom, home screen wallpapers, and access to Bluetooth keyboards. iPhone OS 4 will also finally include support for multitasking. Jobs noted that Apple isn't the first company to bring this feature to the market, but wants "to be the best." A simple double-click on the home button will bring up a task menu at the bottom of the screen. This, however, is just a way to quickly switch between apps. No Multitasking for iPhone 3G Most of these newly announced features will run on the iPhone 3GS and third generation iPod touch, but users with an iPhone 3G or second generation iPod touch will not get access to the new multitasking features. Apple plans to release iPhone OS 4 for the iPad in the fall. Background Apps To run services in the background, as Apple's SVP of iPhone software Scott Forstall noted, apps will have to access a new set of APIs. Music apps like Pandora will be able to stream their music in the background and use the iPod controls in the lock screen to control the playback. Until now, exiting an app like Pandora would stop the music playback. According to Pandora's developers, making the app background aware only took one day. VoIP services like Skype will now also be able to run in the background. Apple will now allow location services to run in the background. This will be a major boon for turn-by-turn direction services like Tom Tom and location-based social networks like Loopt, which Apple specifically mentioned during the event. In addition, apps will also be able to send local push notifications and apps will be able to complete tasks like photo uploads in the background. Folders With iPhone OS 4, Apple is also introducing a new way to organize applications - something that those of us who have installed way too many apps on our phones will appreciate. Now, users will be able to organize apps into folders. To do this, you simply drag and drop apps on top of each other. The OS automatically creates a name for these folders (presumably based on the apps' categories in the App Store), but you can also edit the name yourself. Folders can also live in the dock. This will come in handy if you want to have all your games or news apps available at a moment's notice. Enhanced Mail App iPhone OS 4 will also bring an enhanced mail app with a unified inbox and the ability to organize emails by thread. In addition, users will finally be able to open attachments with apps. Game Center For gamers, Apple is introducing the Game Center, which is basically a social gaming network that will feature automatic matchmaking for multiplayer games, leaderboards and achievements. iBooks Comes to the iPhone After Apple introduced iBooks for the iPad, it was only a matter of time before the company would introduce iBooks for the iPhone. Just like the Kindle app, iBooks will sync pages and bookmarks between the iPad and iPhone. iPhone users will also be able to access the iBookstore right from their device. iPhone in the Enterprise For enterprise users, Apple is introducing a number of new features, including improved security courtesy of support for SLL VPN. Enterprises will now also be able to distribute apps wirelessly. iAd Unsurprisngly, Apple also announced its new iAd mobile advertising platform . According to Jobs, "most of this mobile advertising really sucks." According to Jobs, the best way to deliver mobile ads in not through search ads but inside mobile apps. Jobs noted that Apple wants ads in apps to be even more interactive than on the Web. Currently, according to Jobs, people don't click on ads because it takes them out of the app. Given that iAd is a built-in OS-wide feature, however, Apple thinks that it can deliver a better experience for users. Jobs also took a swipe at Adobe and noted that these interactive ads will be developed in HTML5. Judging from Apple's demos during the event, these ads can be highly interactive and many of them resembled mini-games more than traditional display ads. Apple will sell, host and deliver the ads and share 60% of the revenue with developers. Update on the iPad: 450,000 Sold At the beginning of his presentation, Jobs also recapped last week's launch of the iPad. According to Jobs, the company managed to sell 450,000 iPads since the device went on sale on Saturday. iPad users have downloaded over 600,000 books from the iBookstore and 3.5 million iPad apps from the App Store. It's not clear how many of these books were free books, however. Jobs also announced that the App Store has now delivered over 4 billion apps to iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users, and that there are close to 3,500 iPad apps in the store already. Thanks to our friends at Gizmodo and gdgt for providing excellent live coverage of the event today. Discuss
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Apple Announces iPhone OS 4 with Support for Multitasking
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Should college students consider buying an iPad to use in place of netbook or notebook computer? Since the release of the new Apple slate device a week ago, this question has weighed on the minds of students, parents, teachers and school administrators alike. On the surface, the iPad seems like it could be the ideal device for mobile computing on campus with features like its optional iWork office suite, an Internet-connected bookstore called iBooks which supports the commonly used DRM-free ePub format, the 160,000+ applications available via iTunes, many of which are educational in nature and, of course, access to the greatest research tool ever invented: the Web. However, despite the iPad's pluses, there are still some issues that students should consider before purchasing this device. Sponsor Problem #1: Wi-Fi Access (or Lack Thereof) The iPad comes in several models , each with varying storage sizes and Internet connectivity options. At the bottom of the lineup is the $499 Wi-Fi only 16 GB iPad, the model that money-strapped students can just barely afford, if they can afford an iPad at all. But without a 3G data connection, Internet access may be limited. In fact, students may not even be able to connect to their own college's Wi-Fi network. For example, George Washington University's I.T. Communications and Marketing Manager Rachel Blevins recently told a reporter at the school's independent newspaper that the university's wireless network would not work with the Apple iPad. The problem, explained Blevins, is "both a security and a support issue, because many of the small [personal digital assistants], smartphone, and pad systems use sign-in security, which is currently not compatible with our systems." What Blevins is referring to is the VPN client software currently used at the university to connect students to resources typically limited to campus use only. Although the iPad software has built-in PPTP, IPSec, Cisco VPN software many universities (and of course, businesses too, as we pointed out earlier ) use SSL VPN, a more secure solution which is not supported by the iPad. That means that students with the Wi-Fi only iPad may not be able to connect to their college's network - often the only method of Internet access available in classrooms and other on-campus hangouts. Problem #2: Writing Papers The iPad doesn't come with a keyboard. Although one is available as an optional $69 accessory , the included keyboard on the iPad is a virtual, on-screen keypad. In tests, many iPad reviewers found this keyboard was surprisingly easier to type on than they expected, especially in landscape mode, but for students writing long term papers, it may still fall short. A generation from now, after kids have grown up with touchscreen technology , that may no longer be the case. But at the moment, most college students will likely prefer hardware keyboards. Another issue: when the paper is complete, many professors still require a printout, not an electronic document. However, the iPad doesn't include a printing function. There are a few third-party applications that offer this ability ( WSJ's Walt Mossberg recommends Print Online's $5 app, for example), but none are as simple as a built-in technology would be. (Side note: printing support may be a feature added to the upcoming iPhone/iPad software Apple is announcing later today. Check back for an update). Problem #3 : iWork Doesn't Work for Students? The optional iWork applications (Pages, Sheets and Keynote) are Apple's version of Microsoft Office's Word, Excel and Powerpoint. However, some are already finding them difficult to use for their purposes. One example: in the tests documented here , creating files on the iPad went well, but the sync solution provided by iTunes caused issues for the reviewer. We also noticed some problems ourselves, documented in an early review by Frederic Lardinois: "While you can easily import and export documents (Pages and Word) by email or through iTunes , complex documents don't always survive this move intact," Lardinois explained. "Footnotes and endnotes, for example, are simply deleted, making Pages for the iPad almost useless for a lot of students and academics. Tables of content simply become part of the text, which means that they don't auto-update any more." He also noted that Pages on the iPad doesn't offer a word count, something many college students need in order to know if their paper meets a professor's requirements. Finally, Apple's document-sharing service iWork.com , while great for sharing files with other people, doesn't function as a way to sync files between devices. Problem #4: No USB Port iPad's lack of a USB port may not be an issue for some - so much of what we do now is web-based, after all. However, for college students who have become accustomed to porting their files around on keychain drives, the missing USB port requires a change in their workflow which may not fit in with their current lifestyle. Instead of being able to plug in a portable flash drive to the iPad as they could with their Mac or PC, files can only be sent to the iPad via iTunes sync, email or web download. There are some third-party applications that can help, but again, nothing is as good as a built-in solution. Conclusion: iPad's a Great "In-Between" Device, But Not a Notebook Replacement Despite these disadvantages, the iPad still has a lot to offer college students as an additional device, if not a PC replacement. For example, Blackboard's free iPad application looks quite useful. From the app, students can check grades and assignments, add discussion board comments and blog posts and email instructors and classmates. Plus, the iTunes Application Store has thousands of educational applications like advanced calculators, reference guides, dictionaries, note-taking apps, planners, utilities and much more. The iPad also plays podcasts, like those offered via iTunesU , the collection of audio and video presentations created by many universities to distribute recorded lectures, films, schedules, syllabi, notes, maps and other information to students. However, given the issues listed above, it's clear that the iPad and its software - at least in its current form - is not able to fully replace a notebook computer. Some of the problems may be addressed in time with revisions to the device's software, but for now the device remains a great "in-between" mobile gadget, not a next-gen notebook computer. Discuss
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Can the iPad Go to College?
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With the launch of the iPad, the value of content is being reconsidered once again. It's clear that free (the way of Google) isn't the goal of the publishing industry. As a result, many new iPad owners are faced with the question of whether the book or magazine they own or consume should be purchased again on the iPad. Similarly, developers are faced with a set of decision on how to appropriately extract payment from consumers. In this post, we'll take a look at the solution offered by Apple and a host of solutions that exist on the web that are available to the iPad as applications or web sites that charge for views. Sponsor To App, or not to App, That is a Question For content providers that have websites, or an existing relationship with Amazon, the question of whether to push content to Apple's book store, or to build an app is more complicated than first meets the eye. On one hand, getting paid through multiple channels makes a ton of sense. Apple, being very wise is working to find balance in the closed and open ecosystem. Its breakthrough product, iPad, supports web sites, applications like Kindle, and its own book store simultaneously. On the other hand, it can be a pain to track customer relationships and inventory across multiple channels. If your content is recurring (weekly, monthly), it is even more complicated. And, if you already have subscribers on your web site behind a paywall, it can be even more challenging to rationalize how to merge these customer populations and price points. In a way, we're all learning together and competition across channels is going to make it harder in the short term to figure out the right mix. Distribution Matters Apple's StoreKIt Framework is the tookit for developers to enable payments in iPhone and iPad applications. Apple has evolved its own rules and technology in the last several years to do this, and in 3.0 released last summer offered the Store Kit API. When first launched, only paid apps were able to offer recurring payments through Store Kit. However, in one of the more recent updates offered by Apple, the company changed the terms of Store Kit to allow developers to set the price of their application for "Free" and then to offer updates or subscriptions as additional payments. In the release of iPad this week, we saw veterans of the industry release amazing reader applications , but as reported in The Huffington Post , price does matter, and parity across offerings is still a question to be answered. Amazon offers its books and other goods via the iPhone in its Kindle for iPhone applicaiton, in this free application, Amazon is the back-end for payment and Apple is the distributor of the application. Amazon, like Apple has a direct relationship with publishers to offer their inventory in its stores. In recent weeks, it has been reported that intense negotiations have been underway between the publishers and Amazon on pricing and margin. As reported by AP , Amazon has seemingly conceded a new level of pricing control to publishers. Amazon and Apple are setting the pace for the future of computing. Both are engaged with content providers to work out all the kinks of pricing in this new world. We wonder if there is a way that both can win, as certainly they are both extremely well positioned and successful in payments, computing, and content distribution. Getting Paid is Hard - However Recurring Billing is a Real Pain In contrast to these end-to-end platforms for distribution, we took a look at companies that focus on the process of payment itself as offered as a platform to content and application developers. Aria Systems announced a new release of its PCI compliant platform to support iPad today. The company's core vision is to "Simplify Your Billing". To do that, the company is making a bet that content providers will want to extend their relationships with consumers via the iPad and integrate their web applications by announcing a future integration with Safari. Aria Systems brings a plug-and-play solution to integrating with back-end systems that a company may be running, including QuickBooks and SalesForce.com. It also specializes in dealing with the process of recurring billing transactions, which can be a difficult thing to work out in the context of subscription revenue recognition. The platform is described as being PCI complicant, which can be a huge benefit for content and application owners that don't want to take on the burden and liability of all of the controls of handling credit cards and personal privacy. Chargify is another software-as-a-service application that suggests its core value being "Build Your Business, Not Your Billing System". We think this is the value-add that both Chargify and Aria bring to companies that want to offer recurring payments. Many do not have the time to also become experts in the hard word of accounting and compliance. The Chargify solution is offered as a set of APIs to integrate into an existing application and offers an iPhone application to peer into the payments processes in play. Here's a quick view of how it works. Content Distribution Enters Into a New Chapter We are left wondering whether Apple or Amazon will extend their reach further beyond their current distribution. Will they grow their payment solutions to become the center of gravity for all payments for content on the web? Or, will solutions like Aria Systems and Chargify get closer to the distribution channel and offer app developers and content owners they can have a deeper relationship to consumers when they remove distribution as the driver of payments? We expect that in the next years content providers will require the best of both worlds will require both great distribution and simple billing. Perhaps we're asking the wrong question by focusing on what Rupert Murdoch is doing. Maybe we should ask what Wolverine would do. After all, content is king. Are you looking at recurring payments for your content or application? In 2010, is it possible to choose a single solution? Discuss
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Channeling Murdoch: Choices for Content Payments on the iPad
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