Spring has sprung and like Persephone loosed from Hades’ bonds, our iPad app is now available to all and sundry. This app is literally years in the making and we have been back and forth and up and down regarding functionality, design, and look and feel for most of this month. I’m pleased to report, however, that it is ready to go, free, and fabulous.

The app connects our blog content with live Internet reactions as well as some amazing functionality centered around CrunchBase data. You can also just view Gadgets and Mobile content with one click and an offline mode will cache content for the road. It is retina-ready and looks pretty darn good.

An Android version is forthcoming and should be available this summer.

This is, obviously, version 1.0 and we’re planning updates over the next few months that will smooth out the interface and potentially reflect a new design direction for the site in general. Until then, sit back, relax, and start slip-sliding through the new TechCrunch iPad app.

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Special thanks to the whole team at AOL and thanks to you for reading.

Star Wars music homage by Will Gannon.

Remember Jitterbug, the big-buttoned phones for seniors that made using those confusing, new-fangled cellphone thingies so much easier to handle? Well it looks like someone has gone out and built the equivalent for the iPad. Which literally made me laugh out loud when I read the news, because the iPad is the first computer I’ve ever seen seniors adopt in droves. But hello anyway, Family Ribbon.

Everything about this app is funny. From the touted “health benefits” (apparently, a May 2012 Mayo Clinic study confirmed that a combination of exercising and using a computer may protect seniors against mild cognitive impairment!!!) to the stock photos of granny on iPad in the “how it works” section of the website.

I’ll spare you the gory details. Here’s the pitch in a nutshell: the app, which is “officially” launching on May 30th but is live now in the iTunes App Store, is “an easy-to-use app for the iPad which features an easy-to-use interface that helps seniors and kids stay connected to their families online.”

In case you missed that, it’s “easy to use.”

Because really, the iPad is so hard. And this UI is clearly better:

I’m sure the iPad’s complexity is why my 2-year has completely stolen mine, knows how to slide to unlock, flip through screens, launch and close apps, navigate within apps, and I’m pretty sure she’s already better than me at Angry Birds.

Let’s get real here, kids are not the issue with adopting new technology. Seniors, however, often struggle. And while I do understand the need to offer them assistance, I’m not sure that, of all things, it’s the iPad that’s so confusing. Computers, yes. Windows, yes. Mac OS X, yes. But iPad? No.

Sure, grandma and gramps might need a demo at the Apple Store or from you before they get it. But I’m not convinced they need something like this.

I will give the app one shout out as its saving grace – it offers a remote administration feature which could come in handy. The confused user can push the “call back request” app for assistance which sends a text, email and phone call (wait…omg, it’s this, WUPHF lives!) and can then tap a button to share their screen. It’s a screenshot-snapping feature, to be clear, not true remote administration.

Oh, and there’s an “easy Facebook” mode too:

I’m sorry, I just fell out of my chair.

Honestly, this may be the best thing I’ve seen on the Internet all day.

The app was co-created by two ex-McKinsey consultants, CEO Ivan Osadchiy and Mykola Komarvsky. I was just going to decline to cover (Osadchiy wanted to talk about the “many health benefits” that this application will bring), but I found I couldn’t help but share this news. Back to your regularly scheduled Facebook IPO-salivating now.

The iPad has, quite quickly, become the tablet of choice for enterprises, with some 97 percent of all tablet activations in Q1 of 2012 attributable to Apple’s tablet, according to Good Technology. So it comes as no surprise that apps are rushing into the wake of those purchases to make the iPad more work-friendly.

The latest in that story is a release of some social software from harmon.ie that will make SharePoint, the collaboration software from Microsoft, usable on the iPad, as well as the iPhone. Harmon.ie’s CEO, Yakov Cohen, says this marks the first time that business users can access SharePoint from both the iPad and desktop with the same user experience.

“Until now, you had solutions for business users only for the iPad or only for the desktop but not for both,” he says.

Harmon.ie has carved out a niche for itself as an integrator for enterprises that want to incorporate more “social” collaboration tools into their workflow on Windows but have held off for problems of security on consumer-grade social networks or for the fact that workers are not necessarily going on the internet as much as they are nosing around their own networks working on email.

The company says it already has 1 million people using its existing edition for Outlook, which which adds social features and collaboration to a user’s Outlook mail and calendar applications.

Putting SharePoint accessbility on the iPad gives harmon.ie a lot of potential in tapping a big market that has yet to be served: some 78 percent of corporate America already uses SharePoint, according to Forrester, with half of their workday (yes — half!) spent in email. Microsoft, perhaps understandably, has not created iPad and iPhone support for SharePoint itself.

The product is available as a free, read-only version, and a full version for $19.99 that lets users edit and collaborate on documents on the SharePoint platform. An MDM version, allowing for more secure connections, will be available in Q2, the company says.

Similarly, support for Android and Windows 8 coming “in future,” says Cohen. (harmon.ie for iPad is HTML5-based, he says, which makes it relatively painless to provision it for all HTML5-based platforms.)

iPad guilt? There needs to be a technical term for that feeling in the pit of a parent’s stomach that arises from handing over the iPad to their kids, only to watch them play brain rotting Outfit7 games or level after level of Angry Birds. Fortunately, some startups are focusing on developing more educational content for the iPad to help parents assuage some of their guilt over their kids’ ever-increasing screen time.

One such company is Daily Interactive, which is now launching Happly for iPad, a collection of original and curated content for kids, including online videos, games, and stories. And while the content may be deemed educational, the kids might not realize it, given the app’s focus on topics kids love to explore, like dinosaurs, space, sports, animals, how to’s and more.

The company was created by Brian Monnin and Greg Harris, who met back in the 90′s launching and developing interactive products for MSNBC.com. They later co-founded MetaStories, which was sold to Brightcove back in 2005. Harris was the creative director of MSNBC.com and, most recently, NationalGeographic.com, where he was in charge of the redesign of all their digital properties.

In other words, these two know a thing or two about creating digital content. But their motives for developing Happly were more personal ones. Explains Monnin, “I created Happly so that my wife Janine and I could get a better handle on filtering out websites and videos that we wouldn’t want our boys (ages 5 and 9) stumbling into. The iPad is clearly a great addition to our home but we’ve had our share of not-so-cool experiences with connected devices, too.”

He details some of those experiences here – it’s a funny, but sadly relatable story about how his kid learns how to drop the f-bomb courtesy of YouTube.

And so, Happly was conceived.

The app itself is rather clever. Instead of simply bundling its content into one large collection, parents can administer the app by setting up PIN-protected profiles where they customize what their children see. The categories, which include things like “Did you know?,” “How to do Stuff,” “Space & Beyond,” “Weird & Wacky,” “Dinos,” “Funny Videos,” and more, can all be toggled on and off as the parent chooses. (Note that I did encounter a bug where the toggles froze after my first customization, but the bug fix is being submitted to the App Store today, so it should no longer be an issue following the update). 

As noted above, some content is curated from web sources, while other content is originally produced. For example, the app’s creators added an informational graphic to augment a collection of stories about James Cameron’s dive to the Mariana Trench. On another piece, they worked with photographer Michael Nichols to refine his lifelong study of African elephants into kid-friendly format. “Our background – whether it be all the way back to MSNBC.com, or Discovery Channel, or National Geographic – is rooted in interactive storytelling,” says Monnin. “So it’s not just video or just games, it’s a blend.”

Plus, parents can add their own discoveries to the app, with features that let them search for new stories via an in-app browser or new videos from an in-app “add YouTube video” button. These features are only available from the parents’ login, however. Since parents set up profiles for each child, the child can only view the approved content, not search for new items.

Another interesting feature is an in-app messaging system that allows parent and child to communicate by leaving messages for each other. It’s a lot like what FingerPrint Digital is doing with their SDK for educational game makers, in fact. As with FingerPrint, the idea here is that the iPad doesn’t have to reproduce the passive TV-watching experience, it can be a platform for two-way communication and learning combined.

The challenge, of course, is making all this content as appealing as another round of a kid’s favorite mobile game. ”Our closet competitor is…every Angry Birds-type game that’s out there,” Monnin admits.

Daily Interactive is a five-person Seattle-based company which also produces digital apps and content for customers including NatGeo, Microsoft and others to help fund Happly’s development.

Happly is available for the iPad only, and is live in iTunes here.

We met Joe Hill in Norfolk, Virginia last week. He had a story to tell us. He has two autistic sons who have had trouble communicating and he noticed that the world of tools for autism often overlooked a few things – aesthetics, usability, and customization, to name three. Instead of relying on ready-made utilities, Joe wanted to make something fun and cool.

He created Aeir Talk. It’s an app that allows parents to create and record their own content for use in a very simple but effective method for communications. The parents record a set of verbs and nouns and add pictures of themselves or of familiar objects. When the kids need to communicate, they select a noun and a verb and press a button. The app creates a simple sentence. “I want to go outside, please” or “I want a carrot, please.”

It’s a simple program and many autistic kids use similar devices that cost a few hundred and have all the power of a pocket calculator. With the iPad, Hill was able to build a working system in a few weeks and now he and his sons use it to communicate around the house.

The app costs $1.99 and it’s already helped Joe’s two kids be a bit more responsive. It has plenty of graphical flourishes and the real value is in the customization and malleability of the vocabulary set. You can add anything you like – verbs, nouns, images, voice recordings – and its all personalized so junior feels a bit more comfortable.

In an vast app wasteland full of flashlights and fart soundboards, it’s nice to see something made with love by a father who knows what he’s doing. It’s a great teaching tool and useful for kids of all ages and abilities.

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Apple took to the wires this morning to announce that the new iPad will hit 12 countries later this week. Along with South Korea, this coming Friday the new iPad launches in Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, St. Maarten, Uruguay and Venezuela. Then, the following Friday, it hits Colombia, Estonia, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa and Thailand.

For better or worse, the new iPad will carry the suggested retail price of $499 USD and up. The iPad 2 will also be available at its new $399 price and might be the best bet in the majority of the markets just now getting the new iPad; only the North American markets have LTE data capabilities anyway.

These new markets will help the iPad extend its global dominance in the tablet wars. The iPad is far and away the most popular tablet on Earth but generic Android tablets have no doubt found a home in developing countries thanks to their generally lower price and wider availability. But that won’t stop the Apple machine. Cook & Co. will systematically roll out new products worldwide on Apple’s quest to be a trillion-dollar company.

Looks like we may see another development today in Apple’s ongoing iPad/4G controversy in Australia. The country’s Competition and Consumer Commission is meeting with Apple in court again today to try to get Apple to officially change the name of the device when it is sold in Australia.

Although many people know the tablet as “the new iPad” since launching the product in March, Apple has also been marketing the product as the new iPad with ‘Wi-Fi +4G’ in Australia and elsewhere. Apple quickly ran into trouble in Australia when the ACCC said Apple was misleading consumers: in fact, the tablet is not actually compatible with the country’s 4G networks.

Since then, Apple has agreed to refund consumers who bought the device thinking they were getting 4G; and the company has also been putting up notices wherever the iPad is sold warning them that it didn’t work with Australia’s 4G. But the ACCC, it seems, does not think this goes far enough.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Apple and the ACCC met today at a mediation hearing “without a resolution” over whether Apple would change the name of the device. The two are due to meet again later today in a “directions hearing” in Melbourne to decide the next course of action.

The case has two levels of significance for Apple: on one hand, it’s an embarrassing admission of one of its products falling short of what Apple claims it can do. That’s bad news for any company, but, as with “antenna-gate” and “heat-gate” these knocks always seem to attract disproportionate attention, partly because Apple has played everything so well up to now with its wireless devices.

The other issue for Apple is that similar questions are getting raised in other markets, like the UK. If this case in Australia progresses, then it could act as a precedent for how Apple has to market its products (and offer refunds) in other parts of the world.

One country where the consumer watchdog is looking at Apple is the UK, where the advertising standards watchdog, the ASA, is apparently deciding whether to formally probe Apple over how it markets its new iPad in the UK.

Currently, the only commercial LTE network in Australia  is run by incumbent carrier Telstra but it works on a different radio frequency from the one in the iPad. The device does work with Australia’s 3G and accelerated 3G services, eg HSPA.

There are reports that Telstra is working on changing the frequency of its 4G LTE in the country by the end of this year, which would throw the 4G iPad back into play: that could be something that Apple is using in its arguments in making any more concessions to the ACCC on this matter.

At the moment, Apple’s language around 4G in Australia is mixed. It may be making the lack of 4G clear in stores, but when you buy the product online, two different messages appear. In search results (top right) you can see that the product is still being called the “iPad Wi-Fi + 4G”, but when you actually click on the product to proceed with the purchase (below right), you then get the message that the device is actually “not compatible with current Australian 4G LTE and WiMAX networks.”

At the very least the case today may see Apple clear up some of that kind of wording on its site.

“Grumpy Cat! Grumpy Cat! More Grumpy Cat, please!” – That’s basically my two-year-old’s review of FarFaria, a new subscription-based children’s storybook app for the iPad. (To translate: she loves it, and especially that story about the grumpy cat.) The app, to be clear, doesn’t just offer the one story – not that my kid seems to care right now – it’s a collection of nearly one hundred stories with more added all the time. And despite being independently sourced and illustrated (or perhaps because of it), the stories are actually really good.

Operating like a Hulu for kids’ books, FarFaria itself is a free download for the iPad, but access to the content requires a subscription of $3.99 per month. However, parents can try out the app for the first month for free. The pricing model, in fact, is a welcome change from what’s typically available in the iTunes App Store in terms of children’s stories. Parents often have to buy books as one-off expenses, such as is the case with iBooks, or apps like Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham or Cat In The Hat, for example, or the pop-up Tale of Peter Rabbit. And many of those individual books cost the same as a month’s worth of FarFaria.

Meanwhile, other kids’ books apps in the free-to-download space, like Read Me Stories, for example, rely on in-app purchases, which leads to the frustrating experience of having to pull the iPad out of the kid’s hands, purchase the content while they scream “iPad!!”, then hand it back. (I did mention she’s two, right? It’s a very demanding age.)

FarFaria, on the other hand, has gone out of its way to make sure that kids can just use the app on their own, without running into pop-up ads, prompts to purchases, or anything else that would slow them down.

As you may have guessed, the name FarFaria is a play on the common fairy tale beginning: “once upon a time, in a land far, far away…,” It’s meant to evoke a sense of being transported to another world, the way that a good story will do.

Given the founders’ backgrounds, it makes sense that they ended up building something for the kids’ entertainment/education market. The creators, Ajay Godhwani and Gennady Borukhovich, were technical consultants for Disney on Family.com, and later Disney Movies online, over the course of several years.

“The product design is about creating an experience of discovery for children,” explains Godhwani of FarFaria’s goals. “We think there’s an emotional sort of connecting when [kids are] unleashed in the library and they’re allowed to pick any story they want. We all had that growing up. We felt like that’s the emotion we wanted to capture, so we went after a design that did that. And we felt that a world and a map is the better experience to create on the iPad.”

The “world” he’s referring to is FarFaria’s map of make-believe lands where stories are grouped by genre. For example, “Picture Point” island, when tapped, takes you into a collection of picture books meant for toddlers. “Fairytale Forest,” “Fable Hills,” and “GoodLand,” are some of the others, with the latter focused lessons like not being greedy, offering to help, etc.

The stories are appropriate for a broad age range, from little ones being read to by parents, up to around seven or eight, when children tend to transition to chapter books.

FarFaria’s content is not homogenous, thanks to the way it’s sourced. The company is working with some 30 story writers and around 75 illustrators, to create the stories and accompanying illustrations. For now, the stories or illustrations are purchased outright for use in the app, but the startup’s founders say they’re looking into different types of licensing deals. In some cases, like in the land called “Classics Grove,” stories are sourced from the public domain, such as is the case with Peter Rabbit, which predates modern copyright law.

The app was soft-launched back in February and is planning to stage its public launch event next week, when it will be adding two stories per day throughout the course of the week. Afterwards, the pace will slow to about three stories per week, occasionally more.

The company plans to soon add a new land with humorous stories (“Loony Lagoon”) plus better filtering tools for parents to find stories by age or type.

FarFaria is the second product from Intuary, the company behind the Verbally app, which aims to help those who can’t speak communicate via the iPad. Since its launch last March, Verbally has been downloaded over 50,000 times – a pretty decent track record for such a niche product.

Intuary is backed by $1 million in angel funding, mostly friends and family, including funding from SimplyHired founders, Anil Godhwani and Gautam Godhwani.

The FarFaria iPad app is available for download here.

The new iPad from Apple has so far smashed all of its own sales records for previous tablet models, selling 3 million units in its opening weekend, with total sales projections for 2012 at up to 66 million.

But according to some early (possibly too early?) figures from the mobile ad network Jumptap, that is not yet translating into a surge of traffic from the devices.

On the opening day, the iPad represented 0.52 percent of total iPad network traffic. That figure peaked at 2.28 percent on day three, and then declined to 1.92 percent of traffic by day six. In contrast, the iPad and iPad 2 each had 45 percent or more of total iPad traffic, Jumptap says in its latest MobileSTAT Report.

But is this too early to call? It seems that the low numbers are mainly due to the fact that even with sales going strong in its opening days, the total number of new iPad devices is still small compared to the embedded base of iPads.

In Q1 2012 alone, Apple noted that it sold 15.43 million iPad devices, a 111 percent increase over the same period a year ago. That embedded base is bound to outweigh that of 3 million-plus new owners.

What’s perhaps more notable here is where traffic appeared to decline with the introduction of the new iPad. Paran Johar, Jumptap’s CMO, notes that in its network of 107 million mobile users, traffic on the iPad 2 slightly declined after the introduction of the new iPad. That seems to run counter to the idea that the most likely people to upgrade will be those owning the first iPad. But what it might really appear to illustrate is that fanboys early adopters are simply remaining true to form, with the first buyers being those who bought the iPad 2 just when it came out.

Another noteworthy trend picked out by Jumptap in its latest report looks at how Wi-Fi is being used by smartphone owners. It turns out that just as users of the iPad tend to use Wi-Fi more than 3G and 4G connections, the same goes for iPhone consumers, who are opting for it more than Android and BlackBerry device owners.

Jumptap notes that 58 percent of iPhone users turn to Wi-Fi on their devices to use data, compared to 35 percent of Android users and 41 percent of BlackBerry users. Jumptap’s guess: no 4G on iPhones. But others might argue that it has to do with cellular connectivity simply being more patchy on the iPhone than on other devices. It could also be down to data plans still priced at a premium for iPhone owners.

Figures from Localytics last month found that only six percent of iPad traffic on its network was coming from cellular connections.

Jumptap also dove into providing some demographics on users of two comparable gaming apps, Angry Birds and Words With Friends.

While Angry Birds is significantly more popular (20 million daily active users, compared to 7.9 million on Words), Words with Friends appears to attract more monied players: 24 percent of Angry Birds’ user base have incomes of over $100,000, compared to 40 percent for Words. Words With Friends also had more Democrat users (75 percent compared to 51 percent for Angry Birds) while Angry Birds users were more tablet friendly and twice as likely to use a tablet as another user, compared to Words With Friends’ users being half as likely to use a tablet.

Topps, the company best known for its Bazooka bubble gum and for essentially inventing and popularizing trading cards in the 1950s, is today releasing its first-ever mobile apps in conjunction with the start of the 2012 Major League Baseball season. That’s right. People of all ages may remember collecting and trading their favorite players’ cards as youngsters, and though trading cards don’t quite enjoy the same level of ubiquity as they did in decades past, Topps’ cards remain iconic for most sports fans.

Over its 60 year history, Topps has moved beyond baseball, not only producing trading cards for all the major sports, but comic books and games as well. Yet if the trading cards and chewing gum company is ever going to get serious about becoming part of the digital era, mobile has to be a part of that strategy. And trading cards may just lend themselves well to a digital reincarnation — or so the company hopes, as today it moves beyond cardboard with the launch of its first iOS apps, Topps BUNT and Topps Pennant.

With its new iOS apps, Topps aims to leverage the sizable inventory of statistics, images, facts, and figures it has developed over the years, combining the history of the game with modern tech. Topps Pennant, the company tells us, presents a “modern box score” on both the iPhone and iPad, allowing fans to recreate more than 60 years of baseball — every team, season, game, and play going back to 1952.

Topps Pennant enables baseball fans to view box scores and live play-by-play of games from this season as well as from over 115K games from the past. While this is something that ESPN and others have been doing now for quite some time, Topps offers users the ability to view its exhaustive catalog of historical stats in good-looking, interactive infographics. The company has taken its time in developing apps that leverage all the capabilities of the iPad, so that even if you already have an app you use for box scores, this one’s worth checking out.

Topps BUNT, the company’s second iOS app, aims to bring fans a more user-friendly, accessible version of fantasy baseball, with a social game meant to act as a companion to the ongoing baseball season. As to how it works? Users create an account with Facebook or Twitter, pick a name and a personalized avatar, and then choose nine of their favorite players.

Users earn points based on how well those players perform, competing against other players, with scores being presented in a giant, multi-zone leaderboard. Users also get to check out game updates to track how their players are performing on the field in realtime, and trade the players that are batting below the Mendoza line.

Topps BUNT is really designed to be fantasy baseball for more casual fans, those who aren’t ready to commit to the more demanding, 162-game fantasy season. The team describes it as a mix between fantasy baseball, and popular iOS apps Turntable.fm and Draw Something. Having tested it out, the app definitely offers a fun, quirky baseball experience that could appeal to younger fans, especially those having grown up in the ubiquity of casual, Facebook-based social games.

To help bring its brand into the smartphone era, Topps hired the former Head of Product at Nokia (and five-year product veteran at Microsoft) Michael Bramlage. The VP of Digital tells us that, in the sports media landscape, most of the apps out there are from broadcasters or the leagues themselves, so that once fans get past MLB and ESPN apps, there’s not a lot quality outside of geeky, fantasy baseball apps. In other words, apps for the number crunchers and serious fans.

In my experience, this is true; there’s plenty of room for new and better ways to explore stats and interact with the game, especially for younger audiences who spend a lot of their time on mobile devices. For MLB.com, for example, more than 50 percent of traffic emanates from mobile.

Topps is leveraging its close relationship with the MLB Players Association and unique archive of player data and photos to go after newer, more casual fans in what Bramage calls a big “game mechanics play.” In that sense, Topps is not just looking to digitize baseball cards. The company put a lot of research into what cards represented to baseball fans emotionally and is reconstituting the figurative elements on the iPad — not just porting, but trying to re-imagine what player cards will mean to a younger generation.

In terms of the apps, Topps Pennant will be priced at $3.99 for a universal app that includes optimized versions for iPhone and iPad. However, Apple is currently running a launch special that puts the app at $2.99. Topps BUNT is available for free (on the iPad).

For more, check out Topps at home here, or the videos on the apps below:

Will Apple make a 7 inch iPad? That’s the question being batted around yet again today. The true answer right now is easy: I don’t know. No one does. Most likely not even Apple. They’re undoubtedly thinking about it. And may even have to make a call soon. But it has probably not been decided just yet. But that’s a lame answer. Let’s sexy it up using history, logic, and common sense.

Will Apple make a 7 inch iPad?

Yes.

This topic came up today because of remarks John Gruber made during a podcast he records on a weekly basis with Dan Benjamin. When Benjamin asked Gruber about the possibility of Apple making a 7 inch tablet, Gruber responded: “Well, I don’t know. What I do know is that they have one in the lab. A 7.85 inch iPad that runs at 1024×768. It’s just like the regular iPad shrunk down a bit.”

This should surprise no one. Apple has many prototypes of various devices in different stages of the product lifecycle. They probably have a few other variations of the iPad as well, and they probably have for years (pre-dating the iPhone even). Most prototypes never see the light of day. But I believe this one that Gruber is talking about will.

Again, I have no actual inside information here. But just think about it for a second.

Apple views the iPad as the future of general computing. They already sell in far greater quantity than Macs (and every other PC). And Apple drops hints from time to time that the category may even eventually be bigger than the crown jewel of their entire kingdom: the iPhone.

Apple may or may not be able to take the iPad to such heights with one form factor. But it will be a lot easier if they have two.

Apple often starts product lines with the Henry Ford mentality: “You can have any color as long as it’s black.” Mac, MacBook, iMac, iPod, etc. As the product matures, so does the offering. New form factors. New sizes.

The one major exception, of course, is the iPhone. It has always had the 3.5 inch screen even as the competition has gone bigger — sometimes ridiculously so. But you can certainly make the argument that the iPhone exception is the right call. A mobile phone has to be portable enough to carry around all the time comfortably. And you want to be able to use it with one hand (thumb reach). And given Apple’s preference towards pixel-perfect design, keeping the screen the same size ensures apps are relatively uniform.

The iPad doesn’t have the same constraints. At 9.7 inches, you obviously can’t carry it in your pocket. Nor can you use it with one hand. The proportional design aspect remains true (the iPad ratio exactly doubled the iPhone ratio), but as Gruber points out, a 7.85 inch screen running at the original iPad’s 1024×768 resolution would keep things simple for developers. It could work. And it will.

But wait, won’t users have to whittle down their fingers with sandpaper to use a 7 inch screen? Steve Jobs did in fact suggest this a few times. But he said a lot of things. In fact, if you look throughout the history of Apple, you can often predict that Apple is eventually going to do something if Jobs implied in the past that they never would. Look at your iPad right now. There’s plenty of room to shrink things a bit. Apps and their attributes just have to remain basically in proportion.

But even at a high level, all of this is too technical. The bottom line is that there isn’t a week that goes by without someone coming up to me and gushing about the iPad, but wishing it was a bit smaller. Not everyone feels this way, of course. And that’s why Apple will keep the 9.7 inch model as well. But there are plenty of folks out there who want a smaller version.

The fact of the matter is that the iPad is great at many things and the list is constantly expanding. But it’s not great for holding up for prolonged periods of time in certain settings. This is problematic for say, reading in bed. It’s not that it’s too heavy, it’s not. But the large size does make it a bit clunky at times. A 7 inch iPad would be perfect in many of those situations.

Of course, that alone would not be enough for Apple to do the smaller iPad. But like the iPod mini (and nano), Apple understands the mentality that smaller is often better in the eyes of many. The mini and nano eventually became far more popular than the original iPod. (Some) options are important. None more so than pricing options.

The Kindle Fire has a 7-inch screen. It’s $199. By most accounts, it’s pretty poor when compared to the iPad. But that isn’t stopping millions of people from buying them. $199 to $499 (the entry-level new iPad) is a big jump. Even $199 to $399 (the iPad 2′s new price) is a big jump. If Apple can sell the iPad 2 at $399 with a healthy margin, imagine what they could do with a smaller-screen iPad? I wouldn’t rule out $299.

Paying $199 for a 7 inch Kindle Fire versus $299 for a 7.85 inch iPad would be a significantly harder call for many consumers. For many others, it would be an obvious one: get the iPad.

Also consider the forthcoming Google-branded tablet. While few details are known about it, everything leaking out suggests a very competitive price compared to the Kindle Fire, and as such, likely a similar form factor. In the two years since the iPad first launch, everyone has tried and failed to compete directly against Apple. The only avenue getting any traction is this smaller and cheaper Kindle Fire. And it’s only getting some traction because it’s a space where Apple is simply not competing. Yet.

Consider the 11-inch MacBook Air versus the 13-inch MacBook Air. I’ve had both models. The reality is that they’re not all that different. The 11 is (obviously) smaller and lighter, but the 13 is pretty damn small and light compared to just about any other notebook ever created. Still, Apple offers both. Consider also the MacBook Pro line: 13 inch. 15 inch. 17 inch. The reality again is they’re not all that much different on a macro level. But Apple still offers all of them.

You could certainly argue that a 7 inch iPad versus a 9 inch iPad is a more meaningful difference since you have to be holding it all the time to use it. You’ll notice it more. Some people will prefer one size. Some will prefer the other. In some cases, it will depend on the circumstance. Plenty of folks will probably buy both. A 7 inch for the kids, a 9 inch for the grownups, for example. Or maybe a 9 inch for work and a 7 inch for home.

I also suspect that like the difference in laptop sizes, the smaller iPad would come less juiced-up in the spec category. Since the spec is dead, Apple probably won’t play this up much, but to keep costs down, maybe the smaller iPad would have a last-generation chip. Or maybe it would have a slightly less powerful one than the current generation 9 inch iPad.

Maybe it would also have less storage. Or maybe the high range of the storage options would simply be less. Apple will clearly soon move to a 128 GB option for the 9 inch iPad and drop the 16 GB option. Maybe a 7 inch iPad would start at 16 GB and only give the option to go up to 64 GB.

Maybe the 7 inch would have slightly less battery life due to less physical space for a battery. Or maybe it would be the same because the smaller screen would draw less power.

Lots of possibilities. The point is, I suspect that with the 7 inch iPad, Apple would vary more than just the screen size. It would be the most important difference, but not the only one. And it would result in Apple selling a ton of both models. And it would drive even more revenue and profit Apple’s way while keeping their rivals at bay.

I’m basically writing this post so that when Apple does release a 7 inch iPad at some point in the future, I can point back here and say “I told you so”. Cause I did. The option is just sitting on the table waiting for Apple to pounce. This is about the future of computing. It’s about expanding the brand. It’s about securing the stake. It makes sense. It will happen.

A little bit of news from Nielsen that flew under the radar a few days ago hints at big things ahead for the measurement firm and its goals of understanding user behavior across all platforms. The company said it was teaming up with Disney/ABC Television Group to measure video consumption trends on the iPad.

In the study, participants will download a special “metering” app to their devices, which will analyze the reach, duration, frequency, and pageviews associated with both their apps and web usage in an effort to provide better insight into actual trends associated with user behavior, as opposed to self-reported data.

Although for many mainstream consumers, the name “Nielsen” is synonymous with TV ratings, the company actually provides analytics across a wide number of industries, including telecom, radio, music, video games, online, consumer and packaged goods, and more. In other words, it’s not surprising to see Nielsen branching out to help media companies better understand user behavior on a different platform besides the TV – that’s exactly what Nielsen does today.

As for Nielsen’s focus on the iPad, the firm understands the urgency in deciphering the iPad’s impact. Said the company in an announcement:

With Apple now reporting more than 55 million iPads sold to date and 3 million new iPads sold since March 16, the importance of understanding how, when, and where consumers use tablets is a top priority for the media industry.

Specifically, the new study will examine when app usage is heaviest on the iPad, as well as provide an overview of a “day in the life” of a tablet user who interacts with the ABC Player app.

Previous studies on usage behavior have indicated that tablet usage peaks at the morning and in the evening (after work), but some of those earlier reports were narrower in scope,  with data being sourced from individual app makers, for example. Meanwhile, other studies – like the often-cited report from comScore - focused more on general trends, and not necessarily those targeted towards users of a specific app, as in Disney/ABC’s case.

To be clear, however, the project that was announced with Disney/ABC is actually a custom study – it’s not a part of Nielsen’s broader efforts to understand consumer behavior on the iPad, particularly TV viewing. That’s not to say the firm isn’t heading down this path right now. The fact that they’ve already developed usage-analyzing software to do the job is very telling, as is the fact that Disney is turning to Nielsen for access to this “proprietary technology.” As Peter Seymour, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Research for Disney Media Networks, explains:

“We have been actively studying consumer tablet usage through our own data for two years,” he says, “and we believe that Nielsen’s proprietary technology has the potential to deliver unprecedented additional details about consumer viewing patterns.”

We’re also hearing that Nielsen is currently working on new ways to measure iPad users’ behavior, and those efforts are a major priority for the company for 2012.

Disney is not the first company to reach out to Nielsen for assistance in understanding media consumption across screens as of late. Earlier in March, media agency GroupM worked with the Nielsen to develop a new service to measure TV viewing that can track the total overlapped reach and frequency of ad campaigns across both traditional TV and online viewing. Although no mention of the iPad occurred at the time of the announcement, both companies said that consistent measurement across TV, the web “and beyond” was critical in understanding how, when and where ads were viewed – something that had been more difficult in the past because of the different metrics used for each platform.

Facebook rolled out an update this morning that adds support for the new iPad’s Retina display to its iPad application. According to the release notes in iTunes, users with the new iPad will now see “a crisp, high resolution interface.” The update (version 4.1.1) brings other bug fixes, too, as well as support for additional languages.

The Retina-ready version of the app was hinted at last week, when someone spotted a teaser for the upcoming app in the iTunes App Store’s “New and Noteworthy” section. The message displayed at the time read “Enhanced for the New iPad,” presumably meaning it would soon add support for Retina graphics.

As sure enough, that’s just what it did.

The update brings a number of other bug fixes, too, including the following:

• You can go offline in chat
• The right profile picture appears for everyone
• Your list of friends always includes all your friends
• In sets of photos, your name is displayed correctly
• Photos of people who like Facebook Pages load correctly
• Your friend-request notification only lights up if you have a request

In addition, Facebook users can now change their language to Czech, Danish, Greek, Indonesian, Malaysian, Norwegian (Bokmal), Portuguese (Portugal) or Thai in the updated app.

However, as much as new iPad owners may be excited to see one of their most heavily used apps updated with Retina support, perhaps a more highly anticipated feature (or rather feature request) is support for the Facebook Timeline. As the boldest revision to the Facebook user interface to arrive since the News Feed, the Timeline offers a new way to both display and consume Facebook content. And given the iPad’s screen size, it doesn’t seem like it would be a problem to migrate that interface to the iPad.

The updated Facebook app is available in iTunes now.

Consumer Reports, clearly moving on from whoring pageviews over heatgate, just planted the new iPad at the top of its recommended tablet chart. Citing the great screen, 5MP camera, and fast, dependable 4G Verizon data connectivity, the iPad is the best of the bunch, says Consumer Reports. But what about the new iPad’s excessive heat? Clearly people still need to, as a Consumer Reports’ spokesman said, “exercise caution”, right? Nope.

Much like Antennagate, the issue regarding the new iPad’s heat is merely a footnote in Consumer Reports’ final word. The new iPad still earned the top spot in its respective category. The iPhone 4 went on to sell millions of units, even with Consumer Reports’ negative slant, so Apple probably wasn’t sweating through heatgate.

Heatgate, or perhaps warmgate, fizzled out rather quickly when the temperature was put into perspective with competing tablets. Other outlets also quickly debunked Consumer Reports’ strange results regarding the battery. Like most products, the new iPad has quirks, but they’re greatly outweighed by the high-points.

Still, Consumer Reports finally got it right. The new iPad is the most impressive, and by that, the best tablet to buy on the market right now. It does get a tad warmer than its predecessor — something MG noted in our initial review — but it’s an amazing and immersive slate device.

Apple has yet to make any statements about where and when we might ever see an Apple TV product to match the impact it has had in the smartphone and tablet markets. But news of an investment by its key manufacturing partner, Foxconn, could point to the confidence others have of what might be coming soon.

Foxconn is investing a combined 133 billion yen ($1.6 billion) in TV maker Sharp Corporation and a flat-panel JV it has with Sony — and it has added a commitment to buy up to 50 percent of all of Sharp’s LCD panel output. The deal is the largest-ever by a Taiwanese manufacturer in a Japanese supplier and could be all the more bold, considering that just yesterday there was a report from iSuppli on how sales of flat-panel TVs were in decline and flattening out.

Foxconn’s investment will see the company split its $1.6 billion roughly between two investments: a 9.9 percent stake in Sharp Corp., with a 46.5 percent stake in Sharp Display Products Corp., its flat-panel JV with Sony. Sharp’s stake in the JV is now 46.5 percent; while Sony’s is 7 percent, and it may now choose to divest that to Sharp altogether.

There are a couple of reasons for why Foxconn has made this investment.

The move could be be to make sure it will have a good supply of flat panels for future products, such as the fabled Apple TV, but also iPad devices and other flat-panel devices that Foxconn makes on behalf of others such as Sony. IHS says that Sharp may be in line to supply panels for iPad tablets starting next month, using its IGZO technology.

The other reason is that Foxconn may be trying to shore up a key supplier that is in financial hot water at the moment. “[Sharp is] in trouble and their very survival is at stake,” Edwin Merner, president of Tokyo-based Atlantis Investment Research, told Bloomberg. “Maybe the tie-up will help.”

Sharp last month warned the markets that it could face a ¥290 billion ($3.5 billion) loss for the financial year because of the drop in prices for TVs — a problem that has also been affecting Sony and Panasonic, with the three collectively expected to report losses of $16 billion for the financial year.

Foxconn’s parent company Hon Hai, meanwhile, yesterday reported rises in both sales (NT$1.074 trillion; $36 billion) and net profit (NT$35.0 billion; $1.2 billion) on the back of lucrative manufacturing deals with the likes of Apple, which sold 3 million units of its new iPad tablet in the first three days of release alone.

There has been some anecodotal evidence about how WiFi is by far the most popular way to connect on a tablet, but some numbers out from Localytics spell out just how little traffic is coming from 3G (and now 4G) networks on the most popular tablet of all, the iPad from Apple.

Using data from apps that run on its mobile analytics platform, Localytics says that in the last week, since the introduction of the new iPad, only six percent of all sessions on iPads were coming from cellular networks, with the rest coming from WiFi. That’s a testament to how consumers by and large don’t seem to be particularly interested in having 3G or 4G on their devices: not great news for carriers that were hoping for more traffic and purchases of data plans on their cellular networks.

However, Localytics also found those tablets that do have cellular chips are seeing a very even amount of use between WiFi and cellular networks.

Overall, Localytics found that just over 10 percent of all tablets running its platforms’ apps were cellular-enabled. That figure supports data released by mobile analyst Chetan Sharma earlier this week, who noted that in the U.S. at the moment 90 percent of the tablets in use are WiFi-only.

Of the iPads that do have cellular connectivity, Localytics said 8.8 percent of them are 3G-enabled.

And although the new iPad — the first with 4G — has only just hit the market, it already accounts for 1.5 percent of all iPad tablets in terms of traffic on the Localytics platform. Apple said it sold more than 3 million units of the new device on its opening weekend.

Consumers by and large may not be interested in ponying up the extra money for cellular access, but for those who do buy tablets with 3G or 4G, they are actually using that connection quite a lot: on 3G devices it accounts for 45 percent of all usage; on 4G it accounts for less at the moment: 36 percent.

However, it looks like even those that have paid for the privilege to have mobile data access may soon start to sour against the idea unless carriers sort out better usage plans.

A report in the WSJ earlier this week noted how the introduction of 4G has actually been both a blessing and a curse for users: the faster speeds make watching video fantastic, but it has also led to people, perhaps unwittingly, burning through their pre-alloted few gigabytes of data usage in as little as one day.

iPad, iPad, iPad.

What else is there to say? You already know the Retina display is amazing. You know the camera’s been improved and that that little A5X chip is super snappy. You know that the latest version of iOS supports Japanese Siri and voice transcription. You know three million iPads were sold in the first three days they were available, and that Apple is expected to sell 66 million before the end of 2012.

What you don’t know, however, is what John and I think of the new iPad. The decision left us torn, to be quite honest. I think this may be the first ever circumstantial Fly or Die, because whether or not you should get the new iPad all depends on who you are and what you own.

We both landed on the idea that if you have an iPad 2, wait for the next model. If you’re still tablet free, the new iPad is exactly what you want.

Attention George Foreman: report to an Apple Store near you immediately. There’s a hot (literally) product, you simply must buy the entire inventory of to keep your grilling empire alive: the new iPad.

Or at least, that’s what the latest nonsense from Consumer Reports would have you believe.

We’ve seen this ridiculousness from Consumer Reports before. In June 2010, at the height of “Antennagate”, Consumer Reports figured out the art of click-bait. If you say something outlandish, even if it directly contradicts something you previously said (and sometimes that’s even better!), you must harp on a story to keep those precious pageviews flowing in. And so harp they did.

The reality of the Antennagate situation was always this: it was real, but it really wasn’t a big deal. The fact that the iPhone 4 went on to sell tens of millions of units — record numbers for Apple at the time — bringing in billions of dollars for the company with very few returns, sure seems to suggest Consumer Reports blew the situation way out of proportion. And what they’re doing today is arguably worse.

To be clear, it is true that the new iPad gives off more heat than the previous models. We were among the first to report this in our initial review of the device last week. Guess who didn’t note it in their initial report? Consumer Reports. A week ago, everything was peachy keen: The new iPad is shaping up as the best tablet yet.

But that review apparently didn’t generate the pageviews they would have liked. So today, we have the outlet firing back: Our test finds new iPad hits 116 degrees while running games.

While there’s nothing factually wrong with that title (presumably, I don’t have my iPad thermometer handy), it is misleading for average consumers — you know, Consumer Reports core audience. 116 degrees sounds hot. Really hot. Death Valley hot. It sounds like the thing is a grill.

The reality is that 116 degrees isn’t that hot for a computer. In fact, it’s only about 10 degrees or so hotter than the not-complained-about iPad 2 ran. And this is at the extreme, when graphic-intensive games that max out the new A5X chip are running. Even at this temperature, Consumer Reports notes:

During our tests, I held the new iPad in my hands. When it was at its hottest, it felt very warm but not especially uncomfortable if held for a brief period.

That’s pretty much what we noted last week:

One other slight downside which I have to assume is related to either the battery or the LTE functionality is that unlike previous iPad models, the new iPad does get noticeably warm in the lower left corner after prolonged use. It’s never hot, just warm. But again, I never noticed this on other models.

Warm. Not hot. But that didn’t stop Consumer Reports from giving their “scoop” to CNBC this morning and “upgrading” the new iPad from “not especially uncomfortable” to “uncomfortable”.

And that continued. As Consumer Reports spokesman James McQueen told the AFP today:

People need to exercise caution. We are not saying it is a dangerous product, but 116 degrees can be a little uncomfortable.

That, in turn, led the mainstream media and analysts to do what they do best: use jackassery in an attempt to pray on the masses and reap the rewards. One example:

Consumer Reports confirms iPad heat problems, could cause burns :usat.ly/GBGvmC

— Rob Enderle (@Enderle) March 20, 2012

“Could cause burns” — what the hell? I’ve been using the new iPad for nearly two weeks now. A lot. Not only has it not come close to rising above “warm”, I don’t even notice the heat anymore. Certainly, it’s still runs much cooler than almost every single laptop on the market today. And that’s something you have to put on your lap. Body exposure is maximized.

But a story about laptops being hot is boring. Everyone already knows that. No one would read it. The iPad is the sexy new thing. And it runs a little warm sometimes!!! AHHHHHHH!!!

Now we have “Warmgate” — complaints so ridiculous, they read like satire. But it doesn’t matter, Consumer Reports has done their job. Not their actual job, mind you, which is protecting consumers. They’ve done their new job: generating pageviews by any means necessary.

We will absolutely have a follow-up story from them tomorrow. And probably another one the next day. Then one contradicting what was previous said (which they’ve already done, of course).

We need a Consumer Reports to protect us from Consumer Reports.

EXCLUSIVE: Consumer Reports cannot recommend Hansel — too hot right now.

— MG Siegler (@parislemon) March 20, 2012

Initial teardowns of the new iPad whetted many a chip nerd’s appetite when they revealed that the A5X chip inside was truly gigantic. At nearly 13x13mm, it is significantly larger than the A5, which was itself already kind of a hefty bugger.

Now some clear images (from Chipworks) have been taken of the die itself (some rather rough ones with initial “floorplans” showed up earlier over the weekend) and it’s becoming more and more clear that the A5X is a stopgap measure: a last-generation product that’s overcompensating, if you will, with a jumbo-sized GPU.

The A5X is manufactured with a Samsung 45nm process, a size Intel and AMD were using back in 2008. Nowadays all the cool kids are using 22nm. That means modern chips can fit around four times as many transistors and cells onto a piece of silicon than the technology used to create the A5X. It’s kind of ironic, since Apple has focused so much on getting four times the pixels into its displays.

Of course, it isn’t quite an apples-to-apples comparison; the ARM architecture and SoC model are a different animal than the x86 model. But it’s not going too far to say that the A5X is the processor equivalent of something like a souped-up street car from a few years back. Sure, it gets the job done, but you can’t keep adding turbos and wings forever. At some point that engine hits its limit. And while the GPU performance is good, the base technology of the A5X is starting to show its age, and the competition may use that to their advantage.

And even before the new iPad was released, the name A5X really tipped Apple’s entire hand. Our speculation was correct, and chances are the “true” successor to the A5 series will come in the new iPhone. Will it be based on ARM’s A15/A7 big.little model? Seems logical. Saving power is essential with the major GPU, screen, and LTE. It may be too late for Apple to adapt it, but anything could happen.

And it must be acknowledged that most consumers really, really don’t care what processor or chip is inside their iPad. But the drama going on behind the curtain is still interesting to those of us who do care, and as we have seen, sometimes these little technical stories shed light on long-term plans.

One last fun thing: if you go to the large photos over at Chipworks, you can actually see the varying densities of the logic cells on the dark areas. It shows up as a sort of mottled, almost sloppy look, but it is in fact highly precise engineering. All the wonders of our modern tech-based world have their base in these microscopic clusters of transistors, memory cells, and logic gates. It’s fascinating (to yours truly, at least) to see them forming this kind of micro-topography.

Following Apple’s announcement yesterday of the new iPad’s record weekend, which saw 3 million devices sold in three days, analysts are upping their predictions for the tablet’s market share growth over the course of the year. In a note to investors, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray says the firm is now forecasting as many as 66 million sales of the new device in 2012, up from the earlier prediction of 60 million. Meanwhile, Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee is now predicting 60 million, up from 55 million.

Regardless of the final outcome, the bottom line impact the device will have on the market was summed up in Munster’s bullish note: ”we believe the unprecedented ramp of the iPad over the past year is evidence that the tablet market will be measurably larger than the PC market,” he said.

Munster is also forecasting that Apple will ship 12 million iPads this quarter alone to reach 66 million by year-end. By 2015, that number will reach 176 million, he says.

Those figures stack up with other trends in the so-called “post-PC” era (a misnomer, really – it doesn’t mean “no PC,” as many assume). For example, Apple CEO Tim Cook noted during the iPad’s launch that Apple sold more iPads in Q4 than any single manufacturer sold in PCs. Gartner later released figures showing that PC shipments were on track to grow just 4.4% in 2012 to 368 million units, as consumers would prioritize buying smartphones and tablets over desktops and laptops. And let’s not forget that last month, Canalys dubbed Apple the largest “PC” maker if you were to count iPads as PCs.

In addition, IDC also recently raised its tablet shipment estimates for the year, up from 87.7 million to 106.1 million, in advance of the iPad’s launch.

What Will Windows 8 Bring?

However, IDC released new data today on PC shipments, which saw a slight bump by year-end (1.8% growth on the year…still, ouch). And analysts there seem cautious to hand the iPad the crown just yet. Explains IDC’s VP of Clients and Displays, Bob O’Donnell, the industry doesn’t know the impact Windows 8 may have when it arrives.

“Many consumers are holding off making PC purchases at the moment because tablet devices like Apple’s iPad are proving to be a powerful distraction,” he notes. “However, end user surveys tell us that few people consider media tablets as replacements for their PCs, so later this year when there is a new Microsoft operating system, available in sleek new PC form factors, we believe consumer interest in PCs will begin to rebound.”

You may either vehemently agree or disagree with that statement, depending on where your biases lie. But Windows 8, which TechCrunch’s John Biggs described as “on the cusp of getting things right,” when launched, is still a big question mark in terms of reception. And until it arrives, predictions for where the iPad/PC/tablet market is headed are just that – predictions.

To make matters worse, it’s becoming increasingly confusing to differentiate between tablet operating systems and “desktop” versions, as features from one another cross over to both sides. This is true both for Windows 8, which shares things in common with Windows Phone and Apple’s OS X, which has iOS-inspired additions.

When Steve Jobs referred to this shift in computing as the “post-PC” era, it was a clever way to promote the iPad as the future of computing. That’s accurate, to some extent, but really, we’re headed to a time when PCs are ubiquitous – whether desktop, laptop, portable, tablet or mobile. “PC everywhere” is a more apt description.