Apple That

EdgeCast streaming customers can now stream to Apple iOS 4 devices, which include the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. “Supporting video on demand and live streaming to iOS devices builds on our commitment to ensuring that our customers can deliver content to any user regardless of their format, location, or device,” said Ted Middleton, vice president of product management at EdgeCast Networks. Companies can now stream audio and video at very high speeds to any users of Apple devices; and audio and video can be delivered in a multiplicity of forms, whether streaming, delivering ‘live events’ or sending content that is fully encrypted.

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When Apple introduced the iPad, nobody believed that it would take off like it did. However, the iPad is one of the hottest selling pieces of technology out right now and everybody wants to get their hands on it. When Apple announced it was going to be coming out with a second generation iPad, people were ecstatic. And it seems Apple and Steve Jobs listened to the reviews because they have a great big plan in anticipation for this next device.

Apple believes that its anticipated second-generation iPad will be immensely more popular than the first generation device. So much so that Apple is expected to order as many as 6 million a month. If this is true, then this number would shatter the 4 million units a month Apple ordered for their first generation iPad. Sources overseas indicated that Apple added Chimei Innoulux and Cando, two additional touch panel makers, for production of the iPad 2.

These new suppliers join the team of iPad makers already comprised of Wintek, Sintek Photronics and TPK Touch Solutions. By adding Chimei Innoulux and Cando, Apple can reportedly produce more iPads per month allowing them to reach their 6 million a month mark. Sources have indicated that suppliers will begin shipments to Apple in January and February of 2011. This is consistent with previous reports that the iPad 2 would begin shipping within 100 days in order to allow Apple to stockpile for their April launch.

It has also been indicated that Apple has no interest whatsoever in producing a 7-inch iPad. A 7-inch iPad would be much smaller and lighter than the current 9.7-inch model. This is worth mentioning because there were many rumors floating around out there about Apple making a 7-inch iPad. Steve Jobs snuffed out this rumor back in October during Apple’s fourth quarter conference call. Jobs believes competing products, like the 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, have chosen a smaller size in order to reduce costs rather than usability.

According to Jobs, “When we make decisions on 7-inch tablets, it’s not about cost. It’s about value of the product when you factor in the software.”

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Apple’s iPad, probably one of the biggest selling pieces of technology to come out of Steve Jobs’ empire since the iPod, is not only Apple’s biggest product but also one of the hottest selling pieces of tech in today’s market. The iPad is one portable device that everybody wants to get their hands on and one product that Apple has trouble keeping on store shelves. Now rumors have been floating around recently about a second generation iPad dutifully named the iPad 2. While many people aren’t expecting this product for a while, the tech world was shaken up when news surfaced that the iPad 2 would be shipping by the end of February 2011.

Foxconn Electronics out of Shenzhen, China, was recently notified by Apple that they will ship the iPad 2 “within the next 100 days”. Initial shipments are said to reach between 400,000 and 600,000 units according to sources from component makers in Taiwan. However, Foxconn has thus declined to release any official comments.

According to the sources, the iPad 2 is supposed to ship as early as the end of February 2011. Apple’s original plan for the iPad 2 was to begin mass production of the product in January 2011. This, however, doesn’t seem likely as the firmware of the iPad 2 is still undergoing testing. Foxconn has new plants in Chengdu but they are still in pilot production which means the iPad 2 will be primarily made in Foxconn’s Shenzhen plants. Foxconn’s upstream component partners have also been notified of the iPad 2 shipment schedule.

Apple announced that it sold a total of 4.19 million iPads in the third quarter of 2010 which makes the iPad’s combined sales since release total 7.5 million units in only nine months. Apple is looking forward to iPad sales increases in the coming months due primarily to the holiday season but also because Apple will begin selling the iPad in South Korea and Latin America in the fourth quarter.

On the flipside, the iPad’s shipments on the supply side of things are relatively higher than channel sales. This means that Apple could potentially come up with inventory issues. Despite this fact though, Apple has no plans to stop production of the iPad whatsoever. It is expected that Apple will shorten shipments after January 2011 to dissect inventory across the entire first quarter in order to launch the iPad 2 in April.

If Apple follows through with this plan, we can expect a huge post-holiday increase in sales for Apple as many people will be rushing out to get their hands on the newer and, hopefully, better iPad 2. Keep checking back here for more news about the iPad 2 as well as all of Apple’s other products.

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Few mainstream technological devices turn out to be practical tools that can aid the disabled, but for Owen Cain, a seven-year-old boy who has suffered from spinal muscular atrophy since infancy, the iPad has proven to be an efficient tool enabling him to communicate what was previously impossible for him. As an article in the New York Times recounts it, Owen made his first contact with the iPad when a nurse propped one in front of him and he touched the screen, activating the application Gravitarium. Since that moment Owen’s family has invested in an iPad along with additional software, providing him with new tools for learning and communication.

“He has been experimenting with a variety of applications,” the article says, such as Proloquo2Go, which allows Owen to say things by prompting the iPad to utter various statements or queries, and also Math Magic, which enables him to work out solutions to basic quantitative problems. It is by virtue of how the iPad is operated that Owen can engage in activities such as these in a much more dynamic way; the fact that it is operated by touch provides him with a particular way of interacting with the world, which fundamentally expands his general capacity for being.

Therein lies, what I argue, the philosophical implications that technology at large can have, and that it seems the iPad may very well be advancing in situations like Owen’s. The philosopher Heidegger in his work called Being and Time attempts to exposit the fundamental concept of Being and argues that insight into Being (and in particular, that of human being) is to be found in the comportment that one has with objects in the world. While this is by no means an adequate description of his philosophy, it suffices to note the underlying idea that this philosopher and others have hit upon in emphasizing the way in which humans behave with regard to the world, and its role in quite literally defining ‘human being’.

Granted, Heidegger did not have technology like the iPad in mind per se, but his idea that the way in which we comport to the world defines ‘human being’ seems to have much to say regarding instances like Owen’s, where the iPad has played a defining role in augmenting his capacity for being in the world. If indeed technology has the capacity to open new avenues of engaging (and hence, being in) the world for those that are disabled, in what ways can technology augment or even redefine what it means to be human in general? The possibilities seem endless, but instances where mainstream technologies play such vital and defining roles in the lives of disabled individuals are inspiring reinforcements of the real capacity for technology to alter the human condition.

While Owen’s case is certainly not the first instance of general-use technology aiding the disabled, it is just one more testament to the potential that technology in general has in augmenting the human capacity for being in the world, and the potential spans all humanity, not only to those who suffer from debilitating afflictions. Moreover, cases like Owen’s speak volumes of the potential for devices like the iPad to become staple devices in human livelihood.

Click here to see the New York Times articles about Owen Cain and his iPad.

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