Apple announced this week that it sold 2 million iPads in just under 60 days. As John Gruber notes, it took Apple two years to sell 2 million iPods and four months to sell 2 million iPhones. Apple is getting an amazing response to this product. Other iPhone news of note from the past week:
- Mark your calendar and set your alarms: on Monday, June 7, at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern, Steve Jobs will give the keynote address at WWDC. I fully expect that we will see the new iPhone debuted at that time, plus I suspect that we will learn the date that iPhone Software 4.0 will be available and the date that the new iPhone will be available. And of course there is always the possibility of other surprise announcements. The world of iPhone will change substantially on Monday.
- Matt Hamblen of Computerworld reports that according to a survey by ChangeWave Research, iPhone users are the most satisfied smartphone users. 77% of iPhone customers polled said they were very
satisfied with their purchase, with Motorola customers coming in second at 64%. - The “lost” iPhone saga continues. As Greg Sandoval of CNET reports, the latest news is that the court in San Mateo, CA has appointed a Special Master to examine the contents of the computer equipment seized from the home of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen and determine what evidence (if any) relates to Gizmodo’s purchase of the allegedly stolen property. The Special Master will report his results to the court under seal, and then Chen’s attorney will have a chance to make objections before the District Attorney will be allowed to see the evidence. When Steve Jobs spoke at D8 earlier this week, Jobs made it clear that Apple considered itself the victim of a theft (when the iPhone was first acquired and then when Gizmodo acquired it) and extortion (when Gizmodo demanded something in writing from Apple that it could publish on its blog before returning the iPhone).
- iPhone security has been in the news because apparently, even if you have a passcode on it, if a bad guy gets your phone there is a way that he can connect it to a computer running a new version of Linux and access data on the phone. I’m sure that Apple is working on this and hopefully will have a fix soon. In the meantime, Daniel Eran Dilger has an interesting article putting this security flaw in context, pointing out that there are equally important security flaws with other products.
- If you are looking to get a GPS driving directions app for your iPhone, Navigon (which has gotten good reviews) is having a half-price sale. Navigon divides the country into three regions, and while the app for each region is normally $30, for the next few days it is $15. And you can add additional regions for $10 instead of the normal $15. Click here for Navigon West, Central or East for $14.99.
- Darren Murph of Engadget reports that you may soon be able to use your iPhone to unlock the door of your hotel room.
- If you don’t have an iPad yet, should you get one? Alan Cohen of The American Lawyer tacked that question in his excellent article “iPad: Toy or Tool for Lawyers?” He does a good job weighing the strengths and weaknesses.
- One thing making the iPad more attractive for lawyers is the introduction of apps that lawyers would find useful. At the top of that list is a good document reader and editor. Dataviz Documents to Go is now on the iPad as an update to the existing iPhone app. (In other words, it is now a “universal app” that works well on both the iPhone and the iPad.) Also, Quickoffice tells me that their app is coming in a few weeks.
- And when you are not working on your iPad, it is nice to relax with one and read a magazine, and now we are starting to see great magazine apps. Newsweek is now available on the iPad and, unlike the Time app, you can download new Newsweek issues within the app (so you don’t have to clutter your iPad with a different app for each issue). Wired magazine on the iPad has gotten rave reviews, and Adobe is making the software that was used to create the Wired app available for other magazine developers. So I think that we will see a lot of improvement in this front over the coming months.
- Derrick Story of Macworld reviews the iPad Camera Connection Kit.
- And finally, for those of you who love your iPhone so much that you want to sleep with it, the iCushion may be the solution for you. For only 19,800 South Korean won (about $16.50), the iCushion can be yours. (via iPhone Savior)
