The Apple Blog

Businessweek article, the iPad is going to be all about the games. A large portion of the few companies elite enough to actually get their hands on a pre-release version of the iPad are game developers. Gaming is big on the iPhone/iPod touch platform and our own Weldon Dodd’s analysis of sales in the App Store on its one-year anniversary revealed that 79 percent of iPhone users have purchased a game. Contrast that percentage with the percentage of games shown in the iPad commercial: zero. Why this dichotomy?

Practically ever iPhone commercial shows someone playing some kind of game and showing that the iPhone platform is both for productivity and fun. Whether it’s Monopoly or Crash Bandicoot, we usually see a game somewhere in the commercial. Games are fun and the iPhone naturally feels like a game controller. From the moment games left the arcade, we’ve been used to some kind of fairly small handheld controller for our interface device. You cradle it in both hands: one on a multidirectional tool (stick or directional pad) and another holding the device and pressing buttons. Staring in the days of Mattel Football and the Atari 2600 to the Xbox and Playstation, it’s something we’ve gotten used to. Nintendo changed the rules with its Wii Remote providing an interface device that feature more motion in the mix and had us hold the device more naturally.

iPhone games still generally expect us to cradle the device in our hands and use our thumbs to simulate the directional pad and buttons. An additional control scheme of device orientation and motion is featured in many games, but the majority of iPhone games utilize thumb tapping and dragging as the primary control. While I have not been lucky enough to lay my hands on an actual iPad, it seems to me that the traditional iPod/iPhone thumb control scheme will not adapt well to the iPad. Games that work great on the iPhone platform will simply not have the same user interface experience on the iPad. They can’t; the screen is too big and the device will be held differently. Unless you have really big hands you won’t be able to move your thumbs across the whole screen. How am I going to protect Dave’s house from the zombies now?

Herein is the problem. Apple needs killer games to show off how diverse the iPad will be and currently there are none. Steve touted in his keynote the fact that we are already used to the iPad because we are used to the iPhone. That’s only partially correct. Existing games will technically “run” on the iPad, but their play will be entirely different due to the different ergonomics. The game developers will have to go back to the drawing board and figure out how people will hold the iPad and update their games to take this into account. Is it better to assume game play will happen with the iPad flat, or will more people hold the iPad up to play the game? How clunky will using the accelerometer be on a device so large? The only way to answer these questions is to have a real live iPad in hand for testing.

Apple’s seeding of iPads to game developers is not about Apple’s commitment to the gaming platform, but a recognition that games will not translate well from the iPhone to the iPad. Lexulous and Monopoly probably won’t have a problem, but games that rely on fast tapping and hand-eye coordination (meaning the really fun ones) will likely not scale and new iPad owners will be frustrated with their shiny new toy. Apple needs these games to work and work well on April 3.

What will the first game be that shows off the unique features of the iPad the way Crash Bandicoot and Rolando did for the iPhone? How will we interact with these games and finally involve our whole hand and not our thumbs? I can imagine some genres of games that will shine on the larger iPad device, such as racing games (the iPad will make for a nice big steering wheel). Will other games be redesigned for the iPad or will they simply include new controls? Most of all, will we have to buy new games for the iPad or will they simply be free updates? I’ll leave that to the game developers who were lucky enough to have an iPad before everyone else to protect us from boredom.

It’s been teased for a fairly long time now, but Amazon finally released its Kindle companion software for Mac, as of yesterday. To date, the Kindle application has only been available for Windows machines, which has made it slightly harder for Mac users to organize and manage their Kindle collection.

Kindle for Mac also offers e-reader features, so you can access all of your e-book purchases, download and read them right on your computer. It’ll also sync the furthest location read with all Kindle devices registered to your account if you want, so that you can continue reading on your Kindle, iPhone or Mac without missing a beat.

Not yet present in the current version of the software is the ability to make and edit notes, highlight portions of the text and conduct full-text searches, but these are all planned for a later update, according to Amazon. Future versions will also let you click on images to zoom in to see a larger version, and to rotate it if you wish. One feature that is present is the conveniently-placed “Buy a Kindle” link found in the Help menu. Subtle, Amazon.

The application also lets you manage your Kindle and make purchases in the Kindle store, although for both of these functions it actually just kicks you over to Amazon’s web site in your default browser. In fact, the Mac software really isn’t much more than a bare-bones e-reading application. Not that that’s a bad thing, but I’m wondering why exactly it took this long to get the software out there.

The answer is probably that Amazon didn’t really have a good enough reason to until the iPad came along. Up until that point, drawing a link between a free iPhone app and a free Mac app to display content that Amazon was originally taking a loss on selling didn’t make much sense. The Kindle itself — the hardware — was the key to success, and it’s pretty easy to chuck that altogether when you’ve got the other two.

Amazon must’ve seen the writing on the wall following the iPad announcement, and realized that joining the company would be considerably more productive than attempting to beat it at this point, and so decided to cover all Mac-based platforms instead of just partially serving Apple customers. Will it pay off in the long run? We’ll have to wait and see how well Apple tolerates iBookstore competitors when the iPad hits store shelves early next month.

Related GigaOM Pro Research (sub req’d): Evolution of the e-Book Market

An interesting patent of Apple’s relating to a social networking app surfaced recently. Dubbed iGroups, the app aims to solve the pitfalls of traditional social networks, like Facebook, that require users be a member before being able to participate. Instead, iGroups creates a virtual social network based on proximity.

To set the scene, imagine a casual weekend enjoying drinks at a bar. Your device would be able to detect others nearby and allow for easy communication by the tools already built into your device: SMS, email or by phone. If you’re a Mac user, you could loosely term this as Bonjour for your iPhone.

The idea of a network based on proximity is intriguing considering the technology built into mobile devices that can help facilitate this. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, for instance, both allow for discovering new devices that are within range. But the problem arises when a user leaves. If they are out of range, they are excluded from the network.

iGroups attempts to solve this issue when it first detects other users. At this point, the devices exchange a token (or handshake, if you will). These tokens are tagged. If there happens to be a trusted source at this venue, for example, like a wireless access point or perhaps a website setup for this purpose, devices can exchange tokens with it. Before this gets too technical, let’s agree to call the trusted source “Wilma.”

This accomplishes two important things. The first is that Wilma can match or correlate tokens to determine groups and their members. When my device approaches and exchanges tokens, Wilma now knows what group I’m part of and similarly, I’ll know other group members that have checked in with Wilma. This process allows the network to grow by allowing its users to infer other users through this daisy chain process. Further, tokens can be exchanged through a variety of mechanisms: Wi-Fi if available, Bluetooth if desired or even 3G. By supporting all of these, it becomes much easier to visualize a realistic image of the network and prevents the network from being stifled because users are not exchanging tokens by just one method that not all devices may support.

The second important goal that this serves is solving the issue of users leaving range and thus losing the whole social networking aspect. If a user interacts with Wilma either at the event or afterwards (through something similar to MobileMe, perhaps), the user can see the entire group. Even if they are just uploading exchanged between Fred and their self, the inferring process described earlier will allow the rest of the network to be recreated. As Fred moves on and continues to exchange tokens, even after our user has left, they are still connected to the same event and will appear as part of the group. Mac users? Think of this as being similar to Smart Folders. The group “knows” who its members are by this process of exchanging tokens, even if not all of the users are present at the same time.

It’s worthwhile to mention that any sort of implementation of such a technology would of course be completely optional and protect the privacy of users if they did not wish to participate. Further, the patent sheds light on the fact that the tokens themselves do not contain information that would identify any particular user or device. Merely the tokens act as a way to tag an association with a specific group.

Still, the idea of creating these virtual social networks on the iPhone is appealing. In some regards, there are applications on the market that attempt to deliver similar functionality, like Loopt. However, as mentioned earlier, these solutions still require users to have an account with them which can be problematic if you meet someone and want to exchange information but they are not a member of Facebook or LinkedIn. Instead of waiting for them to sign up and register a profile, iGroups solves the whole problem faster.

This definitely isn’t Apple’s first foray into patents on social interactions, but none of them have seen the light of day. With rumors of iPhone 4.0 around the corner, however, perhaps there is a substantial social component waiting to be unveiled. What do you think about the potential of iGroups?

Every major Apple product launch tends to follow a pattern that many of us have just accepted. Long lines, constrained supply and lack of accessories are all common for the launch day. But with the release of the iPad right around the corner, one company dared to follow Apple’s advice to the world. Instead of the frustrating experience of buying a new iPad and not being able to get a quality case for days or even weeks, Hard Candy Cases will be ready to deliver on day one — and all it took was just thinking different.

A visit to Hard Candy’s website quickly reveals that its iPad cases will ship this month, ahead of the launch for the device itself. Digging deeper, these cases are not just generic cases that happen to fit the general size of the iPad, but quality cases that snugly fit Apple’s multitouch wonder. So how did the company pull off quality products on such an amazing timeline?

It begins with the resolve of Tim Hickman, the CEO of Hard Candy Cases and founder of Speck Products, another popular accessory manufacturer. In the traditional manufacturing process, Apple would release technical documents (or the manufacturer could measure the physical device itself) to provide precise measurements for manufacturers. The next step is the expensive and sometimes lengthy process of setting up the tooling equipment to produce cases. It’s easy to see why accuracy is important. As a result, its not until a period of time after the product is released that the bulk of cases begin to enter the market. Hickman’s solution was to engineer the cases in such a way that if the final device was a millimeter or so different than anticipated, specially designed bumpers inside the case could be adjusted to provide a snug fit. From a business perspective, Hard Candy Cases was able to start the tooling process weeks ago. From a consumer perspective, that means cases will be available sooner rather than later.

But Hickman didn’t stop there. In a move that is strangely reminiscent of Steve Jobs himself, a little over a month ago the CEO flew to China to persuade factory workers to work through the Chinese New Year and focus on manufacturing his product. After four weeks of sleepless nights, sheer madness and a fight to the finish, Hickman’s chartered 747 delivered 18,000 Bubble Hard Sleeve cases to the U.S. Another 7,000 will be delivered before the iPad’s launch on April 3.

Hickman’s purpose behind this isn’t to simply be the first on the market for the sake of being first. With iPad pre-orders numbering in the hundreds of thousands, the iPad opens the door for a huge market of third-party accessories and that can mean some serious profits. Hard Candy Cases, while a figurative new kid on the block, isn’t a stranger to this though. With revenue of $150,000 in its first month of operation, Hickman’s company has already captured the attention of the industry. With prominent exposure in the Apple Store and the resolve of its CEO, Hard Candy Cases is poised to provide some serious competition to other popular case manufacturers, like Belkin, Speck and Incase.

If you’ve already pre-ordered your iPad, check out some Hard Candy Cases’ products so your iPad will be protected from day one. If you’ve used any of their other products, let us know what you think!

HTC has finally spoken out regarding the pending lawsuit Apple launched against the smartphone maker regarding its use of multi-touch as an interface navigation mechanism, and around 20 other technologies. It should surprise absolutely no one that the Taiwanese company doesn’t see eye-to-eye with the iPhone maker regarding the appropriateness of its use of the tech.

HTC CEO Peter Chou released a statement Wednesday addressing the recently filed suit directly. According to Chou, as quoted by InformationWeek, “HTC disagrees with Apple’s actions and will fully defend itself.” HTC’s stance, like that of Apple, is that it respects and values healthy competition and innovation. Of course, that shared premise leads both companies to quite different conclusions.

Chou elaborates HTC’s position further in the official statement:

HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible.

Apple is no stranger to suits from other companies, and it certainly hasn’t shied away from pursuing legal action itself in the past. A suit against Nokia along similar lines is still ongoing. HTC shouldn’t be surprised about the move, either, considering the fact that multi-touch wasn’t officially introduced as a launch feature on the Nexus One, even though the hardware supported it. It was added later by Google to the device via a software update. Sure seems like an attempt to dodge the ire of multi-touch’s proclaimed originator to me.

The Nexus One is almost certainly the catalyst for this suit, and with good reason. Despite the fact that the device itself isn’t selling anywhere near at the level of the iPhone, recent evidence suggests that the phone has raised the profile of Android, which seems to be positioning itself to make a serious bid on Apple’s smartphone market dominance. If Apple is ever to strip Google of some of that momentum, the time to do so is now.

But are the claims Apple is making valid, or is it just an attempt to strike down any and all competition before the consumer gets a chance to choose? I’m no legal expert, but it seems to me that Apple is going after some very basic concepts in its legal claims, ones without which the concept of a modern smartphone would be untenable. I’m all for giving credit where credit is due, but if we’re to see cell tech progress, it has to be at the behest of the free market, and that means not unduly placing restrictions on Apple’s competitors.

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. While eagerly awaiting my iPad to arrive — is it April 3 yet? Pleaaaaase? — I had a stream of consciousness that went something like this: I like baseball; the iPad is a decent size to watch a streaming game on MLB’s iPhone app while I’m playing World of Warcraft, or working, or — well, who am I kidding — playing WoW. The Apple dock, while in addition to being a $30 hunk of plastic, only props up the iPad in portrait mode; it’s a little hard to watch the game that way.

As I was thinking this, I looked up and noticed the paper stand that I use for making changes to copy I’ve marked up. “Self,” I said to myself, “I betcha that’d hold an iPad real well.” After a quick screen capture, some resizing and printing, I had an iPad mockup with which to test.

It fit wonderfully. In both dimensions. The stand costs about $10 at your local office supply store. As a bonus, it folds up flat so I can toss it and my Bluetooth keyboard into my manpurse carry bag. It’ll be fantastic for working on the go. Of course, I may need a shock-resistant case for the thing if Papelbon coughs up a lead in the playoffs again. Not that I’m bitter about that.

How about you guys? Any low-cost solutions you’ve found?

If you’re of the camp that believes your iPhone or iPod touch’s screen needs some kind of additional protective layer to prevent it from getting damaged, you may want to head to the Apple store soonish to stock up on said accessories. In the very near future, you might not be able to find them, at least not through Apple’s official channels, according to sources speaking to Macworld.

The sources, who are described as Apple accessory makers who want to remain anonymous for fear of arousing Cupertino’s ire, maintain that Apple has informed them it will no longer be carrying any films or covers aimed at protecting iPhone screens from dust or scratches, or even those that claim to prevent glare and ensure privacy.

If the sources are correct, all of these types of accessories will be pulled from the Apple Store, both in its online and physical retail incarnations, as will any other accessories that stick to the surface of Apple devices. The blanket ban on anything adhesive makes sense, since these apparently have a very high return rate because of the difficulty in applying them properly.

The ban on films that “protect” the screen also makes a good deal of sense, mostly because that’s a ludicrous claim to begin with. It’s like being sold insurance against possible gryphon attack. It’s just not going to do anything, besides maybe instill a false sense of security. Think about it: do you buy protective films for your eyeglasses?

Because it’s the same exact thing. Or maybe even more ridiculous, depending on the quality of your glasses. Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch screens are made of optical glass, which is the most scratch-resistant glass in existence. I personally have owned two iPhones and two iPod touches, none of which have ever borne any kind of screen protection. I’ve dropped them all countless times, and even kept them in pockets with change and other knick-knacks, and the screens are pristine. The back cases? Not so much.

I’m not advising against due diligence here. Generally speaking, I keep my iPhone in a pocket designated for it alone, or with a pack of gum or something else non-abrasive, though sometimes I forget and throw it in with my keys. Still, keeping it loose in a bag of sand probably isn’t a great idea.

But Apple’s doing a great service to customers with this move, even if that what’s motivated it to begin with. The absence of screen protectors on Apple Store shelves should hopefully go a long way toward curbing unnecessary accessory purchases. Unless you shop at Best Buy, in which case you’ll probably come home with three screen protectors and a product service plan.

It was bound to happen, sooner or later. Steve Jobs is simply too important, too impressive, too easy a target not to base a character on him and turn it into a sitcom.

And that’s what might very well be happening, if the pilot currently in development in Hollywood gets optioned for a series. Yesterday, Media Rights Capital released a statement on its website describing how, working with cable channel EPIX, they have green-lit a pilot episode for a proposed sitcom series entitled — what else? – iCON.

From MRC’s website:

EPIX and Media Rights Capital have made a team for iCON, a comedy series pilot that will be developed by Larry Charles, the Emmy-winning TV writer/producer, and the director of the Sacha Baron Cohen features Borat and Bruno.

Charles will oversee development of the script and will direct the half-hour pilot of a series written by Dan Lyons. A technology consultant for Newsweek, Lyons created the Fake Steve Jobs blog and wrote the novel Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs—A Parody.

Yes, you read that right. Fake Steve himself is penning the script (it’s most likely he already has, given how sporadic the updates have been in recent weeks on the Fake Steve Jobs blog.) If you’re a fan of Fake Steve, this is exhilarating news; Lyons is not only an insightful author but is in possession of a Sahara-dry wit, to boot. In addition to his Fake Steve sideshow, Lyons is the author of Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs – A Parody. You might say he really knows the subject matter.

And then there’s Larry Charles. Directing Borat and Brüno might not be an accolade everyone everywhere agrees is worthy of celebration (I guess it depends on your sense of humor) but no one can argue with his other credentials; he directed the 2008 documentary Religulous starring Bill Maher, and was for many years a writer and producer on Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. It all sounds like perfect past-experience for any producer charged with the task of bringing this project to life.

The partnership of Lyons/Charles is certain to culminate in a cutting (if not wickedly uncompromising) take on tech-celebrity culture.

A little more from MRC’s website on the subject matter of the show:

The show’s lead character, Tom Rhodes, is a composite of Jobs and other Silicon Valley titans, and the comedy is described as a savage satire, a study of ego, power and greed…

Jobs and other titans will certainly inspire iCON at its inception, but the show will lampoon the larger hi-tech world. [Larry] Charles will be swinging for the fences.

You may not have heard the name Media Rights Capital before. MRC is a studio owned by, amongst others, Goldman Sachs and (wait for it) AT&T. There’s something almost… poetic about that.

MRC will serve as the studio and financier. The company said it had several bidders for the property, but chose EPIX because Charles could be as edgy as he wanted to be.

“We are attempting to do nothing less than a modern Citizen Kane,” Charles said. “A scabrous satire of Silicon Valley and its most famous citizen.”

You know, at film school I heard time and time again that Citizen Kane was nothing less than the most perfect movie ever made. (I disagreed, favoring The Empire Strikes Back…) So for Charles to make a modern day Citizen Kane is, to put it mildly, an ambitious goal. But don’t forget, such bold statements are not uncommon for El Jobso when talking about music players or tablet devices, so I guess we can forgive this kind of hyperbole from a writer/producer described by the studio as “TV royalty.”

Apple has, naturally, remained silent on the matter. It’s fun to try to imagine what Steve Jobs might make of this. I think he’d probably find it amusing (and c’mon, it’s gotta be an ego boost?) but Macworld points out that Jobs has a less-than-stellar track record when it comes to this sort of thing:

Jobs is notoriously prickly about how he’s portrayed in the media. At one extreme, Apple infamously pulled all titles by publisher Wiley from its store shelves after the company released a book called iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business (no relation to the TV show).

Well, that was a book, and this is a (potential) TV show. Only Mac-heads and the most dedicated tech historians read books about Jobs. A sitcom from Larry Charles, on the other hand, will reach many millions of people otherwise entirely disinterested in the working of Silicon Valley’s executive elite.

This isn’t a series yet — the pilot has to prove there’s potential for that. But is there any serious doubt that Lyons/Charles can pull it off? And I wonder… a year from now, will we be laughing with Steve Jobs as he uses a clip from an episode to demo the next iPad… or rolling our eyes as his lawyers issue Cease & Desist orders to the studio?

An Australian tech website has started running ads featuring Mac Pros and MacBook Pros whose entry-level prices are noticeably higher than those in the current Mac lineup.

So what, right? The ads are probably incorrectly labeled, or something. But the word on the street (well, the word on Engadget, anyway) is that these might predict the much-anticipated Mac refreshes that we’ve been waiting for.

From Engadget:

Apple’s Australian online store lists the most affordable versions of the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and Mac Pro at A$1599, A$1999 and A$3599, respectively, but the ads show significantly higher “starting at” prices of A$1899, A$2399, and A$4499.

Following the ads to Apple’s Australian online store reveals the same Mac models at the same old prices, so either these ads are terribly wrong or they’re been released a little early…

It has been over a year since Apple released a major update to its high-end Mac Pro computer. I know very well because I bought one last April at an astronomically high price, and as such, guard it with my life. (No one else is allowed near it. No one!) If history has taught me anything, it is that I am not allowed to have the best and brightest kit for long. Therefore, an update is imminent. As for the MacBook Pro, we can probably expect to see Apple upgrade it with Intel’s powerful i7 Chipset.

But why so much more expensive? Engadget’s Vladislav Savov suggests:

The rise in MacBook Pro pricing could be attributed to the cost of the i7 chipset, but it seems unlikely that in a recovering economy Apple would increase their prices significantly without having a cheaper baseline model available.

I am hoping to see something more than just a chipset upgrade this time around; support for Blu-Ray is one of those things I want (even though it’s something most people don’t need) and who wouldn’t like to see high-capacity SSD’s as-standard?

I know only this; I’m a weak-willed slave to Apple’s hardware. I was the same way with PC’s, but let’s face it, a tech-obsessed geek with a weakness for shiny new toys will usually spend far less on generic PC equipment than on the latest newness from Cupertino.

At a time when the entry-level iPad would more than easily meet my needs, I know for a fact that, instead, I’ll be ordering the most expensive model available when we Brits can (finally!) get our hands on them. The same thing happened a year ago when I bought my painfully-expensive Mac Pro — truth is, I could have gotten by with an iMac. And even now, despite having twin 30” HD Cinema displays, I feel like I’m missing out not owning a 27” iMac as well. Thankfully, I’m in a tiny minority of crazy people.

Are these ads correct? If they are, will we have new Macs before the end of the month? Apple’s New Zealand online store also displays odd pricing inconsistencies along similar lines to those on the Australian store. Perhaps we’re reading too much into it (as Apple crazies want to do) but let’s face it, one of two things will happen from here; either the ads will be replaced with ‘corrected’ prices, or, one day very soon, that little yellow sticky note will appear on Apple’s online store and insane gadget freaks like me will reach for our credit cards…

Am I as crazy as I think? Share your thoughts with me in the comments below.

The iWork.com team at Apple sent out an e-mail to registered users today touting new accessibility from Apple mobile devices and more sharing options for all. However, the biggest feature, really the only feature that matter — editing documents — remains missing.

Carefully not introduced as an online productivity suite designed for collaboration, the iWork.com beta site has existed as little more than an online repository for sharing iWork documents. The only real advantage over simply e-mailing documents has been the ability to comment via sticky note and downloading in multiple formats.

More than a year later, the changes have been minimal, and that may be exactly the way Apple wants it.

As of today, “iWork.com allows you to share a document by creating a public link” with an incredibly long URL. However, accessing the public link does not allow the adding of comments or notes. Sharing documents is a little more efficient with a single page for doing so and a counter indicating the number of views for the document.

The other change, likely in anticipation of the iPad, is something that iWork.com should have included from the beginning: a mobile interface.

The new interface has “improved scrolling” and supposedly helps you “find your shared documents faster.” Unfortunately, what it does not do is show comments and notes, making the value of iWork.com even more dubious, if that’s possible. It’s becoming more and more apparent that an online version of iWork akin to Google Docs may not be coming at all. After all, Apple has never suggested iWork.com was meant for anything more than sharing, rather a collaborative online productivity suite was just logically assumed.

Well, the new logic is even simpler, that being iWork.com is cloud storage for the iPad. With the announcement of a native version of iWork for the iPad, iWork.com makes a lot more sense. Instead of syncing with iTunes to transfer documents to your computer, you upload them to iWork.com, hopefully with an option to synchronize in the near future. Apple gets $10 for each iWork App for the iPad and gives away the online storage.

Those waiting for iWork.com to leave beta status and be useful may get the former on April 3, but don’t count on logging into iWork.com and editing documents anytime soon.

Related GigaOM Pro research(sub req’d):

Who Owns Your Data in the Cloud?

Last week DynDNS released its beta support for Wide Area Bonjour and DNS Service Discovery. This means that if you own your own domain name, and you have a Custom DNS service with DynDNS, you can configure your Apple AirPort device (AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express and Time Capsule) to present itself as part of that domain, automatically updating your domain name and broadcasting configured services.

Wide Area Bonjour enables the same zero-config automatic service discovery functionality over the public Internet that we all enjoy on our local network (seeing our shared files, printers, scanners and so forth). If you have a MobileMe account and utilize the Back To My Mac functionality, you’re already using Wide Area Bonjour without even knowing it.

Most of us who use DynDNS use it to be able to let the IP Address that our ISP give us resolve with a friendly domain name (such as myname.homedns.org). This basic free DynDNS service works really well as long as you have a third-party router that supports DynDNS (which most of them do). Unfortunately Apple, being Apple, does not support DynDNS in its routers, leaving you to run the OS X DynDNS updater application on your computer. The downside to this is that if your computer is asleep and your home Internet connection drops and reconnects (giving you a new IP address) DynDNS does not get updated until the computer wakes up. When wanting to use Snow Leopard’s Wake On Demand feature this is a problem, so this has meant “tough luck,” requiring you to run the DynDNS Mac client on multiple machines and hope the IP updating occurs often enough. It generally works fine, with the occasional expected downtime when your home IP changes at midday if computers are sleeping.

This DynDNS Community post explains the current problem the DynDNS team are having. The gist is that while the Wide Area Bonjour service discovery works just fine, the domain name IP allocation will only work if your IP does not resolve a reverse name lookup. This is an issue since almost all Internet Providers that give you a dynamic IP address have a full domain name allocated already. For instance, if you do a reserve name lookup on your dynamic IP you may get a name of 123-148-53-102.dyn.ispname.com. This is a problem because of the way Apple’s Global Dynamic Hostname configuration currently works. It will only attempt to configure a name for the IP address if a name doesn’t already exist. DynDNS has queried Apple about the way this works and it appears to be non-intentional behaviour caused by a bug. Apple has indicated on the bonjour mailing list that a fix will come some time in the future, but at this stage there is no ETA. Apple will have to issue firmware updates for the Airport devices to make this work as expected.

What is working fine at the moment is Wide Area Bonjour service discovery. So if you have a static IP that does not resolve with a reverse name lookup and would like to emulate the kind of automatic service discovery functionality that you experience with Back To My Mac, you can achieve this goal with DynDNS now. DynDNS have two guides to assist with the appropriate configurations if you want to give it a try:

• Apple Wide Area Bonjour and DNS Service Discovery with Custom DNS
• Dynamic DNS Support for Apple AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express, and Time Capsule

At least two major news media outlets aren’t going to let the iPad’s lack of Flash support keep owners of Apple’s latest creation away from their content. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and National Public Radio (NPR) are working on iPad-specific versions of their websites, set to launch next month alongside the official ship date of the iPad.

The websites will launch automatically whenever someone navigates to either NPR.org or WSJ.com, and will replace the standard sites, both of which feature pretty significant quantities of Flash content. Peter Kafka at MediaMemo also notes that this workaround ensures that iPad owners will be able to access content from the two news sources without the organizations having to rush out a dedicated iPad application.

According to Kafka, NPR is in the process of developing such an application, but it won’t necessarily be ready in time for the iPad’s launch. Also, having two options available for iPad owners means that no matter what a customer’s preference, they should be able to access all of NPR’s content. Just after the device hits the streets, consumer frenzy will probably be at its most heady, so anyone ready to go on day one stands to benefit the most by way of picking up new readers and/or customers.

The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. is doing something along the same lines, although it will be more sound and fury than substance. While NPR’s site is getting a complete overhaul, the WSJ will have a Flash-free front page, but if you start delving deeper into content, you’ll run into those annoying little mystery Lego icons. The WSJ and other sites using this tactic will likely wait and see how popular the iPad actually becomes before devoting many resources to a full-scale conversion.

Related Research from GigaOM Pro:

• Web Tablet Survey: Apple’s iPad Hits the Right Notes
• How AT&T Will Deal with iPad Data Traffic
• 5 Tips for Developers Targeting the iPad
• With the iPad, Apple Take Google to the Mat

A new survey by research firm Crowd Science brings bad news for BlackBerry maker RIM, and some good news for Apple. The company that comes out best of all, though, is Google, whose Android operating system seems poised to see some major growth in the near future.

The survey, which Crowd Science performs semi-annually, addresses smartphone brand loyalty. This time around, it found that iPhone and Android customers were well satisfied with their choice of smartphone, but that BlackBerry is hemorrhaging users badly to both of those primary competitors.

A little over 90 percent of both iPhone and Android smartphone owners plan to stay with that OS when they purchase their next device, while nearly 40 percent of BlackBerry owners said they would opt for an iPhone next time around, and 34 percent said they’d go with Android instead of a RIM device.

It’s bad news for the Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry maker, and this latest survey shows that Apple isn’t exclusively to blame for the company’s steady decline. According to Crowd Science CEO John Martin:

These results show that the restlessness of Blackberry users with their current brand hasn’t just been driven by the allure of iPhone. Rather, Blackberry as a brand just isn’t garnering the loyalty seen with other mobile operating systems.

For me, the real surprise is not that many are dissatisfied with RIM, which seems to have done very little but make incremental cosmetic upgrades with its devices over the last couple of years, but that Android is nearly matching the iPhone in terms of consumer awareness and desire.

Apple still has the advantage in terms of who its customers are and what kind of money they’re willing to spend — and on what — though. iPhone owners tend to be slightly older and more affluent, and are much more likely to buy paid applications compared to other smartphone users. Android owners skew younger and less affluent, and accordingly are much less likely to spend money on paid applications. And they do download more free apps than any other user group.

Finally, the Nexus One is making a big splash, even if it isn’t selling in droves. Android awareness in general jumped six percentage points to 66 percent since the last survey period, and 32 percent of BlackBerry owners would swap their current devices for a Nexus One right away, given the chance. That number jumps to 60 percent for users of smartphones not made by Apple or BlackBerry.

While RIM is the company that should really be scared by the results of this survey, Apple shouldn’t exactly be patting itself on the back, either. Android is making steady gains, especially among current smartphone users, and they seem to have scored a special place in the hearts of young consumers, which, when combined with the 90 percent-plus brand loyalty result, could pay off huge going forward.

Related GigaOM Pro Research (sub req’d):

Report: Surveying the Mobile App Store Landscape

In case you haven’t seen our banners — above this post, to the right of it and down along the bottom of the page — or noticed the custom wallpaper, it’s worth repeating:

Pro2 for Mac is here!

We’re so excited we even made a little video about it. So if you’re the type of person that wants to go anywhere and do anything, at anytime, without worrying that you’re leaving something behind — if you want to be free to be you — try Pro2 free, today.

Setting up your OS to your liking can be an art for some. What if you need to set up Snow Leopard to present every user with the same look and settings? By following these steps you can have every user who logs into the machine receive the same look, feel and preferences that you desire. What we’ll be doing is creating a new user, setting it up to look how we want, then copying the settings so every new user will get those preferences.

1. Login under your admin account and open up Accounts pane in System Preferences.
2. Click the + to create a new Standard user.
3. As an example, we’ll use the name testuser.
   
   
4. Log off and log back in as testuser.
5. Set everything up the way you want. I customized the Dock, Safari’s home page and the Finder preferences.
6. When you are done customizing, log off the testuser account.

1. Login under your admin account.
2. Navigate to the /System/Library folder in Finder.
3. Right-click on the User Template folder and choose Get info.
   
4. By default, you cannot browse this folder. Change the permissions so Everyone has Read & Write permissions.
   
5. Now we can open up the User Template folder & copy the English.lproj folder to your desktop. This will be our backup copy in case we want to restore it back.
6. Open up Terminal and navigate to the User Template folder.
   cd /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj
7. Copy the testuser folder over, which will replace the defaults. You may get errors about some files that can’t be replaced. I haven’t seen it cause any issues though.
   sudo cp -R ~testuser/* .
   sudo cp -R ~testuser/.* .
8. Change the permissions for the User Template folder back so everyone has No Access again.
   

1. Create a new user to verify everything worked. I used the name testuser2.
   
2. Log off as admin and log back in as testuser2.
3. You will now see your customized settings. These will be used for all new users created on the system from this point on.

To put everything back the way it was, log in as admin and copy the English.lproj backup file on your desktop back to the /System/Library/User Template folder.

If you have a lab of Macs but aren’t using Open Directory, this is a nice solution to maintain some control over the OS presentation. This change will only affect new users. It has no effect on existing users, so keep that in mind. If you start getting constant requests for more customizations similar to this, setup a Snow Leopard Server and start using Workgroup Manager. The changes can be much easier to implement but the Server solution has a larger price-tag for that convenience.

A piece I wrote last week on the impact of iTunes web preview pages on App Store SEO brought up a little side conversation about how many people found it annoying that the links launch iTunes automatically. Sometimes you don’t even have any warning that the link is going to launch iTunes if you click on a shortened link. There are a few simple steps that you can take to stop this behavior and suppress iTunes in its eagerness to run and take you to the page for that app (or other iTunes content).

Below, I have outlined the steps for Safari, Firefox, and Chrome.

The iTunes preview pages run a JavaScript function that attempts to load iTunes by opening an ITMS file. This file will launch iTunes and direct the application to open the iTunes Store to the specified content. I did not want to recommend just disabling JavaScript because that would interfere with a lot of websites that rely on the interactivity that is possible with JavaScript. We will prevent iTunes from opening by changing the way that these browsers handle the ITMS file. This approach will allow you to manually launch iTunes when you desire. In the case of Chrome, we can selectively disable JavaScript for iTunes links.

Safari uses the helper applications as defined in the “Get Info” dialog box for each file type. In Snow Leopard, Mac OS X relies solely on the file’s extension to determine the default application. This may behave differently in 10.5, which still respects the creator code attribute.

Create a simple text file on your desktop. The content of the file does not matter. Rename that file to “test.itms” and confirm that you do want to change the extension. Now select that file and pull up the “Get Info” dialog box (Command-I, right-click, or File » Get Info).

The “Open with:” section should show “iTunes.app (default)” at first. Click on the pull down menu there, select “Other” and then pick Safari. You will have to enable “All Applications” in the file selection dialog box. Clicking “Add” will return you to the “Get Info” window. Be sure to click “Change All…” to have that behavior work for any ITMS file, including ones you may download from iTunes web links in the future.

You must log out and back in for these changes to take effect. Restarting the computer would accomplish the same result.

You can still launch iTunes by clicking on the “View in iTunes” button on the preview page.

To reverse the setting, go back to the ITMS file (or create a new one) and change the “Open With” entry to iTunes.app and then click “Change All…” to make sure it will be used in all cases.

Firefox uses a different method to define the helper app. Open a new browser window or tab and type “about:config” into the address bar. After dismissing the warning, you will be presented with a long list of options. Fortunately, we can use the search box at the top of this window to filter the results down to just the option we need. Type “itms” in the filter box and you will see an entry for “network.protocol-handler.warn-external.itms” as the only result (if you don’t get any results, keep reading for a solution). Double-click on the “false” entry below the “Value” column and change it to “true” and then close the window or tab. Restart Firefox to make sure the change is saved and used the next time you launch Firefox.

Now you should get a dialog box asking you what you want to do about this content type when you go to page. Click “Cancel” to prevent iTunes from opening or click “OK” to launch iTunes into the iTunes Store. Do NOT check the “Remember my choice for itms links” box or iTunes will automatically launch in the future. Unfortunately, I did not see this dialog box come up consistently, but here is what it should look like.

What if I don’t have an an “itms” entry in about:config?

If you do not have an entry for “network.protocol-handler.warn-external.itms” in the “about:config” page, do not panic. You can add a new entry by right-clicking on the page and selecting “New: Boolean” from the pop-up menu.

Type “network.protocol-handler.warn-external.itms” into the preference name field and click “OK” to create the entry.

The next step is to make sure the boolean value itself is set to “true” so that Firefox will ask what you want to do with iTunes links.

Additional Measures

If iTunes still launches automatically, check the settings in the applications tab of the Firefox preferences window and search for “itunes” in the filter box. If any content types are set to open with iTunes, change those settings to “Always Ask” and this should stop iTunes from opening. To double-check, do another search on “itms” and make sure it is set to “Always Ask” here as well.

To reverse the setting, return to the “about:config” page and double-click on the “true” entry for “network.protocol-handler.warn-external.itms” to change it back to “false” and disable the dialog box asking you what to do.

Chrome has not implemented the “about:config” settings in Chrome for Mac, but it does have a nifty feature to disable javascript on specific sites. Open Chrome’s preferences and click on the “Under the Hood” tab.

Click on “Content Settings…” and then select the “JavaScript” tab.

Click on “Exceptions” and then use the “+” button to add “itunes.apple.com” and make sure this site is set to block JavaScript. Now when you load an iTunes web link, the site will report that iTunes cannot be found because the JavaScript function that is looking for it has failed to run and return a result.

While this solution works to shut down iTunes, it also means that you cannot click on the “View on iTunes” button on the page to launch iTunes manually. If you really want to get to the iTunes Store, copy the URL from the address bar and open the same page in Safari, or simply launch iTunes manually and search in the store.

To reverse the setting, return to the list of exceptions and delete the entry for “itunes.apple.com” by clicking on the “-” button.

Automatically launching applications and slowing down my computer is almost as annoying as websites that start playing background music when you visit or DVD’s that play ads for soft drinks that cannot be stopped when all you want to do is watch a movie. Well, not nearly as bad as the stupid discs that will not let you skip to the movie, but still annoying. The steps above will help you take back control.

Many of you have reported that Safari/iTunes seem to reset our little fix, so here are some additional options for those experiencing this issue.

Safari relies on the Finder to define the default applications in the “Get Info” dialog box for each file type and the system to define the default helper application for URL schemes like “itms://” used by iTunes. With Chrome and Firefox, we can use settings within the app itself. With Safari, we have to modify the way the system deals with the files and URLs or add a plug-in to Safari itself.

Some may want to check out GlimmerBlocker which works by installing a proxy server on your local machine. All web requests from any application will be routed through this proxy. When the web page is returned to the requesting application, the page can be rewritten according to rules defined in the proxy.

Another approach is to change the system URL schemes for “itms://” to block Safari from launching iTunes even though the script still runs on the preview page. To do this, you will need to install RCDefaultApp and disable the “itms” URL type.

I did not want to modify the way the system deals with all HTTP requests or install a System PreferencePane. I chose to use GreaseKit, a Greasemonkey extension for Safari. After you install GreaseKit, you will need to install a script to block iTunes from launching on web preview pages. There is an existing script that will do this, but it includes some minor advertising for apptrackr.com. I wrote a simplified script that you can install to Stop iTunes from autolaunching that does not modify any other elements of the preview pages. This script will also work with Greasemonkey on Firefox.

A Google employee expressed his distaste for the way Apple does business in no uncertain terms in a recent blog post. Tim Bray, a co-inventor of XML and a well-known blogger in his own right, is also a Google employee on the Android team, having recently joined following his time at Sun Microsystems.

The blog post at issue, which appeared on his personal blog, details his reasons behind joining Google, which include a passion for the rapid pace of development on the platform and the fact that it’s an open source system. Another reason is that he “hates” the iPhone. Or at least the context in which the iPhone operates.

Bray doesn’t shy away from sharing his opinion of what Apple’s done wrong with the iPhone, in no uncertain terms:

The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger.

I hate it.

I hate it even though the iPhone hardware and software are great, because freedom’s not just another word for anything, nor is it an optional ingredient.

The big thing about the Web isn’t the technology, it’s that it’s the first-ever platform without a vendor (credit for first pointing this out goes to Dave Winer). From that follows almost everything that matters, and it matters a lot now, to a huge number of people. It’s the only kind of platform I want to help build.

Apple apparently thinks you can have the benefits of the Internet while at the same time controlling what programs can be run and what parts of the stack can be accessed and what developers can say to each other.

I think they’re wrong and see this job as a chance to help prove it.

Even though I wasn’t sad to see Apple nix a whole host of “sexy” apps recently, I can’t help but agree with where Tim Bray is coming from. Apple is effectively packaging and selling back to us a polished and pristine version of what we used to have only free and unfettered access to. Giving them too much control might start to inhibit our ability to continue to have that free access.

I’m not sure handing the reins to Google won’t have the exact same effect in the long run, but that isn’t what will happen if some people side with them in this developing conflict. Luckily, unlike in professional sports, there doesn’t have to be a winner in clashes between mobile device makers. A healthy balance should keep the power of both in check.

While the number isn’t official (Apple isn’t exactly free and easy with its sales figures), one analyst is saying that although its early yet to tell, it looks like the iPad is on track to break some pretty significant records in terms of order volume. Amateur Apple analyst Daniel Tello, who regularly outguesses the pros, is now saying that around 152,000 iPads have been pre-ordered in the first 72 hours of availability.

Tello’s approach involves extrapolating Apple web order numbers. This time around, he worked with Victor Castroll, a Valcent Financial Group analyst. Together, they surveyed a sample group and found 120 orders for 137 iPads over 58 hours beginning at 8:30 A.M. Friday morning.

From there, Tello applied a formula that subtracts non-iPad orders on Apple’s site and multiplies the resulting number by an average of 1.125 iPads per order. Finally, he added in 2,000 units for late-night hours during which time they had no data. In the end, the total arrived at was 152,000 ending at midnight on Sunday. The number doesn’t factor in iPads reserved for in-store pickup.

Tello is quick to note that even though the number seems fairly impressive for a brand new product, there was actually a huge dip in pre-order numbers following the initial day. First day sales saw 120,000 pre-orders, at a rate of around 25,000 per hour. By Sunday, that hourly rate had slowed to about 1,000. The initial spike is explained by “overexcited fanboism” according to Tello.

Based on the current numbers, Tello estimates that pre-order numbers won’t exceed much more than half a million. He anticipates when the iPad will hit the magic million-unit mark in an interview with Fortune:

My best guess, although very tentative given the early stage and few data we have so far, would be that they hit the 1 million unit milestone by the second week after it ships. But this is a very speculative guesstimate based on just a weekend of pre-orders.

To hit 1 million two weeks after shipping would be a major milestone, not only for Apple itself, but for the entire tablet market. The iPhone took 74 days before it reached 1 millions sold, and the sales numbers for the entire tablet industry is only around 3 to 4 million a year according to Engadget. Apple would then be on pace to actually double or triple the sales numbers of its entire market segment on its own in the first year of sales, if the iPad sells roughly as many units as did the iPhone in its first year.

Tello’s numbers also provide a snapshot of what kind of iPads are being sold in what quantities. The Wi-Fi only model is strongly outselling the Wi-Fi + 3G version, by a margin of almost exactly two to one. It’s not surprising given the price difference between the two, and the growing prevalence of MiFi devices that convert users’ existing cellular data plans into usable Wi-Fi. Surprisingly, storage capacities are more evenly divided, with the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models taking roughly a third of the pre-orders each.

Remember also that these sales figures are only for the U.S. so far. International versions of the device aren’t due to go on sale until sometime in late April at the earliest. The real challenge for Apple will be the first few weeks of in-store availability, which is when the general public will be making purchases, and not just the devoted Apple faithful willing to put down a pre-order. If both international customers and the general buyer reflect anywhere near the enthusiasm of the pre-order crowd, Apple will definitely have a hit on its hands, but I’d wait till the hype effect has passed before placing any real bets about the iPad’s future success.

Related Research from GigaOM Pro:

• Web Tablet Survey: Apple’s iPad Hits the Right Notes
• How AT&T Will Deal with iPad Data Traffic
• 5 Tips for Developers Targeting the iPad
• With the iPad, Apple Take Google to the Mat

Steve Jobs calls the iPad Apple’s “most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device” and I’m certainly not one to disagree. The iPad boasts significant advances over the iPhone in terms of hardware and software which makes me wonder, how much of that advanced technology could make it’s way into a future Apple TV?

While the current Apple TV boasts an Intel Pentium M 1.0GHz processor, Apple’s advances in its own chip design could pave the way for a custom processor fine tuned for the device. Apple’s reason for custom chips in the mobile arena is to provide them with what they need while giving them more control over other aspects, such as battery life. While this isn’t a concern with the Apple TV, certainly a more powerful chip while still being power efficient is desirable. A custom chip would give Apple more flexibility over performance as well. Consider the video formats the iPad can play. Many were shocked to see support for full 720p at 30 frames per second and support for .avi files up to 35Mbps. In terms of processing power, that’s more advanced than the Apple TV, and its a mobile device!

The iPad also brings support for an external keyboard through Bluetooth. That’s right. You can use your plain off the shelf Apple Wireless Keyboard with your iPad. Why not bring this same bluetooth functionality to the Apple TV? This could allow support for a wireless keyboard or any host of other Bluetooth-enabled devices. (What other devices might one use? Read on, my friend.)

While the current Apple TV software runs on a modified version of the Mac operating system, there’s really no benefit provided from this approach versus an iPhone-like OS. Consider the similarities already between the two: only one “application” can run at a time and the official method of pushing content to both devices is either through the Internet or iTunes.

Another arena that Apple could pursue is to finally offer an App Store for the device. Now that the waters have been tested with the iPhone and iPod touch, an Apple TV App Store makes sense. Considering that the device has been hacked numerous times and there are many unsupported applications that can be run on the device, an official App Store would give the device more expandability and return a portion of the profit back to Apple. Since the App Store model allows the developer to reap profits from the app too, perhaps this will finally pave the way to bring Hulu into the living room via the Apple TV. If Hulu and Netflix both offered apps for the Apple TV, imagine how many of these devices Apple could move off the shelves? Game developers could build their own applications and provide interaction using an iPhone or iPad as a controller (gaining accelerometer functionality) or through their own Bluetooth-enabled peripherals.

The Apple TV is a product that has seen few updates and is referred to by Apple as a “hobby.” But what are hobbies really? It’s something done for pleasure and for leisure. Something that you work on slowly over time, but stay the course. Apple has reaffirmed their commitment to investing in the device but much like the iPhone and the iPad, it isn’t going to be a runaway success if its not the right product at the right time. The iPad will be wildly popular because of the success of the iPhone, which owes its own success to the accomplishments of the iPod. Apple has carefully built an entire ecosystem around iTunes and its devices. With the Apple TV, the best is yet to come.

Related Research from GigaOM Pro:

• Web Tablet Survey: Apple’s iPad Hits the Right Notes
• How AT&T Will Deal with iPad Data Traffic
• 5 Tips for Developers Targeting the iPad
• With the iPad, Apple Take Google to the Mat

Even though a single iPad hasn’t actually been shipped, that won’t stop the questions over the success of initial orders from being asked. Considering how Apple has positioned the iPad in the product lineup, on par with the Mac, iPod, and iPhone, Steve Jobs better have a press-release answer ready.

On Friday, Philip Elmer-DeWitt at Apple 2.0 started following people following the numbers, though whether those numbers are real or imaginary is yet to be determined. The data thus far derived has come from InvestorVillage, an Internet forum for “self-directed investors.”

By using orders numbers from an admittedly small number of purchasers, and accounting for purchases of other products at the Apple Store, the initial estimate was 51,000 in the first two hours, 74,000 after four and a half hours, and 91,000 in six hours. According to Apple 2.0, by the end of Friday the estimated number of iPad pre-orders was approximately 120,000. That’s the good news, assuming it’s true.

Apple 2.0 also passed along metrics for 110 iPads that are what you’d expect, Wi-Fi over 3G by two to one, the cheapest iPad at $499 being very popular. Somewhat surprisingly, the most expensive model, 64GB/3G at $829, was also popular but, hey, these are self-directed investors spending their hard-earned dividends that we’re talking about.

Of course, there’s another group of investors waiting for news on iPad orders. Investors in AAPL saw their fortunes rise on Friday with the stock price reaching a new high at $227, the company briefly overtaking Wal-Mart in valuation at $206 billion. Whether AAPL goes higher on Monday will likely come down to how many iPad orders there were over the weekend, but how many equals success?

Looking back at iPhone launches, a million iPads ordered would definitely be a success, probably more than all the Slate PCs with Windows sold since 2002. Don’t expect that to happen. Both the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS were immediately available in multiple countries. While the iPad will be available in other countries in late April, the first weekend of the month will be U.S. only, so perhaps the original iPhone would be a better comparison. Certainly, if the iPad does outsell the original iPhone, that will be the spin, but what if it doesn’t?

Everyone who wanted to order an iPad could have ordered one Friday. There were no lines at the online Apple Store. Even assuming the number crunchers at InvestorVillage got it right on Friday, it seems unlikely to me anything like 120,000 orders will be placed on successive days. For the sake of argument, let’s assume the number ordered is halved on successive days, 210,000 total over three days. 210,000 iPads doesn’t look very good compared to the iPhone launch, does it? The only thing worse would be if Apple doesn’t release any numbers.

In an interview with the New York Times last year, Jobs remarked on Amazon’s silence over Kindle sales, saying, “usually, if they sell a lot of something, you want to tell everybody.” That’s exactly why we’ve never heard about Apple TV sales, and it’s what will be the real metric for whether iPad orders were a success over the weekend. If there is silence from Cupertino, expect investors to react with wailing and selling of AAPL. More importantly for consumers, there could be an immediate drop in the price for the iPad, similar to what happened with the original iPhone shortly after launch.

I think that’s the kind of failure we can all appreciate.

Related Research from GigaOM Pro:

• Web Tablet Survey: Apple’s iPad Hits the Right Notes
• How AT&T Will Deal with iPad Data Traffic
• 5 Tips for Developers Targeting the iPad
• With the iPad, Apple Take Google to the Mat