Day: 5 October 2012

More Small iPad Spitballing

As long as I’m writing speculative posts, there are a few things I forgot to address in the previous spitballing article concerning the launch event.

A demonstration of a smaller iPad is a really hard proposition. To strike a balance between the new and the familiar is nearly impossible for an easily-bored tech press. Therefore, I don’t see a full event being dedicated to the one product, and I also don’t see Apple booking out Yerba Buena for it (even though it’s available for October 17).

I think we’ll see the launch of updated iMacs, and perhaps a 13-inch retina MacBook Pro (but that’s a long shot) at the same event.

Something has been bugging me regarding the currently-available iPads. I don’t think it’s likely that Apple would update a device launched just six months ago, but I also think it’s obvious that a new iOS device will be launching with the Lightning connector. A new iPad has also showed up in a developer’s logs with an A6 chip. This is, I believe, the next generation of 10-inch iPad, but its “3,6” designator suggests that it’s a relatively minor update. Like I said, I doubt they’d update the 10-inch at the same event with an A6 chip and Lightning connector, but it’s possible.

I should stop digging now, shouldn’t I? We’ll know more this week if press invitations get sent out.

LG’s Nexus Phone Rumored for Mid-November ⇥ theverge.com

It will also have a sealed, non-removable battery and, initially at least, either 8GB or 16GB of internal storage with no microSD expansion.

And likely be uglier than an endoscope of a monkey’s anus. Remember: Nexus is the flagship Google-approved Android line.

Google’s Motorola Ad Faked an Address to Beat Apple Maps ⇥ brooksreview.net

Benjamin Brooks, regarding this bit of advertising fakery from Google/Motorola:

Honest question: why did they need to fake an address to “beat” Apple? Why not just show Street View versus Flyover? Seems like that is more honest and more telling of the feature dis-parity between the two.

Good question. A motivation I considered when I heard about this was that Google Maps will find the address even if it’s typed imperfectly, or isn’t technically an address (it’ll drop the pin where the address would be). But this seems like a convoluted way to say that Google Maps has better search functionality (which it does).

Google has an obviously superior maps client right now, and it strikes me as bizarre why they would need to fake an address to show that.