If you're reading this from one of the 25 countries that just started selling the new iPad today, welcome! (Sorry, we don't know all 25 ways to say welcome in those countries, so we'll stick with the universal language of English.) Now 25 more countries will get to experience the overheating, the poor Wi-Fi and the battery that charges beyond 100 percent -- although all of you will be sitting out the 4G LTE party for now, so you'll have to do your best to burn through your monthly data plan with 3G instead. Enough sarcasm -- let's get on with the show for this Friday, March 23, 2012!
Even More On That New iPad Battery Charging
Yesterday, we reported that the new iPad continues charging its battery even after the display indicates 100 percent -- an anomaly discovered by Dr. Ray Soneira of DisplayMate Technologies Corporation while researching his latest Display Technology Shoot-Out, which pits the new iPad against last year's iPad 2 as well as the iPhone 4. Dr. Ray has continued testing the new iPad's battery charge, noting that it actually takes two hours and 10 minutes for the larger battery to fully recharge -- more than double the hour he had first reported. What seems to be causing the problem? "The charge indicator on all mobile devices is based on a mathematical
model of the charge rates, discharge rates, and recent discharge history of the battery," Dr. Ray notes. "So there is something wrong with the battery charge mathematical model on the iPad. It should not say 100 percent until it stops recharging and goes from the full recharging rate of about 10 watts to a trickle charging rate of about one watt. Otherwise the user will not get the maximum running time that the iPad is capable of delivering" -- which Dr. Ray's findings indicate are 5.8 hours with the display at maximum brightness, or a more reasonable 11.6 hours at the middle brightness setting. Maybe Apple needs to release an iOS 5.1.1 patch to address the discrepency?
AT&T VP Uses T-Mobile Layoffs to Go Cee Lo Green on FCC
Anyone who thinks AT&T isn't still smarting from the FCC's denial of its merger with T-Mobile should head to the company's Public Policy Blog, where AT&T Senior Executive Vice President of External and Legislative Affairs Jim Cicconi had some sharp words for the government agency. On Thursday, T-Mobile announced that it would be closing seven call centers and laying off thousands of works, jobs that Cicconi claims could have been saved if the merger had been permitted to move forward. "Only a few months ago AT&T promised to preserve these very same call centers and jobs if our merger was approved," Cicconi writes. "We also predicted that if the merger failed, T-Mobile would be forced into major layoffs." Sadly, that prediction has come true, and AT&T is pointing the finger (you figure out which one) squarely at the Feds. "The current FCC not only rejected our pledges and predictions, they also questioned our credibility," Cicconi continues. "As I learned in my years of public service, the price of a bad decision is too often paid by someone else." Ouch!
Video: The iPad Drop Test (or, Now We Want To Cuddle with Our New iPad)
If you want to spend the next two minutes cringing as you hold your new iPad close to your protective bosom, hit play on the embedded video below. If the sight of shattered glass and Retina Display damage is too much for you to bear, keep reading and pretend you didn't see this. The sadistic folks over at SquareTrade decided to test the new iPad against last year's iPad 2 in a series of drop tests to see which one could survive, and let's just say, the results aren't pretty in either case. That said, the new iPad suffered a far worse fate: The display nearly popped off! It's truly the saddest and more horrifying thing a new iPad owner could watch after only a week with their new baby -- but it should encourage more than a few of you to get out there and buy a case, anyway...
Mountain Lion Includes "Retina" Artwork, MacBook HD, Anyone?
Apple has brought many of the most interesting parts of iOS "back to the Mac," but one that we'd all like to see is Mac computers with Retina Displays. According to Ars Technica, we may get our wish sooner rather than later, pointing to clues found inside the latest developer preview for OS X Mountain Lion. "A source with access to the latest Mountain Lion preview alerted Ars that double-sized graphics have popped up in some unexpected places, once again suggesting that Apple may be close to releasing MacBooks with high pixel-density screens" -- perhaps timed to this summer's release of the new Mac OS X 10.8 itself this summer. Developers have already dug up "HiDPI" display mode graphics which exist even in the current OS X Lion, so this news certainly isn't a stretch of the imagination -- especially with no new MacBooks released thus far in 2012 as the first quarter winds down next week. Then again, with three million plus new iPads already sold, Apple can afford to take a breather until the summer, we'd say.
Rumor: Blah Blah Blah iPhone 5, Blah Blah Blah 4G LTE, Blah Blah Blah Fall 2012, Blah Blah Blah Micro-Dock, Blah Blah Blah iOS 6
Pardon our cynicism closing out the week with a rumor, but the folks at iMore are at it again, consulting with their secret sources to bring you some of the most obvious iPhone predictions you're likely to read this month. To the surprise of almost no one, the website claims the next iPhone will come with 4G LTE -- hardly a shocker considering the new iPad already has it, and Apple can hardly sit on the sidelines for another year on that front. The report also cites this fall as the release date, suggesting October as the most obvious month. (Maybe because that's when the iPhone 4S was introduced? Duh.) iOS 6 is likely to be introduced at WWDC in June so you can check that box on your rumor list, and also scratch off those recent rumblings of a larger screen -- iMore's ninjas are pegging the next iPhone at a "similar if not same sized screen." Last but not least, those clever folks confirm their own earlier report that Apple will kick the current dock connector port to the curb in favor of a "micro-dock" connector. What, no free unicorn with every purchase? (Just kidding, guys, we love you and it's a slow news day...)
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