Told you so....

OK, So back from my vacation and Apple were kind enough to hold fire on the release of Lion until I got back.

Very kind of them!

Another stellar earnings announcement last night - Apple Press Release - breaking all sorts of records.

• $76 billion dollars in the bank
• Still selling as many iPads as they can make - 9.25 million of them
• iPads now outselling Macs - amazing for a product less than 18 months old
• 20.34 million iPhones sold in the quarter - more than the analysists predicted even without a new model
• Mac sales still on the up beating the PC - in fact, the 21st consecutive quarter they outgrew the PC market
• Apple's second quarter earnings ($7.79) were higher than the whole of Apple's 2008 earnings ($7.45) (via @asymco)

and lots of other mind boggling statistics.

Absolutely incredible performance and this time, the stock price went up instead of down!

One very surprising thing, was that Apple actually announced that Lion was to be launched on the day after the earnings call - 20th July. This came out of the blue, as Apple historically does not refer to future products during the call.

Happily, I'd previously predicted the 20th July as the launch date back in the beginning of July on an episode of MacBreak Weekly and have stuck to that date ever since.

I have a pet theory that Apple likes to announce record breaking numbers during the earnings call, then immediately follow that up with another announcement a day or so later, catapulting earnings for the next quarter.

So it seemed logical that the Lion release would follow the earnings call.

As far as the fabled Thunderbolt enabled Macbook Airs and Mac Pros, I'm sure they will arrive in the next two weeks, but not on the same day as Lion. Update: Just as I hit publish on this post, all the online Apple stores went down! So it may well be that we will see some new hardware today too. Or it may be that they are just removing/replacing some older versions of software, we'll soon find out

Final Update: Huzzah - new MacBook Airs and Mac minis - So I was wrong but hey, I'm only human ;-)

Today is all about the big cat!

I've done the decent thing and kept to my NDA during the Lion Developer phase so although I've been playing with Lion for a few months, I've deliberately not done any ScreenCastsOnline shows or sneak peaks at Lion. I also haven't done any advance shows, as I really wanted to wait for the final release to be made available so there are no last minute changes.

As I write this, I'm poised for Lion to be released and have created several builds to test the standard install and the unsupported methods of doing a fresh install. We still don't know when during the day it will be released, and how easy it will be to download - it's going to be a serious test of Apple's infrastructure (and the Internet!). Once I have the release version, I'll do my testing and hopefully get an install show out soon. Features and highlights of Lion will follow in a number of other shows over the next few weeks.

One thing to bear in mind is that we will also need updates to most of the Apple applications not contained in Lion (iWork, iLife, etc) New versions of the Apps will be needed to support some of the new features of Lion, so expect to see new versions of these via the Mac App Store. Will be interesting to see if brand new versions of iLife or iWork are released soon, not just Lion optimised ones.

Anyway, back to the Mac App Store....

Is it there yet, is it there yet, is it there yet....

Could Apple retake top spot among portable computer makers in 2012?

As far as I'm concerned, the iPad is a computer. Perhaps a different class of computer, but still a computer. It should be accounted for and give Apple the correct positioning amongst computer manufacturers.

"It's a difficult question for some analysts to answer. Is the iPad a new class of device or is it a version of an ultra-portable notebook? How you group the iPad makes a huge difference to those professionals trying to assess the impact of the iPad on the notebook computer market."

Via TUAW

WordPress for WebOS

Strikes me that WordPress for WebOS has been heavily influenced by Twitter for iPad

WordPress for webOS is built around Sliding Panels that enable you to easily switch between creating, editing and managing your content.

WordPress for WebOS

ScreenCastsOnline iPad 2 Winner

As promised, I did a random prize draw of ScreenCastsOnline members, to win a brand new iPad 2 (or cash equivalent) for the end of June. Nothing complicated, just open to all fully paid up members as of 30th June 2011.

I downloaded the list of current members and did a random sort, then selected a random number  using Random.org.

The lucky winner was.....

Marshall Moore of Illinois, US

Congratulations Marshall and commiserations to all the other members.

Really HP? Really?

Well, the first reviews are in and I have to say, I’m shocked and surprised that yet another tablet device hits the market with buggy, unresponsive software.

I also ran into plenty of bugs in my tests, even though H-P said I was testing a production unit. For instance, on various occasions, the email app failed to display the contents of messages, the photos app failed to display pictures, and the game “Angry Birds” crashed repeatedly. All of these problems required a reboot of the device to resolve. In addition, I found the TouchPad grew sluggish the more I used it. Again, a reboot was needed to restore normal speed. H-P acknowledges most of these problems and says it is already working on a webOS update, to be delivered wirelessly in three to six weeks that will fix nearly all of them.

Walt Mossberg - All Things D

Most apps are quick to load and responsive enough, but some, like Weatherbug, are very slow. It’s easy enough to blame the developers getting to grips with new hardware at this point, but ultimately we never felt wowed by the performance. Sure, flipping between tasks is quick and snappy, but changing from landscape to portrait is occasionally sluggish and, after about a day or so, we found we had to give it a reboot to regain optimum performance.

Engadget

The TouchPad often seemed quite slow at launching new apps, leaving me staring at a pulsating, glowing icon. When a lot of apps were running, everything could get especially laggy. Occasionally, everything would freeze for a few seconds and then resume. The TouchPad also seemed to get confused about its orientation regularly—every time I laid it down flat on a table, it wanted to flip into portrait mode. More than once I got in a situation that would have been comedic if it weren’t so frustrating: I’d be holding the TouchPad in landscape mode, but its interface would remain in portrait. When I turned the TouchPad back to portrait, it would rotate to landscape. A few times, the apps within the multitasking interface appeared rotated correctly, but the overall UI was rotated incorrectly. Suffice it to say, there are some bugs affecting performance and usability.

Jason Snell - Macworld

All the other tablet releases have been train wrecks, with products rushed to market well before they were ready.

HP seemed to be in a strong position, with having a good foundation in WebOS and they also seemed to be taking their time getting the HP TouchPad ready for release. I really thought they were going to release a credible alternative to the iPad.

The form factor seems to have been put together in response to the iPad 1, so obviously, the product has been on the drawing board for some time. I imagine that the behemoth that is HP was not agile enough to re-design and re-tool in response to the iPad 2 release. Yet it ticks most of the boxes for hardware specification and has average battery life.

The main issue seems to be the software, and most if not all of the reviews indicate it’s buggy and worst still, unresponsive at times. Surely when going up against the iPad, one of the prime design goals for any tablet manufacturer, is that it just has to perform - effortlessly.

HP are saying that there is a fix in the works but all these reviews were on production ready units.

First impressions stick and buggy software is pure buzz kill.

Hopefully they will be able to sort these issues out over time, but the initial damage is done. The iPad really would benefit in having a strong competitor, but it looks like the HP TouchPad isn’t it in it’s present form.

Makes you think just how well the design, construction and launch of the iPad has been executed by Apple. Let’s not forget, the original iPad was launched well over 12 months ago and even in it’s first incarnation performed beautifully with unheard of reliability, performance and responsiveness.

Can anyone catch them?