FileMaker comes to your iPad! (and iPhone!)
FileMaker has been a critical database application for small businesses for years primarily due to its ease-of-use, whether you’re using any of the pre-built FileMaker applications or crafting your own.
Enter the iPad, a device with huge implications for the way small businesses operate and suddenly, you have an information device that can go anywhere: around your office, your warehouse – even remote. Continue reading for more, including gallery.
The store that never closes in the city that never sleeps…is closing. But don’t worry, it’ll only be closed for an hour.
Today from 4 PM to 5 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Apple Stores will be closing to prepare for the availability of the WiFi + 3G model iPad, presumably to ensure that displays and signage are properly placed and to prepare for the potential onslaught of customers.
Do I really think there’s going to be a rush on Apple Stores for the iPad 3G? Quite possibly.
Who needs formal product announcements when you can just keep hitting the refresh button on the iPad order page? According to said page, Apple will begin shipping the WiFi + 3G iPad in the U.S. on May 7th. International peeps will get both models toward the end of May.
In contrast to Apple’s typically secretive nature, Steve Jobs has been quite accessible via email these days. (Relatively speaking, of course.)
European customers asked of him in an email, “Will there also be 3G models of the iPad released worldwide at the end of May or only WiFi models?”
Image / John Federico
Using a completely un-scientific method (though fun, nonetheless), a group of AAPL investors over on Investor Village are compiling iPad sales data. Beginning yesterday, the group began gathering sales figures based on reported, bona fide order numbers from the Apple Store. The results are intriguing.
I always, always, always buy more than I need.
Of course, I’m talking about cell phone minutes, SMS messages and data plans. I don’t like surprises – especially expensive surprises – at the end of the month, so I’d rather spend a little more upfront to know that I won’t get hit with ridiculous overage charges.
With that in mind, of course I would tend to select AT&T’s unlimited data plan for iPad rather than the 250 MB plan. Today, Apple and AT&T seem to have helped me make the decision to go smaller just a little bit easier.
The built-in 3G wireless connectivity on the WiFi + 3G model iPad is a boon for convenience and mobility. It makes for a compact, fully-portable and self-contained computing device. But if you’re like me, you may be tired of paying for yet another wireless subscription. Currently, I pay AT&T for an unlimited data plan for my iPhone and Verizon Wireless for an “unlimited” 3G data plan that I use with a USB dongle and my MacBook or netbook.
I really don’t want to pay AT&T for more of their shabby service.
So, even though I’m going to purchase a WiFi + 3G model iPad (Just in case. Consider it future-proofing.) I’m not going to activate the 3G service. I’m going to use an Aluratek CDM530AM.
Finally, we have an official date!
The WiFi model iPad will be available at Apple Retail Stores nationwide on Saturday, April 3rd. For the anti-social types among you, pre-orders will be begin on March 12th and can be shipped to you or made available for pickup at your local Apple Retail Store. The WiFi + 3G model is officially slated for “late April.”
International folks (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK ) can get your hands on both models in late April.
Full press release is below.
AT&T, the U.S. wireless carrier with the exclusive agreement for the iPhone and de facto exclusivity on providing 3G wireless connectivity for the iPad, believes that there won’t be much demand for 3G connectivity on the iPad.
Speaking on a call with investors, Randall Stephenson, AT&T CEO, said:
“My expectation is that there’s not going to be a lot of people out there looking for another subscription,” adding that the device would be a mainly “Wi-Fi driven product.”
I would agree with this, but only to a point.
Unhappy with your AT&T Wireless network coverage? Just wait until the 3G iPad hits the airwaves.
People are concerned. Very concerned.
Consider some recent events:
The FCC, represented by Phil Bellaria, director of scenario planning, and John Leibovitz, deputy chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, have voiced their concerns about an unnamed GSM carrier’s ability to handle the coming iPad traffic:
With the iPad pointing to even greater demand for mobile broadband on the horizon, we must ensure that network congestion doesn’t choke off a service that consumers clearly find so appealing, or frustrate mobile broadband’s ability to keep us competitive in the global broadband economy.
New York City (my stomping grounds) and San Francisco – both hotspots for early adopters – have been hit hard by outages, dropped calls, delayed messages, slow web access, and service interruptions.
Last year, Foursquare chose to launch their location-aware iPhone app at the SXSW conference and nearly brought the A&T network in Austin, TX to its knees.
The FCC is so concerned about capacity that the government agency is considering a plan to ”pay broadcasters to vacate airwaves it could use to alleviate network strain caused by the surging use of smartphones.“
