Steve Jobs was spotted on the Red Carpet at the Oscars tonight and Apple debuted the following new iPad commercial. Being that Jobs is the single largest shareholder of Disney, we expect that he was rooting for UP to win.
UPDATE: The music in the ad appears to be “There Goes My Love” by The Blue Van.
San Francisco based 3D Visualization Design Studio, Transparent House has produced an amazing animation that pays tribute to 34 years of Apple products and design. The animation starts with the Apple I computer and culminates with the iPad. It’s a great presentation and really showcases the power of 3D rendering.
According the FAQ on the video, the animation was done entirely using 3Ds Max and V-Ray render and took about 10 days to complete.
Interestingly – I’ve owned or used all of the products shown, with the exception of the Newton (and the iPad – at least not yet).
Apple announced on March 5th, that the new iPad will be available to Canadians in late April. This will include both the WiFi version and the 3G enabled version.
No mention yet regarding data plans from Telus, Rogers, etc. Also no mention yet of pricing for Canadians – although with the dollar close to par, we would expect to see similar pricing to the US. If that’s the case, we can expect to see the WiFi models to run around $500 and the 3G versions to be in the $650 to $850 range, depending on the memory configuration.
Here’s a link the the Apple press release.
For up-to-date information about the iPad and its’ Canadian launch, check out iPadinCanada.ca
While the Apple iPad won’t be available until sometime in March or April, the much discussed tablet is already shaking things up in the media industry. According to the Financial Times – Apple has been negotiating with the US Networks to get the pricing reduced for US television shows available on the iTunes store from $1.99 per episode to $1 per episode. The strategy is to test whether lower prices will significantly increase the sale of television episodes – by aligning this with the iPad launch, Apple hopes to create additional demand for the device.
On another front, Hulu, the online television site (US based only – sorry fellow Canadians) has, according to TechCrunch, started the development of an HTML5 portal – so Flash will not be required to view. If this is true – the very fact that Hulu will be available to the iPad, will certainly make the device appealing to a wider cross-section of consumers.
Don’t have the time required to watch the entire January 27th Keynote from Jobs et al regarding the new iPad ? No problem – Neil Curtis of www.neilcurtis.com has condensed the entire 92 minute presentation into less than 3 minutes.
It’s wonderful, awesome, gorgeous, amazing – you’ll get the idea!