A mind of it’s own

The iPad hasn’t hit the market yet that hackers all around the world are trying to unveil its secrets.

It’s actually quite exciting because these efforts are really paying off. Apple engineers have left in iPhone OS 3.2, the iPad’s operating system, a huge amount of clues that point to features Steve forgot to tell us about.

There is, for example, a whole lot of functions prepared to support video conferencing. There is also a file downloading function that works a little bit like your picture gallery. It lets you download files from your browser and save them in a file library which you can later access from your apps.

Here are some of the hidden features:

• a spell checker with multiple dictionaries
• rich text support for apps
• Location aware ads in maps
• File upload in Safari
• SMS support
• A prototype “Handwriting keyboard”

Well, of course this doesn’t actually mean they’ll ever activate them, but they are sure thinking about it.

[via Engadget]

When rumors of an Apple tablet started to hit the web, the first thing that came to most people’s minds was that it would be a Kindle killer.  Well, it’s certainly too early to assume that, being that the device won’t be shipping for another two months, but it will at least be able to compete with the Kindle thanks to a new native eBook app called iBooks.

iBooks looks strikingly similar to the well-known iPhone eBook app Classics.  It gives you access to tons of different books ranging from classics to bestseller from some of the biggest publishers, such as Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Hachette. iBooks uses the standard ePub format, so hopefully it will be cross-platform with other online stores.

When you purchase a book, it will be placed and displayed on your personal bookshelf.  To read a book, simply tap it and it will open up.  You are then able to tap to change pages or swipe, and you can choose different fonts and text sizes to suit your needs.

New books are said to cost $14.99, but hopefully they will drop in price as the competition begins to heat up.

McGraw-Hill. Ever heard of them? If you’ve picked up any textbook written in the last hundred years or so, chances are they published it. Well, their CEO just spilled the beans on Apple’s not-so-secret surprise on live TV.

Going beyond confirming that it’s the much-fabled Tablet, Terry McGraw confirms that they “have worked with Apple for quite a while” on this – so unless this guy has gone on a crazy binge, it’s pretty likely he knows what hes talking about. He goes on to matter-of-factly state that the tablet will be based on the “iPhone operating system”. The words, straight out of McGraw’s mouth:

“Yeah, Very exciting. Yes, they’ll make their announcement tomorrow on this one. We have worked with Apple for quite a while. And the Tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system and so it will be transferable. So what you are going to be able to do now is we have a consortium of e-books. And we have 95% of all our materials that are in e-book format on that one. So now with the tablet you’re going to open up the higher education market, the professional market. The tablet is going to be just really terrific.”

This week sees the annual music industry fair, Midem, wearily set up shop in Cannes, with ashen-faced delegates trudging from stall to stall, exchanging worried glances and mouthing the words "What are we going to do?" I'm exaggerating, of course, but only a bit. It's impossible to write anything about the music business without using the word "crisis" (there, got it out of the way nice and early) and the search continues for a lightning bolt of inspiration that will bring back the glory days, you know, before we worked out how to enjoy music on the cheap. Ideas do occasionally bubble to the surface, but they're either knocked back by the industry as preposterous or met with hoots of derision from music fans – like suggesting to India and Pakistan that the answer to the Kashmir question lies in the provision of free swimming lessons.

Nevertheless, a successor to the MP3 has just been suggested at Midem by Bach Technology, one of the file format's developers, as a possible revenue grabber. It goes by the name of MusicDNA, and the idea is that lyrics, tour dates, videos, status updates and blogs will be stored along with the song data, and will update regularly via the internet so you're always up to speed on that artist's activities. Pirated copies of the file won't update, the reasoning being that we'll want to fork out for our own slice of rich, ever-changing content.

A nice idea in theory, but we've shown ourselves to be stubbornly unwilling to move on from the MP3, which does its job very nicely. Audiophiles bang on about the Flac format and its superior quality, but distinguishing between Flac and a 320kbps mp3 file is virtually impossible. Apple's stab at a media-laden music format, the iTunes LP, was launched in November, but only 17 titles are currently available – although that's more impressive than CMX, the competing format from the four major labels, whose current catalogue is closer to zero. MusicDNA, to be launched this Easter, introduces "customisability" – apparently we're desperate to play around with the files – but the ultimate in customisable music formats, MXP4 and MT9, which actually allow us to remix the music, seem pretty frivolous and are shunned by musicians for obvious reasons.

Perhaps all we want to do is listen – something a service like Spotify lets us do with a minimum of messing about, no downloading, and (crucially) for free. I'd love Midem delegates – and indeed anyone in creative industries – to find a solution to their intractable problems, but right now the most obvious one involves retraining