While traditional print publishers are practically falling over themselves to get their product on Apple’s new iPad, the new media has taken the attitude of “Talk to the hand.” Cult of Mac is reporting on an Association of Online Publishers poll which hit up 1,500 members and asked their opinion about where the business is heading this year. The good news is, most of them were optimistic — just not about iPads or even e-readers in general. Half of the poll’s respondents predicted “strong growth” as high as 10 percent, “mainly from display ads and an uptick in video, with a number of smaller revenue streams adding to the bottom line.” But for whatever reason, when asked about tablets and e-readers this year, “that sunny outlook was a bit scarce.” Here’s a sampling of what the Association of Online Publishers had to say in video interviews, courtesy of Cult of Mac : “These are still really really embryonic devices that are great and fantastic, and I want to be at the top of the queue to buy one and play with it,” remarks Mail Online MD James Bromley. “But we’re talking about a very, very narrow subsection of society that will have these in 2010. This is the time that we learn about these devices — ‘11, ‘12, ‘13 is when these might become slightly more mainstream.” Conde Nast Digital UK manager Emanuela Pignataro was even more direct: “E-readers will be the novelty of 2010. I don’t think it is a short-term adoption — it will take years.” “I don’t think we’re quite there yet,” says Thomson Reuters consumer GM Tim Faircliff. Finally, Incisive Media digital manager John Barnes: “The issue with tablets is, they’re not really servicing the needs of color, with graphics and diagrams — it’s a bit like version one of the iPod.” Somebody should tell all of this to the rumored 150,000 people who preordered their iPad last Friday…

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Apple continues to release developer seeds of Mac OS X 10.6.3 for testing, but judging from those using it, the official release may be getting close. On Tuesday, Apple made Mac OS X 10.6.3 Build 10D571 available to developers, and MacRumors managed to get the details , courtesy of website iPhone in Canada . Cupertino has asked developers to “focus their testing on Graphics Drivers, iChat, Quicktime and Fonts.” Among the two biggest issued addressed with the new developer seed: – Issues addressed that caused background message colors to display incorrectly in Mail when scrolling – Issue resolved that caused machines using BTMM and the Bonjour Sleep Proxy to wake unexpectedly A known issue affecting Software Update has also been documented, and to test the problem, Apple is having last week’s Safari 4.0.5 update offered again in the new build. It’s been 11 days since the last developer build of Mac OS X 10.6.3 was seeded, and MacRumors is predicting “a final version to the public in the relatively near future.” While Apple’s update schedule can be a slippery fish to catch, as developer seeds get released at a faster pace, it’s a good sign that development is winding down on a particular release. Apple released the final Mac OS X 10.6.2 update in early November and began seeding 10.6.3 to developers in early January.

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Apparently, you can secure venture-capital funding and launch a successful business all from an iPhone.   Case Study: Amos Winbush Occupation: Founder and Chief Executive Officer, CyberSynchs Gear: iPhone 3GS loaded with Citibank (to keep track of startup finances), Facebook (to keep track of CyberSynchs’ fan page and connect with fellow entrepreneurs), and Twitter (to stay abreast of business news and keep followers informed) Who knew that Pret A Manger at East 17th and Broadway could be such a locus of wheeling and dealing? Listen, we know you love your MacBook. And we love ours. But consider what a hassle it can be when you’re working on the road. A MacBook has to be painstakingly removed from a messenger bag or backpack and plugged in regularly for power (good luck with finding that A/C adapter). And you can’t really use it unless you’re sitting down. And you have to manually connect to whatever Wi-Fi hotspot you can find. And then there are the interminable delays while you boot and launch applications. Plus your MacBook apparatus weighs you down mightily–five pounds or more, and that’s on a good day. Yet for most professionals–especially at the executive level–getting work done without a computer is foolhardy at best, impossible at worst. The notebook is a necessary evil that represents a basic cost of doing business when you aren’t anchored to a desk. Amos Winbush took that conventional wisdom and slapped it in the face. When he launched CyberSynchs, a company that makes data-synchronization software, in 2008, he did it with little more than the iPhone in his pocket

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Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iDevice Apps Today, Navigon announced another App Store first with MyRegion, a guidance app with in-app map purchases in the U.S. MyRegions has all of the great features from the North American version of MobileNavigator that made it the best navigation app on the App Store. But what makes MyRegion different is that you can buy the maps that you need, when you need them, from inside of the app. Navigon’s MyRegion splits North America into 4 regions: Eastern, Central and Western U.S. and Canada. If you’re planning on doing most of your driving in one or two of these regions, then the MyRegion app is a great choice. If instead you are on the border of two of these regions, or if you drive very long distances, then you are better off sticking with Navigon’s MobileNavigator for North America. Both are great choices with tons of features. MyRegion actually gets one of the Mobile Navigator 1.5 features early: MyRoutes. This feature offers more flexibility in navigation by presenting you with more than one route when you enter a destination. MobileNavigator users will have to wait a little longer for this update to hit the app store later this spring. Navigon currently has introductory pricing on all of this goodness. The app and first region are $5 off at $24.99, and each additional region is $2 off at $12.99. Plus, you can get Traffic Live (real time traffic data) for just $19.99 ($5 off). I have to hand it to Navigon once again; they’re ahead of the pack as usual, showing other guidance app companies what they need to do next

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Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Mac Software Macintosh and iPhone/iPod/iPad product updates and announcements for March 16, 2010: Macintosh iPod Macintosh Selznick Scientific Software, LLC has announced PasswordWallet 4.5 , a major update to their best-selling password management solution for Macintosh and iPhone. The app now allows the user to automatically share all of their passwords between their Mac, iPhone and MobileMe accounts, as well as their Windows, Android, Windows Mobile and Palm Pre devices. Simple and secure, PasswordWallet encrypts and stores passwords and other private information in one, convenient location. Yazsoft has announced Playback 1.5.1 , an important update to their popular zero configuration media server for Mac OS X. Playback allows anyone to share their media with any Playstation 3, Xbox 360, or other supported UPnP compatible device. Playback can also share media stored in folders or even make entire disks available to a Playstation 3 or Xbox 360. By default, Playback will share almost any content on the users system.

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A new survey by research firm Crowd Science brings bad news for BlackBerry maker RIM , and some good news for Apple. The company that comes out best of all, though, is Google, whose Android operating system seems poised to see some major growth in the near future. The survey, which Crowd Science performs semi-annually, addresses smartphone brand loyalty. This time around, it found that iPhone and Android customers were well satisfied with their choice of smartphone, but that BlackBerry is hemorrhaging users badly to both of those primary competitors. A little over 90 percent of both iPhone and Android smartphone owners plan to stay with that OS when they purchase their next device, while nearly 40 percent of BlackBerry owners said they would opt for an iPhone next time around, and 34 percent said they’d go with Android instead of a RIM device. It’s bad news for the Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry maker, and this latest survey shows that Apple isn’t exclusively to blame for the company’s steady decline. According to Crowd Science CEO John Martin: These results show that the restlessness of Blackberry users with their current brand hasn’t just been driven by the allure of iPhone. Rather, Blackberry as a brand just isn’t garnering the loyalty seen with other mobile operating systems

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Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Mac Software Macintosh and iPhone/iPod/iPad product updates and announcements for March 15, 2010: Macintosh iPod Macintosh PagePlanet Software, Inc. has announced the Golden Master release of Modular Gateway Interface (MGI) 3.2 for the Macintosh OS X and Linux operating systems. MGI is an Apache 2 module that adds full functionality to every website on your server using a simple tag structure. MGI includes 67 tags to enhance a website with everything from simple counters and form processing to custom databases and shopping carts. You can also combine MGI’s powerful programming tags to make your website do anything you can imagine.  Need to build a custom login and tracking system? No problem. TheMacBundles today released its March bundle and a new and innovative Build Your Own Bundle store. TheMacBundles has set a new standard of quality and value with its high quality, low priced bundles. These no-gimmick bundles provide users with the same software, support, licenses, and upgrade benefits that apply to users who paid the full price for the titles. The new BYOB store maintains these high standards and lets users create their own customized bundles with some simple mouse clicks. iWebTemplate has announced the addition of a free iWeb themes and templates section to be used with Apple’s iWeb Website building application. iWeb Free Themes includes seven great themes: Sky, Picture, Church, Joy, Love, Billiard and Cat. Each iWeb Free theme can be used as the basis for a great new website.

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Filed under: Gaming , Software , Apple , Developer , iPhone , iPad On the third day of GDC 2010 , Ngmoco’s Neil Young took the stage in one of the largest rooms at the conference to talk about what his company had “unlearned” in its time in the App Store. Ngmoco has become a large and polarizing figure in the world of App Store development — after starting out with a big investment from the iFund, it’s moved quickly to become one of the biggest iPhone-only developers , and after starting out with a few premium titles like the very successful Rolando, have recently made waves with its “freemium” business model . Young talked about the company’s history so far, and went in-depth on Ngmoco’s plan for ruling the App Store and why he believes it’s the “most significant shift and opportunity for [game developers] since the birth of this business.” We’ve summarized Young’s long address in this post. It was pretty incredible — not only did Young lay out his idea of a clear plan for building and developing a large portfolio of very profitable App Store titles “at scale” (the company plans to release twenty new freemium products on the iPhone in the near future, as well as six titles on the iPad ), but he made it very clear that he fervently believes that freemium and the model he’s structured is the future of the video game business. Continue reading GDC 2010: Ngmoco’s Neil Young on how freemium will change the App Store world GDC 2010: Ngmoco’s Neil Young on how freemium will change the App Store world originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . GDC 2010: Ngmoco’s Neil Young on how freemium will change the App Store world originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST.

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Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Accessories , Reviews Provides: iDevice cradle Developer: Just mobile Minimum Requirements: iDevice Price: $49.99 Availability: Now JustMobile is one of those companies that continues to think a little differently from the rest of the industry. This time, I’m taking a look at their new Lounge iDevice car cradle, which doesn’t attach to your windshield like you’d expect it to. Nah, instead, it sits on your dash, which might just make more sense anyway. There’s no suction cup to attach to your windshield. There’s no attempt at amplifying the sound of your iPhone whatsoever. There are no GPS enhancements, and there isn’t even a good place to put a USB cable to charge your iPhone while the GPS is killing your battery. I know this sounds awful, but there are a lot of things to like about Just Mobile’s Lounge car cradle. Take, for instance, that it doesn’t attach to your windshield.  Some will hate this, while others will love it.  Depending on your vehicle, the windshield might not be the optimal placement of your iPhone for guidance.  If that’s the case for you, then your dashboard might be a lot better.  This cradle comes with a circle of metal that semi-perminently attaches to your dashboard (with a 3M adhesive strip).  This helps the already grippy cradle to stay in place, but, in practice, it’s not really necessary.  I never attached the circle and I didn’t have any issues with the cradle moving whatsoever.  Actually, it’s been sitting in the same place for two weeks while I’ve driven around daily.  That just goes to show you that this thing is heavy enough and grippy enough to stay put.  But secondarily, this cradle is just as at home in the car as it is on your desk since it doesn’t have that unsightly suction cup that belongs nowhere in my house. Another reason to like this cradle is that you likely won’t have to take off your case to use it (unless it’s huge and shouldn’t be on your iPhone in the first place).  The way this cradle holds on to your iPhone is very unique, yet simple; there’s a very giving metal and rubber bracket that flexes to the exact shape of your iDevice+Case combo.  It holds tightly, and can rotate to a landscape orientation as well.  You’re going to need this if you’re using this for GPS guidance for an extended period of time, because connecting a USB cable while in portrait mode is not ideal.  You could do the whole thing upside down, but that’s just wrong.  Also to note, the whole clip that holds your iPhone wobbles a bit.  This is on purpose; it’s supposed to minimize how much your iPhone moves.  It won’t help if you hit a speed bump at 60 mph, but under normal usage it won’t really even move.  So, I guess I’m a little confused as to why it’s able to wobble at all.

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