Apple's holding an iPad 2 event on March 2nd... we'll be there live!

By Joshua Topolsky posted Feb 23rd 2011 11:10AM Hey look at that! The rumors were true. Apple will be holding a media event on March 2nd... and Engadget will be there live covering the whole thing. As you can tell by the image above (sent with the invite), this is going to be all about tablets -- iPads, to be exact.

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Live from The Daily launch event, with Apple's Eddy Cue

By Nilay Patel posted Feb 2nd 2011 10:38AM

11:49AM And we're done! The Daily will be live in about 10 minutes, we're told.
11:48AM What's the split between ads and subscription revenue? It'll be more subscription at first, and then it'll go towards that magic 50/50.
11:48AM Can you talk about having consumers paying for subscriptions when there's a lot of demand from advertisers -- how big could the audience have been if you made it free? Rupert: I think advertisers would pay a much lower rate if it were free. It's better for advertisers -- we'll draw a better class of advertisers at a better rate.
11:47AM Newspapers tend to be targets up-and-down market, tabloids and broadsheets -- where are you targeting this? Jesse: That was the first question our publisher asked Rupert, and Rupert said, well, everybody.
11:44AM What's the editorial mix between news and features? Jesse: read it and find out. I haven't said it's fixed.
11:44AM Will The Daily be free on the web? You can see a page for free if you have a link, but you can't go to thedaily.com and see all the pages for free.
11:43AM Will any of this stuff be on the web? Jesse: Not everything you can do on the iPad can be replicated on the web. A feature that's built on touch UI doesn't make sense on the web. Text, headlines, pictures, that shareable on the web. So where we can do it, we make HTML pages that are on the web -- they're out there. We can use them to share and promote our content.
11:42AM How is this content discoverable on the web? How will search engines get it? Eddy Cue: We've had 10 billion apps downloaded, I think people are finding them. John: We feel good about it. We've focused on this medium and this device. We didn't want to make compromises, and the web demands that you make sacrifices.
11:41AM Has Steve Jobs said anything about the product? Murdoch: Steve called me last week and said that the app was really terrific, he was extremely flattering.
11:40AM What's the voice? Jesse: If you want people to come back, you have to make them think and make them smile. Need a little bit of wit, a little bit of attitude. How do you create content for people using this device? People spend 30, 35, 45 minutes with their iPad -- do we create content that's compelling enough to hold that attention?

11:39AM What are your favorite apps besides New Corp apps? Murdoch: I try playing some of the games, but my 7 year old beat me every time.
11:38AM How long do you anticipate exclusively being on the iPad given other tablets, and are you married to Apple? Murdoch: We've been quite honest with Apple, and we'll be on all major tablets. But we think last year, this year, and next year will belong to the iPad.
11:37AM Why choose to focus on the Daily and not an existing brand like WSJ? Murdoch: The WSJ was the first paper to be a paid app, and it was my excitement about that and how good it looked that made me consider what could be done on a tablet.
11:36AM What about an Australian version of the Daily? Murdoch: Mumble mumble.

11:36AM What is the political tone of the Daily, will it be more centrist? Murdoch: the editorial position will be in the hands of the editor. Jesse: We wanted a new brand. We're patriotic, we love America. We believe in free speech. As for specific editorials, well read it. You'll be surprised.
11:34AM How do you break in for breaking news, and how do you avoid overwhelming people? Lots of different ways to do breaking news -- tickers, twitter feeds, drop in new pages. We can change the front page whenever we want. This isn't a static product. But at the same time, as a consumer I don't like everything changing all the time.

11:33AM Rupert: Just take NY alone. We have two morning shows competing with each other, we have the WSJ, the New York Post, they're all competitive.
11:32AM What are your main competitors? You have to compete with everything now -- that's especially true on the iPad. You have to compete with Angry Birds on some level. That's part of the reason that we've focused on the voice, the style, the use of media.
11:32AM Asking about the Sony Reader snafu yesterday. Eddy Cue: Don't want to talk about the announcement yet, but we'll talk about that soon. We want customers to be happy.

11:31AM How will you determine is this is successful? Murdoch: Yes, when we sell millions. Our ambitions are very big but our costs are very low. We've spent $30 million so far, but it will be running at a cost of half a million a week. We're very confident.
11:29AM How will you measure readership for advertisers? We love advertisers, and we have tech to measure all the metrics they require.
11:29AM When will the subscription model be available to other publishers? Eddy Cue: Available on the Daily today, and there'll be an announcement for other publishers soon.

11:28AM How is back issue content handled -- how much memory is taken up, is there cloud storage? For launch, saved articles are the best way. For now it's on the web. We're working for more internal storage, but it's not there in 1.0

11:27AM They're struggling some chairs onto the stage for the Q&A, and the lights have gone deep, deep blue. We're about to get groovy in Murdoch town.
11:26AM And that's that! They're doing a group photo and then it's Q&A time.

11:25AM "We've built a whole new subscription billing that's as easy as one click. You'll be billed weekly at 99 cents or yearly at $39.99."
11:25AM "You don't have to live in Wisconsin to get the Green Bay Packers as the home team in your paper." Okay, now he's speaking our language.
11:24AM "I've been lucky enough to be using it for the last two weeks and it's amazing. Something of this production value done every day."


11:24AM "From the first day we met with Rupert and his team, we knew they were going to redefine the news."
11:23AM "In the past year, the iPad has launched a whole new category of mobile device... there are over 5000 new apps for iOS. iPad customers are huge consumers of news."


11:23AM "We are thrilled to be here today to help News Corp launch the first national news publication built from the ground up for the iPad."
11:22AM Eddy Cue from Apple now on stage.
11:22AM The Daily publishes every morning, with breaking news at every time. 99 cents a week with deals on the way. First two weeks are free courtesy of Verizon.
11:21AM Talking about touch UI -- they say it's great for adding interactivity to things like sports coverage. Sports pages are customizable for teams and players.


11:20AM There's an apps and games section with reviews and ratings -- it's linked right into the App Store.
11:19AM Showing off web integration -- in addition to links and the built-in browser, there are built-in Twitter feeds on certain pages.
11:19AM You can share articles on Facebook, Twitter, and email. "The Daily is not an island." Showing off the share screen now -- you can record audio comments as well as the usual stuff.




11:18AM Showing off the carousel, a CoverFlow-like view of the pages. There's a shuffle button to bring up new stories you haven't read, an audio button that reads to you like the radio, and a TV-style news anchor.
11:17AM "I think what you're seeing is the first all-media product... we're going to produce up to 100 pages everyday. How do you get through all that? We've come up with some innovative ways to find content in the Daily."




11:16AM Showing off 360-degree photographs and HD videos -- they'll have new content every day.
11:15AM "We have people from television, from newspapers and magazines, working hand in hand with designers and developers. The iPad allows us to tell stories in different ways than we did before."
11:15AM "We've been doing live production for about six weeks now... the staff of the Daily is fantastic, and they've been working around the clock." Showing off the Egypt package. "It's the kind of story that's made for the Daily -- the pictures and video are amazing."



11:13AM "We've taken a fresh look at what it means to tell a story." These are going to be live demos of real content.

11:13AM "Now it's my pleasure to introduce John, Jesse, and Greg to unveil the first edition of The Daily."
11:12AM "The Daily's success will be determined by its utility and its originality... The Daily is not a legacy brand. We have a license to experiment, and a duty to innovate. We believe the Daily will be the model for how stories are told and distributed."
11:11AM "Our target audience is the more than 15 million Americans who are expected to own tablets in the next year."

11:11AM The Daily will be just 14 cents a day -- there are no costs for paper, presses, trucks.
11:10AM "Our aim is for The Daily to be the indispensable source for news, information, and entertainment."
11:09AM "The magic of good newspapers -- and good blogs -- is a deft editor's touch."
11:09AM "There is a growing segment of educated and sophisticated consumers who do not read daily newspapers, but still consume media. This restricts their interests to what has been predefined."
11:08AM "Simply put, the iPad demands that we completely reimagine our craft."
11:08AM "New times require new journalism. Our challenge was to take the best of conventional journalism... and combine it with the best of new technology."

11:07AM "Good morning, I'm Rupert Murdoch and I'm here to welcome you to the launch of The Daily... first I would like to thank Steve Jobs. He's given us this incredible new tablet and given us a new platform. Steve has been a champion of The Daily since day one, along with the brilliant Eddy Cue."

11:06AM And Rupert Murdoch is on stage! A PR person is yelling "Rupert Murdoch!"
11:06AM Okay, the lights are going down -- here we go.
10:57AM The music has perked up with some Caribbean syncopation. If there were any people in this room it would be a real party.
10:49AM We're hearing the actual The Daily app is scheduled to go live at noon, but history suggests it'll go a bit earlier than that. We'll keep an eye on things.


10:44AM It's a pretty nasty day of sleet and snow here in New York and this room is surprisingly empty -- we'd say almost half the seats are empty with 15 minutes to go, and we've heard Rupert Murdoch has canceled a bunch of post-event interviews due to the weather. But we're here. Because we love you. And there were snacks.

10:42AM We're here and sitting down in very comfortable chairs. They are playing extremely chill jams, and the room is lit an a deep purplish-blue. It's kind of like the ultimate 1970s airport lounge experience. Missing: live percussion.
Is the future of media an iPad-exclusive daily newspaper that's delivered automatically overnight using a new subscription service? We're here at the Guggenheim Museum in New York for the launch of News Corp's The Daily to find out -- and Apple's VP of internet services Eddy Cue is scheduled to join Rupert Murdoch on stage, so things could get interesting. Join us, won't you?

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Live from Google's Android event!

By Chris Ziegler posted Feb 2nd 2011 12:52PM
10:54AM And that's it. Hands-on time!
10:54AM Considering that this is over WiFi, we're concerned about 3G / 4G use.
10:54AM A little bit of a delay in the video chat, but not bad. Sound quality is somewhere between AM and FM radio, we'd say.


10:53AM "Uh, Hugo? There's some guy looking at you from your tablet."
10:53AM SDK is being released today, and will go live for consumers by the end of the quarter.
10:53AM Turns out Disney just got access to the purchasing SDK five days ago. Of course, they've been working on Tap Tap Revenge 4 for Android for some time, but the purchase integration just took a few days.



10:52AM And that's it for Tap Tap Revenge 4; "coming this spring with the launch of in-app billing."
10:52AM Rocking out to Bruno Mars' Somewhere In Brooklyn. Woooo!



10:51AM The UI basically looks the same as when you're buying an app; naturally, you can change your payment method, and carrier billing is supported just as it is in the Market itself.
10:50AM Here we go: song purchases in the app are using Google's in-app purchasing SDK.
10:49AM Tap Tap Revenge 4 now. Still haven't seen in-app purchasing demoed though.

10:48AM Radio Disney launching within a couple weeks. Next, JellyCar.


10:47AM Looking at Radio Disney app now.
10:47AM 60M downloads for these guys. "Now that we're coming to Android, I think that number's about to get a lot bigger."


10:46AM Google's been working on the feature with a couple partners -- here comes a Disney Mobile rep to talk about their work.
10:46AM Apparently, this one was added in response to widespread developer interest.
10:46AM If you integrate with Google's in-app purchasing SDK, you'll be able to charge stuff from within apps.

10:45AM In-app purchases are coming!
10:45AM Currency conversion -- "buyer currency support." The Market will now allow developers to enter explicit prices for support currencies so that users don't see crazy automatic conversions. Phased rollout on this one, and it's developer opt-in -- they can continue to allow automatic conversion if they like.
10:44AM Now we're talking about the purchasing process.
10:43AM You can give nicknames to your registered devices so you've got an easier way to remember them... should you have a bunch in your possession.


10:42AM In the case of free apps, there is no second screen when you decide to download -- one click and you're done.

10:42AM In search results, the webs store lets you filter by device compatibility (nice) and price.
10:41AM The deep links work regardless of whether you're on your PC or on your phone. On the PC, they go to the web store; on the phone, they go straight to the Market.



10:40AM You've got a Tweet button on the app pages so you can automatically tweet about them. Huh... no Buzz button? What's that all about?
10:39AM You've also got deep links straight to apps in the web store, which Google is positioning as a good way to share recommendations with friends over email. True... if not a little obvious.



10:38AM Now we're looking at his Nexus S -- it already has a notification that the app is downloading. Wow, seamless to the max.
10:37AM On the next screen, you can choose your payment method. "I'm going to put this on the Google corporate card. Is that OK, Andy?"
10:37AM When you pick an app to buy, it asks you which of your registered devices to install to; it also pops up the standard list of requested permissions (Android owners are already well familiar with this).

10:36AM Purchase and install time!

10:36AM Talking about the app description page: "The first thing that you'll notice is that the page is graphically rich, and it's rich in a way that developers can control."
10:35AM Featured, top paid, and top free apps on the top page, categories on the left.

10:35AM URL is market.android.com.
10:34AM You can browse through the entire catalog of apps, plus purchase and install directly from the web.
10:34AM Android Market Web Store!
10:33AM "I've never met a team that's as dedicated and hard-working as the Market team, and they've worked tirelessly to get these features ready for this today."

10:32AM "We're making changes to meet the needs of both developers and users."
10:32AM Android's engineering director for cloud services is taking the stage to talk about getting apps to users -- presumably a Market discussion.
10:32AM Barra is back on stage.
10:31AM "As tablets grow around the world, we want to be there." Tablets + CNN = profit, it seems.
10:30AM "What a powerful way to connect the news to individuals."


10:29AM In addition to browsing existing iReports, you can capture photos and video right from the app, add a description, and upload. Boom, you're famous.



10:28AM Now we're going to take a look at the second half of this app's equation -- CNN iReport. First time iReport has been on a tablet.
10:27AM Looking at some live video in the app right now; quality isn't bad. This is all over WiFi, by the way.


10:26AM "Based on our testing, this is an incredibly immersive experience. Consumers love it."
10:26AM Looking at the "broadsheet" view. Looks pretty solid -- LOTS of content on one screen. Could be a little overwhelming, but we'll have to use it.

10:25AM Demoing CNN's Android tablet experience, launching soon for free.

10:25AM Now we've got the VP of mobile for CNN on the stage.
10:24AM Not a very long demo, but we got a sense of how it connects and looks... and it's exactly what you'd expect. Once you're connected, your front camera view goes to the bottom right and your contact takes the whole screen.


10:23AM Here we go -- he's connected.
10:23AM We're looking through Barra's contact screen right now -- he's trying to find someone to video chat with. Give us a Xoom, man, and we'll be happy to do it.

10:22AM "We've spent a lot of time building image stabilization technology into Honeycomb for video chat." Interestingly, it saves bandwidth, because the image stays more similar for a longer period of time. Huh!

10:21AM Time for Google Talk video chat!
10:21AM "We think this is a really cool new UI." We tentatively agree -- looks solid.


10:21AM New camera UI in Honeycomb is being demoed now. Thank goodness -- the existing camera UI was definitely one of Android's weakest pain points.
10:20AM Barra describes the games as "absolutely stunning." That might be going a bit far, but they certainly weren't bad -- and we're sure it'll get better.





10:20AM Both titles launching within the next month!
10:20AM Now, Great Battles, described as an "educational" game. First title the studio has developed to take full advantage of two mobile cores. Seriously, the frame rate is NOT awesome... but the graphics are pretty hot.

10:19AM Third-party app demo time... Monster Madness, ported from PS3 to Honeycomb. Looks good, but a little jerky in places -- we'd put it on roughly the same plane as the best iPad games.



10:17AM Now, Google Body -- "the Google Maps of the human body." The rendering is super-smooth and very impressive. Looks like it might not have quite as much antialiasing as a desktop... but this is a tablet, after all.



10:17AM New Music app with 3D album browsing mode.
10:16AM Now we're looking at Google Maps. Nothing new here, though -- the same 3D tilt capability that's already rolled out.
10:16AM Google Books has Renderscript action going on, too.



10:15AM Honeycomb also includes a new graphics library known as Renderscript; he's demoing a 3D wall of videos in the platform's YouTube app as an example of a Renderscript screen.
10:15AM He's going between the home screen and the widget selection view to demonstrate how fluid the graphics are as he transitions between the two.

10:14AM Now the discussion is turning to performance. "We've spent a lot of time optimizing performance in Honeycomb, particularly with 2D and 3D graphics."
10:13AM Talking about the Application Bar at the top of the screen now; Barra also describes this as a type of fragment that can be reused. It contains "global actions" for use within the app.


10:12AM The panes are described by Google as "application fragments." They can be laid out independently of one another (for different UIs in landscape and portrait, for example) and the idea is to be able to reuse fragments between phone and tablet UIs.


10:12AM Now we're seeing two-pane Gmail.
10:11AM Fruit Ninja looked pretty much as you expect -- the existing app, just bigger. Multitouch (as Barra says, "multi-handed") gestures fully supported.



10:11AM "You can probably tell that I'm getting really good at this."
10:10AM "An app that has been designed with our recommended guidelines is going to run really well on tablets." Demo time -- an existing version of Fruit Ninja running unmodified on a Xoom.


10:09AM Wow -- some of these notifications are basically pop-up widgets. Barra is demoing the music notification, which lets him pause and change tracks by tapping on the music icon in the notification bar. OutKast in the mix, by the way.
10:09AM Since you've got more screen real estate, these are "richer" notifications than you get on an Android phone. Pictures, notably.

10:08AM "Another thing we've redesigned in Honeycomb is the notification system."

10:07AM We'll admit, these are some of the best-looking, smoothest-operating widgets we think we've ever seen on any platform. It's obvious that these are going to be a key focus of Android's tablet push.
10:07AM Referring to widgets: "The home screen is a really important part of our developer story. It's an application development platform in itself."

10:06AM Looks like we're going to be concentrating on tablet-optimized Android apps here to start.
10:05AM "Our approach has been to equip developers with the best possible toolkit, and then get out of their way."

10:05AM Here comes Hugo Barra!

10:04AM Rubin's got a Xoom in his hand, by the way. Foreshadowing!
10:04AM "There's lots of future opportunity for seeing Android in new places. One thing you're going to see is how Google's cloud services tie everything together. You could literally lose your laptop, your phone, or your tablet, and all your data is safe and secure."
10:03AM "We consider ourselves the shepherd" of Android.


10:03AM After Honeycomb, we're going to hear about "new, interesting features" coming in the Android Market.
10:02AM "We have a pretty good demo of the Motorola Xoom running Honeycomb."

10:02AM Andy Rubin's on stage!
10:01AM The event hasn't started yet, but we see what appear to be two Xooms connected to HDMI on the podium.

9:58AM We were just asked not to use MiFis, which seems to be a new up-and-coming trend with major press events. Just not enough WiFi spectrum to go around.
9:55AM We're in and seated. Lots of the usual suspects from the press are here, of course. Google's new Evil Bee (our term, not theirs) with black and blue coloring is prominently featured on the projection screen.We're holed up in Building 43 of the Googleplex here in lovely Mountain View, California for today's event promising an "in-depth look at Honeycomb, Android ecosystem news, and hands-on demos" -- and if you ask us, that sounds like a trifecta of potential awesome. We'll be liveblogging all of the action and hopefully following up with some hands-ons, so keep it locked right here for all the little green robots (and -- just maybe -- large black tablets) that you can handle.

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