MacRumors

Last week, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky released the results of a survey showing pent-up demand for the iPad exceeding that of the original iPhone, highest customer demand for low-capacity Wi-Fi-only and high-capacity 3G-enabled iPads, and moderate cannibalization of other Apple products by the iPad.

ChangeWave today released additional data from the survey, showing Apple poised to take the top spot among e-reader purchasers over the next 90 days, with 40% of purchasers in the survey planning to opt for an iPad. Amazon's Kindle holds the second spot in the survey at 28%, with Barnes and Noble's Nook placing third at only 6%.

In short, while the iPad launch is likely to strengthen overall e-Reader demand, the survey suggests Amazon and its competitors could well find themselves relegated to playing catch-up within just a few quarters if they don't preemptively move quickly to upgrade their own e-Readers.

Also of interest is ChangeWave's data from customers who already own an e-reader, 27% of whom would have purchased an iPad had it been available when they made their purchase. 45% of purchasers would still have purchased their current e-reader, while 30% registered as undecided.

Finally, in looking at timing for iPad purchasing, the survey found that many potential iPad customers are looking beyond the usual 90-day window typically used by ChangeWave for its data, with purchasing windows actually peaking in the 4-6 month post-launch timeframe and considerable numbers of customers planning to hold off even longer.

It is important to note that ChangeWave's research focuses mainly on business, technical and medical professional, as well as early-adopter consumers, so its results are not necessarily indicative of broader consumer buying patterns. Its data does, however, offer a glimpse into the thinking of those who are frequently considered to be at the forefront of such trends.

Daring Fireball's John Gruber claims to have heard from his sources that the slight shipping delay (about a week in the U.S. and on the order of a month in the first batch of international markets) for the Wi-Fi iPad is due not to hardware production issues but to Apple putting the final touches on the software for the device.

It was the software, not the hardware, that took a week or two longer to finish than they'd hoped. Nothing extraordinary or unusual, just the usual hard-to-predict timing of turning software that's almost ready to ship into software that's ready to ship. In the grand history of major OS release date slips, one week is pretty tame.

A report early this week indicated that a "manufacturing bottleneck" would be responsible for limited iPad quantities at launch and possibly a delay of the entire launch. Another analyst claim yesterday offered similar information, but noted that the issues were not related to "glass or manufacturing process". If Gruber's sources are correct and the delays were simply due to software, Apple should be able to quickly deploy the final software version to units in production and rapidly fill its sales channels for launch.

Apple today seeded yet another version of Mac OS X 10.6.3, termed Build 10D567, to developers. iPhone in Canada offers some details on the new version, which has seen only minor refinements as development appears to be wrapping up. Developers are reportedly asked to focus their testing on Graphics Drivers, iChat, QuickTime, Printing and Rosetta.

The last developer build of 10.6.3 was seeded last week Wednesday, and we continue to expect a public release of the third maintenance update to Snow Leopard in the relatively near future. Mac OS X 10.6.2 was released in early November.

Patently Apple points to an interesting Apple patent application published yesterday describing methods of incorporating commercials into video content such that viewing of the commercials interspersed throughout the video presentation would be required in order to "unlock" portions of the content. The methods would allow users to freely navigate within a video presentation such as a television show while still requiring them to view commercials.

For example, a downloaded television episode may have multiple commercial breaks encoded into the file, and should a user attempt to navigate to a "locked" portion of the episode, they could be redirected to a commercial that, after viewing, would allow the user to "unlock" the desired content for viewing. Such implementations could allow for such options as one-time unlocking or limited-time unlocking after which the user would have to view commercial content again in order to access the locked segment.

As ad breaks are viewed, a segment of the episode associated with that ad break becomes an unlocked segment 310. The unlocked segment can remain unlocked indefinitely, can remain unlocked for a fixed, limited duration, or can remain unlocked for an unknown, but limited duration, such as until the viewer has finished viewing the entire episode.

Alternatively, the user's desired content could play immediately, but content from the required "unlocking" ad break could be displayed back-to-back with the following ad break at the next opportunity. A third option could be that the user's navigation request would simply be denied until they had reached the appropriate ad break to unlock the segment.

The system also offers the availability of ad "bundles" which can either be included with the downloaded content or offered separately, allowing for certain "bundles" of ads to expire at the end of a campaign and be replaced by new advertising.

Amid growing video downloads from the iTunes Store and reports of Apple developing a subscription-based package of television shows, it is clear that the company is thinking about ways of moving television content to its portable devices while providing methods for content providers to receive sustainable revenue streams. Whether that comes from per-download or subscription fees from users, advertising dollars, or some combination of those sources remains to be seen.

Apple today announced that Wi-Fi models of the iPad will go on sale in the United States on Saturday, April 3rd. 3G-capable models in the U.S., as well as both Wi-Fi and 3G models for a number of other countries, will be available in late April. U.S. preorders for all iPad models begin on March 12th.

Apple today announced that its magical and revolutionary iPad will be available in the US on Saturday, April 3, for Wi-Fi models and in late April for Wi-Fi + 3G models. In addition, all models of iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

Beginning a week from today, on March 12, US customers can pre-order both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models from Apple's online store (www.apple.com) or reserve a Wi-Fi model to pick up on Saturday, April 3, at an Apple retail store.

Apple also noted that its free iBooks application offering access to the iBookstore will be available in the U.S. App Store on April 3rd, with other countries to follow "later this year".

Apple had initially announced worldwide availability of Wi-Fi models for late March, with 3G-capable models to follow in April. Several reports from analysts this week claimed, however, that Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn has been experiencing production delays that will result in limited initial availability. Based on the iPad's U.S. launch slipping into April and the delay of international availability of the Wi-Fi models, it appears that those reports may have been correct.

After a brief outage on Thursday, Apple's developer site returned with a dramatically restructured developer program for the Mac that is modeled after the $99/year iPhone developer program:

"Modeled after the highly successful iPhone Developer Program, we've relaunched the Mac Developer Program to offer members technical resources, support, access to pre-release software, developer forums and more, all for just $99 per year. As our developer base continues to grow in leaps and bounds, we're working hard to ensure we provide our developers with everything they need to create innovative applications for both the iPhone OS and Mac OS X."

Previously, Apple offered multiple tiers (Select, Premier) at significantly higher prices ($499, $3499) but also included hardware discounts and other perks to membership. It appears Apple may be looking to tempt the large number of iPhone developers to easily jump to Mac development. Existing ADC members accounts will continue as is until they expire, at which time members can then join the new $99/year program. Prospective Mac developers can still download the Xcode tools for free, but without access to the pre-release software and technical support.

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) on Sony's plans to develop a new lineup of handheld devices to compete against Apple's iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

Threatened by Apple Inc.'s growing stable of portable devices, Sony Corp. is developing a new lineup of handheld products, including a smart phone capable of downloading and playing PlayStation games, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Japanese electronics giant also has a project under way to develop a portable device that blurs distinctions among a netbook, an e-reader and a PlayStation Portable, or PSP. The device is designed to compete against multifunction products such as Apple's coming iPad tablet, these people said.

The initiative seems to be an expansion of an effort revealed last year, with Apple's forthcoming iPad now serving as yet another target for Sony. According to today's report, Sony is targeting a 2010 launch for these devices, although specifications and pricing are currently unknown.

The devices will reportedly be designed to take advantage of Sony long-standing leadership position in mobile gaming while also leveraging the company's new media service due for launch this month as a competitor to Apple's iTunes Store. Sony has felt increasing pressure as Apple and third-party developers have been increasingly positioning the iPhone, and particularly the iPod touch, as gaming devices. The iPad, which will be able to run iPhone games as well as iPad-specific applications, obviously offers yet another venue for quality gaming experiences.

In the 2010 edition of its annual ranking of "World's Most Admired Companies", Fortune placed Apple at the top of the list for the third year in a row and by the highest margin ever in the survey's ten-year history. Apple was followed in the rankings by Google, Berkshire Hathaway, Johnson & Johnson, and Amazon.

What makes Apple so admired? Product, product, product. This is the company that changed the way we do everything from buy music to design products to engage with the world around us. Its track record for innovation and fierce consumer loyalty translates into tremendous respect across business' highest ranks.

As BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer puts it, "The whole world held its breath before the iPad was announced. That's brand management at its very best."

Reithofer also ranked Apple CEO Steve Jobs as his most admired CEO. And beyond the overall crown, Apple took the top spot in the sub-category of Innovation while placing second in People Management. The company was also recognized as fourth in Quality of Products/Services and in a tie for sixth with Amazon in Management Quality.

Fortune's rankings were based on a poll of 4,200 corporate executives, directors, and industry analysts.

The Wall Street Journal reports on a new note from research firm ThinkEquity claiming that the Apple's manufacturing partners in Taiwan are in fact experiencing delays in ramping up iPad production ahead of the device's launch announced for later this month. According to the report:

Our checks in Taiwan indicate some minor delays on the iPad. The manufacturing of the iPads was supposed to pick up in February, but volumes even in March are still low. Current volumes are much lower than the market expected but most checks are indicating minor delays. The delays do not appear to be a glass or manufacturing process delays.

Barron's is also reporting on the news, citing expected shipments of 200,000-250,000 units for this month before ramping up to 800,000-1,000,000 units per month in the April-May timeframe. Earlier claims had suggested that Apple had been looking at having 1,000,000 units ready for deployment at launch.

A separate analyst report earlier this week had claimed that iPad production delays would create shortages or even delay the launch of the device, although Apple has stood by its "late March" launch date and other suppliers have disputed any delays in production.

MacRumors has heard whispers of a possible Friday, March 26th launch at 6 P.M. local time similar to that used for the original iPhone.

paidContent:UK reported earlier this week on a presentation from Penguin Books CEO John Makinson showing his company's vision for the future of eBooks on the iPad. Makinson's presentation highlighted Penguin's goal of embedding interactive content such as audio and video into its eBooks, as well as the inclusion of even more advanced features such as chats between readers.

Interestingly, Penguin is even looking to push things beyond what the EPUB format used for Apple's iBookstore can support, meaning that the company is planning to launch much of its content as applications rather than eBooks. It is unclear how that strategy will mesh with Apple's plans for its centralized iBookstore.

"We will be embedding audio, video and streaming in to everything we do. The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support traditional narrative text, but not this cool stuff that we're now talking about.

"So for the time being at least we'll be creating a lot of our content as applications, for sale on app stores and HTML, rather than in ebooks. The definition of the book itself is up for grabs."

In addressing Penguin's relationships with Apple and other eBook distributors, Makinson noted that the 30% revenue sharing split with distributors pushed by Apple as an extension of its existing App Store is better than the 50% split seen for print agencies, indicating that his company is happy with the arrangements. That happiness apparently has not stopped book publishers from noting that it could be argued that Apple should have to pay them for content based on its need to drive device sales, although that tactic has obviously not worked.

A video of the demo played during Makinson's presentation has also been posted.

Earlier today, Valve Software released teaser images which indicated that their Steam platform as well as a number of their games would be coming to the Mac.

For those unfamiliar with this currently PC-only software, Steam is a digital distribution system for PC games. Essentially, a PC game App Store. The Steam storefront allows users to purchase from over 1000 titles and download them straight to their computer. Steam also provides digital rights management, auto-updates and community features for the games installed. Besides Valve's own games, major 3rd party developers including EA, Activision, SEGA and many more distribute their games on the system. Steam has been around since 2002, but in the past few years has really gained significant momentum and market share.

Part of Steam's popularity has been on the strength of Valve's own offerings which include Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal, and Left 4 Dead. Here's an old teaser trailer for their critically acclaimed Portal game:

Based on the teaser images, it seems likely that all of these titles will also make their way to the Mac. This leads us to believe that Valve has ported their Source game engine over to the Mac, which would allow any future games based on this engine to be easily launched for the Mac. Alternative, Valve could be using Transgaming/Cider for the translation. Coincidentally, Valve has been in the process of seeding information believed to be about Portal 2 over the past few days. In fact, they even changed the famous ending to the game, leaving it open to a sequel.

Now, given all this, it does not mean that other non-Valve Steam games will necessarily be coming to the Mac. It would be up to each developer to make that decision. iPhone and PC Steam developer NimbleBit, however, is already considering moving their kart racer Zero Gear to the Mac based solely on these announcements.

"The arrival of Steam on the Mac platform would make porting our PC game Zero Gear to Mac much more feasable and attractive. This could be a chance for many independent iPhone developers to test the waters of desktop game development as well.", writes Ian Marsh of Nimblebit.

It could also open the door up to existing Mac-specific developers to have a new digital distribution system to Mac gamers.

Last week, Valve Software generated some excitement among gaming fans who noticed Mac OS X menu components and other items in the most recent release of the company's Steam distribution platform for the PC. Combined with reports of Valve recruiting Mac engineers, the evidence suggested that Valve may be planning to make a move into the Mac platform.

MacRumors today received a teaser image from Valve appearing to show Gordon Freeman, protagonist of Valve's Half-Life video game series, with an Apple logo on his chest. The image was accompanied with the following explanation: "In anticipation of an upcoming announcement from Valve."

Valve has not offered any additional information on what we can expect from them or when more news might be available beyond "soon".

Update: MacNN received a different teaser image showing robotic characters from other Valve games mimicking Apple's "Get a Mac" ads starring Justin Long and John Hodgman. The report suggests that we may see an announcement at next week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The image here represent turrets from Team Fortress 2 and Portal:

The presence of six dots along the bottom of the images, apparently for navigation reference, suggests that an additional four teaser images may have been sent to other outlets.

Update 2: A third image has surfaced at Shacknews with Team Fortress 2 reference:

And a fourth one has appeared at Eurogamer, with character from Left 4 Dead:

Update 3: One more image has been posted at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, revealing that Steam is coming to Mac:

Update 4: Macworld posts what appears to be the sixth and final image, depicting Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2 in a reenactment of Apple's famous 1984 commercial.

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) on comments from Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of parent company News Corp., who noted that the newspaper will be present on the iPad and that Apple has provided the company with access to one of the tablet devices. The newspaper's iPad device is apparently kept under very tight security overseen by Apple itself.

Mr. Murdoch said the Journal planned to be on Apple Inc.'s iPad tablet computer. "In fact, we've been allowed to work on one, and it's under padlock and key. The key is turned by Apple every night," he said in response to a question. "But we will be on that with The Wall Street Journal." Mr. Murdoch said he believed in a year or so there will be a half dozen or more devices on which consumers will be able to receive newspapers and other media.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently traveled to meet with executives at The Wall Street Journal and other publications in order to sell them on the promise of the iPad. Jobs' visit to the Journal also reportedly included arguments against the use of Flash on Apple's mobile devices, making the case to newspaper executives that they should embrace alternative technologies.

Billboard reports that Apple has been pressuring music labels over their participation in Amazon's "Daily Deal" program that has allowed them increased exposure and sale pricing on Amazon's MP3 download store. Apple's primary objection has been Amazon's push for one-day exclusives on new releases offered through the program, an offering that has placed Apple's iTunes Store at a disadvantage for early sales of some major releases.

Sources say that iTunes representatives have been urging labels to rethink their participation in the Amazon promotion and that they have backed up those warnings by withdrawing marketing support for certain releases featured as Daily Deals.

The report notes that the impetus for Apple's complaints came from the release of Mariah Carey's "Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel", released one day early by Amazon and priced at $5.99 as part of the Daily Deal program last September. For its part, Amazon has reportedly backtracked on the program by allowing labels to participate without requiring the one-day exclusive and thereby hopefully avoiding the wrath of Apple. Apple has apparently continued to complain, however, about the marketing agreements that are part of the Daily Deal program.

"They are . . . diverting their energy from 'let's make this machine better' to 'let's protect what we got,' " says a major-label executive who has been following the situation.

According to sources in the industry, the relationship between the labels, Apple, and Amazon remains "fluid", with some labels refusing to participate in the Daily Deal program while others have opted to take advantage of the publicity available through Amazon for releases for which Apple has not offered prominent publicity in the iTunes Store.

TechCrunch reports that a Google spokesperson issued a statement yesterday indicating that the company will "stand behind" handset manufacturer HTC in its patent dispute with Apple.

"We are not a party to this lawsuit. However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it," a Google spokesperson emailed us.

Apple's lawsuits against HTC have been seen primarily as an attack on Google's Android operating system, for which HTC is the largest handset manufacturer. Throughout the legal filings related to the Apple's lawsuits, the company distinguishes between alleged infringements by HTC's Android-based handsets and its Windows Mobile-based devices, suggesting that the Android operating system itself is a defining characteristic of at least one class of infringing devices.

A little odd that Google would proactively send us a statement for something they're not technically involved in. But, as we're all well aware, this suit is much more about Google's Android operating system than HTC. And it seems that Google is well aware of that too.

As we noted earlier, the clear focus of the suit centers around the HTC devices that are Android-based, including the Nexus One, the Magic/myTouch 3G, the Dream/G1, the Hero, and the Droid Eris. And in fact, with the Nexus One, Google worked closely with HTC to make the device, and is completely in control of selling it.

Apple's suit filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware seeks an injunction against infringement of Apple's patents by HTC, as well as triple damages and maximum interest as determined by a jury. Meanwhile, Apple's complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission seeks a halt to imports of a number of HTC handsets, a common tactic used by parties in patent disputes to encourage resolution.