Faster Forward: First whispers of the iPad2? - Washington Post

Apple component suppliers gave Reuters a Friday morning scoop on an Apple tablet that could be the next-generation iPad.

Sources from five companies in the Apple supply chain spoke to the news agency's branch in Hong Kong. Three companies -- chip designer Wintek, battery maker Simplo and cover manufacturer AVY Precision -- confirmed they were preparing for the next round of iPads. Two camera companies, Genius Electronic Optical Co Ltd and Largan Precision, confirmed they had started a new supply deal with the Cupertino, Calif.-based, company.

Two of the companies said they were making new parts for the next round of iPad production. The main upgrades? Front and rear-facing cameras and an overall improved device: slimmer, lighter and with better resolution.

Further fanning the iPad2 rumors, Apple Insider reported Thursday that leaked images from two case manufacturers, Shenzhen MacTop Electronics and Kodowarisan, also suggest a rear-facing camera and a spot for an SD card slot.

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Faster Forward: HP plays its Palm cards: WebOS 2.0, Pre 2 - Washington Post

Six months after it bought Palm, Hewlett-Packard showed its first big plans for that purchase when it unveiled updates to Palm's webOS software and Pre phone.

The new webOS 2.0 -- officially "HP webOS 2.0" -- adds a "just type" feature that lets you start such actions as composing an e-mail or launching a Web search by typing out text. It enhances the Synergy feature, which lets you view calendars, contacts and messages from such sites as Google or Facebook, by letting developers write plug-ins supporting other services. And webOS 2.0, like Google's Android but unlike Apple's iOS, will include Adobe's Flash 10.1 player.

Weirdly, HP's press release leads off its list of webOS 2.0 features with a mention of "true multitasking." That's been part of webOS from the start -- and is still one of its strongest features, as Palm's software makes it simpler to see what apps are open and switch among them than iOS or Android.

HP plans to offer webOS 2.0 as an over-the-air upgrade for Palm's older Pre and Pixi phones "in the coming months," but spokeswoman Leslie Letts didn't say whether it would be a free upgrade.

The Pre 2, pictured above, will first ship in France on Friday but will come to Verizon Wireless later in the year. It doesn't look like an enormous advance over the device I reviewed last summer; its 1 GHz processor and 5-megapixel camera improve on earlier hardware, but many of its other specs remain unchanged.

PCMag.com's Sascha Segan has a good hands-on report on both webOS 2.0 and the Pre 2, which notes usability issues with Just Type and Flash and concludes that what Palm needs most is a renewed lineup of hardware. I agree. And I'd add that in addition to new phones, it could use a tablet computer -- to which webOS 2.0 seems far better suited than Windows 7, the software used in a different HP tablet project.

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Faster Forward: Things I know about the 'Verizon iPhone' story - Washington Post

Because so many of you have asked, here is the total of what I know about the odds of a Verizon iPhone. That perpetual rumor subject is once again in the news, courtesy of a Wall Street Journal story that declares upfront: "Apple Inc. is making a version of its iPhone that Verizon Wireless will sell early next year, according to people familiar with the matter."

* The WSJ's piece is more specific than others -- after an overnight revision that changed it from referring to an iPhone running on Verizon's CDMA wireless technology to naming Verizon upfront. And the WSJ's reporters are no slouches.

* I have no direct evidence proving or disproving the WSJ's story. (If you do, you know how to reach me.)

* I don't put much value in anything Verizon Wireless might say today. If the company is really getting the thing, of course it will say nothing or offer deliberately vague, possibly misleading answers. Apple, meanwhile, will maintain its customary, sphinx-like silence.

* I suspect that Apple has had test CDMA versions of the iPhone for years, just as it had test versions of Mac OS X running on Intel processors for years before it announced it would switch from PowerPC chips to Intel's.

* Strictly as a business proposition, it's unwise for Apple to keep the iPhone chained to one carrier in the U.S. market when many potential customers don't want to use that carrier's services. That's not how it offers the iPhone elsewhere, as per the long-standing business maxim that "if somebody wants to give you their money for a product, you should let them." But there could be complicating factors: Maybe somebody at AT&T has naked pictures of Steve Jobs.

* Don't forget that every single story predicting the arrival of a Verizon iPhone on a date preceding today has been wrong. That is a nearly unmatched record of forecasting futility.

* I would also find it inconceivable for Apple to let Verizon give an iPhone the usual Verizon treatment -- prominent Verizon branding, a suite of non-removable Verizon apps, maybe even a separate app store -- much less the outright disfigurement of somebody else's software I saw in its new Samsung Fascinate.

* If you want to hold on to an antique phone in the hope that Verizon will pull an iPhone out of its hat sometime early next year, you might as well go ahead now. But I reserve the right to point and laugh at you if your optimism proves unwarranted. I might not even wait to mock you: Sitting around and hoping for a Verizon iPhone to descend from the skies, year after year, starts to resemble cargo-cult behavior. Seriously, aren't you tired of carrying around your Windows Mobile 6 device or your Palm Treo already?

* I believe I speak for every tech reporter in America when I write this: Very few things would make me happier than not to have to answer "when is the iPhone coming to Verizon" questions anymore. Seriously -- I hate this story. So, please, companies involved: Make it go away, one way or another.

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Faster Forward: Skype (sort of) available for non-Verizon Android phones - Washington Post

The headline on Skype's blog post today reads "Skype now available for Android phones."

But if you use an Android device in the United States, that sentence may only confuse you.

First, Skype arrived on Verizon Wireless Android phones back in February, as part of an exclusive deal the Luxembourg-based Internet-calling service signed with that carrier.

Second, the seventh of eight lines of small type at the end of the post makes it clear that this new version of Skype remains subject to whatever bargain its developers struck with Verizon:

In the US, you can make calls only over WiFi.

If you want to call a pal overseas via Skype outside of WiFi range on an Android device, you'll need to use Verizon. Then again, the Verizon flavor of Skype doesn't work over WiFi; it's 3G only.

Perhaps at some point, Skype will figure out how to ship an Internet-calling app in the U.S. that's not so picky about data connections. One tip: Its Android developers could check in with its iPhone developers, whose app works over both 3G and WiFi.

Android Police's first-look review warns that the Skype app eats processor cycles during calls and needs 14 megabytes of internal storage. That last limitation may complicate installing it on phones that arrived already crammed with useless carrier-installed apps.

Meanwhile, you have other options. TechCrunch's post notes that the free Fring app can make Skype calls over both 3G and WiFi. If you can do without WiFi-only calling and have voice minutes to spare, another option comes from Google itself--its free Google Voice app.

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