iOS 8 Could Bring Surface-Style Multitasking to the iPad

From Mashable : link

Apple's 2014 Product Roadmap: New iWatch, iPhones, iPads, Apple TV, and MacBooks Coming

From MacRumors: http://www.macrumors.com/2014/04/09/apple-2014-product-roadmap/

IFTTT app update brings support for push notifications, new iPad version

Via 9t5Mac : IFTTT app update brings support for push notifications, new iPad version.
I already write about IFTTT (for If This Then That) service that I find awesome. This is a new way to use it through what is called "recipes", and I am sure it will get user addiction.

So Microsoft is delivering Office on iPad. Pretty cool! But what is behind?

This was a rumour for a long time now, but Microsoft finally did it and this is not a little announce that Satya Naddala, new Microsoft CEO did there. Office is now available on iPad. And for free... or almost.

Office or Office 365 by the way?

My first reaction was "what does MS want to do on iPad" as they are doing so much effort on the other side to promote their mobile platform through Windows 8. I see two objectives there:

1. Apple is losing more and more market shares this last months, facing Androïd aggressive strategy. Nevertheless, iPad is still a credible mobile device in business market on which it address executives and commercial population. In a strategy consisting to still being a market leader in business market, this does have a sense for Microsoft to provide tools continuity between desktop tools and mobile ones on its leading suite. Helping Apple to keep its leader position in this market today is another way to avoid facing a potential massive Androïd competitor in the next year. This is not the first time that Microsoft deploy such a strategy with Apple, for those who remember 1997's Apple keynote.
2. Here, Microsoft does not promote iPad, nor even Office. If you read the little lines at the bottom of the contract, you'll see that free provided features are read-only ones. For a complete set of features, you have to buy an Office 365 license, which clearly echoes on the recent Microsoft strategy to target the cloud market that I recently observed during the french MS TechDays. What a big stone in iCloud garden by the way... and a clear response to Apple to provide a continuous suite between MacOS and iOS.

There may be several other reason for which deploying MS Office on iPad would not be a strategic mistake from Microsoft. But these two first ones seems sufficient for me. Microsoft strategy is now clearly heading cloud services and mobile devices are only one way among others to access these services. As a major actor in business market, Apple is a mandatory partner and competitor on it.

Apple wins 'best mobile tablet' award at Mobile World Congress in absentia

Do I like Apple products? Yes I do. Do I like Apple? I don't give a damn

I have got an iPad, an iPhone, an iPod touch, and two MacBook. Am I an Apple addict? I do not think so. I just observe that I prefer the MacBook I write this blog on than the DELL PC I work on. On the same way, I just used a Galaxy Tab II to test some mobile application in my job. Sorry, but here again, I prefer my old 1st gen iPad.

So, what is so appealing for me in Apple products? I had a recent visit in MoMA some days ago and what is clear is that these products are very close to pop art. By essence, they have something to do with design in its primary essence and I like it. This is not something rational, as art is not. This may be expensive, as art may be. But this something I feel beautiful as some art forms do.

On the other side, the DELL PC I use at work is so black, so sad, so close to any other computer and so far from beauty... The Samsung tablet I use is so complicated, so an engineer product with so much settings and at the end, just another tablet...

Let's admit it, innovation is not on Apple side (at least for a while I foresee). But they anyway still have design with them. And I like design. This is not rational. This is just a matter of nature.

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Fingerprint sensor would be really a breakthrough.

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