Apple reportedly looking to launch new iPad in China this month

Apple released its third-generation iPad in March of this year, and by most accounts it’s been wildly successful. The company sold nearly 12 million tablets last quarter. And thanks to its agressive international push, it’s expected to top that this time around.

There has been, however, one notable country left off the new iPad’s passport: China. Complicated government approval processes and a nasty trademark battle with Proview have kept the popular tablet out of Apple’s second largest consumer market.

But it looks like the wait is almost over…

M.I.C Gadget passes along a report from PCPOP, a Chinese Blog, who cites a “knowledgable source” in claims that Apple is planning to launch its new iPad in China on July 27th.

“It will be available for purchase in the Apple Stores in China and Suning electronics (one of the biggest consumer electronics retailers in China). As with the price, we’re expecting it to sell at the same price as the current iPad 2.”

Since Apple has yet to officially announce anything, we have to file this one away as a rumor. Although with the Proview case behind them, and government approvals on both Wi-Fi and 4G models, we can’t imagine Apple waiting much longer to send its iPad to China.

Home to more than a billion cell phone users, and hordes of gadget-lovers, China isn’t just a country, it’s a market. In fact, it’s Apple’s second largest market, behind the United States. So needless to say, launching its latest tablet in China is of upmost importance to the company.

That being said, pundits are worried that the third-generation iPad won’t be the hit in China that its predecessors were, pointing to poor reception of the tablet in Hong Kong’s grey market. They believe that since the new iPad looks so similar to the old one, Chinese consumers will more than likely pass it up and save their money for the next gadget that looks new and different.

I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

What do you think, will the third-gen iPad be a hit in China?



Apple rectifies App Store updating glitch

Over the last 48 hours, the App Store has been suffering from a glitch that has been causing some newly-updated apps to crash upon opening. The bug has been a nightmare for developers, who have been taking a lot of heat over the issue.

Yesterday, Apple acknowledged the problem, and confirmed that it had a dedicated team working to resolve it. And it didn’t take long, last night the company started sending out official statements that the updating glitch has been repaired…

From AllThingsD:

“We had a temporary issue that began yesterday with a server that generated DRM code for some apps being downloaded, it affected a small number of users. The issue has been rectified and we don’t expect it to occur again.”

Marco Arment, who kickstarted this whole story after receiving a number of complaints from Instapaper users, says Apple is way off on its description of “small number of users.”

“Based on my cumulative stats for July 3, Instapaper’s corruption alone probably affected well over 20,000 customers, and there were over 120 other apps affected, including some very big names such as Angry Birds, GoodReader, Yahoo, and the LA Times.”

But despite the fact that it seems to be downplaying the issue, we have to admit that Apple actually handled this very well. It acknowledged the problem early, fixed it swiftly, and Macworld is even reporting that it plans on removing all of the one-star app reviews that developers received due to the glitch. Cool.

If for some reason you are still experiencing problems with an app, Apple says you should delete it, and then re-download it from the App Store. Easy enough.



Corrupt binaries in App Store causing crashes for some

Something went amiss in Apple’s application stores for iPhone and Mac apps, causing newly updated apps to crash. Users are reporting that a number of popular apps quit immediately upon loading, though this issue only seems to affect freshly updated software.

Newly updated versions of Instapaper, Readdle Scanner Pro and Angry Birds Space HD Free have all been reported to crash upon being updated to the latest version.

Instapaper developer Marco Arment pinpoints the issue over at his blog to a likely server bug with the App Store’s content distribution network. Apple has yet to acknowledge the problem or issue a statement…

The problem seems to affect only certain apps and specific regional app stores. I’m based out in Europe but use the US App Store and the latest version of Instapaper that Marco pushed out this week crashed on my iPhone 4S running the latest iOS 6 Beta.

The Next Web has a comprehensive list of the affected programs.

According to Marco, Apple is to blame as it submitted corrupt binaries.

Last night, within minutes of Apple approving the Instapaper 4.2.3 update, I was deluged by support email and Twitter messages from customers saying that it crashed immediately on launch, even with a clean install.

He advises fellow developers to wait until Apple fixes the bug.

If you’re a developer, and you have a non-critical update pending release, I suggest waiting a few days for this to presumably get sorted out before releasing it.

Graham Spencer offers a remedy in his article over at MacStories:

If you’ve already been affected by the issue, the only real way to fix it is to delete the app and try re-installing the app – but this will only work if the app is no longer corrupted on Apple’s side.

followed his advice and re-installed the Instapaper app, but to no avail – it kept on crashing so clearly Apple hasn’t yet removed corrupt binaries from its servers.

Let us know in the comments if you’re seeing this issue with your favorite apps.



RedSn0w 0.9.14b2 released with improved baseband downgrading

Last month, the Dev Team released a new version of RedSn0w that allowed iPhone 3G (and some 3GS) users to downgrade their basebands. This was a big deal for users who had been stuck on the problematic 06.15 bb.

Today, the Dev Team has pushed out an update to the jailbreak utility that greatly improves on this feature. The downgrading process has been made simpler, and now works on a much wider range of devices.

MuscleNerd explains:

“Happy 4th of July! Today’s release of redsn0w 0.9.14b2 improves the iPad baseband downgrade and should cover anyone who couldn’t downgrade with 0.9.14b1. This version covers 3 different types of NOR chips in the iPhone 3G and 3GS (the earlier version covered only the most prevalent NOR chip). We’ve also simplified the process and added logging to help diagnose any remaining stubborn iPhones.”

Keep in mind that the 3GS warning still stands. So if your iPhone 3GS was manufactured in early 2011 or later, you shouldn’t even have the 06.15.00 baseband, let alone be trying to downgrade.