The iPad release date is so close you can almost feel it. In fact, lucky tech gurus from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal already have. Also in today’s iPad Industry Roundup, we look at other venture capital firms that are following Kleiner Perkins’ lead into the app investment space and showcase Bloomberg and a few more notable apps that appear to be optimized and approved for the iPad.
Thumbs up for the touchscreen iPad
Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal and All Things Digital is the dean of personal technology reviews. So when Mossberg says the iPad is “pretty close” to a “laptop killer”, we know the significance of this new mobile medium runs well beyond most of us who have already drank the Kool Aid.
Wrote Mossburg: “I tested a small selection of the new third-party iPad apps Apple hopes to have available at launch, and most were also rich and feature-filled, beyond what iPhone apps offer.”
New York Times’ digital columnist David Pogue took a bipolar approach to covering the iPad, writing separate reviews for tech enthusiasts and mainstream consumers. In Pogue’s assessment, the “killer app” for the iPad is “killer apps.”
“The real fun begins when you try the apps that were specially designed for the iPad’s bigger screen,” he wrote.
Many of us will dive in this weekend.
Kleiner’s iFund one of many app investors
When Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner John Doerr announced his firm’s intention to double the size of its iFund to $200 million, he also revealed that the fund’s 14 portfolio companies will have 11 iPad apps available for Saturday’s launch. Overall, iFund companies including ngmoco, Booyah, Pinger and Shazam have 20 iPad apps in the works.
Other venture capital firms that are focused on iPad and iPhone app investments include the New York-based AppFund as well as Silicon Valley-based Norwest Venture Partners and Maple Investments.
Netflix, Bloomberg ready iPad apps for launch
Coming very soon to an iPad near you is a new app by Netflix that will let you resume watching movies you were previously consuming on your comptuer. Out of the more than 1,300 apps reportedly already approved by Apple, this one seems like a game-changer.
Also, in what will be a battle of financial-based apps on the iPad, both Bloomberg and Thomson Financial appear to have iPad-ready apps approved for launch.
