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AAPL Stock: 496.29 ( + 3.12 )

Pad won't have clock, weather, etc. apps on launch

updated 11:00 pm EST, Mon March 8, 2010

Widgets also said to be omitted


Apple's recent announcement regarding the iPad ship date implies that the device might not ship with the full set of apps that come standard on the iPhone. Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber suggests design considerations drove the company to omit several utilities such as Stocks, Calculator, Clock, Weather, and Voice Memos.

Although Apple likely pushed several iPad-optimized versions through internal testing, developers allegedly had problems scaling up the iPhone-size interfaces without making sacrifices to the overall look and feel of the apps. Gruber's "well-informed little birdies" claim Steve Jobs was behind the decision to drop the utilities for the initial iPad launch.

Earlier reports suggested that Apple pulled the apps because they would be converted to widgets. Gruber's sources, however, claim iPhone OS 3.2 will also lack the rumored widgets.

It is still unclear if Apple plans to bring the apps or widgets with a firmware update, such as OS 4.0, sometime later in the year.


by MacNN Staff

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 Apple, iPad

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  1. Constable Odo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2007

    +19
    03/09, 12:17am | report spam | (1 reply) Reply |

    Another blogger that is merely speculating...

    Why pay these idiots any mind at all. Would it really take Apple that long to rebuild a clock app or a stock app? It seems inconceivable.

  1. JeffHarris

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Oct 1999

    +4
    03/09, 12:32am | report spam | (1 reply) Reply |

    Well...

    If this little bit of speculation is even half-true, there are so many better replacement apps available, who'd miss Apple's?

    It WOULD be nice to be able to delete Apple's default apps from my iPod touch!

  1. Darchmare

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Nov 2009

    +2
    03/09, 12:33am | report spam | Reply |

    Constable Otto...

    ...Gruber has a pretty good track record on these sorts of things. I wouldn't dismiss this out of hand, and the lack of any reference to these apps in publicly-available screenshots supports what he's saying. We're not talking about the typical ignorant "analyst" that so often pollutes MacNN articles these days.

    Anyhow, it's not that Apple couldn't rebuild these, and if you read what Gruber has written he says as much. It's quite likely that this is a conscious design decision, based on a choice to hold them back for other reasons (I'd like to see some sort of Dashboard-like interface for such things, though rumors to that effect aren't grounded in anything but speculation). We probably won't know why until iPhone OS 4.0 comes out, though.

  1. Paul Huang

    Dedicated MacNNer

    Joined: Sep 1999

    0
    03/09, 12:47am | report spam | Reply |

    Oh lord

    I am not going to be able to track my hours. Hmmm, is it going to have the ability like the iPhone to track battery performance per charge?

  1. SwissMac

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2006

    +1
    03/09, 07:58am | report spam | Reply |

    They're getting rid of my fave apps!

    If this is true, and they aren't working on bigger and better replacements, this is IMO a retrograde step. Currently I use my iPhone in client meetings with the apps mentioned, the only problem being the small screen display. I really was hoping to use the iPad as an iPhone replacement in client presentations and as a quick lookup device. The stocks app will be sorely missed, as will clock timer and helpful little things like weather.app and so on.

  1. Jeronimo2000

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    +3
    03/09, 11:31am | report spam | (1 reply) Reply |

    Giant BS

    I bet this fool just downloaded the iPhone/iPad SDK from some torrent site, threw on the iPad simulator and noticed that it doesn't come with Stocks, Weather etc. - and from that he gathered the final iPad must have these apps missing as well. Or is there any FACT in his ramblings?

  1. macguy90

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Mar 2010

    +2
    03/09, 11:39am | report spam | Reply |

    Not a huge deal-

    @SwissMac, don't worry..there is plenty of better, free apps on App Store that will replace Apple's usual apps (Stocks, Weather, etc.) .

  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    +1
    03/09, 01:20pm | report spam | Reply |

    Who the h*** cares...

    I've got at least 6 useless Apple apps on my iPod that I wish I could just make go away (stocks, Clock, Compass, Weather, Photos, and iTunes), all stuck on a tab to annoy me. What Apple should do is treat all the apps as apps, rather than some as "These are from Apple and MUST be included" vs. the rest..

  1. TRRosen

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: May 2002

    +2
    03/09, 01:59pm | report spam | Reply |

    Nobody Cares

    all of these apps are redundant as the first thing most people do is download better ones and hide to old ones. They made sense as bonuses before the SDK but lets move on.
    On an iPad I really don't see using a weather or stock app when you can view the same info on a web page on a ten inch screen.
    I can guarantee that there are several amazing stocks and weather apps for the iPad that have already been submitted to Apple and will appear April 3rd

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