Adobe’s Flash to HTML5 tool released

In a battle that’s been brewing longer than my coffee, Adobe’s finally starting to capitulate in Apple’s crusade against Flash. They’ve released an AIR tool, “Wallaby”, that lets developers convert Flash content to HTML5. I’m glad to see them try to make things work – it’s pretty obvious that Apple’s not going to change their mind anytime soon, and the more content available on iOS, the better. And although it’s still in very early stages, the tool seems to work decently well.

HP promises WebOS across all their PCs

I’ve heard some rumors before that HP might try to push WebOS out on PCs in the future, but certainly didn’t expect to see an announcement any time soon. But in from official announcement, from 2012 onwards, all HP computers will be dual-bootable with Windows and WebOS. I appreciate and understand the mentality of providing a unified experience across all devices, but don’t quite grasp how they think the mobile operating system will be useful on a traditional PC. No complaints from a consumer’s perspective – I’m all for more options. I’m just not sure the effort’s worth it on HP’s part; hopefully they’ll prove me wrong.

Android’s number one

We all knew this was coming, but Android’s formally secured the spot as the most popular mobile OS in the United States. Given the insane number of Android devices on the market, the 31.2% market share makes plenty of sense. Granted, at a 30.4% share, BlackBerry could easily rise to the top – but in the long term, I don’t see things changing too much.

iOS 4.3 drops

In preparation for the iPad 2 launch, iOS 4.3 went up for download on the 9th. There’s nothing mind-blowing here, just some small tweaks and updates: Personal Hotspot functionality on the iPhone 4, better JavaScript support, Home Sharing, and some AirPlay fixes. And sadly enough, support for the iPhone 3G was dropped.

iPad 2!

Apple’s iPad 2 was finally released to anxious lines of nerds at malls nationwide. 1 GHz A5. 1024×1768 resolution. Two cameras. 10 hour battery. Enough said.

Do you go crazy thinking about WebOS on a PC? Wait in line for an iPad 2? Any other thoughts about the last week’s news? Drop a comment!

This week hasn’t been as massive as the last, as buzz from CES has died down a bit, but there’s still some nuggets in a week full of RSS. So as @Urvaksh cleverly put it, here’s a “blog post about what I’ve read in 25 other blogs”.

Jobs steps aside, yet Apple’s making bank

Last Monday, which conveniently happened to be MLK day, Steve Jobs announced that he’d be taking another “medical leave”, leaving Tim Cook as COO. The brilliant part of the move was that Apple chose to announce $26 billion in revenue the next day, which resulted in their stock hitting an all-time high. Not bad.

Oh, Schmidt

On the Google side of things, Eric Schmidt decided to pull a Jobs, and is being replaced by Larry Page as CEO. The public story is that Schmidt, Page, and Brin were having trouble making decisions with all three having equal say, and that things needed to come down to one person. Schmidt will supposedly still be directly involved in decisions, though – he’ll just be putting more focus into external affairs and business relationships. There’s also some brilliant Schmidt puns floating around out there.

PalmPad

All props to Engadget for the shot.

Now this is beautiful. The guys over at Engadget have dug up some shots of the elusive PalmPad, and they’re nothing short of hotness. Two models exist: a 9-inch “Topaz” and a 7-inch “Opal”, both running WebOS scaled for tablets. I’ve always been a huge fan of the concept of WebOS on a tablet – through my limited experience of playing with a Pre, I’d much rather have a WebOS tablet over an Android tablet. Neither have ousted an iPad as the mayor of my briefcase yet, though. #ohsnap

White iPhone

The white iPhone 4′s seen almost as much smoke and mirrors as the Verizon iPhone, but if some spy shots of Best Buy’s inventory system are correct, it’ll finally see the light of day on February 27th. Personally, I think the white iPhone’s pretty unattractive, but choice is good nonetheless.

Anything I missed? Thoughts on what’s going on in the technosphere?