> Apple obtained the “entire interest” in the iPad trademark from Fujitsu last week, according to a filing published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The only interesting thing about this story is its remarkable similarity to the iPhone trademark dispute back in 2007. Back then, Apple did the same thing, announcing the iPhone before they even had secured the rights to use the name.

Apple keeps wanting to use names that other people already own. And they’re not even particularly good names. I still think iPod was the only good “i” name Apple ever managed to come up with.

> The videos don’t play yet, but fullscreen mode works. Clearly, this is still in testing mode and CBS has a ways to go if it wants this functionality to be ready by iPad launch day on April 3. However, it definitely shows that some major TV networks are taking Apple’s boycott of Flash seriously—they want people to be able to stream their TV shows no matter what technology is being used. Now if only other networks and Hulu would follow the example of CBS… Though we do suspect Hulu is open to trying out HTML5 if there’s enough demand for it. Another nail in Flash’s coffin. Hulu can’t be far behind.

If Firefox sticks to its guns and refuses to start supporting H.264, Flash may have a bit of a future on the desktop. But with no real future on the fast-growing mobile web, Adobe had better move fast to change focus back it its core strengths.

> Adobe on Tuesday revealed that its forthcoming Creative Suite 5 package for graphic, video and Web design professionals, including the debut of Photoshop for Mac as a 64-bit application, will be unveiled on April 12, and will ship about a month later. So let me get this straight. Adobe announced that it will unveil CS5 on the 12th of April, but not SHIP CS5 until May?

At least that explains why there was no info about CS5 on the main Adobe web site.

What the heck kind of weird, convoluted marketing genius thought it would be a good idea to announce that they were going to make this announcement? Just “unveil” it now, or else shut up about it until the 12th. Let the press wonder what the “secret” announcement will be for the next few weeks.

I don’t get the strategy. It’s not like they don’t know what CS5’s new features are now. And it’s not like we’re going to spend the next few weeks wondering what you’re going to announce. You told us it’s CS5. Just show it to us already.

Apple didn’t say: Hey, next month we’re going to announce the iPad, a tablet computing device. They just let other people speculate what the announcement would be. That’s how you build suspense. Not with a countdown clock on an unknown web page.

Meanwhile, here’s the feature on the top of my wish list for the soon-to-be-unveiled-but-not-shipped CS5:

I’d like to be able to run an update of Photoshop or Illustrator without quitting my web browser. How about that? Is that one too tough?

> In order to gift an app, just click the triangle next to any app’s price and choose Gift This App (naturally, you can’t gift free apps). That’ll get you a form you can fill out with your name and e-mail, the recipient’s name and e-mail, and, if you’d like, a personal message. Heck, if you want, you can gift the same app to multiple people by entering several e-mail addresses; you’ll be billed the purchase cost of the app per address. You can either have the gifted app sent by e-mail or print out the gift yourself, for inclusion in a card or letter. > > Gifted apps show up in the iTunes Purchase History of the gifter, so if you need to refund them—for example, because you accidentally bought a camera app for your friend’s camera-less iPod touch—you would do so just as with any app you bought for yourself. It’s about time Apple added this feature. Talked about missed opportunity for revenue the past two years.

It doesn’t look like there’s any way to do this directly on the iPhone or iPod Touch yet. So far, this can only be done in iTunes. Hope that changes soon.