Articles about iPad

Apple is one of the most important companies in the world of consumer technology and one that has changed the destiny of the smartphone and the tablet. It came as a big surprise when the Cupertino, California-based company announced the iPad more than two years ago. In 2010, Apple made waves with its first tablet generating $9.566 billion in revenue from the iPad alone, and in 2012 it's making headlines again with a smaller, seven inch tablet it hasn’t even announced yet.

In 2010 Apple had the market all to itself, with the iPad dominating 83 percent of the tablet market. Why? The iPad wasn't designed to have the most cutting edge software or hardware in terms of features or speed, but it was conceived to offer easy-to-use software with hardware to match it, wrapped in a good looking package. It sold 14.789 million units in 2010 alone, so it's clear the idea caught on. The original iPad was released in a time when tablets weren't as popular as they are today, and despite previous efforts by Microsoft with the TabletPC, they never caught up. So what's changed?

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Uncertainty hung over Apple's fiscal third quarter coming into today's earnings announcement. Gulfs widened among analysts for overall revenue estimates and about how many iPads or iPhones were sold. No one expected poor performance, there was just more uncertainty about what and where than more recent quarters. Fiscal Q3 will be remembered as sea change coming, as Apple missed Street consensus for the first time in years and iPad sales surged against iPhone.

For fiscal third quarter, Apple reported $35 billion revenue and net profits of $8.8 billion, or $9.32 a share. A year earlier, the company reported revenue of $28.57 billion and $7.31 billion net quarterly profit, or $7.79 per share. Apple announced fiscal Q3 results after the market closed today.

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Ever since the release of the Nexus 7, analysts have wondered what impact, if any, it would have on Android tablets' market share battle with the iPad. The possible release of the iPad Mini, later this year, could throw another wrench into the works. Fortunately, we have already seen an Android vs. Apple battle in the smartphone market. Let's take a look at the parallels we can draw between the smartphone and tablet market and project the possible market share trends in the tablet market.

Before we begin, we need to understand the global smartphone market share trends over the past couple of years. It is important to understand that ever since the iPhone and Android were launched, the market segmented into legacy smartphone platforms (BlackBerry, Symbian & Windows Mobile) and modern smartphone platforms (iOS, Android & Windows Phone).

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Whenever I think about tablets v. PCs, I remember a bold prediction of old: “Son, 10 years from now everyone will drive an electric car!” When was that, 20 years ago? We’ve all read something like that from someone believing to be clairvoyant.

I read similar articles almost every day where the writer plays the same old broken record: tablets are the death of PCs, or some other flamboyant thing that’s bound to get interest -- with the hope that the reader will agree with the author. It's like almost everyone is set on sending the PC down to the gates of Hell. But why should I agree with their assertions when I actually need a PC?

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For just about three years, we've had Microsoft's browser-based suite of free Office tools alongside the desktop Office software. In that time, we've composed and edited loads of Word documents, created Powerpoint presentations, and manipulated Excel spreadsheets. But when these types of Web apps debuted, there were three great islands: the standalone desktop software, the Web-based service, and the mobile application. Each was meant to be used in a different context, and each was equipped with different capabilities to suit those contexts.

For Microsoft in 2010, the PC was still the reigning king, so the Office Web apps were meant to get Office documents off the hard drive and out where they could be easily shared and passed between PCs.

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Samsung and Apple are two of the most popular smartphone and tablet manufacturers in the world right now and those top spots don’t come without responsibilities. But there's a disconnection somewhere in the corporate brains, with the companies seeing these responsibilities as green lights to be at each other’s throat in every major market over patents -- all that the cost of customer choice and satisfaction.

The latest round in the never-ending patent war between Samsung and Apple began today in Australia, where a local Judge started hearing evidence on their latest legal dispute. Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple claims patent infringement. The two companies dispute whether the touchscreen technology used by Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 violates Apple owned patents. The South Korean manufacturer's counter-claim: Apple uses 3G patents without a license, which is supposed to be available on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

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Second-quarter PC shipments are grim. They're flat globally, but down 5.7 percent or 10.6 percent in the United States, depending on whether Gartner or IDC counts the numbers. IDC puts Mac shipments down for the first time in years (Gartner disagrees). When the malaise hits Macs, Cupertino, we have a problem.

Is it the calm before the big sales storm or the new normal, as consumers and businesses snap up smartphones and tablets? There's no easy answer until Apple and Microsoft ship new operating systems. Likely, it's combination of both, as manufacturers buttress against the slowest sales quarter of the year by cutting back channel inventory and preparing for dramatic changes in computing purchase priorities. The one certainly: The quarter sucked spoiled eggs cooked over-easy.

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In May, Google+ debuted for iPhone in Apple's app store, soon followed by an app for Android. Two weeks ago, at the I/O developer conference, Google updated the Android app again, with a lighter tone design similar to the actual Google Plus web pages as well as design support for tablet UI. The wait is over, Apple tablet users. Google+ for iPad is now available in the iTunes App Store.

The app includes a boatload of new features across the board, such as the above mentioned support for tablets, with rotation orientation. It now supports the use of 'pinch' gesture to expand posts to add comments. You can also use the 'two fingers to drag' gesture to drag posts in your stream to reshare. Enabled now is the ability to attach instant upload photos to any post you make.

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The Apple iPad is the best-selling tablet by quite some margin, but with increasing competition from the likes of Google and Microsoft, its dominance could be under threat. Although the company could (and likely will) make some minor improvements to the iPad at some point -- making it thinner, boosting the camera, and finding a way to reduce its core temperature, for example -- it needs to come up with new variations if it wants to stay on top.

That means going large and producing a ‘MacPad’, which would essentially be a touchscreen, keyboard-less version of the Macbook Air (bringing it into direct competition with Microsoft Surface), or going small, and finally introducing the much rumored iPad mini.

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Today, China is a wonderful place for corporations around the world. The financial crisis laws don’t necessarily apply to China as they do to other places like Europe or the United States. So it comes natural for companies to invest more and more to expand into the Chinese market.

Since the end of 2011, China has surpassed the United States as the world"s largest phone market, which is great news for handset manufacturers. Smartphones also play an interesting role, as developers get interested in writing applications for the Chinese market, which would bring revenues to corporations like Apple and Google through their online stores, App Store and Google Play.

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It’s relentless. Just when my psyche was beginning to recover from the Nexus 7 bombshell, here comes the Nexus 10. A rumored upsized-version of Google’s recently announced reference platform, the Nexus 10 will be to the iPad what the Nexus 7 is to the Kindle: An immediate, existential threat pounding on the gates of Fort Cupertino.

To Apple, the thought of an ultra-cheap (think sub-$300), 10-inch iPad fighter must send chills down CEO Tim Cook’s spine. But to me, the Nexus 10 represents something much worse: Three extra inches of BYOD hell for enterprise IT shops.

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I ask because this morning I got email from a reader who is doing just that. "I ordered my Nexus 7 yesterday for $249, and I am selling my iPad gen 1 for $200", Brian Fagioli writes. It's not a bad trade-off. The original iPad is obsolete when iOS 6 ships, while Nexus 7 packs the newest Android version, Jelly Bean. But would you, and even for a newer iPad?

Google announced the tablet yesterday at Google I/O. Two models are available for preorder -- 8GB ($199) and 16GB ($249) -- and ship in mid-July. I wouldn't call Nexus 7 an iPad-killer, since it's a product with different ambitions: Reclaiming the Android tablet ecosystem from Kindle Fire. But the lower price and smaller size, and Android 4.1, do appeal. The question is to whom.

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I told you so, in April. Contrary to pundits at the time viewing Google's tablet as an iPad competitor, I saw something else: Google isn't gunning for Apple but Amazon. After getting my hands on the tablet this evening, and comparing the experience using my wife's Kindle Fire, there is no doubt. Google will probably save Android from Amazon, but the end cost may be greater gains for iPad.

By just about every measure -- the exception being buying tens of thousands of retail goods -- using Nexus 7 feels like Kindle Fire, only better in every way. Significantly, the experience is different from using Google Nexus smartphones or other Android tablets. That's because Google Play is so visible. I can't say if that's a function of Android 4.1 Jellybean or how Google has set up the tablet. But content pushes to the forefront, like Kindle Fire, and much of it is similar.

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It's a big number and one still well ahead of Android. Just in early 2012, Apple has shipped at least 50 million iOS devices, with iPad adding force to iPhone. Apple calls them "post-PC devices". For all 2011, Apple sold 172 million iOS devices. But wait, haven't we heard this 365 million number before? Indeed, it's same as revealed in late April for the period through end of March. I'm quite surprised Apple didn't update the number, considering the big iOS 6 reveal during today's Worldwide Developer Conference keynote.

New iOS 6 features include FaceTime video over cellular, Facebook integration, Passbook for buying movie tickets and other passes, shared photo streams and new maps app, among others. The new capabilities aren't just for iPhone users but developers, as Apple provides them more built-in utilities to tap into. They received iOS 6 beta today. The software ships in autumn, presumably with iPhone 5.

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Splashtop Inc. makes a handful of applications that allow users to link their mobile tablets with their PC in different ways. On Wednesday, the company released a new tool for developers that lets them use an Android tablet or an iPad as the touch interface for Windows 8.

Called Win8 Metro Testbed -- Powered by Splashtop, the application recognizes more than a dozen Windows 8 touch gestures, including: Swipe to view the Charms menu, Swipe to switch apps, Swipe left/right in Internet Explorer to move between pages, Swipe down to bring up additional menus, Swipe down on an item to select it, Pull down to close an app, Slow swipe to "snap" two apps side-by-side, Swipe to show running apps, Pinch for "Semantic Zoom," and more.

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