Analyst Predicts Apple To Be Tablet Market Leader Until 2013

According to at least one research firm, DisplaySearch, Apple will remain firmly as the market leader for tablets for at least the next two years with substantial market share and sales. The firm believes the market will grow at a very rapid rate, accelerated primarily by the iPad, which it believes that Apple will sell 40 million units of this year – a very significant increase from last year’s 15 million units.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating statistics that the firm is floating is that by 2016 the tablet market will be selling 260 million units per year worldwide. That is a very considerable figure considering that in 2010, 351 million PCs were shipped. Indeed if these suggested figures ring true, it could be the case that tablets in 2016 replace a number of PC sales and perhaps even exceed PC sales.

As for Apple’s competitors, DisplaySearch believes that somewhere around the beginning of 2013 would be when they match Apple’s sales volume (combining all Apple’s competitors together though), which would still leave Apple as the market leader for presumably some time. Whether indeed Apple’s competitors can catch up by early 2013 will rely heavily on how well they do this year in launching their first iPad competitors. If they fail, the tablet market could well become similar to the MP3 player market in which Apple has strongly dominated for a decade with its iPod family.

[Via The Apple Blog]

Report: iPad 2 Display Almost Identical In Perfomance To iPhone 4

Whilst many have complained of the lack of resolution increase from the original iPad to the iPad 2, a report by Dr. Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate Technologies claims that, excluding pixel density, the iPad 2’s display delivers “almost identical performance to the impressive iPhone 4 Retina Display.”

In quite an in-depth and thorough examination of the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPad 2 displays, it was revealed that for most specifications from hardware color depth to black levels to contrast ratio, the iPad 2’s display matched or was close to the iPhone 4’s specifications and both were classified as ‘Excellent’ by the report. There were, however, two issues with the iPad 2’s display that Dr. Soneira believed could be improved by Apple through a software update.

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FileMaker’s Bento for Mac Updated to Version 4; iOS Version Updated

Filemaker has released Bento 4 for Mac today, and it’s a major update to the previous version of their popular personal database software. It’s also now available via Apple’s Mac App Store, a first for Bento. It will cost you $49 but if you own a previous version, they will give you a $20 rebate. If you want a ‘family pack’ with 5 licenses, they offer a $99 version of Bento.

New features to Bento 4 include the ability to print labels using Avery and Dymo file formats. Sharing databases is easier with this version as well; the user can export the app’s libraries that are populated with data for other Bento users.

You can also upload a database template to the ‘Bento Template Exchange’ that has over 800 free downloadable templates to use. Bento has also added the ability to use geographical location data, grabbed through Wi-Fi, GPS or cell tower triangulation.

Another new feature adds the ability to lock forms to prevent unnecessary changes from being made to your layout. Improved performance and faster launch times have also been added, along with an easier way to switch from Table to Form view.

Bento for iOS was also updated to version 1.1. Changes include the ability to record voice memos, and sync iCal tasks (when paired with Mac). Multitasking support and better image support for retina displays are also included; here’s the link.

If you want to buy Bento 4 from somewhere other than the Mac App Store, you can always visit an Apple Retail Store or buy it directly from Filemaker’s website.

[via The Loop]

Photoshop Express For iOS Updated To 2.0, Adds Enhanced Camera Features

Adobe’s Photoshop Express

for iPhone and iPad has today been updated to version 2.0 and it brings a few substantial, and much needed improvements, to the mobile photo editing app. Perhaps of most importance is the addition of full Retina display support and multi-tasking support, which is a feature that all apps really should have had a few months ago.

Also included in the update is a new camera workflow for what they describe as “rapid in-app photo-taking” but in addition to that is the inclusion of a $4.99 in-app purchase for an ‘Adobe Camera Pack’. This pack improves upon the apps in-built camera functions by adding the features of reducing noise, self-timer and auto reviewing functions.

The app remains free and the 2.0 update can downloaded now, but to get the Adobe Camera Pack you’ll need to fork out the cash for that in-app purchase.

[Via The Loop]

MacUpdate Bundle: 1Password, Parallels, Divvy, App Tamer and More→

MacUpdate Bundle: 1Password, Parallels, Divvy, App Tamer and More

The latest MacUpdate Bundle is a must-have for any serious Mac user: at $49 (that’s 87% off the total value of the apps included) you get gems like Parallels, 1Password, App Tamer, Divvy and TechTool Pro 5. These are apps we highly recommend and especially 1Password and Parallels should be installed on every Mac.

The bundle also includes MacUpdate Desktop, DVDRemaster Pro 7, MacDVDRipper 2, Hands Off, Civilization IV, and A Better Finder Rename.

Save money and get some great apps at the same time. Go buy the bundle here.

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TapeDeck For Mac Records & Captures Audio, Supports Pro Hardware & Monitoring

Much like TinyVox which we looked at recently, you’d think TapeDeck would be its older brother (though the two aren’t related). TapeDeck for the Mac is a cassette deck for OS X, enabling you to quickly label and record audio from the built in microphone or connected pro hardware, and can allow you to monitor (playback) audio as it’s being recorded. If you have the jack for your Mac’s line-in port, you’ll be able to quickly save off audio to a .m4a file which shows up as a cassette in the tap box (the drawer that holds your cassettes). You can organize recordings by color, add notes, select audio quality per recording, and choose either stereo or mono (mono only records audio on the first of the two channels you’re recording to). It’s old school meets… new school?

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Apple Rolling Out iAds for iPad

Back in December, Apple launched the first iAd for the iPad – a fullscreen interactive experience for the Tron: Legacy movie that allowed users to check out characters’ bios, trailers and storyline within a well-designed interface that was the first to make use of the iPad’s larger screen for the iAd platform. When the Tron iAd was launched, however, Apple confirmed that it would be the only one for 2010, with more iPad-specific iAds coming in 2011. As noted by CNET, the rollout of these new iAds has begun today with Unilever and the NCAA.

Unilever has teamed up with the National Collegiate Athletic Association “to give users an up-close view of three of its stars”. The ad runs in fullscreen mode and comes with video ads featuring Earvin “Magic” Johnson, John Thompson III, and Bobby Hurley. The iAd also enables users to answer NCAA-based questions, and check out daily game schedules directly from the iPad.

With the introduction of iOS 4.3, it was clear that Apple had implemented full iAd support in the tablet. The application to design and develop iAds on the Mac, iAd Producer, was in fact updated last week to include iOS 4.3 support and “creation of ads with multiple banners”. The news of new iAds for the iPad comes after Apple cut the minimum iAd buy in half at the end of the first round of campaigns, probably to address advertisers’ complaints that iAds, although successful and well-targeted, weren’t worth the $1 million minimum spending required by Apple.

iOS Games Now Listed on Metacritic

As noted by TUAW, Metacritic, the popular aggregator of movie / TV show / music / game reviews found online, announced yesterday full support for iOS games. For all the people “keeping score of entertainment” through the service, this means iPhone and iPad games are now listed in a dedicated section that displays the overall top-scoring games, and offers the option to filter down results by category and user score. The clean design of Metacritic and the ease of use of the system will surely come in handy to see what the web thinks of a specific game, as Metacritic basically works by aggregating average scores and reviews from highly visited websites like Slide To Play and Eurogamer.

Metacritic is proud to announce that we have added complete coverage of iPhone/iPad game reviews to our site. As many of you know, we have been publishing monthly IPhone/IPad games guides – recommending the best new iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch games available for a total budget of $30 — and this popular feature will continue to appear each month.

As the team behind Metacritic also notes, this change marks a major shift in the gaming community that has grown to accept iOS and the App Store as important distribution platforms for great games. The fact that gems like World of Goo (whose iPad version has been insanely successful), Real Racing, Tiny Wings and Aralon are being listed in the top games confirms many people’s theory that you can find all kinds of games on iOS nowadays.

The big names in the game development industry understand iOS is no platform to ignore, and just about any top console game now comes with an iPhone or iPad counterpart of sorts. On Metacritic you can now browse these games and check out what the reviewers are saying on the web, write a review yourself or even check out trailers and videos for a specific app. To see the new Metacritic page in action, head over here and start looking for your next favorite game.

First Music Video Shot Entirely With An iPad 2

In Cody Fink’s review of the iPad 2’s camera and photo and video examples of what the results look like for the end user, we saw the iPad 2 takes some decent photos and 720p videos for carrying the same cameras of the 4th generation iPod touch, although Cody noted picture quality was suffering from a bit of grain being captured by the lenses chosen from Apple. In spite of a quality clearly inferior to that of the iPhone 4, I still think the average user is going to be more than okay with these photos and media ending up on Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr.

What we’re seeing now, though, is the iPad 2 being used as a video capturing tool in professional environments. This video for the song “NEED” by Eddy was shot entirely using 4 iPad 2 units in a low-light set with pro and DIY steadicam rig. Remedy Films was apparently one the first studios to understand the potentialities of the iPad 2 and decided to give it a shot, literally, to see how well it would perform to record a music video and, why not, gain some free publicity from Apple blogs like ours finding this experiment incredibly cool.

We knew it wasn’t designed as a professional videocamera in the slightest, so we would be stuck with whatever results we got. We probably shouldn’t have filmed in a dark setting, but it actually worked well in a “party” environment, plus it fit the song perfectly! We still treated the cameras as “professional cameras.” we had one mounted to a steadicam rig, one was on a Kessler Crane Cineslider, and the other one was on a DIY hand held rig. The fourth iPad was held by Eddy for a few shots of her singing and dancing.

The shooting session took 5 hours, whilst editing required 12. I don’t think Remedy Films used iMovie for iPad to edit the whole thing, but it needs to be mentioned that they spent 8 hours in line to get their hands on 3 iPad 2s. You can check out the video below. Now here’s to hoping someone will release a music video shot with the iPad 2, edited in iMovie, based on a song recorded in GarageBand. Read more