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Posts tagged with "iPad"

From Last Year: “Why The iPad Will Fail”→

From Last Year: “Why The iPad Will Fail”

The only real gem I remember from last year’s iPad announcement backlash is this one, courtesy of Mike Halsey:

Quite simply this time Apple have got it wrong.  All the tech press is saying the same thing and comments made by readers of those websites are echoing, mostly anyway, their sentiments.

The iPad is nothing more than a large iPod Touch.  It’s lacking a 16:9 screen and while the bezel has to be of a reasonable size to allow for holding the device with your hand without your thumb poking the screen all the time, it’s simply too big.  Finally those few people who’ve already used it are saying that having a standard keyboard on a device that you can’t rest easily on your lap and that is intended to be used one-handed is lunacy.  Just look at the curved corner keyboards Microsoft introduced with the tablet editions of Windows to see how they should have done it.

It turns out, there is a large market for “large iPod touches” and it may even grant you billions of dollars of revenue. But then again, Microsoft nailed the “large iPod touch” segment in 2010, right?

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Apple’s 2011: iPad Bigger Than Macs, And Yet The Mac Is Growing

Apple’s Q1 2011 financial results are both unsurprising and, quite frankly, incredible. We all expected Apple to post record, blockbuster sales and revenue figures after the holiday season; yet, seeing the numbers on Apple’s official press release is a completely different story. Apple sold more than 7 million iPads in the last quarter, 16.2 million iPhones and more than 4 million Macs. Apple’s iPod business is “in decline” with 19.4 million iPods sold, but the iPod hasn’t been Appel’s main and only mobile business for four years now. Read more

How Many iPhone Apps Are There? 306,554 - And 60,000 iPad Apps

Looking at the “All-Time Top iPhone Apps” charts Apple updated earlier today, I noticed two interesting numbers worth to be shared: Apple is listing the actual number of free and paid iPhone apps available in the App Store. There are 306,554 iPhone apps available, and 201,635 of them are paid apps. These numbers are noteworthy as Apple rarely provides official stats of the iPhone App Store: they announced the 300,000 apps milestone on November 22 with the release of iOS 4.2 but there never was an easy way to instantly check on the exact number of apps available in the Store. Read more

iPad Pinches Almost 90% of Third Quarter Tablet Shipments

The world’s media tablet market grew an astounding 45% in the third quarter of 2010, says the International Data Corporation (IDC). And what magical device is getting the credit? The iPad of course. Apple’s iPad was the force behind the growing demand.

According to IDC’s figures, vendors shipped almost 5 million units worldwide in the third quarter of 2010. The second quarter shipped over 3 million units, with the iPad steering almost 88% of tablets shipped. Read more

Happy Politicians with iPads In German Parliament [Photos]

In October, we reported that the German parliament lifted the ban on tablets and announced members were allowed to replace papers with Apple’s iPad. Today, German newspaper Spiegel posted photos of iPads in action in the Bundestag, and is reporting nearly every member of the Parliament has adopted an Apple iPad. Chancellor Angela Merkel was the first one to get an iPad during her trip to California last year, and after her several others got one, which comes free of charge with refunds from the German government. Sounds like a deal.

Unsurprisingly, the iPad’s form factor seems to be the most important aspect among members of the Bundestag: the screen makes it easy to send and read emails, browse the web and quickly check on documents. According to the Spiegel, the iPad “looks like it was made for the Parliament”.

The fact that Saarland’s premier Peter Müller was spotted playing chess on his tablet during a meeting doesn’t come as a surprise either. With an iPad in your hands and access to thousands of apps, it’s hard to resist the temptation of games, like Angry Birds and well, chess. Check out more pics of happy politicians with iPads in the Parliament below. Read more

More Alleged iPad 2 Cases Appear, Hint at Mini DisplayPort

Rumors and leaks surrounding the forthcoming second generation iPad continue to spread like wildfire across the blogosphere with the latest coming from AppleInsider and MIC Gadget. Both received photos of iPad 2 cases that had openings that would suggest the addition of a rear facing camera, larger speaker, possible SD card slot and most intriguingly a small port at the top of the device that could be for a Mini DisplayPort receptacle.

The two tech blogs received photo’s of cases from China that whilst different had virtually identical port openings and further back up reports by Engadget that the second generation iPad would have an SD card slot and rear facing camera. The larger opening on cases around the speaker is also a recurring feature of such leaked iPad 2 cases and seems to be a likely improvement on the iPad 2.

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Bump Data Suggests 90% of iOS Devices Running 4.x

David Lieb, founder and CEO of iPhone app Bump yesterday posted some data on Quora to a question about what percentage of users of iOS devices were on 4.x, his answer revealed that 89.7% of Bump users were on the latest major iteration of iOS, 4.x.

Although Lieb didn’t note how big the sample size is, the latest known figure of Bump downloads was 15 million back from August last year. That’s a large sample size and one that includes users of iPhones, iPod Touch’s and iPads, a sample that would suggest the ~90% is a close approximation to the real percentage of iOS device users on the latest major iteration of iOS, version 4.

Ian Peters-Campbell of Loopt, another iOS app backed up Lieb’s data but said for his users take-up was even a little higher. Anyway you cut it such a high take up rate in about six months is impressive. It also highlights concerns over how fragmented Android is compared to iOS which back in December 2010 when Froyo (2.2) was the latest Android OS only had 43.4% take up, let alone Gingerbread (2.3) which as of today ReadWriteWeb says only has 0.4% take-up.

Lieb of Bump, posted a full breakdown of iterations and percentages of users, which is posted after the break. The key data is that 53% of users are on the very latest software update of 4.2.1.

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Apple to Newspapers: No More Free iPad Access For Print Subscribers

According to various reports posted over the weekend, Apple has reportedly contacted several newspapers to inform them that they can no longer offer free iPad access to existing print subscribers. Many publishers, in fact, frustrated with Apple’s lack of recurring subscriptions with access to subscribers’ data, have put in place systems that allow print subscribers who have an iPad to get free access to apps using their previously created accounts. These systems, as you can guess, leave Apple’s standard 30% revenue cut of the equation as app access is offered for free. Read more