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Posts tagged with "iPad"

Android Gains 22% Of Tablet Market, Becomes #1 Smartphone Platform by Shipments

According to two different reports surfaced this morning, Google’s Android mobile operating system has gained 22% of the tablet market share and has become the world’s leading smartphone platform with 33.3 million shipments in Q4 2010.

The first report, as noted by The Loop, details how Android-based tablets grabbed 22% of the market in the fourth quarter of 2010, and while the iPad is still “dominant”, the Samsung Galaxy Tab drove sales of tablets running Google’s OS.

Strategy Analytics sees continued growth for Android-based tablets in 2011 with the release of Motorola’s Xoom and other high-profile devices. The company expects that as more Android devices hit the market, media developers in the United States and elsewhere will increasingly support the devices with content.

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The iPad As A Company, Apple’s Products As A Platform→

The iPad As A Company, Apple’s Products As A Platform

From a piece about Apple’s platform strategy on The New York Times:

Hit products like the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad are fueling Apple’s logic-defying growth. The latest entry — the iPad, introduced in April — is on track to deliver $15 billion to $20 billion in revenue in its first full year of sales, estimates A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein.

At that size, if the iPad were a stand-alone company, it would rank within the top third of the Fortune 500.

Think about it: for any company on the planet, having a product like the iPad in its line-up would be the greatest success. Yet the iPad is one of the products in Apple’s chain, and like others is deeply integrated with software, MobileMe, the App Store. This platform strategy creates the following win-win situation:

The more people buy iPhones and iPads, the more software developers and media companies want to write applications for them, as various as games and digital magazines. And consumers are more likely to buy iPhones and iPads when more entertainment and information applications are available on them.

So the value of Apple’s products doesn’t lie in the products themselves, but in the platform that supports them all. This extends to internet services, App Stores, media management, support, accessories.

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Omni Group’s Huge 2011: OmniFocus 2, New OmniPlan, OmniOutliner for iPad


Stronger than ever thanks to an incredibly successful launch of OmniFocus for iPad, the constantly increasing OmniFocus userbase on all platforms and the hype surrounding all their products, Omni Group’s CEO Ken Case gave some details of the company’s roadmap for 2011 at Macworld Expo. The three key products seem to be OmniFocus 2 for Mac, coming later this year and highly inspired by the iPad app, a brand new OmniPlan with cloud sync and collaboration features, a version of OmniOutliner for iPad. Personally, I’m really excited about the overhaul of OmniPlan, which will also get OmniFocus integration:

The new syncing back-end is also designed to work with OmniFocus, which will let individual team members sync tasks assigned to them with either the desktop, iPhone, or iPad versions. “All three versions use the same underlying engine, so once we have that update in place, we’ll be able to roll out OmniPlan syncing to all versions of OmniFocus,” Case told Ars.

The current version of OmniPlan allows syncing via CalDAV, but the new engine will offer much better integration with OmniFocus. For project team members who don’t need to see what all other team members are working on, they’ll be able to see just the tasks assigned to them. When tasks are marked as complete in OmniFocus, the project manager will get a notification of the change in OmniPlan.

We can’t wait to see what will the new OmniPlan look like, and the two-way sync with OmniFocus sounds like a killer feature to me. Not to mention OmniOutliner for iPad, which will be demoed for the first time at Macworld today and is set to ship sometime in the next few months. What you see above is a screenshot of an early build Ars Technica was provided, but I guess the UI will change come the final release (remember the first mockups of OmniFocus for iPad?).

Last, OmniFocus 2 for Mac will be released “later this year”, although the Omni Group (as usual) doesn’t set any deadline. When it’s ready, it’s ready. We just know the feedback for the iOS apps (especially the iPad version) has been huge, and OmniFocus 2 will be built on top of that.

Looks like the Omni Group is off to a great start in 2011.

Rovio Announces “Angry Birds Rio”, Coming This March

There is a new Angry Birds game on the horizon, and this time it’ll be the result of an exclusive partnership between Rovio, the makers of the original game, and Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox. The game, named “Angry Birds Rio”, will be a crossover of Rovio’s series with the upcoming animated film Rio, which – guess what – tells the story of two birds, Blu and Jewel, that have to fight animal smugglers in Rio de Janeiro.

The new Angry Birds game will follow a plot similar to the movie: the original Angry Birds are kidnapped and taken to Rio de Janeiro, but they manage to escape and set out to save Blu and Jewel, the characters of the movie. Sounds like Rovio and 20th Century Fox really collaborated to make the series fit together – how couldn’t they, considering we’re talking about a blockbuster game and a new film from the creators of the Ice Age trilogy?

Angry Birds Rio will launch in March 2011 with 45 initial levels, and more will be added with software updates. The app will be released for “smartphone and tablets” – we guess iPhone and iPad support is pretty much obvious. No word on pricing yet, but we think $4.99 is the usual sweet spot. Full press release available here, and trailers of the movie and game embedded below. Read more

We Reviewed Berokyo For iPad: Now We’re Giving It Away

Berokyo is an app you never knew you needed until you actually get your hands on it: presenting a one of a kind management system that organizes your contacts, photos, documents, and media onto an array of bookshelves, you always have access to your most used content. We were especially excited by its capabilities with Dropbox, and now we have ten promocodes to giveaway thanks to the awesome developers at Think, Code, Release. Click past the break below for the full rundown of contest rules.

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Did Pixar Tease The iPad With “The Incredibles” In 2004?→

Did Pixar Tease The iPad In “The Incredibles” In 2004?

During a session at Macworld Expo, Chris Noessel and Nathan Shedroff told the audience that Steve Jobs might have tested people’s reception to a tablet computer in Pixar’s 2004 movie “The Incredibles”:

If a device works on a movie audience, it’ll also work as a real-world product. That’s the “meta lesson” fromChris Noessel and Nathan Shedroff who study how sci-fi interfaces in movies make it off the silver screen and vice versa.

We know the tablet project had been in the works for years before Apple decided to release the iPhone first, in 2007. We also know, however, that similar tablet devices were used in sci-fi movies before Pixar’s The Incredibles, because people have always wondered what the future might look like. For example, in today’s movies we’re predicting Minority report-style controls and brain-based human-machine interactions.

The fact that a tablet computer with touch controls was used by Jobs’ Pixar in 2004 is, anyway, fascinating. And perfect discussion material for geeks.

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Adobe Packager To Support iPad Apps Soon?

According to a rumor posted on Japanese blog Macotakara, Adobe is planning to update its Packager software for the iPhone to add support for iPad apps development. Adobe Packager, in fact, as part of the Flash Professional CS5 suite allows developers to re-use existing code to build native applications for iPhone. Since Apple lifted its restrictions on third-party development tools used to build iOS apps, many developers have relied on Packger to ship cross-platform software across a variety of devices and operating systems.

Macotakara also reports the updated Packager will include support for gestures in iPad apps, like pinch to zoom. Android and other “large LCD devices” should be supported as well. [via 9to5mac]

What’s Better Than $1.8 Billion Revenue? Giving Away 5,400 iPads

What happens when a successful and large company like semiconductor maker KLA-Tencor decides to give away iPads to all its employees? Well, it means the IT department is in trouble. After posting revenue of $1.8 billion, the CEO of the company gave each employee an iPad as a reward for the hard work; and not only did he gave people iPads, he also made sure the CIO of KLA-Tencor and IT folks would help everyone with the setup process. That leads to iTunes account creation, email setup, apps installation, secure VPN connections. For 5,400 iPads, that’s a bit of work.

CIO.com reports:

KLA-Tencor’s Ballal didn’t have a choice about the speed and timing of an iPad rollout. The CEO had made a promise to give iPads to employees as a form of appreciation; when you promise someone an iPad, you can’t wait six months to deliver one.

So why couldn’t KLA-Tencor just ship the iPads to employees? Employees wanted the gadgets right away, even though half lived outside the United States. “The big thing was the logistics of getting these devices to different parts of the world,” Ballal says. “It was all the nightmare of shipping. The iPad wasn’t yet released in the different countries when we rolled this thing out. We learned a lot about logistics.

At its Q1 2011 earnings call, Apple announced over 80% of Fortune 500 are deploying or piloting iPads, and 88 of Fortune 100, 60% of Financial Times Europe testing or deploying iPhones. In the past we’ve seen school adopting iPads with special educational programs and corporate America “falling in love” with the device in a matter of months. [via TUAW]