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  • New iPad Mini Again Rumored to be in Short Supply

    New iPad Mini Again Rumored to be in Short Supply

    During its big iPad announcement event last week, Apple unveiled its latest version of the iPad Mini. Though the tablet’s hardware has remained much the same, the Mini did get one bit upgrade – its screen. The 7.9-inch display on the new iPad Mini has been upgraded to a 2048 x 1536 Retina display. Though the addition will be a welcome one for Apple fans, it may also be that this new feature is severely limiting the number of the devices Apple is able to manufacture for the holiday quarter.

    A new DigiTimes report today stated that the new iPad Mini will be in short supply in the coming months. The report’s unnamed “sources with Taiwan’s supply chain” are placing the blame for the tablet’s rarity squarely on Sharp. The manufacturer is reportedly having trouble with the new display’s Oxide TFT manufacturing process and is seeing very low yields.

    This new report comes just days after a market research firm also predicted low shipment numbers for the iPad Mini. That report also blamed the shortage on manufacturing problems surrounding the Retina display.

    Though the report about Sharp is concerning, it does not mean that dedicated Apple fans won’t be able to get the new mini-tablet this holiday season. According to DigiTimes, Sharp makes up only 40% of Apple’s Retina display orders for the iPad Mini. The other 60% are coming from LG Display, which hasn’t been rumored to be having any trouble producing the displays.

  • Apple Tablet Shipments Falling, Still Tops Others

    Earlier this week it was reported that all other tablet shipments combined outpaced Apple’s iPad shipments during the third quarter of 2013. Though this may again change during the holiday quarter now that Apple has announced its refreshed iPad lineup, the overall trend is likely to continue as Android tablet manufacturers expand their offerings.

    Today, market research firm IHS weighed in with its estimates, showing that Apple is still leading in tablet market share, despite losing market share during the third quarter. The firm estimates that the company shipped 14.25 million iPads during the quarter, a slight decrease from the estimated 14.62 million it shipped during the second quarter. The drop, though, means that Apple market share fell significantly, down to just unger 30% from 33.5% during the second quarter. Apple is now estimated to have shipped over 170 million iPads since the original device debuted in 2010.

    “The erosion in Apple’s unit shipment market share was inevitable,” said Rhoda Alexander, director for tablet research at IHS. “Cheaper almost always wins the volume race, and competitors were quick to adjust pricing when it became clear that it was impossible to achieve anything close to Apple’s unit growth at the same price level. The resulting surge in sub-$250 alternatives catapulted Android to the leading operating system in tablets in the third quarter of 2012, but left vendors searching for profit in an increasingly competitive market.”

    Samsung unsurprisingly has the second-highest tablet market share with 22.2% during the third quarter. The Korean company shipped an estimated 10.7 million tablets during the quarter. Samsung is estimated to have now shipped 54 million tablets since 2010.

  • Other Tablets Out-Shipped iPads Last Quarter

    As the tablet market has grown, Apple’s share of the pie had gotten progressively smaller. Though the manufacturer still enjoys a major chunk of the market, the combined force of all other tablets has now overtaken Apple.

    DigiTimes Research today reported that worldwide tablet shipments of all other brands reached just over 20 million units during the third quarter of 2013. This was a 22.9% rise from the second quarter, and accounts for over 56% of total tablet shipments. Apple makes up the other 44%, shipping an estimated 15.6 million iPads during the third quarter.

    Though this might seem to be good news for Android tablet manufacturers, these numbers could easily shift back in Apple’s favor during the fourth quarter. While manufacturers such as Asus and Samsung announced new tablets during the second and third quarters of 2013, Apple has only just announced its refreshed iPad lineup, including an iPad Mini with Retina display. DigiTimes estimates that iPad shipments grew by 6.8% during the third quarter, making up nearly 44% of worldwide tablet shipments.

    During that same time, Samsung managed to increase its share of the tablet market to nearly 30%. Google’s Nexus 7 tablets represent the third-largest market share block, with Lenovo, Acer, Asus, and Amazon following behind. Collectively these companies are set to eclipse Apple within the next year with a flood of Android-powered tablets.

  • E-Cigarette Ad Pops Up Inside Kids iPad Game

    If you asked the world’s second-largest tobacco company about their new marketing strategies, I’m going to assume that they wouldn’t include running ads in kids apps in their response.

    Nevertheless, an ad for Vype, the first e-cigarette marketed by British American Tobacco, recently appeared as an in-app advertisement in a kids iPad game.

    The ad was spotted and tweeted out by author and Learning Without Frontiers founder Graham Brown-Martin:

    The in-app e-cig ad was then retweeted by the Twitter account for E-Cigarette Forum, the biggest online forum devoted entirely to e-cigarettes.

    British American Tobacco quickly responded, tweeting that they had yanked all online advertising for their Vype product.

    Swift move, still, the question remains – just how in the hell did this happen?

    Image via Graham Brown-Martin, Twitter

  • New Retina iPad Mini in Short Supply, Says Analyst

    This week Apple officially announced its new iPad lineup, including the iPad Air and the newer iPad Mini. One of the only changes the company made to the Mini was to give it a new Retina display similar to larger iPad versions. It turns out, however, that this one change could have severely constrained the number of the tablets that Apple has been able to manufacture.

    Market research firm IHS today stated that it expects Apple’s supply of iPad Mini tablets to “fall well short” of consumer demand during the holiday quarter. The firm directly blames the issue on manufacturing constraints surrounding the new Retina display. IHS states that manufacturing of the new size of retina panels are suffering from low yield rates.

    “Apple is being rather vague about the exact availability date of the new iPad mini with Retina Display, simply stating that the product would ship later in November,” said Rhoda Alexander, director of tablet research at IHS. “The company has good reason to be coy about the exact release date, given that supply of the new mini is going to be ridiculously tight in the fourth quarter. The heart of the problem is supply constraints on the new Retina panel.”

    IHS predicts that Apple will be able to ship less than 4 million units – and possibly as few as 3 million units – of the new iPad Mini during the fourth quarter of this year. This is well short of the nearly 9 million iPad Minis that Apple shipped during the fourth quarter of 2012. As IHS points out, even that was not enough to meet demand for the original iPad Mini. With demand for the smaller tablet now outpacing that for the full-sized iPad, it appears that Retina iPad Minis will be a rare commodity when they appear in stores sometime in late November.

  • LinkedIn Intros Fresh iPad-Optimized App

    LinkedIn Intros Fresh iPad-Optimized App

    LinkedIn unveiled a new iPad app today, rebuilding the previous app from the ground up for the tablet experience.

    The app has a dramatically different design with more of a focus on people, as in who is sharing what, connecting with who, changing jobs, etc.

    Liking, commenting, sharing, following and joining actions are now accessible directly from the feed, and you can easily tap on the icon next to a person or swipe to the right to connect with them. You can also tap on an image to expand it or play a video inline from the feed.

    “We know that you use LinkedIn for different reasons,” says LinkedIn’s David Breger in a blog post. “Some of you want to grow their network, others want to read Influencer content, and others are looking for jobs. So we have completely re-imagined the navigation to reflect this.”

    “Now at the top of every page you can access your personalized navigation via a simple tap on the LinkedIn icon or a swipe down from the top bar,” he adds. “The improved navigation takes advantage of the expanded real estate of the tablet and the icons are visual, offering quick access to the areas you visit the most.”

    The app also adds LInkedIn’s Influencer and Channels content as well as Jobs, with the ability to search for jobs, companies and groups.

    Linkedin for ipad

    LinkedIn iPad

    LinkedIn iPad

    The app is supported in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Turkish, and Korean.

    Apple, of course, unveiled its latest iPad models on Tuesday, and revealed that it has sold 170 iPads to date. There are over 475,000 apps specifically optimized for the iPad available in the app store.

    LinkedIn also introduced a new email tool called Intro today, which basically Linkedinifies your email. More on that here.

    Image: LinkedIn

  • Funny Or Die’s “Apple iPad Announcement Parody” Nails It (VIDEO)

    Earlier today Apple unveiled the new iPad, the iPad Air. As the name implies, this latest iPad is thinner and lighter than previous models. It’s 7.5mm thin which Apple claims is 20 percent thinner than previous models. It also weighs 1 pound, which Apple claims is the lightest full sized tablet in the world.

    One thing you can always count on when it comes to Apple, they’re going to have an announcement video… and it’s going to look just like all the others.

    This was the idea behind the latest Funny or Die Apple parody video. It takes aim at the classic white background and everyone looking off-camera, a little bit above and to the right. You can check it out for yourself below:

    (Image: FoD)

  • New iPad Mini With Retina Display Announced at Apple Event

    Today’s Apple event was front-loaded with news about the company’s desktop hardware and software, but the presentation did eventually move on to the topic everyone was waiting for: the new iPad models. In addition to the lighter, thinner full-sized iPad Air, Apple also quickly unveiled its incremental improvements for the iPad mini.

    The largest improvement to the iPad Mini, as expected, is a new retina display with the larger resolution seen in full-sized iPad models. The tablet’s display remains at 7.9 inches but has a new 2048 x 1536 resolution at 326 ppi.

    In addition to the screen improvement, the new iPad Mini has gotten a CPU upgrade to the 64-bit A7 processor, which was announced last month at Apple’s big iPhone 5S Event. Apple also promised the device will have Wi-Fi that two times better with its dual multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMI) antennas.

    The new iPad mini will come in a new variety of colors, though not in as many as the iPhone 5C. Silver, white, “space” grey, and black are the choices consumers will have. The new iPad Mini will be available sometime “later in November.” The Wi-Fi version of the tablet will retail for $399, while the wireless-capable version will retail for $529.

    As for the original iPad Mini, Apple isn’t retiring it just yet. The old iPad mini has gotten a price drop to just $299, a price that edges Apple’s lowest-priced tablet into the sub-$300 territory currently dominated by Amazon and other Android tablet manufacturers.

  • Apple Introduces The Thinner, Lighter iPad Air

    It was pretty much confirmed earlier this year that Apple would introduce a new iPad at its October event. What we didn’t expect was a new name.

    Today, Apple announced its latest iPad – the iPad Air. As the name implies, this latest iPad is thinner and lighter than previous models. It’s 7.5mm thin which Apple claims is 20 percent thinner than previous models. It also weighs 1 pound, which Apple claims is the lightest full sized tablet in the world.

    Despite being thinner and lighter, the iPad Air sports the same 9.7-inch retina display as the past models. The display is powered by Apple’s newest A7 chip that powers the iPhone 5S. This gives it twice the CPU and GPU performance of the previous iPad.

    The iPad Air sports faster wireless communication with a MIMO Wi-Fi antennae and extended LTE support over more carriers. It also sports dual microphones.

    Like the previous iPad, it still sports the same 10 hour battery life.

    As for color, the iPad Air comes in silver, white, space grey and black. The 16GB Wi-Fi model will start at $499 and $629 for the LTE model.

    Apple will continue to sell the iPad 2 as well at $399.

    The iPad Air will ship on November 1 in over 20 countries. This will also be the first time that a new iPad launches in China alongside the other first wave launches.

    [Image: Apple]

  • Apple Has Sold 170 Million iPads. Here’s What The Sales Chart Looks Like.

    At its event today, Apple announced that it sold its 170 millionth iPad. Here’s a look at the sales growth.

    iPad Sales

    CEO Tim Cook ran through some early quotes about the iPad from when it was first announced. One of them called anybody who thought the device was going to be a game-changer a “tool.”

    That got some laughter, as you might imagine.

    “Now everybody seems to be making the tablet. Even some of the doubters are making them,” said Cook. iPad is used more than any of the rest, he said, “and not just more. A lot more.”

    Cook also revealed that there are now 475,000 iPad apps in the app store. That’s iPad-optimized apps alone, not just “stretched out” versions of the smartphone apps, as Cook put it.

    “No one else is close to this,” he said.

    He then revealed the next generation of iPad, the iPad Air.

    More Apple coverage here.

  • Amazon Suggests That A New Apple TV Is Coming Next Week

    Apple confirmed earlier this week that it will be holding a media event on October 22. The company is expected to reveal a new iPad and iPad Mini at the event, but a recent Amazon listing suggests we’ll see a new Apple TV as well.

    AppleInsider reports that Amazon France and Amazon Germany have both sold out of the current generation Apple TV. Now, that’s not all that surprising as tech products, especially those from Apple, will sell out every now and then. What makes this listing suspect, however, is the date in which Amazon expects to have it back in stock.

    Amazon Pretty Much Confirms That A New Apple TV Is Coming Next Week

    Even if you can’t read German, you can tell that the listing says the Apple TV will be back in stock on October 23. That’s only one day after Apple’s event on October 22, and Apple generally launches products like the Apple TV a day after its unveiling.

    Now, this is not conclusive evidence that a new Apple TV is coming next week. After all, this is Amazon, not Apple. The retailer does have a history of conveniently selling out of products right before a new one is announced, but that usually only applies to its own Kindle tablets. For it know that Apple will be introducing a new Apple TV next week isn’t out of the question, but it is unexpected.

    Even if this is purely a coincidence, there’s still a pretty good chance that Apple will be unveiling the new Apple TV next week. After all, the company says that it still has “a lot to cover.” That presumably means that we’ll be seeing more than just an iPad and iPad Mini refresh. In fact, I suspect that we’ll see refreshes for almost everything in Apple’s stable of hardware products next week.

    For now though, you might want to hold off on buying that new Apple TV. It would be such a waste to buy the current model, which is still available via Amazon US, only to see Apple announcing a new one a few days later.

    [Image: Amazon.de]

  • It’s Official: Apple’s iPad Event Will Take Place On October 22

    It was rumored earlier this month that Apple would be holding this year’s iPad event on October 22. Like most Apple rumors these days, it was right on the money.

    TechCrunch reports that Apple began sending out press invites today for an event scheduled for October 22. The invite doesn’t make mention of iPad or any other hardware from Apple as it simply states, “We still have a lot to cover.”

    Apple's iPad Event Will Take Place On October 22

    Despite the ambiguous invitation, we all have a pretty good idea of what Apple is going to show at its October 22 event. In short, everything it didn’t show at its iPhone event in September. That means we’ll see the new iPad, maybe a new iPad Mini, a new line of MacBook Pros, more information on the Mac Pro and the new Mac OS X Mavericks.

    Starting with the new iPad, recent rumors have suggested that Apple won’t be doing anything too drastic with the design this year. The company will simply reduce the size of the side bezels to bring the big iPad’s design in line with the iPad Mini’s. It’s also rumored that the new iPad will sport the new 64-bit processor that was first seen in the iPhone 5S.

    As for the iPad Mini, it’s been reported that Apple is pushing for a retina display in the device to match the HD displays found in Google’s Nexus 7 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX. Along with the increased resolution, the 7-inch tablet is expected to use a 64-bit processor as well. Another rumor, however, suggests that this iPad Mini will be delayed and Apple will release a minor upgrade this year as it works on improving yields for the retina display iPad.

    Beyond the new iPads, we don’t know a lot about Apple’s other plans. We can make some educated guesses though. For instance, it’s pretty much guaranteed that we’ll see some new Haswell-equipped MacBook Pros, and we’re likely to find out a release date for the Mac Pro. We’re also likely to hear when Mac OS X Mavericks will be made available to consumers.

    Beyond the above, it’s anybody’s ballgame. Apple could have a surprise for us, but it’s doubtful. Any big product announcement, like the oft-rumored Apple television, would receive its own separate event. On October 22, you should just expect to see updates to all the existing Apple hardware that’s not an iPhone.

    [Image: TechCrunch]

  • Apple’s iPad Event Scheduled For October 22 [Report]

    With a new iPad being a no show at Apple’s iPhone 5S event last month, we were left to assume that Apple would once again hold a separate event in October for its tablet computer line. The only question was when Apple would choose to unveil its new iPad and iPad Mini.

    AllThingsD reports that Apple will host its iPad event on October 22. Sources close to Apple told the publication that the company will use the event to show off the latest iPad and iPad Mini. It would also use the event to share more details on the Mac Pro and Mac OS X Mavericks.

    So, what do we know about the new iPad? Current rumors indicate that Apple has designed its latest iPad to use some of the new technology that debuted in the iPad Mini, like the GF2 multi-touch touchscreen technology that allows for thinner touch modules.

    As for the iPad Mini, it will sport a retina display. The original iPad Mini had a non-retina display of 1024×768 – the same as the iPad 2. With the upgrade to a retina display, the iPad Mini would presumably be able to compete with the high definition displays found in the new Nexus 7 and the Kindle Fire HDX.

    Of course, there are some worrisome rumors floating around that the new iPad Mini may have been delayed until 2014. The delay seems to have stemmed from Apple’s suppliers not readying the iPad Mini’s retina displays until this month which could either mean a delay is in the works, or that Apple will will release a new non-retina iPad Mini this year.

    Interestingly enough, AllThingsD reports that both the new iPad and iPad Mini will utilize the same 64-bit A7 chip that’s found in the iPhone 5S. If Apple decides to delay the retina iPad Mini, it would be somewhat of a waste to use the A7 in a non-retina model.

    Either way, we’ll just have to see what Apple has in store for us later this month.

    [Image: Apple]

  • Apple iPad Mini With Retina Display May Be Delayed

    The smell of pumpkin spice lattes and Halloween candy in the air mean only one thing in the world of retail; winter is coming, and with it, the holiday shopping season. The rush of people bustling about to acquire goods for the celebrated, consumerist holiday season send joy into retailer’s hearts (and wallets). The holiday shopping season is a pretty big deal for companies, to say the least, and Apple is no exception. They may be facing a hitch this holiday season, however; it looks like the improved version of the iPad Mini, possibly with retina display, may not happen until after the new year.

    According to Apple’s supply chain, the gear up for improvements to the iPad mini’s display had not begun until this month. This implies that improvements will not be finished, much less widely available for production and consumption, until after the holiday shopping season has ended and reluctant gift recipients are slinking back to stores with receipts and too-large sweaters in hopes of some store credit.

    It is also unclear if retina display will even be a for sure deal when the new iPad mini is finally released; since work on it has only just begun, it is very likely that it could take a lot of time and tinkering before Apple is ready to release it to the public. There is special emphasis on the problems the iPad mini might face in terms of gaining bulkiness because of the power needed for it to perform with a retina display.

    Apple’s apparent lack of a new gizmo this holiday season, combined with competitors with cheaper, higher display quality gadgets, may just mean a disadvantage for the company’s revenue once Christmas time hits. But, perhaps the wait might be worth it. After all, patience is a virtue, and will most certainly deliever. Perhaps this is best said by the folks over at ibtimes.com; “Apple holds itself to incredibly high standards, but so do consumers. It’ll be a major disappointment if Apple can’t release an iPad mini 2 with Retina display by the end of 2013, but if the tablet isn’t ready, Apple won’t release an unfinished product just to sate consumer demand.”

    [Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.]

  • iPad Now Being Overtaken by Android Tablets

    After Apple founded the modern smartphone market in 2007, it took several years for smartphones using Google’s Android operating system to collectively catch up to Apple’s smartphone shipments. Now just three years on from the release of the original iPad, it appears that Android manufacturers are already overtaking Apple in the tablet market.

    Market research firm ABI Research today released data showing that manufacturers of Android-based tablets shipped more units during this year’s second quarter than Apple shipped iPads. In addition, Android tablet revenues matched those of iPads during the same quarter. These numbers confirm other analyst predictions from earlier this year, which stated that Android manufacturers would ship more tablets than Apple this year.

    The speed with which Android manufacturers have caught Apple seems to have been due to price. Smaller, less-expensive 7-inch tablets now dominate Android tablet shipments. Sales of Amazon’s Kindle fire were enough to pressure Apple into releasing the iPad Mini, though the company had previously claimed the 10-inch iPad was the proper size for a tablet. Now ABI’s data shows that Apple is outselling the larger iPad, making up 60% of iPad shipments and a full 49% of iPad revenue. The shift toward smaller tablets has also pushed down the average selling price of both Android tablets and iPads.

    “Twelve months is a long time for the peak lifecycle of a contemporary tablet,” said Jeff Orr, senior practice director at ABI. “To remain a leader, Apple must continue to innovate and address real-world market needs.”

  • Martha Stewart Broke Her iPad, and Apparently Apple Is Pissed That She’s Tweeting About It

    It looks like Martha Stewart dropped and shattered her iPad – the iPad that Steve Jobs personally gave her. And it also looks like Apple PR is upset with her about all the tweets she’s been posting concerning how to get it fixed.

    Of course, you have to take your broken iDevices into an Apple Store to begin the repair process. This confusion led to Stewart having an interesting business idea:

    I guess this prompted a call from Apple, who according to Stewart were non too pleased about her tweets. She is a high-profile Twitter user, with nearly 3 million followers. Maybe that had something to do with Apple’s frustration.

    She does seem to have changed her tone a bit…

    Don’t mess with Martha Stewart, Apple PR. She will cut you.

    Image via Martha Stewart, Twitter

  • iOS 7 Download Errors Are Infuriating iPhone Users

    Apple released the long-awaited iOS 7 update for the iPhone (4 and later), iPad (2 and later), iPad Mini and iPod Touch (fifth generation) today. The problem is that some users have been getting errors trying to download it. Obviously this isn’t sitting too well with the impatient.

    One user shared a screenshot with us:

    ioS 7 download error

    It doesn’t appear to be a carrier-specific issue. As you can see, that was via AT&T. AppsGoneFree shares a similar image via a Sprint device.

    There are quite a few complaints making their way to Twitter as well.

    If you are one of those having trouble downloading the update, this is what you can look forward to once you get it:

  • iOS 7 Update Hits iPhones, iPads & iPods Today

    Update: A lot of people are having trouble downloading the update.

    The long-anticipated iOS 7 update comes to various iDevices today. The new operating system was first unveiled earlier this year at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, and the release date was made official at the iPhone 5s/5c unveiling earlier this month.

    Starting today, the update will be available for free for iPhone 4 and later, iPad 2 and later, iPad mini and iPod touch (fifth generation). US English, French and German will be immediately available with additional languages to be added over time.

    “iOS 7 is completely redesigned with an entirely new user interface and over 200 new features, so it’s like getting a brand new device, but one that will still be instantly familiar to our users,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “Next month we’ll be shipping our 700 millionth iOS device, and we’re excited about what our hundreds of thousands of iOS developers are doing to bring great new features to their apps.”

    200 new features. That’s a lot to take in. You can learn about a bunch of them here, but here are the big ones Apple is highlighting:

    • Control Center, which gives you quick access to the controls you want in one convenient place with just one swipe from the bottom of your screen;
    • Notification Center, now available from the Lock screen so you can see all your notifications with a simple swipe, and the new Today feature gives you an at-a-glance view of your day with a summary of the important details such as weather, traffic, meetings and events;
    • improved Multitasking that gives users the ability to switch between their apps in a more visual and intuitive way, and iOS 7 pays attention to which apps you use most and automatically keeps your content up to date in the background;
    • AirDrop, an entirely new way to quickly and easily share content with people nearby;
    • new Camera app filters so you can add real-time photo effects, a square camera option, and you can quickly and easily switch between your four cameras—video, photo, square and panorama—with just a swipe;
    • a redesigned Photos app that introduces Moments, a new way to automatically organize your photos and videos based on time and location;
    • full-screen browsing with Safari’s new redesigned user interface, the new smart search field helps simplify searching, and there’s a new view for your bookmarks and your Safari tabs;
      Siri with new male and female voices,* Twitter search integration, Wikipedia integration and Bing web searching within the app; and
    • iTunes Radio, a free Internet radio service featuring over 200 stations and an incredible catalog of music from the iTunes Store®, combined with features only iTunes can deliver.

    Note that not all features are supported on all devices. In the U.S., the release comes with iTunes Radio at launch.

    Here’s what people are currently saying about iOS7:


    The iPhone 5s and 5c will become available on Friday.

    Image: Apple

  • Entertainment, Social Media Top Tablet Use Survey

    Entertainment, Social Media Top Tablet Use Survey

    With tablet sales now taking a bite out of traditional PC sales, it’s worth it to ask the question of what exactly consumers are using the devices for. Market research firm Gartner has done just that, and the results shouldn’t be too surprising to anyone familiar with mobile device use.

    The top use of tablets, according to the survey, is entertainment. Consumers are spending 50% of their time on tablets playing games, watching video, listening to music, or reading books. The “communication” category came second, taking up 26% of consumer time on tablets. This includes social media and email use. “Production activities” (writing or editing video) came in third with 15% and tasks such as news-reading, weather watching, and product research came in fourth, taking up 9% of consumer tablet time.

    “Of the different types of activity, people spend by far the most time on entertainment, and people often use several devices at once, so it seems we are turning into a society of multitasking, multiscreen users,” said Meike Escherich, a principal research analyst at Gartner. “Tablet users, for example, continue to use tablets most in the evening, between 7pm and 10pm. This suggests the use of tablets as companions to television viewing and other living-room activities. Smartphones are used more for ad hoc research or quick sessions on social media websites while on the move or engaged in another screen activity.”

    Oddly, the survey found that consumers with Apple or Samsung tablets spend more time than others on entertainment. Those tablet owners spent an average of 30 extra minutes viewing entertainment on their tablets each day. This may have something to do with the fact that 80% of Apple tablet owners were found by the survey to be “heavy users” who use their tablets 10 or more times per day.

    “Other tablet providers need to understand why owners of their tablets spent significantly less time on their devices,” said Annette Jump, a research director at Gartner. “Unless consumers use tablets regularly and find them valuable for specific activities, they are unlikely to purchase the same brand or, indeed, any replacement tablet after a couple of years.”

  • Microsoft Offering $200 For Old iPads

    Microsoft Offering $200 For Old iPads

    Last fall, Microsoft announced its Surface lineup of tablets. The company had hoped that the Windows 8 devices would be able to challenge Apple’s iPad in the full-sized tablet market. Like Windows 8 itself, however, the Surface (particularly the Surface RT) was a spectacular flop. As of its latest quarterly financial report, Microsoft was forced to take a $900 million charge for Surface RT tablets that are sitting unsold in warehouses.

    Microsoft is now trying to put the Surface RT in classrooms using the “Bing For Schools” initiative while cutting the price of the Surface RT and Surface Pro for the consumer market. This month, the company has unveiled yet another scheme to get consumers off the iPad and onto a Surface.

    Microsoft is offering customers $200 to give up their old iPad. The deal is only good for customers who have a Microsoft Store nearby. Anyone can bring in a second, third, or fourth generation iPad into a Microsoft Store and receive a $200 Microsoft Store gift card. The offer ends on October 27.

    The $200 being a gift card does limit the usefulness of the deal somewhat. Microsoft, of course, is suggesting customers put the money toward the purchase of a Surface RT or a Surface Pro. However, there are plenty of other things to use $200 on in a Microsoft Store. The gift card could easily cover the cost of the Home version of Microsoft Office. Microsoft’s stores also sell a range of video games for the Xbox 360, and $200 would take a nice chunk out of the high price of an Xbox One pre-order.

  • New Apple TV Could Launch As Early As Next Month [Report]

    Just yesterday, we heard reports that Apple would be pushing an Apple TV software update alongside its planned iOS 7 update on September 18. Now it appears that some new Apple TV hardware might be headed our way as well.

    TechCrunch columnist MG Siegler teased on Twitter last night that Apple would have some new Apple TV hardware ready to show in October:

    If he’s right, Apple will probably unveil the new Apple TV hardware at the same event that it’s rumored to reveal the new iPad and iPad Mini. With both devices sharing the same event, Apple could also be using it to announce some new sharing capabilities between the iPad and Apple TV.

    If the report form yesterday was on the money, we already know that next week’s rumored Apple TV update will add the ability to stream content to an Apple TV that’s not yours via AirPlay. With the new Apple TV, the company might add even more sharing functionality between its devices.

    Like always, the reports of a new Apple TV cause some to think that Apple will finally unveil a proper HDTV set. The persistent rumors show no sign of letting up, and each new Apple TV rumor just adds more fuel to the fire. If a new Apple TV is to be shown next month, however, you’d best not get your hopes up. The latest Apple HDTV rumor says that we’re not getting a proper TV from the Cupertino-based company until at least the first half of 2014.

    Still, a new Apple TV set top box is exciting news for those who have been waiting for a new model since the model released earlier this year was merely a minor revision to the Apple TV released in 2012. With its latest hardware update, Apple may have the power necessary to push even better content to consumers’ TVs.

    [Image: Apple]
    [h/t: 9to5Mac]