July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Holiday shoppers didn’t totally forgo long lines and early call times on Black Friday, but they did grab their smartphones and iPads to help them navigate to the best destinations, online or off.

Altogether, Black Friday online sales were up 20.7 percent from last year, a phenomena that was largely fueled by the mobile shopping masses.

Sales on mobile devices accounted for 16.3 percent of all online Black Friday sales, up from 9.8 percent in 2011, according to IBM and its cloud-based analytics initiative dubbed “Smarter Commerce.”

Nearly a quarter of U.S. consumers, or 24 percent, opted to visit retailers’ sites using their mobile devices. Most chose the iPad as their digital assistant of choice. Apple’s tablet device generated more traffic than any other single slate or smartphone, and accounted for close to 10 percent of all online shopping traffic, IBM found. Apple’s other popular totable device, the iPhone, was a close second at 8.7 percent.

IBM concluded that consumers used a multiscreen shopping strategy to get the best bargains, meaning they trekked to stores and simultaneously fired up their favorite mobile devices for a hybrid shopping experience. Overall, 58 percent of consumers used smartphones to look for Black Friday deals.

Mobile also totally annihilated social. Shoppers referred by social networks only accounted for .34 percent of all online sales on Black Friday. The figure marked a more than 35 percent drop off from 2011.

For more of IBM’s findings, check out the infographic below.

Photo credit: andrewarchy/Flickr

The newly released fourth-generation iPad from Apple has just surpassed Sony’s eight-month-old PlayStation Vita game handheld in graphical performance, based on an analysis of the iPad’s performance from Anand Shimpi of AnandTech and available knowledge of the Vita.

The new iPad uses the new A6X processor, which includes a new graphics processing unit (GPU) that is twice as powerful as the third-generation iPad. As we noted in our review of the PlayStation Vita, the Vita has a nearly identical GPU to the third-generation iPad. The only differences are the clock speed and design architecture (to fit the Vita’s processor). This latest iPad — which is a tablet, not a dedicated game console — has a more powerful GPU than the PlayStation Vita.

Despite the nearly identical GPUs, we previously wrote that the Vita is more powerful than the third-generation iPad for two major reasons:

1. The Vita only has to populate graphics onto a 960 pixel by 540 pixel resolution display, compared to the iPad’s much larger 2048 pixel by 1536 pixel resolution display.
2. The Vita’s central processing unit (CPU), as explained by developers, is a quad-core processor with a clock speed that starts at 800 megahertz but can reach up to 2 gigahertz, compared to the iPad’s 1 gigahertz dual-core processor.

Even with a more efficient CPU architecture, more RAM, and arguably better software, the third-generation iPad couldn’t offer better performance than the Vita with the same GPU.

But with the latest version of the PowerVR GPU (the SGX 554MP4), the new fourth-generation iPad has significantly more graphical throughput than the Vita and 3rd generation iPad. This enables the newer GPU to (theoretically) process twice as much data as the older model, which is why Apple claims twice the performance over the previous iPad released in March. That speed boost, combined with the faster 1.4-gigahertz dual-core processor and a higher-clocked GPU (200 megahertz for the Vita vs. a maximum of 300 megahertz for the iPad), is enough to firmly set the fourth-generation iPad ahead of the Vita in gaming performance.

In graphics-based benchmarks, Shimpi recorded that the fourth-generation iPad performs up to twice as fast as the third-generation iPad. The most important test, scored below, shows a 99 percent increase in frames per second on the new iPad. With twice the RAM, twice the graphics processing speed, and a faster dual-core processor, these numbers suggest that the iPad’s increase in performance surpasses the Vita’s graphical capabilities.

But there’s a catch: The iPad may provide gaming performance that is definitively better than the Vita’s thanks to all of these factors, but it still has to render six times the number of pixels as the Vita. In effect, the new iPad may still lag behind the Vita in some circumstances. Most new iPad games are, however, designed for the iPad 2′s lower resolution 1024 pixel by 768 pixel display, which is only 30% larger than the Vita display. At these lower resolutions, the new iPad should be the clear winner.

However, when it comes to raw computing power, the Vita is no longer the most powerful portable graphics device. The fourth-generation iPad now takes that role thanks to the newer-generation PowerVR GPU.

Should Sony be worried? Not because of performance. As a dedicated game console, the Vita is still has built-in physical controls — an extremely important feature for gamers — while the iPad does not. Sony’s biggest concerns right now for the Vita are poor sales and a limited game selection.

Photo credit: Chipworks

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

All tablets are not created equal. A fact not lost on this reporter, who, at the age of three, learned to love Apple by using the very first Macintosh. Reared on the Apple doctrine, I now demand excellence in hardware, sleekness in design, and that indescribable feeling of pure joy when touching a device.

For the first time in my life, a company other than Apple has given me all that and more.

Unveiled Wednesday during the keynote address at Google’s I/O developer conference, the $199/$249 Nexus 7 outshines the existing class of Android-powered tablets, the Kindle Fire included, for one simple reason: This is the only non-Apple device I would ever buy.

An iPad-owner and lover since day one, I’ve come to view my tablet, which mind you I never actually refer to as a tablet because I’ve always believed the iPad to be superior to any other, as my most pleasurable device. My iPhone and my MacBook Air are utilitarian. I love them dearly, but I think of those devices as necessities, and I primarily associate them with work. The iPad, however, is my play device. It’s my feel-good, sit-back-and-relax toy.

The Nexus 7, which falls into the same category of device for me, has in less than 48 hours carved out a special place for itself in my heart. I find myself reaching for the 7, as I lovingly call it, over the iPad because, well, it’s just so darn cute. I love the size, the feel of the 7 in my hands, the leather-like quality of the back panel, and the overall style of the device.

Holding the Nexus 7 feels right, browsing is fantastic (thank you, Chrome tab sync) and fun, and because it’s running the new Jelly Bean software, the Nexus feels smart, intuitive, capable, and pretty darn slick. Thanks to Project Butter, the 7 feels nearly as smooth as the iPad. No major kinks, blips, or bumps to speak of — at least so far.

I also quite like the arrangement of media on the device. As an iOS user, I was a little disoriented at first, but I quickly became acclimated to the idea of apps on one page, books and magazines on another, movies in their own place, and music on its own screen. This configuration makes it all the more easy to appreciate the content and media recommendations Google serves up in each category, which really do seem to get better with time.

But beyond pleasure, what’s truly remarkable is just how practical the 7 is. Here’s why: When it comes to my web activities, I’ve gone Google. I’m yoked to Gmail, dependent on Google Calendar, tied to Google Docs (and now Drive), leashed to Chrome, and the list goes in. I can’t tell you how convenient it is to have Google as a seamless, interconnected part of the experience. Sure, this isn’t something that’s unique to the Nexus 7, but it’s lovely nonetheless.

Don’t just take it from me though. I talked to plenty of folks at the Google I/O conference who were impressed by this little sucker.

“I really like it. I used the hotel Wi-Fi and started watching Transformers. It looked really good,” developer and This Week in Google host Gina Trapani told me yesterday. “It’s small and light. It’s definitely a better Kindle Fire.”

Trapani, much more of a-know-it-all than I am when it comes to the Android software side of things, was also impressed with the subtleties that Project Butter and Jelly Bean have brought to the Nexus 7 experience. “My main complaint with the Android experience is that it’s slow and choppy, and not responsive,” she said.

But the Nexus 7, running Jelly Bean, provided a much better experience for Trapani. “It’s very smooth, and very fast,” she said. “I can see giving this to my sister-in-law. She’s in the market for a tablet … I’m going to tell her to get this.”

VentureBeat’s gadget guru Devindra Hardawar is also pretty impressed by the Nexus 7, as are gadget bloggers the web round, some of whom went deep into review mode.

Yes, it’s disheartening and a bit defeating that some of my favorite applications aren’t available for the Nexus 7. HBO Go, where are you? I do have a strong feeling, however, that by releasing a stellar device, Google has just given top iOS developers the nudge they’ve needed to build for Android too.

Let’s get to the meat of the matter. Should you buy the Nexus 7? If you’re in the market for an extremely portable tablet and don’t mind the smaller screen size, than absolutely. This isn’t some second-rate device that you should feel ashamed about toting around. No, hold your head high.

Bonus: What you save in price, you can spend on shoes. Okay, that’s just me. But seriously, I’d purchase the Nexus 7 as my primary tablet in a heartbeat. I’d also recommend it to my friends and family members. In fact, this is the very first non-Apple device that I’ve ever said that about — and that’s saying something.

Photo credits: Jennifer Van Grove and Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

Design is determining the winners in everything mobile. The most successful players are focusing on one thing: How to make products, services, and devices as compelling and delightful as possible – visually, and experientially. MobileBeat 2012, July 10-11 in San Francisco , is assembling the most elite minds to debate how UI/UX is transforming every aspect of the mobile economy, and where the opportunities lie. Register here.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Adding a whole new meaning to the phrase “up close and personal,” Skype has released a version of its iPad application optimized for the device’s new ultra-high resolution Retina Display.

Skype’s 3.8 for iPad was released Monday and is specifically tailored toward early buyers of Apple’s third-generation iPad, which features a heretofore unheard of screen resolution of 2,048 by 1,536 pixels.

With the release, Skype is promising customers its best-looking application yet. Technically, that description is absolutely accurate. VentureBeat’s own Devindra Hardawar, in a review of the new iPad, said, “because of its high resolution, the Retina Display makes practically everything look better, even merely browsing the web.”

But while we’re sure most of your friends and family members look better in high-definition, we know that the additional pixels won’t be favorable to all. So ladies, put your lipstick on. And gentlemen, you may want to rethink that decision to skip a shave in the morning.

Microsoft-owned Skype, which today demonstrated no qualms about rapidly updating to support a competitor’s hardware, was only recently made available to Windows Phone customers. The additional audience pool, however small it may be, helped pushed the VoIP service to a new 35 million concurrent user record.

Photo credit: spieri_sf/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Wednesday, March 7 is the date covetous Apple fans can finally catch their first real glimpse at the much-ballyhooed iPad 3, according to a new report.

Citing reliable sources, iMore editor-in-chief Rene Ritchie declared that we can expect Apple to unveil its newest tablet on the first Wednesday in March. The day aligns with past Apple media events and matches the early March timing AllThingsD reported last week.

“Along with the 2048×1536 Retina display, the iPad 3 will feature a quad-core Apple 6 system-on-a-chip, and possibly 4G LTE networking,” Ritchie said.

We’ve suspected for some time that the iPad 3, should it be called that, will feature a faster processor, faster graphics, and a retina display.

Perhaps more interesting is that Apple will once again (coincidentally?) reveal its latest touch-based machination just days ahead of South-By-Southwest Interactive, the annual Austin gathering of industry insiders and wannabes.

Last year, the beloved device maker lifted the veil on the iPad 2 a week prior to the geeky affair and started selling the device during the show. News and online buzz surrounding the remake of Apple’s category-defining device easily eclipsed that of the conference and out-shined launching startups, keynote addresses, lavish parties, and so forth. One year later, Apple could easily do the same — should it choose to release the iPad 3 during SXSW Interactive again. The launch date, however, is still unknown.

But now that the big reveal is less than one month away,gossip about what features the device will include will intensify and maybe, if we’re really lucky, we’ll get a few early leaks.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Good sales of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet led to significant gains for Google’s Android operating system in tablet market share during the fourth quarter of 2011, according to new data from mobile analytics firm Flurry.

Flurry, which purports to measure application sessions on more than 90 percent of all Android devices, found that Android tablets gained 10 percent share from Q4 2010 to Q4 2011 and now represent 39 percent of the overall tablet market.

The Kindle Fire, which only just debuted this past November, has managed to best Samsung’s Galaxy Tab in terms of application session usage (a session represents an application launch and exit that is longer than 10 seconds). The Kindle Fire already represents 35.7 percent of total Android tablet application sessions, while the Galaxy Tab has been reduced to just 35.6 percent (down from 63 percent in November), according to Flurry data that accounts for most of January 2012.

From the data, one could easily infer that Amazon has not only helped Android carve out a larger slice of the tablet pie, but has done so at the expense of Samsung, and in just a matter of months. The deduction makes sense: the Kindle Fire is the most successful product Amazon has ever launched, and it was the e-retailer’s most popular gift and its top best-seller for the holiday season.

“In January, after the holiday boom in devices and in apps, we see that strong adoption of Kindle Fire, combined with significant downloads driven from the Amazon App Store, resulted in a massive surge in session usage that just edges out the Galaxy Tab,” Flurry vice president of marketing Peter Farago said.

Farago partially attributed Amazon’s success to an Apple-style Fire launch, its decision to offer a more consumer-friendly version of the Android OS, and an improved application purchase and download experience. Farago pointed to Flurry’s January analysis of five top paid Android apps as proof. The Kindle fire, he said, drove upwards of 2.5 times more paid downloads then the Samsung Galaxy Tab, even though the Tab is estimated to have double the install base of the Fire.

Amazon may be helping Android snatch up tablet market share at an accelerated rate, but don’t fret about Apple. The undisputed leader in the tablet category did not see sales of its widely successful iPad slip, as previously suggested. In fact, Apple is fresh off record earnings and sold 15.4 million iPads in its first quarter for fiscal year 2012.

VentureBeat is holding its second annual Mobile Summit this April 2-3 in Sausalito, Calif. The invitation-only event will debate the five key business and technology challenges facing the mobile industry today, and participants — 180 mobile executives, investors, and policymakers — will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. You can find out more at our Mobile Summit site.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Seventy-three percent of small and medium businesses in the U.S. intend to purchase tablets in the next 12 months, but these companies won’t settle for any old tablet — they want iPads.

The iPad is the most-considered tablet by businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees mulling the hardware investment, according to new survey data from research firm The NPD Group and its SMB Technology Monitor.

“The iPad, just as it is in the consumer market, is synonymous for ‘Tablet’ in the business market, leaving Apple poised to take advantage of the increased spending intentions of these SMBs,” Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD, said.

Small and medium businesses indicated that they will spend, on average, more than $21,000 on tablets over a 12-month period, NPD found, though the amount skews higher or lower depending on business size.

Medium-sized business with 501 to 999 employees are the most tablet-hungry — well iPad-anxious, actually. Nearly 90 percent of businesses in this category said they plan to purchase new tablets, with each planning to spend an average of $39,000 on the new hardware over the next 12 months.

The data supports a perceptible shift in the workplace, with Apple mobile products being embraced by business users and IT departments alike. At VentureBeat’s CloudBeat conference in early December, the consensus among a panel of cloud and enterprise experts was that corporate CEOs (and their egos) are the driving force behind iPad adoption in the enterprise.

[Image via OU Platform/Flickr]

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Get ready to pony up, parents. Your children don’t want Barbies or LEGOs this holiday season, they want pricey iPads. But don’t worry, they’ll also settle for an iPod touch or an iPhone, so you’ve got options.

Hope we’re kidding? Then Nielsen has some bad news for you. The analytics company’s latest survey found that 44 percent of kids in the U.S. ages 6 to 12 want the iPad as a gift this year. The same goes for 24 percent of teens and adults ages 13 and up, which makes the iPad the most desirable gift for 2011 by Nielsen’s account.

Apple’s iPod touch and iPhone are also highly coveted devices for the wee ones, with 30 percent and 27 percent of kids, respectively, wishing for them this year. Meanwhile, just 8 percent of the older bunch are hoping for an iPod touch, and only a modest 15 percent want the iPhone, according to the survey.

Not an Apple fan? That’s okay. Your kids will gladly take a tablet or gaming device, as the graphic shows. And your older kids will be totally cool with a new computer or e-reader.

For the naughty, might we suggest a PlayStation Portable? Just 10 percent of young kids and 3 percent of teens and adults said they wanted one of Sony’s handheld gaming devices.

Now for the good news: Nielsen’s data is limited to electronics. There’s still hope that your child will get a kick out of unwrapping something more old-fashioned and affordable, say a pet rock or board game.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Tablets in all shapes, sizes and price ranges will greet shoppers this holiday season. The iPad currently reigns supreme, but can a more moderately priced, smaller device like the Kindle Fire win over gift-buying consumers?

Absolutely, says consumer electronics review site Retrevo.

The company polled 1,000 people in October on their tablet-buying intentions and found that, of those planning to buy a tablet, 44 percent would consider purchasing the $199 Kindle Fire instead of the iPad 2, which starts at $499. Then again, the same percentage of folks said that they didn’t know enough about the Fire, and 12 percent indicated that they would only buy an iPad.

Amazon’s greatest challenge, according to Retrevo, will be convincing shoppers that the Fire is a full-fledged tablet. Thirty-five percent of those surveyed perceive the Fire as just another Amazon e-reader.

Retrevo’s findings match up with market research firm ChangeWave’s research on the Amazon Kindle Fire versus Apple’s iPad 2. ChangeWave found that demand for the Kindle Fire exceeds the demand for the iPad 2.

Both studies are a bit short-sighted, and don’t include data on Barnes & Noble’s $249 Nook Tablet, a comparably priced alternative to the Kindle Fire. And considering that respondents were a price-conscious bunch open to a 7-inch tablet, the Nook Tablet could receive a favorable reception from shoppers as well. [Curious about how the two stack up against each other? Check out our head-to-head comparison.]

The debate over the most in-demand tablet will be settled soon enough. Both the Nook Tablet and the Kindle Fire will land on store shelves next week.

AT&T customers will receive free credits for Zynga’s games, which include Words with Friends and the smash hit FarmVille. Zynga players typically have to buy credits for Zynga games with real-world money. Those credits help players advance in Zynga games more quickly than players who don’t buy Zynga credits and also give them access to exclusive items and content.

It’s Zynga’s first deal with a wireless provider. AT&T was the first carrier for the iPhone, which now features most of Zynga’s online games and is a huge part of Zynga’s mobile strategy. Zynga apps will appear on AT&T’s main site of the Android Marketplace, giving them preferential display over other Android Marketplace apps.

Zynga’s latest social game, Empires and Allies, is another hit for the company. It attracted more players than Farmville, its first breakout hit, in just 25 days. Empires and Allies is gaining new users at a rate of a million a day and 8 million a week, according to AppData.

The company has become a Facebook distribution powerhouse like no other game company. That makes it a lot easier for Zynga to generate revenue, since a percentage of users usually pays for items in otherwise free games. The company has delivered hit after hit to Facebook, including FarmVille and CityVille.

There were reports on Tuesday that Zynga might file for an initial public offering as early as Wednesday in order to raise up to $2 billion. Those reports indicate Zynga has a valuation somewhere between $15 billion and $20 billion. That would put the company’s market value well ahead of massive game publisher Electronic Arts, which currently has a market cap of $7.5 billion. Activision-Blizzard, which typically caters to console and hardcore gamers, has a market cap of around $13.3 billion.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The publisher will begin releasing versions of its New Yorker magazine first with coverage of Osama bin Laden’s death to generate some additional buzz for its iPad magazines. The iPad editions are expected sometime next week, according to the New York Post. It also means the costs of Condé Nast’s current iPad publications will fall considerably — its Wired app currently costs around $4 per issue, and its GQ app costs $5 per issue.

The iPad also offers a few extra bells and whistles for magazine publishers that want to add some interactive content to each publication. Publishers can include videos, high-resolution pictures that readers can zoom into and interactive menus and games to further enhance that content. But all of that inevitably drives up the price of the publication because it requires more manpower and technical know-how — specifically, how to program an app on an iPad — that publishers did not need before the advent of the iPad and other tablet computers.

Whether those new price tags will be sustainable is another story altogether. Condé Nast will open its content up to a massive audience — Apple has sold more than 15 million iPads since the tablet computer was released. But the costs of producing the content might not be met with revenue from the publisher’s iPad app.

A lot of publishers have turned to the iPad as the next evolution of print magazine-style publishing, but none of them has really knocked it out of the park just yet. The iPad versions of each magazine usually have steep price tags — at least, when compared to other apps on the Apple App Store. The new price tags would drastically undercut that — which is the shelf price for each normal magazine — but would open the content up to more casual readers.

Hearst, another magazine publisher, also said it will begin selling iPad versions of its Popular Mechanics and Esquire magazines, which will come out in July. Time has also announced that it will release iPad versions of its Fortune, Sports Illustrated and Time magazine issues for free to print magazine subscribers.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The BlackBerry PlayBook beat expectations by selling more than 50,000 devices when it launched Tuesday, according to estimates from RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky.

That puts Research in Motion’s first crack at a tablet ahead of the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab in regards to units moved on launch day. Several analysts said the strong first-day showing probably came from pre-sales to business customers already toting a BlackBerry smartphone, which is critical to access some features on the PlayBook.

The 7-inch tablet in of itself is not a bad device by any stretch of the imagination in terms of build and operating system. I got an opportunity to play with the PlayBook at the CTIA Wireless 2011 conference this year and was blown away by how silky-smooth the interface feels. Unlike Motorola’s Xoom — and the other Android tablets — there was virtually no interface lag to speak of. The multitasking was intuitive and the whole device just felt like a labor of love.

It just doesn’t have the apps to back it up.

Research in Motion said 3,000 apps were ready at launch. But the iPad already sports more than 79,000 native tablet applications, and more than 300,000 iPhone applications that run on the iPad. Google is also pushing out a new version of its Android mobile operating system that is geared toward tablets as it makes a strong push into the tablet market — which will already have access to the more than 100,000 apps on the Android Marketplace. The PlayBook will support some Android applications, but none of them will be native — so they might face performance issues.

The PlayBook also still doesn’t sport a native email client and is missing a lot of other crucial BlackBerry features, like BlackBerry messaging and a calendar application. PlayBook owners have to connect the PlayBook with a BlackBerry phone with bluetooth wireless to gain access to those features. It’s largely for security reasons — but those missing features cripple the PlayBook when compared to other dominant tablets on the market like the iPad.

GMP Analyst Michael Urlocker downgraded Research in Motion today despite the announcement, saying the BlackBerry PlayBook was not ready for the market due to missing features and a lack of applications. Apple’s iPad has so far sold more than 15 million units since it launched last April.

And last checked, Verizon was still mulling over whether to carry Research in Motion’s tablet. New versions of the PlayBook that support various wireless networks should be out later this summer — though no wireless providers have jumped on board with Research in Motion yet. So the PlayBook still can’t stand up in terms of sheer portability for tablet users that don’t have a BlackBerry smartphone to tether to the device.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Samsung unveiled the next versions of its Galaxy Tab tablet computers at the CTIA Wireless 2011 conference — an 8.9-inch and a 10.1-inch tablet that are aesthetically comparable to Apple’s iPad.

The actual build of each tablet is solid. After playing around with the 8.9-inch and 10.1-inch tablets, I liked how each felt — they were both light, but quite sturdy. Both devices are thinner than Apple’s iPad. But both devices still suffer from the same nagging complaint I have with the 7-inch Galaxy Tab — the interface just seems a little slower than some of the other tablets on the market. Not catastrophically slower, but just a tiny bit.

From what I can tell, the home screen and the rest of the interface lagged behind my motions by about a tenth of a second. Normally that’s something that I would ignore. Except the iPad, Research in Motion’s BlackBerry Playbook, and HP’s new WebOS-powered tablet, the TouchPad, all feel like they have a one-to-one transition whenever I make any kind of motion on the device. It’s not a massive problem, but it’s annoying.

The delays were still present even though the devices were running the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system, Android. Honeycomb, or Android 3.0, is supposed to be optimized for tablet usage and make Android tablets more competitive with the iPad 2 — as well as stay ahead of upcoming tablets like the Playbook and TouchPad. While the interface certainly felt more natural, that nagging tiny delay was still present. Even the Motorola Xoom, which also runs on Honeycomb, still felt like it ran a bit more smoothly than the Galaxy Tabs.

The new models of the Galaxy Tab will run Honeycomb even though Google said the operating system would be delayed for a bit. I’m sure there are a lot of ways to optimize the tablets and make them run more smoothly. But from the prospective of a first-time buyer and someone who isn’t entirely Android-savvy, I have to say that it would be enough to keep me from buying the new tablets.

Both the 10-inch and the 8.9-inch tablets are successors to Samsung’s original 7-inch Galaxy Tab, which currently retails for $250 with a two-year data contract, or between $500 and $600 off-contract. Samsung hasn’t yet announced how much it will charge for the Galaxy Tab 10.1. You can see a full presentation that has extensive details about each device in the video presentation below.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Graphics chip maker Nvidia’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang thinks Google’s Android team is pretty much the best thing since sliced bread.

Huang praised Google for its work on the Android mobile operating system on Nvidia’s earnings conference call yesterday and said Nvidia has very high expectations for the next generation of Android tablets.

Nvidia, which traditionally caters to gamers and designers with its beefy video cards, said stated in its quarterly earnings report yesterday that it plans to jam its Tegra graphics processing unit (GPU) into as many mobile devices as possible, specifically smartphones and other mobile devices running Android.

“Although they’re a little bit behind, the work that Google and Andy Rubin’s team is doing at Google is just really amazing,” Huang said on Nvidia’s earnings conference call. “I think (the next generation of Android tablets is) going to really, really surprise people and delight consumers everywhere.”

Apple has taken over the tablet personal computer market with its 9.7-inch tablet computer, the iPad. The iPhone and iPad manufacturer currently has a 95 percent market share stranglehold on the tablet space. Meanwhile, Google’s Android operating system only accounts for about 2 percent of all tablets sold.

Pretty much everyone else is now working on a tablet. Research in Motion is making a 7-inch tablet powered by the BlackBerry 6 operating system — and it’s undercutting the iPad with pricing below $500. Samsung’s 7-inch Galaxy Tab tablet, which runs on Android, is priced at an unfortunate $600 — $30 more than Apple’s cheapest 3G-enabled iPad. Hewlett-Packard is also working on an 8.9-inch tablet packing Windows 7.

It wasn’t all smiles and compliments from Huang. He said Google and tablet manufacturers weren’t picking up their game to compete with the iPad. He said that the current generation of tablets was well behind the iPad and that competitors had been slow to realize the potential of tablet computers in the face of the iPad’s success. “You can’t just put an operating system on a tablet and hope that . . . you’re going to compete against the iPad,” he said.

But the wait would be well worth it, he said.

“I think that the extra time that was necessary to build these devices, and build the operating system and all the applications and the system software necessary to do it — and obviously, we’re not going to talk about what they are right now, but they’re going to be absolutely magical,” Huang said.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple has shipped 7.5 million iPads since it launched in April, turning it into the largest player in the tablet computer market. The company grabbed that position in just six months thanks to its focus on a single device and surprising contributions from enterprise sales, Apple executives said on its quarterly conference call to discuss earnings.

Apple sold 4.19 million iPads in its most recent quarter, and 3.27 million iPads in the quarter before that. About two-thirds of the 100 largest companies in the world on the Fortune 100 list have begun deploying iPads for enterprise use, leading to a lot of growth in the corporate sector that has helped drive iPad sales, said Tim Cook, chief operating officer of Apple. Nearly 85 percent of those companies have also deployed the iPhone for enterprise use, he said.

“I’ve never seen an adoption rate on the enterprise side like this in my life. Enterprise is historically much slower moving on adoption,” he said. “We have built and are building additional capacity to call on businesses, and we’re putting a lot of energy into that — we aren’t treating this lightly or as a hobby.”

More than 10 percent of all mobile devices activated for enterprise purposes, outside of Research in Motion’s BlackBerry devices, were iPads, according to a recent report by Good Technology. The iPhone 4 accounted for about 30 percent of all enterprise devices activated as well, according to the same report.

Jobs also told analysts on the call that Apple has no plans to develop a 7-inch version of the iPad, because it would lead to the same kind of fragmentation that Android app developers are facing. Rumors had earlier surfaced that Apple would begin working on a 7-inch tablet with a lower price point than its current 10-inch offering.

“We don’t think about it that way, the reason we wouldn’t make a 7-inch tablet isn’t because we don’t want to hit a price point,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs said. “It’s because we don’t think you can make a great tablet with a 7-inch screen.”

Apple has still struggled a bit to meet the ravenous demand for the device. It isn’t clear when the supply of iPads will finally meet the demand for Apple’s tablet, Cook said. Despite that, Apple is going to sell the device in Wal-mart and Verizon stores.

“I feel great to bring the supply and sales up from an 8 million number and expect it to reach 14 million,” Cook said. “Obviously working on that, but it will take some time to increase further.”

[Front page photo: Yutaka Tsutano]

Shares of Apple, the manufacturer of consumer electronics like the iPhone, iPad and Macbook Pro, rose for the seventh day in a row today, and are now priced at an all-time high of $301.40 as of 9 a.m. PST.

That means Apple is closing in on Exxon Mobil as the largest company on the stock market with a market capitalization of $274.9 billion, behind Exxon Mobil’s market cap of $330.6 billion. A company’s market capitalization, or market cap, is the product of a company’s stock price and the number of shares it has issued to investors. It is a measure of the company’s value. Apple passed PetroChina, another oil company whose shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange, with a market cap of $235.6 billion, in September.

Apple’s shares have been on a hot streak in advance of the release of its fourth quarter earnings next week, hitting a new all-time high each day for the past seven days. The last quarter will be Apple’s first full quarter in which it sells the iPhone 4. Expectations are high, as Apple crushed estimates last quarter by selling about 3.3 million iPads.

Shares were up across the board on the stock market on positive earnings reports from Intel and other companies like JPMorgan Chase and railway company CSX Corporation. The tech-heavy NASDAQ composite, of which Apple and other tech juggernauts like Google are part, rose about 1 percent.

Keep an eye out on Monday for VentureBeat’s report on Apple’s quarterly results. Positive earnings reports traditionally send share prices up, so there might be even more momentum coming Apple’s way.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple could sell 21 million units of its iPad tablet next year as half of the largest and most prominent companies in the world begin testing or deploying the iPad for corporate use, according to an analyst with Wall Street firm Piper Jaffray.

About 50 percent of Fortune 100 companies have begun either testing or full-out using the iPad for their corporate needs, though Piper Jaffray senior research analyst Gene Munster wouldn’t specify which companies, AppleInsider reported.

Apple’s enterprise presence has continued to grow, as its enterprise sales grew 50 percent in the second quarter this year when compared to the same time period last year. The iPad has a number of tools for enterprise users, including access to corporate email accounts, applications for creating and editing presentations and a huge application development ecosystem for custom enterprise applications.

iPad sales will also continue to grow as the supply of Apple’s tablets has grown enough to sate heavy demand for the device, Munster said. Apple sold 3 million units after the device’s launch through the end of the second quarter in July.

Sales in emerging markets could also drive the Apple’s performance in 2011, as the iPad was finally launched in China earlier this month with some success. Best Buy will also begin selling the iPad in all 1,093 of its stores later this week in advance of the holiday season.

Apple’s iPad serves as a media consumption device that falls somewhere between the smaller iPod Touch and iPhone and the more expensive Macbook and Macbook Pro laptop computers that Apple offers. Apple targets casual computer users — with full access to the App Store — with the iPad at a price point between $500 and $829.

This isn’t the first time cheerleaders have come out in favor of the iPad: Maynard Um of UBS Investment Research said earlier this month that Apple could sell up to 28 million iPads in 2011, beating out the Samsung Galaxy Tab android tablet.

40.1 million of the 77 million Americans playing games on mobile devices play them on the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad — nearly catching Nintendo’s 41 million gamers playing the DS and DSi and blowing well past Sony’s 18 million gamers on its Playstation Portable device — according to the Newzoo International Gamers Survey 2010.

Jobs’ announcement came at an Apple event unveiling its new line of iPods, an updated operating system and a new model of the Apple TV. The new lineup included a revamped iPod Touch sporting Apple’s A4 processor that Apple is seemingly embracing as a gaming platform with the unveil of an Unreal 3 engine-powered game from Epic Games, the creators of the Gears of War series.

Sales of Apple’s iPods have been slipping as of late — in its most recent quarterly report, sales of iPods were down 8 percent from a year earlier despite posting blowout numbers in its other sales categories. The outlook for mobile games, though, looks good, as NPD group indicated that it would soon count sales of mobile games as a growing part of the market.

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