Following Apple’s announcement yesterday of the new iPad’s record weekend, which saw 3 million devices sold in three days, analysts are upping their predictions for the tablet’s market share growth over the course of the year. In a note to investors, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray says the firm is now forecasting as many as 66 million sales of the new device in 2012, up from the earlier prediction of 60 million. Meanwhile, Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee is now predicting 60 million, up from 55 million.
Regardless of the final outcome, the bottom line impact the device will have on the market was summed up in Munster’s bullish note: ”we believe the unprecedented ramp of the iPad over the past year is evidence that the tablet market will be measurably larger than the PC market,” he said. → Read More
Earlier today, AT&T announced record sales and activation numbers for the new iPad. During the Apple dividend/buyback call, Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke of a “record weekend” for the new iPad. Unfortunately, neither had actual numbers to share. And that was odd since normally when Apple has a new record number to crow about, crow they do. This was more of an Amazon maneuver where “records” are set by products selling 4x of another unstated number.
Turns out Tim Cook just didn’t want to spoil the surprise. Apple has just issued a release with their actual sales numbers for the first weekend of the new iPad. And the numbers are big. Very big. Three million iPads sold in the first three days big. → Read More
An enlightening and frustrating evening in equal measure this evening in London, where Barnes & Noble sponsored a Nook developer event and panel discussion on the state of the tablet market.
The bookseller is definitely planning to launch its tablet outside of the U.S. — the company has confirmed as much, and the fact that they’re here in London attests to that — but after a developer event very light on details and developer tools, a room full of developers decided that a lot more work needs to be done before B&N will be able to make a credible entry into the market here.
On the plus side, the company’s director of developer relations later gave some enlightening numbers on who it is that is using those devices in the U.S. → Read More
It shouldn’t come as any surprise when someone says that this year’s display, or phone, or what have you, is the best ever. After all, improving the category is what companies strive to do, right? So Apple’s claim (on Samsung’s behalf, really) that the new iPad’s display is the “best display ever on a mobile device” isn’t hyperbolic, just confident. DisplayMate’s battery of image quality tests, fortunately, agree with that assessment.
The new display is sharper than any screen its size and has better color representation than most home displays and HDTVs. It’s not perfect, of course, and the iPad is more than just a display (one has to take into account many things when reviewing or purchasing one), but it’s nice to know that the claims of superiority are, in this part of the iPad at least, justified. → Read More
For better or worse, we live in a society that discards broken items. The day of replacing a burned-out motor in a blender is past. Very few household items are designed to be fixed by the owner or even repair shop. HDTVs, microwaves, even benchtop woodworking tools purchased at big box warehouse stores are designed to be replaced, not serviced. Desktop computers are the main exception to this rule. This shift to disposable appliances has allowed manufacturers to more quickly innovate rather than supporting older products. They really don’t make them like the used to, but, in a way, that’s sort of good thing.
iFixit caused a bit of ruckus late last week when the service company awarded the new iPad with a 2 out of 10 on their user repairability score. iMore took it one step farther. They both noted that since the front glass is essentially glued onto the bezel, it greatly increases the chances of cracking the screen. That’s not good for the old school repair shop, but it’s awesome for the consumer. Making gadgets non-user serviceable is one of the best things Apple has done. → Read More
Today on Apple’s dividend and share repurchase program conference call Apple CEO Tim Cook touched briefly on the new iPad’s opening weekend sales. Exact sales numbers were not given at the time but Cook did state “[Apple] had a record weekend.” That brief statement likely means that the new iPad outsold the iPad 2. Last year Apple was mum on exact details for the iPad 2 but some analysts pegged its opening weekend sales numbers north of 1,000,000 units sold.
The big news of the day is that Apple just announced a dividend and $10 billion share repurchasing program. Cook and others on today’s call detailed that the intent is to provide income to long-time Apple stockholders while at the same time attracting new investors. The Apple bigwigs also constantly pointed out that the new programs will not disrupt Apple’s key goal to constantly innovate (and break sales records). → Read More
I just got the new iPad in the mail, and naturally the first thing I did was load up a few of my old apps and throw some content on there. Oh god! Oh no!
One of my favorite apps, GoodReader, which opens a great variety of files and which I use to consume the enormous PDFs from Google Books, is a patchwork of pixels. My go-to Mahjong game, aliased to hell! Muji notebook – my pencil leaves a chunky trail!
Developers, I just want to tell you how critical it is that you upgrade your app to look at least passable on the new displays. The full-on big update can come later. But Apple has thrown your standard-def apps under the bus, and you need to drag yourselves out before your capricious iPad users lose faith. → Read More
Happy new iPad Friday! All of the new iPads are shipping already and for those of you who ordered a new one online, you should be getting them soon (if you haven’t already). So in light of that, and also because it’s St. Patrick’s Day weekend and what better way to send you off than this — we have a brand new iPad to give away.
Thanks to our friends over at Kabam, we have a new 32GB WiFi Black iPad. The contest will start now and go through this weekend, ending this Sunday at 9:30pm PT. That gives you three days to enter. Once the giveaway is over, we will make sure our winner followed the rules and contact them this weekend. Everyone can enter, as long as you can receive deliverable packages. → Read More
If you’re reading this right now, you already know what day it is: iPad day.
We headed down to the 5th Ave. flagship store in Manhattan this morning to see just how crazy things would get, but truth be told, the mood was quiet. In fact, the media seemed to be the most raucous, while soon-to-be iPad owners simply tried to keep warm in the freezing mist. → Read More
There’s something interesting going on over there on Fab. The design shopping site found that some of its best customers – that is, those who convert to paying customers the quickest, those who spend the most, and those who return the most often – are mobile users.
The company has known about this data for some time, but wanted more in-depth analysis, so it hired software-as-a-service firm Custora to help them dive in and figure out the lifetime value of the mobile customer, specifically those using the iPad. The results are impressive. → Read More
Meet Jean.
He’s one of a few very lucky owners of the brand new iPad. And he’s thrilled.
The new iPad nears. Apparently Walmart will be selling them in just a few short hours, well before Apple itself does tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, the first direct-to-consumer shipments should be hitting anytime now. Long story short, a lot of people are going to be getting the new Retina display iPad over the next several hours. Unsurprisingly, the Retina-ready apps are already flowing in.
When I asked Apple for a list of third-party Retina-ready apps (all of Apple’s apps are already upgraded) a few days ago for my iPad review, I was told that there would be a list ready to go for the actual launch on Friday. Sure enough, today Apple came back with an early list of apps. And they’ve pushed a new section of the App Store devoted to the new Retina apps. But I’ve also found several others that aren’t on their list yet. Below, find a list of the new apps you’ll want in order to take full advantage of the new screen. → Read More
For all the cool things an iPad can coaxed into doing, I find myself using mine to read more than anything else (rewatching old episodes of Doctor Who on Netflix is a close second). I’ve been begun to use it more than my trusty Kindle, and thanks to the timely 3.0 update for the iOS Kindle app, organizing and managing all of those books I’ve bought feels a lot snappier.
Take navigating your archived books, for example. A quick tap on the Cloud button at the bottom of the screen jumps into a listing of purchased-but-not-yet-downloaded content. Scrolling though all of them seems appreciably quicker, and all it takes to get back to the books saved on the device is a tap on the (what else?) device button next to it. → Read More
It feels like the tech community has been obsessing over every little thing tucked away inside Apple’s latest iPad for weeks, and that won’t end until someone splays the damned thing open for all to see. Thankfully, the folks from iFixit have made it their goal to do just that (and they’re doing it with bright orange suction cups).
The teardown is in progress as I write this, so be sure to refresh every once in a while to see what the iFixit crew has managed to unearth next. Think of it as a liveblog, except, y’know, tremendously geeky. → Read More
Even if you have perfect vision, indulge me here for a second. You know when you go in for an eye exam and you’re asked to look at a combination of letters and numbers on a chart against a far wall? You read the first few lines, then realize you actually can’t go any further. Then you get prescribed glasses (or contacts) and you can all of a sudden read every letter and number. And even the ones you could read before are now so much clearer.
That’s what it’s like looking at the new iPad versus the older iPads.
It’s weird because I was never one of those people who thought the original iPad’s and the iPad 2′s screen was poor (but there were plenty of those people in the post-iPhone Retina world). I guess it’s just like a pre-glasses world — you never realize how blurry things are because that’s just how you’ve always seen everything. And then you put the glasses on and you wonder how you ever managed without them.
Once you see and use the new iPad, there will be no going back. → Read More
If you’re looking to get a new iPad and happen to have an old one (and by old, I mean the iPad 2), Apple just made it that much easier.
Apple’s Reuse and Recycling Program has been updated today to reflect the values for various models of the iPad 2. The program offers Apple gift cards in exchange for your old gadgetry, which will hopefully entice you to trade-in instead of lopping your perfectly good components into a land fill. Not only are you saving a few bucks, but you’re being green.
And more importantly, the savings you’ll get by trading in your iPad 2 for a new one are pretty great. → Read More
With news of Apple’s new iPad selling out its first run due to overwhelming demand, 2012 is off to a galloping start for the tablet market; and because of that IDC is upping its forecasts for how many tablets will be shipped this year. The analysts predict that the number will top 106.1 million units, up from their previous forecast of 87.7 million units, due in part to strong demand for that new iPad, but also a number of other devices at a range of price points.
Indeed, while Apple will continue to be the single biggest tablet maker on the market, Android, collectively, will continue to hold its own against it, with some notable devices like the Amazon Kindle Fire doing particularly well. But it will not be until 2016 — four years from now — that IDC thinks that Android shipments will outnumber those of iOS. → Read More
Good news, everyone! It’s confirmed that the new iPad is indeed slightly “faster” than the iPad 2. Early benchmarks of the new iPad show that the actual clock speed of the A5X SoC is still set at 1GHz, the same speed as the iPad2. But the new model also rocks 1GB of RAM, which should make for a smoother and faster experience. Plus, as Apple stated in the announcement keynote, the A5X rocks a quad-core graphics chip for better graphic performance.
Apple rarely talks nerd-level specs. The company would much rather talk about marketable improvements based on user experience — you know, general arbitrary nonsense. That’s why Tim Cook & Co. just glazed over the technical improvements during the new iPad’s launch and instead focused on new features. It was mentioned that the new tablet has an updated A5X SoC but the actual clock speed and amount of RAM was never mentioned. In many ways Apple’s method is right. The spec is dead — but just for Apple. Listing specs is only important when comparing competing products. There is no direct competitor to the iPad. → Read More
Many of us have been confused over the past 24 hours about what exactly is happening with the new iPad data plans. First Apple screwed up and said AT&T would offer 2GB for $30 instead of 3GB, and one of Verizon’s plans was missing altogether from the site. It was kind of a mess.
But we’ve finally got things nailed down for you so this is the deal: → Read More
If you were hoping that the blitz of iPad news would end with the device’s long-awaited announcement yesterday, well, sorry. Even with Cupertino’s latest tablet waiting in the wings for a March 16 release, we’re all still speculating when it comes to some of the device’s particulars, and now the new iPad’s allotment of RAM is getting its share of the spotlight.
According to The Verge, the new iPad will indeed feature double the RAM of its immediate predecessor, with a full gigabyte of memory ensconced within its aluminum frame. But why doesn’t Apple ever talk about it?
→ Read More
San Francisco, CA
