Tag Archives: iPad

If Office Hits The iPad, Even Fewer People Would Buy A Surface

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ipad-office

Remember this ad? The ad where Microsoft attempts to position the iPad as a chopstick-playing toy and the Surface as a PowerPoint-editing machine?

Yeah, that’s why we can’t have nice things.

Microsoft just released Office the the iPhone. It lets users edit any Word, Excel or PowerPoint document. As the oh-so-catchy name states, Office Mobile for Office 365 subscribers is Office Mobile for Office 365 subscribers only, meaning the app is essentially $100 a year. It’s not “Office for iOS.” It’s just a way to open and partially edit Office files for those saps paying for Microsoft’s pricey cloud platform.

Judging from the screenshots, it looks like a quality application. It supports rich media content like charts, animations, SmartArt graphics and shapes. And since it works through MS’ cloud service, all changes saved on the phone updates the original, too.

But forget about a native iPad app. Microsoft can’t kill the only legitimate selling point of its struggling Surface tablet.

Microsoft might have moved enough Surface tablets to not call it a flop, but the tablet was far from a blockbuster hit. Ever since launch, Microsoft has supported it with constant ad campaigns touting the tablet’s productivity chops. The latest TV spot pits the Surface RT against the iPad, deeming its offering as the superior choice for those that need to get any work done. However, in Microsoft’s world “work” equals editing a PowerPoint deck. This is something you can do quite handily on the iPad using Keynote and, in fact, I suspect Keynote users are well aware of the benefits of their superior platform.

Middle manager infighting must be rampant at Microsoft. One on hand, the company has to properly support its Windows 8 ecosystem and that means position its tablet offering as the only MS Office solution. But then, likewise, a true mobile version of MS Office would better help fight Google Docs. In this case the Office team lost, relegating Office to just the iPhone and in a truncated version at that. Windows 8 wins, the Surface stays slightly more interesting, and everybody in Redmond wins.

Only the consumer loses.

Tablets Continue To Build Momentum As A Place To Pay, Android & iPad Up 5% In 10 Months

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Payments company Adyen has published the first of a new quarterly index intended to track the evolving landscape of mobile commerce. One notable increase flagged up by the data is the increasing popularity of tablets as a commerce device. The inaugural Adyen Global Mobile Payments Index is based on 10 months of transactions conducted on its platform. To give a sense for the size of the index, last year the company processed more than $10 billion globally in online, mobile, and point-of-sale payments transactions.

The Index shows that tablet devices (both iPad and Android) saw a combined 5% increase in mobile transactions over the past 10 months, rising from 48% to 53% over the period. This is just the latest data-point to illuminate the distinct role being played by tablets vs. smartphones when it comes to mobile commerce.

Other studies have suggested tablets are carving a strong niche as a device for casual browsing — which in turn positions them to support casual and impulse shopping, something that’s more difficult to achieve on smartphones with their limited real estate (although a highly curated experience may be one way to push impulse transactions through the mobile pipe, as YPlan is doing). Tablets’ larger screen size simply offers more scope for browsing, in the shopping discovery sense of the world. Combined with touch interfaces and the easy/speed of lightweight tablet platforms there’s scope to be far more playful than ecommerce websites typical are. (See, for example, Vitacost’s tablet website.)

Although tablets — and specifically the iPad — dominate Adyen’s mobile payments Index, it does also show smartphones playing a strong role — especially in North America where the majority (58%) of mobile transactions are carried out using a smartphone. However the iPad is the dominant force in every other region globally. Notably, though, the iPhone comes out as a stronger transaction platform than Android tablets — likely owing to the sheer number of iPhone owners vs. Android tablet owners:

According to Adyen’s data the iPad now accounts for 6.6% of total worldwide transactions through April 2013 (up from 3.6% in June 2012) for a total 10-month growth of nearly 83%. iPhone users accounted for 4.4% of total transactions, up from 3.1% in June 2012 (+42% growth). But transactions from Android phones nearly doubled from 1.1% to 2%, while use of Android tablets more than doubled from 0.3% to 0.7% of total transactions.

Overall, worldwide mobile payments transactions on Adyen’s platform have increased by 75% over the measured period, with the total percentage of mobile transactions increasing from 8.2% in June 2012 to more than 13.8% in April 2013. The Index also found that Europe leads the world with 15.3% of all transactions made using a mobile device, followed by Asia (12.4%) and North America (11.2%).

When it comes to mobile commerce’s ingress into different sectors traditionally dominated by PC transactions, travel comes out on top, with 20% mobile penetration, followed by retail, ticketing services and digital goods (with 15% penetration apiece). Gaming lags considerably, with mobile gaming accounting for only 9% of transactions — likely down to the richer gaming experience afforded by desktop PCs, says Adyen.

In retail, tablets are edging out smartphones with 10% and 5% of the mobile transactions respectively — retail being another area where discovery-based shopping is important. By contrast, ticketing services are almost entirely mobile, according to Adyen’s data, with smartphones accounting for 9% of the overall 15% mobile pie.

Apple’s New Product Strategy

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new-touch

Apple appears to be on a kick of delivering product refreshes to punctuate its major release cycle, with changes to devices and tweaked versions that go beyond what it has done in terms of spec refreshes in the past. It looks like we could see a new era of light changes in direction to cater to market trends and optimize product viability under Tim Cook, which in many ways makes sense for a man known as a supply chain maestro.

“New” iPads, iMacs, MacBooks And iPods

If you review all the mid-cycle changes Apple has made this year, you come up with a pretty long list. There’s the Retina MacBook Pro and Air improvements it made in February for instance, which included new processors, is not really all that out of character; the company has been boosting internal specs on its Mac line for years. But the 128GB fourth generation iPad, the iMac with VESA mount, and the new 16GB iPod touch which lacks a rear camera are all big changes to the way Apple generally operates those product cycles.

All of these updates arrived with little fanfare, at least when compared to the lavish launch events Apple usually holds to trot out new hardware. At most they’ll get a press release, and in the case of some, like the iPod touch just launched today, they’ll simply update the online store. Press still flocks to these changes, regardless, and it’s true that they aren’t often ground-breaking enough to merit proper events, since they’d look paltry painted in that light. But the changes are a sign of a new commitment to continuous improvement, and one that seems like it could result in dramatic changes to how Apple views and operates its product release cycle.

Optimization

Tim Cook used to be Apple’s COO, and in that role he essentially helped Apple build one of the most effective and efficiently run supply chains in the history of supply chains. That meant that Apple seldom had any inventory costing it money by sitting around in warehouses, that incidences of error in the manufacturing process were drastically reduced, and that improvements and adaptations were made continually to help keep profit margins high. Likely Cook is still directly responsible for a lot of continued optimization in that area, but it makes sense that he would also bring those skills to bear on actual Apple products themselves, instead of just on their manufacturing process.

The updates to the products mentioned above each constitute a specific optimization. In the case of the iPad, the storage bump helps it keep pace with other new-to-market devices including the Surface and better service education and enterprise users; with the iMac, it addresses the one big failing pointed out by reviewers of the iMac when comparing it to previous generations, and targets again business users; and with the iPod touch, it fills a gap in the company’s lineup, simplifies supply chain and makes it easier for developers to optimize their designs for screen sizes going forward.

Flex

The new approach to Apple’s products appears to reflect a greater flexibility; thinks are more mutable than they were before Cook took the reins, if only just. There’s still the question of keeping fair of angering early purchasers of products, as someone who has bought an iPad four months prior doesn’t want to see a new model and regret their earlier decision, but for the most part, these upgrades look like very specific tweaks designed to expand a potential audience, not alienate an existing one. So long as that kind of precision refreshing continues, I think Apple stands to gain a lot from this modified approach to product development.

The Double Robotics iPad-Equipped Teleconferencing Robot Is Shipping

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doubleshipping

It’s impossible to be in two places at once. But Double Robotics, a wheel-equipped robot with an iPad for a face, has finally made that possible.

The company has begun shipping units of the Double to customers who pre-ordered and coughed up the $2,000 to get one. In fact, the first hundred are already safely in the homes and lives of their new owners.

By September, the company will have shipped another 1,000 units, showing that even with a high price tag, hardware startups can still rake in the cash and run a sustainable business. But of course, this has to do with the fact that the Double has all kinds of valuable use-case scenarios that span across various industries.

For example, we used the Double at CES to usher in a new kind of remote reporting. And we aren’t the only ones.

The $2,000 price tag, which was a special pre-order price, will remain in place until June 6, for those who feel that they’d like to get in on the robotic goodness. After that, the price will go up to $2,499.

Microsoft’s Cheap Shot At The iPad Actually Points Out Exactly Why Windows 8 Tabs Suck

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ipadvsurface

Being behind in a market sucks, and it’s understandable to want to lash out at the top dog, as Microsoft has shown it’s willing to do with Google in search and email, and now with Apple in tablet computers. A brand new Windows 8 ad pits the iPad against Microsoft’s Windows 8 tablet, in an attempt to show how much more versatile the Asus VivoTab is vs. the iOS device.

Microsoft uses Siri’s voice (which isn’t difficult, given that it’s a fairly generic computer-generated female tone) to highlight what the Windows 8 tablet can do that the iPad can’t, including things like live tiles (it took me a couple views to figure out what “I don’t update like that” even meant), Windows Snap multitasking, and… PowerPoint. Then finally we get a price comparison, showing the much cheaper price tag for the Asus.

The problem is that not only is the Siri construct weak and her actual lines poorly written, but the abilities Microsoft chooses to highlight show exactly why it doesn’t “get” the tablet market. People aren’t looking for multitasking PowerPoint slide deck-creating machines; they have computers for that.

The closing bit here is maybe the worst part; showing that Apple’s iPad can easily provide a remarkably realistic experience for playing Chopsticks on the screen is not the way to trash your competition, especially if you noticeably can’t offer up an equivalent experience on your own hardware. Apple uses that in its own ads for a reason, and that’s to highlight the magical, delightful experiences users can have on its device. Countering that with a bunch of sober (though admittedly useful) features isn’t the way to turn the tide back in your favor.

An earlier version of this post mistakenly identified the Asus VivoTab in this ad as a Surface.

Tablets can interfere with implanted defibrillators, stop hearts

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Bloomberg is reporting on a 14-year-old student in Colorado who found herself presenting data to the Heart Rhythm Society meeting in Denver this week. Gianna Chien’s study of the effects of an iPad 2 on implanted cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) is making some waves among the medical community because it appears to demonstrate that in a statistically significant number of cases, close proximity to an iPad 2 can disable someone’s ICD and potentially lead to their death.

A typical implanted defibrillator device.
WikiMedia Commons

An ICD is a small device that can be surgically implanted into the abdominal cavity of someone suffering from certain types of cardiac arrhythmias, or irregular heartbeats. If the upper or lower part of the person’s heart begins to flutter or beat irregularly, the ICD can deliver one or more electric shocks to the heart to restore normal rhythm. Atrial or ventricular arrhythmias can cause sudden death, so ICDs are potentially life-saving little things.

However, much like their pacemaker brethren, ICDs can be started and stopped by magnets near the skin. Chien’s study, which originated as a science fair project conducted with the aid of her physician father, shows that the magnets in the edge of an iPad 2 can also switch off ICDs.

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Pickup in iOS 7 Web traffic titillates Apple-watchers

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Ars has seen a pickup in traffic from devices out of Cupertino claiming to use iOS 7, but it’s not a ton.

Apple’s engineers are apparently ramping up their testing of iOS 7, as evidenced by Web traffic on Ars and various other sites. First noted by mobile content company Onswipe and followed up by MacRumors, devices that claim to be using iOS 7—coming from Apple’s IP block in Cupertino—started showing up more and more around April 30. But while some describe it as a spike in traffic, our own analysis shows that traffic using iOS 7 is still relatively low.

Onswipe described the change as a “significant bump” in the number of visits from iPads and iPhones using iOS 7. In fact, Onswipe claims 75 percent of the visits to its partner sites came from iPhones, while iPads represented roughly a quarter of those visits. MacRumors posted its own traffic graph without explicit numbers, saying it has seen a “surge” in iOS 7 visits over the last week.

Upon analyzing Ars’ traffic logs, we can see a trend closely mirroring that of MacRumors’ (see graph at the top of this post). Around April 29-30, visits from devices claiming to be running iOS 7 began to pick up, and the numbers seem to be rising as the days go on. But we’re talking about around 100 (or lower) on most days, with only the highest point going up past 100. For us, the large majority of those are on iPads—we can count the number of visits from iPhones or iPod touches on one hand.

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iPad Mini With Retina Display Screen Production To Start In June Or July, NPD DisplaySearch Says

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The iPad mini is quickly becoming a key component of Apple’s product lineup, and according to some sources, might even be the best-selling tablet Apple makes at this point. The smaller tablet hit shelves in early November last year, and likely had a huge impact on Apple’s record tablet sales last quarter, which topped 19.5 million devices. It’s impossible not to see a Retina update in the mini’s future, and new reports (via MacRumors) claim we’ll see production begin for that device this summer.

NPD DisplaySearch analyst says we should see display panel production begin for a Retina iPad mini beginning in June or July, which will be sourced primarily from LG Display, and specifically not from Samsung, Apple’s sometime partner, but not a display supplier for the current iPad mini. The iPad mini with Retina Display should have a 2,048×1536 pixel, 7.9-inch screen, which makes for a PPI of 324, or just about the same as that of the iPhone 5. That would make it fully compatible with apps designed for the full-sized iPad’s Retina screen, but give it an even higher pixel density at the same time thanks to the smaller screen dimensions.

This production start date would fit with an anticipated ship date of between July and September for a Retina iPad mini, thought we’d be much more likely to see such a device arrive in the fall according to recent statements by Apple CEO Tim Cook. During the most recent Apple investor call, he told people to look to fall and 2014 specifically for exciting new product launches from Apple, which seems to indicate we might have to wait at least that long for something as exciting as an iPad mini refresh.

A Retina screen on the iPad mini would help Apple address the only real shortcoming reviewers and critics have identified on the tablet thus far. When the first reviews hit the web, mention of the lack of a Retina display was almost universal, though few cited it as a dealbreaking oversight. Even so, the addition of that capability will likely bring at least as much praise as its absence brought raised eyebrows.

Early rumored case leaks have shown that the next generation might be slightly thicker than the existing version, which would be in keeping with what happened between the iPad 2 and the first Retina Display iPad, which gained both girth and weight over its predecessor. I’m personally hoping that this is an early prototype; the size and weight change between the iPad 2 and 3rd gen device was very noticeable, and took away from the benefits of having a better screen.

Apple isn’t hurting in the tablet game, but some competitors are starting to show stronger numbers than they have in the past, including Asus, which reported earnings this week. Those included 3 million tablets sold for the quarter, a larger portion of which are likely the Nexus 7 Android devices it makes for Google. NPD DisplaySearch says that the Kindle Fire line of tablets will get 300 ppi or higher displays in the next generation, too, so Apple bringing the best-of-breed display in its next-gen device makes sense in terms of helping keep its dominating lead.