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Friday Grab Bag: Google vs. Amazon in Tablet Wars?

January 6, 2012 by 4 Comments

Pending Google Tablet to rival Kindle Fire?

Multiple reports are claiming that the long pending tablet from Google will be targeted more at the Kindle Fire market than the iPad market. While there is some overlap in the two markets currently I see them as serving different groups of primary users, although that will change.

The Google Tablet is expected to be in the 7-inch form factor and will have a $200 price tag upon its expected delivery in late March or early April. The web company is expected to first create a web site that is designed to specifically cater to expected customers of its Android-powered tablet and will make apps. Movies, books and music will be made available at that site.

This will make an interesting battle as Google’s deep pockets and ubiquity of its browser will enable it to reach a wide audience via advertising on its pages as well as in other media. A similar thrust by Barnes & Noble for its Nook has cost that company dearly but the impact for Google should be significantly less due to its much greater resources.

Twice as many Americans own 4 TVs as opposed to 1
The latest State of the Media: Consumer Usage Report from Nielsen has a number of interesting facts across the broad markets that it surveyed, with the one quoted above being just one of them.

The number of people age 13 and older that own a mobile phone is fast approaching the number of people that own at least one television- 232 million to 290 million. Satellite did much better than I had expected when compared to digital cable- 95 million compared to 145 million.

The full survey covers usage and trends across TV, mobile, online and social media and can be downloaded from the company’s site.

TiVo Delivers Android version of its App

TiVo has had an app for customers using products powered by the Apple iOS and has now greatly expanded its audience with the delivery of the app for the vast Android space as well, according to a piece in Cnet

The free app is designed for use with both smartphones and tablets and enables a user to participate in social media such as Facebook and Twitter while viewing programs that are currently playing from a TiVo box.

TiVo has also announced that it has settled pending patent litigation with AT&T. In the deal AT&T has agreed to a mutual patent licensing agreement and will be making payments to TiVo that include an initial payment of $51 million and reoccurring payments that will run until June, 2018.

Apple files for patents that cover photos and fitness.
Patently Apple has reported that Apple has won patents for Photo Booth and a sports related one that covers a fitness center app. The site has a great deal of information of the Fitness Center App and said that it covers a range of issue facing exercisers including motivation and how to use equipment.

Apple also appears to have a range of additional related patent claims pending that could help it gain a strong presence in this market, or a future in additional litigation as others imitate its direction. I wonder how all of the makers of fitness apps in the iTune store feel about this?

Additionally Apple has been awarded a patent for Photo Booth so that users of Apple devices, initially just the iPad but expected to cover both other iOS devices’ as well as OS X products to manipulate images that have been taken with the devices’ built-in camera.

Other Apple News

Apple has also filed for a pair of patents that indicate that it is seeking to develop a hydrogen fueled battery that it is speculated could power its devices for weeks between recharges. I would be happy to make it through the day right now.

According to the latest from iLounge new code found in the iOS 5.1 release points to a future that has devices powered by quad-core chips. The site said that it believes that products with quad-core chips could be delivered as early as March of this year.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, Barnes & Noble, Facebook, iPad, iPhone, Nielsen Ratings, Social Media, Tablets Tagged With: , , , ,

Barnes & Noble May Look to Spin Off the Nook E-Reader

January 6, 2012 by 6 Comments

High production costs may mean partners or a spin-off

After a worse than expected quarter and with the growing realization that developing hardware and keeping it competitive is a costly business executives at Barnes & Noble have indicated that it may seek to separate the e-reader business.

The red ink is expected to continue and the company said that it expects to double its losses this year. According to the Wall Street Journal the company does not appear to be seeking to kill the platform but rather to put it on its own to sink or swim as the market dictates.

With its mainstream book selling business being hurt by digital competitors it has been slow to exploit that space, and ceded it to growing rival Amazon with its Kindle and to other tablet makers’ primarily Apple and its iPad.

It had strong holiday sales, with a 70% increase over last year, but failed to meet expectations in sales over the holiday season and that has had a domino effect on sales of related products that are used with the Nook, the company said.

The Nook Color

Barnes & Noble said in a release that it is in discussions with strategic partners including publishers, retailers, and technology companies in international markets that may lead to expansion of the Nook business abroad.

However the company cautioned that it will create a separate Nook business. William Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble said “we have a NOOK business that’s growing rapidly year-over-year and should be approximately $1.5 billion in comparable sales this fiscal year.”

A top rival to the Nook is Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which came out of the door hot and sales have been tremendous since then, with it being Amazon’s top selling product the last 13 weeks. Amazon’s ability to tout the platform every time you visit its web site certainly had to help in the marketing of the platform.

However a tear down by iSuppli, that is the disassembly of the product to determine its component cost, shows that it costs more to build a Kindle Fire than Amazon sells it for, and that does not account for the software engineering and other aspects of the device.

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out in the next year or so. The product appears to be a strong platform that performs as users would want. Right now it seems likely that it will find a system manufacturer to partner with to help shift costs, but only time will tell.

Filed Under: Amazon, Apple, iPad, Tablets, Wall Street Journal Tagged With: , , ,

Mobile Sports Report Monday TechWatch: Poor Android Apps Revenue?

November 21, 2011 by 3 Comments

The Kindle-It’s Cheap!
Love it or hate it, the Kindle Fire is making its mark, and a primary reason is that it is less than half the price of rival tablets such as Apple’s iPad. A compilation of reviews at Network World is less than kind to the device for all uses aside from reading books.

I keep wondering why people compare it to an iPad when it looks to be trying to take a slice of the market that only somewhat overlaps. My Dad wants a Kindle, I want an iPad or a Samsung Galaxy and we want them for different purposes.

Nook Tablet vs Kindle Fire- a Side by Side Look
Decided you want a small form factor tablet but cannot decide which one you want or how they compare to each other. Engadget kindly did the work for you by taking a hard look at the features of these two recently released devices so that you can make an informed holiday purchase. Among the areas they look at are performance, form factor, software and display.


Android Apps poor Revenue Stream?
A report in Business Insider claims that despite the huge platform advantage that the Android platform is enjoying over rival Apple iOS and the rest of the pack, it’s payback to developers lags at just 7% of what iOS developers receive. The report said that Android revenue for developers is dwarfed by the revenue for the iOS. According to a study from Piper Jaffray that breaks down to $330 million for Android developers compared to $4.9 billion for the iOS community. Could they have possibly dropped a zero or two?

More Patent Goodness
Slashdot notes that Apple’s iOS 5 has a Reminders feature that can be location based and a patent pending called Computer Systems and Methods for Collecting Associating and/or Retrieving Data (Snappy title that). Amazon was just granted a patent on its Location Based Reminders while Google has a patent on Geocoding Personal Information that includes location based reminders. Microsoft, not wanting to be left on the sidelines has a pending patent called Geographic Reminders.
There are also some older patents involved from Microsoft. I see a lot of legal fun and the horde of lawyers that they all employ gleefully rubbing their hands together and buying themselves new helicopter pads for Christmas.

IT Execs don’t seem to mind new Mobile Technology
CIO Magazine found that CIOs are rapidly starting to embrace employees using their own mobile technology such as smartphones and tablets for work. According to its 2011 CIO Magazine Consumerization of IT Survey 49% of its respondents said that allowing their employees to do work on personal devices from home or the office. An issue that has the potential to slow this is the ability or inability of most IT departments to support every hardware and software platform.

Latest Apple Rumors
Thicker iPads, how will I be able to handle the 0.7 mm difference? All metal iPhones that are larger with a 4-inch screen, will the world be able to survive? A revamped MacBook Pro in 2012- that will kill my holiday buying plans! Anyway if you are looking for the latest rumor about Apple’s next generation plans head on over to Cnet which has kindly rounded them all up in a nice tidy bundle.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apps, iPad, iPhone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Mobile Sports Report Monday TechWatch: Is this Kindle for you?

November 14, 2011 by 2 Comments

Editor’s note: welcome to our Monday TechWatch feature, where we highlight gizmos, gadgets and devices that help deliver the mobile sports experience. Up today: a look at Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

Amazon’s much hyped Kindle Fire is about to make its long awaited splash in the market and its going to be a great success and its going to be a failure, just read the reviews. So to honor Johnny Cash we have a Ring of Fire today on tablets.

The Kindle Fire will be available tomorrow from Amazon-free shipping no less in 3-5 days!, with a $199 list price and a and is powered by a customized version of the Android operating system. But if you cannot wait the few days for it to arrive you can get into your car, drive down to Best Buy and pick up a model there.

Is the Kindle Fire an iPad killer?

Is the Kindle Fire an iPad killer? Probably not. Does a device need to be an iPad killer to be successful? No. This market looks to be huge and there will be room for a variety of tablets, in a range of forms and usage models, to find willing buyers. In fact market research firm IDC predicts that 62.5 million tablets will ship this year, and those won’t all be iPads.

One reason that the Fire will probably not be a iPad killer, or for that matter any other tablet killer, is that it will, at least initially, have little appeal to businesses. Non-Amazon apps are treated as second class in terms of where they are displayed, but also Amazon is not positioning the Kindle Fire as such a tool. However expect that to change in the future as its price and features apply pressure on its rivals.

While the Fire is the news of the moment Samsung, which has quietly been building very good Android-based phones and tablets gets a top review for its Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus from CNet reviewers who call the device the best 7-inch Honeycomb tablet.

If you are wondering what other uses a tablet are good for we recommend wandering over to look at what the good people at Ooyala have to say; they have been following online video viewership and compiling data for 5 years. In its first report on the topic Ooyala said that tablet users average 30 percent more viewing of online videos than PC users and completed watching 20 percent more than desktop PC users.

Seagate: Storage for Tablets

One of the big drawbacks that tablets have is their limited storage space. A 32GB capacity? Heck that will not cover 10 percent of my music collection. Well storage developer Seagate has a product that could fix this issue. The $199.00 GoFlex Satellite is a 500 GB drive that features a Wi-Fi radio so that you can connect wirelessly and stream music videos or whatever else your heart desires. There is a specialized app for iOS, while Android device users simply need to use their browser to operate. There are issues for Mac users so read the instructions carefully prior to purchasing.

Apple: Original iPod Nano Recall

Aside from tablet news, Apple has suffered from the battery draining issue caused by its recent iOS 5.0 update and now reports are coming in to say that the fix, version 5.0.1 does not fix the problem either. To add to the company’s problems it has been reported that Apple is now forced to recall the original iPod Nano due to heating problems.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Google, iPad, iPhone, Samsung, Tablets, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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