Smartphone Straight Talk

After a number of failed attempts in the Android tablet market, Dell is looking to readdress the tablet space with Windows 8. According to a leaked document obtained by Neowin, Dell will launch a 10.8-inch tablet with 1,366 x 768-pixel resolution and a dual-core Atom processor later this year. The slate will also be equipped with a fingerprint reader, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, Intel graphics, 2GB of RAM and a massive 128GB solid-state drive. Unlike many other tablets, Dell has included a removable battery that will come in two sizes. A smaller battery will get between six and eight hours of battery life, while a larger one will offer between 10 and 12 hours of usage per charge. The tablet is rumored for a late fall launch, and no pricing details were reported.

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After two months on the market, usage for the new third-generation iPad has already surpassed usage on the original first-generation iPad released in April 2010, according to a report.

Analyzing data from iOS apps it has access to, Localytics has been able to determine first-generation iPad, iPad 2 and third-generation iPad usage and compare them over different timeframes. During the launch week of the most recent iPad model in which Apple sold three million tablets in that single weekend, the new iPad was hastily able to snatch up 14 percent market share. The iPad 2 held the biggest chunk of usage with 62 percent and original iPad had 24 percent.

Fast forward two months in time and we have a six percent gain in usage for the new iPad, now at 20 percent as of May 2012. iPad 2 usage fell just 2 percent to 60 percent and the original iPad dropped 4 percent to 20 percent, meaning the new iPad’s growth was mostly at the first-generation iPad’s expense. The relatively stable iPad 2 market share could possibly be attributed to its price drop in April to $399 for the 16GB model.

Once the people with original iPads all make their decision to either upgrade to the latest model or stick with what they have, it’s almost guaranteed we’ll begin to see a more sharp decline in iPad 2 usage. The third-generation iPad still has roughly ten more months as Apple’s high-end tablet before its replaced by a fourth-generation model, which is more than enough time to catch up and eventually surpass iPad 2 usage.

[via BGR]

New iPad usage already exceeds original iPad originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2012-05-25T22:15:17Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

Usage of Apple’s third-generation iPad in the United States has passed the original iPad model after just over two months of availability. According to a recent report from software analytics firm Localytics, Apple’s latest iPad captured a staggering 14% of the U.S. iPad market in just four days when Apple sold more than 3 million devices during the tablet’s debut. Now, a week and two months after the third iPad launched on March 16th of this year, the new model’s share of U.S. usage topped 20% during the week of May 16th, narrowly surpassing the original model for the first time. Apple’s first iPad tablet launched in the U.S. on April 3rd, 2010 — more than two years ago — and was available for purchase at a discounted price until the third-generation iPad launched in March of this year. According to Localytics, Apple’s iPad 2 currently accounts for 60% of all iPad usage in the U.S.

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Get ready, folks. We've got quite the treat for you this week. Not only do we have a brand spanking new issue of our weekly for your peepers to consume this weekend, but we've redesigned said e-publication as well. Of course, the real star this week is the Summer Gear Guide. That's right, our editors have painstakingly selected their top choices in all of the major categories to keep you blazin' the balmy trail with the best gadget arsenal possible. To go along with the refined digs, we introduce some new pages this week, too. Time Machines will test your geek cred by removing the easily identifiable logos from a classic device for your trivia pleasure. We'll also go eyes-on each week with some quite dapper offerings to satisfy the design nerd inside us all. Speaking of recent additions, we break down our recent hands-on impressions while Reaction Time offers some thoughts on next-gen gaming and upcoming releases. Switched On chats about what's next for Facebook, the Stat tallies the rise of mobile apps in the last year, Fusion-io CEO and Chairman David Flynn admits his love of Flowbee in the Q&A and Sean Pryor returns for The Strip. So, what are you waiting for? Hit the download link below that you fancy the most and you'll have a copy of this week's e-magazine before you know it.

Distro Issue 42 PDF
Distro in the iTunes App Store
Distro in the Google Play Store
Distro APK (For sideloading)
Like Distro on Facebook
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Distro Issue 42 lands with the Engadget Summer Gear Guide, a handsome new look and more! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 May 2012 09:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

ASUS Transformer Pad TF300TL has been caught at the FCC, where we’re sure government paid engineers are playing with it as we speak. This isn’t the hot Infinity version — which comes with a full HD screen — but the model 300 that uses plastic rather than aluminum shell. However, it still has the horsepower needed to make things run smoothly.

The good great news is that this particular Transformer Pad not only has a 3G radio, but also a 4G/LTE one – both of which are made to sing along AT&T’s network. That’s 850 and 1900 MHz in the 3G/HSPA spectrum, and 700 and 1700 MHz in the 4G one.

Unfortunately, we can’t confirm that the Transformer Pad TF300TL rocks NVidia’s Tegra 3 processor since FCC’s listing doesn’t reveal that much. We do hope that’s the case, but even if it comes with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 instead that would still make this ASUS tablet a solid product. We’ll see…

[Via: Engadget]

ASUS Transformer Pad TF300TL visits FCC on its way to AT&T? originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2012-05-25T10:59:48Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

Millennial Media on Thursday released a new report outlining estimates first-quarter market share across mobile devices and operating systems. The mobile advertising company found that tablets — the top being Apple’s iPad, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and Amazon’s Kindle Fire — accounted for 20% of all ad impressions during the first quarter of 2012, an increase from 15% in the first quarter of 2011. “Tablets and other non-phone connected devices have established a clear role in the growing mobile ecosystem,” said Jamie Fellows, SVP, Product, Millennial Media. “The substantial quarterly growth of impressions in this category is tied to both increased usage and adoption, and we expect this trend to continue in the foreseeable future.” The report also found that 14 of the top 20 mobile phones ran Google’s Android operating system, which was installed on 49% of all devices. Apple’s iPhone was the top handset, helping the Cupertino-based company to edge out Samsung, which had four of the top 20 mobile phones, as the top manufacturer. Millennial Media’s press release and two additional tables follow below.

Millennial Media Releases Q1 Mobile Mix Report

Report Shows Significant Growth in Ad Impressions Among Tablets and Non-Phone Connected Devices

BALTIMORE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Millennial Media, Inc. (NYSE: MM), the independent leader in mobile advertising, today released its Q1 Mobile Mix report, the latest edition of its reliable and widely-sourced report on trends in impressions for mobile devices and mobile operating systems.

The Q1 Mobile Mix report takes an in-depth look at the mobile device advertising landscape, including the top 20 mobile phones, top 10 mobile device manufacturers, leading mobile device operating systems and top mobile app categories ranked by impressions.

The report found that non-phone mobile devices, such as tablets, accounted for 20 percent of all impressions on the Millennial Media platform during the first quarter of 2012, compared to 15 percent in Q1 of 2011.

The report also found that Android remained the top overall operating system on the Millennial Media platform in Q1 2012, with a 49 percent share of impressions, and Apple remained the leading individual mobile device manufacturer.

Other highlights from the Q1 Mobile Mix report include (ranked by impressions on the Millennial Media platform during the quarter):

• The Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab and Amazon Kindle Fire were the top tablets in Q1, and all three were among the top 20 mobile devices.
• The Apple iPhone remained the leading individual mobile phone.
• Android made up 14 of the top 20 mobile phones.
• Samsung was the second leading manufacturer and had 4 of the top 20 mobile phones.
• Gaming was the top mobile app category and grew 10 percent compared to Q4 2011.
• Mobile video views increased 958 percent from Q2 2011 to Q1 2012.

“Tablets and other non-phone connected devices have established a clear role in the growing mobile ecosystem,” said Jamie Fellows, SVP, Product, Millennial Media. “The substantial quarterly growth of impressions in this category is tied to both increased usage and adoption, and we expect this trend to continue in the foreseeable future.”

ASUS isn't known for offering its tablets to North American carriers with 3G or 4G; an FCC filing for a cellular-capable Transformer Pad TF300 could be a clue at a break in the WiFi-only trend. Along with the usual wireless, a TF300TL variant of the Android 4.0 slate has stopped by the agency with the 850MHz and 1,900MHz frequencies needed for HSPA 3G as well as, best of all, 700MHz and 1,700MHz support for LTE-based 4G. All four are what we'd look for in an AT&T-oriented tablet, so don't be surprised if Ma Bell carries a 4G Transformer Pad before long. All but the 700MHz band would be handy for Canadian networks as well. There's no surefire evidence of when the tablet might make a more formal appearance, nor hints of whether or not it will keep the quad-core Tegra 3, although the slight spin on the regular TF300 formula could keep the wait short.

ASUS Transformer Pad TF300TL hits the FCC with AT&T-friendly LTE originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 May 2012 20:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

NVIDIA has announced quite a few details and new projects this week, so we’re going to get you up to speed with said announcements. From Tegra designs, Icera integration, and the Kai project, it’s certainly going to be an interesting (and successful) year for the company.

Icera

First off, let’s talk Icera. As you might have noticed, there are currently no Tegra 3 devices in the United States that support LTE. The likes of the HTC One X swapped out the quad-core Tegra 3 for the dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 because it’s currently the only option for LTE networks, but that’s about to change.

Last year, NVIDIA bought up Icera, a baseband chipset maker that will help NVIDIA bring LTE to the masses with its Tegra 3 chipset. While full integration won’t happen until sometime in 2013 (named Project Grey), but the company has announced two modems that will be paving the wave for the fully integrated Project Grey. Earlier this morning, the Icera 410 was announced and has been validated to work on AT&T’s LTE network. While this a step in the right direction, the validation alone isn’t necessarily an indication that we’ll be seeing it pop up in any AT&T devices soon. But that’s not all that was announced.

Earlier this afternoon, Mike Rayfield, NVIDIA’s General Manager of the Mobile Business unit announced the Icera 500 LTE modem that will be the precursor and basis of Project Grey. Rayfield also reassured that Tegra 3 devices will indeed be landing in 2012 – something we’ve been hearing all along – so it may not be surprising but it’s definitely nicer to hear that availability hasn’t been pushed back.

NVIDIA Kai

Icera news wasn’t the only thing NVIDIA announced this week, as we also got the news about NVIDIA Kai. Kai will be a new Tegra 3 based platform for Android tablets that will give manufacturers the ability to price their devices as low as $199.

This immediately reminds us of the rumored Google Nexus tablet that was said to be running the Tegra 3 with a low price tag, only for more rumors to say that the device’s processor was switched out for a cheaper dual-core processor to keep the price lower. Well, the jury is still out on that one, but with NVIDIA Kai knocking on our doorsteps, the prospects of a Tegra 3 Nexus tablet not only sound very enticing but also a very possible result. We won’t know until the device is announced itself but we’re going to keep our fingers crossed.

NVIDIA Kai will also breathe some competition into Windows tablets; a place that Intel has dominated for a long time. With Windows 8 just a handful of months away, there’s a good chance we’ll see a nice helping of Kai running a nice selection of tablets running the OS.

Tegra Devices

NVIDIA also dropped an interesting nugget of information pertaining to its Tegra phone designs. It looks like we’ll be seeing quite a few Tegra phones this year, as NVIDIA has a total of 30 different phone designs for both the Tegra 2 and 3. This is twice as many designs the company had for 2011, and the 30 phones will spin-off into multiple SKUs and find their way into many carriers before the year is over.

That’s doesn’t sounds that impressive, you say? Well, you should keep in mind that these 30 devices are phones only, not tablets. With the combination of the existing portfolio of Tegra 3 tablets already available and NVIDIA Kai tablets on their way, Tegra 3 tablets will be all over the place in various sizes and price points.

The rest of the year and into 2013 look to be pretty bright for NVIDIA. What are you looking forward to most from the company?

This week in NVIDIA: Icera, Kai, and Tegra devices originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2012-05-24T23:46:10Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

It’s no surprise that Google is rumored to launch an affordable 7 inch tablet to help push Android closer to the forefront of tablets.  For quite some time, Google has been reportedly working with Asus to develop a low budget Nexus branded tablet that should launch worldwide in the late Spring / early Summer of 2012.

Today, a new DigiTimes report claims the Nexus Tablet will begin shipping in June and will reach consumers in various markets in July.  Google and Asus expect to mass produce 600,000 tablets as part of the initial launch, according to the “upstream supply chain” source.  In total, Asus realistically expects to ship 2-2.5 million Nexus tablets, which would be a solid achievement for the Nexus Tablet.

An earlier report claimed the 7 inch tablet would launch in early June, but due to necessary design and cost adjustments, it had been unofficially delayed until July.  We’re hoping the Nexus Tablet, complete with Android 4.0, a Tegra 3 quad-core processor, and a $199 price tag, can compete with the Kindle Fire and the iPad when it launches.  More high quality tablets in the market gives the consumer more options and ultimately fuels innovation down the road.

[DigiTimes]

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Android developers are all too familiar with not-so-hot emulator performance, so it's a relief that there's now an system image in a native x86 for testing. While you'll still likely want to test on ARM, the x86 image will both help ferret out bugs specific to Intel's architecture as well as provide a much faster experience debugging apps now that the ARM-to-Intel translation isn't needed on top of running a whole second operating system. It's not perfectly up to date, running on Android 4.0.3, but it's close enough that the environment will mimic much of what users see -- and a big help if you're jumping into writing specifically for Intel devices. If speed is of the essence, or you're not keen on importing a Lava Xolo X900, you just need to update the SDK Manager to start testing with an Intel-flavored green robot.

Intel posts x86-friendly Android 4.0 image, lets you feel the need for speed originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 May 2012 17:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.