The headrest mount, which works with Wallee’s existing iPad case mounting system, attaches to the headrest rail of any vehicle, and rotates in and out to provide viewing to one or more unruly kids who need entertaining in the back seat on long trips. It’s a simple, sturdy design in and of itself, but it’s really more impressive as the latest proof that Wallee’s creators at Studio Proper are into delivering long-term value rather than chasing short-term gain.

A lot of my favorite cases for the original iPad, including the ZAGGmate iPad keyboard case, required me to buy a new version in order to play nice with the iPad 2. The Wallee also required a new case, but it stung much less since all the accessories the case is designed to work with remained useful. Wall mounting disks, stands and a VESA mount still work with the new iPad 2 version of the Wallee case, and recent additions to the line, including a hand strap for easy one-handed use, and the upcoming Wallee Lock for secure, interactive iPad-based displays mean investment in the system continues to feel fresh, two years after the original Wallee’s introduction.

Most mobile device users will likely go through piles of device accessories that quickly become as outdated as the gadgets they’re designed for, so it’s nice to see a system that embraces and builds on its past, rather than simply starting fresh with each new whim of Apple’s design department.

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Apple’s 37 million fourth quarter iPhone shipments were a far cry from the market leaders, however. Nokia still ruled the roost with 113.5 million handset shipments, while Samsung edged closer to grabbing the top spot with a 20 percent increase compared to the previous year, to a total of 97.6 million units shipped. Samsung succeeded by growing its smartphone sales, but also by increasing its feature phone shipment numbers in an otherwise soft market for those devices.

While Apple was the biggest gainer percentage-wise during the quarter, LG suffered the biggest drop,with a negative 42.2 percent change compared to the same period in 2010. Its total shipments were at 17.7 million for the year, which is on par with 2007 levels. LG definitely felt the hit of the waning feature phone market and was unable to do much to impress consumers with its smartphones, either.

Apple also ranked third overall in terms of  mobile phone shipments throughout the whole calendar year thanks to its fourth quarter results, with 93.2 iPhone shipments and year-over-year growth of 96.2 percent.

IDC predicts that the mobile phone market will continue to experience double-digit growth, despite only seeing 11.1 percent growth year-over-year in 2011, versus 18.7 percent growth between 2009 and 2010.

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Nguyen goes into a lot of detail, and it’s a must-read for anyone thinking about commissioning an iOS (or really any mobile OS) application. Here’s one passage in particular that I know will resonate with a lot of freelance devs:

Converting an iPhone app to iPhone/iPad universal app: This is the worst ‘additional feature’ found in iPhone development contracts. Because an iPad app is not a frikin’ additional feature. The iPad app is always more complex than iPhone app, and most of the time requires entirely different interface and interaction mechanism. It’s like making an electric bicycle and then convert[ing] it to a fuel-powered motorcycle! They are very similar at what they do, but under the hood, the difference is immense. [Emphasis in the original]

A lot of companies may be interested in what an app can do for their business, but without a good sense of what kind of resources need to be invested in order to create the app in the first place, there is bound to be ample frustration on all sides. Nguyen’s no-nonsense primer is a good way to help avoid some of that frustration.

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Flygrip $29.95

I was amazed as to how quickly I fell in love with the Flygrip’s simplicity of design and elegance It’s a clip that sticks on the back of an existing iPhone case, or Flygrip’s custom case. While it adds some bulk to the back of the case, it actually isn’t annoying. Quite the opposite. Fully retracted, it allows you too hold your iPhone securely with your ring and forefinger, leaving the rest of your hand able to type. Being able to text and tweet easily on the go made me a believer out of me.

Not only does it make the iPhone easier to hold, but the Flygrip can also act as a kickstand for both portrait and landscape mode, which made catching up on email during lunch an absolute breeze. At $29.95, it’s affordable, and you don’t have to give up your existing case.

xPrintServer $149.95

Although Apple’s AirPrint only supports a limited set of printers, iOS products like Readdle’s Printer Pro and desktop products such as Ecamm’s Printopia have extended the iPad’s print capabilities. Lantronix has a desktop-and device-independent solution to make existing network printers available to any iOS device also on the network. The device supports up to 10 printers, and retails for $149.95. It’s a great option for small businesses that want to quickly and easily make their existing printers available to employee devices.

Prizm Stand $24.95

The Prizm series of iPhone and iPad stands from Hub Innovations is another simple, elegant product. The stand is made up of two metal pieces that come together to hold your iOS device in place while charging or just on display. Starting at $24.95, they come in a variety of colors and can be custom engraved.

I liked that these stands didn’t suffer from the feature bloat or bling overload of most other accessories at the show. This is the type of holder you’d use at home or at your business to frame your iPad with style and without stealing the focus of what’s on the iPad screen. In fact, the metal can be engraved with company information to help provide a custom branding solution. They were at hit with show-goers, so it stands to reason they’d succeed with customers and clients, too.

Wormhole Switch $39.95

One of the few non-iOS focused innovations at the show was the Wormhole Switch by j5create. This product uses an attached of USB connectors to not only control another computer’s keyboard and mouse, but also transport data between computers while avoiding the network entirely.

Even the fastest broadband networks can’t match raw USB speeds, and anyone who’s transferred a large file over a home network knows how much it slows things down. While other USB-direct connect options exist, this product makes it easy for even novices to set up, with software that loads directly from the device.

At a reasonable price of $39.95, the time you’ll save waiting for files to transfer is well worth the cost.

iKeep Charger $49.99

The iKeep Charger is a combination iPhone and micro USB charger conveniently connected to a retractable cord with a carabiner hook for clipping onto a bag, belt loop, etc. The AC plug folds invisibly into the unit, making it easy to quickly charge your iPhone or other devices while on the go without adding bulk. Unlike the iPhone’s stark black and white options, the iKeep Charger comes in eight different colors to match your outfits, or simply your personal taste.

There are my top picks from the show. What stood ou to you? Let us know in the comments.

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Update: On Monday Apple number cruncher extraordinaire Horace Dediu at Asymco put together some charts showing how Apple’s R&D spending trends. While Apple spent $758 million on R&D during the first fiscal quarter of 2012, it’s a very tiny sliver of the company’s overall sales, which were $46.3 billion. What’s most interesting to me is how Apple’s R&D spending as a percentage of overall sales ranks among the industry heavyweights. While $758 million is a lot of money, it’s lags behind the $2.3 billion Microsoft spent on research and development during the same quarter, and Google’s $1.3 billion.

Here’s a chart showing how Apple ranks among its tech industry peers:

Credit: Asymco

Apple sits right below Hewlett-Packard and just above Dell — two companies that haven’t produced anything truly interesting in the consumer realm in years. And it is far below the often innovation-challenged behemoths Microsoft, Nokia, RIM and others.

The takeaway is this: Bloated bureaucracies spend a lot of money on innovation and occasionally make something new and interesting. Steve Jobs’ insistence on maintaining a startup mentality within Apple (even with 30,000+ corporate employees) and the company’s ability to only focus on a few things at a time mean Apple can spend less and get much more for its investment.

Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr user kenteegardin

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Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents was in attendance at the court’s announcement of the ruling on Friday and said that Judge Andreas Voss didn’t specify any particular reason for the decision. The first ruling against Samsung last week also didn’t include a reason. Mueller said at that time that the reasons could either be that Apple had been found not to infringe the patent or that Samsung’s rights in exerting the patent had been deemed exhausted, which would result in Apple’s being granted a license by default. The same reasons could also be applied to Friday’s ruling.

For Samsung, this is definitely a setback, but it isn’t the end of the road; the company still has three other 3G/UMTS patents at issue in separate complaints filed with the Mannheim court. As long as the reasons behind the dismissals of these two lawsuits aren’t somehow related to all the patents in question, it could still claim a victory on one or more of those remaining.

Samsung could also still appeal the decision, and given that it, like Apple, posted record earnings for its most recently completed quarter, there is no financial barrier preventing it from doing so. With two companies at the top of their game slugging it out in the legal arena, there is little incentive for either to stop.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook said during his company’s recent earnings call that iPad sales haven’t really been affected by the Amazon Kindle Fire, which is no doubt contributing heavily to the success of Android tablets. It’s also likely the Barnes & Noble Nook Color and Nook Tablet are included in the Android figures. Instead, Cook admitted the iPad has had some cannibalization effect on sales of Macs, and he predicted that one day, the tablet market will be larger in volume than the PC market.

Compared to Android, Apple still has a dominant position in the tablet market, with a 57.6-percent share compared to Android’s 39.1 percent, according to Strategy Analytics’ most recent numbers. In terms of year-over-year growth, the tablet space has grown by 150 percent between the end of 2010 and 2011. In other words, even if shares were more evenly split, the iPad would still be seeing big gains in unit sales.

The PC market, on the other hand, contracted by around six percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to research firm Gartner. That’s despite 20 percent growth by Apple’s own Mac line of computers. Kevin Tofel recently pointed out here on GigaOM that half of computing device sales are now mobile. If the trend of growing tablet and smartphone sales continue, and PC sales continue to decline, we’ll soon be in a position where mobiles are considered a primary device by the majority of users.

Apple will continue to sell iPads. A new refresh expected in the coming months might even help it turn the tide of slipping market share, since while the low-cost Kindle Fire may be a success, other Android tablet makers still seem to be having a hard time putting out a product consumers can get genuinely excited about. Kevin wrote last week about how Android 4.0, while it improves the Android tablet experience, still has a lot of glaring pain points. Also, Android’s tablet-specific app library lags considerably behind Apple’s, and isn’t catching up anywhere near as fast as the market on the smartphone side.

The companies putting out Android tablets that fail to achieve the Kindle Fire’s level of success are the same ones being hurt by the slowing PC market, and they’re the ones that stand to lose the most. Amazon’s Kindle fire has reportedly sold as many as 6 million units through the end of 2011, according to estimates, which would make it the world’s best-selling Android tablet.

Apple continues to appeal to a steadily growing audience of tablet users, but Amazon is answering the call of those who were happier buying bargain-priced netbooks for their basic computing needs, rather than spending more on an iPad. That’s the market PC makers should have been trying to retain with their own tablet efforts, and also the one Amazon has positioned itself best to appeal to.

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Enterprise mobile security provider Good Technology on Wednesday released its quarterly data report for the fourth quarter of 2011. The report detailed the progress of iOS and Android devices in enterprise activations among its customers, which include half the companies on the Fortune 100, among others. Apple’s iPhone 4S was the big winner of the quarter, nabbing the top spot as the most-activated device, followed by the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively.

Credit: Good Technology

The 4S represented 31 percent of all device activations counted during the quarter, nearly matching the total for all Android handsets, which accounted for 35 percent of all smartphone activations. Apple’s iPad 2 and iPad together accounted for 94 percent of all tablet activations.

Much like we’ve seen with new consumer device purchases, the release of Apple’s iPhone 4S in October began the reversal of a trend in which new Android activations were approaching Apple’s numbers, as you can see in the chart below. From October to December, Good saw a steady monthly increase in the percentage of iOS activations, matched by a decrease in Android device activations. Good says bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies likely had a strong impact on Apple’s enterprise success with the iPhone 4S.

Credit: Good Technology

A new phone from Apple was bound to incite a buying spree, but the numbers have remained strong in the months following launch. It will be interesting to see if the trend of growth continues, both in the consumer and enterprise markets, now that the 4S has been on the market for some time.

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Demand for the iPhone 4S helped Apple’s U.S. share of the smartphone market climb to 44.9 percent in the last quarter of 2011, Kantar said, doubling from the same period a year ago and gaining a very slight edge over Google’s platform. Android slipped to 44.8 percent from 50 percent during the quarter.

Apple’s success isn’t isolated to the U.S., either. Dominic Sunnebo, Kantar’s global consumer insight director told Reuters, ”overall, Apple sales are now growing faster than Android across the nine countries we cover,” which include the U.S., U.K., Australia, Brazil and Mexico, among others.

Other research firms have recently released data suggesting that iOS was rapidly closing the distance with its Android smartphone rivals. The NPD Group and Nielsen  both released their own studies earlier this month that showed iOS trailing Android slightly in the U.S. smartphone race, but Kantar’s is the first to put Apple on top.

In the U.K., Apple grew its share from 34 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to 22 percent for the same period in 2010. And while Apple grew most quickly in the countries covered, Kantar is quick to point out smartphones are experiencing strong growth in all the areas tested, meaning while Android may have dropped market share in some locations, that doesn’t necessarily translate to a drop in sales.

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Notably, this dominance of the field has continued even as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as a handful of other companies, have poured into this market to sell tablets. Still, none have been able to dislodge Apple’s tight grip on consumers’ demonstrated preference here. And CEO Tim Cook basically dismissed Amazon and its Kindle Fire (and others) as true competitors. Here’s what Cook said on Tuesday during the earnings call for one of the company’s best quarters ever:

I think people really want to do multiple things with their tablets, so we don’t see limited-function tablets and e-readers as being in the same category. They’ll sell a fair number of units but people who want an iPad won’t settle for limited function.

Last year was supposed to be the year of the tablet … but most people would agree it was the year of the iPad, for the second year in a row. And we’re going to continue to innovate like crazy.

Data from Pew Research found that during December that both e-readers and tablet ownership nearly doubled, so clearly some people want e-readers. And sales estimates indicate Amazon, whose Kindle Fire is significantly cheaper than the iPad, may have sold around 5 million Kindle Fires between October and December 2011.

Not only is Apple’s tablet outselling all other competitors in its market, it’s taking down devices outside tablets too. On the call, Cook also noted that per NPD data, the iPad outsold desktop PCs last quarter. He also repeated, as he has for the past few quarters, that he does see the iPad taking away sales that would otherwise go to Macs as well. And he’s OK with that:

There is cannibalization of the Mac by the iPad but we continue to believe there is much more cannibalization of Windows PCs by the iPad. We love that trend, we think it’s great for us.

With growth among consumers, education (Apple sold 1.5 million iPads to schools last year, which was more than the number of Macs sold to schools), airlines, healthcare companies and a growing list of large enterprise companies in almost every field, Apple has very clearly covered its bases early, making it hard for competitors to beat it in any particular target market.

So can anyone loosen Apple’s grip on tablets? The company’s momentum here doesn’t look like it’s about to diminish any time soon. And let’s not forget it’s very likely that a new iPad model is just around the corner.

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