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iPad 2 still going strong: Makes up 60 percent of iPad web traffic in the U.S.

Erica Ogg — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 16:16:31 +0000

Though the new iPad continues to break tablet sales records for Apple, some new data from Chitika Insights shows that here in the U.S., last year’s iPad model remains incredibly popular. In a report shared with GigaOM on Friday, Chitika says that based on data gathered from its extensive ad network in the U.S., web traffic coming from the new iPad accounts for about 18 percent of all iPad traffic, while 60 percent still comes from the iPad 2.

Chitika think that’s a sign that people are holding back on upgrading to the new iPad, and points to “the perceived minute differences between the iPad 2 and iPad 3, discouraging users of older iPads to upgrade.”

But, Apple sold 17 million iPads this past quarter, a record for the company, and Apple CEO Tim Cook specifically said that the most popular iPad sold was the lastest, third-generation iPad. There is a data discrepancy here, however: Chitika is talking about web traffic from iPads in the U.S. only, and Cook is talking about global sales.

I think this can also be explained by how important the iPad 2′s discount, starting in March, has been to that model’s success here in the U.S. Discounting the iPad 2 by $100 to $399 was smart for a couple of reasons. Yes, it put the iPad in the hands of more consumers who weren’t excited about spending $500 on an iPad, but it’s also opened the floodgates for schools to be able to buy them for students. (And that coincided with a bigger push from Apple in general toward education apps and books.)

Apple said last week that between April and June this year, it sold 1 million iPads to schools — a quarterly record for the company. It has had a record-breaking quarter for Mac sales to schools, yet it sold twice as many iPads as it did Macs.

On the company’s earnings call with investors, Cook said pricing was a big part of the iPad 2′s success last quarter: ”We priced the iPad 2 to $399 and did very well but, the most popular iPad is the new iPad. But iPad 2 was key in the K-12 area. We have been very aggressive in this space and I don’t see changing that.”

Apple’s very savvy about how it prices its products and simultaneously squeezes profits out of them. Its success with the iPad 2 even since the introduction of the brand new iPad shows that. That’s why this fall is going to be so very interesting in the tablet world. With Google, Microsoft and Amazon undercutting or trying to undercut the iPad on price with smaller but compelling tablets, Apple’s decision on how to price the still-rumored smaller iPad is going to have a significant impact. Not only on its competitors, but on its own profits as well.

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Usage stats show the new iPad is more business-like

Erica Ogg — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 13:27:19 +0000

Since the first iPad arrived in 2010, usage of Apple’s tablet has been mostly concentrated on browsing the web, checking email, using apps, playing games and reading. But a subtle change took place with the release of the third-generation iPad this year: buyers of the new iPad are more likely than ever to use it for work, according to a new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners published Thursday.

In the four months since the new iPad went on sale, usage has increased across most categories that CIRP tracks: using the iPad for social networking, web browsing, and apps, but no category of usage saw a bigger bump than business.

According to CIRP’s research, 21 percent of owners of the new iPad say they use it in a work situation, which is more than the 13 percent of all iPad owners who say the same. Social network use is also more common with the new iPad owners, with 16 percent reporting they use the new tablet for that activity, compared to 11 percent of all iPad owners.

Source: Consumer Intelligence Research Partners

Of course, there’s nothing inherently more “business-like” about the iPad hardware itself — the main upgrades to the new iPad are a 4G connectivity option, a faster processor and a Retina display. Sure, those features can be useful for professionals. But this is really a function of better software. iOS app makers are increasingly embracing the iPad and delivering apps that cater to businesses and professionals — in the last year, there have been hundreds of new apps released for conducting meetings, collaboration, creating reports, gathering data (subscription required) and keeping tabs on the stock market.

Plus, enterprise BYOD is a very real thing, and businesses have started to embrace it. So, as IT budgets have been opened to buying iPads, and people find more apps that make the iPad actually useful as a business tool, it’s easy to see why the latest iPad is finding a home at work.

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China gets the new iPad on July 20

Erica Ogg — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 13:02:34 +0000

That was fast. Just weeks after settling the dispute over iPad trademark rights in China, Apple is set to sell its latest iPad device in the country. The new iPad will be available for sale in China starting July 20, Apple announced Tuesday.

The latest iPad model, with Retina display and option for cellular connectivity, will sell for the equivalent U.S. prices in China. It will be available from Apple online and from its six retail stores, as well as other authorized resellers.

The pre-order process will be a bit different than previous device launches. Apple is inviting customers to come to its stores in the country to make a reservation during a three-hour period, between 9 a.m. and noon starting Thursday, July 19. All reserved iPads can then be picked up the next day. Apple is clearly looking to avoid the chaos that has engulfed previous device launches at its stores in the country, like the iPhone 4S launch in January — lines became very long and near riots broke out, forcing Apple to call in local authorities and close down stores.

Apple had been entangled in a dispute over rights to the iPad name with Proview, the company that originally sold Apple the global trademark in late 2009. Last year Proview said that Apple didn’t properly purchase the rights to use the name in China. After almost a year of court battles, Apple settled with Proview for $60 million last week.

That decision to settle, while it could already be inviting additional trademark and copyright lawsuits in the country, clearly was the quickest path forward to getting the device on stores shelves in China.

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Apple inching closer to selling new iPad in China?

Erica Ogg — Wed, 30 May 2012 16:10:34 +0000

Apple on Wednesday cleared a regulatory hurdle in China for selling a 3G device in the country. But what is it?

The Wall Street Journal reports:

According to the website of China’s Telecommunication Equipment Certification Center, an Apple device with third-generation, or 3G, data capabilities has been issued the license needed for the company to begin sales in China.

The device would be compatible with the network of China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd., Apple’s longtime partner in releasing its popular iPhone and iPad devices. The notice on the website didn’t name the device, listed as “model number A1430.”

Apple, of course, makes its products in China and sells a whole lot of them there, including the latest iPhone and older versions of the iPad. But while the newest model iPad is on store shelves in 56 countries since debuting in March, China has been a glaring holdout.

In late March a Wi-Fi-only version of the device was approved by Chinese regulators, but it never went on sale. And it likely has a lot to do with Apple’s ongoing battle with Proview, the Taiwanese company that claims it owns the iPad trademark in China. The two sides have flirted with settling, but there has been no resolution to the dispute. But this latest approval could mean the pieces will be in place should it eventually be resolved.

Apple has to find a resolution to the situation — not only China is key to Apple’s ability to make its products as efficiently as possible, it is perhaps more so to growing its product sales in the highly populous nation. As of April estimates showed that there were 21 million iPhones and iPads being used in China, but because of the enormous growth prospects, it is considered by the company to be its most important market after North America.

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New U.S. iPad activations move inland

Erica Ogg — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:00:40 +0000

Two months after the new iPad’s debut in the U.S, a study shows that the device is beginning to appear in a wider geographic footprint beyond mainly wealthier, coastal states. Last month Apple’s new iPad accounted for 9 percent of all iPad activations, and this month it’s up to 13.5 percent, according to new data from Chitika Insights published Thursday.

Similar to last month, Hawaii and California lead in new iPad activations, accounting for nearly 18 and 16 percent, respectively. But Nebraska is a surprise No. 3. A big part of that isn’t due to your regular gadget consumers, but one of the state’s public education initiatives, which includes a 1-to-1 iPad program for students, according to the report.

You can see the other top seven states (and a district) for new iPad activations in May in the chart below:

Credit: Chitika Insights

But it’s not just Nebraska. There are other mainly rural — and less populated — states whose citizens are also scooping up the latest iPad. According to Chitika:

Nebraska’s adoption numbers in this second month, in addition to high adoption rates in states like Virginia, West Virginia and Alabama, indicate that rural states cannot be broadly labeled as technology laggards. Those residents are now pushing technology trends, often in greater numbers than their East and West-coast counterparts, rather than following them.

This kind of trend is exactly what needs to happen for Apple to continue to grow its customer base. The company can’t just sell new iPhones and iPads every year or every other year to the same early adopter types. By expanding through new industries — education, healthcare, transportation, etc. — the iPad is bringing Apple as a company into new territories that the Mac, at least at this stage in its life, never could.

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Where in the U.S. is the new iPad? Rich, coastal states

Erica Ogg — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:05:19 +0000

Apple sold 3 million new iPads the first weekend they went on sale in March, and has probably sold a few million more since then. So who are these people that pre-order or wait in line outside a store to be the first people to show off their shiny new device to their friends and family? Online advertising network Chitika has tracked where new iPads are being activated and has surfaced some interesting demographic data as to where these early third-generation iPad adopters live within in Apple’s largest market, the U.S.

The short answer is: mostly coastal states. In its Chitika Insights report, the company says it combined its own data showing new iPad activations — which currently account for 9 percent of all iPad traffic on its ad network — with U.S. Census bureau data. It found:

The top five areas with the most newly activated iPad traffic are California, Hawaii, Nevada, Washington D.C. and Washington state.
Those states (and district) — not coincidentally — are considered states of high median income levels, according to census data.
By categorizing them in categories of either “coastal” or “inland,” Chitika learned that residents of coastal states are ~~purchasing~~ activating new iPads at a higher rate than their inland brethren.
The median income in coastal states is 10 percent higher than that of inland states.

The conclusion, that people with more money are the ones rushing out the door to buy the latest tablet tech from Apple, isn’t that surprising. Obviously people who have extra discretionary spending money lying around can afford to buy gadgets that go for a minimum of $500.

Interestingly, this data pretty much mirrors what we learned about Apple’s customers in its second-largest market, China. Last week a research firm counted up the owners of all 21 million iPads and iPhones in China and found the highest concentration of those devices were in the country’s rich, coastal, heavily industrialized areas.

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New iPad overcomes last year’s supply chain woes

Erica Ogg — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:03:34 +0000

On its third turn doing a global iPad roll out, Apple seems to have its supply chain humming along nicely this year. The new iPad, which is already for sale in 35 countries as of today, will be showing up on shelves in 12 new countries this Friday, Apple announced Monday. And by the following Friday, it’ll arrive in nine more countries, for a total of 56 in about six weeks.

The fast roll out stands in contrast to 2011, when the iPad had hit just 39 countries in about five weeks. Besides the fact that Foxconn, Apple’s chief contract manufacturer was struggling to hire enough people to get iPads put together and out the door, there were also supply chain constraints for much of the global electronics industry last spring as a result of the Japan earthquake.

Though Apple’s website shows new orders still take about one to two weeks to deliver, the rollout goes on. Those new countries, by the way, are: Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, St Maarten, South Korea, Uruguay, Venezuela, Colombia, Estonia, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa and Thailand.

One of Apple’s most important markets still has yet to see the new iPad in stores: China. Several weeks ago, official certification documents surfaced indicating that the Wi-Fi-only version of Apple’s latest tablet was closer to being cleared for sale in the country.

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Readdle’s Scanner Pro jumps to iPad with improved camera

Erica Ogg — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:00:04 +0000

One of the most popular productivity apps on the iPhone is finally making the jump to the iPad. Scanner Pro, from the team at Odessa, Ukraine-based Readdle, is now available in the iOS App Store as a universal app. Scanner Pro, which scans and coverts images to PDF files, is a free upgrade for those who already own the iPhone version, but will cost $6.99 for new customers who want it for the iPad.

The app was introduced for Apple’s iPhone two years ago, and since then has seen more than 350,000 downloads and a long run at the top of Apple’s business/productivity app charts. So why debut on the iPad now? Apple finally made a tablet with the necessary hardware, says Denys Zhadanov, Readdle’s marketing manager.

“We tried [to test the app] with the iPad 2, but the results were beyond terrible,” said Zhadanov in an interview. “You just couldn’t read anything. The new iPad finally has good camera.”

But the new iPad’s 5 megapixel camera isn’t the only thing that makes this version of Scanner Pro different. Readdle says they took the opportunity to totally revamp the app — “every screen, every tap, every button. Nothing left intact – every idea and every feature had to prove its value for the iPad update.”The app is very simple and straightforward, so it’s no secret why it’s been so popular, even on a small screen. When you want to scan a document, book or magazine page, business card, white board from a meeting, or anything else you want to import or save in digital form, you open the app and hit the camera button. The app scans the image instantly. It will automatically find the right borders of your scan and crop out the stuff you don’t need, though you can manually fix if you need to. After tweaking the contrast and the brightness if necessary, you can save it to your iPad (as a JPEG or PDF) in Photos, iBooks or the Kindle app, send as an email, print, fax or upload it to your Google Docs, Dropbox or Evernote account.

A receipt I scanned with Scanner Pro and marked up with Remarks, both iPad apps from Readdle.

The most noticeable improvement in usability, however, might be its speed: Zhadanov says the reworked app scans 10 times faster than before.

Scanner Pro has added value because it’s not just a standalone app. Not only does it integrate with popular third-party apps and services like Dropbox and Evernote, but also hooks into Readdle’s own cluster of well-regarded iPad-based productivity apps like PDF Expert, Remarks and Printer Pro. Once you’ve got your PDF saved to your iPad through Scanner Pro, you can open it with PDF Expert and if it’s a contract, document or a form, you can sign or fill it out right on the iPad, mark it up in note-taking and annotation app Remarks or print it to any Wi-Fi-connected or networked printer with Printer Pro.

Readdle’s well-executed third-party integration and its own iOS-based ecosystem is yet another strong case for the integration of mobile, hyper-connected devices into work flows: the learning curve and barrier to entry are both incredibly low now. And that this is all coming together on the iPad first reinforces the Apple tablet’s importance in nudging businesses into the post-PC world.

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Why nTelos gets the iPhone but T-Mobile must wait

Kevin Fitchard — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:43:17 +0000

Updated. Apple has a new U.S. carrier partner for the iPhone, and once again, it’s not T-Mobile. Nor is it MetroPCS, Cricket or any of the large regional operators in the country. Instead it’s nTelos, a carrier with only 400,000 customers in Virginia, West Virginia and portions of the surrounding states.

Apple isn’t snubbing T-Mobile or other regional operators here. It’s merely following the path of least resistance. NTelos’s CDMA 1X and EV-DO use the exact same frequency configurations as Verizon Wireless’s and Sprint’s networks, as does the network run by C Spire, the first small operator to land the iPhone.

Several other media outlets have reported that there are no technical reasons Apple can’t offer T-Mobile an iPhone 4S. That’s true, but there is one big practical reason: Apple would have to add support for T-Mobile’s HSPA+ wireless frequencies if the device was to have more than just bare-bones 2G data connectivity. As we have pointed out before, adding new bands to the iPhone is much harder than it sounds, and building a specific variant of the iPhone for a single carrier is something Apple has been so far unwilling to do.

Things will change as Apple adds LTE to its smartphones. There is so much fragmentation in the LTE airwaves that Apple may be forced to design multiple versions of the iPhone to target different markets and even specific carriers. The two versions of the new 4G iPad were essentially custom-designed for AT&T’s and Verizon’s LTE networks. Furthermore, once T-Mobile completes its own LTE network in 2013, its 4G bands will match up with those of Verizon, AT&T and the Canadian operators. That means any iPhone working on AT&T’s network will work on T-Mobile’s.

C Spire and nTelos may not be so lucky when it comes to that same 4G iPhone. The same forces that work in T-Mobile’s favor will conspire against the smaller carriers. Today they benefit from the fact that to Apple devices their networks look just like Verizon’s. When LTE arrives, that advantage goes away.

NTelos will begin selling the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S on April 20, offering the former for as cheaply as $50 and the 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB versions of the 4S for $150, $250 and $350, respectively — all with two-year contracts. NTelos will offer two iPhone plans that cost $80 and $100, which vary voice usage, but both include substantial data buckets, 5 GB, but if customers exceed that cap their speeds will be throttled.

Update: Another tiny regional carrier also announced Wednesday it will begin offering the iPhone. Alaska Communications’ roughly 100,000 customers can buy an iPhone 4S through the carrier starting April 20.

Update 2: It looks like Apple is planning to roll out the iPhone with a wave of new operators later this month. MacRumors has dug three more: GCI in Alaska, Appalachian Wireless in Kentucky and CellCom in Wisconsin.

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How to use fancy gestures on the iPad (and why you should)

Kevin C. Tofel — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 18:40:40 +0000

At the beginning of last year, Apple added iPad gesture controls in iOS 4.3 as a developer option. And with the debut of iOS 5 in October of last year, Apple made these multi-finger gestures official. Since then, however, I really haven’t seen the company promote this functionality the way it does for its laptop trackpads.

However, after two weeks with my new iPad, I’m suddenly taking advantage of these gesture functions like never before. In fact, I can think of only three instances that I even need to hit the home button anymore: Waking the device, grabbing a screen shot and getting out of the mode that lets you delete or move apps around.

Gone is the hardware button double-tap to switch back and forth between apps. No more pressing the button to return to the home screen either. After rediscovering these gestures and then making them part of my navigation workflow, I’m getting around the iOS environment far faster on my iPad. Here’s a summary of the multi-finger gestures currently available for iPad navigation; aside from the standard two-finger pinching and double-tap to zoom functions.

Five-finger pinch: Here you just “grab” the screen at any point to get back to the Home screen. It’s quick, fast and simple.

Four-finger swipe up: Want to see the multitasking bar, showing you the most recently used apps? This gesture replaces the double-tap of the Home button. You can pick a different app here or simply swipe four fingers back down to hide the multitasking bar.

Four-finger swipe left / right: Thanks to this gesture, I actually don’t use the multitasking bar much, if at all, anymore. By swiping four fingers left or right, the iPad quickly moves you through your running and most recently used apps. I strategically open my most used apps one after another, so I can quickly swipe between Mail, Safari, and the Kindle app for example.

A few extra hints and helpers

First, you have to make sure that gestures are turned on for your iPad. Look in Settings, General, Multitasking Gestures to set the slider to On if needed.

Second, you can actually remove an app from your multitasking bar with gestures, although you can’t remove an app from the Home screens without the Home button. To do this, use the four-finger swipe up to show the currently running and recently used apps.

Then tap and hold on any of these apps to get into editing mode. Tap the upper left badge — the red minus sign — on any app or apps you want to remove. When done, simply do a four-finger swipe down to hide the multitasking bar and the selected apps are gone!

Again, these gestures first appeared over a year ago and you could have enabled them by a little bit of tweaking effort and a $5 download. But they’re the real deal now and after embracing them these past two weeks, I find the iPad much simpler, intuitive and quicker to use all around.

Maybe I’m just slow to the multi-finger gesture game though. Let me know if you’re using them in this simple little poll as I’m wondering if these gestures are a type of hidden function that some iPad owners don’t know about.

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