Late Monday night, Skype for iPad finally went live in the U.S. App Store, but only temporarily. We managed to grab the app before it disappeared (you can still find it in some international stores), and here’s what you can expect now that it has returned. Read more »
The nation’s top two carriers managed to add 3.4 million new subscribers in the second quarter of 2011 in an almost-saturated mobile market. For that, they should thank your car, your iPad and whatever other connected device you might have floating around. Read more »
It’s been 14 months since Apple’s iPad debuted, and competitors have finally delivered on their tablet promises. But which is best for you? Based on my experience with all of the tablet platforms, this summary of device and platforms pros and cons can help you decide. Read more »
After returning from a Vegas vacation, I found one last jackpot on my doorstep: An HP Touchpad and Touchstone wireless charging dock. I’ve only just started looking at these review units, but see much to like. But will consumers wait for webOS apps on the Touchpad? Read more »
The town of Cornelius, Colo. has found that a new pilot program replacing paper with iPads is saving the administration money and time, helping the environment and increasing government transparency. It’s a good example of how the iPad could replace laptops for many organizations. Read more »
After watching other hardware makers launch Google Honeycomb tablets, Toshiba’s take is ready. The Thrive ships next month but can be pre-ordered starting today. At $429, you only get 8 GB of internal storage, but a full-sized USB port and memory card slot can expand memory. Read more »
Sprint stores will begin carrying a 3-D smartphone and a 7-inch tablet on June 24, both of which run Google Android and use the operator’s WiMAX network. The $199 HTC Evo 3D boasts two camera sensors to create 3-D images which can be seen without glasses. Read more »
Companies worldwide are incorporating mobile technology and applications into their operations to increase productivity and revenue and reduce paperwork. This explosion in the use of mobile devices in the enterprise will help to fuel demand for mobile apps, as this infographic shows. Read more »
At $449, Acer’s Iconia Tab A500 is among the least expensive Honeycomb tablets available today. Dropping the 3G radio and limiting internal storage help keep the price down, but at 1.69 pounds, the tablet’s weight is on the upside. How is this device for the price? Read more »
iOS may have been passed by Android once and for all in terms of device activations, but Apple is still winning in the enterprise market, according to Microsoft Exchange hosting provider Intermedia. The iPad is the biggest contributor to that ongoing success. Read more »
Google distributed some 5,000 Samsung Galaxy 10.1 Tablets to attendees of the sold-out Google I/O 2011 developer conference, and GigaOM was in the house for the freebie. Since the device won’t debut publicly until June 8th, we filmed our hands-on unboxing of the new Tab. Read more »
I returned my Nook Color within the 14-day window and later saw this video of the device running Android 2.3, or Gingerbread. The custom software turns the $249 e-reader into a useful tablet provided you don’t mind using software to work around some hardware button issues. Read more »
Intel has managed to keep pushing Moore’s Law by developing a 3-D transistor that allows the chipmaker to deliver ever smaller chips that will be more powerful, yet consume less energy. The new chip moves Intel ahead of the industry and positions it competitively against ARM. Read more »
The mobile landscape is entering a new, consolidation phase as late-comers are banding together to fight against Apple and Google. The latest loose alliance is between Microsoft and RIM as Bing will be integrated as the default search and map engine for future BlackBerry products. Read more »
Quanta has reportedly received orders to build up to 800,000 Amazon tablets per month. Only Quanta knows what Amazon’s new tablet will physically look like, but it’s easy to see how such a device might be used and how it can stand out from the crowd. Read more »
Research In Motion’s new Bold brings an updated operating system and several hardware improvements to help BlackBerry sales keep pace with competitors. But the handsets are still a stepping-stone because neither uses the new QNX platform yet. The PlayBook gains video chat and a Facebook app. Read more »
OnSwipe founder and CEO Jason Baptiste says apps are good for some things, but when it comes to publishing content, “they suck.” So the startup gives publishers the same features as an app, but using the web — and it wants to do that for advertisers too. Read more »
The iPad 2 is coming to 12 more countries this week, and China next Friday, according to Apple. New countries getting the second-generation Apple tablet include Japan on Thursday, April 28 and Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and eight other countries on Friday, April 29. Read more »
Amazon is giving Verizon Android customers $25 worth of app credits in its new app store. The deal signals how serious Amazon is taking its app store and how the company is filling out an ecosystem that could become the basis for a tablet platform. Read more »
Friends were skeptical when E la Carte founder Rajat Suri dropped out of MIT to become a waiter — for research. Two years, later, his startup seeks to tame the “chaotic environment” of a restaurant with features designed to streamline tasks for customers and staff. Read more »
T-Mobile’s G-Slate, the newest Google Honeycomb tablet, arrives April 20 for $529. The 8.9-inch tablet sits squarely in between the size of Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab. Is there room for such a slate, even if it offers both 3-D video and 4G mobile broadband? Read more »
Adobe today unveiled Photoshop Touch, a new SDK that will allow Adobe and third-party mobile apps to interact with the desktop version of Photoshop CS5 in real time. It looks poised to shake up how we think about the relationship between tablets and computers. Read more »
Kno Inc. scrapped its plans to make a signature tablet device and announced a new, singular focus as an educational software company. Although Kno CEO Osman Rashid told me he’s “extremely excited” about the new direction, he was pretty mum on the details. Read more »
A new survey conducted by Google-owned mobile ad company AdMob breaks down how people are using their tablets, which at least so far, in most cases means the iPad. The survey’s nearly 1,500 respondents revealed some interesting trends regarding tablet usage. Read more »
Speaking at a event yesterday in Santa Clara, CA, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said that the “iPad is for the normal people of the world,” not necessarily the tech savvy crowd he was addressing. Wozniak’s statement has the ring of truth, but is it really accurate? Read more »
Consumer Reports has released its rundown of the top 10 tablets, and while it says there’s some competition brewing, Apple still wins in terms of both quality and price. Consumer Reports does a good job of pointing to little details that illustrate why that is. Read more »
While Apple announcing Flash for iOS or a 7-inch iPad might make for humorous copy on April Fools’ Day, truth can be just as entertaining. Here’s a look at some of the more off-the-mark statements made recently about Apple’s ongoing tablet success. Read more »
The iPad 2 is still hard to get, both in the U.S. and in other countries where it has launched internationally. Luckily for would-be buyers, Apple is taking steps to boost its existing supply chain, so that more iPads can reach more people. Read more »
Apperian, maker of a platform that helps companies build enterprise mobile apps, today announced it has closed $9.5 million in VC funding. The company is hoping to take advantage of an enterprise mobility boom, with an increasing number of firms equipping staff with mobile devices Read more »
E-book device makers are increasingly looking to get into the tablet market for a few reasons: more control over the experience and revenues from apps are two big reasons. Ironically, this is move back to where e-books all started more than 10 years ago. Read more »
Research In Motion’s PlayBook Wi-Fi tablet is available for pre-order at the same pricing as Apple’s iPad 2. The device arrives on April 19 at more than two dozen online and brick-and-mortar retailers. That answers some questions, but others about the device still remain. Read more »
Most business users have simply had enough of dealing with outdated equipment supplied by slow-to-act IT departments, and for a very affordable price, are starting to fund their own IT revolution by bringing their new iPads to the workplace. Here’s how you can do the same. Read more »
Mobile technology, and the easy access to information it provides, is the next major disruption to education. If teachers can take advantage of it, they can teach not only the potential of mobile learning but also the benefit of education everywhere. Read more »
Research firm DisplaySearch predicts that Apple will continue to control the tablet market until 2013, and the tablet segment will continue to see rapid growth overall. But might Apple’s dominance in this space be of an even longer-lasting variety? Read more »
The iPad 2 is here, and a couple of us here at GigaOM have had the opportunity to put the new tablet through its paces over the course of the weekend. Check out our thoughts and the iPad doing its thing on video. Read more »
If you haven’t got an iPad 2 yet, but you want one, then check with your local Apple Store to see if they plan on opening early tomorrow in anticipation of a new batch of shipments. Many locations are opening an hour early with fresh stock. Read more »
If you thought the original iPad was doing well in business, the iPad 2 promises to do even better, adding new features, such as built-in cameras for video conferencing, that should prove to be very attractive to companies with distributed teams. Read more »
The iPad and smartphones are ushering in a post-PC age. Regardless of whether you think we’re already living in the post-PC era, or just standing on its cusp, there are steps that businesses with distributed workforces should take now to ensure they won’t be left behind. Read more »
China’s Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) released stats Monday showing that the nation of 1.3 billion now has 457 million broadband users, more than the U.S., Mexico and Canada combined. The growth of China’s web is both a challenge and an opportunity for tech entrepreneurs. Read more »
Do Lenovo, HP, Dell, Acer and Toshiba grasp that the future of the world is mobile? If they don’t, PC sales numbers ought to clue them in: 93.4 million computers were sold in 2010, which may not be as high as the growing number of smartphones. Read more »
