We have seen many interesting wrist watches with all sorts of unique features, the latest comes from well known company Citizen where in Japan they have just released two models of bluetooth watches that are part of the Virt M series.
Motorola Xoom as a test for life beyond the iPad
Is the iPad a one-hit wonder or will the tablet market take off broadly in 2011? That's the question Motorola's Xoom tablet will likely answer.
And this broader market, of course, includes Hewlett-Packard's WebOS tablet and RIM's PlayBook, among others. But Motorola's Xoom stands as the biggest potential consumer rival to the iPad 2 because Motorola is a first-tier supplier that has already competed mightily against Apple in the smartphone market (think Droid) and, more importantly, packs in plenty of eagerly awaited goodies, including: Google's Android Honeycomb operating system for tablets, a powerful dual-core processor, a high-resolution (1,280x800) display, dual cameras, and lest we forget, the Verizon 3G (and soon-to-come 4G) network.
That said, tucked into a research note I received on Friday from Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Rodman & Renshaw, was this morsel: "The magnitude of tablet opportunity beyond Apple is unclear." And he also writes that "we believe that iPad volumes in the current quarter will dry up ahead of the iPad 2 launch."
So, will we see long lines at Verizon stores the day of launch, like the iPad? Or has the tablet novelty worn off enough that it's not a line-forming impulse-buy anymore? And/or is it principally a phenomenon linked to the cachet of Apple products?
Based on my own experience, I believe that the media tablet is more than a one-hit wonder. The sheer utility of my iPad has cut my laptop use almost in half, as I've written before. (And the iPad trumps my iPhone too, in a number of respects, like mapping.)
So, what kind of numbers do we need to see? Considering that the market is still nascent, that's a tough call. Kumar said that Apple shipped between 6 and 7 million iPads in the most recent quarter, "with the lower end (Wi-Fi) dominating the mix." With Apple as the high-water mark, we can't expect those kinds of numbers from Motorola initially.
Asia-based rumors claim Motorola is aiming to ship as many as 800,000 out of the gate and RIM a bit more. Those would be healthy numbers.
And Motorola appears to be doing all it can do to make interesting accessories, too--like this speaker dock and Bluetooth keyboard, among other add-ons.
Who knows, the tablet, in one form or another, could eventually make the laptop obsolete. That would result in huge, market-upending numbers. But I'll leave that highly-speculative analysis for next year.
Motorola's Xoom may determine how real the broader tablet market is.
(Credit: Motorola)That said, tucked into a research note I received on Friday from Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Rodman & Renshaw, was this morsel: "The magnitude of tablet opportunity beyond Apple is unclear." And he also writes that "we believe that iPad volumes in the current quarter will dry up ahead of the iPad 2 launch."
So, will we see long lines at Verizon stores the day of launch, like the iPad? Or has the tablet novelty worn off enough that it's not a line-forming impulse-buy anymore? And/or is it principally a phenomenon linked to the cachet of Apple products?
Based on my own experience, I believe that the media tablet is more than a one-hit wonder. The sheer utility of my iPad has cut my laptop use almost in half, as I've written before. (And the iPad trumps my iPhone too, in a number of respects, like mapping.)
So, what kind of numbers do we need to see? Considering that the market is still nascent, that's a tough call. Kumar said that Apple shipped between 6 and 7 million iPads in the most recent quarter, "with the lower end (Wi-Fi) dominating the mix." With Apple as the high-water mark, we can't expect those kinds of numbers from Motorola initially.
Asia-based rumors claim Motorola is aiming to ship as many as 800,000 out of the gate and RIM a bit more. Those would be healthy numbers.
And Motorola appears to be doing all it can do to make interesting accessories, too--like this speaker dock and Bluetooth keyboard, among other add-ons.
Who knows, the tablet, in one form or another, could eventually make the laptop obsolete. That would result in huge, market-upending numbers. But I'll leave that highly-speculative analysis for next year.
Report: Future iPad, iPhone to have Qualcomm chips
Apple is reportedly switching up the wireless chipset used in future versions of both the iPad and iPhone.
(Credit: iFixit)Is Apple moving to a new wireless chipset supplier for the next iPad and iPhone?
An unnamed but "reliable" source is quoted by Engadget today saying that Apple is going to ditch the current Infineon chipsets used in both devices and move to Qualcomm instead. The report seems entirely plausible.
Verizon already let it slip that it's going to have an iPad that runs on its network. It's very likely that will be for its CDMA network, and not LTE. The current iPad model only works on GSM networks. Apple probably doesn't want to have to make two different iPads the way it's currently making two different models of iPhone (one with GSM chips for AT&T et al., and one with CDMA for Verizon and perhaps other future carrier partners), so switching to a chipset that allows the device to connect to both networks would be smart. Qualcomm has that, or is going to, very soon.
It's long been rumored Apple would eventually start shipping a dual-mode iPhone--a report that the iPhone 5 would work on GSM and CDMA networks hit back in October--so going that way with both of its flagship mobile products makes a lot of sense.
Engadget also notes that while the next iPad won't have a USB port, it will have an SD card slot, and has some images of what it would look like.
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