tablets - page 8

There’s an important list every serious outdoor junkie has at least heard of — it’s called the Ten Essentials, and it lists gear no adventurer should journey into the wilds without. But it was codified long before the digital age arrived; now that power-hungry electronic gadgets are a part of adventuring, a relaible backup fuel tank is pretty important. It could even make the difference between life and death.

That’s where Mophie’s Juice Pack Powerstation Pro ($130) comes in. It’s a monstrous 6000 mAh chunk of a battery guarded by a ruggedized, military-spec housing — and it’ll charge practically anything short of a laptop.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt is currently on a tour of Asia, where he announced the company’s $199 Nexus 7 tablet in Tokyo on Monday. During his announcement, Schmidt found some time to talk about Apple and its patent wars against other companies. Schmidt revealed that while Apple is a “very good partner,” he doesn’t agree with patent wars, and feels they “prevent choice” and innovation.

When Apple unveiled the iPhone 5 last week, the company promised that its custom A6 chip deliver performance twice as fast as its predecessor, the iPhone 4S. But according to the handset’s first benchmarks, this isn’t just the fastest iPhone yet — it’s also one of the most powerful smartphones money can buy.

If you think of a device that’s the very opposite of everything Apple makes, it would be the NexPhone. Whereas Apple makes a single product for each use-case (desktop, notebook, tablet, phone), each optimized for its own purpose, the NexPhone takes a Microsoftian approach. In fact, it makes the lame Surface “tablets” look sensible. Here’s the NexPhone’s tagline:

The smartphone that becomes a tablet, laptop or PC.

When Apple announced the original iPhone back in 2007, Google’s first Android handset wasn’t too far behind. The search giant got a compelling iOS alternative out of the gate before anyone else, and it’s been a head-to-head battle between the two platforms ever since. But how was Android able to follow the iPhone so quickly?

Well, that’s fairly obvious to most. You see, Google chairman Eric Schmidt was an Apple board member when the Cupertino company was developing the iPhone, and so he got an inside look at the device before anyone else. Little did Apple know that Schmidt would use what he saw inside Apple’s headquarters to create the iPhone’s biggest competitor.

With the iPad, however, it was a different story. That was years ahead of everything else, and not even Google had a slate ready to do battle when the iPad launched in 2010. Why? Because Steve Jobs made sure Schmidt knew nothing about the iPad before its debut.

If you’re in the market for a tablet, and you don’t mind adopting Google’s Android platform, then the choice available to you right now is incredible. Amazon alone announced a pair of new Kindle Fire HD tablets on Thursday that feature an impressive selection of specifications, with 7- and 8.9-inch displays, that are priced at $199 and $299 respectively.

But despite those tiny price tags, it’s unlikely Amazon’s tablets will prove to be a more attractive choice than the iPad for most. Analysts are confident that Apple’s device will remain the market leader, particularly with a rumored iPad mini on its way in October.

Apple’s decision to ditch Google Maps in favor of its own mapping technology in iOS 6 wasn’t much a surprise. However, Amazon’s decision to reject Google Maps in its second generation Kindle Fire tablet is a bit of surprise – particularly since the Kindle Fire is an Android device.

Unlike Apple, Amazon isn’t developing its own mapping systems. Instead, the new Kindle Fire will rely on mapping functionality from Nokia. Unlike the original Kindle Fire, which had no innate location services or maps app, the new version will sport  location-based services, though whether they will be based integrated GPS or solely on Wi-Fi triangulation (like the Wi-Fi only iPad models and the iPod touch) is still an unanswered question.

The good news is that HTC’s next 10-inch tablet won’t look like an iPad. Instead, it will look nearly identical to a unibody iMac instead, right down to its OS X style dock and lopsided, 16:9 aspect ratio design.

It’s no real secret that bring your own device (BYOD) programs and the explosion of iPhones, iPads, and other mobile devices in the workplace have begun changing how we work, how we view work as a part of lives, and how much we work out of the office. A study earlier this year concluded that the average American worker using mobile technologies works seven hours outside of the office (essentially one business day) every week. A more recent study indicated some mobile professionals work even more – up to 20 hours each – during off hours thanks to BYOD programs.

One of the impacts this has one iPhone and iPad-toting professionals is a disruption from the traditional work/life balance that can make hard to fully “switch off” at the end of the day. Now there’s evidence that such a disruption can have a physical as well as a psychological impact on the human body.

The iPad became a big hit in the K-12 education market over the past year. Pioneering schools that brought Apple’s tablet into the classroom last school year proved that the iPad can be a excellent learning tool – one that has immense power to transform education.

As the new school year begins, and hundreds of thousands of students across the U.S. become iPad users thanks to one-to-one iPad deployments, there’s already talk that the iPad’s success in schools will be short-lived. The belief is that iPads will quickly be replaced by tablets running Microsoft’s Windows RT or Windows 8.

That assumption is absurd and delusional.

An Australian man who used the Find My iPad feature to locate his tablet after it was stolen is being accused of trespassing “via radio wave.” A court is now trying to decide whether he acted unlawfully when he used Apple’s service to track his iPad — and the thief who stole it — via GPS.

Production of the 7.85-inch “iPad mini” is expected to ramp up next month, according to sources in Apple’s supply chain, reaching a target of 4 million units per month. Apple hopes to build enough units to launch the device before the end of the year and serve with busy holiday season.

The iPhone is the most popular device among medical professionals, followed by the iPad and then Android smartphones. That’s one of the key findings in a new study that examines the relationship between electronic health records (EHR) systems, mobile technology, and how doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers use both mobile devices and EHR systems.

One of the biggest points of the survey, however, is that the vast majority of U.S. healthcare providers do not use a mobile device to access electronic records. In fact only about in one in twenty (6%) use a mobile device to access electronic records or prescribe medications using an electronic prescribing system. That’s despite the fact that almost three-quarters (72%) of providers report using mobile technology as part of their practice.

We reviwed the STM Velo earlier this year, in our first encounter with the Aussie-based outfitter, and came away with the distinct  impression that, wow, these guys really know how to make a great bag.

Our time with the STM Scout ($50), a tablet-specific, heavily-padded canvas satchel, proved that the outfit can make a sharp-looking protective bag for your Thrive, Galaxy Tab or iPad too — though it didn’t blow us away like the Velo did.

Microsoft has positioned its Windows RT tablet OS as an iPad competitor, particularly in business and enterprise markets. Windows RT devices, which includes the ARM-based version of Microsoft’s Surface, are designed to be less expensive than Intel-powered Windows 8 tablets and are meant to push the new touch-oriented Metro interface.

Microsoft has even gone so far as to introduce special licensing terms for businesses that will offer free access to a virtual desktop from Windows RT devices while other platforms, including the iPad, will need to buy a new type of license for such access.

Windows RT would seem a perfect choice for businesses that want to support mobile employees with a tablet, except that Windows RT seems keep hitting one wall after another – the latest being that two of Microsoft’s longstanding OEM partners have decided to pass on creating Windows RT tablets.

Despite being labeled an “iPad killer” prior to hitting the market, Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire never really gave the iPad anything to worry about. However, it’s going to come back and take a second shot at Apple’s hugely popular tablet, and this time its chances could be improved by a larger display. If a recent FCC filing is anything to go by, the Kindle Fire 2 will be significantly larger than its predecessor.

The NFL pre-season games are almost upon us with the regular season not far behind. If you’re a fantasy football fan, that means it’s time to join a league (if you haven’t already), research and plan your draft choices, and pick the apps that you’ll use over the course of the season to track all of your key player and team stats as well as to manage your team.

The right tools can make or break a successful season. Here are some of the best apps out there for iOS and Android that can help you keep track of everything and manage your team’s lineup on the go.

Apple could be making a mistake if it releases a smaller “iPad mini” alongside the new iPhone this fall, because according to a recent survey conducted by a leading coupon code site, nearly 80% of Americans will shun the tiny tablet in favor of the smartphone.

The LTE version of the new iPad may cost $130 more than the Wi-Fi version, but the throughput that LTE delivers makes the iPad into a phenomenal mobile solution. The performance easily tops a large segment of home broadband services, which delivers tremendous value. Add the free personal hotspot feature available to Verizon customers and a MacBook Air (or other notebook) and you get a powerful business solution for professionals on the road.

Right now only 13% of iPad/tablet users worldwide have an active mobile broadband subscription, but that will change significantly over the next five years according a new report by research firm Strategy Analytics. The potential that the new iPad with LTE offers both mobile professionals and consumers will be one the key factors contributing to that change.

The International Data Corporation (IDC) released preliminary data yesterday from its Worldwide Quarterly Media Tablet Tracker. The study shows that total worldwide tablet shipments for the second quarter of 2012 are estimated at 25 million units, which is up from 18.7 last quarter. That’s a quarter-over-quarter increase of 33.6 percent, says the data analysis company, reflecting the total year-over-year growth rate of 66.2 percent of retail tablets in the US.

Guess which tablet is the largest part of those numbers?

The USDA is working its way through an ambitious iPad deployment that may come to serve as a model for a range of government agencies within the U.S. and around the world. The challenge was to develop a simple, intuitive, and effective field survey and data collection system.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is a division of the USDA that is charged with surveying and reporting agricultural data across the country. NASS operates in all 50 states plus Puerto Rico. With a staff of around 3,000 enumerators NASS conducts thousands of survey each year about agriculture across the country. The service has been operating since the mid-1800s and, until the iPad, it conducted surveys and collected data in pretty much the same way that it had back in the 19th century – with paper forms filled out by hand and mailed to various field offices. Although various technology initiatives have been tried by NASS since the 1980s, none was a successful fit before the iPad.

Back in June, we reported on a study that showed that the average iPad user is extremely likely to make a purchase or research a product after seeing an ad on his or her device. A more recent study supports that research and notes that for one-third of iPad/tablet owners, shopping is their favorite tablet-based activity.

Apple continues to top PC sales thanks to the iPad. Meanwhile, according to research firm Canalys, Microsoft  will likely need to heavily subsidize the price of touch-first PCs and tablets if it wants Windows 8 to be anything like a success.

Echoing Tim Cook’s about Microsoft’s Windows 8 strategy being like converging a toaster and a refrigerator, the research firm notes that Microsoft’s approach could jeopardize the Windows 8 launch. Canalys notes that the big issue is that most Windows 8 features are designed for touchscreen use. That means that existing PC owners won’t get the full value or experience that Windows 8 offers unless they upgrade their hardware to a tablet, touchscreen notebook, or a hybrid device that functions as both.

One common assumption about iPads in business is that employees and executives are insisting on using their personal iPads at work or are demanding that the company provide them while CIOs and IT departments are fighting tooth and nail against the iPad. While that assumption certainly makes for good headlines and soundbites, it isn’t actually true – at least according to a new report from cloud and content management firm Alfresco.

In fact, Alfresco’s new report indicates that IT staffers are heavily involved in tablet adoption and may even be the driving force behind it. The report also provided a range of insights as to how iPads and other tablets are being used in the workplace and notes that tablets are offering new opportunities more than they are replacing either smartphones or PCs.

As AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon continue extending their LTE networks across the country, a new market analysis suggests that most users will eventually choose not to buy LTE iPads and other 3G/4G-enabled tablets. The report, which comes from research firm CCS Insight, says that demand for iPads and other tablets with built-in mobile broadband support will continue to drop over the next four years. Following that logic, the company says that it expects Apple and other manufacturers to reduce the number of iPads and other tablets with built-in cellular connectivity.