Tablets are nifty, but for the most part, they're built to be walled gardens; Apple is notorious for its heavy-handed curation, Microsoft plans on keeping Windows 8's Metro-style apps close to the chest, and the hot-selling Kindle Fire is a deeply tweaked and thoroughly managed variant of Android. [......]
If you're the type of person who has to have every Apple product that comes out and fancy yourself a gambling type, now might be a good time to put your iPad 2 up for sale on eBay or Craigslist. It will never be worth more than it is right now, it's still early enough to cash in on the holiday shoppers, and if you trust Citi analyst Richard Gardner, the iPad 3 will launch in February. Gardner stated in a research note to investors that he's hearing from "several sources" the next iPad will launch a month ahead of when iPad 2's one year anniversary, and there are "no significant hurdles remaining" that would prevent this from happening, Business Insider reports [......]
If you're a Sonos user, go grab your dancing shoes and air guitar, because the Sonos System Software 3.6 update gives you more ways to rock out. One of the big additions is Android tablet support via the Sonos Controller for Android app. [......]
So the Kindle Fire’s out, and the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet is due any day now, too. But if you’re in the mood for a cheap, yet awesome tablet this holiday season, it might just be worth it to brave the crowds and – GASP – venture out to Best Buy on Black Friday. A leaked ad shows that the older, but still viable Asus Eee Pad Transformer will be available for just $250 on that crappiest of days[......]
The Kindle Fire is already the best selling item on Amazon.com, and it's going to arrive on customers' doorsteps one day early, the e-tailer announced today. Kindle Fire shipments were supposed to go out tomorrow, but the $199 tablets are already loaded up on trucks and headed out to the their destinations, and it's anyone's guess as to why. "We’re thrilled to be able to ship Kindle Fire to our customers earlier than we expected. [......]
E Fun has launched the third in its line of Nextbook Premium Tablets, a nine-incher to round out its size offerings. Almost identical to the 7- and 8-inch models (save for a lack of camera on the Premium7), the Nextbook Premium9 tablet rocks a 9-inch capacitive display, a silver back panel and an added hint of red around the edge. The trio shares almost all the same specs, perhaps implying that size really does matter in the tablet arena.[......]
Screw the Emmys! The best gift bags of the past week came at Microsoft’s BUILD conference. The Redmond crew put their money where their mouths were and provided 5,000 developers with a tablet based off of the Samsung Series 7 Slate and packing a version of the Metro-tized Windows 8 Developer Preview. [......]
Things are about to heat up in a big way in the handheld mobile space, a sector that's currently dominated by ARM. [......]
Acer and AT&T are wearing their 'Best Friends' t-shirts as the two jointly debut the new Acer Iconia Tab A501 tablet with AT&T 4G HSPA+ connectivity in the U.S. Armed with a 4G radio, this latest addition to the Iconia Tab family offers up to 4x faster data transmissions, the two companies claim[......]
The past several weeks have seen some interesting developments in the tablet space. Hewlett Packard's discontinuation of its TouchPad and subsequent $99 firesale continues to be the big story, but it's not the only one. [......]
An IBM executive who was part of an engineering team that designed the very first IBM PC has moved on to tablets and thinks we're on the verge of the post-PC era. He said as much in a blog post yesterday, the timing of which comes just two days before the 30th anniversary of the IBM 5150 PC, and some six years after IBM sold its PC division to Lenovo. [......]
ARM has been flexing its muscle in the handheld mobile space seemingly since time began. [......]
I wrote a while back about the limitations of a direct-interaction interface , and of course the lack of buttons and such makes for a different UI from the start. But would you say your tablet needs this Ringbow thing? [......]
Research In Motion (RIM) is currently trying to hammer out a deal with Hulu that would let BlackBerry PlayBook users gain paid access to the streaming service. Following the PlayBook's launch last week, users were surprised to find that they could load and watch Hulu content on their tablet, but the excitement was short lived. Hulu blocked the BlackBerry browser within 48 hours, just has it has done with all tablets and smartphones[......]
Haters will view this as more proof that Apple's iPad tablets are nothing more than toys and not computing devices to be taken seriously. We don't agree with that assessment, but for what it's worth, Toys R Us joins a growing army of retailers who now carry Apple's second generation slate, the iPad 2. Not every Toys R Us location is participating in the iPad frenzy, but it is available in hundreds of toy store locations across the U.S., T.G[......]
