Apple reducing iPad 2 orders, but 'too early to tell' if it will be phased out

Apple has begun reducing orders for the iPad 2 ahead of the unveiling of a new third-generation iPad, but it's not yet known whether Apple will keep the iPad 2 around at a discounted price.

 Sources in Apple's supply chain told DigiTimes that orders for the iPad 2 are gradually dropping ahead of an anticipated third-generation iPad. While iPad 2 orders are being reduced, orders for the next iPad, reportedly set to launch in March of 2012, remain steady.

Various reports have suggested that Apple will continue to sell the iPad 2 at a discounted price after it launches a third-generation iPad. Apple already employs that strategy in offering the iPhone 3GS, first released in 2009, as an entry-level handset, in addition to the iPhone 4, released in 2010, and iPhone 4S, which just launched in October.

DigiTimes, which has a hit-and-miss track record with Apple-related rumors, also believes that the iPad 2 will remain available at a discounted price in order to take on Amazon's $199 Kindle Fire.

With the reduction in iPad 2 orders, sources reportedly told the publication it is "still too early to tell" whether Apple plans to phase out the iPad 2, or keep it around following the launch of a third-generation iPad. "More observations need to be done in 2012 before the picture becomes clearer," the report said.

Apple has found great success in continuing to sell older iPhone models at discounted prices. As of August, the iPhone 3GS was still the No. 2 selling smartphone in America, and Apple is rumored to still be producing 2 million per quarter of the two-year-old handset, which continues to often outsell newer Android handsets.

Numerous rumors have suggested Apple plans to expand its iPad lineup in 2012, offering more models with different features at a number of price points, much like it already does with its MacBooks. The next iPad is expected to feature a high-resolution Retina Display like is already found on the iPhone and iPod touch.

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Apple Loses European Market Share

It seems the Euro crises could be causing Europeans to look beyond expensive iPhones, and opt for cheaper alternatives powered by Google’s Android. A study by the Kantar Group, a research firm based in London, revealed that Apple’s smartphone market share declined in France, Germany, Italy and Spain to name a few in the last few months. [1]

 

Our $503 price estimate for Apple stock is about 25% above market price.

 

See our complete analysis for Apple stock here

 

Apple’s loss is Android’s gain

 

According to the report, during the 12 weeks ending November month, Apple’s smartphone market share declined from 29% to 20% while it declined from 27% to 22% in Germany. [1] The iPhone 4S helped Apple gain market share in the U.S. and Britain, but significant market share loss in Europe should be concerning Apple. Weakening global economy and fear of recessionary environment coming back in the near future could make this situation worse for Apple. Android, on the other hand, continues to flourish and enjoyed a dominant market share of 61% in Germany with the Samsung Galaxy II, its flagship product.

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Google+ reaches 62M users, still not giving Facebook a run for its money

Google+ has reached 62 million registered users and is signing up 625,000 new users per day, according to unofficial Google+ statistician and Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen.

For a social network that was invite-only until July 2011, those numbers are not bad. However, Google+ has a long way to go if it wants to catch up to Facebook’s 800 million users.

Google+ has been adding new users by the tens of millions just about every month since it became available to the general public back in July, according to Allen’s report. So far in December, Google+ has registered 12 million new members.

Allen says that based on the current rate of growth, Google+ can expect to see 100 million new users by the end of February, and 293 million members by the end of next year. But Allen is expecting accelerated growth for the social network which could put Google+ at 400 million users by the end of 2012. What’s the reasoning behind Allen’s predictions? He points to the approximately 700,000 Android devices that are activated each day, which he contends will draw more users to Google+.

A Google spokesperson told VentureBeat that the company does not “have any additional metrics to provide based on Paul Allen’s estimates,” but that more than 40 million people have signed up for the social network. That number comes from Google’s latest earnings call which took place on October 13.

Even if Allen’s predictions are correct and Google+ hits 400 million users by this time next year, it still won’t compete with Facebook’s 800 million (and counting) very active members. While this growth is good news for those who want their friends and families fill up their Google+ streams, its unlikely that Google’s social network will overshadow Facebook anytime soon.

In an attempt to garner more attention, Google+ rolled out a new ad campaign over the holiday season. The ads featured NBA annoucers and the Muppets to highlight Hangouts and other cool features of the social network. Perhaps the ads were enough to remind people that yes, Google+ does still exist and help it nab those 12 million extra users for December.

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Siri now available on jailbroken iOS 5 devices, including iPhone 4

A fully functioning port of the iPhone 4S’s hyped Siri voice assistant is now available for almost all jailbroken Apple mobile devices and huzzah, it’s legal!

The somewhat gimmicky Siri assistant has been the focus of the iPhone 4S’s advertising campaign, and the feature is suspected to be helping fuel major sales for that device. But as the program only officially works on the iPhone 4S, other iPhone owners have been wanting to get in on the action. To date, the options have been either illegal or fairly technical in execution.

But now a new hack called Spire allows for almost any jailbroken iPhone or iPad to run the lusted-after Siri. Specifically, it allows Siri to work on a jailbroken iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, third-gen iPod touch, fourth-gen iPod touch and first-gen iPad.

The free Spire app is available to download from the Cydia app store on jailbroken devices and takes about 100MB of space. The jalibreak developers who created it, Chpwn and Ryan Petrich, recommend users connect to a Wi-Fi network when downloading the app.

One issue that had plagued earlier Siri ports was legality and concerns about copyright infringement. But Chpwn writes that the new app uses a different method to obtain data that makes the app legal. He writes:

Spire uses a new method to obtain the files necessary for Siri, so it doesn’t have the copyright issues encountered by previous attempts. Similarly, rather than directing all traffic through a specific proxy server (and the associated privacy issues), Spire allows you to specify your own proxy server.

Will you give the Spire app a spin on your jailbroken iPhone or iPad?

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Samsung’s Galaxy S II lineup is getting Ice Cream Sandwich in early 2012

In just a few weeks, Samsung will start shipping Android 4.0, a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich over the air to Galaxy device owners.

 

“We know you have been waiting, and we’re thrilled today to announce that we’ll start serving Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to Galaxy Note and Galaxy S II in the first quarter of 2012,” wrote a Samsung representative on the company’s mobile division Facebook page.

 

The rollout will start with the company’s Galaxy S II, its latest high-powered smartphone, and the Galaxy Note, a stylus-enabled gadget that’s either a huge phone or a wee tablet — the jury’s still out.

 

Samsung also was the chosen manufacturer for the Android 4.0 lead device, the Galaxy Nexus. For that launch, Samsung got early access to Ice Cream Sandwich and a distinct time-to-market advantage.

 

Other Ice Cream Sandwich-upgradeable devices are set to include Samsgung’s Galaxy S II LTE, the Galaxy R (another Android smartphone), and the Galaxy Tab 10.1, 839, 7.7 and 7.0 Plus tablets.

 

With the upgrade, these tablets will be some of the first to run Ice Cream Sandwich; other models boasting the slick new OS have so far been sold out or available for preorder only.

 

Ice Cream Sandwich’s new features include a one-size-really-does-fit-all approach that makes the OS suitable for phones, tablets, TVs — just about any connected device, according to Google. Previously, Google had offered separate forks of the OS for different devices — the 2.X line was intended for smartphones, while the 3.X line (a.k.a. Honeycomb) was meant for tablets.

 

And in addition to all that delicious behind-the-scenes harmony, the OS brings consumers a flashy new interface with new colors, large images, and even a homebrewed typeface, the elegant humanist sans, Roboto.

 

Samsung is racing Sony to the finish line where Ice Cream Sandwich is concerned. The latter company announced last month it was bringing Ice Cream Sandwich to the entire Xperia line.

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Nuance to acquire rival Vlingo to build a better Siri

Voice technology firm Nuance has agreed to buy its top rival Vlingo for an undisclosed sum, the companies announced this morning.

 

Nuance has been providing voice technology for years but has recently been getting a lot of attention for powering Siri, the well-advertised voice assistant on the iPhone 4S. Vlingo has been Nuance’s heated rival in the tech space, and interestingly enough, Nuance had sued Vlingo in court for patent infringement, while Vlingo bought its own set of patents to counter-sue Nuance and stop it in its tracks.

 

But the two are putting aside the lawsuits with the acquisition. Now they can work together to boost the power and innovation of natural voice technology. Most likely, they’ll do what they can to improve the highly-popular Siri and similar voice apps across mobile platforms.

 

“Inspired by the introduction of services such as Apple’s Siri and our own Dragon Go!, virtually every mobile and consumer electronics company on the planet is looking for ways to integrate natural, conversational voice interactions into their mobile products, applications and services,” said Mike Thompson, Senior VP of Nuance Mobile, in a statement. “By acquiring Vlingo, we are able to accelerate the pace of innovation to meet this demand.”

 

Nuance appears to be on an acquisition streak in hopes of neutralizing the competition. Before Vlingo, Nuance agreed to acquire texting technology company Swype for a reported $102.5 million back in October. Nuance’s T9 predictive text software is a direct competitor to Swype’s technology, which lets people quickly draw from point to point on touch-screen keyboards.

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Jailbreak! iOS 5.0.1 gets untethered exploits for non-A5 chip devices

Hackers have just taken the wraps off some handy new jailbreaking tools for iOS devices.

 

The wares will work for any iOS devices running the 5.0.1 version of the operating system and will work for all of Apple’s mobile hardware lineup except the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2.

 

Thanks to iOS hacker pod2g, whose exploits form the basis of the jailbreak package, non-A5 devices can be jailbroken while untethered.

 

The fine folks at the Dev-Team Blog put the untethered jailbreak into redsn0w 0.9.10 (available now as a Windows or Mac download) and PwnageTool, and the Chronic Dev Team made a nice little Cydia package for your jailbreaking pleasure.

 

As previously mentioned, this jailbreak is compatible with most currently available Apple iOS mobile devices, including the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and the original iPad, as well as third-generation and fourth-generation iPod Touch units.

 

If you’re already running a tethered jailbreak, you can update to the untethered jailbreak via the Corona utility in Cydia.

 

An untethered jailbreak for A5 chip devices, including the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, is not yet available but is in the works, wrote pod2g just days ago.

 

“I know that a lot of people are waiting for the A5 jailbreak,” wrote the hacker on his blog. “I need to focus on A5 and hope I can find a path quick.”

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Samsung expects 15% rise in handset sales in 2012

It looks like owners of Samsung’s first Galaxy S devices didn’t take too kindly to the news that Android 4.0 won’t be made available as an upgrade.

 

Thanks to the massive outcry from customers, Samsung is now apparently reconsidering making Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich available to the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab, reports Korea’s ajnews. As the Verge explains it (the original report is in Korean), Samsung is looking into ways to fit Android 4.0 on the devices, even though it previously said that its TouchWiz software made that impossible.

 

The news is a good sign for Galaxy S owners, but even if Samsung does manage to squeeze Android 4.0 on the devices, it will likely be much later than when the Galaxy S II family gets it early next year.

 

Additionally, but unrelated, the company expects a 15 percent uptick in handset sales next year, given the current popularity of its Android lineup.

 

Samsung is apparently aiming to sell 374 million handsets next year, up from projected sales of 325 million units this year, Reuters reports. 150 million of those devices are expected to be smartphones. The news comes from industry officials who divulged Samsung’s plans to the Korea Economic Daily, so there’s a chance Samsung’s actual plans could even be more ambitious.

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BlackBerry 10 OS is already being called a failure

Research in Motion has become the mobile industry’s punching bag lately and today is no exception, with a new report saying its upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS is all-around awful.

 

A new report from Boy Genius Report asserts that the upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS, which has already been pushed back until late 2012, is basically a failure and won’t be able to compete with other  smartphones operating systems. This is especially true when you consider more advancements to iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7 will come before BB10 hits shelves.

 

BGR’s anonymous inside source said that the PlayBook 2.0 OS, which will be released in February, is a window into what BlackBerry 10 will be. Looking through the window isn’t a pretty thing, though, because crucial things like native e-mail and BlackBerry Messenger still don’t work. “Email and PIM [is better] on an 8700 than it is on BlackBerry 10,” the source said. ”RIM is simply pushing this out as long as they can for one reason, they don’t have a working product yet.”

 

RIM, however, has responded to the report by saying it is inaccurate and says it that BlackBerry 10′s release date has been pushed back to ensure everything, including e-mail and Messenger, runs smoothly. The company’s (lengthy) official response is below:

 

“RIM made a strategic decision to launch BlackBerry 10 devices with a new, LTE-based dual core chip set architecture. As explained on our earnings call, the broad engineering impact of this decision and certain other factors significantly influenced the anticipated timing for the BlackBerry 10 devices. The anonymous claim suggesting otherwise is inaccurate and uninformed. As RIM has previously explained, and as Mike Lazaridis reiterated on the earnings call, we will not launch BlackBerry 10 devices until we know they are ready and we believe this new chip set architecture is required to deliver the world class user experience that our customers will expect. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply false. We appreciate the interest in our future platform and we will continue to work hard to deliver that platform as soon as possible. At the same time, we also remain very excited with the success of our recently launched BlackBerry 7 smartphones and we believe these products offer a very compelling choice for both new customers and the almost 75 million BlackBerry users around the world.”

 

It’s hard to tell what exactly is happening behind the scenes, but at this point, I’m willing to give RIM the benefit of the doubt. Yes, at this point, the BB10 OS is probably terrible and undercooked. But RIM has already set expectations low and has another year to deliver its savior OS on time within company projections.

 

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Google sees 700K+ Android activations daily

According to Google’s Android chief, Andy Rubin, you’re one of a growing mob of people tuning in and turning on to the open-source mobile operating system.

 

“There are now over 700,000 Android devices activated every day,” Rubin stated late last night on his Google+ page.

 

This statistic has more than doubled since last year, when Rubin tweeted that 300,000 new devices were being activated daily.

 

And during the company’s July 2011 earnings call, Google CEO Larry Page noted that the company had reached the 550,000 activations per day milestone. Around that time, Rubin stated Android’s rate of growth was growing by 4.4 percent every single week.

 

All these activation stats add up to some serious domination. Earlier this month, we reported that Android devices accounted for half the total mobile market for smartphones in the United States. Apple came in a distant second at 27 percent.

 

Also (and this likely has an impact on both the OS’s growth and total market share), Android overtook iPhone as the most desired mobile platform earlier this year. According to numbers from Nielsen from January 2011 to March 2011, more than one third of consumers indicate Android as their preferred operating system. That number had leapt up from around one quarter just a few months before.

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Windows Phone is still in trouble

Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform now has more than 50,000 apps available — a significant milestone, but one that still puts it far behind Apple’s 500,000 iOS apps and Google’s more than 380,000 Android apps.

At least things seem to be picking up for the platform on the app front. It took Microsoft over a year to reach 40,000 apps on Windows Phone, but only 40 days to add another 10,000, reports All About Windows Phone. But apps alone won’t sell consumers on Windows Phone, especially during its do-or-die year of 2012.

So what’s keeping the platform, which is reportedly still seeing slow sales, from finding the success of the iPhone or Android? As former Windows Phone general manager Charlie Kindel sees it, the real problem with Windows Phone doesn’t stem from hardware or software (which he deems “superior” to the competition), but instead is due to Microsoft’s inability to play nice with carriers.

The company has imposed strict hardware restrictions on hardware partners, which has led to only a few devices being developed, and it has removed carriers entirely from the Windows Phone update process. Those two elements have led to carriers preferring to push Android and iOS devices, instead of Windows Phone.

“Carriers own the marketing money and spend billions a year,” Kindel wrote in a blog post yesterday. “The money is provided by the other sides of the market: OS providers & device manufactures, but the carriers get to spend it; they are the aggregation point where the money actually gets spent. The carriers choose what devices get featured on those TV ads.  They also choose what devices to train their RSP (retail sales professionals) to push.”

While I don’t deny that carrier marketing efforts have influenced Windows Phone sales, the situation seems much more complicated. First of all, Microsoft was way too late to the game, launching Windows Phone at the end of 2010, while the iPhone and Android hit the market in 2007 and 2008 respectively. MG Siegler argues that particular point nicely.

Kindel also fails to mention the explosive failure of Microsoft’s Kin phones earlier last year, which surely turned off many consumers to any future Microsoft mobile platform. I also think consumers are more savvy than the marketing sponges Kindel takes them for. He assumes people will buy what carriers tell them to, when in reality having a product that is clearly superior to the competition (which Windows Phone certainly isn’t) is more important.

You can say that Windows Phone is superior as much as you like, but so far Microsoft has failed to prove that to consumers.

One of the big reasons Microsoft has failed to make much of a splash with the platform is that it’s going after the same market as the iPhone and Android, when it should be focusing more on users who haven’t yet considered smartphones. I previously argued that Nokia’s Lumia 800 is an incredibly important device for Microsoft, but in many ways its cheaper sibling, the Lumia 710, is just as significant.

The Lumia 710 opens the door to a wider market of users who don’t want to spend over $100 on a new phone (T-Mobile will offer it in the US for just $50 with contract). And its inexpensive hardware also makes it more suitable to the prepaid market, a quickly growing segment in which Microsoft desperately needs to find a foothold.

Microsoft’s partnership with Nokia also makes it well positioned to expand Windows Phone into international markets as well — though those will admittedly be less lucrative than dominating the U.S., Europe and Asia.

 

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India Vs Pakistan, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, Mohali, India

  

• 2^nd Innings 
  Power Play 3

• PAK 208/8
   in 46 overs

• Cur RR: 
  4.52
•   Req RR:13.25

• To win:
   PAK needs 53 run(s) in 4 over(s)

1^st Innings

IND 260/9

50 Overs

RR:5.20

	Umar Gul *2 (2)
0 x4, 0 x6, 100.00 SR
Misbah-ul-Haq39 (59) 3 x4, 0 x6, 66.10 SR

Partnership

9 runs in 6 balls

Z Khan8-0-44-1

A Nehra9-0-31-1

Tags:

India Vs Pakistan, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, Mohali, India  

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India Vs Pakistan, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, Mohali, India

• 2^nd Innings 
  Power Play 3

• PAK 204/8
   in 45.1 overs

• Cur RR: 
  4.51
•   Req RR:11.79

• To win:
   PAK needs 57 run(s) in 4.5 over(s)

1^st Innings

IND 260/9

50 Overs

RR:5.20

	Misbah-ul-Haq *37 (56)
3 x4, 0 x6, 66.07 SR
Umar Gul0 (0) 0 x4, 0 x6, 0.00 SR

Partnership

5 runs in 2 balls

Z Khan7.1-0-40-1

City End

A Nehra9-0-31-1

Pavilion End

Tags:

India Vs Pakistan, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, Mohali, India  

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India Vs Pakistan, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, Mohali, India

  

• 2^nd Innings

• PAK 200/8
   in 45 overs

• Cur RR: 
  4.44
•   Req RR:12.20

• To win:
   PAK needs 61 run(s) in 5 over(s)

1^st Innings

IND 260/9

50 Overs

RR:5.20

	Misbah-ul-Haq *33 (55)
2 x4, 0 x6, 60.00 SR
Umar Gul0 (0) 0 x4, 0 x6, 0.00 SR

Partnership

1 runs in 1 balls

A Nehra9-0-31-1

H Singh10-0-43-2

Tags:

India Vs Pakistan, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, Mohali, India  

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India Vs Pakistan, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, Mohali, India

• 2^nd Innings

• PAK 199/7
   in 44.4 overs

• Cur RR: 
  4.45
•   Req RR:11.62

• To win:
   PAK needs 62 run(s) in 5.2 over(s)

1^st Innings

IND 260/9

50 Overs

RR:5.20

	Wahab Riaz *8 (13)
1 x4, 0 x6, 61.54 SR
Misbah-ul-Haq32 (54) 2 x4, 0 x6, 59.26 SR

Partnership

15 runs in 17 balls

A Nehra8.4-0-30-0

Pavilion End

H Singh10-0-43-2

Tags:

India Vs Pakistan, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, Mohali, India  

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