Nexus 7 sales to reach 6 to 8 million by the end of 2012

It’s funny how Android tablets have turned the table against Apple’s iPad just when we’ve almost given up on that fight. After the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7’s booming hits, I think that no one can deny Android is on the rise. Apple might still be king of tablets, but both Amazon’s and Google’s 7-inchers rocked the Cupertino-based company’s throne. We hope this will spark a revolution of much bigger dimensions than we Android fans could have dreamed of a year ago.
However, while we know that the Nexus 7 was met with an almost unprecedented high degree of enthusiasm, we’re still in a blur about the tab’s actual sales. Nobody has even dared to come up with estimates, while predictions for the future have been entirely out of the question.
The editorial team over at Tech-Thoughts.net has been brave enough to venture a sales estimate for the Nexus 7, as well as a prediction for up to the end of the year. The figures are obviously to be taken with a grain of salt, but they are a bit more than just educated guesses, so they have to be at least acknowledged.
Starting from a Digitimes report about supplier shipments of touch panels for the Nexus 7 and using a bunch of other numbers and reports from the past, Sameer Singh has estimated that Google will be selling around 2.9 million Nexus 7 tabs by the end of Q3 2012.

Broken up by months, the Nexus 7 is thought to have sold in 600,000 units during July (at least since the 15^th, when it actually started shipping), while August and September should boost that figure by 1.1 and 1.2 million respectively.
This part of the report sounds the most plausible, as it is (also) based on hard evidence. As for the Q4 2012 estimate, that’s a little less trustworthy, being based more on assumptions and suppositions.
If you don’t mind that, though, you should know that Google is expected to actually sell more Nexus 7 devices between the months of October and December. This is estimated at being between 3 and 5 million units shipped to tech users across the Globe, depending on a few very important factors, including the competition.
We’re almost certain that Apple and Amazon will make some strong pushes towards the 7-inch tablet market by the end of 2012, and both the new Kindle Fire(s) and the iPad Mini could seriously undercut the Nexus 7’s sales success.

Then again, Q4 is usually a thriving time for everybody involved in the tech world, with the holiday season pumping up sales. Taking both those things into consideration, Tech-Thoughts is estimating that Google’s sales figures for the Nexus 7 might be anywhere between 6 and 8 million during 2012 .
Now, is that any kind of record, you might ask. Far from it, especially if we are to compare those numbers with iPad sales. If we are to compare them with Amazon’s Kindle Fire sales figures, though, things might actually end up tied.
The Fire supposedly shipped in 3.9 million units during Q4 2011, its first fiscal quarter of existence, while Q1 2012 saw that figure drop to only 1.8 million. Summing those two numbers up, we get around 5.7 million unit sales for the Fire’s first two fiscal quarters, which would be below the Nexus 7’s estimated sales, even if they only hit the minimum prediction of Tech-Thoughts.
It is true that Amazon’s 7-incher was released on November 15, halfway into Q4 2011. But on the other hand, that meant the tablet was hotter than hot during the holiday season. That said, the Nexus 7 can easily beat the Kindle Fire’s sales figures, or at least they will end up tied. It’s likely that we’re dealing with another big hit from Android in its war with Apple.
Anyone care to comment on today’s estimates? Do you think the Nexus 7 will in fact sell in 6 million units by the end of 2012? More? Less?

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Is the Apple vs. Samsung patent litigation case bad for innovation?

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“Someday, this idea will be worth millions!” (Everett Collection / Shutterstock)

If you’re an avid follower of technology news today, you would be familiar with how Apple and Samsung are battling out their differences in court. Basically, Apple says Samsung stole their design ideas by copying the iPhone and iPad. Meanwhile, Samsung says Apple is using their 3G-related technology patents without permission.
But what does this mean for innovation? Patent experts and industry observers would usually say that the current patent situation in the U.S. may be stifling to innovation. Patent holdings firms would often buy intellectual property in hordes, just waiting for an actual application of these technologies. Then, they earn by charging licensing fees. Either that, or they sue companies that unwittingly use the patented ideas in some form.
These are usually called “patent trolls,” although, of course, companies with a collection of intellectual property would usually beg to differ.
But what if the so-called troll is, itself, manufacturing devices based on their patents? And what if these designs have made their way into the consumer marketplace, resulting in a vast improvement of consumer devices that are otherwise clunky and non-user-friendly?

What about innovation?

Take the smartphone. Before the iPhone gave mass market appeal to the touchscreen, various smartphone platforms were using QWERTY keyboards, resistive touchscreens and clunky desktop-like interfaces. When the iPhone popularized the straightforward, finger-based touch interface, other manufacturers followed suit.
The result is generally good, with millions and millions now enjoying more intuitive touch-based devices in various platforms like iOS, Android and even Windows Phone.
The concept of patents was developed to foster innovation. Inventors are basically given a period during which they have exclusive access to their technologies, or that they could earn from royalties from other entities wanting to make practical applications out of ideas. As patent owners, Apple does have the right to its technologies. Competitors can choose to use this as an opportunity to innovate.
For instance, when Apple laid claim to the slide-to-unlock feature on touchscreen phones, Android customizations worked around it through different unlock methods, like patterns, ring unlocks, swiping motions, and the like. But as Memeburn claims, patent workarounds may also result in ugly hacks if the motivation behind innovating is simply to avoid a lawsuit: “less intuitive software and unattractive hardware designs.” If Apple claims that every beautifully-designed rectangle is their intellectual property, then every other smartphone and tablet out there would be unaesthetically-designed rectangles.

Apple’s legal moves are effective

Some observers like to think about the Apple vs. Samsung lawsuit as not just about design and wireless patents. Rather, the discussion has now escalated to what the issue is all about in the first place: Apple vs. Android.
Second quarter 2012 smartphone sales figures show that Samsung has fast overtaken Apple, at 32.6% vs. 16.9% market share. Moreover, Samsung’s year-on-year growth is at 172.8%. Meanwhile, Apple’s growth is at 27.5%. Android likewise dominates the mobile OS market, at 68.1% vs. Apple’s 16.9%.
ReadWriteWeb says that “68″ seems to be the magic number causing Apple to worry right now. Their legal moves have been effective, so far. With temporary injunctions against several devices, like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Nexus, and even the HTC One X causing damage to these companies, revenue-wise.

Who wins? Will consumers bear the brunt?

Whichever party wins the patent game, it will be the consumers who will take the brunt. If Samsung is able to prove Apple unlawfully used its 3G patents, Apple would eventually have to pay licensing fees, and the iPhone might end up being more expensive (unless Apple decides to absorb the added expense within their hefty profit margins). If Apple were to win, Samsung’s products would be pulled off the shelves until it finds a way to work around Apple’s designs, thereby reducing consumer choice.
Thomas Jefferson was appointed to be the first head of the U.S. Patent Office in 1790, and said patents had “given a spring to invention beyond my conception.” Prior to that, though, he was against patents, as he worried “abuse of frivolous patents is likely to cause more inconvenience than is countervail by those really useful.”
With patent lawsuits flying across borders, corporations and brands, which side of the patent argument has dominated: frivolously abusive or springily inventive?

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Apple offered to license patents to Samsung in 2010: $30 per smartphone, $40 per tablet

A screen grab from Apple presentation to Samsung claiming the Galaxy S copied the iPhone, and offering to license its design patents for $30 per smartphone and $40 per tablet.

Apple and Samsung are currently in heated debates over design patents, and is currently undergoing litigation in a California court to determine liability. But even before Apple accused Samsung of “slavishly” copying its product designs, the Cupertino, CA company said it had offered cross-licensing agreements with Samsung to the tune of $30 per smartphone and $40 per tablet in 2010.
In a testimony by Apple patent licensing director Boris Teksler last Friday, he said that then-CEO Steve Jobs and then-COO Tim Cook approached Samsung about their smartphones and tablets, and were actually surprised “how a trusted partner would build a copycat product like that.”
In an October 5, 2010 presentation to Samsung, Apple offered to charge $30 per touchscreen smartphone and $40 per tablet for the use of its design patents. Apple likewise offered a 20% discount if Samsung were to cross-license its own design and technology portfolios back to Apple.

Given sales figures during that year involving Samsung’s Android, Windows Mobile and other OS phones, Apple said Samsung would have owed it about $250 million, which is a far cry from the $2.5 billion in damages that Apple is currently seeking. You can check out a copy of the Apple presentation via the Scribd link on the source citation.
Meanwhile, testimony be Apple’s experts also brought up additional Samsung internal studies that show how the Korean company often does a feature-by-feature comparison of Apple’s products with its own, and subsequently recommending to improve its smartphones by making them more like Apple’s. In response, Samsung has repudiated these claims by criticizing Apple’s experts’ authority on the matter.
Should Samsung have just gon

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Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 vs Apple iPad 3

Ever since the first iPad came out in 2010, tech companies around the world have tried to match its success, in about the same manner that many tech companies have tried to match the success of the iPhone ever since the first version came out in 2007. But, unlike the iPhone situation, and despite the abundance of Android tablets that have hit the shelves since 2010, Apple has managed to stay ahead of everyone else in the tablet market. But, as was the case with the iPhone, Apple is now starting to feel the heat from Android manufacturers.
With that being said, I find it very curious that Samsung was not able, up until now, to manufacture a proper competitor to the iPad. Basically, no Galaxy Tab model was able to match the experience offered by the iPad, despite the fact that some models are priced almost equally with the Apple tablet. Samsung is not only the biggest smartphone manufacturer in the world by number of smartphones sold, but their Galaxy S line is also constantly beating the iPhone when it comes to hardware. In addition, they also manufacture both the CPU and the Retina display that Apple brags about when marketing the iPad. From where I’m standing, Samsung has all the resources needed to make a tablet that’s better than the iPad.
And then we get to yesterday’s Samsung announcement, one that confirms the previously rumored specs for the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet. Could this be the moment that Android fans have been waiting for? Is the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 a decent competitor to the iPad? Are there any areas where the Note 10.1 is better than the iPad? Let’s find out, shall we? As always, we’ll break down our Galaxy Note 10.1 vs Apple iPad fight into five equally important rounds: Display, Internal Hardware, OS & Features, Design & Extras and Pricing and Availability.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 vs Apple iPad Round 1: Display

As I’ve mentioned above, Samsung is the company that manufacturers the best display currently available on the market, namely the Retina display of the new Apple iPad (third generation). At 9.7 inches in diagonal, the iPad three’s IPS LCD display uses an impressive 1536 x 2048 pixel resolution to bring up the Pixel Per Inch (PPI) density to 264. Under these circumstances, you would expect that the Galaxy Note 10.1 offers at least a 200 PPI ratio, right? Wrong, as the biggest downside to buying a Galaxy Note 10.1 is the poor resolution of its 10.1 inch display.
The Samsung Galaxy Note tablet uses a 800 x 1280 pixel resolution (actually, the same resolution used by the Galaxy Note’s 5.3 inch display), bringing down the PPI ratio to just 149, equal to that of the ASUS Transformer Prime (released back in October 2011). By comparison, the Google Nexus 7 has a PPI ratio of 216, while the ASUS Transformer Prime Infinity has a PPI ratio of 224. The original iPad showcased a PPI ratio of 132. If you’re looking for a tablet with a crisp display, the Galaxy Note 10.1 just isn’t it.
Personally, I wouldn’t recommend any device featuring a PPI ratio under 200 PPI, and this principle is not limited to top-end smartphone and tablet offerings, but all the way down to cheap smartphones (can catch a list of the best cheap Android smartphones of 2012 here).
If you ask me, this is a very weird situation, seeing as Samsung is the ultimate leader in the mobile display market. The South Korean giant basically owns the entire SAMOLED market, and it also manufactures the best LCD display on the market (the Retina display). We talked about the reasons why Samsung will not equip its tablets with “Retina displays” here, but I’m sure a lot of us expected a better quality display for their top-end tablet. Are there any conspiracy theorists amongst you guys that can imagine some sort of an agreement between Samsung and Apple?
The picture below shows the iPad 2 display on the left and the iPad 3 display on the right. Notice how sharp the icon is? That’s why the new iPad wins this round by a couple of lengths!

Clear Winner: Apple third generation iPad

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 vs Apple iPad Round 2: Internal Hardware

The new Apple iPad is built on the Apple A5X chipset, one that packs a 1GHz dual-core Cortex A9 processor and a quad-core PowerVR SGX543MP4 GPU. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 uses the same Exynos 4212 quad SoC as the Galaxy S3, one consisting out of a 1.4GHz quad-core Cortex A9 processor and a Mali-400MP GPU. While the Exynos 4212 has a better performing processor than the A5X, the latter has a better GPU.
However, while the performance of the CPU is not influenced by the resolution, the video rendering frame rate is, meaning that although the iPad’s GPU is better, the Note 10.1 should be capable of maintaining more than decent frame rates, as the output is of lower resolution. It’s just that the level of detail won’t be there.
The third generation iPad also features 1GB of RAM, while the Galaxy Note 10.1 features 2GB.
Winner: Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 vs Apple iPad Round 3: OS and features

I’m going to be completely honest with you and tell you that this is probably the most difficult department to judge. From one side, there are surely a lot more good apps designed for the iPad than for Android tablets, but from the other, the Galaxy Note 10.1 comes with a unique accessory: the S-Pen, which is basically a pressure sensitive stylus, one able to recognize 256 different levels of pressure.
The S Pen is not worth using in apps that do not support it. But in apps that do support the S Pen, that’s where the Galaxy Note 10.1 shines. For instance, editing photos on a tab was never easier than it is with the S Pen optimized Adobe Photoshop Touch app (comes for free on all Galaxy Notes 10.1). Taking notes using Samsung’s S Note app, now also able to recognize mathematic formulas, is also something you can’t do on an iPad. In addition, the Galaxy Note 10.1 also uses most of the smart functions that have been introduced by Galaxy S3.
Yet another function that’s unique to the Galaxy Note 10.1 is its “Multiscreen” feature, one that allows users to use different applications side-by-side (for instance, you can watch a web page on half of the screen, and take notes with the S Pen on the other half), although just a few apps are currently supported. Although far from perfect, this is the best rendition of the multitasking principle that I have seen so far on a tablet, so I really hope that other tablet manufacturers learn from Samsung’s example.
Here’s an official video from Samsung showcasing all the unique features of the Galaxy Note 10.1:
As a conclusion, on one side we have the amazing number of high quality apps designed for the iPad, while on the other, we get a bunch of cool features that are unique to the Galaxy Note 10.1. I told you this is a tough one!
Winner: Draw

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 vs Apple iPad Round 4: Design and extras

Despite the fact that the Note 10.1 has a bigger display than the iPad by 0.4 inch, thanks to a very small bezel, the differences in size between the two devices are not as big as you would expect. The Note 10.1 measures 262 x 180 x 8.9 mm, while the iPad measures 241.2 x 185.7 x 9.4 mm, meaning that the Note 10.1 is actually thinner and less wide than the iPad 3. However, due to the fact that the new iPad uses an 11,560 mAh battery, I’m not going to hold its extra 0.5 mm thickness against it, since the Note 10.1 only uses a 7,000 mAh battery. Most of the extra battery goes to the iPad’s display, meaning that we should see similar battery life lengths. The huge battery is also what makes the iPad 3 a bit heavier than the Galaxy Note 10.1: 652 grams vs 597 grams. Both tablets are very slick looking, so neither wins in the design aspect.
Now to the extras, I must say that I applaud the fact that Samsung has decided to place a microSD slot on the Galaxy Note 10.1, something that the iPad does not feature. If you ever need more space, you can just buy a 64GB microSD card and you instantly get more storage than a tablet really needs, anyway.
Connectivity-wise, both tablets are equally prepared, as Samsung has announced that an LTE-compatible version of the Galaxy Note 10.1 will be available later this year, while Wi-Fi only and 3G versions will launch starting this month.
Winner: Draw

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 vs Apple iPad Round 5: Pricing and availability

At the present, the new iPad is available in roughly all corners of the world, in all its versions (Wi-Fi only, LTE). Pricing has remained consistent since the original iPad, so at least you know what to expect when you set to buy an Apple tablet.
Unfortunately, Samsung has not shared any details regarding the price of the Galaxy Note 10.1, so we’re unable to judge this category at the time being. However, Samsung has announced that their Galaxy Note 10.1 will become available worldwide by the end of this month, so we’ll soon update this section with pricing information for the Galaxy Note 10.1.

Conclusion

So… is the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 the iPad killer that Android fans have been expecting? Unfortunately not!
And this is all due to the fact that the Note 10.1 has a poor resolution display. Sure, it comes with a few cool features, the quad-core processor is powerful, while the S Pen and the S Pen optimized apps are certainly something that will draw many customers, but tablets are really all about the display. And when you fail in the display department, the tablet cannot be deemed as better than the iPad. The Note is a different kind of tablet, and that might help a lot with Samsung’s sale numbers, but from an end-user perspective, in the summer of 2012, I expect all top-end devices to feature a crisp display (meaning that the PPI ratio should rest well above 200).

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The Coolpix S800, the first Android based camera from Nikon

 

It looks like the popular camera company Nikon will soon be announcing their first Android based camera. The model will be dubbed as the Coolpix S800 (S800c), and the specs that you can expect on this will be:

• 25-250 mm lens
• 3.5″ OLED screen
• The camera runs all Google Play apps
• The camera will probably run Android 2.3
• Built-in GPS
• Built-in Wi-Fi

I think this would be great and a smart move by Nikon. Perhaps this could be a first step into seeing some really powerful Android-based camera’s in the near future. Maybe even DSLR’s?
The proposed announcement of this device is on August 22nd and we’ll be sure to relay more information as soon as we know.
source: Nikon Rumors

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Potential image of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2

Well here’s something interesting news for you morning coffee. The image above showed up on the Samsung Pakistan Facebook page with “Picture perfect view made even more perfect with Samsung Galaxy S3″ as the caption. Now it clearly isn’t a Galaxy S III and interestingly enough, this same image made the rounds before the Galaxy S III was officially introduced.

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