We had a post about tablet ownership from Pew Research recently, but this is additional detail.

From Pew Internet:

As of May 2013, 91% of American adults have a cell phone, 56% have a smartphone, and 34% have a tablet computer. As of January 2013, 26% of American adults own an e-book reader. More:

Link to the rest at Pew Internet

From TechCircle.in:

Last week, Amazon Seller Services Pvt Ltd, part of the world’s largest e-commerce firm Amazon.com,launched its marketplace in India at Amazon.in. The firm started by launching just two product sections – books and movies & TV shows. In the books’ section, it is offering over 7 million printed books across 200-plus categories.

The company has now officially launched its Kindle tablets and e-book readers in India (note that the e-book readers have already been available in a number of offline stores for a while now). The devices launched in the country include Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, both e-book readers, as well as Kindle Fire HD 7 and Kindle Fire HD 8.9 tablets.

Link to the rest at TechCircle.in

From C/Net:

Google makes a great tablet. But Apple does too. Neither are great writing platforms, though.

After picking up the Nexus 10 a while back, I’ve been finding it hard to put down. It’s lighter and thinner than the 9.7-inch iPad 4 (and it certainly feels that way), it’s fast (packing Samsung’s latest dual-core A15 with quad-core graphics), has more system memory (2GB), has a gorgeous screen (boasting even higher resolution than Apple’s Retina), and comes with the latest version of Android (4.2) — also very likable.

Like I said, it’s very hard to put down.

But I’m a productivity person. So, ultimately I spend more time on the most work-efficient device. These days that means more time on the iPad 4.

. . . .

For me, writing is indispensable. Though neither tablet beats a laptop, the iPad/iOS makes it less of an exercise in anger management.

It’s like this: the more I use tablets, the less I use laptops. And I would like to use laptops even less, but I can’t.

Why? Take text cursor placement. The human finger (tablets) is a lousy replacement for a mouse pointer (laptops). That’s why laptops have touch pads and desktop OSes have built-in mouse pointers/cursors. And that’s why most people still use laptops for word processing — and productivity in general.

. . . .

Cut-and-paste and undo are easier on the iPad and iOS too. Android cut-and-paste is a pretty close match to the iPad, but the stock Android keyboard doesn’t have undo, while Apple’s does

So, why not just use a physical keyboard? That’s obviously an option for a lot of people. But then it ceases being a tablet. And you might as well use the MacBook Air or a Windows equivalent.

Link to the rest at C/Net and thanks to Kathy for the tip.

From Pew Internet:

For the first time, a third (34%) of American adults ages 18 and older own a tablet computer like an iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Google Nexus, or Kindle Fire—almost twice as many as the 18% who owned a tablet a year ago.

Demographic groups most likely to own tablets include:

• Those living in households earning at least $75,000 per year (56%), compared with lower income brackets
• Adults ages 35-44 (49%), compared with younger and older adults
• College graduates (49%), compared with adults with lower levels of education

“One of the things that is especially interesting about tablet adoption compared to some of the patterns of other devices we’ve studied is how these technologies’ growth has played out between different age groups,” Research Analyst Kathryn Zickuhr said. “With smartphones, for instance, we’ve seen a very strong correlation with age where most younger adults own smartphones, regardless of income level. But when it comes to tablets, adults in their thirties and forties are now significantly more likely than any other age group to own this device.”

Link to the rest at Pew Internet

From The Harvard Business Review:

“They can just use their desktop computer to do that.”

One of the most persistent misconceptions about mobile devices is that it’s okay if they offer only a paltry subset of the content available on the desktop. Decision-makers argue that users only need quick, task-focused tools on their mobile devices, because the desktop will always be the preferred choice for more in-depth, information-seeking research.

But what about people who don’t have a desktop computer? What about people who have access to a PC, but prefer using their mobile device? Those users want and need access to the same information, just presented in a different form factor. The mobile-only user is your customer too.

. . . .

According to Pew Internet, 55 percent of Americans said they’d used a mobile device to access the internet in 2012. A surprisingly large number — 31 percent — of these mobile internet users say that’s the primary way they access the web.

. . . .

50 percent of teen smartphone owners, aged 12-17, say they use the internet mostly on their cell phone, according to a 2013 Pew Internet report on Teens and Technology. Similarly, 45 percent of young adults aged 18-29 reported in 2012 that they mostly go online with a mobile device.

. . . .

Amazon, Wikipedia, and Facebook all see about 20 percent of their traffic from mobile-only users, according to comScore. A whopping 46 percent of shoppers reported they exclusively use their mobile device to conduct pre-purchase research for local products and services. Internal data from some finance, healthcare, and travel providers show similar mobile-only usage.

. . . .

Google reports that 77 percent of searches from mobile devices take place at home or work, only 17 percent on the move.

. . . .

Asking mobile-only users to pinch and zoom their way through a website designed for a monitor five times larger is an ergonomic nightmare — and a cop-out. We can do better for these users than tiny fonts, untappable links, and broken hover states.

Link to the rest at The Harvard Business Review

When reading this article, PG realized he’d never checked Mrs. PG’s ebooks on a smartphone.

PG also installed a WordPress plug-in that’s supposed to make TPV work well on a mobile device. He’s tried it out with his iPhone and it’s a big improvement over getting the desktop version. Any feedback on TPV’s mobile experience would be appreciated.

From TabTimes:

Forrester did an interesting study of tablets for work in several geographies and the U.S. specifically.

It’s interesting because one consumer tablet ranked very high on the list of tablets information workers said they used at least once a week for work.

In its survey that covered the U.S., Canada, U.K., France, and Germany, Forrester says Amazon’s Kindle Fire came in at #3, with 9% of those surveyed between February to April, 2013 giving the nod to Amazon’s tablet.

“Kindle Fire HD has turned out to be something of a stealth competitor in the bring-your-own-device (BYO) space,” says Forrester analyst J.P. Gownder, writing in Forbes.

. . . .

In the U.S. the Kindle Fire also had a strong showing, tying Samsung for second place as the tablet used by 15% of those information workers surveyed.

“The Kindle Fire’s success in workplaces rests squarely on BYO behaviors, since the device isn’t sold directly to enterprises,” said Gownder.

Link to the rest at TabTimes

From The Verge:

Amazon has opened pre-orders for its Kindle Fire tablets in over 170 countries and expanded its Android Appstore in nearly 200 regions . It’s the biggest device rollout the company has embarked on since it entered the tablet market, and sees it take on Apple in terms of availability and distribution. Before today, the Kindle Fire was available in only seven countries — including the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan.

. . . .

Selling its Kindle Fire models at low margins, Amazon’s tablets have consistently topped the charts as its most popular product. Amazon is clearly looking to compete with Apple on price and availability, with a lock in to its broad ecosystem.

Link to the rest at The Verge

From BGR:

European governments are casting a baleful eye on the explosive smartphone and tablet growth. The problem for many Europeans lies in the way these devices promote vehicles for American entertainment — from Amazon and Netflix to Apple and Disney. The new proposalmade by the president of France would slap a 1% tax on all smartphone and tablet retail sales, with a goal to protect “l’exception culturelle”. This exception is a concept France created in 1992 to defend protectionist measures aimed at preserving the cultural heritage of France.

Sweden is taking a different tack; it has already extended its annual, $320 television tax to encompass consumers who do not own a television, but possess a smartphone or a tablet.

. . . .

Both the French and the Swedish policies are underpinned by fear. There is a new horror of cultural imperialism pervading Europe: Netflix is expanding aggressively, Amazon is on a rampage, iTunes is bringing a wide selection of American television and film content to the heartlands of the European Union. In many European countries, the limited selection of American entertainment content by national broadcasters used to cap the amount of American entertainment consumed by innocent Europeans.

Link to the rest at BGR

From Reuters:

The purchase price for Liquavista was not disclosed. Bloomberg News reported earlier this year that Samsung was seeking less than $100 million for the business.

. . . .

[In addition to its Fire tablets] Amazon is also testing and developing other gadgets, such as smart phones and an Internet-based set-top TV box, according to recent reports.

. . . .

Liquavista focuses on a technology called electrowetting, which it says makes displays clearer in all lighting conditions and can show video without using much power.

The technology can be used in mobile gadgets such as e-readers, smart phones, GPS devices, portable media players and cameras. Over the long term, electrowetting can be used in larger display products such as laptops and TVs, Liquavista said on its website.

Link to the rest at Reuters and thanks to Joshua for the tip.

From The New York Post:

A new tablet to rival the iPad and Kindle is struggling to be born, but the birth may not be a pretty sight.

In a deal that could mark the demise of Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader, Microsoft is mulling a $1 billion offer for the battle-torn device and its digital content, according to a report this week.

Microsoft’s plan would likely eliminate the Nook’s physical e-reader tablets at the close of the current fiscal year next spring, as they are powered by Google’s Android operating system.

Instead, the software giant would concentrate on using the Nook’s digital contents for apps and enhancements to its own Windows software and devices.

. . . .

“This would give people a reason to buy the Surface — if you already have a PC and had the online bookstore hooked into Windows, [Amazon’s] Kindle could start to look unnecessary, ” an industry banker told The Post yesterday.

. . . .

This year, the Nook revenue is expected to fall 10 percent, to $1.091 billion — widening the loss to $360 million as the tablet devices are phased out, according to the documents.

In the fourth quarter, the Nook had a 1.9 percent share of the global tablet market, making it the No. 5 tablet player behind Apple, Samsung, Amazon and Asus, according to data from IDC. By the first quarter, it had slipped out of the top 5, replaced by Microsoft.

Link to the rest at The New York Post