From The Telegraph:

The Christmas leap in tablet computer sales means that half of Britons are now using them, following a flood of cheap devices on to the market.

Between 12m and 13m tablets have been sold in the UK this year, an increase of more than 50pc on 2012, according to research from Deloitte. This means that by the end of January, 50pc of Britons will own or have access to a tablet, up from 36pc in the summer.

In under four years, since the release of Apple’s iPad in 2010, the tablet has become one of Britain’s must-have products, and many retailers have counted on strong demand for them to improve sales during the lucrative Christmas period.

Deloitte said the tablet’s growth had been driven by the value end of the market, which had made the touch-screen devices available as children’s gifts and for those unwilling to pay for more expensive models.

. . . .

“Tablets have gained popularity with extraordinary speed, and manufacturers will have to work hard to stay on top of the evolution of the market,” Mr Lee said.

“There appear to be more users and use cases for tablets than many had imagined. Getting the balance of form, function and price right will likely be a moving target during 2014, especially at the lower end of the market,” he added.

Link to the rest at The Telegraph

From Cable.co.uk:

According to Amazon, more than half of this year’s Christmas shoppers placed their orders using a smartphone or tablet.

Amazon has revealed that during the 2013 holiday season – the busiest ever for the online retailer – more than half of Christmas shoppers placed their orders using mobile devices.

Traffic peaked on Cyber Monday – the Monday after the Thanksgiving weekend in the US – when over 36.8 million items were ordered worldwide, or 426 per second, the company announced on Thursday (26 December).

Between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, customers ordered more than five toys per second from smartphones or tablets.

Link to the rest at Cable.co.uk

From CNET:

Amazon spent 2013 attempting to wow us and, for the most part, succeeded.

This year saw the debut of Amazon’s Mayday customer service button – the marquee feature for its newest line of Kindle Fire tablets — the revival of the US Postal Service through Sunday delivery, and, of course, the frenzy of debate over autonomous flying robots serving as the next-generation of delivery men ahead of Cyber Monday.

Think Amazon out did itself in 2013? Well, get ready for even more eye-popping surprises in 2014.

Known for its willingness to play the long game, Amazon often goes through cycles of large investments before reaping the rewards, and 2014 will be another year when the company “percolates,” said NPD analyst Marshal Cohen.

“You can feel that they’re getting ready in a year or two to come out with some very big things,” he said.

. . . .

2. The Kindle, your tutor
Thanks to Mayday, your Kindle Fire can tell you how to change the brightness of your tablet or how to order an e-book. So why couldn’t it also teach your kids math?

If Amazon’s acquisition of TenMarks is any indication, the company may be looking to delve into education. TenMarks creates math practice programs and is a teaching tool. When Amazon purchased it in October, it said TenMarks would develop new education apps for Kindle tablets.

It’s not a huge stretch to see a potential marriage of TenMarks’ education resources and the Mayday service — perhaps a premium option that allows for tutors to help with math equations via one-sided video tutelage?

Crazy? Perhaps. But just crazy enough for Amazon? Certainly.

Couple that with Amazon’s newly released free-time features on a tablet designed for penny-pinching parents, and Amazon makes the Kindle the ideal children’s tablet.

. . . .

5. Amazon Prime goes mainstream
By 2014, Amazon will be daring its customers not to sign up for its premium Prime service.

Prime members already benefit from free two-day shipping and access to its video-streaming service and Kindle e-book lending library. On the non-Prime side, Amazon recently raised the minimum price for free shipping by $10 to $35. Expect the perks for Prime to get even more attractive in the coming year.

The next year will bring a rapid expansion of the company’s online grocery delivery service, AmazonFresh, which also means Amazon is making same-day delivery open to Amazon Prime customers. While online grocery delivery and same-day delivery is tricky business, it encourages customers to buy everything on Amazon.

If Amazon launches anything new — like a music-streaming service or a premium personal shopper service — you can bet Prime members will get unlimited access.

Link to the rest at CNET

One of PG’s offspring bought a Kindle Fire HDX and an iPad Mini for her offspring with the intent to return the one she liked the least. The iPad is going back in large part because of Kindle Free Time.

Under Kindle Free Time, for $2.99 per month, you get access to thousands of kid-safe books, apps and videos. Plus Amazon makes it easy to lock down the tablet to prevent precocious children from doing things their parents don’t think are a good idea.

From GigaOm:

 I was certainly not the first to proclaim the death of the tablet magazine, the now universally recognized and unequivocal data pointing to the steep decline of print-replica apps is becoming undeniable.

What’s even worse news for magazine publishers who have chosen either a PDF-based or Adobe InDesign-led “Plug-In” app solution in a race to cash in on Apple’s Newsstand is the damning evidence of Apple’s lack of support…and frankly, interest in the Newsstand app itself.

Once the “holy grail” for magazine publishers, promising front-and-center exposure for their periodicals, the Newsstand app in iOS 7 has become almost irrelevant.

As pointed out by Hamish Mckenzie from Pandodaily:

“…there is now no visual reminder within the Newsstand icon that there are publications inside, waiting to be read. On top of that, in iOS7 users can now hide the Newsstand icon inside a folder. The once-special treatment that Apple gave publishers in order to encourage the distribution of magazines to the iPhone and iPad has apparently vanished, at least in terms of visual prominence.”

. . . .

The Newsstand and tablet magazine honeymoon is over. Apple knows it. The industry knows it. And consumers have made it painfully clear for far too long.

Link to the rest at GigaOm

From All Things D:

We all know that Amazon’s annual touting of its new Kindles as the best-selling Kindles ever has become laughable since the company doesn’t provide any sales figures to back up its claims.

But a recent analysis of survey data by research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners shows that maybe, just maybe, there are other Kindle-related figures that are just as critical to Amazon, if not more so.

First, at a high level, CIRP estimates that 20.5 million Kindles — e-readers and Kindle Fire tablets combined — are currently in use in the U.S., and that 40 percent of Amazon.com’s customers own one of the devices.

. . . .

Based on its research and analysis, CIRP estimates that Kindle owners spend $1,233 per year on Amazon compared to $790 per year for Amazon shoppers who don’t own one of the company’s e-readers or tablets. Kindle owners aren’t necessarily buying more at a shot, but are buying more frequently.

“Another way to look at Kindle Fire and Kindle e-Reader is as a portal to Amazon.com,” CIRP’s Mike Levin said in a statement. “Kindle Fire provides access to everything Amazon sells, while Kindle e-Reader has become the way that Amazon customers buy books, Amazon’s original product line.”

Link to the rest at All Things D

Since Christmas is coming.

From CNET:

So you now have an Android tablet. Congrats. Android tablets are arguably — some would say inarguably — the most versatile tablets you can buy. However, after you’ve gone through the initial setup and before you begin actual normal use of your shiny new portable device, there are a few things — six things in fact — you’ll want to take care of.

. . . .

The biggest drain on your tablet’s battery is its screen and the best way to control its drain on your battery is to keep it dim. Not so much that you can’t easily see your screen or appreciate its brightness, but it’s best to think in terms of balance.

Unless you’re constantly using your tablet in direct sunlight, there’s no need to set its brightness to maximum. Depending on the tablet, 50 percent brightness or even slightly less should provide more than enough luminance in normal lighting conditions. In a completely dark room — say, right before bedtime — , turning the brightness to zero will give you more than enough light to use the tablet effectively.

. . . .

It’s no secret that the Android OS is highly customizable and one of the reasons it has so much flexibility in its interface is its support for widgets. Widgets are a way to further enhance and tailor your Android interface and HD Widgets in particular allows you add widgets that take advantage of a tablet’s larger and likely high resolution display.

With HD widgets you can add a digital clock and a current weather tracker to the home screen. You can also add a shortcut bar for easy access to Wi-Fi settings, brightness, screen timeout, tilt, battery life, among others. Place them on the lock screen for even quicker access to options and info.

Widgets are a great way to personalize and distinguish your interface from others, so do not sleep on them.

. . . .

AVG AntiVirus is free — with ads at the bottom of the screen –, includes a manual scanner, and real-time protection when visiting websites it deems suspicious. There’s also a useful anti-theft feature that locates your device on Google Maps if its ever lost or stolen.

Link to the rest at CNET

From The Guardian:

Tesco has said that an updated version of its surprise hit tablet computer, the Hudl, will be launched in 2014.

“The new model will be an enhanced version,” said Tesco’s chief executive, Philip Clarke.

He also announced that Tesco had sold more than 35,000 Hudl tablets within the first few days of the launch, and has sold more than 300,000 to date, “more than we had originally planned in total in the run-up to Christmas” according to Clarke.

. . . .

Chief digital officer at Tesco, Michael Comish, admitted that Tesco had struggled to maintain stock of the tablets saying, “they are flying off the shelves so quickly, it has run out of stock twice”.

. . . .

But the Hudl represents more than just a single product to Tesco, it is an entry into consumer homes, something other retailers like Amazon are using to great effect.

“Tesco will be acutely aware that Amazon is using its Kindle Fire tablets as a direct means to deepen its relationship with its customers,” said Wood. “Tesco must address this quickly and develop Hudl into a direct channel that links into its numerous other assets such as the Clubcard and Blinkbox.”

Link to the rest at The Guardian

From Digital Book World:

E-reading devices and the digital books to fuel them will be popular gifts this holiday season, an October 2013 study by PlayCollective with Digital Book World reveals. Almost 46% of parents plan to purchase a new device for their child to read ebooks, up six percentage points from last year. Over half (57%) of these parents intend for the device to belong primarily to their child. And, good news for publishers, nearly three-quarters of parents plan on buying ebooks for their children this holiday season, more than last year.

. . . .

Although the Kindle Fire is once again at the top of the list, the percentage of parents planning to purchase the Fire has not changed since the end of 2012 (28% vs. 29% in 2013). The percentage of parents eyeing the newest iPad is similarly constant (18% in 2012 vs. 19% in 2013).

Link to the rest at Digital Book World

From The Verge:

Amazon has released Kindle Fire OS 3.1, the latest update for its new Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX tablets. The new version includes numerous new features, led by full integration of Goodreads. Users can now share their favorite quotes with other Goodreads members and keep track of what friends are reading thanks to an updates feed. Ratings and reviews can be composed right from the OS, and Amazon lets users quickly import all previous book purchases — both physical and digital — into Goodreads.

Link to the rest at The Verge

From TeleRead:

People in Queens, N.Y. will be able to use tablets for free starting next week.

Google donated 17,000 Nexus 7 tablets to the New York State Community Action Association, and Queens Library received 5,000 of those units. The library is going to lend the tablets to library card- customers starting Nov. 20. The tablets will be at seven Queens locations, and customers can borrow them for a month with the option of three renewals.

. . . .

The tablets will come with pre-loaded content with educational information, resources for job searching, computer skills training, immigration and citizenship information and more. The tablets will have full Internet within Wi-Fi range.

This is one of the first programs like this in the country – especially in such a large population. Queens is home to 2.3 million people.

Link to the rest at TeleRead