World Mobile News

Posted in: Android, iOS, Tablets 14 hours ago by Peter While Android was the undisputed ruler in the smartphone world, it’s a different story when it comes to tablets – Apple’s iPad had a record quarter and accounted for 68.2% of tablet shipments during Q2 of this year. For comparison, the biggest maker of Android tablets is Samsung and their share is just 9.6%. Going back to Apple for a moment, they beat their record Q4 2011 quarter despite shipments in mature markets losing some of their momentum, according to IDC. The other markets picked up the slack. Samsung’s shipments grew by 117.6% and solidified its second place, even though they’ve got a long, long way to go before catching up with Apple. Amazon and their single Kindle Fire tablet are doing pretty good for themselves too, snatching a 5% share of the market – this is especially impressive because the Kindle Fire was only introduced in Q4 of last year. (Preliminary) (Unit Shipments are in thousands) ASUS more than doubled the...

Apple product launches in China are renowned for being chaotic and rowdy but today the company began selling its new iPad in the country under rather unusual circumstances. Instead of being greeted by massive queues and anxious customers — as has become the norm — the Retina display equipped device has enjoyed a more muted and organised opening. Yesterday, Apple laid the foundations for a more controlled launch day when it introduced a pre-sale reservation system that requires all customers to register their interest in the device — priced from RMB 3688 ($579) – in advance of buying the flagship tablet computer. As well as insuring against large queues, the system is designed to restrict the influence of scalpers, independent sellers that buy the device in bulk with the aim of reselling it for profit, whose large numbers have blighted previous launches. The introduction has avoided a repeat of the madness of March’s iPhone 4S launch and Apple’s flagship Chinese store — in Beijing’s Sa...