Nokia has already warned that such a slump is likely to continue through 2012, with interest in Symbian devices fading faster than previously expected. Meanwhile the company is pushing ahead with Windows Phone, though Microsoft’s platform only had 1.9-percent of the worldwide smartphone market share in Q4 2011.

Android held the Q4 smartphone OS top place, with 50.9-percent of the market worldwide, while iOS had less than half that amount at 23.8-percent. Both saw significant increases year-on-year however, unlike RIM whose share dropped from 14.6- to 8.8-percent.

Overall, Gartner says smartphone sales worldwide reached 149m units in Q4 2011 and 472m units for the full year, a rise of 47.3- and 58-percent year-on-year respectively. Smartphones made up almost a third of overall device sales, though 2012 growth is predicted to slow somewhat. Of course, market share and league tables doesn’t necessarily equal success for individual companies: iOS may be less popular than Android, but since only Apple uses it the Cupertino company keeps the spoils to itself. Meanwhile, Android’s dominance has to be shared between the many Android devices and multiple vendors using Google’s platform.

“Apple has integrated our processor IP in certain of its mobile phones” Audience confirmed in its IPO documentation last month. Based on the company’s EarSmart technology, it allows phones to use effective background noise cancellation even when the microphone is held at arm’s reach, rather than when it’s near the user’s mouth.

Audience doesn’t detail its “custom processor for Apple” but the volume inclusion timescale – Q4 of 2011 – fits in with the launch of the iPhone 4S. EarSmart models the human brain, using two microphones and custom DSP to filter out background sound.

It’s that ability – present in the iPhone 4S but missing from the iPhone 4 and earlier devices – which limits Siri’s backward-compatibility, Gwennap argues. As we’ve seen from unofficial hacks, the A4 chip powering the iPhone 4 is capable of running Siri on a power level; it seems the stumbling block is whether Siri can actually hear you properly.

Apple is a licensee of Audience’s next-gen noise reduction tech, though the company points out that the iPhone maker is under no obligation to actually use it. Still, that could appear in the Apple A6 chipset, expected to be at the heart of the iPad 3

“We recently met with Heins and found him engaging, articulate, and thoughtful” Misek wrote in a note to investors this week, suggesting that “we see no evidence that he is under the influence of the former management in any way.” Unfortunately, that’s where the good news ends: “we respectfully disagree with him” Misek says.

“We believe that an ~1 year delay in licensing BB10 (what we believe to be an excellent OS) is a mistake. We believe decelerating efforts to offer enterprises the ability to get their fast secure Blackberry email on an iPhone or an Android device is a mistake. We want to believe in RIM, but see the near-term risks as too high” Peter Misek, analyst, Jefferies

Instead of looking to spread RIM’s strengths – its instant messaging system and enterprise-level email – across multiple platforms, thus allowing it to still profit even as its market share in business is squeezed, the company wants to be “direct competition” for Google and Apple, the analyst suggests. That fits in with Heins’ own comments shortly after his new role was announced; asked about licensing BlackBerry 10, he said while the company would consider it, RIM would rather leverage its existing ecosystem.

“We’re strong because we have an integrated solution: network, services, enterprise service and fantastic devices and a fantastic ecosystem” Heins insisted, going on to later dismiss Android devices as “all the same.” The irony of that observation became clear earlier this week, when new images believed to show the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone leaked and the handset proved to be markedly similar to what we’ve already seen on multiple occasions from Android vendors.

The leak, Munster reckons, is ”continued evidence that Apple is exploring production of a television,” something the analyst has been talking about since 2010. All signs point to a potential 2012 release, Munster predicts, with the Apple television believed to use the Siri voice control system that debuted on the iPhone 4S.

Siri integration – using natural voice commands to find shows and streaming content, rather than a traditional remote – is supposedly a dead cert in what insiders described as a “guaranteed product” late in 2011. Screen sizes of 42- and 50-inches have also been suggested, although other sources claim Apple will test the market with TV-enabled iMacs initially.

As for content, Apple obviously has its iTunes catalog and various streaming services such as Netflix, but there has also been talk of deals with content owners for custom packages of shows and channels exclusively for Apple smart TV owners. “Since we know Apple is exploring television hardware,” Munster says, “we are therefore led to conclude that the company is exploring a solution for live TV, and this solution could be one that has not yet been taken mainstream.”

[via Apple Insider]

“Apple’s Macbook Air represents a symbol of both the opportunity and challenge for the ultrabook… and while it has been very well received, the consistently high price point of the Macbook Air and other Macbook products have meant that they remain a niche segment of the market,” Juniper admits in its research note. However, the cost of entry will be scaled down significantly over the next few years.

As we all know, tablets are great but they are limited because they lack such peripherals as a keyboard or mouse, by default. There’s a reason that a market exists for Bluetooth iPad keyboards and the like. By Juniper’s predictions, 178.2 million ultrabooks will be shipped by 2016, with the bulk going to North America and Western Europe. The growth in this nascent segment will exceed tablets, the research firm said, so even though the word “ultrabook” still hasn’t made it into many people’s lexicons just yet, it will.

[via Consumer Reports]

HP, meanwhile, struggled to find buyers with the TouchPad and canned the whole tablet project, while webOS phones also died out in 2011. The company is still a force to be reckoned with in the PC segment, in terms of sales volume at least, but has seemingly relinquished any real ambitions for the consumer mobility market.

The biggest drop was seen by Nokia, its semiconductor demand diving by over a fifth, though it still remains ahead of Sony, Toshiba, Lenovo and LG. The top ten consumers of semiconductors together accounted for 35-percent of total revenue in the segment, a whopping $105.6bn.

Apple is expected to announce its latest quarterly financial results later today.

The free ebook creation tool, which is Mac-only and requires OS X Lion, was apparently downloaded 90,000 times since it was released on Thursday. The app allows digital books to be created by dragging-&-dropping Word files, photos, video clips and Keynote presentations, though the resulting interactive titles can only be distributed via Apple’s own iBookstore.

That limitation may not dissuade many publishers, however, given the potential savings on offer. The research firm reckons production using iBooks Author is around 80-percent less than for a print textbook, and highlights that the sales model – selling to students each year, rather than to schools every five years on average – also presents more of an opportunity for profit, even if individual digital textbooks are cheaper than their paper counterparts.

You can find more in our iBooks 2 hands-on report.

Nokia continues to stay quiet on Lumia sales figures, leaving supply chain checks and retailer feedback to give only a vague hint at how well the devices are performing. The more glowing estimates may not have been entirely a reflection on the strength of Nokia’s own range, however; “there weren’t a lot of the hero handsets out there” Jefferies International analyst Lee Simpson suggested of the market as a whole. “HTC were struggling, RIM didn’t have a show-me device, Sony Ericsson and Motorola weren’t really stepping into the mix, so there was probably enough space for Nokia to be able to point to fourth- quarter numbers they were happy with.”

Meanwhile, the cost of the Lumia 800, the first of Nokia’s Windows Phones to hit the market back in November 2011, may have proved a turn-off for would-be buyers. “What’s really needed is cheaper models to compensate for the declining trend in Symbian” FIM Bank analyst Michael Schroeder suggests, “which sold in large numbers in the main smartphone category of 200 to 300 euros.”

As for the N9, while Nokia has said it holds little ambition for MeeGo, the collaborative project between it and Intel – and which has now been at least partially folded into Tizen - sales of the smartphone are expected to be surprisingly healthy given its limited availability. Pareto Oehman analyst Helena Nordman-Knutson estimates as many as 1.4m N9 units may have been sold in 2011, with the MeeGo device – which we reviewed here - on sale since September though not in key markets like the US and UK.

Even if channel shipments are healthy, there are suggestions that carriers themselves have been disappointed with demand. Reports surfaced earlier this month, claiming the operators had been pressuring Nokia to reduce prices so as to stimulate demand. Back at CES, the company revealed its first LTE Windows Phone, the Lumia 900, though the handset isn’t expected to go on sale until March.

Nokia will announce its quarterly financial results this week, on Thursday January 26, with all eyes on Windows Phone performance.

“They can get the device from other outlets, rather than go to the main Apple store,” Peng pointed out. While Apple ceased iPhone 4S sales from its own outlets as a response to the violence, the smartphone continued to be sold by China Unicom, its carrier partner, and authorized resellers. “What surprised me was many people didn’t get the message.”

Peng’s solution would be to launch in China alongside the US, rather than stagger availability as Apple has traditionally scaled its international launches with previous devices. “If Apple launches the products earlier, consumers don’t need to feel like, “I’m already late, I need to get it quicker” she suggested. However, with stock shortages lasting for several weeks after the US release in October 2011, it’s unlikely that Apple would be able to keep up with demand for a broader launch.

Still, better use of online ordering – and improved communication – seems like it might have alleviated some of the crowds, though according to Chinese reports around half of the roughly 2,000-strong group waiting overnight had been scalpers or people employed by them to buy handsets for the gray market. Apple is yet to confirm when it might begin selling the iPhone 4S in China from its own stores.

“We think some of this has already been started with RIM likely agreeing to license Blackberry 10 to Samsung, HTC, and possibly others.This would help create a critical mass for the ecosystem and maintain RIM’s monthly service revenue; however, it puts more pressure on the hardware business in the short term. Longer term, it possibly gets people hooked on the RIM ecosystem and may in fact allow them to sell more BB 10 handsets (if they are able to create compelling handsets)” Peter Misek, analyst, Jefferies & Co.

Unfortunately, just as was the case when the rumors surged previously, it’s hard to see where BB10 might slot into either Samsung or HTC’s ranges. Note, Misek says RIM is “likely agreeing” to a licensing deal, not that either rival has expressed much interest. Samsung has plenty on its plate already, with Microsoft chasing it for more Windows Phone motivation and Android devices flying off shelves; it even has to spend some time on its own homegrown platform, bada, which has proved strangely fireproof among the 2011 OS cull.

HTC, meanwhile, is increasingly struggling to find its place on shelves, with last year’s less-than-successful scattergun approach – a different handset for just about everybody – apparently prompting a rethink at HQ. The “Quietly Brilliant” strategy this year is a few great devices, we’re told, rather than a whole lot of mediocre ones, and the combination of Android and Windows Phone is likely enough to satisfy that remit without BB10 getting a look-in.

Who’s left? Microsoft and Nokia may be embroiled in their own persistent rumors of smartphone divisions changing hands and clandestine CEO ninjas inveigling the Finns and breaking them down from the inside, but there’s still been time for suggestions that the pair has looked curiously at RIM too. Any appeal for Microsoft, though, is likely to be a wholesale acquisition – buying its way back into the enterprise market share it used to part-dominate with Windows Mobile – rather than using software someone else controls.

In the meantime, RIM’s co-chairs need to bite the bullet and step back, allow in an independent chairperson if only to temporarily placate the investors. You can understand the reluctance: Mike Lazaridis isn’t just the co-chair and co-CEO, he’s RIM’s founder. I’d wager there’s a copy of the Steve Jobs biography on his nightstand, the pages documenting Steve’s return to floundering Apple and how he turned it around against the odds the most thumbed of all.

Sticking to your guns, fighting the naysayers and rescuing a situation everyone else had given up on is a common trope in the media. That’s reasonably straightforward if you’re a plucky boxer down on his luck: spend a few weeks in the gym with a motivating soundtrack of soft rock and you might just make good in the ring. It’s not so straightforward when you’re trying to convince the buying public and an increasingly dissatisfied enterprise to stick with your phones in the face of the all-conquering iPhone and a metric ton of Android devices. You can put the Rocky theme on repeat for as long as you like, but not giving customers new phones until the end of the year isn’t a way to turn around your bottom line today.

There’s anecdotal evidence that enterprise customers haven’t given up on BlackBerry, if only because of the hassle involved in transitioning to a different system, and we’ll get a chance to see where RIM is up to at Mobile World Congress next month.  Could a little more communication from Lazaridis and Balsillie about BB10′s true progress be enough to tide those customers over the next few difficult quarters? It’s not ideal, but it’s potentially less platform-cannibalizing than, say, licensing out BBM to rivals or becoming nothing more than a software house dependent on per-handset fees. With the knives out, RIM needs to stick to its strengths and resist the temptation for quick fix deals. Desperation is an effective motivator but often produces lousy long-term results.

Although Munster has a mixed track record, particularly on his usual beat of Apple predictions – he’s been shouting about the Apple television for a couple of years now – the suggestion of potential Netflix interest has had a healthy reaction in the streaming media company’s share price. Stock leapt on Wednesday, by over 11-percent, after Neftlix announced its users had watched more than 2bn hours of content in Q4 2011.

Previous acquisition rumors had pegged Verizon as a potential suitor to Netflix, something the carrier moved to dismiss in December. The streaming firm had struggled in 2011, after an aborted attempt to split away its DVD business as “Qwikster” and price increases drove customers away.

Netflix now intends to invest in its own original content, with the first show premiering next month. That’s arguably something Yahoo! might want to get involved in, making its own portal a destination with content viewers can’t see elsewhere.

[via PC Mag]

RIM denied the supposed-insider’s comments as “inaccurate and uninformed” and reiterated that the launch later this year was a strategic one around next-gen LTE chipsets rather than being prompted by internal struggles. Nonetheless, analysts remain unconvinced, with Evercore Partners’ Alkesh Shah describing the chipset wait as “a contributing factor in a number of factors that led to the delay,” the NYTimes reports.

“They can’t get the infrastructure and the operating system ready in time” Peter Misek, analyst, Jefferies & Company

In fact, the spreading suspicion is that RIM has simply been unable to bring BlackBerry 10′s power and battery demands down to a level where current-gen chipsets are capable of delivering a competitive experience. Poorly performing prototypes convinced RIM that there was no choice but to delay production until the new frugal and potent chips arrived later in the year.

“One of the problems is the delay in the BB 10 software and that may have led to the selection of chips that caused the most recent delay” Rod Hall, analyst, JPMorgan Chase

QNX, the RIM acquisition at the heart of BlackBerry 10, may not have been as up to the challenge of smartphones as the company believed, ABI Research’s Michael Morgan suggests. Although the OS is widely deployed already, those implementations are often in cars and other situations where power consumption is a minor issue. Even the PlayBook struggled with QNX’s comparative frugality, and now the OS “is being applied now in a place it hasn’t been before” Morgan concludes.

Those figures, Microsoft’s IE team claims, suggest that “as of November, IE9 usage share on Windows 7 worldwide was higher than all versions of Chrome and all versions of Firefox – second only to IE8″ and that December numbers look set to follow that trajectory. In fact, Microsoft says it expects that 25.6-percent of Windows 7 PCs will have been using IE9 by the end of 2011, in the US at least.

IE8 remains the top individual browser version in play according to Net Applications, at 28-percent alone, though those figures differ from those released in December by StatCounter which indicated Chrome v.15 had overtaken it. Google has begun an aggressive update push to get users onto Chrome v.16, and Microsoft recently revealed plans to automatically update its own legacy users unless they had previously opted-out.

Nonetheless, Microsoft could find itself dipping beneath the 50-percent market share point come March, Net Applications predicts, if its overall share continues to dwindle at the same pace. Firefox, too, ended 2011 on a sour note, with its 21.8-percent share only slightly higher than that of Chrome.

The $9bn figure has come from RBC Capital Markets analyst Jonathan Atkin, but carrier CEO Rene Obermann has refused to countenance shareholder payout cuts for 2012. Investors will get an annual dividend of at least €0.70, he confirmed this week, while Deutsche Telekom has reiterated its intention to buy back €1.2bn in shares over the next three years.

“Achieving growth is very, very difficult, that’s why the shares need another attractor …  achieving growth is very, very difficult, that’s why the shares need another attractor” Rene Obermann, CEO, Deutsche Telekom

That pressure to keep investors happy means customers may end up suffering. T-Mobile USA has to share Deutsche Telekom’s attentions with the company’s businesses in Germany and other European countries, meaning that $9bn injection to keep its 3G/4G service in line with carrier rivals may prove tough to scrape together.

As for AT&T, some analysts believe it “should be fine strategically” but, Baird analyst William Power suggests, “ it begs the question what might be next for it.” Contrary to the FCC and Justice Departments concerns that AT&T buying T-Mobile USA would have been bad for competition, analysts reckon the opposite is true.

“Without the combination, we think the wireless industry will be further weakened by continued hyper-competitive activity,” Nomura analyst Mike McCormack wrote to investors this week, “particularly regarding subscriber acquisition costs.” Each quarter, carriers spend considerable time and effort with promotions and discounting to try to lure customers away from rivals, a pattern that has seen ARPU (Average Revenue Per Unit) drop as monthly bills are slashed.

Danske Bank’s analysts maintain that a sale of the smartphone segment at least “makes sense”, with Microsoft the likely buyer. Nokia, though, is keen to move past speculation of a sale. “We put these rumors to rest a long time ago,” spokesperson Doug Dawson insists.

Nonetheless, questions still remain around the potential for a buy-out. Talk earlier in the year tipped a $19bn purchase price, a rough figure reiterated by Danske Bank this week.

If true, Microsoft wouldn’t be the first to bring a manufacturer in-house, even with its platform being used by numerous other OEMs. Google has made moves to acquire Motorola Mobility and is waiting on regulatory approval for the deal to get the green-light. The search giant has said it will not automatically use Motorola for all future Nexus devices, though the expectation is that the company will be used to better illustrate Google’s ongoing intentions in how the Android segment should develop.

A February debut isn’t too great a stretch, at least when you take into account Apple’s track record in tablets. Both the first- and second-gen models were revealed in Q1 – the original iPad in January 2010, the iPad 2 in March 2011 – and a yearly refresh cycle is something Apple often aims for.

However, that refresh cycle target has shown itself to be dependent on the technical elements of Apple’s products keeping up with the ambitions of its designers. The iPhone 4S kept would-be upgraders waiting with a post-summer release, and while Apple has not confirmed the cause of the later-than-expected launch, it has been widely speculated that hardware and software issues were at the root of it.

For the iPad 3, the main cause of contention has been the new display, said to double the existing iPad 2′s 1024 x 768 panel to 2048 x 1536 but also believed to be presenting numerous issues around bulk and backlighting. Nonetheless, recent rumors indicated production had started, with Sharp tipped as Apple’s key supplier.

If true, the iPad 3 will face competition from another high-resolution rumored tablet in mid-Q1 next year: Samsung is believed to be readying its own pixel packed rival. The 11.6-inch Korean tablet is said to run at a huge 2560 x 1600 and also be on track for a February debut.

The Cupertino company will take “the high end and larger screens of the iMac line and pushing it toward the TV market by integrating Apple TV and iCloud features into a slimmer all-in-one PC,” Blair reckons. Although third-party TV tuners are available for the iMac, Apple is yet to offer either a tuner of its own or an integrated TV option.

“Apple could effectively start with what they already have on the manufacturing line and slowly push their offering from 27 inches and scale up from there to 32 inches and then move on to the 42, 50 and 55 inch market” Blair concludes. Previous rumors suggested Apple was looking to produce three sizes of Apple television, including 32- and 55-inch models, for launch by the end of 2012.

Those models are also likely to include Siri voice control, with the virtual personal assistant being used to replace the traditional remote and make navigating through multiple content sources – such as cable, iTunes downloads and rentals, third-party streaming services such as Netflix and YouTube, and media saved on network-attached storage, in addition to AirPlay video funneled over from iPads, iPhones and MacBook notebooks – more straightforward. Apple recently advertised for new Siri software engineers, responsible for developing the system’s APIs and broadening its flexibility, something that is being seen as a precursor to it being implemented on other Apple devices.

However, while AT&T’s GSM network has long been lambasted for its shonky iPhone performance, a common source of complaints across the lifespan of the first four Apple handsets, Metrico found that the carrier had much improved. Voice quality, with a 2.8-percent call failure rate, was only slightly behind that seen on Verizon’s version, at 2.1-percent (Sprint lagged in third place, with 3.7-percent) they report, while AT&T’s lead in data speeds was considerably more impressive.

The average AT&T page load on the iPhone 4S took 1.29s, less than half the 2.60s Verizon page load. Sprint fell behind considerably, at 6.44s. Metrico’s testing used 21,000 page downloads both in lab situations and in five unnamed test cities, along with in excess of 8,000 upload/download tests. The voice call testing used 6,000 recorded samples.

Cuttingly, Metrico described Verizon’s iPhone 4S as “well below average” in its call failure performance when compared to Android and other handsets on the same network, suggesting there’s a potential compromise involved if you sate your iOS desires with a CDMA device.

[via ComputerWorld]

Apple has previous suggested that Android tablets that fragment the platform are only a positive thing for the iPad, frustrating shoppers and leaving the iOS slate looking like the paragon of stability in comparison. Nonetheless, reports out of the supply chain allege that Apple is facing a tablet stock glut, with “short-term market saturation” forcing the company to slash production orders.

The original iPhone saw dramatic price cuts early in its life-cycle, as Apple attempted to find the sweet spot that balanced prestige and perceived value. However, where smartphones are generally subsidized by carriers, that’s less common with tablets, especially the WiFi-only variants.

The iPad 2 is “long overdue for a price cut” Shope concludes, though does not suggest the extent to which that cut might be. It’s possible that any price movement would reflect positively on Apple, however, given that the company is not especially known for steep discounting.

The Kindle Fire – announced in late September and shipping on November 15 – runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, a version of the OS that Google intends for smartphones rather than tablets. However, Amazon’s software team has significantly redesigned the interface, replacing it with the retailer’s own UI. The upshot is heavy integration with Amazon’s own Kindle ebook, Prime video streaming and Music Store downloads; the downside is no official Android Market access, instead relying on Amazon’s own Appstore for Android.

“While the pricing at $199 looks disruptive for what seems to be the iPad’s most important rising challenge, the Amazon Fire – it is important to note that it could fuel further fragmentation in the tablet market—given it represents yet another platform. While compatible with Android, the Apps work with Amazon products. The more fragmentation, the better, says Apple, since that could drive more consumers to the stable Apple platform. We believe that Apple will get more aggressive on price with the iPad eventually but not compromise the product quality and experience” Ben Reitzes, analyst, Barclays

Fragmentation – or Android devices running different versions of the OS, some with manufacturer customizations – has grown to be an increasing headache for Google, both in introducing delays to older devices getting new versions of software, and in public and industry perception of the platform as a whole. Android lead Andy Rubin has argued that the fragmentation talk is “FUD” and that there’s in reality no issues, and Android-based tablets have certainly eaten into Apple’s market share.

The Kindle Fire is arguably more appliance than tablet: a way for Amazon to extend its reach into customers’ homes by escaping from the browser and into a dedicated piece of hardware. While the slate offers a browser, email and other tablet apps, its core function is to push Amazon’s own services. Nonetheless, as we’ve written before, price holds huge sway in the market and Amazon’s $199.99 tag for the Kindle Fire has already gathered a serious number of preorders. Apple may not publicly be worried, but you can bet Cook & Co. will be watching eagle-eyed at the first Kindle Fire feedback.

iSuppli estimated that Amazon spends almost $210 making each Kindle Fire, the 7-inch Android-based tablet it announced in late September. Although Amazon has used Google’s mobile OS, the software has been heavily reskinned and modified to integrate with the retailer’s cloud storage, streaming media services and Kindle ebook platform. That, the company is betting on, will make owners more likely to purchase content and offset any hardware sales losses.

The sales tax issue will be tougher to crack, however. An increasing number of US states are demanding that Amazon hand over sales taxes, a shift that could see Amazon either increase prices to offset the losses, or swallow the shortfall in profit themselves. Either way, the market is expected to react negatively, with predictions of a 19-percent drop in 2012 profit if prices go up.

Shipments of the Kindle Fire are expected to begin on November 15, with Amazon tipped to have sold 250,000 pre-orders in the first five days. More on the Kindle Fire in our coverage of Amazon’s launch event.

Reports across Twitter confirm interest in the iPhone 4S is high, and of course Apple already has over 1m pre-order customers to deliver to today. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak leads the line at the Apple Store in Los Gatos, California, tweeting that “the long wait begins.”

As for quite how many have followed Woz and plan on grabbing an iPhone 4S this weekend, estimates vary. Bloomberg surveyed the analysts and found that all questioned expected demand to exceed the 1.7m iPhone 4 sales in its first few days of availability: Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe tipped a full 4m for the 4S, though the majority fall in the range of 2m to 3m.

Whether Apple has sufficient stock to hit those numbers remains to be seen. Online orders placed today aren’t expected to ship for 1-2 weeks, and there’s no indication from the company as to what in-store levels might be like. Anecdotal reports across the UK, where the iPhone 4S has been on sale for almost seven hours (at time of writing), indicate 16GB stock is the most constrained, with many stores selling out and running short on other versions. Carrier O2 claimed several hours into sales that the white versions were proving more popular than the black.

For all the details on the iPhone 4S, check out the full SlashGear review!

[poll id="21"]

That’s even with the promise of the iPhone 4S to tempt them away to the higher-priced model. As well as the new, dual-core phone, Apple announced that the iPhone 4 would be sold at $99 – with a new agreement – for an 8GB version, while an 8GB iPhone 3GS would be offered free.

Walkley didn’t go so far as to share hard figures, so it’s difficult to know exactly how much of a difference the price cut will have made. However, with the promise of iOS 5 later this week for those with the existing devices, it’s entirely possible shoppers on a budget may have decided the updated software and last year’s hardware (or the year before that) was good enough for them.

Update: RIM has called Vinh’s checks on the supply chain “pure fiction”; more after the cut

“While Quanta last week acknowledged that it had laid off a significant number of production workers from a factory focused on producing the PlayBook,” Vinh wrote, “our research indicates that the ODM has essentially halted production of the tablet.” Suggestions had already been made that RIM could have as many as 800,000 PlayBook units stockpiled, after sales of the 7-inch tablet had fallen well short of expectations for two quarters running.

In Q2 2011, the company shipped a mere 200,000, down considerable from the 500,000 units shipped in Q1 2011. RIM has already slashed PlayBook pricing by $200 earlier this week, but is presumed to be feeling the pressure from yesterday’s Amazon Kindle Fire announcement.

RIM is yet to comment on the report, though the Canadian company wouldn’t be the first to quickly abandon a tablet project when initial feedback wasn’t looking positive. HP killed the TouchPad after just a couple of months of sales earlier this year.

Update: According to RIM, it is “highly committed to the tablet market.”

Although the change in production plans will mean significant drops for Apple’s hardware partners – Foxconn parent Hon Hai could see output fall from 17m expected units in Q4 to just 13m – it’s supposedly unlikely to impact the company’s actual iPad 2 shipments for the quarter. Analysts suggest that Apple is still on track to ship 10.9m to 12m of the tablets in the three month period.

It seems likely that Apple is balancing its warehouses ahead of predicted demand, with the promise of the iPad 3 acting as a cut-off point for the existing model. The third-gen slate is expected early in 2012, if Apple keeps to its roughly twelve month replacement pattern, with a high-resolution Retina Display touchscreen as well as Apple’s new A6 processor.

Apple and its suppliers have either declined or failed to comment on the report. However, any reduction is unlikely to be global; Brazilian factories are tipped to be coming on line with iPad production in December as part of a push to reduce prices of the coveted slate in the country.

Apple’s focus both on user experience and in shoring up supplies of the essential components for a successful tablet are credited for the company’s success. “Apple delivers a superior and unified user experience across its hardware, software and services” research VP Carolina Milanesi suggests. ”Unless competitors can respond with a similar approach, challenges to Apple’s position will be minimal.” As for components, the company “had the foresight to create this market and in doing that planned for it as far as component supplies such as memory and screen.”

The biggest threat to iPad comes from Android, though the analysts are pessimistic about Honeycomb slates’ sales performance this year. Having originally predicted that Android-based tablets would take 28-percent of the market this year, that’s since been downgraded to a mere 17.3-percent. Amazon’s well-rumored Kindle tablet has helped buoy those figures.

Windows 8, meanwhile, despite a strong showing at BUILD, will be undermined by its late arrival they predict, having given Apple and Android further time to bed-in with consumers. The recipe for tablet success is supposedly to “concentrate on delivering a rich user experience based on a strong tie between smartphones and tablets, a good set of apps, an intuitive user interface, and the ability to share content easily between devices.”

[via BGR]

“In our view, Apple should be in no rush” J.P. Morgan proffered in an investor note. “The other tablet entrants have stumbled so far, and that trend-line could persist deep into 2012. [Motorola] and RIM have been recent disappointments, and we expect more stumbles from others.”

Meanwhile, MobileTrax analyst Gerry Purdy has spent the time to write an open letter to Cook, flagging up some of what he reckons would be “insanely great” things to do now that he’s at the helm. Ranging from rebranding – changing “iTunes” to “iMedia” – to boosting the iPhone and iPad ranges with various model sizes, Purdy’s advice also includes dipping into the company’s $70bn purse to acquire TiVo, a firm he reckons has “an excellent UI but could do 100 times the business as part of Apple.”

The analyst also calls for broader support for rival platforms from iCloud, “so that [it] can truly transform mobile computing while allowing users to own any smartphone or tablet mobile device they want in order to benefit from iCloud’s services.” That, frankly, sounds about as far away from something Apple would choose to do as imaginable. The company’s strategy right now is creating an almost hermetically sealed ecosystem for its products and services to operate within, and unlocking the door for Android, Windows Phone or any other platform would inevitably take its toll on usability and simplicity (not to mention potentially cut into sales of Apple’s own products).

Whether Cook will pay any attention to the unsolicited suggestions remains to be seen, though our sneaking suspicion is that Apple, as when Jobs was at the helm, will continue to plot its own strategy rather than take the advice of others.

[via AllThingsD and via TNW; Image credit Evil Mad Scientist]

“Unlike traditional Windows 7, ‘Smart Tiles’ leverages multi-touch for a clever way to conveniently access most frequently used files and data” Breza points out, suggesting that this “leverages both desktop and mobile.” Microsoft’s existing installation base and strong position among enterprise users should also help it along the way, it’s predicted, although the company will need to focus on application momentum if it wants to challenge the iPad’s market lead.

Metro UI on Windows 8 tablet:

The impact Windows 8 on tablets has on Microsoft’s stock price could mark an end to periodic calls for CEO Steve Ballmer to be toppled, something the company’s board has always resisted while denying that the outspoken exec is “stuck in the past.” Earlier this week, Ballmer admitted dissatisfaction with Windows Phone sales but argued that the platform would receive a significant boost once the first Nokia devices to run the OS went on sale.

“Windows 8 tablets could be a valuation catalyst for the stock if investors begin to see Microsoft regaining leadership in the post-PC era” Breza concludes. The company’s share price climbed to a high of 26.785 in the aftermath of BUILD, though with Windows 8 slates not expected to go on sale until next year the market is apparently still cautious.

[via BGR]

According to his sources, the only components in play indicate a broadly similar design to the current iPhone 4, with a 3.5-inch display rather than the tipped larger panel. The analyst believes Apple is readying the so-called “N94″ or iPhone 4S, with the same glass front and back panels as currently used, but 512MB of RAM likely accompanying the Apple A5 dual-core processor found in the iPad 2.

However, the camera is likely to be the same as now, Kuo claims. Although there are suggestions that the iPhone 4S is either a decoy model, with Apple attempting to hide the actual iPhone 5, or an entry-level device targeting a lower price point, the analyst insists that he can find no evidence of any other version in production.

If true, that’s unlikely to please many would-be upgraders, who had been following the talk of larger, thinner iPhones with 8-megapixel cameras with particular interest. Instead, 2012 is said to bring more impressive hardware, with a significant refresh of at least the iPod touch tipped by the analyst. Of course, Apple could be simply better at keeping secrets than Kuo’s tipsters are are spilling them.

The soothsayers include long-time Cupertino TV tipster Gene Munster, who has been pushing the idea of an Apple-branded TV set since 2009. Munster’s predictions have had to evolve as time goes on; initially he argued Apple would have the set on the market by this year, a timescale that has since been updated to late 2012 or early 2013. “I think the probability is almost zero that it will be this year” he now says.

Alsop claims Apple is likely to begin with smaller TVs, 15- to 19-inch touchscreen sets that target the kitchen and bedroom, and which he reckons will go on sale by the 2012 holiday shopping season. Injecting iOS into an HDTV would make it a far more interactive proposition, he says, doing “to television manufacturers what [Apple] did to phone makers with the iPhone”.

Nonetheless, that’s just the opportunity Apple has had with the Apple TV, its existing set-top box, and so far there’s no sign of iOS apps arriving on living room scale screens. As ever, the possibility of an Apple HDTV rests for the large part on whether the company believes it can turn a profit on the TV as a premium experience for delivering premium content. Although we’ve heard talk of a so-called iTV, and of prototypes being played with in Apple’s labs - and while some people do believe there’s room for such a model in the marketplace – so far these rumors feel like little more than hopeful speculation.

In June, PC shipments grew 2.7-percent, while Mac shipments grew 14.6-percent. That’s the global growth, however; in China alone, shipments surged 67.6-percent, while Asia as a whole saw a 13-percent increase in home computing sales and a 31.5-percent increase in business computing sales. In contrast, the PC market declined 0.3-percent in the same period for home computing sales.

The brand-appeal Apple possesses in China has seen numerous companies attempt to cash in on retail demand, with a number of fake Apple stores being discovered using the Cupertino firm’s branding and aesthetic. Meanwhile, Apple itself is tipped to be preparing a “simplified” version of the iPhone 4 which would specifically target the Chinese market.

It’s a component strategy we’ve seen Apple use before, leaving rivals to scrabble for remaining supply if they hope to meet their own sales targets. Back in February, Apple was tipped to have tied up 60-percent of the touch panel supply for 2011, and the company’s voracious demand is already said to have delayed RIM’s launch of the BlackBerry PlayBook as well as cast doubts across whether Amazon will be able to produce as many of its well-rumored tablets as it hopes to.

“We think it is highly possible that Apple will make an investment in Sharp’s Kameyama plant to the tune of around $1 billion in order to secure stable supply of screens for iPhones and iPads” Rubenstein suggested in a note to investors earlier today. Sharp shares have jumped in response, though the company has not commented since it is closed for the summer holidays.

“We believe Apple is looking to merge iOS (iPhones/iPads) with OS X (Macs) into a single platform for apps and cloud services starting in 2012-13″ Peter Misek

The idea of an ARM processor inside a MacBook notebook, rather than an x86 Intel chip, is one we’ve heard talk of before. Reports earlier this year also suggested Apple was eyeing mid-2013 to begin the transition, using new 64-bit cores. Subsequently leaks from Apple’s engineering labs tipped ARM-based MacBook Air ultraportables undergoing testing, albeit using the A5 dual-core processor found in the current iPad 2 rather than the A6 chip.

“Users want to be able to pick up any iPhone, iPad, or Mac (or turn on their iTV) and have content move seamlessly between them and be optimized for the user and the device currently being used. We believe this will be difficult to implement if iOS and OS X are kept separate” Peter Misek

Misek predicts that Apple will launch the iPad 3 and the Apple A6 SoC in Q1 2012, along with a new iPhone in the summer of that year. The MacBook Pro line, and Apple’s desktop computers, will initially stick with x86 chips so as to maximize 64-bit app compatibility, though the analyst suggests they too will cross over to ARM by 2016.

“We believe Apple is ready to start sampling the A6 quad-core app processor and will be the first such multi-device platform capable of PC-like strength” Peter Misek

The A6 itself is tipped to be a so-called 3D processor, with a layered construction that allows for components on each layer to intercommunicate at high speed. Sampling is believed to have already begun, with TSMC Apple’s partner of choice as the company distances itself from Samsung. Software-wise, OS X Lion is already reminiscent in many ways of iOS, including its scrolling system – which inverts the standard scroll-direction in previous iterations of the desktop platform – and support for the Mac App Store.

That’s based on Apple shipping 20.3m iPhone units in Q2, and Samsung shipping 19.2m smartphone units. Strategy Analytics had previously suggested that Samsung could beat Apple to the top spot, but it seems the Korean company’s performance wasn’t quite sufficient to do so. Still, year on year Samsung has shown the bigger increase: from 5-percent in Q2 2010, versus Apple’s 13.5-percent in the same period.

The analysts put that down in no small part to high demand for the Galaxy S II which, Samsung announced earlier this week, had sold 5m units worldwide and set a new sales record for the company. Still, that’s just a quarter of Samsung’s overall smartphone sales, suggesting the Galaxy line as a whole is performing well in the market.

The same can’t be said for Nokia, unfortunately, with the company’s dire Q2 financial results - including a €487m loss – doing little to reassure investors. The company sold 16.7m units in the quarter; as Strategy Analytics put it, “the industry awaits Nokia’s pending transition to Windows Phone 7.”

In the mobile market overall, IDC says Nokia still holds the number one position with 24.2-percent of the market (where smartphones and regular phones are counted), but second place Samsung is narrowing the gap with double-digit growth pushing it to 19.2-percent share. Apple is in fourth place, with 5.6-percent, behind LG, at 6.8-percent; that positioning looks unlikely to remain the same for much longer, however, with LG’s share dwindling 18.9-percent year-on-year, while Apple’s has grown a whopping 141.8-percent in the same period. ZTE holds fifth place, with healthy 36-percent year-on-year growth bringing it to 4.5-percent market share.

IDC expects strong Q3 2011 launches to particularly help the smartphone market grow, especially if Apple can leverage a lower-cost model that will appeal in developing economies. Previous rumors have suggested the Cupertino company is readying just that, with a lower-cost iPhone 4S using plastic instead of glass to help save on the bill of materials.

Healthy cellphone sales in general are expected to further narrow the gap between Nokia and Samsung in overall market position. When non-smartphones are included in the estimates, the gap between Nokia’s 26-percent market share and that of the Korean company is expected to be just 6-percent, as the Finns struggle with drooping demand for their Symbian handsets.

“Samsung’s Android portfolio is selling strongly in most regions. Samsung stands a reasonable chance of capturing the top spot on a quarterly basis if it can continue expanding its Android portfolio across high-growth markets like China and Brazil. Samsung and Apple will be at similar levels in smartphones by the end of the year” Neil Mawston, analyst, Strategy Analytics

As for Apple, the company saw a stellar Q2 2011 with overall performance beating market expectations. A fifth-gen iPhone in the second half of 2011 may have cut into sales of the iPhone 4 between April and June inclusive, however, with Verizon reporting a slowing in demand for the CDMA version in the carrier’s own Q2 figures. Nonetheless, the iPhone 5 is likely to present both Samsung and Nokia with the strongest competition in the remainder of the year.

Samsung has not confirmed the research company’s figures, and both Nokia and Apple have not commented on the report. The company is currently mired in a lengthy legal battle between it and Apple, over claims by the Cupertino company that Samsung “slavishly” copied the iPhone and iOS look and feel in its own Galaxy range of smartphones and tablets. Most recently, Apple was denied a motion to accelerate the litigation process, though the company has previously won early access to Samsung’s upcoming device range.

[via Android Community]

Android’s rise from Q2 2010 is significant, with the Google platform on just 2.9-percent of the tablets a year ago and seeing shipping numbers of just 100,000 units. The analysts now believe that 4.6m Android tablets were sold in Q2, not least because of the dedicated tablet version of the OS, 3.x Honeycomb, which was designed specifically to suit larger-screen devices.

Despite generally negative reviews, Windows 7 holds third place, with a reported 4.6-percent of the marketshare. That puts it ahead of QNX, the platform RIM has used for the BlackBerry PlayBook, which lags in fourth place with 3.3-percent. Strategy Analytics blame the absence of key apps like a native email client on the PlayBook for its placement

Since the figures detail Q2 2011 – April through June inclusive – newer slates like the HP TouchPad don’t get a look in. Looking forward, the Android tablet segment is open to a single, dominant vendor, and there are suggestions that it could well be Amazon. “If Amazon decides to enter the Android tablet category later this year, that will bring fresh excitement and buzz to the Android community” Neil Mawston, Director at Strategy Analytics suggests, ”but Amazon will need to deliver a truly standout offering if it really wants to make headway against the popular iPad.”

Chinese analysts have pointed to the relatively closeness of MeeGo’s system kernel and that of Android, suggesting that both hardware and apps could be reasonably straightforward to migrate. MeeGo’s under-the-radar legal situation, and backer Intel’s extreme willingness to find new partners – now that Nokia has all but abandoned MeeGo in favor of Windows Phone – could make the platform a safer bet for spooked Android OEMs. Interestingly, rumors have already surfaced earlier in the year regarding the possibility of a ZTE handset powered by Intel processors.

However, just as Nokia has left the N9 to helm its fledgling MeeGo effort, more manufacturers are expected to look to Windows Phone. Although Microsoft charges a roughly $15-per-device licensing fee for Windows Phone 7, versus Google’s free distribution of Android, there are suggestions that should Apple, Oracle and others win their patent cases then $15-20 royalty fees may become commonplace for Android phones and tablets. HTC is already believed to pay Microsoft roughly $5 per Android device in licensing, while Samsung is supposedly being chased for up to $15 per Android device.

Of course, whether Apple would agree to licensing its technologies remains a sleeping-dragon issue. HTC has already announced that it has “alternate solutions” to the systems Apple alleges are infringed, perhaps in unspoken admission of the fact that the Cupertino company is likely more interested in squashing and hamstringing its rivals than it is in clawing license fees from them. Forcing Google back to the drawing board to identify and replace elements of Android found to overstep into iOS IP would certainly sap some of the platform’s current momentum.

[via] DigiTimes]

“With Nokia and RIM struggling, the time is right for Apple to aggressively penetrate the mid range smart-phone market (i.e. $300-500 category) to dramatically expand its [total addressable market] and market share.” Chris Whitmore, analyst, Deutsche Bank

Whitmore predicts an affordable iPhone 4S, priced at around $349, and offered with a pre-paid voice plan. Such a strategy would “drive significantly greater penetration” into markets where contract agreements are less popular. According to earlier rumors, the iPhone 4S is outwardly similar to the existing iPhone 4 but has a faster processor and other upgraded internals.

That would leave the iPhone 5 to take the high-end market, it’s suggested; leaks have tipped a dramatic redesign inspired by the MacBook Air, with a tapering metal chassis, larger display and other enhancements. Nonetheless, it’s worth bearing in mind that the call for a cheaper iPhone – or “iPhone nano” – has been ongoing since Apple announced the first-gen model, and with no evidence to back up his claims this could all just be wishful thinking.

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty has suggested that Apple will begin mass production of the fifth-gen iPhone in August, AppleInsider reports, ahead of a late Q3 2011 release. Although she makes no specific mention of the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5, Huberty does claim that Apple is expecting a significant iPhone unit increase next year “on the back of new products and potentially lower price points.”

HTC’s enterprise value, it’s estimated, is $25.4bn, while Nokia comes in at $22.6bn and RIM at $13.8bn. Motorola Mobility is just $4.2bn. As for Sony Ericsson and LG, they’re trickier to calculate being subsidiaries of larger firms, but Asymco reckons roughly $3.0bn for the former and a nominal $10bn for the ailing latter.

Samsung is the only hiccup, with a hefty $53bn in the analyst’s estimates. That would put it outside the reach of Apple’s predicted Cash, Cash Equivalents, Short-term marketable securities and long-term Marketable Securities. However, with Apple’s coffers steadily increasing, that may not be the case for much longer.

The analysts expect pricing around $399 for Hollywood, undercutting previous leaks suggesting $449. Coyote is believed to around the $349 mark. Amazon is yet to even acknowledge the existence of either slate, but the 7-inch model is tipped to use NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 chipset, while the 10-inch version will, it’s rumored, use the new quad-core NVIDIA Kal-El processor, launching later in 2011.

There’s still confusion over whether Amazon’s two models will be color ereaders or true tablets, or some hybrid of the both. What Detwiler Fenton does seem convinced about is that the combination of Amazon slates and Apple’s iPad makes for bad news for rivals like Motorola and RIM. They’re each only expected to shift a million units a year.

We hear that Amazon (AMZN) is prepping a new color Kindle (code named “Hollywood”) capable of streaming video and to be sold with a promotional video service offering. The device is expected to incorporate a 10” color screen and have a more robust applications processor than that expected for the smaller color Kindles AMZN is also expected to launch for the holiday season. It is particularly interesting to note that AMZN is expected to include its movie service for free for an unspecified amount of time to buyers of the device. This is the same movie service AMZN already offers for free to its Prime customers. We expect pricing will be in the $399 range in order to create enough of a pricing differential between it and the iPad.

As we have written previously, color eReaders in our opinion will take the majority of the tablet market share beneath the iPad because of price and content advantages (see 3/15/11 DF note: AMZN: Filling the low end tablet niche). The remaining niche of tablets (perhaps 5MM-10MM total units) will be fought over by a growing number of vendors including the Chinese OEMs offering $300 wholesale costs to the carriers. This would appear to put further pressure on premium priced tablet vendors Motorola (MMI) and RIM (RIMM), each of whom we expect will only sell somewhere in the 1MM unit range in 2011.

[via BGR]