iPad

There's a big difference between investments and expenses. An investment implies you expect to get some return on your money, while an expense is money you spend and never plan to see again.

Despite the vast difference in money-use methodologies, shoppers tend to get their terminology mixed up. "Investing" in an LCD TV or Blu-Ray player is a misnomer. Just like a new car, these items lose value as soon as you take them for a spin. Though most consumers are already aware of this detail, it doesn't seem to slow their interest when it comes to electronics. The Consumer Electronics Association projects more than $1 trillion in such spending this year, an increase of 5 percent from 2011.

With the Consumer Electronics Show wrapping up last week, tech fanatics everywhere have an itch for the next big thing. If you plan on scratching it, use these tips to help defeat depreciation.

1. Use the News
Nothing kills the excitement of a brand new gadget like discovering a price drop days after you've opened the box. In fact, many holiday shoppers are suffering through this exact scenario, thanks to a recent $100 price drop in several popular tablets. Avoid getting stuck in this predicament by tracking the news on products you're planning to buy. Big cuts are usually announced in advance to help stimulate sales. Read more

Better Year – To know where you're going you have to know where you've been, what you've been through. Based largely on what we've been through, people are cautiously more optimistic about the coming year. Image – Universal Pictures

Imagine:

• A global population of seven billion people … and growing.
• More than six billion mobile subscribers … and growing.
• More than nine billion connected devices (two billion machine to machine) … and growing.

We've become a mobile and open world, and there's no turning back.

Constantly Connected – Some feel at a loss if they don't have their mobile "tools" – smartphone, iPad, notebook – with them constantly. Admit it. You go back home if you forgot your phone. You're at a loss when your tablet/computer battery runs low. No wonder we feel we're always connected … we are!Read more

2011 will go down in the history books as a great year for tablets mostly for Apple's iPad however, not all tablet vendors fared as well as Apple. It's not for lack of products that prevented Android tablets from taking any market share away from Apple this year. By our calculation, over 100 tablets were introduced since the iPad however, we defy even the most tech-savvy of you to name more than a few of them. What was so wrong with the competition that it failed to make any inroads in the tablet market, at least until the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook came along? In this Retrevo Pulse Report we'll look at the tablet market and explain why we think Apple and Amazon will continue to dominate the market well into 2012.

"I wouldn't make a hasty decision. Nobody can make a snap decision. We've got to consider the pros and cons, make a list, and get advice." – Frank Stark, Rebel Without a Cause, Warner Bros (1955)

Since the mainframe days, people have complained that IT was slow to respond, slow to deliver, over budget.

Unisys' latest report that IT people are willing to ignore the consumerization of IT only reinforces this old saw. According to them, IT has its collective heads in the sand. That's a lot more newsworthy than saying IT has a helluva' job on its hands giving company people on-the-go what they want and need and keeping the company jewels safe, secure!

Sure, it reinforces all of the reasons folks have given for bringing in and using their own notebooks, smartphones, tablets. After all, work/home life had blurred so they might as well use the device(s) they use to take care of business when they're home to take care of home stuff at work.Read more

The new Amazon Kindle Fire tablet is about to go on sale. Amazon claims they have received so many pre-orders they are building "millions more than already planned." Apple has sold more than 25 million iPads to date (11.6 million in Q3 alone). In this Pulse Study, Retrevo looks at what consumers know about the new Amazon tablet and whether or not they plan on buying one.

Can Amazon Take a Bite Out of Apple's Market Share?
It looks like this will be a very good holiday season for tablet computers with only 31% of respondents in this study saying they are not interested in a tablet. Out of the remaining 69% who are interested in buying a tablet or possibly learning more about them, 44% of them would be willing to consider a smaller, 7-inch Amazon Kindle Fire. At the same time only 12% say they wouldn't even consider anything other than an iPad. With this much "acceptance" of a smaller tablet and the large price difference, conditions seem right for the Amazon Fire to become a hot item this year. Although the study didn’t ask specifically about the Barnes and Noble Nook, the recently announced, $249 Nook tablet could also be an attractive alternative to an iPad.Read more

If Amazon does, in fact, enter the tablet market with a low cost Android tablet this fall they might be able to change the playing field to a lower margin one where Apple would be less able to compete. Could a low cost Amazon Android tablet present one of the first serious contenders to the iPad? Based on the latest Retrevo Pulse Report, it appears that consumers are ready to buy a low cost tablet and are very keen on one from Amazon.

Consumers Want a Less Expensive Tablet
Every time Retrevo asks consumers what would get them to buy a tablet, low price comes out on top of the list. In the most recent study, almost half (48%) of respondents said that $300 was the price point that would get them to consider an Android tablet over an iPad. Apple has traditionally been able to command a price premium for quality devices but if someone like Amazon who thrives on low margins can move the playing field, Apple may find it harder to command high prices. Despite the fact that Apple makes a lot of money on companion products like apps, music, and software, Amazon may be in a better position to sacrifice a high profit margin on a tablet or "razor" in return for revenue from "razor blades" like books, music, videos and apps. There's even an Amazon "App Store" whose name Apple was recently unable to convince a judge to get them to stop using.Read more

"The Lord, the Lord Jehovah has given unto you these fifteen…Oy! Ten! Ten commandments for all to obey!" – Moses, "History of the World Part 1," Brooksfilms (1981)

People like to write, like to make history.

Some like to read history.

Others will wait for the movie.

We got our new notebook computer for the wife about a year ago, about $1K. Got new ones for the kids for school earlier this year, about $800 each. Ours is old…two years old!

Got a new smartphone a year ago $200 + a 2-year contract. Upgraded the kids "a little less" + 2 year contract. Wife is still using a featurephone.

Got the wife and daughter Kindles last Christmas. Been paying for downloads all the time.

Son just got his tablet (that means iPad). He's surfing a lot, watching videos.

But we've taken a little breather from buying new mobile devices…we hope.

Sure, analysts/reporters tell us that the tablet will be the fastest-selling consumer electronics product! Read more

"All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two, take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. And three, be nice." – Dalton, "Road House" (1989), Silver Pictures

If Steve Jobs had a Facebook page, he'd probably have more "likes" than, well…anyone.

He doesn't though, he prefers Twitter…yeah, right!

Some people even go beyond liking Steve. Remember the guy at Apple's WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) who blurted out, "Steve, we love you."?

Cupertino city council had a similar view when he presented Apple's super concept for the company's new campus.

Come on, the spaceship is cool.

It'll be great to see a building in the Valley that isn't just another tilt-up slab.Read more

"It's difficult to maintain enthusiasm for your leadership when you keep getting beat up by that old man." – Alfanz, Fool's Gold, Warner Brothers (2008)

You have to admire Google. They're masters at giving stuff away free and making it up on the backend … selling your click, interest, movements to others.

O.K., that's about it.

Their other strategies have taken the gleam off their golden touch:

• Nexus was an empty mine
• So few folks download Android/Honeycomb apps that developers focus on the Apple mines that have action
• Google convinced a lot of companies to throw money into their wet, musty TV mine; they just forgot the content owners
• The Google music mine was empty at first and … yep, pretty much still is

"Probably. But it's an easy fix. One line of dialogue. 'Thank God we invented the... you know, whatever device.'" – Jeff Megall, Thank You for Smoking, 2005, 20th Century Fox

Ours is a typical American/Silicon Valley family – two early adopters, two chasm straddlers.

Our inventory includes -- four notebooks, three smartphones/one feature phone, one iPad, two looking, three 500GB external HDs, 2TB home storage, various other PC/CE devices.

The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project reinforced the fact we can be home now and then and that it's not just the new, hot, sexy on-the-go gadgets.

Smartphones, tablets (O.K., iPads) are on everyone's gotta' have list; but they aren't the Alpha-Omega for folks.

Nope. If you're a typical alpha male or female, you have an array of gadgets and a gotta' get list for the rest.Read more