Apple Said to Plan Smaller IPad to Vie With Google Nexus

Apple Inc. (AAPL) plans to debut a smaller, cheaper iPad by year-end, two people with knowledge of the plans said, to help maintain dominance of the tablet market as Google Inc. (GOOG) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) prepare competing handheld devices.
The new model will have a screen that’s 7 inches to 8 inches diagonally, less than the current 9.7-inch version, said the people, who asked not to be identified because Apple hasn’t made its plans public. The product, which Apple may announce by October, won’t have the high-definition screen featured on the iPad that was released in March, one of the people said.
A smaller, less expensive iPad could undercut the ambitions of Google, Microsoft and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) to gain traction in the advancing tablet market, said Shaw Wu, an analyst at Sterne Agee & Leach Inc. The new device will probably have a price closer to Google’s Nexus 7 tablet and Amazon’s Kindle Fire, both of which have 7-inch screens and cost $199.
“It would be the competitors’ worst nightmare,” Wu said in an interview. “The ball is in Apple’s court.”
Trudy Muller, a spokeswoman for Cupertino, California-based Apple, declined to comment yesterday.
Since the iPad went on sale in April 2010, Apple has dominated the tablet market, which is predicted by DisplaySearch to reach $66.4 billion this year. Apple has 61 percent of the market, according to Gartner Inc.
Apple’s rivals are eager to gain a toehold. Google said on June 27 that it will sell a tablet-style device called the Nexus 7. Earlier in the month, Microsoft announced a tablet called Surface that will have a similar screen size as the current iPad. Amazon’s Kindle Fire was released last year.

Google Strategy

The entrants’ best chance of success has been to focus on markets where Apple had no toehold, said Jan Dawson, an analyst at Ovum Ltd. The Surface comes in two models that are most likely to appeal to buyers who want to continue using Microsoft’s Windows software, Dawson said. While Microsoft has not disclosed pricing or timing for either, the higher-end version will probably be pricier than the iPad and targeted more at an emerging class of laptop PCs called Ultrabooks, he said. The latest iPad ranges in price from $499 to $829.
Google’s Nexus 7 could stack up well against Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which went on sale in November. The Nexus 7, manufactured by Asustek Computer Inc. (2357), has a faster processor and better battery life than the Kindle Fire, as well as a front-facing camera.
Still, competing with a lower-priced iPad will be more challenging, Wu said. Apple benefits from having more than 225,000 apps that have been tailored specifically for the current iPad.

Apple Retail

The company also boasts more than 360 retail stores where the device can be purchased and tested by consumers. Google said the Nexus 7 will be available only from its online store, while Microsoft will sell its tablets online and at its smaller chain of 20 stores.
Apple has considered introducing a smaller tablet since the original iPad was released, one person said. That approach has worked for Apple’s iPod, which is the world’s top music player and comes in various sizes and colors.
Yet Apple co-founder Steve Jobs spoke skeptically of smaller tablets before his death in October. He said in 2010 that the iPad’s current size was the minimum required to ensure a good user-experience and enable attractive software applications.
The screen of the small model will have the same number of pixels as those in the iPad before it was upgraded to the so- called Retina Display earlier this year, one person said.

Fatter Margins

Apple also may be at an advantage profit-wise. The gross margin on the latest iPad is about 37 percent, according to Wu. Apple could earn a similar profit on a smaller iPad because it will probably use the cheaper screen, Wu said. Apple can also charge more for the device without sacrificing sales, he said.
“This isn’t like the old days, when it cost thousands of dollars more to buy an Apple product,” Wu said. “Fifty or a hundred bucks wouldn’t be enough to make someone switch.”
Amazon, by contrast, loses money on every Kindle Fire it sells, with the aim of profiting from sales of books and other digital media. At the $199 price of the Nexus 7, Google’s plan should be to break even on the hardware, in exchange for the opportunity to win advertising and related revenue, said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Gartner Inc.
Apple’s plans to release a smaller sized iPad were reported previously in blogs, including DigiTimes.

Microsoft’s Stakes

The stakes are high for Microsoft and Google to succeed at hardware sales. Both companies have risked alienating long-time hardware partners, such as Samsung Electronics Co., by selling their own tablets, Gartenberg said.
“How does Samsung make money in tablets, when Google is partnering with Asus to make a product that makes no money?” he asked.
A failure to gain traction with the Nexus 7 and Surface, respectively, might also undermine the credibility of Google’s Android strategy and of Microsoft’s introduction of the next version of the Windows operating system, Wu said. If Google and Microsoft can’t make a must-have product around their own software, consumers may be harder to convince that hardware manufacturers could do it, he said.
“They’re really sticking their necks out this time, putting their own brands on this front and center,” Wu said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Peter Burrows in San Francisco at pburrows@bloomberg.net; Adam Satariano in San Francisco at asatariano1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net

A neighbourhood-friendly App in Nokia phones

Want to know the nearest restaurant or transport facility available in your neighbourhood?

The City Lens augmented reality browser on Nokia’s Lumia (Microsoft Windows) and Belle (Symbian) devices are a guide to everyday needs. It allows the user to explore options in food, hotel, shopping, landmarks, transport and entertainment.

Available at Nokia Beta Labs, the App has data from 196 countries, including India, and for nearly 2,000 cities and towns in India. The user has to choose from the options: food, hotel and landmarks, and point the device in the direction of search. A list of the places available in the direction comes on the screen with details of distance. When the specific place is chosen, the address, photos, reviews, and directions to reach the place are available. There are multiple sources for data collection in each city for this feature, apart from the Nokia points of interest.

Another feature available on Lumia phones is public transport. The feature is available for 11 Indian cities now. Only the schedules of public transport are available. In other countries, real-time update of the transport service is available. For instance, when details of the destination and the current location are entered, a point-to-point information on public transport is available. It also provides different modes of public transport and real-time update of the schedule.

(The correspondent was at Nokia’s design studio in Helsinki recently on invitation by the company).

Samsung may unveil Galaxy Note successor in August

It's been likened to a piece of toast, a device for elephants and a throwback to the 1980s-style brick phone.

And yet, despite all the sniggering, Samsung Electronics has sold over 5 million of the phone/tablet Galaxy Note.

More than a freak hit, consumer and design experts believe the surprise success of the "phablet" marks a deeper shift in the fast-paced world of mobile devices.

The most obvious thing about the Note is its size. Its 5.3 inch (13.5 cm) screen is almost as wide as the iPhone's screen is long. And then there's the stylus.

Where Apple's co-founder, the late Steve Jobs famously ridiculed the idea of using a pen to interact with a screen, Samsung has partnered with Japan's Wacom Co Ltd, a market leader in digital pen technology, to come up with something less clunky.

There's good news for Samsung Galaxy Note fans. Fresh reports quote sources "familiar with the matter" that the Note 2 may be unveiled in late August at this year's IFA in Berlin, with an October launch date.

The rumoured specs include a 5.5-inch display, a quad-core processor, a 12+ megapixel camera and, of course, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

Malware threat: How to avoid losing Internet access tomorrow

About a quarter-million computer users around the world are at risk of losing Internet access on Monday because of malicious software at the heart of a hacking scam that US authorities shut down last November.
The software found its way into thousands of computers worldwide last year. It redirect users away from trusted websites, towards spoof websites in a bid to steal financial and personal information. When the attack was noticed, the FBI routed infected machines through its server to stop the attacks.
But the servers will be taken down 9 July. When this happens, computers still infected are likely to lose their internet connection without warning. Warnings about the problem have been splashed across Facebook and Google, and the FBI has set up a special website.
So how to tell if you’re computer is infected and how to fix it ? Here are few must-take steps. For details you can click here. The DCWG or DNS Changer Working Group is working to ensure that those who were infected don’t lose access to the Internet on Monday.
So how can you check if your computer is infected? For Windows 7 users, there are few simple steps they can follow:
• Go to the “Start” icon and type cmd, which is the DOS Command prompt.
• Type ipconfig /allcompartments /all and hit enter. In some cases ipconfig /all should also work, but might not list all the routing compartments if you have a VPN setup in Windows 7.
The output will be very long, since Windows7 by default has support for IPv6. Look for the IPv4 information under the section entitled Ethernet adapter. Check out DNS Servers line, and write down these numbers. There may be two IP addresses listed there.
• The DCWG site has a list of infected DNS numbers on their site at this page. If they match up then, it means your computer has been infected. If not, then you needn’t take any steps as you won’t be affected by DNS change servers shutting down.
What to do in case you computer is infected?
• The DCWG site recommends that you make a back up of all your important files.
• The site has a list of “self help” malware clean up guides which will remove the malware. For more links you can click here.
• Some sites you can access are: Hitman Pro (32bit and 64bit versions), Kaspersky Labs TDSSKiller, McAfee Stinger,   Microsoft Windows Defender Offline.
The DCWG site warns that Changing DNS is only one of the functions of the malware kits. The malware could have been used for capturing keystrokes or acting as a proxy for traffic to sensitive sites like bank accounts or social media. It would be a good idea to check your bank statements and credit reports as well as change passwords on any online accounts especially saved passwords from your applications or web browsers.