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iPad Mini display production slated for August, says analyst

The gears could start to turn as early as this month for the production of a smaller iPad.

Production of the 7.85-inch display slated for use on a smaller version of the iPad should begin in August, an analyst told CNET.

"We expect panel production to start in August, with production ramping up to high volumes (more than a million units per month) in the fourth quarter," said Paul Semenza, an analyst at NPD DisplaySearch, in response to an e-mail query.

Semenza said this is DisplaySearch's "understanding of the activity for the 7.85 [inch] … Read more

Retail sales of pricey ultrabooks up, vie with MacBook

Sales of pricey ultrabooks are up at retailers, a market research firm said, indicating that skinny laptops may be competing directly with Apple's MacBook line.

First, the bad news: the overall Windows market for notebook PC sales at retail fell by 17 percent in the first five months of the year, according to Stephen Baker, an NPD Group analyst, who published a research note Thursday.

The good news: sales of ultrabooks -- thin, light laptops that compete with the MacBook Air -- are up in the premium market segment. Those priced at more than $900 jumped 39 percent compared … Read more

Uh oh: LCD TV shipments fall for the first time ever

The television market hit a rough patch during the first quarter of 2012, according to new data from research firm NPD DisplaySearch.

During the period, total television shipments worldwide hit 51.2 million units, representing an 8 percent decline compared with the first quarter of 2011. LCDs took up the major share, tallying 84.2 percent ownership of the television market. Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) televisions took 10 percent of the market, followed by plasmas with 5.8 percent share.

The big news, however, was that for the first time ever, LCD shipments were actually down year over year. According … Read more

Small screens have a big future in the home

As consumers move to the Web for convenient anytime/anywhere access to the content they want, connectivity will play a larger role in TV viewing. The marriage of the Internet to the TV screen seems perfectly timed in this respect, with services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Pandora almost standard on most connected sets.

With nearly two in three displays 50 inches and larger being Internet-connectable, according to The NPD Group's Retail Tracking Service, the feature is approaching ubiquity on large screens.

As a way to easily deliver more content, the Web seems like a natural fit for primary displays in the home that tend to have larger screens. But as the installed base of streaming video and other apps continues to grow and become a larger part of the everyday user's consumption routine, demand for access to them across the household is also likely to increase, giving rise to a new market for smaller connected-TV screens suited for secondary rooms in the home.

… Read more

Apple continues to dominate mobile PC, tablet markets

Apple's iPad helped catapult the company to the top of the mobile PC space last quarter, according to new data from NPD DisplaySearch.

The research firm revealed today that during the first quarter, Apple shipped 17.2 million mobile PCs worldwide, earning it 22.5 percent share of the market and jumping 118 percent year-over-year. Hewlett-Packard and Acer trailed with 11.6 percent and 9 percent market share, respectively. Lenovo and Dell rounded out the top five with 7.7 percent and 7.3 percent share.

NPD DisplaySearch, which defines mobile PCs as tablets, notebooks, and mini-notebooks, said total … Read more

'Glanceable media' and the always-on paradox

Glanceable media -- visual nibbles of information or entertainment that convey meaning without much intervention or interaction -- has rich precedence in the physical world. Signs, clocks, and framed photos can all be considered forms.

These days, Google (and several major Android licensees), as well as Microsoft, have provided ways to tap into this kind of media on the upper levels of their smartphone user interfaces. Since the release of the T-Mobile G1, Android has supported widgets that can live on its multipart home screens, a feature it has expanded to third-party developers.

And while many Android widgets tie back into apps, Microsoft has largely taken this approach by design with Live Tiles in Windows Phone.

Because they are almost always with us and almost always connected, smartphones have a great advantage when it comes to presenting such information at a glance.

But they do have at least one major disadvantage; they are usually stored in a pocket or handbag. Thus, we have to drag them out -- and often unlock them -- to be updated on our latest interests. This drawback has led companies ranging from startups such as WIMM Labs, Allert, and MetaWatch, to giants such as Motorola and Sony, to create smart watches as glanceable portals for content that is retrieved by the smartphone without having to retrieve the smartphone itself. … Read more

For Windows 8 tablets, a weak forecast

Expect to see a lot of tablets milling about next year. Just don't expect to find Windows 8 on a lot of them.

Market researcher NPD DisplaySearch has upped its tablet forecast for 2013 to more than 180 million units, in a report released Thursday. That forecast, however, shows Windows 8 tablets having only a small impact through 2014.

DisplaySearch had previously pegged next year's tablet market at 168.9 million but now has revised that figure to 184.2 million.

And by 2017, the size of the market will jump to 424.9 million units, compared to … Read more

A quarter of iPad owners say it's their first Apple device

The iPad has not just taken over as a big seller and profit driver for Apple over withering iPod sales, it's also become a major point of entry for customers into the Apple ecosystem, a new study says.

The NPD Group today released the results of its Apple Ecosystem Study, which polled more than 3,000 people in the U.S. during February. One of its main findings was that one in four iPad owners said it was their first Apple device.

"Historically, the iPod has been the introductory Apple device for consumers, with 82 percent of owners … Read more

Windows and Android tablets: More bang for makers' bucks

PC makers find themselves at a fork in the road when it comes to tablets, and, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, their best option may be to take it.

Even among a group of iPad competitors that has generally lagged far behind Apple's tablet in sales, PC vendors have fared relatively poorly. Whether they've tried somewhat-interesting keyboard-enabled variations, as Asus has done; cranked out solid thicker devices, as Acer has done; focused on pocketable designs as Dell has done; or ventured forth into their own operating systems, as Hewlett-Packard has done, these companies have seemed out of their element, when it comes to selling devices that fit somewhere between smartphone and laptop.

Part of that is a long reliance on Windows, the dominant PC operating system that will make a strong foray into the tablet market before the end of the year. The introduction of the next version of Windows should not only pair up PC makers with a familiar partner for the tablet market, but also facilitate the development of devices that can serve as notebooks as well as tablets.

At CES, Lenovo gave an example of such a device: the Lenovo Yoga, whose keyboard can rotate around behind its screen. According to a recent NPD Connected Intelligence report, the arrival of the next version of Windows should facilitate such products, with 40 percent of those interested in purchasing a tablet wanting a physical keyboard to supplement touch-screen entry. … Read more