According to a new research report by Berg Insight (http://www. berginsight.com), global shipments of smartphones increased 74% in 2010 to 295 million units. And the future looks good — and that’s good for Apple.
Read MoreThere is still life in the consumer boxed software market, despite reports of the demise of the industry, according to market research company the NPD Group (http://www.npd.com). Some reports of that demise are due to the success of the Mac App Store and Apple’s reduction of space in its retail stores for boxed software.
But don’t weep for the box just yet. According to NPD’s Retail Tracking Service, total consumer retail software (excluding games) increased 1% in 2010, to US$2.42 billion. The slight growth comes after two years of steep declines of 8% in 2008 and 10% in 2009.
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An Apple patent (number 20110066973) for rendering system log data has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office.
Per the patent, messages generated by processes on a computer system are aggregated into process groups. The process groups can be displayed in a single user interface using a number of graphs and plots to provide a holistic view of message activity for a given process group, and for all processes running on the computer system. The inventors are Richard Plom and ALi Sazegari.
Read MoreOkay, when is the next iMac update going to be out? Soon, I’m sure. That — coupled with the fantastic market reception for the revamped MacBook Airs and 2011 MacBook Pros — should keep the Mac’s momentum going at a fortuitous time.
In a new report from Canalys (http://www.canalys.com), the research group estimates global computer growth of 14% for 2011. The Mac is already doing better in incremental growth than the industry overall. New Macs and the “halo effect” of the iPhone and iPad should keep the Mac in solid growth figures.
Read MoreI’ve long maintained that the iPad is being used mostly for media consumption, not media creation. There’s more evidence that this is the case.
Most tablet manufacturers, including Apple, have designed their products to allow support of an external keyboard. However, “DigiTimes” (http://macte.ch/GSYGM) says Taiwan-based keyboard makers are taking a conservative attitude about demand of such products in the future since, according to Apple iPad’s accessory sales status, less than 20% of the Apple tablet users would purchase an external keyboard for their machine.
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