Wal-Mart Private Label Tablet?

Quite an interesting development.    How might Wal-Mart use this kind of channel to drive online purchases?  Inexpensive position could drive broader uses.   Perhaps adding some shopping assistant to aid the shopper, curating purchasing?

Will Walmart’s new tablet burn into Amazon Fire’s market share?  by George Anderson in Retailwire, with further expert comments.

Tablet sales may have slowed down in recent years, but Walmart has apparently identified an opportunity within the category that it can leverage to drive sales. The retailer, Bloomberg reports, plans to roll out an inexpensive, child-friendly Android tablet under its ONN private label.

Apple, the undisputed leader in the category, appears least likely to feel an impact from Walmart’s new entry since its iPad fills the upper, premium end of the market. Amazon.com’s line of Fire tablets, which include models marketed with colorful, kid-proof cases, appears a more likely target. The Fire line, which also runs on Android, tends to be priced at the lower end of the tablet market. ... "

Google Assistant on iPad

Interesting development.  As tablets can be seen as more readily mobile devices that we carry along for convenience, why not  integrate an assistant.   And the screen broadens visual communications.  So is this still primarily voice oriented?  Like Cortana.

Have loaded Google Assistant onto a minimal iPad, and works very well.  Have had it on an iPhone, but did not use it much there.

Introducing the Google Assistant on iPad
Product Manager, Google Assistant

Last year we brought the Google Assistant to iPhones and today, iPads are joining the party. The Assistant on iPad can do everything the Assistant on your iPhone can do, with the added benefit of a bigger screen that supports both portrait and landscape mode. ... " 

Tablets and Kids

Quite a long piece in Ars Technica on research regarding the value of early childhood experience with tablets.   I am still old school.   Books, laptops, visual media and tablets should be in everyone's training and grasp.   Too easy to get hung up in the most convenient.

" .... The iPad and your kid—digital daycare, empowering educator, or something bad? .... Researchers want to find out, but the subject (and related science) is complicated.  .... " 

Getting Your Work Done on a Tablet

I have had an iPad for years.   I helped survey its practical use for the enterprise.   I use it every day, but mostly for scanning information and planning, and sometimes for gathering notes at client meetings. Cloud enabled applications have made it more useful. And implementing applications like MS Word and Powerpoint help too.   There are still restrictions and inconsistencies for using it as a complete computing interaction tool.  GigaOM has a post on the current state of doing work on an iPad.

LA Takes Back a Billion Dollars of iPads

In Reason: Schools replace them with laptops, declare an unmitigated disaster.   " .... The Los Angeles Unified School District's plan to give every child an iPad—at a cost of $1 billion to taxpayers—drew universal criticism after numerous problems arose.  .... "  

Tablets Become More Important than PCs Were

Some interesting statistics and graphs.  Well, yes, for convenience.  But if we were to normalize this with the stats of the emergence of the smartphone as well?  Take away all the same things that can also be done with the smartphone that don't need a bigger screen.

Wal-Mart and T-Mobile to Offer Tablets

In CNet:   The idea has been pushed since at least 08.  It is already being done by retailers in Europe. " ... Walmart and T-Mobile to offer tablets with free data plans .... The self-proclaimed 'un-carrier' is expanding its tablet presence with a rollout of its "free data for life" offer at Walmart stores. ...."

Tablet Use in Schools

Have been involved in several projects that looked at how tablets could be effectively used in the enterprise.  This piece covers and links to studies about its use in schools.  Something to be learned here.   " ...  NAACE, a UK association of educators, technologists and policy makers who share a vision for the role of technology in advancing education, has published a number of studies on the role of tablets in secondary school education: .. ." 

Fate of the PC

Scoping the fate of the PC.  They seem to be morphing into the tablet.  What aspects of devices are true requirements?

Death of the Tablet Magazine

In GigaOM:  I don't follow this closely, but have experimented with methods like Flipboard.   Overall this surprises me.  With particular criticism of the Apple IOS7 newsstand.  " ... The death of the tablet magazine has been heralded for months, but here’s how publishers need to rethink their digital offerings for the tablet age.  ...  Publishers must break free of the Newsstand and InDesign/PDF trap and invest in their publications as stand-alone, real, honest-to-God apps – or find their titles even more neglected within a vestigial folder that will be inevitably reside inside yet another folder. ... "

Battle of Basic Utilities

What utilities make a system complete for real work?  What turns a tablet or a phone into a PC?   I still have to drag around multiple systems and would prefer not to.  Competition is brewing between several selections.  In Computerworld.

iPad in Business at the Procter & Gamble Company

Mark Lacy sends this along, nicely done.  A excellent example of how tablets can be used in the enterprise.  Congratulations to my former colleagues, see the full video at the link below:

" ... Shawn Flannery At last, the Apple/P&G joint collaboration video production that many of my colleagues and I worked on has been released! The video turned out great! 
Apple - iPad in Business - Profiles - The Procter & Gamble Company  ... " 
" ... Innovating on the everyday, with iPhone and iPad.
“iPhone and iPad enable our sales force globally to take a step ahead in productivity. Our people are more productive, they’re enjoying their work more, and they’re connected in new ways.”
Bob Fregolle, Global Customer Business Development Officer, P&G ... " 

Tesco Does Tablets with the Hudl

Reported in the BBC: A remarkable new step, World class retailer Tesco enters the Tablet market.  They have been a long time leader in retail technology, but this is a new big turn especially since non technology retail companies, like Amazon, have said they are not making money with their tablets.  To me this was like announcing that they decided to make TVs in the 50s, before the technology was completely mature.  I guess they are pushing the envelope again.  I admire that.  Will be watching.  And a UK correspondent suggests:  ' ...  Makes sense in that the web is the modern shop window.  Tesco in UK have also provided self scan and free WiFi for sometime, so no doubt noticing device usage has sought to link both via this device. ... '

From the BBC article:

" ... But what does the arrival of the Hudl - for that is the name of the product the company is launching this morning - mean for the overall market?

What is immediately clear is that Tesco is taking its tablet very seriously. Unlike some cheap Android tablets launched by other unlikely firms - remember Next's attempt? - this looks a competitive and reasonably high-spec offering. It runs the latest version of Android, has a 1.5 GHz processor, an HD screen and expandable storage.

The 7in device looks at first sight like any other small Android tablet - the Tesco content is mostly hidden under a "T" logo at the bottom left. Tapping here takes you to services like online shopping and the Blinkbox on-demand film service, bought by Tesco a couple of years ago. ... " 

How iPads are Transforming Retail

In TheNextWeb:  Nothing very revolutionary here.  The examples work for all tablets. Still a good reminder of the basics of what can be done.  I don't see enough about how strategic problems by management in retail can be solved using tablets.  How can management in retail use tablets creatively?   I note of interest, the last example, which is a touch of novelty for IOS7:   " ... iBeacons  ... Apple has included a feature called iBeacons within iOS 7. They enhance location services by using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) which has been included in iOS devices since the iPhone 4S. Using BLE devices can be set up to introduce a new range of geofencing and location capabilities..... " 

One Tablet per Child

Not available in the developed world.  But the concept of universal tablets (formerly universal laptops) is spreading again.  Aimed at kids.  Launches at Walmart.

Tablet Market

A look at the current tablet market.  Tablets continue to replace laptops for personal computing and information access  power.  Apples share drops among other contenders.

Smaller Tablets

Looking a several projects that aim to deliver information to small executive groups.  Mobile is esential.   The question is what are the likely formats of the tablets being used in the next 18 months?   Applications include data visualization and analytics to engage and focus decision makers to their work.    Now the move seems to be to smaller format tablets.  How much adaptation will be required for these formats to be adequate?  We are also seeing an expectation for some of these same applications to also be usable on smartphone sized devices.

Paper vs Screens

Sciam writes about the differences between reading on screens vs paper, provides some interesting resources, suggesting that " ... When it comes to intensively reading long pieces of plain text, paper and ink may still have the advantage. But text is not the only way to read. .. "  But weakens the position by mostly giving examples where the difference comes from the way text writing was originally designed.

Office on Tablets

An Infoworld article about the suggested schedule for MS office on iOS and Android.  I have talked to several clients recently who have been awaiting this.  Will a suggested late 2014 release date be too late?

HP Tablets

In an interesting development HP plans to be planning to deliver a family of tablet style devices.  Recall the fiasco that HP had when they acquired the Palm OS.  Lots of catching up to do here.