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Both Samsung and Apple are set to receive security approval from the U.S. Department of Defense very soon, according to a new report on the Wall Street Journal. To be more specific, officials at the Pentagon are looking to clear Samsung Galaxy smartphones with Samsung’s Knox software for use, as well as Apple iPhones and iPads with the latest version of iOS, iOS 6.

The WSJ report was quick to point out that the security approvals probably won’t translate immediately into huge sales for either of the two companies, and in fact Samsung itself made it known that it was well aware of this through a comment made by one of its executives. But ultimately, this was still a net positive due to it being a possible point of leverage to getting more security-conscious firms to sign up as new customers.

Currently, BlackBerry still holds the dominant position in the small U.S. defense sector market, with more than 78% of all commercial mobile devices “in operational and pilot use” being BlackBerry products. But things are likely to change in the future, though it probably isn’t going to happen any time soon.

For its part, BlackBerry is also seeking to get fresh approval for its new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone and the new BlackBerry 10 OS that comes along with it. It is said to be close to getting this much-needed approval, and will find out the DOD’s official decision some time in the next two weeks. Around this time, both Samsung and Apple are expected to be cleared by the DOD as well.

IDC has released their numbers for tablet market share in the first quarter of 2013, and it looks great for Android tablets. In the first three months of the year, 27.8 million Android tablets were shipped, up 247% from Q1 last year. The 27.8 million tablets also happen to make up 56.5% of all tablets shipped during the quarter, snagging the top spot from Apple. Apple’s share dipped to 39.6%, which is almost a 20% decline in market share from the previous year. While Apple didn’t ship less tablets, (they actually shipped almost 8 million more than they did in Q1 2012) there was a significant boon in the tablet market compared to last year, and a ton of those tablets ran Android.

Obviously, this just represents one quarter of this year, which a small slice of the pie. Android tablets have a ways to go, especially in popularity and app selection, before they can really penetrate the tablet market the way Android has done with phones. Still, though, grabbing up over half of an entire market in a quarter is a huge step in the right direction.

source: IDC

Come comment on this article: Android tablets pull ahead in Q1 2013, running on 56.5% of all tablets shipped

 Just last month, IDC predicted that Android would soon overtake Apple in terms of tablets shipped. If their latest numbers are correct, the tides have now officially turned!

IDC reports that for the first three months of 2013,  49.2 million tablets have already shipped, with 27.8 million of those tablets running Android. In contrast, Apple shipped just 19.5 million units.

Apple is still the most popular single brand in the tablet world, but Samsung isn’t too far behind with 8.8 million units. While that’s less than half of what Apple is shipping, it is still a jump forward for Samsung compared to the same timeframe last year. In Q1 2012, Apple held 58.1% of the tablet market, and Samsung held just 11.3%.

The year is far from over, so what will happen next? The answer to that question hinges on what Samsung, Apple and Google are planning. At Google I/O, it’s possible we will see a new Nexus tablet, that could certainly have an impact on the market.

We also can’t say for sure what Apple will do next. They’ve had a lot of success with the iPad Mini, and the rumored HD version of the Mini is expected later this year. As for Samsung? They recently released the impressive (though a bit pricey) Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0, in order to better compete against 8-inch tablets like the iPad Mini, and they likely have a few other tricks up their sleeves.

We might not know what the future holds, but it is great to see that Android tablet shipments are on the rise. What do you think, will Android be able to continue pushing out more tablets than Apple? Can Samsung overtake the iPad as the most popular brand of tablet?

The Asus MeMO Pad Smart 10 is said to have a second edition coming this summer and apparently the specs for the new tablet have made their way online.

The specs have been published by Greek site TechBlog and you should probably take them with a pinch of salt, since they’re far from being official and the site doesn’t state where it has received them from.

On the other hand, they do look pretty good (if they will confirm, that is). The second-generation Asus MeMO Pad Smart 10 is said to run Android Jelly Bean, without the actual version being mentioned (the first model recently got updated to Jelly Bean 4.2) and feature 4G / LTE connectivity.

The same source says that the CPU will be a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 running at 1.5GHz, coupled with 1GB of RAM and an Adreno 320 GPU. The display is said to be a 10.1-inch Full HD one, while the cameras are described as a 13-megapixel main shooter and 1.2-megapixel secondary one.

The specs also mention 16GB of internal memory (which you can increase using the microSD slot), as well as a 5050mAh battery.

The tablet, bearing model number ME302KL would be coming out this summer, and the price, says the source, will be lower than the one of the Transformer Pad Infinity. The model number also appears in data from a Russian certification institute, quoted by Italian site Android World. Two new Transformer Pad models are mentioned alongside it, the TF302T (Wi-Fi-only) and the TF302TG (Wi-Fi and 3G), as well as the Wi-Fi-only TF501T and the Wi-Fi and 3G model TF501TG. Details about these devices are not known yet.

Until the specs confirm (or not), you can check out our review of the first-gen Asus MeMO Pad Smart 10:

What do you think about the rumored specs? Would you be tempted to get the second-gen Asus MeMO Pad Smart 10 if they’ll be confirmed?

In 2010, a Forrester Research analyst named Charles Golvin spoke with Wired‘s online Gadget Lab on the subject of the then emerging problem of bloatware on Android phones. Times were somewhat simpler back then, and Golvin believed that the problem of Android bloatware was not likely to become a major issue in the future. Well, we are now living in that future and the sad truth is, the bloatware problem has not only become real for most everyone who owns an Android device, but it has also become worse than it has ever been before. In other words, it is now, without a doubt, a major problem that needs to be addressed, and quickly.

How it all began

It started with the seemingly harmless bundling of third-party apps and services, mostly from carriers. Then the carriers as well as the OEMs themselves moved on to including “value-adding” applications to new units that they were shipping out to customers. Only yesterday, we told you about the fact that the Samsung Galaxy S4 apparently had 45% of its internal storage dedicated to default apps and therefore can’t be used by users for actual storage. That leaves users with less than 9GB of space for storage, which is ridiculous considering that the device is being advertised as a “16GB model.”

How exactly did it even get to that point? Well, in the case of Samsung, the primary cause of the problem is the TouchWiz UI and the many exclusive apps or features that come along with it. In case you’ve forgotten, the Samsung Galaxy S4 comes bundled with a long list of extra software features. Some of these features are interesting and might actually be useful, however many of them just duplicate some of the functionality that is already present in Android.

In short, certain extra features were added even though they were completely unnecessary. Users may or may not end up using them. But all of the precious storage will still be taken up by these things regardless.

For perspective on just how much extra space is being taken up by these manufacturer- and carrier-added apps and features, consider this: the size of the stock Android 4.2.2 system image as seen in the Google/LG Nexus 4 is 328MB. Meanwhile, the Samsung Galaxy S4, which uses the same version of Android as the default operating system, has a system image that’s a bit over 1.5GB in size. As you can see, the numbers pretty much speak for themselves.

The Bloatware Club

Although we have used Samsung and its Galaxy S4 as an example of how bad the Android bloatware problem has become, they are in no way the sole perpetrators of this absurd practice. Other companies such as HTC, LG, and Motorola are also guilty of adding mostly unnecessary, space-taking applications and features. Most notably, it is present in the flagship HTC One in the form of “BlinkFeed” — pictured above — where a good portion of the screen is turned into a clock widget, when you can clearly see the time right there on the top right corner as well.

The issue of Android bloatware is very clearly not just a creeping problem for users anymore. We think it’s quite safe to say that it has now creeped all the way through to the point that something needs to be done to end it once and for all. Surely, no one deserves to get just about half of the advertised amount of internal storage space on a brand new mobile computing device that they paid full price for.

More than just a storage issue

And it’s not just a storage problem. As a 2011 report on InformationWeek states, “some Android smartphones are more vulnerable to attacks than others, thanks to add-on software and skins” from the phone makers themselves. So not only are they causing users grief through severely limiting the internal storage space that’s available on devices, but they’re also opening users up to the possibility of becoming target to malicious attacks.

Is there an end to all of this? The manufacturers and the carriers must know that all these extra apps and services are just doing more harm than good, right? It’s honestly hard to tell at this point. Although it will always be possible to root, flash, and do a bunch of other stuff to eliminate the bloat-y apps and get the stock Android experience, those would only mask the problem.

How do you feel about this issue? Does this affect you personally? What would you like to be done about it? Let us know in the comments.

If you saw our report on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 announcement — What? It’s Samsung, of course there’s going to be a third one — then you might have been among the many people who thought to themselves that Samsung really ought to introduce some improvements if they want people to buy a third iteration of what it essentially the same old product. Well, as it turns out, Samsung did put in some improvements after all, and the result is that the Galaxy Tab 3 is really looking like a much improved version of its predecessor. And that’s a good thing, of course.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3, which uses a Vivantec GC1000 core GPU, is seen to be able to offer up to twice the performance of the old Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 which uses a PowerVR SGX 540 GPU. This is based on benchmark results that first appeared online at the GFXBench web site.

Though it hasn’t been tested fully yet — so a full comparison with the Galaxy Tab 2 performance-wise is still off the table — the Galaxy Tab 3 has shown that it has some notable improvements over its predecessor so far, and when you add in the fact that it comes with an updated design, it just might be the perfect excuse to switch up from the aging, years-old Galaxy Tab 2 that it’s supposed to replace.

Take a look at some of the current benchmarks results right here:

For now, this is all the information on Galaxy Tab 3 performance that we have. But still, it looks to be pretty definitive evidence that yes, it is indeed an improvement over the Galaxy Tab 2.

Although the biggest change here lies in the use of the new Vivantec GPU, it probably won’t be a stretch to say that the extra 0.2GHz added to the clock speed of the CPU had an effect on the overall performance as well. We’ll be sure to give you more on this as soon as the rest of the benchmark results info becomes available.

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A series of Google Nexus devices apparently running an unannounced version of Jelly Bean have been spotted in Android Authority’s server logs.

Android 4.3 (and various versions of it including Android 4.3.3 and Android 4.3.1) can be seen in the screenshot above. Naturally, user agent profiles can always be faked, but why would anyone go through all that trouble just to try to fool a few tech websites and their readers.

Similarly, we have spotted Android 4.2.2 and Android 4.2 builds in our server logs ahead of their respective launches, so it would make sense to see traces of Google’s next Android versions appear with just a few weeks to go until Google I/O kicks off.

On that note, we’ll remind you that Android Police also spotted the same Android version a few days ago, but its logs showed build JWR23B running on the Nexus 4 and Nexus 7.

As you can see in the screenshot above, we can easily spot a bunch of Nexus devices including the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 running a variety of Android 4.3 versions including JWR25C, JWR24B, and JWR29/JWR29B. We also notice a Nexus 4 running build JDQ39 (Android 4.2.2) which is identified for some reason as Android 4.3.

Of the build versions mentioned above, we spotted JWR25C on the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10, while JWR24B was seen on the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4. Build number JWR29/JWR29B has been seen on the Nexus 4.

After digging through the virtual dirt, we found out that visits from these Nexus devices running these Android 4.3 variants were registered in the last week of April, hitting as early as April 29 and coming from a variety of locations, including Google’s Mountain View home in California, other California-based locations, but also London, UK and India.

The screenshot above also shows two other non-Nexus devices running other Android 4.3 versions. One of them is listed as the Huawei U8819 (a model number awfully similar to the Huawei Ascend G300 U8818/U8815) running Android 4.3.3, while the other one is the ADR8995 4G (known to the public as the Pantech Breakout) running Android 4.3.1 (which is interestingly, and probably mistakenly, dubbed as Key Lime Pie).

Mind you, these non-Nexus devices are not flagship handsets, and they’re not even 2013 gadgets either. The Ascend G300 (assuming that’s what U8819 stands for) has been announced in February 2012, while the Pantech Breakout was unveiled in July 2011. Most likely, these devices aren’t running an Android 4.3 version, although we are mentioning them since you can easily spot them in the image above and question them.

While not confirmed, Android 4.3 is most likely another Jelly Bean version. Most of these Android 4.3 builds start with the letter J, therefore it makes a lot of sense to think that Android 4.3 would be a new Jelly Bean version rather than Key Lime Pie.

Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie has not been spotted in our logs at this time – or at least we don’t have any relevant Android 5.x sightings to report other than the strange build name for that Pantech handset above and a variety of Android 5.x entries that were seen mostly in relation with non-Android devices.

As for Key Lime Pie (KLP) itself, we have no way of confirming that Android 5.0 will be called KLP or not, even though that’s what the majority of reports seem to indicate.

Considering the timing of this Android 4.3 apparition, it also makes sense to believe that Google may be interested in releasing a Jelly Bean upgrade at this year’s Google I/O instead of moving directly to the next major Android OS release. That way, the company would give OEMss time to update more devices to Jelly Bean (whatever version) before the next Android version launches, be it KLP or anything else.

Google I/O takes place in May (May 15-17) and we’re certainly interested to see what products Google will unveil. There are plenty of sometimes-conflicting rumors detailing products that could be showcased on stage in a few weeks, from new hardware (a new Nexus tablet and smartphone, a Motorola-made X Phone, new Chromebooks ) to software (new Android OS version, Google Babel) although nothing is confirmed right now – and don’t expect Google to announce all these products at the same event either.

What would you say if I told you that tablets were going to be dinosaurs in five years? You would think I was crazy, right? Well, what if the CEO of a one-time powerful mobile computing company actually said those words, would you react differently? Depends on who it is? It’s Blackberry CEO Thorsten Heins.  [...]
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We’ve got about 50 different reasons why, if you’re in the U.K., you should be looking to buy yourself a brand new Nook HD+ Android tablet — if not one of several other Nook tablets and e-book readers — right now. If you’re in the U.K. and live in or around London, then you’ve probably already heard of a little something called “Get London Reading.” If you haven’t, well all you need to know is that thanks to this currently ongoing literacy initiative, the Nook range of e-readers and tablets are now being sold for up to £50 off.

For starters, the 7-inch Nook HD is currently available for only £129 instead of the usual £159. And as for the Nook HD+, it can be bought for only £179 instead of £229. The absolute cheapest item on the Nook menu, however, is the Nook Simple Touch which can be bought for only £29 a piece.

This reduction in Nook e-reader and tablet prices is part of a bigger effort that involves donating 1,000 total Simple Touch e-readers. For now, the above-mentioned Nook devices will be available with discounted prices throughout the U.K. in stores such as Argos, ASDA, Blackwell’s, Foyles, Currys and PC World, John Lewis, Sainsbury’s and Very. Also, they can be purchased online at Nook.co.uk.

If you would like to learn more about the details of this price cut — along with information on the “Get London Reading” literacy initiative, then check out the official press release right below.

For the first quarter of 2013, global tablet shipments reached a record breaking 40.6 million units. Impressively, Android represented 43% of these devices.

Despite the clear success that tablets have seen in the marketplace, did you know they will be gone in five years? At least that’s the case if you believe Blackberry’s CEO, Thorsten Heins.

“In five years I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet any more. Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model.”

Blackberry is in trouble, whether you like the brand or not. When you are in trouble, you do whatever it takes to remove pressure from your company, and pawn it onto others. For Thorsten Heins, that means calling tablets a one-trick pony that will fade into obscurity.

The 7-inch tablet market has boomed in recent times, yet Blackberry’s own 7-inch PlayBook was nothing short of a failure. Part of the problem was marketing, the other part was not have essential apps ready from the beginning.  That doesn’t mean you have to give up on the tablet market, just look at HP.

Heins’ wild claim that we will not only have little need for a tablet but instead will simply want a ‘big screen’ at work is equally perplexing. I thought that the desktop and laptop market was shrinking…?

Still don’t think that Blackberry is out of touch with reality? Thorsten Heins later stated that in that same five years that tablets disappear, Blackberry will again be the leader in mobile computing.

“In five years, I see BlackBerry [being] the absolute leader in mobilecomputing – that’s what we’re aiming for.” “I want to gain as much market share as I can, but not by being a copycat.”

To be fair, CEOs will say just about anything to get a quick jab in at the competition. It’s a no-brainer that his statements won’t come true, so why bother writing all of this? Because he may not be totally off-mark.

Wait… did I just say that? I may be crazy, but yes I sure as hell did.

Could Tablets Lose Significance in Five Years?

As a warning, this is pure speculation on my part, and is merely an opinion of what could happen, so no need for tablet lovers to form a lynch mob or anything. My crystal ball doesn’t always get things right.

With that out of the way, remember that five years is a long time in the tech-world. Five years ago, the first Android phone had yet to even ship, and look at where things stand now.

Okay, so I don’t think Blackberry will be on top in five years, but I do think that tablets and mobile computing could evolve within that timeframe, making tablets (in their current form) less significant.

When technology rolls out for the first time, it goes through evolutionary phases. Sometimes these techs eventually merge together, such as the PDA and cellphone. For the tablet, this could mean combining with large-screen, thin-bezel smartphones like future members of the Galaxy Note family.

It could also mean that people just don’t need tablets as devices like Google Glass or even smartwatches start to show up and compete for consumer attention. Companies like HP are also reportedly working on Android-powered AiO touch slates that could become perfect family devices and take attention away from 9 to 10-inch tablets.

That doesn’t mean tablets will be “dead” in five years, but they could slowly become less and less important. The big takeaway is that we don’t know what the future holds. While Heins remarks are improbable, they aren’t necessarily impossible (except for maybe the part about a full Blackberry comeback).

What do you think the mobile market will look like in five years? Will tablets still be a major part of the game or will wearable computing and larger-sized smartphones cause them to lose importance?