Hasta La Gadget!

Not to be outdone with Samsung’s 3 million Galaxy Note 2 sales in a two-month period, Apple released a statement today saying that it has sold 3 million iPads in just three days following the global debut of the iPad mini and the iPad 4 last week. This means that Apple was able to double its previous first weekend record of 1.5 million iPad 3 (Wi-Fi only) sales in March this year. Although Apple CEO Tim Cook says that all iPad minis were practically sold out, we’re wondering just how many iPad minis were sold.

Last week, during the official debut of the iPad mini and the iPad 4 in the U.S. and in 33 other countries, it was reported that the overall response was underwhelming compared to previous product launches. Nevertheless, in spite of the doubts, Apple has managed to handle everything by announcing the combined sales of the iPad mini and the iPad 4 today. “Customers around the world love the new iPad mini and fourth generation iPad,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We set a new launch weekend record and practically sold out of iPad minis. We’re working hard to build more quickly to meet the incredible demand.”

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: iPad mini revealed, Don’t buy an iPad 3 today unless you like the old 30-pin connector,

Apple’s iPad saw its market share slip more than 15-percent in Q3 2012, according to new research, with Android tablets from Samsung and Amazon clawing away sales amid a growing market overall. While still dominating the tablet market overall, with a 50.4-percent share in Q3 so IDC reports, the iPad faced huge growth from Samsung in particular, which saw a year-on-year increase in market share of 325-percent.

According to the researchers, Samsung jumped from 6.5-percent market share in Q3 last year, to 18.4-percent in Q3 this year. It also saw a 115-percent increase from Q2 2012, and overall takes second place in IDC’s global leaderboard.

Amazon, too, took a bite out of Apple’s dominance, with the Kindle Fire HD line-up propelling it to third place and just under a tenth of the market. ASUS was helped to fourth place, Google’s Nexus 7 working its budget magic, while Lenovo snatched fifth place.

According to IDC’s number counters, it’s Samsung’s range of size options that helped it find so many buyers in 2012. “Samsung took advantage of an opportunity in the second quarter,” program manager Ryan Reith suggests. “The company offers a wide range of tablet offerings across multiple screen sizes and colors, and that clearly resonated with more buyers this quarter.”

The fact that the iPad mini extends the company’s tablet footprint into new screen sizes both works for and against Apple’s sales, IDC argues. The long-standing rumors of a smaller model may have dissuaded buyers of the existing, 9.7-inch version, it’s believed, though there’s the potential for a good quarter ahead now that the 7.9-incher is on sale.

However, pricing could still leave room for Android tablet OEMs to slip through. “[The] mini’s relatively high $329 starting price leaves plenty of room for Android vendors to build upon the success they achieved in the third quarter” research director Tom Mainelli highlights. Google in particular reacted aggressively to the iPad mini, ditching its 8GB Nexus 7 and replacing it with a 16GB $199 model.

iPad dominance slides as Samsung and Amazon tap tablet sales is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The newest iPad has had its guts revealed once again, showing off not just the pieces we knew about, the A6X processor included, but the GPU and its abilities as well. The folks at AnandTech have gone in for a deep-dive into the A6X as it exists on the iPad 4, showing a brand new PowerVR SGX 554 GPU. The A6X processor retains many elements from the A5X processor the iPad 3 worked with, including the memory controller interface sitting adjacent to the GPU cores instead of the CPU cores, as it was in the A5 and the standard A6 (on the iPhone 5).

The A6X has been revealed to also retain the 128-bit wide memory interface that the A5X worked with, integrating here two of Apple’s Swift cores running right up to 1.4GHz right out of the box. The PowerVR SGX 554 GPU living here in the iPad 4 is far and away more advanced than the units used in the iPad 3 or the iPhone 5, doubling the # of SIMDs of the iPad 3′s GPU, the PowerVR SGX 543MP4, essentially one generation back.

This new GPU appears to have double the ALU per core that the iPad 3′s unit works with (8 Vec4 ALUs per core vs. 4 Vec4) and brings on what Chipwork‘s analysis suggests is 2 sets of 4 identical sub-cores and one central core. That analysis shows 9 sub-cores, that is, as shown below, again from Chipworks. Anand suggests that this architecture points toward a theoretical performance greater than 77 GFLOPS – hot stuff!

You’ll find in benchmarks galore that this iPad – surprise – beats the older iPad models by a significant margin regardless of the test. The GPU appears to be clocking at least 15% higher than the iPad 3′s greatest hits, while tests like GLBenchmark are showing 65% benchmark performance improvement in some cases – in other words: really, really good. Have a peek at our full iPad 4th gen review for more everyday testing and sweet daily action.

iPad 4th gen GPU innards revealed is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Yesterday, the modding gurus at iFixit managed to tear down the iPad mini to pieces and confirmed that it does have stereo speakers and a display driver that is surprisingly made by Samsung. Today, in an attempt to thoroughly understand the differences between the iPad 4 and the iPad 3, iFixit is baring the fourth-generation iPad’s body for us to see. The first obvious difference of the iPad 4 is its Lightning connector and the new model number A1458. But after opening its adhesive-riddled body, iFixit found a new iPad LCD that has been manufactured by LG.

This supports the previous reports that Apple is beginning to move away from Samsung as a supplier. The iPad mini, on the other hand, was a different story. And finally, for the first time, the A6X processor has been uncovered together with its supporting hardware that includes a Hynix H2JTDG8UD2MBR 16GB NAND Flash and an Apple 338S1116 Cirrus Logic Audio Codec. However, iFixit notes that Apple didn’t save any space when it switched to the smaller Lightning connector. “They (Apple) let the Lightning cable sit in a frame the same size as the 30-pin dock connector. We were hoping that space savings would yield bigger, better speakers. Very disappointing, indeed,” iFixit added.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Amazon Kindle Fire HD gets the teardown treatment, The new iPad gets the teardown treatment,

The fourth generation iPad and the iPad mini are now on sale in New Zealand. The iPad mini was recently announced by Apple on October 23, with preorders opening shortly thereafter. Now Apple lovers in New Zealand can nab the tablets in retail stores, making it the first country where the devices are available. Roll out for the launch countries will begin at 8AM on November 2.

Apple does not know which retailers are offering the devices. When in doubt, call up your local electronics stores and ask if they have the tablets in stock. Said Apple’s spokeswoman Fiona Martin, “I don’t know who will have what (products) where in New Zealand but the retailers will certainly be able to open their doors so people can come in and touch and play straight away.”

The iPad mini features a 7.9-inch display with a 163ppi 1024 x 768 resolution. Inside you’ll find a dual-core A5 processor, and either 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of storage space, depending on which model you get. There is a Wifi-only version and a Wifi + Cellular version, with the former offering Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11a/b/g/n, while the latter also includes data connectivity.

Apple’s Philip Schiller confirmed yesterday that the iPad mini features dual stereo speakers. Meanwhile, the fourth-generation iPad features an A6X dual-core processor with quad-core graphics, as well as a 9.7-inch Retina display with a 264ppi 2,048 x 1,536 resolution. The products were launched in New Zealand approximately 20 hours before it will roll out in San Francisco.

[via Apple Insider]

iPad mini and 4th generation iPad now available in New Zealand is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.