Despite Multi-Year MSFT Surface Deal, Nearly All NFL Teams Use iPads As Playbooks, Says Apple

ipadplaybook

On today’s Q1 earnings call, Apple’s CFO Peter Oppenheimer bragged that “nearly all NFL teams use iPads as playbooks.”

This wouldn’t necessarily be interesting, except for the fact that Microsoft has a multi-year contract with the NFL to provide players, coaches and other personnel with a Surface tablet.

Of course, NFL teams have been using the iPad for years.

In 2011, a number of NFL teams had figured out how to transfer their playbooks over to iPad, as well as view and edit game film on the fly. By fall 2012, the number of NFL teams using iPads as playbooks had grown from 2 to 14.

In 2013, though, Microsoft signed a multi-year deal with the NFL that had a number of stipulations. As the official sideline technology partner of the NFL, Microsoft Surface and Windows would be “the official tablet and PC operating system of the NFL.”

This is made clear when you watch the NFL on Fox, as all the sports announcers sport kickstand-equipped Surface tablets on-air.

surface-NFL on fox

However, it seems that coaches and players prefer iProducts, according to Oppenheimer’s statements on today’s call. And it wouldn’t be the first time something like this has happened.

Last year, erstwhile BlackBerry spokesperson Alicia Keys was caught tweeting and Instagramming from her iPhone despite promising herself to the BlackBerry Z10.

The iPad has been a major tool across a number of enterprise businesses. Originally, health companies and car companies began using the iPad for sales purposes. Inevitably, the iPad became a sales tool across many verticals in the enterprise. More recently, industries are looking to replace paper manuals, as is the case with airlines and flight manuals.

In fact, American Airlines will save $1 million in fuel costs because of the weight decrease on flights.

Apple Q1 2014

Surface sales leap up as Microsoft reports record revenue for financial Q2

Microsoft appears to be having a good quarter, as they’ve announced their financial second quarter (ending on December 31st, 2013), has resulted in record revenue. This revenue high-mark sits at … Continue reading

Microsoft Surface Pro 2 Firmware Update Arrives Only To Select Users

Microsoft Surface Pro 2 Firmware Update Arrives Only To Select UsersIt was sometime in early December last year that Microsoft introduced a firmware update for the Microsoft Surface Pro 2, but had to take it down shortly after that because the firmware update actually ended up giving users more problems than benefits. At that point in time, Microsoft did mention that they would make sure that they fixed all that was wrong with that update after the holidays, it is nice to see the software giant keep to their word after rolling out a new bug fix that more or less squashed all of the previous issues. Among the issues fixed include a longer lasting battery life, and not having the Surface Pro 2 shut down completely when the cover was closed, but instead, enter sleep mode.

Microsoft has announced that they are working on releasing the replacement firmware update to the original for those who installed the faulty firmware update only, as folks who did not install the earlier update last month will not be on the receiving end of the January patch. The principle of “better late than never” applies here yet again, and good things always come to those who wait. Does it not give you a nice and warm fuzzy feeling deep down inside whenever companies stick to their plans and word?

Here is what Microsoft had to say about the situation, “This weekend we released an update that addresses the unexpected wake and battery drain behavior experienced by a small number of Surface Pro 2 customers who installed the December Windows Update. This should have no impact on customers who had not received the December update. We are working hard to deliver the rest of the December update to those customers who had not received it prior to it being removed from distribution.”

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  • Microsoft Surface Pro 2 Firmware Update Arrives Only To Select Users original content from Ubergizmo.

        



    Microsoft Surface 3, Surface Mini, Surface Laptop Rumors Surface

    Microsoft Surface 3, Surface Mini, Surface Laptop Rumors SurfaceMicrosoft’s latest Surface series of tablets was launched back in 2013 and given that Microsoft has chosen (again) not to make an appearance at CES 2014, we’re sure many are wondering what they might be up to. Well thanks to a series of tweets by MSFTnerd, it seems that he has managed to release some details about future Surface tablets, which not only includes the Surface 3, but also a possible Surface mini, as well as talks about there being a Surface laptop. Starting with the Surface 3, MSFTnerd believes that Microsoft will be working with NVIDIA again and will sport NVIDIA’s latest chipset that they announced at CES 2014, the Tegra K1, and will be seeing a release towards the end of 2014.

    Given that the second-gen Surface tablets were released towards the later part of 2013, we guess this timeframe does sound about right. MSFTnerd also revealed that we can look forward to a Surface Mini (a smaller 7.5-inch version of the Surface tablets) and LTE versions of the Surface 2 before the end of the year. Last but not least MSFTnerd revealed that Microsoft had put plans of a Surface notebook on hold for now. It is unclear what Microsoft would do with a Surface laptop since the Surface tablets in a way are almost like laptops, especially the Surface Pro 2. Perhaps it could be those reasons that Microsoft has put those plans on hold for now, but either way since none of this is official information from Microsoft, do take it with a grain of salt for now.

    In the meantime which of these Surface-related products are you most looking forward to in 2014, rumor or not?

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  • Microsoft Surface 3, Surface Mini, Surface Laptop Rumors Surface original content from Ubergizmo.

        



    Microsoft Surface Traffic Beats Out Google’s Nexus Offerings

    Microsoft Surface Traffic Beats Out Googles Nexus OfferingsPrior to the release of the Microsoft Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2, the Redmond company’s first generation of Surface tablets did not sell as well as they should have, leaving Microsoft with plenty of leftover stock which was a potential $1 billion write-off, which also resulted in Microsoft slashing the prices of the tablet drastically in a bid to boost sales. Perhaps the price slashes could have paid off because in a recent report from Chitika, it would seem as though Microsoft’s tablet traffic for the holiday season was actually a little bit higher than Google’s Nexus offerings, despite tablets such as the Nexus 7 being priced pretty cheap, making them more affordable alternatives.

    Chitiki based their findings on a sample of over 10 million smartphone and tablet ad impressions from their network, and took the holiday season to be from the 20th of December up to the 29th of December 2013. Based on this, it would seem that Apple’s iPads are still dominating the tablet scene, followed by Amazon with their Kindle Fire offerings, followed by Samsung, and then by Microsoft, and finally Google. Of course this is based on a short period of time and perhaps if we were to look at the larger picture, the numbers might be different. What do you guys think? Could price slashes be why Microsoft’s tablets are doing slightly better than Google’s?

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  • Microsoft Surface Traffic Beats Out Google’s Nexus Offerings original content from Ubergizmo.

        



    Steve Ballmer States That The Surface Tablets Were A Supplement For OEMs

    Steve Ballmer States That The Surface Tablets Were A Supplement For OEMsWhen Microsoft first announced the Surface series of tablets back in 2012, safe to say they took many by surprise. After all Microsoft has been thought of more as a software company these days, what with Windows 8 and Windows Phone, so it was quite a shock by many that Microsoft would launch their own hardware, at least as far as the mobile scene was concerned. Naturally many were wondering how this might affect Microsoft’s OEM partners, and instead of viewing the Surface tablet as a threat to their relationship with their OEMs, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer believes that the tablet acts more as a supplement, rather than a competing product.

    Speaking to Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet, Ballmer stated that the reason behind the Surface’s launch was to combat the likes of Apple in the hardware market, where he was also quoted as saying, “And our OEMs do great work, but there are places their brands and investments don’t travel. And so we wanted to supplement the work of our OEMs, hopefully make our OEMs stronger through the process, by making our overall competition with Apple.” At least one OEM partner was not too pleased about the Surface, although given how the Surface has been doing, on hindsight we guess they needn’t have been too worried.

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  • Steve Ballmer States That The Surface Tablets Were A Supplement For OEMs original content from Ubergizmo.

        



    The Best Windows Tablet Display Doesn’t Come From Microsoft

    The Best Windows Tablet Display Doesn't Come From Microsoft

    A new generation of Windows tablets has arrived with the launch of the Microsoft Surface 2, their second generation tablet, and the Nokia Lumia 2520, Nokia’s first ever tablet. With virtually identical functionality and OS software, it is the quality and performance of their displays that really differentiates the tablets.

    Read more…


        



    Microsoft Launches New Surface Site

    Microsoft Launches New Surface SiteIt certainly does not make much sense at all if a particular website looked the same all the way from 1995 until today. Surely there needs to be a redesign from time to time to keep things fresh, just like how software would be a whole lot better with updates and such. Well, it does seem as though Microsoft has just rolled out a new Surface campaign with discoversurface.com. This particular webpage was registered on December 3rd, and it is in some way connected to Microsoft, that makes it seem to be a legitimate site and not some sort of misdirection.

    The entire website looks rather modern, and it concerns discovering the Surface brand as well as the kind of features that it carries. Microsoft, too, wants to promote the hashtag #uncompromise, and chances are they would make full use of it to track metrics in order to check out just what kind of positive potential does this campaign have. There is a high degree of interactivity with this website, and it certainly jives in tandem with Microsoft’s connection to ‘modern’ design alongside live-tile like components. Do you like what you see in the new website itself, or do you think that it is too much to take in? [New Surface Website]

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  • Microsoft Launches New Surface Site original content from Ubergizmo.

        



    Switched On: The Yoga Tablet does kickstands with a twist

    Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

    If one takes a narrow view of the tablet market, the largest PC makers have fared especially poorly as a group. At the launch of the iPad, HP, Dell, Acer and Lenovo had little experience with the Android ecosystem, which itself was not optimized for tablets. And Windows, their go-to operating system, was still not available in a version that would show off bold, finger-friendly tiles and yield long battery life in a slim form factor. Even now as these companies have experimented with all kinds of hinges and accessories on Windows, their Android efforts can be hard to differentiate as with HP’s Slate 7 and Dell’s recent 7- and 8-inch slates.

    Into this spiritless landscape, Lenovo has dropped the Yoga Tablet, available in 8- and 10-inch sizes. Unlike its namesake Windows laptop, which reveals no obvious signs of its differentiation at first glance, the Yoga Tablet has a silver, cylindrical side that is reminiscent of extended laptop batteries. Indeed, it contains the battery here as well as making for a grip that is at first unfamiliar, but which allows the rest of the tablet to be very thin.

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    Patch Tuesday Sees Firmware Updates For Surface, Surface 2 And Surface Pro

    Patch Tuesday Sees Firmware Updates For Surface, Surface 2 And Surface ProIt is that time of the month again, where every second Tuesday of each month equals to Patch Tuesday for those who are running a Windows-powered device. Whenever you check out the settings on your PC, you will most probably come across details such as security updates for Internet Explorer in addition to firmware updates for your Surface devices, and the firmware updates for the most recent Patch Tuesday would cater for the Surface RT, Surface 2, and Surface Pro. The Surface Pro 2 would not gain anything from the most recent Patch Tuesday though.

    You will be able to check out the update notes for the Surface RT here, and do bear in mind that this update will only be meant for Windows 8, and not 8.1, where it will enable the use of the Japanese Touch and Type Cover 2 accessories. As for the Surface 2, the updates would roll out for the Surface 2 that sport a range of improvements across the device in addition to its accessories. Updates for the Surface Pro depend on whether you are running Windows 8 or 8.1, although those who are still on Windows 8 will be on the receiving end of an update that enables you to use the Japanese Touch and Type Cover 2 accessories.

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  • Patch Tuesday Sees Firmware Updates For Surface, Surface 2 And Surface Pro original content from Ubergizmo.