Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) polices are increasingly popular as a way for companies to let workers use the hardware they like best and are most productive with. But according to a new study from Cisco, that not be the best way to think about BYOD.

Implement a strong BYOD policy, Cisco says, and your organization could save $1,300 per year per mobile user. Users meanwhile, report that they are happier and more productive - even though they may end up paying more out of their own pockets!

(See also Worried Workers: BYOD Or You're SOL [Infographic])

Happier, More Productive, But Poorer?

The survey, released Wednesday by Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) consulting unit, polled 2,415 users in six countries to determine the effects of letting employees bring their own devices into the office. The results indicate that employees around the world were very interested in BYOD, and they were even willing to pay for it: On average, workers said they would spend $965 out of pocket for their own devices and another $734 annually for the data plans to go with them.

Here's why: Workers with their own devices said they were happier and (more objectively) reported significant productivity gains. In the U.S., BYOD participants saved 81 minutes of time per week - just over 70 hours a year.

Not every country noted such productivity increases, and use of employee devices also had negative effects, such as increased administration, downtime and distractions that dragged the overall efficiency down, explained Jeff Loucks, senior manager at IBSG. 

Most of the devices in question were phones: 81% of device bringers reported they uses smartphones, 56% brought tablets and 37% brought their own laptops. On average, each of the estimated 198 million BYOD users around the world had 1.7 devices, said Loucks.

BYOD Keeps Growing

The number of BYOD users is expected to swell to 406 million by 2016. Even though the U.S. leads in BYOD use right now, by 2016, China alone is expected to have 166 million alone, compared to the 106 million in the U.S. and 76 million in India.

Companies fared best, Cisco discovered, when they implemented a strategic BYOD plan, rather than stick than just trying to keep up with devices coming into the organization. Such reactive policies tend to make users figure everything out for themselves, often working with an IT department that only grudgingly allows such devices into the organization.

Want to realize those promised cost benefits? Get ahead of users with a proactive BYOD policy that enables employees to quickly access corporate tools and data, perhaps featuring a self-service help system. Such policies also help organizations keep better security on corporate data.

(See also ReadWrite Survey Results: What A Typical BYOD Program Really Looks Like.)

Be Careful What You Wish For - BYOD Edition

As much as workers seem willing to pay their own way to get the devices they want without their employers' interference (only 30% said they would be willing to work with corporate-provisioned devices - often called Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled, or COPE), it's hard to shake the feeling that even though employees are more satisfied and productive, there's something unsettling if they end up footing the bill for this innovation. 

(See also Forget Bring Your Own Device - Try Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled.)

It's not an idle question: A recent Gartner survey of CIOs found that 38% said their companies planned stop providing employees with devices by 2016. Gartner also expects that nearly 50% of employers will demand employees provide their own devices for work purposes - out of pocket - by 2017.

Companies are increasingly willing to explore BYOD policies - but it seems that the reasons may not be entirely altruistic. Letting employees use the tools they prefer is clearly a good idea, but making them pay for the privilege doesn't seem right. 

Nearly five years ago, a smartphone came out that few thought much of. Little did people know that the device would be a harbinger for the next half-decade of mobile innovation, pushing boundaries of technology and launching a fundamental shift in how people interact with computers.

That phone was the HTC G1, the original "Google Phone." It was a clunky, bug-ridden touchscreen device with a slide-out physical keyboard. The G1 did not sell particularly well. The buzz at the time was over Apple's still relatively young iPhone and varying BlackBerry devices, like the original Bold 9000.

Let's not say that the G1 was the beginning of the Mobile Revolution. There are neither beginnings nor endings in the turning of the wheel of technology. But it was a beginning.

The beginning of the Android Era.

It is amazing to look back at the last five years of Android and see just how far the devices that run Google's mobile operating system have come. From the G1 to the Nexus 10, the hardware, software and everything in between has gone from buggy, crash-prone phones to finely tuned devices that dominate mobile computing. Google and its manufacturing partners have done well in a half decade of innovation. What will the next five years bring?

Google is expected to announce a new version of its Android mobile operating system at its I/O developers conference, which runs Wednesday through Friday this week. Google refreshed its flagship Nexus line in November, and new Android chief Sundar Pichai recently downplayed expectations for major new products at I/O, a change from last year, which saw major launches like the Nexus 7 tablet.

Instead, in a sign of Android's maturation, Google will likely put the focus on devices from its hardware partners, like Samsung and HTC—a sign of Android's increasing maturity as a platform. Let's take a look back at the devices that brought Android to this pivotal point in its history.

HTC G1

Released: October 22, 2008

Hardware: 3.2-inch screen (320x480), 1150 mAh battery (removable), slide-out physical keyboard, 256 MB internal storage (expandable external storage), 192 RAM, 3.2 megapixel back camera.

Firmware: Android 1.0

The G1 (also known as the HTC Dream) was the first of Google's flagship smartphones. At the time it was a bit of a curiosity, mostly interesting for how it introduced Google properties (like Maps, Street View, Calendar and Search) to the smartphone market. The G1 was limited to T-Mobile in the United States.

Motorola Droid

Released: October 17, 2009

Hardware: 3.7-inch screen (480x854), 1400 mAh battery (removable), slide-out keyboard, 512 MB internal storage (expandable external storage), 256 MB RAM, 5 MP back camera.

Firmware: Android 2.0 (Eclair)

Boom goes the dynamite. The Motorola Droid was the first true Android smartphone to be popular with the masses. It was released to Verizon with heavy marketing targeted at what the Droid could do that an iPhone could not, like multi-tasking. The "Droid Does" slogan became a popular part of the geek lexicon and was Motorola's high water mark in the smartphone wars. The Droid shipped with the original Android 2.0 "Eclair" version but was quickly updated to a much more stable version in Android 2.1.

Nexus One

Released: January 5, 2009

Hardware: 3.7-inch screen (480x800), 1400 mAh battery (removable), 512 MB internal storage (expandable), 512 MB RAM, 5 MP back camera.

Firmware: Android 2.1 (Eclair)

The Nexus One was the first Android device commissioned directly from Google to serve as the flagship of the operating system. The One was built by HTC (an altered with HTC's "Sense" skin for its Incredible smartphone) and immediately became the sexiest Android smartphone on the market. The Nexus series has since become known as the "guide" device for new versions of the operating system. The Nexus One also marked an experiment by Google to bypass the carriers and sell directly to consumers through its website. The One was also one of the first Android smartphone to ship with Near Field Communication (NFC) functionality. This experiment did not take among consumers and most subsequent Nexus devices were offered through Google alongside subsidized versions from the likes of AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint. Google did not release a Nexus device for Android 2.2, with updated firmware for the Nexus One serving as the de facto flagship for Froyo.

Nexus S

Released: December 16, 2010.

Hardware: 4-inch screen (480x800), 1500 mAh battery (removable), 16 GB internal storage, 512 MB RAM, 5 MP back camera, VGA front camera.

Firmware: Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)

Samsung really started its rise to the top of the Android pyramid in 2010 with the release of its wide-ranging Galaxy S smartphones. Google tapped the Korean manufacturer for the next two Nexus devices, starting with the Nexus S. The device was the flagship for Android 2.3 Gingerbread, which is still the most-used version of the operating system years after its release.

Motorola Xoom

Released: February 24, 2011.

Hardware: 10.1-inch screen (800x1280), 6000 mAh battery (non-removable), 32 GB internal storage, 1 GB RAM, 5 MP back camera, 2 MP front camera.

Firmware: Android 3.2 (Honeycomb)

Google took a break from the Nexus line with Android 3.2 Honeycomb and went with Motorola for the flagship device of the operating system. Honeycomb and the Xoom turned out to be a complete albatross in the Android ecosystem, never gaining traction with consumers or developers. In fact, Honeycomb was so lampooned for being "half-finished" that Google never even released the normally open source Android kernel code and very few devices were ever made that used the operating system. Honeycomb was supposed to be Google's answer to the Android tablet conundrum. To this point, the only Android tablets that had been released ran some version of Froyo or Gingerbread, Android versions that were suboptimal for large screen devices. Honeycomb ultimately served as the stepping stone between Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich, which married the smartphone and tablet capabilities of Android and made it much easier for developers and manufacturers to create applications for a variety of screen sizes. 

Galaxy Nexus

Released: November 17, 2011.

Hardware: 4.65-inch screen (720x1280), 1750 mAh battery (removable), 16/32 GB internal storage (no external memory), 1 GB RAM, 5 MP back camera, 1.3 MP front camera.

Firmware: Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)

In many ways, Android phones made a giant leap at the end of 2011. Screens started to get bigger (eventually much bigger) and Android got a lot smarter, easy to use and out of its own way. This was epitomized with the Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich. Android can almost be categorized into two phases: Android 2.3 Gingerbread and everything that came before and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and everything that came after. Starting with the Galaxy Nexus, Android smartphones have run smoother, been more secure, had bigger screens and hardware specifications that are all almost nearly double what came before.

Nexus 7

Released: July 13, 2012.

Hardware: 7-inch screen (800x1280), 4325 mAh battery (non-removable), 8/16/32 GB internal memory (no external memory), 1 GB RAM, 1.2 MP front camera.

Firmware: Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)

The first Nexus tablet was announced at Google I/O in June 2012 and shipped a couple weeks later. The Nexus 7 cemented the market for lower priced tablets (next to the Kindle Fire at $199) with smaller screens in the 7-inch variety. From a hardware point of view, the Nexus 7 was not the most sophisticated tablet ever to be released, but it showed that Android has the ability to seamlessly run on tablet-sized screens while also highlighting the capabilities of Jelly Bean as a tablet operating system. Google refreshed the Nexus 7 later in the year to give it cellular connectivity. 

Nexus 4

Released: November 13, 2012.

Hardware: 4.7-inch screen (768x1280), 2100 mAh battery (non-removable), 8/16 GB internal memory, 2 GB RAM, 8 MP back camera, 1.3 MP front camera. 

Firmware: Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean)

The latest Android firmware is version 4.2, the second instance of Jelly Bean (much in the same way that Android 2.0/2.1 were both Eclair). The Nexus 4 from LG was released at the end of 2012 with two other devices -- the Nexus 10 from Samsung (below) and the upgraded Nexus 7. As yet, adoption of Android 4.2 has been minimal as it is an iterative update to what already existed in Android 4.1, with some minor feature upgrades. While many people consider the Nexus 4 to be a superb instance of an Android smartphone, it was criticized for its lack of 4G LTE, of which most new smartphones have included by default. The phone was made available through Google Play store (along with it tablet siblings) and on T-Mobile.

Nexus 10

Released: November 13, 2012.

Hardware: 10.05-inch screen (1600x2560), 9000 mAh battery (non-removable), 16/32 GB memory, 2 GB RAM, 5 MP back camera, 1.9 MP front camera.

Firmware: Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean)

Samsung came back to produce the first branded large-screen (8-inches or up) Nexus tablet with the Nexus 10. The tablet was the first large screen to roll out with a flagship Android update since Motorola released the Xoom tablet with the Honeycomb release in February 2011. 

What will this week bring at Google I/O 2013? Will we finally see Android 5.0? Or is there another update to Jelly Bean (Android 4.3)? We will be everywhere at I/O next week bringing you news of Google's latest gadgets, apps and developer news. Stay tuned.

Who needs apps? Microsoft buying Nook Media would be a a brilliant move: Microsoft would add millions of e-books that consumers want, to supplement tens of thousands of apps that, well, they don't.

Is Microsoft About To Buy Nook For $1 Billion?

TechCrunch reported Thursday that Microsoft is considering paying $1 billion for Nook Media, the division of Barnes & Noble that includes both the Nook tablet as well as its e-book business. That works out to a discount of about $700 million to $800 million compared to what Barnes & Noble valued the Nook at just a few months ago. A deal at that level would be a clear indication that B&N wants out of the digital business.

So much so, in fact, that there have been rumors that Barnes & Noble plans to kill the Nook by the end of April 2014, instead selling its e-book content on apps from "third-party tablets" from an undisclosed manufacturer or manufacturers. That could mean Microsoft's own tablet, the Surface, steps in to replace it - and we're already getting reports of smaller, Nook-like Windows tablets in the works. Of course, Nook is already available on the iPad and non-Amazon Android tablets.

(See also Microsoft, Barnes & Noble Release Windows 8 Nook App: Is A "Nook Surface Next?)

TechCrunch's report suggests two key factors: developing, manufacturing and selling a tablet like the Nook isn't a profitable business. But e-books are. By itself, the Nook unit lost $262 million on $1.2 billion for the fiscal year ended April 30, TechCrunch's secret documents alleged. Meanwhile, B&N itself publicly disclosed that its Nook segment revenue dropped 26% last quarter, but e-book sales grew 6.8%. (Some 10 million Nook tablets and e-readers have been sold, and the service boasts more than 7 million subscribers.)

We also know that Microsoft has already forged ties with software developers, including game creators; has established relationships with the music business to create Xbox Music; and has developed a network of cloud servers which can serve that content up virtually anywhere. Adding book publishers to the list should be relatively simple.

Microsoft has already proved its interest in the Nook platform. In 2012, Microsoft dumped $300 million into Nook Media, which later generated a Nook app for Windows 8 and not much else. It certainly looks like Barnes & Noble isn't heavily invested into the relationship. It's time for Microsoft to take over.

Patching The Windows App Store With Books

People need a compelling reason to buy a new device, and Microsoft hasn't given them much of one. Microsoft's Surface is a terrific piece of hardware, but is overpriced compared to rival tablets. Meanwhile traditional PCs are on the decline, perhaps even being pushed down the slope by Windows 8. Microsoft's platforms simply lack the app support of iOS and Android.

Windows Store apps, as measured by MetroStore Scanner.

Moreover, if apps are now a key tablet selling point, Microsoft doesn't have that much to offer. Microsoft's app store is growing quickly - but that's due to the fact that it's starting from a very small base. As of Thursday, MetrostoreScanner, which tracks the apps that appear and are updated on Microsoft's Windows Store, showed a total of 70,182 apps in the Store - about double what it had at the end of December. Google and Apple, on the other hands, each claim about 800,000 apps in their respective app stores.

In the company's defense, Tami Reller, Microsoft's Windows chief, has argued that the Windows Store has aggregated more than the number of apps that iOS did during the same period. She also said that almost 90% of the entire app catalog is downloaded every month - a puzzling statement, meaning that either Microsoft is doing an excellent job promoting app discovery, based on its Mimvi technology - or that Windows uses really don't have that much to choose from. 

E-Books Complete The Windows Store 

Adding e-books won't make Microsoft's app problems go away. But they could provide a pretty big distraction. Not to mention that owning the Nook platform would dramatically broaden Microsoft's content strategy to include iPads and Android tablets. Microsoft has also hinted at plans to integrate Nook content in Office, putting its digital content in front of millions more users. That would be a welcome change from Microsoft's decision not to rush out Office for iOS and Android. 

(See also Why Microsoft Is Tying Barnes & Noble's Nook To Windows, Office And Bing.)

Finally, it may seem simplistic, but one of the more compelling reasons to add Nook content is simply what users see - or don't see - on the Windows 8 Start screen: Games, Music, Video - but not Books. It's a glaring omission, and one that Microsoft could solve with a single stroke of the pen - and a billion dollars.

Image Sources: Pearson Media (Nook App) Barnes & Noble (Nook)

As any smartphone owner knows all too well, even the best of today's mobile devices are completely dependent on batteries that can't often keep up with the rest of the technology.

Even the savviest hardware makers are bumping up against the limits of what they can extract from existing battery technology. They're forced to spend enormous efforts creating various engineering "cheats" to coax out the maximum battery life and performance for our most favored gadgets.

Despite frenzied research into both battery hardware and power-management software, the best you can say is that the industry is almost managing to keep up with the demand for more and more portable power. 

10 Times Better Than Today's Batteries

Finally, help may be on the way.

According to a recently published article in the journal Nature Communications, researchers at the University of Illinois claim to have developed lithium ion microbatteries with power densities up to "2,000 times" more powerful than comparable batteries. Or more helpfully, technology that could support batteries either 10 times smaller or 10 times more powerful than today's typical lithium-ion batteries. 

Professor William P. King, who led the university team, clearly has high hopes for the battery technology. In a statement, he said:

In recent decades, electronics have gotten small. The thinking parts of computers have gotten small. And the battery has lagged far behind. This is a microtechnology that could change all of that. Now the power source is as high-performance as the rest of it.

"You could jump-start a car with the battery in your cellphone," the researchers crow in their report. They also claim their battery tech can be recharged 1,000 faster than today's batteries. Put it all together and you could theoretically have a "credit-card-thin phone" that could be recharged in less than a second. 

The new battery tech remains in the labs, however, although the team hopes to trial it in commercial settings later this year. If viable, it could revolutionize the market for consumer mobile electronics such as smartphone and tablets - and spur a new outpouring of innovative hardware and screen designs. 

How Does It Work?

In simple terms, a chemical reaction inside a battery causes the anode to release electrons. When the battery is "on" these electrons flow from the anode to the cathode - which is on the opposite side of the battery. The University of Illinois team claims its breakthrough "integrates the anode and cathode at the microscale." Meaning, this allows for even a very small battery to have a "very high surface area" - and thus provide far greater power density (output) and simultaneously support much faster charging.

Battery Life Is Everyone's Problem

Battery performance continues to limit what smartphones and other mobile devices can do. Apple maintains a webpage devoted solely to helping customers improve battery life of their iPads. The company suggests users "update to the latest software," "use your iPad regularly" and 15 other actions to boost battery life, including "let it breathe." Seriously.

In 2012's J.D. Power smartphone satisfaction survey, "battery life" was listed as "a significant drain on customer satisfaction and loyalty." J.D. Power even noted that battery issues for smartphones resulted in "higher rates of merchandise returns and customer defections."

Is It Safe?

The new microbattery could help solve those problems, if they don't catch on fire. The BBC quoted University of Oxford chemist Peter Edwards wondering if the technology could meet the competing demands of cost, manufacturing scalability and safety:  

I'd want to know if these microbatteries would be more prone to the self-combustion issues that plagued lithium-cobalt oxide batteries which we've seen become an issue of concern with Boeing's Dreamliner jets.

Here's hoping the team at Illinois, or one of the many other groups working on this problem, achieve a commercially viable - and safe - battery breakthrough soon. I hate it when my iPhone runs out of power just when I need it most.

Lead graphic representation of new battery technology courtesy of the University of Illinois.  

As Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo, and other manufacturers nervously place bets on the PC, server, and tablet markets, they're playing more and more with Intel's chips. And that means one thing: Intel stands to win no matter what.

Intel yesterday reported a 25% profit decline on revenue of $12.6 billion, which the company blamed on the general blahs plaguing the PC market. But two numbers stood out: a 6.6% drop in PC microprocessor revenue, and a 7.5%  increase in revenue from data centers.

Playing Both Ends — Maybe All Three

What does this mean? At the moment, PC sales are in free fall as consumers rush toward tablets. But as customers snap up mobile devices, tapping into cloud-hosted apps, demand for the servers that power those data centers increases.

Meanwhile, Intel is moving farther into phones, tablets, and networking, where further profits beckon. The bottom line is this: if consumers chase mobile apps, Intel will be there, powering cloud data centers. If they stick to the PC, or shift to new lightweight ultrabooks, Intel stands to benefit thanks to its 80+ percent market share. And if Intel can convince more phone and tablet makers to buy into its chip offerings, it'll win there, too — though that's much more of a gamble at the moment.

Intel CFO Stacy Smith told analysts that the company's second-half outlook looks stronger than expected because of two things: a stronger macroeconomic environment, which would boost overall spending, plus Intel's presence in PCs, servers, phones and tablets. 

To that, Intel chief executive Paul Otellini added a third component: price. "We have a certain spec for ultrabooks, and that is the product that Stacy said is going to be centered at as low as $599 with some [products] to $499," Otellini said. "If you look at touch-enabled Intel based notebooks that are ultrathin and light using non-Core processors, those prices are going to be down to as low as $200 probably."

Intel's Hole Card: Mastery Of Moore's Law

Otellini, who will retire in May, can fairly be criticized for not investing in tablets and other mobile devices earlier. But from an operational standpoint, Intel is winning. The company continues to leverage its core asset: manufacturing, creating a ripple effect that continues to carry the company into new markets.

In May, Intel will launch "Haswell," its next-generation 22-nm chip. Rival AMD is a generation behind, at 32 nm. This forces AMD to out-engineer Intel — again — in terms of chip design to keep up, and AMD arguably hasn't done that. "This leadership in materials science and manufacturing technology is the foundation on which our future success will be based, arming us with the world’s lowest power and lowest cost transistors," Otellini said, and he's right.

Normally, a drop in PC consumption, and thus lower manufacturing demand, would imply a decline in revenues. Not so. Smith said that Intel simply pulled older manufacturing equipment and accelerated a shift toward its next milestone, 14-nm manufacturing, and saved $1 billion in capital costs in the process. It also struck a "foundry" deal with Altera, in which it agreed to manufacture Altera chips on unused Intel equipment. If demand picks up, Intel can simply turn on production lines again.

Mobile and Tablets Still Hold Potential

After fumbling its StrongARM technology in 1997 — the processor architecture which now powers basically every phone on the planet — Intel shocked many by announcing X86 phone designs with Lenovo and other Asian manufacturers in 2012. Is Intel poised to take over the phone market? Absolutely not. But simply demonstrating the capability makes it a company to watch, and its reach may slowly grow over time.

So far, the "Clover Trail" Atom chip Intel debuted last fall for a new generation of convertible Windows tablets has barely left a ripple, hampered as it was by poor computing performance and a general disdain for Windows 8. In phones, however, Intel is combining Clover Trail with an applications processor and an LTE baseband chip into what's known as a system-on-a-chip, a tidy all-in-one package. First-quarter tablet volume doubled, and Intel expects it to double again — from a little to a little more than a little, one might expect. Still, it's a start.

Tablets, though, could be Intel's future. In the second half of the year, Intel plans to launch "Bay Trail," a quad-core Atom chip. (Intel brands its PC processors using the "Core" name; the non-Core chip Otellini referred to inside the $200 PCs is almost certainly Bay Trail.) If that's true, a $200 Windows-based tablet almost moves into impulse-buy territory. 

What Intel's irresistible progress in manufacturing technology means is that it almost doesn't matter whether Clover Trail or Bay Trail are successful. Intel should enable the combination of performance, power, and/or price that should offer Windows tablets some true competition to Android and iOS. Will ARM be able to keep ahead? If we're talking $200 price points, how much will it matter?

Meanwhile, Intel's hold on the enterprise market remains secure, as the vast majority of servers are powered by Intel X86 chips. Here, too, ARM chips have declared war, claiming that their low power offers a more cost-effective solution to Intel's power-hungry Xeon chips. Intel has deployed "Centeron," an optimized Atom chip for servers, in response. And software-defined networking, which steals some of the intelligence from a network router or switch and puts it inside a server, benefits Intel, too.

What Intel does best, though, is double down and double again, using manufacturing to make up for any shortfalls in design that its competition might otherwise exploit. It might not be the most elegant solution, but so far it's proving brutally effective.

Image source: Intel

Listen up and we will tell you a secret: Apple's iPad is not the only tablet in the world. There a lot of them, actually, and most of them run on Android. App publisher Animoca estimates that there are 75 million Android tablets in use around the globe. But which ones are the most popular?

Animoca ran the numbers of its users to figure out what Android tablets most often show up in actual users' hands. Any guesses on what tablet takes the top spot? Could it be the Google Nexus 7, made by Asus? Or maybe one of Amazon’s Kindle Fires? 

Nope and nope.

It's A Samsung World, We Just Live In It

It’s a Samsung. This should not be surprising considering that Samsung basically controls the entire Android industry, from smartphones to tablets and everything in between. In Animoca’s network, the top Android tablet is the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, holding 11.8% of the market. Second place also goes to a Samsung device, the Tab 10.1 with 8.3%. After that come two generations of 7-inch Amazon Fire tablets, with the original grabbing 7.5% market share and the HD weighing in at 4.9%. 

Google's Nexus 7? Number 6 with a bullet at 3.8%.

Now, no offense to Animoca, but the app publisher’s strengths are not exactly in analytics. The company ranked the top Android tablets by tracking users who accessed the Google Play Android app store and played an Animoca game between Feb. 18 and March 20, 2013. The sample size comes to 978,000, a respectable and representative number of users. Animoca acknowledges it's study has a margin of error of about 0.1%, which makes it difficult to judge anything on the list after the eighth spot.

ReadWrite wanted a second opinion on the top Android tablets from a company that makes its living tracking numbers and figuring out what they mean. So we asked Boston-based Localytics to run the numbers of the top Android tablets. Localytics tracks mobile analytics based on whether apps use its software as an analytics service. That means that Localytics tracks a much larger data set - 750 million devices - and is not tied to Google Play or its own apps for data. The company would not let us publish the total number of Android tablets in its network, but it is many, many millions more than the Animoca's sample size. To create its report, the company took a statistically representative sample from March 1 to March 31, and ended up with a margin of error described as "negligible." 

Localytics agrees with Animoca that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 sits atop the Android tablet heap. After that, the two company diverge a bit.

Perhaps because Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets cannot access Google Play, Kindles are underrepresented in the Animoca data. Localytics puts the original Kindle Fire in the No. 2 spot and set the Nexus 7 at No. 4, both with much stronger showings percentage-wise than in the Animoca data. 

Here are the top 15 Android tablets from Animoca and Localytics:

Small Is Beautiful

If there is one thing that Apple’s iPad has told us is that tablet consumers are very sensitive about both price and size when it comes to tablets. Consumers were basically screaming for a smaller, cheaper iPad by the time Apple released the iPad Mini in November 2012. So it's no surprise 

Most of the tablets on both lists are of the 7-inch to 8-inch variety. And most of them retail for $200 to $400. 

Samsung dominates both lists, especially Localytics'. This makes perfect sense considering Samsung’s approach to the market. The Korean manufacturer iterates quickly and tests many, many different size devices in the market. For tablets, it has both the Tab and Note (with the S Pen stylus) series with sizes of 7-inches, 7.7-inches, 8.9-inches and 10.1-inches. That is quite a spread - and it doesn’t even account for the “phablet” (half smartphone, half tablet) category that Samsung created. (The newest phablet: Samsung's monstrous Galaxy Mega, a 6.3-inch smartphone… thing.)

Do you own an Android tablet? Let us know which one and how you like it in the comments. 

Top photo: Nexus 7 by Dan Rowinski.

In June 2007, Apple launched the first iPhone, marking a new era in corporate mobility. Before the fashionable mini-computer, people used smartphones for voice, texting and email. With the iPhone and its remarkable touchscreen users could also be entertained with music, video and games. Corporate executives became so attached to their hip device, they wanted to use it for business, so they bullied IT departments into providing access to email and corporate data. Employees soon joined their bosses and the bring-your-own-device trend began.

Six years later, what started out with one smartphone has grown into an army - far too much for the Wild West atmosphere of BYOD to continue as it has been. Many companies that have allowed BYOD will soon be pulling back on such freedoms. While BYOD may not die altogether, it will carry stricter restrictions meant to finally get this trend under control.

The Fate Of BYOD

"BYOD is clearly an important trend, but we expect it to plateau in the coming one to two years as enterprises decide that the cost and security issues associated with unlimited BYOD do not warrant the anarchy and increased support costs it has often caused," a recent report from tech analyst J.Gold Associates said.

Where the iPhone use to be in a class by itself, the smartphone now competes with Android phones from Samsung, HTC, LG, Sony and 10 other vendors.  In addition, there is the BlackBerry and multiple devices running Microsoft's Windows Phone.

In 2010, Apple added the iPad to the chaos, creating a whole new market for tablet computers that brought lots of competitors from manufacturers in the Android camp.

From the beginning, BYOD was a challenge for IT departments, which had to wrestle with data security, device manageability, support and app control. Nevertheless, enterprises went along with the trend and the majority allowed at least some workers to use their personal devices for business.

But configuration, workflow and security issues were always making things difficult for IT. For instance, cyber-criminals saw an easy target in Android - with so many devices running older versions of the OS, hackers could target known vulnerabilities that were left unpatched by manufacturers and wireless carriers.

BYOD Limits

A survey of enterprises that allow employees to use their own notebooks, smartphones and tablets found that nearly half had experienced a security breach. As a result, more than 40% of the companies either restricted mobile data access or installed security software, according to the poll of more than 400 IT professionals and chief executives conducted by Decisive Analytics and released in August 2012.

Despite the breaches, only 12% of companies outright cancelled BYOD programs, an indication that most remained committed to providing flexibility to employees, while moving toward imposing rules.

Indeed, Gold found that companies are realizing "the current mostly wide-open, laissez fare approach to BYOD is not sustainable longer term, and that more controls and better strategy are needed."

As companies clamp down on BYOD, employees will likely find they will have to surrender their devices in order for IT departments to install technology to protect corporate data and communications. At the same time, manufacturers are providing more enterprise features in order to ensure their products get approved for work and play.

Samsung recently launched technology called SAFE that the vendor boasts brings enterprise-class security to selected devices. People who buy the Galaxy S III or S 4 smartphones, the Galaxy Note II smartphone/tablet hybrid or the Note 10.1 tablet have the option of including SAFE, which provides a container for corporate data and email in order to separate it from personal applications.

BlackBerry, which has always been considered the gold standard in device security, has added similar data-separating technology in the new Z10.

In time, enterprises are likely to give the nod to those devices that can meet the demands of consumers and businesses and shun those that don't. So instead of BYOD, the policy of the future will be BYODA, or bring-your-own-device-for-approval.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Something is rotten in the state of Redmond.

When Microsoft said that it would fork its new Windows 8 operating system in two to support both x86 and ARM-based chips, most pundits figured that was a good idea. Windows had for too long been stuck in the world of x86 and was missing the Mobile Revolution with its reluctance to adopt ARM. Henceforth, two types of Windows tablets were born: Windows 8 on x86 and Windows RT on ARM.

And both have more or less flopped. 

Research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) has revised its tablet predictions for 2013-2017. Surprise, surprise: Microsoft is projected to get its butt kicked by iOS and Android.

Windows 8 is expected to garner a 2.8% market share of tablets in 2013. Windows RT is projected towards a sickly 1.9%. Android is expected to take the lead in tablets this year with 48.8% of the market and Apple’s iPad comes in at 46%. 

Not much changes in IDC’s predictions by 2017. Android will sit at 46%, the iPad at 43.5% with Windows 8 (or whatever derivations of Windows is available at the time) and RT expected to take 7.4% and 2.7%, respectively. 

Overall, IDC has pegged the 2013 worldwide tablet market in 2013 to 190.9 million, ahead of its 172.4 million projection. This is the second straight quarter that IDC has increased its tablet projection. 

The reason for the increase comes as IDC recognizes a growing market for smaller, cheaper tablets. That means tablets that are below 8-inches and likely below $500. That bodes well for Android, an operating system that has a plethora of commendable tablets like the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD, which retail at $199. Even a company like HP may benefit from the cheap Android tablet market with its $169 – the Slate 7.

Microsoft will have to learn to change its wicked ways if it wants to get into game. It will need to produce (or encourage its manufacturing partners to produce) cheaper, smaller tablets running either Windows 8 or Windows RT, and price them to sell.

“Microsoft's decision to push two different tablet operating systems, Windows 8 and Windows RT, has yielded poor results in the market so far," said Tom Mainelli, IDC’s research director for tablets in a press release. "Consumers aren't buying Windows RT's value proposition, and long term we think Microsoft and its partners would be better served by focusing their attention on improving Windows 8. Such a focus could drive better share growth in the tablet category down the road.”

If you are surfing the Web from a mobile device these days, odds are you are doing it not from a smartphone, but from some type of tablet. According to a study done by Adobe, for the first time tablets have surpassed smartphones for percentage of website views. 

Adobe analyzed more than 1 billion visits for more than 1,000 websites and found that 8% of traffic came from tablets. That ranks ahead of the 7% of visits that came from smartphones. Of course, that leaves 85% or so percent of Web traffic still coming from desktop PCs and laptops. 

The tablet number is significant because there are far, far fewer tablets in circulation in the world compared to the vast proliferation of smartphones. 

Adobe attributes tablets increased Web usage compared to smartphones to users preferance for “more in depth visits” with their tablets. Adobe says that page views and visits are 1.7-times higher on tablets than on smartphones.

Adobe notes that all the regions it tracks tablet traffic saw total traffic double in the last year. The United Kingdom has the highest percentage of tablet traffic, with 12.2% of views, while China had the lowest at 3.1%. 

From an entirely mobile perspective, there are two ways to look at these numbers. Just six years after the launch of the first iPhone (July 2007, the essential start of The Mobile Revolution) and three years since the launch of the iPad, smart mobile devices now garner nearly one out of every six website pageviews. That is not insignificant. On the flip side, though, no matter how much we harp on the notion that the mobile Web is not just the future, but also the present, the vast majority of Web traffic still comes from the legacy that is the PC. 

No One Stays On Top Forever

Room For Growth?

Even as it lost the lead in market cap, Apple may also have lost its primacy in generating buzz. No product this year - shipping or not - has generated the buzz of Google Glass. Even the launch of a new smartphone is no longer all about Apple, as Samsung ratchets up the hype leading up to next week's launch of its flagship Galaxy S4. 

Getting Harder To Move The Needle

I simply don’t believe Apple will make, or even wants to make, a TV set. To realize the dream, as discussed previously, you need to put a computer - something like an Apple TV module - inside the set. Eighteen months later, as Moore’s Law dictates, the computer is obsolete but the screen is just fine. No problem, you’ll say, just make the computer module removable, easily replaced by a new one; more revenue for Apple… and you’re right back to today’s separate box arrangement. 

Mobile device manufacturers should pay close attention to a recent settlement between the Federal Trade Commission and HTC, which the Commission claimed had failed to protect customer's privacy and personal data. Rather than affecting only HTC, the agreement is a warning that the commission is finally prepared to hold device makers responsible for securing their products.

How It Started

HTC drew the attention of the FTC by deploying customized software in 22.5 million Android devices that allowed third-party applications to bypass a security mechanism requiring user permission before installation. The HTC software was meant to gather data only to help the manufacturer troubleshoot problems, but its implementation showed HTC was clueless when it came to security.

In investigating HTC's sloppy work, the FTC found a number of poor security practices. For example, HTC had no effective program for assessing the security of products before shipping them to consumers. In addition, engineering staff was not properly trained in security and privacy and there was no testing for security flaws. Also, there was no process for receiving and addressing vulnerabilities found by third-party researchers and academics.

The FTC's findings were listed in a complaint that HTC settled by agreeing to a "comprehensive security program" that includes patching vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and spammers. The agreement is a big deal, because taken together with the original complaint, the FTC has outlined for all device manufacturers what it considers best practices for security.

"To settle the case - the FTC’s first against a device manufacturer - HTC has agreed to a far-reaching settlement that imposes a first-of-its-kind remedy: patching vulnerabilities on millions of mobile devices," FTC senior attorney Lesley Fair wrote in the commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection blog.

Dismal Android Security

Makers of Android smartphones and tablets have created a huge security problem by shipping devices with older versions of the operating system and then failing to quickly update the software with the latest security fixes from Google. This has left millions of customers with devices that contain known vulnerabilities that cybercriminals are working feverishly to exploit.

"It's reasonable to assume that the next thing the FTC will look at is the unpatched vulnerabilities in Android itself that Google has fixed, but where the fixes haven't reached end users either because of the handset vendors or the wireless carriers," Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union, said. "This is probably the most interesting FTC case to come out in the last couple of years."

The rise in Android malware is substantially faster than any other Internet-delivered malicious app, according to Cisco's recent 2013 Annual Security Report. At the same time, cybercriminals are developing better software tools for breaking into Android devices.

In October 2012, the FBI warned that cybercriminals had built a mobile version of FinFisher, commercial spyware sold to law enforcement and governments, to steal personal data from Android phones. Also last year, the first Android botnet was discovered on the Internet, according to Cisco. A botnet is a network of compromised devices used to distribute malware and spam.

The FTC Isn't Alone

The FTC won't be alone in demanding better consumer protection from device manufacturers. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), co-chair of the bi-partisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, plans to reintroduce this year "The Mobile Device Privacy Act," which would require companies to get the permission of consumers before using any monitoring software on mobile devices.

“With this important settlement, the FTC has sent a strong signal to the mobile marketplace that consumers’ sensitive information must be safeguarded,” Markey said.

With so much government attention on mobile device security, it's clear that manufacturers can no longer treat data protection and consumer privacy as an afterthought. Both will soon have to become a top priority.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

When they were introduced, Chromebooks made sense as a Google-branded evolution of the netbook for the tablet shy. But in 2013, consumers still don't understand why there are so many versions of Android - much less what Google's Chrome OS is or who it's for. With the Chromebook Pixel, Google's cloud-happy notebooks have created a full-on identity crisis. 

(See also Google Chromebook Pixel: Bold, Beautiful And Very, Very Expensive)

Chromebooks Are Already Confusing

Following a leaked video and a typically detail-sparse report from The Wall Street Journal, Google has launched the Chromebook Pixel, an HD touchscreen notebook that will run on its Chrome operating system and retail starting at $1,299. The Pixel, with its high price and Google-built bare bones operating system is an odd bird. With a 239-pixels-per-inch display, the aptly-named Pixel one-ups Apple's 13" Retina MacBook Pro and its (paltry!) 227 PPI seemingly just for the hell of it. 

Oh, and it's a touchscreen, too, meaning you can smear your fingerprints all over that beautiful display.

The touchscreen means that beyond "taking on" the Retina MacBooks, Google's Chromebook Pixel will also compete directly against Microsoft's over-hyped, overpriced Surface tablets. But for all the buzz around hybrid devices that blur the line between notebooks and tablets (Lenovo Yoga, anyone?), consumers don't seem to have the same hunger for them that they have for "pure" tablets. 

The advent of the touchscreen notebook was a weird side effect from 2010-era iPad panic - there's no evidence that consumers even want a device that combines the power of a laptop with the finger-friendliness of a tablet. And if there was, a pricey notebook with a kajillion pixels running on the hamstrung Chrome OS probably wouldn't be it.

Missing The (Price) Point  

Want a powerful notebook with a (pretty) nice screen for around $1,200? Buy the $1,199 13" MacBook Air. Want to spend a little less for a slightly weirder device, or hung up on Windows 8 for some reason? Buy a Surface Pro. Drunk? Buy an Ultrabook!

Google has gained market share in recent times by offering well-built, affordable alternatives. Android tablets like the Nexus 7 and even existing entry-level Chromebooks can chip away at the competition because Google can afford to undercut the its competitors on price - the most important spec of all. The Chromebook Pixel seems to have forgotten that lesson. 

At $249 and $199, the existing Chromebook line is a smartly priced alternative for users heavily invested in Google's cloud ecosystem. Starting at $1,299, Google's touchscreen Chromebook Pixel can only hope to attract inebriated would-be power users who wandered into the wrong aisle of Best Buy.

On the Venn Diagram of people who need a serious computer and people willing to put up with the limitations of the Chrome OS, that little center slice is altogether empty.

Photo by Mark Hachman.

It is almost silly to think that in 2013, many enterprises are still struggling with mobile strategies. The fact of the matter is that enterprises can sometimes be just as big, slow and bureaucratic as the Federal government. That can also be true for the enterprise marketing departments that are, ostensibly, supposed to be ahead of the curve of the rest of the organization.

Research firm Forrester has identified the top 10 trends that enterprise marketers need to know in 2013, and the actionable responses they should take to prepare a multi-year mobile strategy to push their companies into the future. The key takeaway? It's time to invest resources in mobile - including time, money and people.

Among its points Forrester says that “the role of mobile marketing manager will emerge.” We are beginning see these types of roles crop up in companies across the world. Whether it is the “VP of Mobile” or the mobile-only IT guy, enterprises are starting to fraction certain parts of the workforce to specifically deal with mobile issues. Cost conscious enterprises may not like to see their workforces become even more fragmented and specialized, but the fact of the matter is that mobile is like a weevil, ingraining itself into the infrastructure of enterprise protocols. Ignore it at your peril.

“Mobile on the cheap is over. Implementing the complex technology to make the most of mobile opportunities requires a new vision of how to interact with customers, significant changes in culture and competencies across business and IT, and more investment,” wrote Forrester analyst Thomas Husson. 

What it comes down to is this: enterprises and marketers need to address multi-year use cases for smartphones and tablets, hire and organize their workforce to take advantage of the opportunities and restructure the corporate organization chart to give those people the power to make actionable decisions. Ideally, these types of changes would have started two or three years ago or before. If your enterprise is just starting to figure out how mobile is changing your processes in 2013, you are well behind the ball.

See the chart from Forrester below. What is your enterprise doing to take advantage of the Mobile Era? Let us know in the comments.

Lead image courtesy of Shutterstock.

When is a tablet a PC? Apparently when it can garner a catchy hook for a desktop survey from yet-another analyst firm. In this case, Canalys is making the claim that, if you count iPads and other tablets as PCs, then suddenly a market that looked to be in decline is suddenly as rosy as, well, an apple.

It really is a tale of two analysts: according to the Gartner 4Q global PC report that came out last month, shipments of PCs, which Gartner describes as the desktops and laptops with which we're usually familiar, went down 4.9% in the last quarter of 2012.

And tablets, Gartner said, were a big reason for the decline.

"Whereas as once we imagined a world in which individual users would have both a PC and a tablet as personal devices, we increasingly suspect that most individuals will shift consumption activity to a personal tablet, and perform creative and administrative tasks on a shared PC," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "There will be some individuals who retain both, but we believe they will be exception and not the norm. Therefore, we hypothesize that buyers will not replace secondary PCs in the household, instead allowing them to age out and shifting consumption to a tablet."

Kitagawa's perception reflects what a lot of us are seeing in our own homes: instead of replacing family member's PCs with another PC device, many people are opting to be multi-tablet families instead.

Hold On, Pessimists!

But if you take the alternate world view that iPads are, under the strictest definition, personal computing devices and therefore are "PCs," the picture is far less bleak. In this Spock-with-a-beard-alternate universe, where tablets are PCs, Canalys reports, "[w]orldwide PC shipments increased 12% year-on-year in Q4 2012 to reach 134.0 million units, with pads accounting for over a third."

Oh, and don't forget the grabber headline: One in six PCs shipped in 2012 4Q was an iPad.

You might, given my choice of words, that I hold the Canalys report in somewhat lower regard than the Gartner report.

If so, you'd be correct.

While "personal computing device" is a broad enough term that I could see it including tablets and even smartphones, the simple fact is that lumping tablets in with PCs doesn't really make sense.

The two are fundamentally different. Unlike PCs, tablets are hardly configurable, barely expandable and to date it's been hard to actually consider them even adequate platforms for productivity applications or creation of data and content.

This is not to say the Canalys report is completely without useful information. Buried deep in the release about the report was this piece of news:

"Despite record shipments, Q4 saw Apple's pad share dip to 49%, becoming the first quarter it has not controlled over half the market. 'Apple timed the launch of the iPad mini well,' said Pin-Chen Tang, Canalys Research Analyst. 'Its success proves there is a clear demand for pads with smaller screens at a more affordable price. Without the launch, Apple would surely have lost more ground to its competitors.'"

If accurate, this would mark the first quarter that Apple's vaunted iPad did not hit 50% market share. The Canalys news did not specify the tablets to which the iPad product line was losing ground, but it did note that Samsung shipped 7.9 million tablets in Q4, a 226% increase for the South Korean company. Android-based tablets, Canalys reported, accounted for 46% of tablets shipped in 4Q 2012.

Small Is The New Large

The upshot here isn't so much that the iPad is losing ground to the Android tablets, but rather that low-cost smaller form-factor devices are garnering a lot more sales these days. If Apple hadn't kicked off its own entry in this niche, it would have had some serious problems.

If anything, the popularity of the smaller tablet devices proves the point against calling these devices PCs. You can make a good case that larger tablets can better be used as work/production devices, but there's no way anyone could classify an iPad Mini or Kindle Fire as something with which you could get much real work done.

For simplicity's sake, it makes a lot more sense to keep PCs and tablets in separate market categories, because that's how customers see them: separate devices with their own distinct uses.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

PC shipments dropped 6.4% in the fourth quarter of 2012, while tablet sales rose 75.3% in those three months. The two latest numbers from research firm IDC, taken together, confirm what now seems to be an inevitable trend in personal computing: Tablets are now driving the computer market, while PCs have to be content to follow. If these trends continue, in fact, it won't be that long before tablets outsell PCs overall - just over a year or so, in fact.

IDC reported Thursday that the tablet market shot up at an almost unbelievable rate during the fourth quarter, as iPads and other tablets apparently became the gift to give and receive this holiday season.

Sun Setting On the PC?

Tablet sales not only spiked more than 75% from a year ago, to 52.5 million units, they grew 74.3% from the third quarter of 2012 - implying that some catalyst drove fourth-quarter sales in particular. IDC concluded that that spark was the Apple iPad mini, whose sales of 22.9 million units caused Apple tablet shipments to spike by 48.1%. However, the rising tide of Android tablets rose slightly higher over Apple's head, as Cupertino's market share dropped from 46.4% in the third quarter to 43.6%.

In a report released this month, IDC concluded that the "advancement of computing no longer starts and ends with the personal computer," an acknowledgement of the now-accepted belief that the PC is has lost its primacy: that the personal computer is following the smartphone and tablet, rather than driving it.

One question is how much of Microsoft's legacy in the PC is affecting sales of its Surface tablets. IDC reported that Microsoft sold fewer than 900,000 Surface RTs, the cheaper, ARM-based tablet that was released before the Surface Pro hits stores next month. 

Microsoft Surface "Failed To Gain Much Ground"

"There is no question that Microsoft is in this tablet race to compete for the long haul," Ryan Reith, program manager for the Mobile Device Tracker program at IDC, said in a statement Thursday. "However, devices based upon its new Windows 8 and Windows RT operating systems failed to gain much ground during their launch quarter, and reaction to the company's Surface with Windows RT tablet was muted at best. We believe that Microsoft and its partners need to quickly adjust to the market realities of smaller screens and lower prices. In the long run, consumers may grow to believe that high-end computing tablets with desktop operating systems are worth a higher premium than other tablets, but until then [prices] on Windows 8 and Windows RT devices need to come down to drive higher volumes."

For comparison, 900,000 tablets sold doesn't even match the Barnes & Noble Nook, which finished fifth with 1 million tablets sold. IDC estimated that the Nook sold 1.9% of all tablets sold, leaving Microsoft with about 1.7% of the total market. That's bad news for Barnes & Noble, whose sales dipped from 1.4 million units a year ago, and an indication that Amazon is clearly  winning the war between the two online book giants.

Still, it's all small potatoes compared to the leaders: Apple (22.9 million units, 43.6% market share), Samsung (7.9 million units, 15.1% market share), Amazon (6.0 million units, 11.5%) and Asus (1.0 million units, 1.9%). You can see how each vendor has fared in IDC's interactive historical chart, below. 

In the smartphone world, Android’s dominance has been built on the strength of its overseas deployment. On a global basis, Android controlled 68.4% of smartphone shipments in 2012. It would be natural to assume that Android’s tablet share would follow a similar pattern. 

You would be wrong. 

According to Boston-based mobile analytics firm Localytics, 59% of all Android tablets are not in fledgling foreign markets, but right here in the United States. Great Britain has 5% of Android tablets while Spain and Korea have 2% each. No other country has more than 1% of the Android tablet market share. 

This challenges the conventional wisdom of the smartphone market and mobile operating system wars. Android does well on a global basis because it has a variety of smartphones coming from a plethora of equipment manufacturers at many different price points. Locations like India, China and the Middle East have high Android adoption because of low price points and easy availability.

Looking at the Android tablet market from afar, you might think that it would play out similarly. A large variety of very cheap Android tablets have hit the market over the last year or so. If you really want an Android tablet for next to nothing, you can look at the Maylong Universe M-270 at $117 or the Archos 70 for $148. The Coby CT-MID7034 Android tablet can be found for the reasonable price of $78. Google and Asus have the Nexus 7 starting at $199 and Samsung has its robust line of Galaxy Tabs and the 10.1-inch Note. Heck, there are even $20 Android tablets!

With all the variety, you would think that foreign markets would be buying up Android tablets the same way they do smartphones. The is one big reason that's not happening:

Amazon. 

Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Fire HD lines make up 33% of all U.S. Android tablets. No other single tablet has more than 10% market share in the U.S., with the Barnes & Noble Nook taking 10%, Samsung’s Galaxy tablets at 9% and the Nexus 7 at 8%. 

About 89% of all Amazon Kindle Fire tablets live in the United States, buoying the number of all Android tablets worldwide. If Amazon Kindles were stripped from the overall data, the U.S. would have only 40% of all Android tablets in the world.

That brings up an interesting correlation. According to Localytic’s data, 37% of the world’s Android smartphones are U.S. based. Coincidence? Perhaps. But the U.S. definitely does feel the Amazon Effect when it comes to the amount of Android tablets available. 

It will be curious to see how well Amazon does across the globe when the Fire becomes more widely available. Outside the U.S., It is currently available in only a handful of markets in Western Europe and Asia.

The problem that Amazon has in distributing Kindles worldwide is not so much a matter of shipping or logistics. It is fairly simple to put a Kindle in a box and send it anywhere. The complication comes from the fact that for the Kindle to work properly, Amazon’s Appstore for Android needs to be deployed to each foreign market, adjusted for local currency and language and so forth. Amazon has started this process but does not yet have the deep cultural integration it needs to truly launch the Fire on a global basis. 

It should be noted that Localytics data may have some confirmation bias. As with other mobile analytics companies, Localytics tracks data by looking at the apps that people use on the device. (Localytics says that it can gather insights on app usage from 500 million unique devices worldwide.) 

The app will return data such as device type, operating system, screen size and other tidbits to Localytics. Hence, the company sees from the perspective of app usage as opposed to shipments or sales. From a pure shipment level, Strategy Analytics estiamtes Android at 56% of the U.S. market against 37% for iOS in 2012. 

Well, this is disappointing.

As magazines make the transition from print to pixels, some publishers are using the move as an opportunity to jack up their prices - in some cases, to more than they were charging for print editions. And that's for tablet versions that are too often crappy afterthoughts. 

To be fair, magazines are contending with legitimate financial concerns. Their advertising revenue has been declining and the historically discounted subscription rates they've charged for print delivery just aren't enough to pay the freight. To cope, many publishers are asking readers to chip in more - on digital versions as well as print editions.

There are some problems with driving up prices too much, though.

For one, everyone knows it's cheaper to distribute content digitally than to print it and mail it. Asking buyers to pay more for something that costs you less to deliver is the kind of tactic that makes many subscribers feel exploited. It's a head-scratcher, if not a subscription-canceler. Sure, magazine makers may still be coping with meaty legacy cost structures. But that's not our problem, is it?  

Readers Have Way More Choices

There's also much more competition. Long gone are the days when magazines competed only with each other. Today, the entire Internet churns out content at a volume too great for any one human to keep up with - and it's all instantly available at any time. 

In addition to traditional magazines gone tablet, there are the digital-only magazines, sitting right there on the skeuomorphic newsstand shelf. For every frustrated TIME subscriber, there's a free download of the Huffington magazine, not to mention personalized, social-fueled digital "magazines" from Flipboard, AOL Editions, Google Currents, Zite and an ever-growing list of others. If Wired jacks up its prices, there's always digital mags from The Next Web and Engadet, not to mention the huge selection of tech coverage available through news aggregator apps and feed readers. 

How Publishers Have Fared With Tablets

Not everyone in the publishing industry is enamored with the idea of publishing native tablet apps for readers to flip through. MIT Technology Review editor Jason Pontin vowed to kill his magazine's native apps, citing high costs, technical challenges and the walled-off, un-Web-like nature of apps. The Financial Times famously pulled its iOS apps in favor of the HTML5 approach and isreportedly seeing more traffic and revenue since making the switch. Indeed, research has suggested that most readers prefer Web apps to native, platform-specific publications.

Still, some magazines have done pretty well with their digital editions, especially when they bundle them with print. In the United States, tablet publications are the second highest-grossing category of apps on iOS, according to an independent audit. Time and Conde Nast are selling the most digital mags, with news and women's interest magazines dominating those sales. 

Half of Wired's revenue now comes from digital, which is a rare but promising milestone for a legacy publisher. I still subscribe to Wired in print, and I appreciate the fact that the iPad edition comes at no extra charge. I also happily pay for Marco Arment's experimental publication The Magazine, because it consistently publishes content I enjoy in relatively small doses, rather than flooding me with irrelevant features and full-page ads.

"The Magazine was profitable from day one," says Arment. "As subscribers increased past break-even, I've been able to reinvest the additional income into more articles, higher author payments, original illustrations, photos and a professional editor."

While Arment won't disclose hard numbers, he says he's satisfied with what he calls The Magazine's "fantastic success." By utilizing what publishing expert Craig Mod calls "compact publishing" and monetizing it fairly, Arment has managed to build a profitable, if small media business in an age when industry trend lines have the stubborn tendency to slide downward.

There's clearly a limit to how much people will pay for magazine-style content. And it's not at all clear that number is rising instead of falling. Folks who want to remain in the publishing business need to figure out a hybrid model that works, and not just jack up their prices to make up for shrinking subscriber rolls. 

Digital Magazines Suck

The business model isn't the only issue here. Just as important is the consensus that most digital magazines just aren't very good. In far too many cases, subscribing to a magazine on your tablet means downloading a bloated, glorified PDF that hardly delivers the potentially magical experience the form factor allows. Even some of the digital-only magazines from online publishers mimic print page-for-page in disappointing pinch-to-zoom layouts.  

There are some promising alternatives. Wired's iPad app is pretty print-centric but at least the editors go to  the trouble of adding multimedia bells and whistles.  The Magazine takes an attractive minimalistic approach - both in terms of publication design and pricing.

Traditional publishers may want to look to The Magazine for inspiration, as well as to social news aggregators like Flipboard and Zite, which have managed to produce truly addictive reading environments worthy of a slot in one's home screen dock. Rethinking magazines for tablets will require publishers to get completely out of the print mindset. That means different layouts, lighter file sizes, deeper social integrations and yes, occasionally pointing readers toward content published by others. 

On the whole, digital magazines have a long way to go. When they get there, those of us who are most hungry for the news, analysis and entertainment they provide will happily pay up. Hopefully, there will be enough of us to make the best digital magazines into viable businesses.

BYOD - Bring Your Own Device - is one of the hottest trends in IT right now. The idea is to let employees use their own preferred smartphones, tablets and/or laptops, and have the company's technology department allow them to connect to company networks and applications, as well as make sure they're secure and supported.

But what are companies really doing about BYOD?

To find out, ReadWrite ran a survey of our readers. (See Is Bring Your Own Device - BYOD - Changing Your Company?)

The survey attracted 261 responses, and 176 completed every question. While this is far from a scientific or statistically valid study, the results do offer some intriguing data points as to how BYOD is being used.

The results painted a remarkably clear picture of how and why companies are using BYOD:

1. BYOD Is Popular Among Companies. Half (49%) of the companies responding let all employees use personal devices for work purposes. Another 33% let some employees do so. Only 18% don't support BYOD. Of course, this was a BYOD survey, so it's no surprise that this group was interested. But the percentages were higher than I'd expected.

2. BYOD Is Less Popular Among Employees. At 44% of companies, fewer than 25% of employees participate in the BYOD program. A quarter to one half of employees BYOD in 27% of companies. More than 50% participate in a fifth of the BYOD companies, and the policy is mandatory for everyone at 10% of companies.

3. BYOD Isn't New. Surprisingly, 41% of the BYOD companies began their programs more than two years agao. Another 22% started more than a year ago. Despite the hype heating up, only 12% have moved to BYOD in the last 3 months.

4. BYOD Has Widespread Benefits. Asked what the prime justification for BYOD, respondents were fairly evenly split among Employee Satisfaction (29%), Employee Productivity (29%) and Saving Money for the Company (23%). The rest didn't know or weren't sure.

5. Paying For BYOD Is Up To The Employees. Companies pay for the BYOD devices at less than 10% of the companies responding. Workers and the company share costs at another quarter (27%) of responding organizations. Only 10% of companies buy the devices for their employees.

6. Employees Who BYOD Are On Their Own For Support. Support is one of BYOD's big issues, but most companies (56%) simply leave it up to employees. Another third (31%) supply internal IT support, while just 6% employ outsourced support for employee-owned devices.

7. BYOD Is All About Smartphones. At the vast majority of BYOD companies (82%), smartphones are the most popular employee-owned devices. Tablets are often BYOD at half of the companies, while laptops get the BYOD treatment at about a third of companies (33%).

8. Security Is The Biggest BYOD Concern. This one wasn't a surprise. Almost half (49%) named security as the biggest BYOD issue - and another 5% worried about lost or stolen devices. Management and support were the top issues for 16% of respondents, while performance problems troubled 7%. Not surprisingly based on Number 5 above, cost was a concern for less than 5% of companies.

9. Ensuring BYOD Security Is A Multi-Dimensional Job. Usage of various security measures were all over the map, with multiple responses showing that many comapnies were using more than one approach. Top security tactics included limiting device access to networks (38%), requiring employees to lock screens (37%) and VPNs and virtual desktops (31%). Security software (24%), enforced updates (24%) and mobile application management software (21%) were also widely used. There was less enthusiasm for making employees report issues quickly (17%), restricting downloads (11%) and building a internal app store (7%). In a victory for employee privacy, only 6% of respondents said they installed location tracking software on employee devices.

What does it all add up to? BYOD isn't some Johnny-come-lately concept being pushed on reluctant IT departments by gadget-loving workers. Instead, it seems more like a viable business strategy for letting workers have access to the right tools without having to spend a fortune.

There are plenty of concerns, but overall, BYOD participants seem pretty happy about how things are going.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

ReadWrite's Taylor Hatmaker is right about one thing: 2013 should indeed be a unusual year for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), as the industry struggles to find the next big thing.

(Read CES 2013: 5 Things You Won't See.)

Rattled by declining prices and lingering worries over the "fiscal cliff," gadget makers are likely to be more conservative than ever, focusing on extending tried-and-true trends rather than breaking out brand new ideas.

In fact, it's likely that CES 2013 is going to be, well, boring. As a 20-year veteran of the show, here's what I am expecting to see in Vegas this year:

1. Microsoft

No, I'm not totally disagreeing with Taylor here. As she correctly notes, 2012 was the last year that Microsoft plans to appear at the Consumer Electronics Show, although Consumer Electronics Association chief Gary Shapiro portrayed the company's absence as a "hiatus." Right.

Microsoft may not have bought booth space, but it will be represented by its manufacturing partners, which plan to show off Windows 8 PCs, tablets, all-in-ones and convertibles. The personal computer is simply too big to ignore, but I hear that the number of pitches for Windows 8 PC unveilings at CES is down, and that many companies are focusing on trivial matters, such as new colors. (Colors!?) Even the Surface Pro isn't expected to show up at CES, even though it's due out soon.

2. Tablets - From Off Brands

Yes, Taylor's right that a veritable flood of tablets were launched at the 2012 CES, but history tells us that where the big names tread, the smaller names are sure to follow. Amazon and Google, as well as Apple, have shown that there's a market for smaller, more manageable tablet form factors, and second- and third-tier providers are likely to try and bleed cost further out of the equation. You'll still see a number of Android tablets, mostly from by manufacturers you've never heard of.

Plus, I think we'll see more purpose-built tablets and peripherals. Last year, Razer showed off Project Fiona, a gaming tablet that ended up being vaporware. But I still believe that some manufacturer will throw out a Nexus 7-sized tablet with a Microsoft-style touch keyboard cover attached to it, and see if anyone will bite. Also look for tablet makers to try and shoehorn their products into some sort of software/hardware ecosystem.

By the way, Taylor's right: most major smartphone announcements are being delayed until Barcelona's Mobile World Congress in February.

3. TVs That People Will Actually Buy

People aren't buying 3D televisions. And while manufacturers will likely show off 4K, UltraHD TV technology, Taylor correctly points out that high prices and a lack of content make UltraHD pointless for most people right now. UltraHD doesn't make sense until cameras, cable and TVs all support it. (Still, while I may not buy the mammoth 110-inch UHDTV Westinghouse will show off at CES, that doesn't mean I don't want it.)

What people will buy, however, are connected televisions - and ways to connect their TVs - especially if they're cheap. Westinghouse just announced a television that supports its Streaming Stick, a $100 plastic stick that plugs into compliant televisions. There's still too much confusion here, which is why peripheral manufacturers like Roku and the small Google TV ecosystem just won't go away.

4. Connected Content

This is a catch-all category, encompassing everything from connected cars to second-screen apps that fling content to TVs and other devices, as well as peripherals that stream audio from Pandora and other services. This may sound like old news, but connected services creeping into more and more mundane devices is actually a game changer.

I'm hoping for more on the automotive front, but everything I've heard points to more autonomous automotive safety features, rather than suites of connected services. Blame the carriers' data caps for this: Streaming high-bandwidth media into your car might quickly blow through your data plan. Sending maps and other low-bandwidth data services makes more sense .

5. Digital Health/Fitness

They will never equal the splash of a new big-screen TV or smartphone, but digital fitness products should have an, er, healthy presence at CES. Consumers want things to both track their progress and distract them while exercising, and technology manufacturers are stepping up.

6. Crap

Seriously, I've seen enough smartphone cases to last a lifetime. USB keys, external hard drives, notebook sleeves, USB lights, fans, stickers and the like dominate huge swaths of CES's show floor. Sure there's a market for some of this stuff, but there's a fine line between junk and innovation. 

You know what I'm really hoping to see? Personal drones. Yes, the ones that we'd otherwise use to spy on enemy soldiers. I'd like to see a whole corner of the show floor devoted to those things, as a tool for tracking game, scouting inaccessible locations, and otherwise just having fun.

Would it be controversial? Absolutely. And that's just what CES needs. Otherwise, I'm afraid this year's show may end up being the dullest one in years.

For more, check out CES 2013: 5 Things You Won't See.

Image source: Flickr/PrimeImageMedia.com.

2013 is shaping up to be a strange year for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the annual tech fête that invades Las Vegas for one grueling week every January. In 2011, tablets were kings of the desert, as manufacturers scrambled to get viable iPad competitors on the scene after Apple went and dreamed up a whole new category of device. Last year wasn't quite as flashy - previews of Windows 8 trickled out, and we all pretended that ultrabooks were the hot new thing for the better part of a week. 

In 2013, it's looking like a free-for-all. It's anyone's guess what new devices will capture the hearts and minds of CES attendees.

To find out, ReadWrite will be right there on the show floor all week with our finger on the pulse. And while we don't know yet what devices will capture the attention of the more than 100,000 attendees and worldwide press, we can already tell a few things that won't be grabbing the headlines in 2013:

1. Tablets 

Following the launch of the original iPad, companies were desperate to get a proper rival in the game - and at CES 2011, it showed. Nobody had quite figured it out yet, but suddenly there were literally 80 tablets floating around, most of them running Android. But by 2012, the tablet frenzy had slowed to a crawl, with Ultrabooks taking the lion's share of the spotlight. With Amazon and Google driving small tablet prices to the absolute rock bottom, don't expect other companies to waste much time on tablets this year.

2. Microsoft 

Microsoft announced that 2012 would be its last year at CES - for a while, at least. The company traditionally delivered a big CES keynote early in the week, but Steve Ballmer's appearance on stage in 2012 was the company's last - bizarre - hurrah. Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumers Electronics Association (CEA), the group that puts on the show, claims that the lapse is just a pause in the shared trajectory of Microsoft and CES, a relationship that dates back into Bill Gates's tenure at Microsoft's helm. We'll see. For now, the company has pulled its booth too, so Microsoft won't have a presence on the show floor either.

3. The Hottest New Smartphones

Smartphone makers are increasingly keeping their mobile secrets hidden at CES. With the Mobile World Congress show just around the corner, HTC, Motorola and the rest generally launch some new mid-level devices in Vegas, but don't reveal the most earth-shattering stuff until they get to Barcelona.  

4. TVs Anyone Would Ever Actually Buy 

CES is always jam-packed with TVs, but they're getting better - and vaguely affordable - at a snail's pace. Companies will continue jockeying for title of the biggest, more pixel-dense displays around, but the impact on consumers in 2013 will be negligible. Ultra HDTV is miles from affordable (who has $25,000 to blow on a TV set?), consumers still don't really care about 3D and awful proprietary software continues to hamstring most of the ballyhooed set-top devices designed to take over your living room. 

5. Apple (Duh)

If you're at all familiar with CES, Apple's absence is a no-brainer. Content to do things on its own terms, the company that's defined the cutting edge of consumer electronics routinely opts out of the biggest CE event of the year. (Heck, Apple doesn't even go to Macworld/iWorld any more!) The Las Vegas convention halls will be generously slathered with iPhone and iPad accessories, but CES just isn't the Cupertino company's style these days. Apple loves to casually announce news that just so happens to coincide with CES, but it certainly doesn't bother to visit the desert nowadays. It doesn't need to.

Don't call us cynical, though. We actually are looking forward to some CES innovations. It's just that we expect to dig up the really cool stuff in unlikely places, from smart homes and car tech to things we haven't thought of yet.

You never know what to expect when geeks invade Vegas, so stay tuned for plenty of highlights next week.