Observant webmasters were in a bit of an uproar earlier this year when the Google sent a letter quietly informing them that their website benchmarking tool were leaving the realm of Google Analytics and would be replaced by a vaguely described quarterly benchmarking newsletter.  Fast forward through 4 months of benchmarking darkness and Google has released the first quarterly newsletter to subscribed site admins via email at ~8:30pm EST on the Friday preceding the 4th of July weekend, (a treatment usually reserved for a bad earnings report).  So the question is, “has Google taken website benchmarking and made it better?”

The industry benchmarking tools in GA had their flaws (including questions over whether enough data existed to make the results valid for any particular website’s industry,) but the tools were free (to any site who agreed to anonymously share their own data with Google). However, taken with a grain of salt, they were better than having no idea of how your website stacked up to its peers.  Now looking at what’s changed, we can see how Google has decided to reward “hundreds of thousands” of sites for anonymously sharing dozens of measureable aspects of site usage with Google.

Unlike the Google Analytics reports which a webmaster could run on demand to compare their site to its peers on a variety of key metrics, Google has published a single report, containing a just a few stats, summarily describing either the world in total or if you’re lucky; your whole country.  The benchmarking newsletter also substitutes your date range of choice with Google data which was 5 – 8 months old at time of press.

Interesting bits from the report includes:

• Decreases in the number of pages viewed per site visit (vs. one year earlier) and average time spent on the site, but a lower bounce rate (i.e. less people left after just one page.)
• Minor changes in how users are finding their destinations with search engines guiding about 1% of traffic previously directed by website link referrals.
• Goal conversion rates (percent of visitors who complete the goal set by the site.) Most of the world fell between 0.7% – 1.6%.
  

  11/1/10 – 2/1/11
  Direct	36.80%
  Referral	19.40%
  Search Engines	28.00%
  Other	15.80%

So does the new quarterly benchmarking report leave site admins and developers feeling like Google still knows how to share and share alike?  Well, the new report is fewer metrics, less current, is completely generalized so that it does not apply to individual sites/industries and is only available once every 3 months.  In short, Google is getting just as much as Google currency (data) as it did before, but seems to be reserving the information capital for itself.  Without some big changes it’s hard to see this report escaping from its holiday weekend, Friday night release schedule.

You can view the full Google Quarterly Benchmarking Report courtesy of Rapid Repair Here.

Sony has recently announced the release of the Playstation® Vita (or PSVita). Sporting a ARM Cortex – A9 Processor, 5 inch 960 x 544 capacitive multi touch screen, a rear touch pad, and forward and rear facing camera’s, it is potentially a game changer to the hand held gaming platform. The Vita will come in two flavors, Wi-Fi only and a 3G enabled device, the latter allowing for online gaming anywhere at anytime. Other highlights on the device include:

• Dual shock technology
• PS3 Integration
• Support for Augmented Reality gaming.
• Facial Recognition software

The Playstation Vita is scheduled for release for the upcoming 2011 holiday season. The Wi-Fi only version will be $249.99, while the 3G enabled device will go for $299.99 and will be exclusive to the AT&T Network. One of the benefits of being on that network is the wide variety of mobile applications that they have available.

Stay tuned for more on the PlayStation Vita

THE GOOD

The biggest point here is that finally you can have an iPhone 4 on T-Mobile (or any other GSM based carrier that will support the phone) and not have to worry about missing updates or potentially getting in trouble with “Big Brother”. This is definately a good thing for anyone who has been with AT&T for a while and wants to switch carriers.

Other good points about the move include:

• With options for different carriers, you can shop for the best carrier and the best plan.
• International travelers will appreciate being able to pop in a local SIM card to avoid roaming and international charges.

THE BAD

While it may be great to just stroll into an Apple store (because I can’t imagine AT&T selling you an unlocked phone to take to someone else) and pick up an unlocked iPhone 4, You may have a minor issue. The iPhone 4 uses a Micro SIM card, which is drastically reduced in size to the standard SIM card. In fact, the phones won’t come with a SIM card at all. This shouldn’t be an issue though, as you have a SIM card cut down.

Other bad points about the move include:

• Only AT&T can support the iPhone 4′s 3G connection. If you choose T-Mobile, you will be stuck on the slower Edge network.

The UGLY

The biggest thing here is going to be initial costs. Right now, unlocked phones go for $650 for the 16GB and $750 for the 32GB. That’s above the average for other comparible phones like the HTC EVO 4G or the Samsung Galaxy. Additionally, even though you will be free of AT&T with these phones, Apple will still be a big part of your cellular life. You will still have to purchase your apps through the iTunes Store, and update the phone through iTunes.

Other Ugly points about the move include:

• This move will not allow CDMA based carriers to support the phone (I.E. no Sprint iPhone yet).
• No word on if existing AT&T customers can terminate early and have Apple unlock their current phone.

Overall, I feel that the move is a step in the right direction for Apple. There is no denying that the phone is a very popular device, and by offering it unlocked, it opens the door to a larger market. We will just have to wait and see how it pans out though.

Article written by Mike Arnold

In response to the media hyped frenzy against Apple for the alleged “tracking bug in the iPhone”, Apple is about to release an update.  Reputedly, in a couple of weeks or so, Jobs is releasing iOS 4.4/iOS 4.3.3 to address the situation.  The following is what the Cupertino guys had to say..

“Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone.  Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so… The iPhone is not logging your location.  Rather, its maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location… The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location… We plan to cease backing up this cache in a software update coming soon.

Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that: reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone, ceases backing up this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.”

So it sounds like Apple has the situation under control.  Despite media reports, Apple is not Skynet and they are not compiling a database of every step you take.  Didn’t we go through this same hysteria with Windows CE way back in the day?

In related news, its seems someone has actually filed suit against Apple, claiming the company is secretly recording and storing the location and movement of iPhone and iPad users.  Filed in Tampa, Florida, the actual complaint is privacy invasion and computer fraud.  Its been reported that developers had this to say…

“As many observers have noted, the iOS location database does not record exact GPS data, instead seeking to pinpoint the locations of Wi-fi access points and cell towers that the device comes within range of…”

We’ll keep an ear to the vine on this suit and report more as it develops.

That’s the question on a lot of Zune fans minds right now, ever since Microsoft declared they would no longer be developing the line.  So what happens now?  Are Zune owners left in a lurch?  Are the Zune players relegated to has been antiques?

Maybe not… Microsoft had this to say…

“We here at Microsoft are very excited to roll out our new FREE Zune Marketplace Version 4.7 Media Player And Synchronization Software that supports the coming new Windows Phone 7 devices, Zune HD and older Zune player devices. If you are a current Zune user, you will be asked to update your current Zune software the next time you launch the Zune software. If you are not a current Zune Marketplace media player software or device user, then you can Download It to get access to Zune Pass Music, TV, Movies, Movie Trailers and Podcasts on your PC today. (Zune Insider)”

I would say this means that the line of Zune players has a lot of life in it yet.  Who knows that the future will bring.  Just because the guys at Redmond aren’t making any new Zune hardware, doesn’t necessarily mean the end of software updates, as evidenced by the above statement.

The “Zune” experience is built into all Windows 7 phones so that will keep the platform alive as long as they keep building in the backward compatibility.  Which admittedly they don’t have the best track record in doing.  But eh, it could happen. Right?

KEEP HOPE ALIVE!!!

It’s also the best clue yet that Apple isn’t about to upstage the iPad with a smartphone that’s more powerful, faster and less-expensive than its quick selling tablet.

Earlier this week, A Vietnamese forum published photographs of what it claimed was an iPhone. Several of the images were of the iPhone during and after a teardown, exposing internal components, including the logic board.

The exterior of the Vietnamese iPhone closely resembles the case of an earlier prototype photographed by technology blog Gizmodo, which paid $5,000 for the device. The Gizmodo-obtained iPhone prototype raised a ruckus when it was disclosed by the site last month, with Apple demanding its return and California police involved in an investigation into possible theft charges.

A 21-year-old California man was identified by his lawyer as the person who took the iPhone prototype from a Redwood City, Calif. bar after an Apple software engineer left it behind.

Unlike Gizmodo’s iPhone, the one that surfaced in Vietnam is labeled with production markings that identify it as a 16GB model.

When photographs of the Vietnamese iPhone are blown up, markings on the processor closely match those on production models of the iPad, the iFixit Web site noted Wednesday. According to iFixit, the markings mean that the next iPhone will be powered by the Apple-designed A4 SOC (system on a chip), which also runs the iPad.

“That makes sense,” said Aaron Vronko, CEO of Portage, Mich.-based Rapid Repair, a repair shop and do-it-yourself parts supplier for consumer devices, including Apple’s iPod and iPhone. Vronko regularly tears apart Apple hardware products — most recently the iPad — to get an idea of how they’re built and what capabilities they have.

“That completely gels with the direction Apple is heading,” Vronko added. “They’re loathe to make a device and have it less expensive and more powerful than the iPad. So it makes sense that the iPhone will use the same processor, as long as it’s not more powerful than the iPad.”

When Gizmodo published photos of the iPhone prototype it had acquired, Vronko speculated that Apple would also use the A4 in its next-generation smartphone.

iFixit claimed that the markings on the A4 showed that the fourth-generation iPhone will include 256MB of system memory, the same amount as the iPad and last year’s iPhone 3GS.

That, too, fits with Apple’s announced plans to debut a limited form of multi-tasking with the next iPhone, said Vronko. In March, Apple previewed iPhone OS 4 and announced that the mobile operating system upgrade would allow specific forms of multitasking via seven new APIs (application programming interfaces).

“Call it partial multitasking,” said Vronko of Apple’s approach. “It’s a handy way for them to handle it, since they then control what apps multitask. Most apps have little or no need for multitasking.”

The 256MB of system memory is enough to allow partial multitasking in the next iPhone, Vronko said. If the iPhone had more — say 512MB of memory — it might mean Apple has bigger multitasking plans than it has publicly admitted.

But contrary to reports, Vronko wasn’t buying the idea that the latest leaked iPhone was brought to Vietnam from the U.S. To him, it made sense that it popped up in Vietnam.

“Chinese companies have invested billions in Vietnam,” he noted, referring to electronics production and assembly plants. “This could have leaked from a draft production facility in Vietnam.”

Although he retained some skepticism of the iPhone’s legitimacy, he said it was probably a production unit, or one very near production quality. “If it’s real, that fits. Apple has to have three, four or five million iPhones in the pipeline at launch, so they’d have to have started building them this month,” Vronko said.

Apple is expected to unveil the next iPhone June 7, the opening day of its annual developers conference in San Francisco, and start selling the smartphone later that month.

But after this spring’s leaks — unprecedented for Apple — what’s left for Apple to talk about at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC)?

“I imagine they held back a few key things on iPhone OS 4,” Vronko. “Maybe they’ll show how the video chat is supposed to work. That may be the big ‘wow’ moment.”

Both the Gizmodo and Vietnamese iPhones have a front-facing camera in addition to the usual camera on the back of the smartphone. Most analysts and pundits, Vronko included, have assumed that the front-facing camera will be used for video chats and calls.

“How will that be used?” Vronko asked, saying that question was one to keep in mind over the next month as Apple introduces, then starts selling, the next iPhone. “Once they sell a few million [new] iPhones, there will be a few million people who suddenly have a video telephony-ready phone. How will American consumers take to what will be the first realistic large-scale video telephone?”

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer or subscribe to Gregg’s RSS feed . His e-mail address is gkeizer@ix.netcom.com.

During a quarterly earnings conference call with Wall Street and industry analysts Tuesday, Apple’s chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer cited “future product transitions” as a contributing factor to the anticipated decline from a 42% margin for the year’s first quarter to a 36% margin for the quarter ending June 30.

The conservative guidance isn’t unusual: Apple typically underestimates its margins for upcoming periods, and often explains that “future product transitions” are one reason why it won’t clear as much profit.

But one analyst read more into those tea leaves.

“They seem to be saying that there’s more to the next quarter than the introduction of a new iPhone,” said Ezra Gottheil, senior analyst with Technology Business Research, referring to the expected launch of Apple’s next iPhone this summer.

Gottheil thinks that Apple is ready to make a major move into video, and based his bet on a series of clues in the company’s upcoming hardware, as well as the $1 billion data center in North Carolina that’s now hiring personnel.

Gottheil’s prognostications have been spot-on at times, off the mark at others. A year ago, he bet that Apple would enter the netbook market with an “iPod Touch on steroids,” a good description of the eventual iPad. In December 2008, however, he predicted that Apple would launch a pair of netbook-style systems the following month, something Apple did not do.

“The front-facing camera in the next iPhone is something we’ve always wanted,” Gottheil said, referring to this week’s disclosure by tech blog Gizmodo that the 2010 iPhone will have two cameras, including a new one that faces the user. “But that also makes sense if Apple is going to push into video conferencing, video social network or video social gaming.”

Calling that market a “kind of white space,” Gottheil sees it as one of those opportunities that Apple has historically grabbed. “Apple is the kind of company that could make that a big deal,” he said.

The current iPad, which lacks a camera — one of the pieces that was on most wish lists before the tablet debuted — also seems to have space in its current design for a front-facing camera, Gottheil added. Others, including teardown expert Aaron Vronko of Rapid Repair, have also speculated that the next iPad will sport a camera. “It looks like it’s all ready for the camera, even including a hole in the glass for the lens,” said Vronko, who earlier this month tore apart the first-generation iPad. “Apple probably made a game-time decision not to include it.”

Also in play, said Gottheil, is the $1 billion data center that Apple began building in Maiden, N.C., last year. Apple currently has 15 positions listed on its jobs site for the data center.

“That’s a humongous data center,” Gottheil observed. While others have speculated that the center will power an iTunes music streaming service or store customers’ iTunes libraries for everywhere access, Gottheil as a different idea. “Apple needs to get into the online services business, but it can’t be plain vanilla,” he said. “That’s not what Apple likes to do.”

Instead, he believes Apple will craft a video platform that other developers can use to build video-enabled iPhone and iPad applications, then use the data center as the switchboard that, for a fee, routes the ensuing data traffic. “They’ll build the platform, make an application or two — maybe a game where people see each other as they play — and then provide some kind of switchboard service. That’s exactly the kind of thing that they like to do.”

In a follow-up research note that Gottheil sent to clients today, he also hammered on the idea. “By providing critical applications and a platform for third-party development, Apple could create a compelling and very sticky subscription service,” he wrote.

Not everyone buys Gottheil’s theory on video and the data center. Brian Marshall, an analyst who tracks Apple for BroadPoint AmTech, agreed that the next iPhone would have a camera, and believes a refresh of the iPad with a camera will appear in time for this year’s holiday season. But he has different plans for the data center.

“That’s for their cloud-based service,” Marshall said, “which will probably be hosting iTunes libraries in the cloud. That will let customers access their iTunes [music] from anywhere, and untether it from their computers.”

Nothing about parsing Apple is easy, said Gottheil, who acknowledged that his conjectures could come to naught. “They’re always manipulating us with their guidance,” he admitted, talking about Apple’s tendency to under-promise and over-deliver, and the often fruitless attempts by outsiders to penetrate the company’s veil of secrecy. “But this could be a place for Apple to play in online.”

He has a few thoughts on what the blogosphere has been creating, have a read after the jump.

MM: Hey Aaron, thanks for taking my call today, can you give me a bit of background info on you and Rapid Repair?

AV: Hey Fabrizio, I’m the service manager for Rapid Repair, our company was founded 6 years ago and we repair mobile devices, gadgets, ipods, iphones, zunes, video game consoles and handheld consoles. We get shipments from all over the world and repair close to 500 a week. We also contribute to our general knowledge-base by buying the latest gadgets, taking them apart, and putting out repair guides on our website.

MM: That’s great, thanks. So lets get down to business, what do you think Apple will do with the iPhone 4G?

AV: I think that the big changes to expect for the iPhone 4G (4G meaning 4th generation, not the network), in contrast to the iPhone 3GS, will be the exact opposite. The iPhone 3GS changes were focused on the hardware, the horsepower, the core of the device and the kind of performance it can offer. It was basically 95% the same phone as the 3G, just a faster version of it. With the iPhone 4G it will be more or less with the same hardware capabilities, but totally revising the design of it and heavily tweaking, revising and adding to the software functionality but not necessarily in the core applications, but in the most common periphery apps.

MM: Can you tell me more about what you think the direction will be with software?

AV: The thing that made the iPhone successful in the first place was that it did about four applications that everyone who wants a smartphone wants, and it did it better than anyone else ever had. Those four or five applications will be about the same, its just the next 80 or 90 they will improve functionality on.

MM: How do you think the iPhone 4G will be compared to the iPad in terms of platforms and hardware? Will there be any cross-platform integration?

AV: I think its interesting to see to what extent they want to integrate iBooks, they probably most likely want to avoid that. They’ve got another market they are trying to create with the iPad, trying to offer the same functionality on the iPhone, and with that small of a screen size is not that effective for reading books (even though I think they might bump the screen size on the iPhone 4G). I wouldn’t be surprised to see it more focused on reading periodicals, daily news, weekly news. Perhaps expanding on the content delivery that the iBooks content delivery will use. Which I think is a great move, that’s one big piece that the iPad is missing is just one killer app and that it’s not way better than any other device that has come before it.

MM: Well we don’t know that for sure just yet.

AV: Yeah, based on what was shown. It’s not a better e-Reader than Amazon’s Kindle, its not a better computer than the MacBook Air, so far there is not one thing that’s better than everything else.

MM: How about hardware?

AV: I do think the iPhone 4G will use the same processor that is in the iPad. The new Apple A4 as they call it, or it may be called the A3, when it comes down to the hardware it will be the same basic design. The CPU inside that application processor will be an ARM Cortex-A9, the graphics processor will be a PowerVR SGX, probably a 535 or 540. But what they will do, instead of running that CPU at the same clockspeed as the iPad, they will just underlock it to about 600Mhz on the iPhone 4G. The reason they would do that is to save significantly on power.

By comparison, the processor that is in the iPhone 3GS is also running at 600Mhz, the new processor set could easily be 25% more powerful even if they ran it at the same clock speed. In fact, they could even slow it down to 500Mhz and it would still be a more powerful processor set, and it would use maybe half the power as the iPhone 3GS processor and still get just as much done. And thats a result of using a newer and more powerful processor design. Largely due to using a smaller manufacturing process.

MM: Do you think Apple would open up the iPhone 4G for multitasking?

AV: No, I would say not. They didn’t indicate it in the iPad so I would think not. They won’t want to change it from the iPhone 3GS. They have a pretty good history in doing this with the iPods. In one cycle they change the design, the next cycle they beef up the hardware with kind of the same design, and then the next cycle they change the design again. The really good reason for that, which makes a lot of sense for phones, is every 2 or 3 years peoples contracts expire and they can get a new phone when that expires. So it makes sense for Apple to make a device with substantially different capabilities, but nothing more than that. If you make phones with substantially different capabilities every year, then you end up with too many classes of applications and too much confusion of compatibility.

MM: What do you think about these “touch-sensitive case” rumors?

AV: The touch sensing case rumors are interesting. A design concept I think Apple might be playing with, but not an enhancement that would be in the next iPhone, this sounds like something what would more suit the iPad. I believe they will however tweak multi-touch, so you can come up with new gestures, but nothing changed at the core. The case should be an aluminum uni-body.

MM: How about hardware specifics, what will be inside this iPhone 4G that we haven’t talked about?

AV: Memory will be at 512MB, the cost is right and I couldn’t see Apple staying at 256MB for the cost differences. I think storage capacity will be in the options of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. No removable battery, if the iPhone is thought of as having a 2 year life cycle. On a 2 year basis most people are reasonably happy with their battery life.

MM: When do you think Apple will release the iPhone 4G?

AV: I would expect it to be close to the typical annual release, unless there is something groundbreaking that no one would expect there’s no reason that it couldn’t be out. The iPad is going to be out in March with that processor already on display, so processor production shouldn’t really hold them up. But they will need more for iPhone’s, I would say early June to mid-July. Whoever the fabricator is for the iPad A4 chip, will be the fabricator for the iPhone A4 chip. OLED screens are already available in the size Apple would want to use, the only thing they may want to be waiting on is Samsungs newer generation of OLED screens which are 25% brighter. They are in the mobiel handset form factor where you might get a reasonable level of performance in direct sunlight.

MM: What will it cost?

AV: It’s going to be the same or less. Certainly not more, $99, $199 and $299 are the most likely targets. Going any lower to that doesn’t net them any additional sales and thats the price point for most mobile phones, and they could make a killing on it because they are not upgrading most of the hardware inside, its a year later and a year cheaper and for the same price.

MM: There are rumors of video conferencing, what are your thoughts on that?

AV: I don’t think Apple is convinced that the customer they design for (North Americans) demand this feature.  Our mobile networks, (especially the beleaguered AT&T) are nowhere near ready to handle the heavy network demand and usage of these technologies, meaning it would be a WiFi only app and Apple doesn’t want to make their headline feature one that “just works… sometimes.”

MM: Anything else you might want to touch on, perhaps gaming, whats it all really about?

AV: I think its more about design and form factor, not performance on this. They are using newer chips, but thats mainly to increase battery life. Thats the trade off, you can increase battery life and increase performance with some level of trade off. I think you could see some pretty awesome games and battery life. If they use an OLED screen with the A4 chip, clock it all the way down to 500 or 600MHz, you could double the battery life in pretty much all applications from what the iPhone 3GS was. Or they could make the battery smaller and take it off the size and weight of the device with still a 50% increase.

MM: Well Aaron, thank you for your time and our readers will definitely appreciate your thoughts on this.

The iPad is the best-built first-generation mobile device Apple has ever produced, the owner of an iPod and iPhone repair company said yesterday after disassembling the new tablet.

“I’m impressed,” said Aaron Vronko, the CEO of Michigan-based Rapid Repair. “It’s the first first-generation device that we’ve seen from Apple that has great construction.” Rapid Repair is a repair shop and do-it-yourself parts supplier for consumer devices, including Apple’s iPod and iPhone and Microsoft’s Zune. (See also “A Visual Tour of the Apple iPad.”)

Vronko posted a step-by-step teardown of the iPad, complete with photos, to the Rapid Repair site Saturday, just hours after Apple kicked off tablet sales.

“It’s still not going to survive a drop, but everything that can be buttoned down, is,” said Vronko, referring to the logic board, battery and other components inside the iPad’s milled-aluminum casing. “Everything is engineered to fit to the next piece, even the off-the-shelf parts. The batteries are even separated to allow for the [Wi-Fi] antenna to run down the middle.”

Vronko also gave Apple a thumbs up for the iPad’s internal design. “Apple had a really clear idea of where they wanted to be with the iPad, and they just hit it on all counts,” said Vronko. “It’s designed for a specific set of tasks, and for those tasks it’s a great device.”

Evidence of that was obvious throughout the inside of the iPad, Vronko said, pointing to the battery as an example. “It’s a great design. It’s really wide, but it’s no thicker than the battery in the iPhone 3GS,” he said. “That helps dissipate the heat, the number one reason for battery failure. The wider [form] gives it a lot of surface area for heat dissipation. And putting it at the back of the case, between the case and the main board, protects [the electronics].” (See also “Apple iPad Stress Tests.”)

Vronko also applauded Apple’s use — or reuse — of some of the components already proven in the iPhone and iPod Touch, such as the BlueTooth and Wi-Fi radio parts. “Apple reused a lot of the smaller elements of the iPhone 3GS in the iPad, or the next generation of those parts,” he said Such repurposing also helped Apple keep down the manufacturing cost of the iPad.

“We’re talking about the accessory parts here,” he cautioned, “not the things that define the device.”

Even so, Vronko dinged Apple on some aspects of the iPad. “Nothing here is pushing the envelope,” he said. “The LCD is nice, but it’s not cutting edge.”

Apple could have added several more hours to the iPad’s battery life if it had pushed for a more advanced display technology, such as OLED (organic light emitting diode), which earlier this year Vronko predicted Apple would use in its then-still-rumored tablet. Because the display consumes more power than any other iPad component, and its requirements thus define how long an iPad can run between charges, an OLED screen would have extended the tablet’s battery life to at least 18 hours, Vronko said.

Apple estimates that the iPad can run up to 10 hours before needing recharging, although some reviewers have said they got as many as 12 hours out of a charge.

And Vronko worried that what he found inside the iPad may mean this first version won’t stand up to the competition, or the test of time. “Apple didn’t go overboard on what they put inside,” he said. “Is this enough hardware for the next 20 months of app development? I don’t think it is.”

Consumers trained to expect their smartphones and cell phones to last two years — the length of most mobile service contracts and the time between upgrading phones — may be disappointed by the iPad’s inability to keep pace with rivals, or even developers.

“After a year, it starts to look shaky for this iPad,” Vronko argued. “Remember, there will be lots of other tablet-based hardware [to compete with the iPad] by then.”

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer or subscribe to Gregg’s RSS feed. His e-mail address is gkeizer@ix.netcom.com.