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Apple’s iPad has captured 80% of the tablet computer market in the US in April to July new reserach has found.The iPad accounted for six million of all 7.5 million tablets shipped in North America during the second quarter of 2011, according to research group Strategy Analytics.

It described Apple as a “formidable market leader”.

Yet they added that Amazon – which has unveiled its own tablet yesterday – could become a big challenger.

Stategy Analytics senior analyst Alex Spektor said: “Apple remains a long way ahead of its main rivals such as Motorola, Samsung, RIM, Asus and HTC.

“A combination of cool branding, user-friendly hardware, entertaining services and savvy retail distribution has made Apple a formidable market leader.”

“Provided the pricing, screen size and hardware design are right, Amazon can be one of the main challengers to Apple’s dominance,” said Neil Mawston, director at Strategy Analytics.

“Like Apple, Amazon has a strong brand, compelling content, sophisticated billing systems and widespread distribution.

“In effect, Amazon’s new tablet product represents a good opportunity to place an Amazon shopping cart in the hands of American consumers, offering optimised access to purchasing digital content or physical goods from the Amazon online store.”

The continuing popularity of Apple’s iPad comes despite its incompatibility with Adobe Flash software, meaning that users cannot view a large number of online videos.

Rivals such as Samsung are quick to highlight in their advertising that their tablets are able to use Flash.

Apple and Samsung, which makes the Galaxy range of tablets, are also continuing a number of legal disputes over patents.

The iPad was first released in April 2010, with the second version, the iPad 2, following in March of this year.

Apple’s new rules for iPad and iPhone apps payments have been criticised after they forced Amazon to change the Kindle app to make buying new books more complicated.The new terms and conditions, which mean publishers must give Apple 30 per cent of the price of any content they sell via apps, came into force on 30 June.

In response, in July, Amazon removed a “Kindle Store” link within its app in order to preserve its profit margin on e-books.

Kindle app users are still able to buy more books, but they must exit the app and navigate to the Kindle Store via the iPad or iPhone web browser.

But the change has left users confused and angry. On the iTunes page for the app, some indicated they didn’t understand the new purchasing process.

“Pointless update,” said SJH31. “Wish I didn’t update now. What’s the point if I can’t buy books.” and “In reality Apple didn’t like the competition and so has hamstrung apps like Kindle. Shameful from Apple.”

Those who did understand the change overwhelmingly blamed Apple.

Apple is competing with Amazon via iBooks, which still allows users to make purchases from within the app. The rule change has forced Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Google to make similar changes to their e-books apps too.

Apple’s rivalry with Amazon is expected to intensify, with the online retail giant reportedly poised to expand its range of gadgets beyond e-readers to include a full colour touchscreen tablet.

Steve Jobs originally announced the new apps payments regime in February.

Apple has since softened it slightly by allowing publishers to charge more for content in apps than they do on their own website, where they do not have to pay a 30 per cent cut to a third party.

Apple inc (AAPL) now has more cash to spend than the United States of America’s government.
Latest figures from the US Treasury Department show that the country has an operating cash balance of $73.7 billion (£45.3 billion).

Apple’s most recent financial results put its reserves at $76.4 billion (£47.75 billion).

The US House of Representatives has just voted to raise the country’s overdraft debt ceiling, allowing it to borrow more money to cover spending commitments.

The United States is currently spending around $200bn more than it collects in revenue every month.

Apple, on the other hand, is making money hand over fist, according to its financial results. In the three months ending 25 June, net income was 125% higher than a year earlier at £4.56 billion ($7.31 billion).

With more than $75bn either sitting in the bank or in easily accessible assets, there has been enormous speculation about what the company will do with the money.

Industry watchers believe that it is building up a war chest to be used for strategic acquisitions of other businesses, and to secure technology patents with Bookstore Barnes and Noble and the online movie site Netflix possible targets.

The company may also have its eye on smaller firms that develop systems Apple might want to add to its devices, such as voice recognition.

Apple dipped into some of its reserves recently when it teamed-up with Microsoft to buy a group of technology patents from the bankrupt telecom firm Nortel.

The bidding consortium paid $4.5 billion (£2.81 billion) for more than 6,000 telecommunication patents.

Apple’s latest profits soared past expectations as sales of its best known iPhone and iPad products more than doubled.
Net income was £4.6 billion in the three months to 25 June, 125% higher than a year earlier and a record quarterly profit for the firm. Revenue was £17.87 billion, also a quarterly record.

Apple sold more than 20 million iPhones in the quarter and 9.25 million iPads. However, iPod sales continued to slip, down by 20% to 7.54 million units.

The results assuaged concerns about the supply of the iPad 2, partly because of parts supply interruptions caused by Japan’s tsunami and earthquake in March.

Apple chief financial officer, Peter Oppenheimer, said: “We are extremely pleased with our performance. Looking ahead to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $25bn.”

Mr Oppenheimer also said that Lion, the new version of the Mac OS X operating system, will go on sale Wednesday.  The Lion software mimics some of the features of the iPhone and iPad interface.

The company has a reputation for being conservative with its forecasts.

Apple shares (AAPL) jumped 5.3% in extended after hours trading to their highest for a year.

The price had suffered after its founder and Chief Executive, Steve Jobs, took a long term break last January for medical reasons.

The future stewardship of the company remains an open question. On Tuesday the Wall Street Journal was reporting that several Apple board members had discussed a successor to Mr Jobs, and had talked about the matter with at least one head of a high-profile tech company.

Another uncertainty for the company is a web of patent battles with rivals.

It claims Taiwanese rival HTC has infringed its patents, with HTC claiming a number of infringements against Apple.  Apple is also in dispute over the rights to technology with South Korea’s Samsung and US competitor Motorola.

Technology experts think that the new iCloud service puts Apple at ahead of it’s rivals- and is likely to encourage even bigger useage of Apple devices.
Cloud based consumer data services are not be new, but the iCloud service Apple announced this week is a major step towards.

Returning from sick leave for the string of announcements at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference, chief executive Steve Jobs made the most significant statement of the night: “We’re going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device – just like an iPad, an iPhone or an iPod Touch. We’re going to move the hub of your digital life to the cloud.”

Apple commentator John Gruber said that “demotion” of the Mac will come to define a new era for Apple.

“iCloud will shape the next 10 years the way the iTunes-on-your-Mac/PC digital hub shaped the last 10,” he wrote.

“This is a fundamentally different vision for the coming decade than Google’s. In both cases, your data is in the cloud, and you can access it from anywhere with a network connection. But Google’s vision is about software you run in a web browser. Apple’s is about native apps you run on devices. Apple is as committed to native apps – on the desktop, tablet, and handheld – as it has ever been.”

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said the move will encourage consumers to stay within Apple’s ecosystem of gadgets, from phones to desktop computers. “Apple is increasing the likelihood that consumers buy multiple Apple devices,” he told clients.

“What’s new is that Apple will be giving away iCloud for free (we had expected it to be priced between $25-$99 a year). This will allow Apple devices to automatically share contacts, calendars, messages, photos, apps, and music purchased on iTunes; sharing non iTunes music will cost $25 a year.”

Munster compared that the Amazon’s Cloud Drive, which could cost up to $200 a year.

For Apple’s rivals, iCloud presents a major challenge. Google started offering cloud-based services to the mainstream through its Gmail service in 2004, but Apple’s third and soon-to-be-opened data centre in North Carolina puts it ahead, said Forrester analyst Frank Gillett.

“Google is worth watching as a number two player but will struggle to match Apple. Microsoft, with no articulated vision for personal cloud, lags significantly.”

Apple, is planning to revolutionise the way people listen to music with the launch of a new online system to be branded the iCloud.
Steve Jobs, the company’s chief executive, is set to unveil a new way for people to access their personal music collection almost anywhere without having to actively download the tracks onto a portable device.

The invention may sound the death knell of the traditional record collection.

Music lovers will no longer have to store their favourite tracks on an iPod or computer.

Instead an Apple database will hold records of individuals’ personal musical tastes allowing users to access the songs at will through the internet.

Similar systems have been launched in recent weeks by Google and Amazon but Apple is said to have secured exclusive deals with the world’s biggest record labels giving its users access a vast catalogue of music.

Under deals reportedly reached late last week, the record labels are expected to get the vast majority of the revenue generated, with Apple taking about 18 per cent.

But the move would further consolidate the company’s dominance if the digital music market.

Users of Apple’s iTunes service will be initially able to use iCloud free of charge but could eventually pay around £15 a month.

Apple released their latest profits figures last night- which have beaten analysts forecasts- helped by higher than expected iPhone sales.Apple reported quarterly net profits of £3.6 billion, nearly double what it made a year ago. Revenue was £15.4 billion- an increase of 83%.

Apple sold 18.65 million iPhones, a rise of 113%. But iPad sales were 4.69 million, below analysts’ expectations.

However, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said in a statement: “We’re firing on all cylinders.”

Mr Jobs, who went on medical leave in January with an undisclosed illness, continued: “We will continue to innovate on all fronts throughout the remainder of the year.”

But the iOS – Apple’s operating system for the iPhone and iPad – faces huge challenges from the likes of Google.

A report last month from market research firm Nielsen found Google’s Android had become the most popular operating system among US smartphone users – accounting for 29% of the market, in comparison to iOS at 27%.

Google has released Honeycomb, the latest version of Android designed for tablets, and Canadian firm RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, recently launched their first tablet.

Sales of the company’s computers were strongly higher, up by 28% from a year ago driven by its improved MacBook Pro.

Apple’s figures were not uniformly positive. Besides the iPad, another disappointment was sales of its one-time star, the iPod, down by 17% on the year at 9 million units.

During Steve Jobs’s absense the day-to-day running of Apple is currently being done by chief operating officer Tim Cook.

Google has launched a new apps payment system that allows users to subscribe to online content for a 10% commission fee.The move comes after rival Apple was lambasted after they increased the charges of it’s payment system which now takes 30% of the apps sellers’ sale price.

The payments system is called “One Pass” and will work on tablets and smartphones, as well as Google-related websites.

One Pass will launch initially in the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The announcement came just one day after Apple announced new rules for publishers selling subscriptions on its iOS platform.

Apple says companies must now offer users the option to buy directly through an iTunes account, handing 30% of the price to Apple.

Previously, vendors were allowed to simply direct customers to an external website, keeping all of the profits.

On a Google blog posting, Lee Shirani, the company’s director of business product management wrote: “Publishers can customise how and when they charge for content while experimenting with different models to see what works best for them.”

The 10 billionth download has just been made from Apple’s app store the company has announced.
The world’s most valuable technology firm reached the milestone on Saturday night- 22 January 2011.

The downloaded game was a free app called Paper Glider, developed by British company Neon Play, where users control a paper aeroplane.

Of all the millions of Apple users from around the world, it was downloaded by Gail Davis from Orpington in Kent.

She told the BBC: “I have to confess it wasn’t actually my download, it was my daughter’s. I had no idea, when Apple called me. I thought it was a prank call and I declined to take it.”

But after speaking to her daughters she found out they’d downloaded the game and then she realised that she’d made a mistake.

“I had a moment of blind panic but thankfully Apple called me back. They said it’s not a joke and you are the winner.”

As the app store account holder Gail is being given an iTunes gift card worth more than £6,200.

It’s taken just two and a half years for the app store to reach 10 billion downloads. Apple says seven billion of those have come in the last 12 months.

There are 350,000 apps available to more 160 million iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users in 90 countries around the world.

No wonder Apple is such a valuable company.

Just last week Dr Search posted Apple makes record profits of £4.5bn in last three months

Apple has made record profits and record revenues in the run up to Christmas as shoppers bought more Macs, iPhones, and iPads.

The company said that in the three months to 25 December, net profit was £4.5 billion on approx revenues of £20 billion.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, said in a statement: “We had a phenomenal holiday quarter.”

There was no further mention of his health problems following Monday’s news that Mr Jobs is taking medical leave.

While he is continuing as chief executive and will be involved in any major decisions, day-to-day running has passed to chief operating officer Tim Cook.

Apple’s first-quarter profit is a 71% jump on the same period last year.

The company sold 4.13 million Macs during the quarter, a 23% rise year-on-year, and 16.24 million iPhones, a leap of 86%.

iPod sales fell 7% to 19.45 million units. Apple sold 7.33 million iPads.

Shares in the company, which had fallen during the day, rose 4% in after-hours trading to about $354.

News of Mr Jobs’ latest health problems came on a US public holiday, when financial markets were closed.

The California-based company said that 62% of its revenues came from outside the US. In the Asia-Pacific market, which includes China, Apple said revenues almost tripled.

Some analysts are concerned about what Mr Jobs’ absence from Apple might mean for the company’s future, as he has become inextricably linked with its success.

Despite Mr Jobs’ previous ill health, the company’s stock market value has approximately quadrupled in the past two years.