As our boss is on record as predicting 2011 as the year mobile makes its move, we consider it our duty to keep you up to date on all news of the mobile variety. Ergo…
Moses famously came down from the mountain with two tablets. Wimp. BlackBerry makers Research In Motion expect to ship over 1m of their new BlackBerry Playbook tablet devices in the first quarter of 2011. In the “mine’s bigger” department, RiM have it over Motorola, who expect to ship a mere 800k of their Android-powered Xoom tablet.
Of course, with Apple expected to move 45m iPads in 2011, those above numbers look pretty teeny. Speaking of, Apple rumor watchers are tipping the iPad 2 to arrive either April 2 or 9 in both WiFi and 3G versions, with a US-exclusive release for a couple months, and a six-month wait until big-boxers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy get their hands on the device.
One deadline that’s now expected to be missed is the debut of The Daily, News Corp.’s visionary iPad newspaper. Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman and occasional Simpsons character, was supposed to make a formal announcement about the new publication alongside Steve Jobs on Wednesday, but the event is now off both men’s itineraries. Apparently, technology issues related to providing subscriptions are still being resolved, so the launch has been pushed back an undetermined period.
Love him or hate him, Murdoch has led the charge in an effort to fuse traditional media outlets with online technology. The Wall Street Journal has been a subscription-based model since its online version debuted 14 years ago. Murdoch is also a huge fan of the iPad, stating “we’re going to see, around the world, hundreds and hundreds of millions of these devices. There will be all sorts of things we can do with them. As they develop technologically, we’ve got to develop our methods of presentation of news. … We’ll have young people reading newspapers.” And when they grow up, they’ll read CalvinAyre.com.
