review There’s nothing like a little controversy to drive up demand for a new gadget. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the famous tablet Apple didn’t want us to get our hands on, and yet despite its best efforts in the courtroom, Samsung was successful at getting the injunction against Aussie sales lifted in time for Christmas. Was it worth all the legal wrangling? Read on to find out.

Design
After all the fuss, we were expecting the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to look a lot more like the iPad. Perhaps if you’d never seen an iPad before, and assumed any tablet-looking device was an iPad, you’d make that mistake, notwithstanding the Samsung logos emblazoned on the front and back. But holding the white iPad 2 and white Galaxy Tab 10.1 side-by-side, you’d never mistake one for the other. The white iPad 2 has a white bezel around the screen, a metal back and 9.7” display in a 4:3 aspect ratio, while the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has a black bezel around the screen, a plastic white back with chrome frame, and a 10.1” display 16:10 aspect ratio.

With the obligatory iPad comparisons out of the way, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a handsome device in its own right – possibly the best-looking Android tablet we’ve come across so far. At 565g and a skinny 8.6mm thick, it’s both the lightest and thinnest tablet for its size. As with most tablets, the battery is sealed in to keep it slim as possible, but the Galaxy Tab 10.1 skips a few of the niceties that we’ve come to expect in an Android tablet, namely a micro-USB port (it uses the same proprietary jack found on earlier Samsung tablets for charging and syncing), a HDMI port, and a microSD card slot. You can, however, buy adapters that attach to the proprietary port for adding HDMI, USB and SD card reader functionality.

Features
There are no real surprises on the Galaxy Tab 10.1’s spec sheet. It has the stock-standard 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, a 10.1” 1280 x 800 display, front and back cameras, and both Wi-Fi and 3G versions. For some reason, Samsung has skipped the 32GB option in favour of 16GB and 64GB storage capacities, and this is something you’ll want to get right up-front, as there’s no microSD slot for adding extra storage. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 uses a PLS (plane to line switching) LCD rather than the IPS panel found on most other tablets, and while this is meant to have the same effect for ultra-wide viewing angles, we found the screen dimmed considerably when moving it from side to side.

Software is the main way that Samsung differentiates the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from the legion of other Android tablets. Alas, it doesn’t run the latest Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android (Samsung says an over-the-air ICS update will be available in the first quarter of this year), but the Android Honeycomb 3.1 build running on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been heavily customised with Samsung’s TouchWiz UI. It’s always a bit of hit or miss as to whether vendor skins are better or worse than the vanilla OS, but in this case, TouchWiz is a definite improvement over Honeycomb’s homely – and at times, confusing – UI.

Extras include lots of tablet-optimised widgets to choose from on the homescreen, a ‘Mini Apps Tray’ that you can for running supported applets (such as calendar, music player and calculator) on top of the app that’s currently open, an enhanced ‘Quick Panel’ notification area that includes shortcuts to system settings like Wi-Fi, GPS, screen brightness and auto-rotation, and custom fonts, apps and settings that put a much friendlier face on Honeycomb.

There’s also the usual Samsung software like Samsung Social Hub (an aggregator app for email, PIM, chat and social networking), Samsung Music Hub (a music subscription service), Kies Air (an app for wirelessly transferring files with a computer through a web browser), and the Samsung Apps store, and some Android apps exclusive to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 like MagShop (a digital newsstand app for ACP magazines) and ABC Reading Eggs (an educational children’s app). The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is also the only Android tablet we’ve come across so far with native support for DivX, XviD and WMV.

Performance
For day to day use, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 felt slightly snappier than other Android tablets we’ve reviewed. Things like launching apps, switching screen orientations, moving between homescreens and loading webpages felt just that little bit faster. Its Rightware Browsermark score of 88,970 is significantly faster than the average Android tablet score of 55,000, and not too far behind the Apple iPad’s score of 99,578.

Standard definition video playback was decent, if not occasionally choppy. The stock video player can’t play 720p MKV videos, but like most Android tablets, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 supports hardware acceleration for 720p and 1080p videos thanks to its Tegra 2 processor. Also like most Android tablets, 720p video (using the third party VPlayer) isn’t great, with audio sync problems and jerky playback. We didn’t even bother trying a 1080p video. Audio performance didn’t blow our hair back either – the Galaxy Tab 10.1 surround sound stereo speakers sound a lot better on paper than they do in practice, and while the volume is adequate for personal listening, you’ll struggle to hear it in noisy environments.

One thing we noticed when transferring files to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is that the USB connection only supports MTP – there’s no option for mounting the tablet as a USB mass storage device. It still mounts as an external drive on a WIndows computer, but if you’re using a Mac, you’ll need to either install the Samsung Kies desktop software, or use Kies Air over a Wi-Fi connection to transfer files.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1’s battery life is much better than expected for such a skinny device. Playing a loop of standard definition videos (Wi-Fi on, 3G off, screen brightness set to ‘Auto’), it lasted for just under 12 hours. This beats the iPad 2’s record of 10 hours of continuous video playback.

Conclusion
Based on its own merits, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is an impressive tablet. It’s sleek, good-looking, offers a great user experience out of the box and has the best battery life out of any tablet we’ve reviewed so far. But it’s not really the hardware we have an issue with – it’s the dearth of tablet-optimised apps for Honeycomb tablets. The app situation for Honeycomb has gotten a little better in the past few months, but it’s still drastically behind its main competitor, the Apple iPad 2 – an issue that’s all the more significant given both the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and iPad are priced identically. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 doesn’t even get the benefit of the extra features usually found on Android tablets like microSD expansion, HDMI output and USB OTG; some of these features are available for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 using optional adapters, but then again, you can say the same for the iPad 2.

If you’re ideologically opposed to any Apple-branded products, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is definitely one of the better Android tablets available, but even then, your money may be better spent on one of the newer devices with quad-core processors and Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 starts at $579 for the 16GB Wi-Fi model and $729 for the 16GB 3G model, and it’s available on plans from both Optus and Vodafone.

Jenneth Orantia turned her back on a lucrative career in law to pursue her unhealthy obsession with consumer technology. She’s known for having at least half a dozen of the latest gadgets on her person at a time, and once won a bottle of Dom Perignon for typing 78WPM on a Pocket PC with a stylus.

Image credit: Samsung

news Some of the youngest of Western Australia’s nearly 262,000 students enrolled in 770 public schools will now use the latest in Apple tablet technology to learn about alphabets and numbers.

Premier Colin Barnett and Education Minister Elizabeth Constable made an announcement this week, stating that Year 1 and 2 students in 17 schools would participate in the Early Childhood iPad Initiative to develop their numeracy and literacy skills. They will be guided by two mentor schools that have already experienced this new form of education during a pilot project. Nine hundred iPads would be made available to the schools.

Barnett said Western Australia’s performance in the recently held National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests had earned the state additional funding for educational programs. The $1 million program is aimed at making learning more interesting by bringing mathematics and reading to life and helping children engage in their education more fully.

“Our new on-entry assessments of pre-primary students give teachers vital information about the skills our youngest students possess as they enter school, and we are delivering the tools teachers need to best connect with young students” said Barnett.

According to Constable, teachers piloting the program last year had found students responded very well to using iPad apps to develop their reading and maths skills “Students are very confident with the technology generally, and are excited to use iPads. This can only be good for their education” she said. Teachers across the state are already using electronic whiteboards in the classroom. “This technology is reinvigorating learning and iPads will similarly have an impact in the classroom” Constable said.

Schools and universities in Western Australia have been independently testing iPads and tablet devices in various educational programs for over a year. In September 2010, the chief information officer of the Department of Education and Training, Bevan Doyle had said, “The department does not have a policy on the use of iPads or Android-based technology at this stage; however some schools have bought tablet devices to trial in various settings.” He also stated that if educational institutions showed an interest in a ‘central buying arrangement for iPads’, official movements such as seeking optimal pricing would be made.

The WA department ensures that public schools receive technology funding to maintain a student-to-computer ratio of 1:5 for secondary schools and 1:10 for primary schools. “Schools are able to use the remaining funds for other technologies including iPads, and of course schools can supplement the funding from other sources” said Doyle.

news Apple’s iPhone 3G was first released in Australia three and a half years ago, and its flagship iPad tablet 18 months ago. But the Federal Government still hasn’t certified the devices for use in government agencies, despite having pledged to do so by September last year, and despite approving Research in Motion’s unpopular rival, the BlackBerry PlayBook.

The organisation responsible for certifying technology software and hardware for use by government agencies in Australia is the Defence Signals Directorate, which sits within the Department of Defence. Historically the organisation has focused on certifying mobile operating systems from BlackBerry maker Research in Motion and Microsoft.

In July last year, DSD revealed — and the Australian Government Information Management Office confirmed — that DSD was evaluating Apple’s iOS platform, with certification slated to be complete by September last year. At the time, DSD published an interim guide to hardening the security on iOS devices, including the iPod Touch, the iPhone and the iPad.

This week Delimiter queried the Department of Defence on the matter, asking what the current status was of DSD’s project to certify iOS devices, when it anticipated the products would be added to DSD’s Evaluated Products List, and what had caused the delay.

However, DSD did not respond directly to the majority of the questions.

“DSD, as the Commonwealth authority on information security, will continue to produce advice and assistance for technology based on the business requirements of Australian Government users,” the organisation said in a statement. “To do this, DSD works closely with industry partners to enable effective information security options for Australian Government agencies.”

“DSD’s work in evaluating the latest version of the iOS is moving towards the final stage. DSD evaluations take time to complete to ensure the integrity of the product meets the specific security requirements of the Australian government.”

The delay comes despite the fact that Research in Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, which was released in Australia in mid-2011, a year after Apple’s first iPad, was in 2011 approved by DSD for Government use. The tablet has failed to take significant market share globally, and is believed to have achieved only a very small share of the tablet market in Australia, with the iPad estimated to have taken somewhere north of 80 percent of Australia’s tablet market.

A number of BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices were already approved by DSD for government use, throughout 2007 to 2011.

The delay also comes despite the fact that a number of senior government officers, ranging from politicians to public servants, use the iPhone and iPad devices extensively for their daily work. In October, the Department of Parliamentary Services revealed in October last year that it would allow its growing fleet of 40 iPad users to access full desktop and internal IT services under its ongoing pilot of the tablets.

High-profile politicians such as Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and his shadow, Malcolm Turnbull, regularly use Apple iOS devices for their daily work.

In addition, Defence this week declined to respond to a question on whether it had seen any further interest from government stakeholders in certifying the Android operating system, which is believed to have even stronger market share in Australia than Apple’s devices, but has not yet been adopted strongly for corporate use. “The Android platform has not yet been submitted for DSD evaluation,” a Defence spokesperson said in response to a question on the issue in July. “At this time, the use of the Android platform for Australian government business does not necessitate the production of a hardening guide.”

opinion/analysis
The DSD’s certification program has clearly descended into a farcical situation. The organisation has no problem certifying BlackBerry devices which fewer and fewer people are using, but has not yet certified the Apple iPhone for use within Government, three and a half years after it was released in Australia or the Apple iPad, 18 months after it was released locally.

I have no idea what is going on inside DSD, but it’s time the organisation started responding more speedily to the needs of its public service users, who are audibly demanding that they be allowed to use these devices in their everyday life. This is a perfect example of government inaction in action.

Image credit: Apple

news Retail giant Woolworths today revealed plans to sell its Dick Smith chain of consumer electronics stores, following a strategic review of its broader assets finished in November 2011. It also plans to close up to 100 Dick Smith stores in the next two years.

The review, according to a statement issued by Woolworths today, concluded that Woolworths’ main strengths were primarily in “larger format, multi-channel, high-volume retail segments with market-leading positions”. In this context, the company said, “the future of the Dick Smith business, which is profitable, experiencing positive sales growth and has a strong brand position, could be better realised through new ownership.”

Woolworths said that its strategic review had concluded that the important consumer electronics category was better delivered through its Big W stores than Dick Smith, and that the investment and management attention given to Dick Smith had been “disproportionate”, relative to its position within the broader Woolworths group. “Following restructure, Dick Smith will be divested as a going concern to an appropriate buyer and will continue to operate as normal,” the company said.

Woolworths chief executive Grant O’Brien described Dick Smith as an “iconic” specialty consumer electronics brand, with a strong team and its own “leading” online presence.

“It has developed into a trusted technology retail and services hub, carrying world-leading brands and with strong market share in several key categories,” O’Brien said. “However, we believe that separating this specialty model from Woolworths is now the best option for the future of both businesses.” Woolworths has already received a number of unsolicited approached in relation to Dick Smith, which it will now explore, with the help of corporate advisory firm Greenhill Caliburn.

Woolworths claimed that Dick Smith staff, customers and suppliers didn’t need to worry about the changes, with business to continue as usual for the chain in the time being. However, it appears this statement is factually inaccurate. In the same media release, the company paradoxically stated that it would be closing up to 100 “underperforming” Dick Smith stores to be closed within the next two years, and affected staff to be offered redeployment elsewhere in the wider Woolworths group.

opinion/analysis
To me, this whole media release screams “Apple”.

In a year in which Apple’s Australian division announced record revenues, up 36 percent to $4.88 billion, and looks set to grow even more next year, Dick Smith’s Australian stores are “underperforming” and Woolworths is set to sell off the business and shut up to 100 stores. Well, I wonder what could be the problem? Where have all the customers gone? Maybe across the road to the gigantic Apple stores which have been opening everywhere around Australia over the past several years, and are known to be making record levels of revenue?

It is now a matter of public record that Australian consumers are buying less mobile phones, laptops, PCs, tablets, cameras and other devices from Dick Smith stores and are buying much of the same gear from Apple stores instead. And when they’re not buying Apple stuff, they’re going to mega-marts like JB Hi-Fi which sell the hottest stuff and lots of it, alongside 50,000 other things which Dick Smith doesn’t sell.

Sandwiched between this high (Apple) and low (JB Hi-Fi) strategy, it’s no wonder that Dick Smith is failing. A new Dick Smith store opened in my neighbourhood about six months ago, in the busiest shopping centre around. I like going in there to check out what’s on the shelves, but I always walk out, realising that there is nothing there that I actually want to buy. And usually I’m the only customer in the entire store. In contrast, whenever I walk into an Apple or JB Hi-Fi store, I have to physically stop myself from buying something. It’s like a compulsion. And there are always throngs of other customers everywhere.

Dick Smith stores remain locked in the retail paradigm which they helped establish twenty years ago. The chain has completely failed to realise that the consumer electronics market is no longer what it used to be. It has divided rapidly into high-low camps. Most of the market is now highly commodified, while a handful of companies — predominantly, Apple — have occupied the premium and are now entrenched there. And Apple certainly does not need Dick Smith.

Is the end of Dick Smith nigh? Probably not; I’m sure it will stick around for a good half-decade or more. But in the medium-term, it seems likely the brand is going the way of the dodo.

Image credit: Jo Fothergill, Creative Commons

news Nokia has reportedly revealed that its first smartphones to feature the Windows Phone 7 operating system, the Lumia 800 and 710, will hit Australia in March, with the 800 to launch through all major local carriers.

The Lumia 800 is similar in design to Nokia’s N9 handset launched in Australia last year. However, while the N9 ran the now-obsolete Meego operating system, the Lumia 800 will run Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 operating system, which Nokia is standardising on, following a management shake-up in late 2010 which resulted in former Microsoft executive Stephen Elop taking the help at the Finnish firm.

The Financial Review’s technology section quoted Nokia Australia managing director Chris Carr today (we recommend you click here for the full article) as saying that the Lumia 800 and its sister phone, the Lumia 710 would go on sale in Australia in March, with the 800 to sell through major carriers Telstra, Optus and Vodafone.

Australia has not seen a major launch of a new smartphone running Windows Phone 7 since late 2010, when Microsoft and its smartphone hardware partners HTC, Samsung and LG worked closely with Telstra to bring a swathe of models running the operating system to market. Over the past six months, a number of local Windows Phone 7 enthusiasts have started to question the major telcos as to when new launches would occur.

The gap in Windows Phone 7 launches is believed to have provided a window for rival Apple and Android-based handsets to launch in Australia, with the two operating systems (Android is supported by a clutch of hardware manufacturers, including those also promulgating Windows Phone 7 handsets) currently dominating Australia’s mobile phone market.

The Nokia Lumia 800 features 16GB of storage, an 8 megapixel camera, 512MB of RAM, a single-core 1.4GHZ Snapdragon CPU, a 3.7″ touchscreen running at a resolution of 800×480, and Windows Phone 7.5. It also comes with a micro-USB port. Unlike other smartphones like Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus, it doesn’t feature a near field communications (NFC) chip for mobile payments, which are becoming more popular in Australia.

Many of these specifications are similar to those of existing smartphones on the market. However, in Delimiter’s review of the Lumia 800, reviewer Jenneth Orantia praised the phone’s design, from its “beautifully-engineered” and colourful unibody polycarbonate casing, its curved glass display, slick user interface and “delightfully fluid and snappy” responsiveness. In the review, Orantia wrote:

“There’s no doubt about it, the Lumia 800 is a gorgeous phone. The simplicity, elegance and fully-stocked feature set of Windows Phone 7.5 paired with the stunning hardware design of the Lumia 800 amounts to a lethal combination that will change the game for both Nokia and Microsoft.”

“For Nokia, it’s the first smartphone that really innovates on all levels since the N95, and for Microsoft, it puts a much sexier face on its Windows Phone operating system, which is key for winning over more users. The distinctive design and eye-catching colour options will go a long way towards attracting everyday users, while the huge improvements in Windows Phone 7.5 should prove appealing for geeks and power users that are keen for something different.”

The Lumia 710 is a lower-end, lower-cost Windows Phone 7 phone; similar to the Lumia 800 but aimed at the mid-range market rather than the top-end.

opinion/analysis
Too little, too late? I’m really not sure.

There is no doubt that the Lumia 800 is a gorgeous little piece of kit, and it will stand out both in marketing campaigns in Australia as well as in users’ hands when they visit retail stores to test out different smartphone models. It really is *that* nice in the hand and that eye-catching when you’re using it. In addition, the Lumia 800 represents the first true fulfilment of the potential that the Windows Phone 7 operating system has promised for some time; in a very similar way that the HTC Desire represented the first true fulfilment of Android when it launched in Australia in April 2010.

However, Australia is expected to see an absolutely huge number of great new smartphones released over the next year. Some in particular, such as Samsung’s Galaxy S III, and Apple’s iPhone 5 (or whatever it will be called when it is eventually released), are virtually guaranteed to be instant winners, purely by virtue of the previous models which they are heir to.

The Lumia 800 will be released in Australia just after the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona is held, where manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson and so on release details of their upcoming handsets. In addition, it will be released just a few months before Australians start to get excited about the next iPhone — I expect anticipation to start building sometime around June. Can Nokia prevail against this kind of competition, and, despite its strong history, from what many people will see as something of a standing start?

The company’s N9 handset, which shares most of the design of the Lumia 800, sank virtually without a trace in Australia when it was launched before Christmas. It will be interesting to see if Australian consumers will pay more attention when take 2, the Lumia 800, is launched in March. Can a new operating system make all the difference? Only time will tell.

Some more shots of the Nokia Lumia 800:

Image credit: Nokia

analysis $46 billion in revenue. 64 percent quarter on quarter growth. 37 million iPhones shipped. Apple just stunned the world with some incredible financial growth over the last three months of 2011. But what do these results mean for Australia?

Normally, it’d be fairly hard to tell. But thankfully, the company filed its latest set of local financial results this week. With these in hand, plus Apple’s latest set of global financial results filed today, we can do some extrapolation to look at what the numbers for this little company we call Apple might look like in Australia over the next year or so. This is going to get a little complicated, so stay with me. Or, you think it’s too long and can’t be bothered reading all this, skip to the end; I’ll summarise ;)

Firstly, some background. What Apple has just filed in the US today is its financial results for the quarter (three months) to 31 December 2011. Globally in that quarter, Apple made $46 billion in revenue, a figure up 73 percent on the previous year, and 64 percent on the previous quarter.

Now Apple doesn’t break out Australian revenue in its global results — all we get is a headline ‘Asia-Pacific’ figure, which probably doesn’t represent Australian growth well, because it also likely includes countries such as Malaysia, Thailand and so on, which aren’t quite as affluent as Australia and probably don’t buy as many Apple products.

However, if I was to compare Australian growth to one of Apple’s operating divisions, I would say that we’re probably quite similar to Apple’s European division, which experienced revenue growth of 55 percent in the last quarter of last year.

Like most European countries, Australia has a mature and competitive mobile market, with multiple competing carriers and rapidly improving data speeds. Most European countries are easily classified as first-world nations and have affluent populations (their ongoing financial crises notwithstanding). In addition, Apple’s major product release in the last quarter of 2012, the iPhone 4S, no doubt drove much of the company’s incredible revenue growth. And importantly, the iPhone 4S launched simultaneously in October in the US, Australia and major European countries such as the UK, France and Germany, giving us a solid basis for comparison. Europe has also strongly adopted the iPad, like Australia.

Conversely, comparing Apple Australia’s results to Apple’s Americas segment (which achieved 92 percent growth, year on year, in the last quarter of 2011) may not give an accurate comparison, as it is likely that division of the country includes more countries (in South America) not classified as first world. I’m not sure what growth in those countries would like like.

Not that I’m implying this analysis is in any way ‘accurate’, by the way — it’s basically just slightly informed speculation ;) But it’s interesting to play with the numbers.

If we compare Apple’s results over the whole 2011 financial year (which ended at the end of September) for its various divisions, it also leads to a conclusion that Australia could be better compared with Europe than with Apple’s Americas division. In that financial year, Apple Europe grew revenues 48.6 percent, while Apple Americas grew 56.4 percent. In that same year, we know from Apple’s Australian financial results released this week, the company’s local division grew local revenues by a smaller amount, 35.9 percent. So still a fair way behind Europe — but more comparable to Apple’s Europe division than its Americas division.

Now we can start to extrapolate the future.

In the last quarter of the 2011 calendar year (which, remember, is the first quarter of Apple’s financial year), the results released today tell us that Apple Europe grew a little stronger than it had been — 55 percent, as compared with the 48.6 percent aggregate of the previous year.

However, perhaps the quarter which we should be comparing Apple’s Q1 2012 financial results with shouldn’t be the one twelve months previously, but Q4 2010, the quarter which would reflect Apple’s release of the iPhone 4? Again, for the European division we come up with a figure of about 56 percent growth. See where we’re going here? It’s starting to look like in general, Apple is growing its revenues at a consistent rate of something like 50 percent-ish a year in Europe at the moment.

In Australia, Apple’s growth has been a bit more subdued (as I mentioned, 35.9 percent in the 2011 financial year), although we went through a substantial growth spurt higher than 50 percent in the period through 2008 and 2010. So extrapolating from the European experience, what we might expect to see from Apple’s first 2012 quarter in Australia is something a little higher than 35.9 percent, because of the launch of the iPhone 4S locally in that period.

Could Apple Australia see growth rates of somewhere around 40 or 50 percent in the last quarter of calendar 2011, compared with the same quarter 12 months earlier? I’d say a figure somewhere around that would be likely. And the likely release of the iPad 3 this year, plus refreshed Apple Mac hardware and the constantly growing music, apps and eBooks iTunes ecosystem is likely to help keep that growth on track. Apple’s penchant for opening new retail stores in Australia won’t hurt.

What all of this means is something remarkable.

If Apple can achieve a revenue growth rate of between 40 and 50 percent in Australia over its 2012 financial year ending in September, that will mean the company will be pulling in revenues of between $6.8 billion and $7.32 billion from Australia in that year. When you consider that the company made $4.88 billion from Australia in the 12 months to the end of September 2011, that’s remarkable. It’s even more remarkable when you consider that in 2006, Apple’s Australian revenues were roughly a tenth of that — just $717 million a year.

Revenues around $7 billion will mean Apple Australia is closing in on Optus (which last reported operating revenue of $9.28 billion) in terms of sheer financial scale in Australia. The company’s revenues will start to approach 30 percent of those of Telstra, one of the largest companies in Australia of any kind. To put this further into context: Woolworths made $54 billion in revenues in its last financial year. If Apple’s growth trajectory continues for the next three or four years, it will be making something close a quarter of that total in very short order.

Now, I want readers to take all of this with an absolutely huge grain of salt. I’m extrapolating wildly here in almost every direction, and we really do not know enough about Apple to make any solid predictions about what kind of money it will be making from Australia over the next few years.

However, if we have learnt one thing about Apple in the past few years, it is that it has been able to make a metric ass-load more money than anyone expected it to. And if it continues to perform that way in Australia, it will quite shortly become one of this nation’s largest money spinners of any stripe.

TL;DR: Apple could be making almost as much money as Optus from Australia over the next two years.

news Japanese consumer electronics giant Toshiba yesterday launched what it described as “the world’s thinnest and lightest tablet” in Australia, putting the 10.1″ Android device on sale for a recommended retail price of $579.

The tablet, with a model name of AT200, is 7.7mm thin and weights 535 grams. For comparison, the Wi-Fi version of Apple’s iPad 2 tablet weighs in at 601 grams, and is 8.8mm thin.

The AT200 comes with an industry standard 10.1″ touchscreen, cameras on the back and front, and a range of ports including micro HDMI, micro USB 2.0 and microSD. It features a 16GB solid state drive, and its touchscreen is made from CorningR’s Gorilla glass material. It runs version 3.2 (Honeycomb) of Google’s Android platform and will be available in stores from early February. These details weren’t in Toshiba’s media release, but Gizmodo states that the tablet comes with a 1280×800 resolution screen, a dual-core 1.2GHz TI OMAP4 CPU, and 1GB of RAM.

In addition to the AT200, Toshiba also today launched a second tablet in Australia, the AT1S0, which features a smaller 7″ screen but many of the same specifications as the AT200. It comes with a 1280×800 touchscreen, Android 3.2, an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core CPU, HD cameras on the back and front of the tablet and so on. It weighs in at 375 grams and also comes with micro HDMI, mini USB and microSD connections. This tablet can come with 8GB or 16GB of storage space and will retail for $399.

Toshiba last launched an Android tablet in June, the AT100. the device features similar specifications to the AT200, but is a bit thicker. It also went on sale for a recommended retail price of $579, but like many Android tablets over the past few months, it appears it has been discounted — selling at JB Hi-Fi currently for $467. It is believed that many of the Android tablets sold in Australia by manufacturers like Motorola, Samsung, Toshiba and Acer have sold poorly over the past six months and are consequently being discounted to make way for new stock.

So far, the local tablet market remains dominated by Apple’s iPad, which first launched in Australia in mid-2009 and was refreshed with the company’s iPad 2 model this year.

Toshiba also today announced several new laptops to be sold in Australia, the U840 Ultrabook (RRP of $1,499) and the gaming-oriented Qosmio X770 and multi-media-oriented Qosmio F750 (RRSP $1,999).

“We all want to look good on the move, but without compromising on the power or technology at our fingertips,” said Justin White, Product Marketing Manager, Toshiba in a statement. “Our thin, light and sleek tablets and ultrabooks pack a serious performance punch whether you’re settled in at home, hard at work in the office or out and about.”

opinion/analysis
I expect Toshiba’s new tablets to do about as well as its old tablets — that is, not well at all. The company’s stock currently defines ‘standard’ in the Android tablet space, and not that many people are buying Android tablets at all in Australia right now, let alone the most bog standard ones. Toshiba needs to differentiate itself from the pack at least a little if it is to succeed in its tablet play.

Image credit: Toshiba

news Apple has revealed that its Australian division has experienced incredible levels of revenue growth over the past five years, in new financial documents released this week which paint a graphic picture of the effect that the global resurgence of the iconic technology giant’s fortunes have had on its local operation.

Globally, the success of new product lines which Apple has introduced over the past five years (such as the iPhone and iPad) has had an extraordinary impact on its revenues. In three of the most four recent fiscal years, the company has achieved annual revenue growth of more than 50 percent, with the exception of the recession year of 2009 in which its growth dipped to 14.4 percent.

All of this has added up to create the most valuable technology company in the world — with more than $108 billion in revenues for financial year 2011 and a pile of current assets, predominantly in cash, which is estimated to be close to $100 billion. In financial year 2006, the company was making less than a fifth of those revenues globally — $19.3 billion — and it had just $6 billion in cash on hand. Yesterday, the company delivered the first complete picture for some time of what those results have looked like in Australia.

In its annual set of financial results published yesterday with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Apple revealed that it made $4.88 billion in revenues from its Australian division in the year to 24 September 2011. That figure was up $1.29 billion compared with the previous year, in what is believed to be an unprecedented annual revenue jump for a technology company operating in Australia. Apple Australia’s financial results for the 2008 financial year, published by ZDNet.com.au several years ago, show the company was at the time making less than a quarter of that revenue — $1.16 billion. And in 2006, the company was making much less — just $717 million a year.

The figures place Apple Australia in the same league in terms of pure revenue as the local divisions of other major global technology giants such as HP and IBM. However, Apple’s entire revenues come from individual product sales; it does not hold the style of major IT services contracts which IBM and HP do with major government and private sector organisations. Those contracts can often run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Apple’s Australian headcount has grown dramatically along with its financial growth, as the company has hired a throng of new administrative and retail staff to deal with its massive increased product distribution and store footprint locally. In 2006, the company employed some 322 Australian staff. By the end of 2011, it had some 1505. It spent $80 million on local wages and salaries in 2011.

Multinational technology companies operating in Australia typically don’t disclose much profits locally, with most of their costs being allocated locally (despite the fact that they might be generated overseas) and their financial statements don’t typically disclose much tax being paid in Australia. With respect to this trend, Apple is no exception. In its local financial results filed yesterday, the company stated that it made just $190 million in local profits in the past year, with $94 million of that being taken out for local tax. The year previously Apple actually made a net tax gain, off claimed local profits of $9.98 million.

Apple’s success has come about through the rapid uptake of virtually of all its product lines over the past half-decade in Australia — ranging from the iPhone and iPad, to the iPod and even a resurgence in interest in Apple’s Macintosh line of computers. Foad Fadaghi, a research director at local analyst firm Telsyte, said it was “no surprise” to see such strong financial performance from Apple locally.

Fadaghi said the company had seen a five-fold increase in the uptake of Apple’s flagship iPhone handset since 2009. In that year, the analyst firm estimated there were about 700,000 iPhones in use in Australia. “As of 2011, that has increased to about 3.7 million,” Fadaghi said in an interview this morning.

“That’s a massive growth in two years — that’s incredible,” he said, adding the iPhone’s growth meant the Apple handset had “severely cannibalised” other vendors in the marketplace — notably Nokia, whose position in the smartphone arena has been decimated over the past few years. Fadaghi said the iPhone was estimated to own about 42 percent of the smartphone market.

The iPad has done even better in term of market share, according to the analyst, capturing over 80 percent of the local tablet market — which Apple virtually created singlehandedly — with over 1.2 million iPads in Australia. “It’s pretty incredible, considering it was launched in May 2010,” said Fadaghi. He noted the iPad had also been successful over the recent Christmas period.

And the analyst had even tracked a movement towards Apple products in the hyper-competitive laptop and PC markets — where Apple has paradoxically managed to have both “very expensive” desktop hardware often used by professionals as well as lower-end consumer products such as the MacBook Air which have performed strongly in their own segment.

“No doubt you’ve seen a movement towards Apple products, you’ve seen it in the enterprise as well,” Fadaghi said, noting a so-called ‘halo effect’ which had seen Australians buying Apple Macs and MacBooks after becoming enamoured of the company through other products such as the iPod, iPad and iPhone lines. And Apple was even making substantial amounts of money through selling applications, music and other content through its bundled iTunes store.

Overall Fadaghi said Australians seemed to be very partial to Apple products compared to other countries — with a higher rate of local iPhone usage locally compared with the US. Part of this was because of the nation’s first-world, highly-educated status, he said — as a country we tend to gravitate towards more expensive technology products such as the ones produced by Apple.

In 2012, analysts are already predicting more massive revenue growth from Apple, on the back of the company’s successful iPhone 4S launch, as well as expected new products in the iPad and iPhone lines, as well as a predicted expansion into other areas of the consumer electronics market such as integrated televisions. So is there more room for Apple to grow locally as well?

“Absolutely,” said Fadaghi today. “Especially if they start playing in the consumer electronics space via televisions and other devices. Once they’ve got people locked into their ecosystem, they can upsell. For the best part of it, it’s a licence to print money … this is what’s happening with humanity. We’ve become a technology society.”

opinion/analysis
I’ve never seen anything like this level of revenue growth from any other technology company operating in Australia. The only example I have to compare it to would be the massive jump in local revenue experienced by networking giant Ericsson in the 2006 calendar year, when it booked $1.4 billion in revenue — up from $557 million the previous year. However, that jump was only temporary — and was caused by a billion-dollar contract Ericsson signed with Telstra to build its Next G network.

All indications are that with the expected launch of the iPhone 5, iPad 3, new Macs and MacBooks in 2012 and possibly even an Apple television of some kind — plus the ongoing growth in digital product sales through its iTunes store (particularly eBooks, music and apps) — Apple will continue its growth throughout 2012 and beyond.

With this in mind, I’m not even really sure what we’re dealing with here. I’m sure we’ll see Apple Australia booking $6 billion in annual revenue — that figure doesn’t seem much of a stretch, given its current levels of growth and the new products to come. But will we see a $10 billion Apple Australia? Or even larger? At that point, Apple Australia would be approaching half the size of Telstra in pure annual revenues. It would probably be bigger than Optus in terms of pure revenue. Its revenues would likely be as large in Australia as HP and IBM combined.

I’m sure that Apple knows this already … but that’s a ridiculous scale. At that point you can pretty much do whatever you want. Enter whatever market you want. Buy whatever you want. You can set your cash on fire and burn it for years on end without even making an appreciable dent in your money pile. The phrase “Do you like my hat? It’s made of money!” comes to mind.

Apple isn’t just a huge global business. It’s becoming one of Australia’s largest, most valuable and most dominant businesses of any stripe. And now we have the figures to prove it.

Image credit: Apple, graph from Create A Graph

news Google’s Android operating system has replaced Apple’s iOS in terms of importance to developers in the Asia-Pacific region in the last 12 months, according to a new survey by independent technology analysts Ovum. However, both still form the core of developer support and almost all developers support both platforms. The survey also reveals that there is increasing interest from developers in Blackberry OS and Microsoft’s Windows phone.

The Ovum survey was aimed at finding out how changes in the device market had altered developers’ preferences when selecting which platforms and technologies to use when building mobile applications for smartphones. According to Adam Leach, devices & platforms practice leader at Ovum, “A smartphone platform’s success is dictated not only by the pull of consumers and the push of both handset vendors and mobile operators but also a healthy economy of applications delivered by third-party developers. Therefore, it is important for all players in the smartphone ecosystem to understand the choices developers are making today and the downstream impact of those choices.”

From the results, it is apparent that developers have been quick to respond to the exit of once-important smartphone platforms such as Windows Mobile, Symbian and WebOS and have embraced opportunities that have risen through emerging platforms. The trends reflect closely changes in the wider smartphone market.

Throughout last year Android had been chipping away at the iOS operating system’s lead in the smartphone segment in the Australian market. Tracking sales trends over the first quarter of 2011, analyst firm IDC had predicted that by the end of the year, Android based smartphones would overtake Apple iPhones in Australia. It was already apparent that Nokia, with its Symbian platform, which all along had been the market leader, was fast losing out.

By the end of Q3 2011, Samsung, which uses the Android operating system, had already claimed the top spot in the Australian mobile phone market, beating Apple. Android, with 49% of the market share, now stood over Apple whose share of the pie stood at 36%. That Apple slowed down its shipments to prepare for the launch of the iPhone 4S didn’t help its cause either in retaining its No. 1 spot. But that is only one of the reasons it lost out, the other being that the Android operating system can operate on many different smartphones and is quickly becoming the choice of cost-conscious customers.

Leach said: “The growing momentum behind Windows Phone indicates that Microsoft has managed to convince developers that its platform is worthy of investment. However, its main challenge now is to persuade consumers.”

Another interesting finding of the survey is that when it comes to building cross-platform mobile applications, developers are focusing more on web-based standards (HTML5) and moving away from traditional approaches (such as Java, Flash, WAP). However, despite increasing use of cross-platform approaches, most developers still use vendor specific distribution channels such as the Android Market to deploy applications, as this is seen as the best way to reach the largest possible audience for their applications.

One example of an Australian developer who launched on the Android platform first has been a new company, Native Tongue, which makes apps to teach people new languages through fun video games.

“The Android version was launched in early November and the iPhone version was launched last week,” wrote Native Tongue developer Matt Ho on the Silicon Beach Australia startup mailing list yesterday. “We launched an [minimal viable product] first on Android, iterated, released new product features, tested, analysed the stats and learnt a lot from that experience. We then used that feedback to polish up the iPhone version. There’s a lot of benefits for launching first on Android because of the easier approval process and ability to test immediately.”

Image credits: laihiu, Creative Commons

news Apple appears to have broadly limited access to the range of new educational textbooks announced through its iBookstore overnight to students in the US, locking Australians and those in other countries out of accessing most of the new content from publishers such as McGraw-Hill and Pearson. However, although a small amount of titles appear to have begun to filter into the Australian iBookstore this afternoon.

Overnight in the US, the company announced the second version of its iBooks application for iOS devices, stating that the new software would enable the delivery of “an entirely new kind of textbook” that would be “dynamic, engaging and truly interactive”. With the aim of replacing weighty and expensive school textbooks with electronic version typically costing less than US$14.99, the company has partnered with existing educational publishers such as McGraw-Hill and Pearson to offer textbooks in a range of areas, including algebra, biology, chemistry, geometry and physics. The company plans to offer textbooks from publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt “soon”.

However, buried in the company’s information statement regarding the iBooks 2 update is a notice stating that the new textbooks would be “currently available to customers in the United States” — but not elsewhere.

Early searches of the iBookstore this afternoon through the new version of iBooks installed on an iPad in Australia revealed there are virtually no textbooks available for purchase through the store to Australians. A search for “maths textbook”, for example, returned no results, and the same for “biology textbook” and “chemistry textbook”. A direct search for “McGraw-Hill” revealed several educational books in niche areas. For example, one available title (price for free) was Alec Reed’s Capitalism is Dead: Peoplism Rules. Another was The Black Book of Clinical Examination by Tey Hong Liang, for $29.99.

Late this afternoon as this article was published, Apple does appear to have added some textbooks into the Australian iBookstore, adding several featured titles to the front page to make readers aware of them. Two publishers — DK Publishing (part of Penguin, which is ultimately part of Pearson) and Wilson Digital appear to have newly published textbooks in the Australian iBookstore today. Titles include Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Life, My First ABC and Life on Earth. The textbooks appear to be examples of Apple’s new interactive textbook format, as they can range up to a gigabyte in size, containing multimedia features such as video. So far, there appears to be only a half-dozen such textbooks available in the Australian store.

The situation is the latest example of new technology or content being launched in the US by technology giants such as Apple and Google but not being available in Australia.

Apple’s Siri voice recognition system for the iPhone 4S, for example, couldn’t research local businesses, maps or traffic when it launched in October last year; Apple’s iTunes Cloud feature was only available to US residents when it launched in June, and it took Apple a substantial amount of time to add eBooks from major publishers to the Australian version of its iBookstore platform.
The availability of eBooks in Australia continues to lag behind that in the US, with locals being locked out of a number of titles available in the US version of the largest global eBooks platform, Amazon’s Kindle store. Google launched its eBooks platform locally in November, a year after it launched in the US, but also has substantially fewer books available in Australian than in the US.

The news of Apple’s textbook limitations comes despite the news that education departments and universities around Australia have been engaging in major trials of the iPad for more than a year. One of the most high-profile examples saw the University of Adelaide decree in September 2010 that all first-year science students would receive free iPads as an alternative to paper textbooks.

Image credit: 惟①刻¾, Creative Commons