Thanks to the iPad, Apple (AAPL) is climbing the charts of mobile computer makers. Also in today’s App Industry Roundup: An app for Lollapalooza includes Slacker Radio channel while a Foursquare tool can check in for you.
Apple’s share of portables PCs grows
Depending on how you do the math, and what you consider a portable computer, Apple is quickly surpassing top Windows-based laptop makers in selling mobile computers. Is the iPad, a tablet-based computer, a portable? Of course.
Hence, according to Chris Whitmore, a Deutsche Bank analyst, Apple is now the No. 3 portable computer maker, following only Hewlett-Packard and Acer, reports Fortune Magazine’s Apple 2.0 blog.
“When including the iPad as part of the NB [notebook] market, Apple leapt over Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba and Dell in terms of global unit share” in June, Whitmore wrote in a note to clients. That means Apple moved from No. 7 in portables into the third slot. Interestingly, the iPad impact appears to also be boosting Apple’s laptop sales, a staple of the nation’s coffee shops, but not yet in homes and businesses.
“Our retail checks suggest this share shift continues in July,” Whitmore writes, “where the iPad is directly cannibalizing demand for other vendors’ NB products. Remarkably, Apple’s traditional MacBook business posted accelerated unit growth on a Y/Y basis in 2Q despite the launch of the iPad while every other Top 5 vendor slowed.”
Yesterday in this column, we touched on another report (second item) that showed how the iPad is impacting broader PC sales. While it’s too soon to make sweeping declarations that the iPad will change computing — we haven’t seen other tablets and the bloom is still on the iPad’s rose — it certainly is making a statement.
Lolla app offered
That doesn’t mean you would take an iPad to an outdoor concert where the hand-held iPhone should be just fine.
One of the summer’s biggest concerts, Lollapalooza, kicks off Friday in Chicago and as you’d expect, there’s an app for the show. Better, if you can’t make it to Chicago, you can use the official Lolla app to check out the bands that are playing. The app includes a map of the venue’s stages, an integrated Facebook app to post pictures and a schedule of where and when bands are playing along with detailed bios. (Some bands that may interest you: Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire, Green Day, Spoon, MGMT and Phoenix.)
There’s also an integrated Lollapalooza channel from Slacker Radio built into the free app to play a non-stop stream of music from the bands at the show. If you don’t want to add the Lolla app to your iPhone but are interested in the bands, you can just add the Slacker Radio app– a long-time favorite of this writer — which now includes a special channel for Lolla.
Foursquare: Don’t do anything!
Are you suffering from check-in fatigue? Well, if you’re a big Foursquare user, you just may be.
Foursquare fatigue is “a growing problem,” writes MC Siegler for TechCrunch. “A number of heavy users of Foursquare that I know (myself included) have been complaining in recent months that it’s getting a bit tedious to have to pull out your phone each time to check-in to a venue.”
Well, a 99-cent app called Future Checkin has solved this vexing FourSquare problem: It links to your Foursquare account and makes the check-in process automated — you don’t even need to touch your iPhone! Just make sure your iPhone (with the iOS 4 software upgrade) is running programs in the background. Then set the app to note your favorite places. When you arrive, the phone will jot this momentous occasion.
Yippee!
