As the tech world still buzzing from the news that its biggest celebrity Steve Jobs is giving up his captain’s chair at the good ship Apple, tech show IFA kicked off in Germany with a number of moderately interesting launches.
If you missed our analysis of what’s next for Apple and how the news will effect its divisive relationship with the rest of the tech world, check out our analysis Apple: A kingdom without its king.
Now, onto the IFA launches.
As you would expect, a large number of tablets and 3D devices were unveiled at the German tech show. Along with smartphones, most of the buzz in the consumer tech industry has tended to relate to one of these categories.
We’ve picked out a few key launches for you here:
Toshiba's glasses-less 3D laptop
Panasonic launches cheaper pro 3D camera
Samsung slims down with Galaxy Tab 7.7 and Galaxy Note
Toshiba AT100 10.1-inch Android 3.1 tablet
Sony bounces back with product onslaught
This year there were also a number of ultrabooks being unveiled. The term, largely pushed by Intel, seems to have materialised into basically high-end, thin laptops. Think of the MacBook Air.
Whether the laptop market needs another sub-category is up for debate – things getting more powerful and smaller is presumably a fairly constant and essential dynamic of the consumer electronic economic model.
Regardless, we can expect to see more of these over the next 12 months.
Aside from IFA, the week also saw the UK industry respond to HP’s shock retreat. You can read our report here.
Apple has managed to loose another iPhone prototype in a San Francisco pub, echoing a similar case last year. Considering unreleased Apple products are reportedly kept under the sort of tight security measures usually reserved for high-yield nuclear warheads, cynical observers might start thinking this is all part of Apple’s complex web of PR. However the fact the journalist who found the device had his door kicked in during a police raid last time round might play against such a thesis.
Elsewhere in Apple news, the firm is currently putting legal pressure on the appleexpo trade show, set to hit London next May. The firm, which isn't involved in the Apple product and accessory focussed show, is taking exception to the name of the show.
Following HP’s decision to get out of the tablet race, demand has ironically risen exponentially for its TouchPad devices. The demand is no doubt driven by the extreme price slashing– they are selling for around £100 – however the situation might have revealed the price point required to get vast numbers of consumers interested in anything other than the iPad.
The point doesn’t seem to be lost of Amazon, which is reportedly working on a device ‘hundreds cheaper’ than the iPad.
And finally, Microsoft has revealed some changes in the pipeline for the next version of Explorer in Windows 8. The software giant acknowledged that many Windows users had long ago "given up" on Explorer and were using an alternative file management add-on.
And that was the week in tech. Have a good weekend, and enjoy the sun.
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