A research group has captured data from what it believes are prelaunch tablets being tested on Apple’s Cupertino campus.
Using it’s proprietary Flurry Analytics tool, the Flurry blog has reported what it has discovered about current usage of the unannounced Apple tablet. Flurry Analytics tracks the usage of mobile devices and offers that information to device manufacturers and software developers. Flurry claims that they’ve geographically pinpointed about 50 devices in use on Apple’s campus in Cupertino which may match the specs of Apple’s anticipated tablet. Tracking the applications running on those devices shows that the wide majority were games.
“The company identified approximately 50 devices that match the characteristics of Apple’s rumored tablet device,” Flurry reported. “Testing of this device increased dramatically in January, with observed signs of life as early as October of last year. Apple appears to be going through its cycle of testing and polish, which is expected from any hardware or software company as it nears launch.”
Looking at which applications these supposed tablets are downloading and launching tells us that Apple is strongly betting on gaming.
“Historically, tablet devices have been considered substitutes for anything where workers use clipboards, note pads or day runners. In more industrial settings, they could be used for inventory management, taking purchase orders or data entry,” Flurry said. “However, there was a surprising dearth of applications that support these use cases. Instead, the largest category was games. With a larger screen, more memory, multi-touch and multi-tasking expected, games will play better than ever on Apple handheld devices.”
Apple is expected to announce their tablet device on January 27. I, however, will most likely be playing Mass Effect 2.
Source: Flurry
Published: Jan 25, 2010 08:04 pm