With the popularity of the iPad, operators in a few different countries have been experimenting with subsidized tablets as a way of hooking users in. Last year Japanese operator Softbank started offering the Apple tablet for free with a contract, while in Britain many operators sell 3G iPads below the normal retail price in exchange for long-term contracts.

In France, subsidies are being targeted on a very specific market: students.

With a publicity push from the country’s Ministry for Higher Education, college kids from Paris to Perpignan are being offered a slew of deals to tempt them onto tablets. First market leader Orange started offering iPads and Samsung Galaxy Tabs for just €1 ($1.30) as part of an education package; now Bouygues Telecom, France’s third-largest mobile operator with around 10 million subscribers, is running its own version of the deal.

The Bouygues offer, which is being launched in partnership with the French government’s ministry for higher education, isn’t for those mainstream tablets yet — but instead focuses on the Archos 80 G9, an 8-inch tablet running Android’s Honeycomb OS.

The device itself is only so-so: one CNet reviewer said that while it’s not bad, users should “consider very carefully whether the relatively low price is worth the design and performance problems”. But it is now officially dirt cheap: for €19.90 each month (that’s about $27) students can buy the Archos –which usually costs $299 — for a single euro, and get 1GB of 3G data and unlimited access to the company’s network of Wi-Fi hotspots.

With similar iPad deals on offer, it seems unlikely that deals like this will help competitors like Samsung and Archos wrestle some market share away from Apple, but it may help increase the overall market for tablets, which still has plenty of room to grow. And that is particularly important for Android devices, because while it can claim 30 percent market share on paper, the reality is likely to be far lower, as Kevin pointed out this summer.

This is not to say that subsidies are a slam-dunk, however. When Orange UK started offering cut-price iPads with a 24 month contract at the end of last year, it expected massive take up: in fact, it reportedly sold less than 1,000 contracts in the first week.

But targeting the student market is smart. It’s a big group of potential buyers: in France, around 1.4 million people are enrolled in universities out of a total population of 62 million. And cash-conscious college goers are happy to amortize the costs of a device over the lifetime of a contract, rather than pay up front. And they are voracious consumers of technology: you only have to look at the prevalence of Apple products in universities to see how brand matters to them — plus, if you get them hooked and they may stick around.

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Mobile Q2: Smartphone growth surges; iPad’s rule continuesThe rise of tablets in the enterpriseMobile Q1: All Eyes on Tablets, T-Mobile and AT&T

A handful of code in iTunes 10.5 beta 9 suggests that Apple may soon start allowing customers to rent apps from the App store, according to The Tech Erra. If a rental system were put into place, it could cut down on money spent on apps that customers never use, which could reduce resentment customers feel toward developers when an app doesn’t work the way they thought it would.

A few strings in the iTunes beta code appear to be pop-up messages to notify customers about the state of rented apps: "Apps are automatically removed from your iTunes library at the end of the rental period" and "This app will be deleted from your computer" are a couple of the included statements.

A rental system through the App Store would be similar to the try-before-you-buy program that Amazon currently offers in its own Android Appstore. None of the language uncovered in the iTunes beta indicates whether rentals would carry a price or be free for their limited run.

The text does suggest that Apple will favor the consumer in rental transactions, in that customers won’t default into an app purchase at the end of a rental period; instead, the app will be removed from their devices. When so many negative reviews focus on an app not doing what a buyer expected it to (through either misdirection or misunderstanding), rentals could create a more positive app shopping experience.

But even with fewer negative reviews, developers could still lose out. Most iPhone users never use an app after the first download, according to a (now aging) study, so customers could dip in and out of apps they only need once without any monetary consequences.

The report is unconfirmed by Apple, as the company did not respond to Ars' requests for comment. If Apple plans to launch a rental program, we’ll likely hear about it at the iPhone event scheduled this week. Ars will be reporting live from the event Tuesday at 10AM PDT.




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The Kindle Fire appears to have catalyzed yet another tablet sale: the HTC Flyer will drop to $299 at Best Buy starting October 1, with no end to the sale in sight. This is the second big-name tablet that appears to be re-centering itself around the Kindle Fire's $199 price point.

Over the last couple of weeks, the BlackBerry PlayBook’s price slid down to a starting price of $299, $200 less than it initially retailed for at launch. The HTC Flyer, which is a 7-inch tablet like the PlayBook, will be getting the same discount. Meanwhile, the 10-inch 4G-capable HTC Jetstream is holding strong at $699.99 for a 32GB model.

Neither the PlayBook nor the HTC Flyer found much popularity while occupying the same price point as the iPad. The HTC Flyer has a 1.5GHz single-core processor and it’s still running a version of Android that isn’t designed for tablets (2.3 Gingerbread), though it is overlaid with HTC ’s Sense UX. The Flyer’s internal 16GB of storage can’t be expanded, but it does have a respectable set of cameras (1.3-megapixel on the front and 5-megapixel on the back) and comes with a stylus.

Best Buy is calling $299.99 the “permanent lower price” of the HTC Flyer, and it will apply both in-store and online. We’re a little thrilled that a company has finally set off a tablet pricing war, but these discounts may still not be enough to get back all the limelight the Kindle Fire has stolen.




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Are you ready to unleash the power of the Pyramid?

Our good pals at micro-cap regional paper and office supply company Dunder Mifflin have just taken the wraps off their latest offering, the Sabre Pyramid, a tablet to end all tablets.

Weighing in at a husky three pounds, this triangular titan comes with chic accessories, including a battery pack and memory booster (which should help to supplement the device’s “50L” of onboard memory).

While some may scoff at the tablet’s potentially painful form factor and ludicrous specs that wouldn’t satisfy an infant, we’re sure it will perform about as well as any of the other non-iPad tablets on the market right now. Barring that, it will surely make for an effective and conversation-sparking doorstop.

Filed under: offBeat

Amazon’s Kindle Fire won’t ship until Nov. 15, but already it’s the retailer’s top-selling gadget. Buoyed by a surge of preorders, the $199 upstart tablet is No. 1 on Amazon’s list of the 100 most popular electronics items. Numbers two through 10? All Kindles in different configurations.

Netbooks were an established consumer-electronics market with devices that people thought were pretty cool, but often frustrating and with serious shortcomings and design flaws.

Then this happened:

Marco Arment predicts the form of future tablets using the smartphone analogy. Imitation is indeed the highest form of flattery. It is a win-win for consumers and imitation is fine but you would wish other companies would get their innovation groove on at least sometimes. Ironically, the "We were there first" argument is used most by Apple haters in touting multitasking features in smartphones.

"Size matters, which is why a swimming pool is not just a big bathtub."

If the iPhone is any indication, this thing is going to be great for kids. Ollie likes playing games and looking at videos on the iPhone but the larger screen size of the iPad allows for more collaborative play...one kid + one adult or two kids using it together. The iPhone is for solitary use; the iPad can be collaborative (or at least collective).

In the end, Apple has done something with the iPad that I didn't think they were capable of: made it worth my while to look around, or possibly even wait, for a better, more open alternative. I'm ready to buy an ARM-based, thin-client tablet computer—I'm just not ready to buy this one.

All of the above being said, I'll buy an iPad anyway because it's my job to be up on this kind of thing. It'll probably also be the first time that I "jailbreak" a device.

Today's announcement by Apple Inc. of the iPad tablet has education watchers predicting a wave of student purchases, major textbook publishers rejoicing, and at least one college saying it will consider giving them to all incoming students.

How the iPad was actually designed. In one night.

Apple today unveiled its iPad, after years of rumors that the company was building a tablet-like device. Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the device today during a special media-only event, saying it is "way better than a laptop, way better than a phone. It's the best web experience you've ever had."

People who have seen the tablet say Apple will market it not just as a way to read news, books and other material, but also a way for companies to charge for all that content. By marrying its famously slick software and slender designs with the iTunes payment system, Apple could help create a way for media companies to alter the economics and consumer attitudes of the digital era.

Some people want the Apple Tablet to run Mac OS X's user interface. Others think its UI will be something exotic. Both camps are wrong: The iPhone started a UI revolution, and the tablet is just step two. Here's why.

In no particular order, here are three key features The Tablet must have to make it onto my “must buy” list.

It’s been rumored that the event would be for the introduction of Apple’s new tablet. The event is taking place on January 27 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

I see two possible outcomes: either Apple has come up with a radical new input method for this form-factor that will overcome the fundamental problems that made every other similar device suck, or the Tablet isn’t this form-factor.

The Apple tablet will have a color, video-capable touchscreen, about 10 inches diagonal. It will have flash storage, WiFi networking, and few ports and hardware buttons. There will be a software keyboard. Its operating system will be based on the same core as Mac OS X and iPhone OS, and its GUI API will be an evolution of Cocoa Touch.