Clarification regarding coverage of today’s Freescale eReader announcement

by Eric Braddom — Several blog postings today appear to have misinterpreted the nature of Freescale’s announcement of the i.MX508 processor for the eReader market.

To clarify: the i.MX508 processor is designed to reduce eReader costs for our customers and their end users. However, Freescale has not/will not speculate as to which customers might incorporate the i.MX508 into future eReader designs; has not/will not speculate as to the end prices of any specific eReader products based on i.MX508; and has not/will not speculate as to when any specific manufacturer might deliver eReaders to market based on our new i.MX508 processor.

Poll results: Apple iPad and Freescale tablet features

by Steve Sperle — Earlier this week I asked readers to provide feedback on Apple and Freescale tablet features.  Readers responded and here are the results:

Screen Size
9.7 inch	80%
7 inch	10%
Make it bigger than 10 inch	7%
Must fit in pocket	3%
Other Features
Must have HTML5	17%
Must be made by Apple	16%
Must play MPEG-4 videos at 720p / 30fps	11%
Must have a camera	10%
Must have built-in SD card slot	10%
Must have built-in USB	9%
Must play YouTube and Hulu videos	9%
Must have multi-tasking	8%
Other (see below)	8%

Must have tens or hundreds of thousands of apps from an appstore 
Must run Linux (Andoid counts) 
Must exist 
Must have intuitive multi-touch 
Display MUST be useable in sunlight 
Must look good, both the screen quality and device casing

Apple iPad vs. Freescale tablet

by Steve Sperle — I just returned from Mobile World Congress where I was frequently asked to compare the system-level features for the Apple iPad and the Freescale Smart Application Blueprint for Rapid Engineering (SABRE) platform for smartbooks that was announced at CES in early January.  Here is a high level overview: 

	Apple iPad	Freescale Tablet
Display	9.7 inch -1024 x 768	7 inch – 1024 x 600
Touchscreen	Capacitive	Resistive
Weight	1.5 pounds	0.83 pounds
Thickness	0.5 inches	0.59 inches
OS	iPhone OS 3.2	Android, Linux
Adobe Flash Support	No	Adobe Flash 10.1
Multitasking	No	Yes
Camera	No	Yes, 3 Mpixel
Accelerometer	Yes	Yes
H.264 video playback	720p @ 30 fps	720p @ 30 fps
MPEG-4 playback	2.5 Mbps, 480p, 30 fps	20 Mbps, 720p, 30 fps
SD	Optional dongle	microSD included
USB port	Optional dongle	1 full, 1 micro USB
USB charging	Yes	Yes
3G modem	Optional	Optional
RF4CE	No	Optional
Dock with keyboard	Optional	Optional

The Apple iPad has a larger, higher resolution display with a capacitive touchscreen.   This display with the associated gesture based user input is certainly key to the WOW factor for the iPad.   On the other hand, features such as Adobe Flash 10.1, multitasking, and camera are absent from the Apple iPad while they are included in the Freescale platform.  The lack of Flash 10.1 means that video content from sites like YouTube and Hulu will not be available.   Apple is promoting HTML5 for video, but content in HTML5 is currently limited.  The Freescale tablet plays MPEG-4 video at up 720p at 20 Mbps while the iPad spec is up to 480p at 2.5 Mbps.  This means that MPEG-4 video could look better on the Freescale tablet.  The list of features is not exhaustive, but most of the other items look comparable at the spec level.

Of course, specs are one thing, but what really matters is how important the features are to the consumer.  Put on your consumer hat and let me know what you think.  Let me know what is important for YOUR tablet by completing the two polls below. 

And the Pundit winner is…

by Glen Burchers — Two weeks ago, we asked every Freescale follower to rate their top pundits in the Smart Mobile Device category. We wanted to know which blogger or writer you turned to when you needed a fix for gadget news.

So, get ready to edit your RSS feeds to add the following editors. If you follow these amazing men and women, you’re sure to be the most up to date geek in your circle of friends.

And congratulations to our top twenty pundits. We know you slave away tirelessly sleuthing the latest news and substantiated rumors so that we can all remain more informed. Without you, we’d be lost wading through the hype. Thanks for all you do for our industry.

Darren Murph, Engadget David Pogue, New York Times Don Dingee, Embedded Computing Eldar Murtazin, Mobile Review Frank Garcia, Ultra Mobile PC Tips Hugo Ortega, Uber Tablet James Kendrick, jkONtheRun Jenn Lee, Pocketables JKKMobile

Kevin Tofel, jkONtheRun Larry Dignan, ZDNet Loring Wirbel, Smartbook Blog Matt Miller, ZDNet’s Mobile Gadgeteer Priya Ganapati, Wired Sascha Pallenberg, NetbookNews Steve “Chippy” Paine Tai-Pan, Shanzai TnkGrl, TnkGrl Mobile Walt Mossberg, All Things D Warner Crocker, GottaBeMobile

Why will eReaders continue to be hot?

by Eric Braddom — Last month James Kendrick wrote that the “dead-tree versions” of books are here to stay.   Personally, I think it is just a matter of time.  Analysts are predicting on the range of 300% to more than 400% growth in unit sales of eReaders from 2009 to 2010.  There is one very important aspect driving this trend, simplicity.  The eReaders are small, can easily be held in one hand, and with 3G can download the morning newspaper in addition to the latest New York Times best seller or the latest in a series of romantic novels.  As long as content portals and services have access to the majority of free books and the latest best sellers, I don’t think interoperability of eBooks between services will slow the industry down, at least not in the near term.  Save the trees.

Accelerometers making smart phones smarter

by Guest Blogger Michelle Kelsey, Freescale Sensor Manager — Accelerometers, the tiny sensors that recognize various motion patterns, were first integrated into a limited number of mobile phones more than 3 years ago. Thanks to consumer appreciation for Apple’s iPhone portrait landscape capability, the availability of Nokia N95’s R&D API to third-party developers and now the Andriod OS with sensor API, motion user interfaces have gone mainstream.

As smart phones have evolved with increasing functionality, a transition has been occurring within the accelerometers as well. More and more embedded functions are being added into the accelerometer, allowing significant benefits to the mobile system.  Freescale released the MMA8450Q 12-bit accelerometer today, which is designed to help system engineers develop smarter smart phones with the following features:

• Orientation detection that allows for custom response depending on the mode, faster response time (i.e. browsing the web verses dialing a phone number) and higher reliability by considering environmental effects (i.e. in a car or walking while dialing)
• Acceleration data buffers to ensure gesture recognition can be achieved with preserving data if it is not able to be processed right away
• Auto-sleep detection that can tell the system processor to go to sleep to significantly save system power
• Auto-wake detection that allows the accelerometer to wake-up the system by a shake, tap, flip or any combination of multiple configurable gestures
• Tap and double tap detection for controlling functions without having to wait for a display to appear and to find the location of the touch screen buttons
• Shake detection to eliminate the need for finding the small side buttons for controlling volume or for sliding through a display or menu
• 12-bit acceleration data for more complex motion gesture detection for control and for more intense mobile games
• Configurable output data rates with significant savings in power (ie. The MMA8450Q can achieve 50Hz ODR with only 27uA current consumption)

I recently transitioned from a mobile phone to a smart phone. You can be sure that I’m interested in seeing the usage of the accelerometer for power savings to reduce the need of daily battery charging.  In addition, I’m looking forward to seeing more motion gesture detection added so that I can easily and quickly control the growing number of smart phone features without having to stare at the display for the right virtual button to push.

It will ultimately be up to the system designer to incorporate sensor interrupts to the processor, the OS designers for extending the existing sensor framework for the increasing embedded sensor functions, and the applications developers for utilizing the embedded functions.

I personally have tried a few basic motion apps, but would like to hear if you have found some that are entertaining or some that could be improved with more motion functionality or some of the new MMA8450Q’s embedded functionality.

Should we call the iPad a smartbook? Does it even matter?

by Glen Burchers — There have now been three clamshell smartbooks announced.  The Sharp Netwalker is shipping in Japan.  The Lenovo Skylight was demonstrated at CES.  Yesterday HP announced their Airlife.  All three run either Linux or Android and all make note of the same great feature set.  Namely, if you want to get online quickly and have all day battery life, the smartbook is for you. 

With the announcement of the iPad, Apple made it official that they have the same use case in mind for the iPad as do Sharp, Lenovo and HP for their smartbooks.

So, are tablets really a different category than smartbooks?  I think they are the same.  Some of the same companies who are coming out with smartbooks today, plan tablet versions of those same products in the near future.  All many of them need to do is remove the keyboard and enable touch.  In fact, it looks like the Airlife needs only to remove the keyboard.

Additionally, tablet products with small thumb keyboards are in the works now which will further blur the physical line between clamshell smartbooks and tablets.

Does it matter what we call them?  Maybe not.  But the sure thing is that we’re getting ready to see clamshells, tablets and thumb-keyboard devices designed for web browsing with all-day battery life.  And I call that good news.

Apple A4 Processor vs. Freescale i.MX515 – Round 1

by Steve Sperle — When Apple announced the iPad, they only revealed this cryptic high level description of the processor = “1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed, high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip.” Hardly the detailed look under the hood that I was hoping to see. We can try to guess at the internals of the chip, but the situation is similar to trying to figure out how a watch works by observing the time that it displays. Lots of room for speculation (and error).

What is known for certain at the Apple iPad level:

• 1GHz Apple A4 custom design
• 1024 x 768 display
• H.264 video up to 720p, 30 fps
• MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 x 480, 30fps

I expect that Apple has tuned the A4 for the target applications of browsing the web and enjoying multimedia content. I must confess that much of my interest in the Apple A4 is to see how the Freescale i.MX515 stacks up. Here are the comparable specs from the i.MX515:

• 800 MHz ARM Cortex A8 processor
• 1280 x 1024 display (24 bit color) with support for a secondary display (18 bit color)
• Multi-format video decoder (H.264, H.263, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VC-1, DivX, and RV10) at up to 20 Mbps, 720p, 30fps

So far the comparison shows that the Freescale i.MX515 can easily enable iPad class products. The i.MX515 also has the headroom to support a higher resolution display and higher resolution video playback than the Apple iPad. In particular, the MPEG-4 playback for the i.MX515 has dramatically higher resolution and higher bandwidth. The iPad MPEG-4 video bitrate is only up to 2.5 Mbps while the i.MX515 can support up to 20 Mbps. The iPad MPEG-4 resolution playback is up to 480 while the i.MX515 can support at up to full 720p. Since the YouTube preferred video formats include H.264 and MPEG-4, it is interesting that the Apple iPAD has 720p support for H.264, but not for MPEG-4. The i.MX515 supports full 720p for H.264, MPEG-4 and others.

There is a lot more to be revealed (like specifics of CPU and GPU cores, internal memory and external memory support, number and types of peripherals, packaging, etc.). If history is a guide, we will have to wait until iPad teardowns are available to see the real details. The wait for the next reveal continues.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the most expert gadget pundit of all?

by Glen Burchers — With the launch of the iPad smartbook tablet (noticed how I worked smartbook into that description), the pundits are coming out of the ether. And since it’s the season of the Academy Awards, Freescale thought it only fitting for us to establish the first annual (and perhaps only ever) Smart Mobile Device Pundit Award – the umbrella that includes all things smartbooks, smartphones, eReaders, tablets, etc. So push your black horn-rimmed glasses up toward the bridge of your nose and click over to our smartmobiledevicepundits nomination page to vote for your favorite smart mobile device blogger, writer, prognosticator or even frequent commenter. Heck, you can even nominate yourself and tweet to all your followers to vote for you. Let’s thank those most deserving tech geeks who tirelessly scour the internet to bring us the latest video feed of those gadgets we love to read about.

Who will it gain the most votes? Will it be one of those already nominated? Or will it be someone entirely new?

We’ve started the list with these clearly deserving individuals. But feel free to nominate your own if your fav is not listed.

• CNET, Dan Ackerman
• ZDNet, Larry Dignan Kindle vs. iPad: It’s Not Zero Sum
• TechCrunch, Matt Burns
• Engadget, Darren Murph
• jkONtheRun, Kevin C. Tofel Which will Find Success: MIDs, Media Tablets or Smartbooks
• All Things D, Walt Mossberg Mossberg Discusses the iPad on “The Charlie Rose Show”
• ArsTechnica, Jon Stokes
• New York Times, David Pogue
• Wired, Priya Ganapati
• PocketLint, Stuart Miles

We’ll compile the community feedback and announce the list on February 19.

eReader vs. Tablet a.k.a. Kindle vs. iPad

by Eric Braddom — Market analysts often ask me to compare the iPad with an eReader.  Having been working closely with customers, both ODMs and brands, in the eReader market (yes, it is true, Freescale had 92% share of unit shipments in 2009), analysts often ask me this question.

There are many factors to consider.  The total cost of the iPad is much higher than a typical eReader, especially if you subscribe to the 3G service comes with a monthly fee. The Kindle eReader offers free 3G service for downloading electronic books. eReaders like the Kindle are easier to hold in one hand and some may argue that the bi-stable screen is more like paper and easier on the eyes. So for users that are avid readers, I think the eReaders still have have significant market potential.  And perhaps the widespread availability of electronics books on many devices and platforms will benefit the growth of electronic publishing and distribution overall. However, for consumers that are more interested in social networking and on-line entertainment, the iPad with its color LCD screen and online access is a better choice.

In summary, while there may be some overlap in target customers, for now, there is room for both platforms to achieve substantial growth.