Apple remains tablet king, but Samsung climbs

The tablet market has grown by more than 140 percent over the course of a year, with Apple continuing to reign as the No. 1 provider of tablets, according to a report published Wednesday by IDC.That means Apple shipped 19.5 million of the 49.2 million tablets shipped worldwide during this past three-month quarter. Samsung, in comparison, shipped 8.8 million tablets, but it's a figure that's grown more than 280 percent since last year. Asus shipped 2.7 million tablets, thanks to the Nexus 7, and Kindle maker Amazon shipped 1.8 million tablets. Microsoft landed among the top five tablet vendors for the first time with its Surface PT and Surface Pro tablets. It shipped a total of 900,000 tablets.IDC analysts attribute the growth of the tablet market overall to consumers' fondness for smaller screens."Sustained demand for the iPad Mini and increasingly strong commercial shipments led to a better-than-expected first quarter for Apple," Tom Mainelli, research director for tablets at IDC, said in a statement. "In addition, by moving the iPad launch to the fourth quarter of 2012, Apple seems to have avoided the typical first-quarter slowdown that traditionally occurred when consumers held off buying in January and February in anticipation of a new product launch in March."iCharts

Apple releases raw support for Nikon D5200, Sony RX1

With the release of its raw compatibility update 4.04, Apple software now can handle raw-format photos from two hot new cameras, the Nikon D5200 SLR and the high-end compact Sony RX1.The D5200 is a relatively inexpensive SLR whose 24-megapixel sensor looks to have promisingly high performance -- the top rating for an APS-C-sized sensor, according to DxO Labs' DxOMark test results. The $2,800 RX1 has an even larger full-frame sensor, also with a 24-megapixel resolution, but its design uses a fixed 35mm lens.Also supported in the Apple update is support for raw photos from Pentax's K-5 II and K-5 IIs, which also get high marks from the DxO sensor test.Apple has been turning the crank faster to keep up with the constant stream of new cameras, with eight raw support updates in the last year. Each update means that software such as iPhoto and Aperture that rely on OS X's raw-image support can handle newer cameras' formats. Raw photos, available on higher-end cameras, offer higher image quality and more flexibility than JPEGs, but they also require some manual processing that makes them less convenient than JPEGs. Also supported in the update are Leica's D-Lux 6, V-Lux 4, and X2, and Pentax's Q and K-30.