A new survey by Google AdMob has found that tablet owners primarily use their touchscreen devices for playing games, the Guardian reports. Other popular uses include emailing, social networking and consuming media like videos, music and e-books.
Out of the 1,430 tablet owners interviewed, 84 percent used the device for playing games. “Searching for information” came in as the second most-popular activity at 78 percent, followed by emailing (74 percent), reading the news (61 percent) and using social networks (56 percent). Only 51 percent use their tablets for watching videos or reading music, the study found. And Reading e-books was only popular among 46 percent of those interviewed.
The study (PDF) also shows that tablets, while not yet more popular than PCs, are certainly making headway against their bulky competition with 28 percent identifying their tablet as their primary computer, and 43 percent admitting that they spend more time using their tablet than their PC.
Despite obvious benefit of being able to easily take a tablet anywhere, most people (82 percent) say they mostly use their device at home. A mere 11 percent said they use their tablet as a mobile device. A total of 68 percent of owners use their tablet at least one hour per day, with 34 percent admitting that they use the device for two or more hours daily.
While some of the information wasn’t much of a surprise (59 percent use their tablets more than they read books), the study did find that 1 in 3 tablet owners use their tablet more than they watch TV. (Which would probably explain why Time Warner and Cable vision are so anxious to offer their programming on the iPad.)
Google never explicitly mentions what type of tablet those they interviewed own, but considering that the study was conducted last month, it’s safe to assume that a large percentage of those polled owned an Apple iPad.
Affinity’s new all-in-one creative app is finally coming to the iPad, nearly a year after Canva launched the redesigned desktop version for Mac and Windows. Creatives have been asking for the iPad release ever since, especially because files created in the new Affinity app cannot be opened in the older V2 iPad apps.
Affinity already has Photo, Designer, and Publisher apps on iPad, but the new release combines those tools into the same unified app that Canva launched on desktop last year.
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).
Apple has just launched its latest iPad mini with a notable set of upgrades, including an OLED screen, improved speakers, and a more resilient build. It also gets a new chip, and the whole package costs $200 more than its predecessor. But if you look closely at Apple’s online store, you’ll realize that $699 isn’t enough to get you the most powerful version of the A20 Pro chip inside this tablet. In fact, even if you pay $800 for the 256GB model, you still won’t get the beefiest variant. Only when you jump to the 512GB trim, which costs an absurd $999, do you get the most powerful flavor of the A20 Pro.
The $999 model gets more than extra storage