Facebook Application Development

Popular wisdom has it that tablets are great for consuming content but aren’t that useful for creating it. Don’t tell that to Josh Leong, though. His Y Combinator-backed startup, Grid, is based around the idea that a tablet should be a great place for spreadsheets. Indeed, as Leong told me earlier this week, his idea is to reinvent the spreadsheet around touch, all the tools available in mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad, and the ways normal people (as opposed to Excel power users) actually use them.

Grid is launching in beta for iPhone and iPad today and you can sign up for an invite here. There are still some features missing in this beta, but you can already use Grid’s collaboration tools and get a feel for its ingenious “Maestro” user interface.

After Amazon launched its $199 Kindle Fire tablet last autumn, a lot of observers thought it could prove to be the competition to Apple’s iPad that other Android tablets had so far failed to deliver. Some numbers out from IDC today, however, show that as Amazon continues to sell the device in the U.S. alone, that has failed to become the case, as Apple continues to increase its worldwide market share against competitors.

Quarterly tablet shipments worldwide (defined by IDC as devices sent through to distribution channels  like operators, retailers or end users) totaled 25 million, with Apple, on the back of the new iPad launch in March, blowing everyone out of the water with record-breaking shipments of 17 million+ iPad tablets, working out to a 68% market share (up by nearly 7 percentage points on last year). Ironically, as competition continues to increase, IDC thinks that might only strengthen Apple’s position, with “baffled” consumers faced with “too many options” opting instead for the market leader.

Remember that one time MG compared the iPhone 4S to a Mercedes and the Galaxy Nexus to a Honda and the Internet exploded? Well, it would seem that the division of classes (with regards to gadgetry) wasn’t too far off.

According to a report by Spectrem Group (which specializes in retirement and especially affluent markets), people with more money prefer iThings. For example, among users with a net worth exceeding $100K, the iPhone and iPad have the greatest market share, at 46 percent and 53 percent respectively. Android comes in second within this group, with a 34 percent share in phones and a 16 percent share going to the Kindle Fire.

And the wealthier they get, the more they heart Apple.

The new iPad launches in China this Friday, July 20th. Big crowds are expected. But Apple is using a reservation lottery service to allow buyers to essentially reserve their place in line now. Interested buyers simply need to go to this page, select a version of the iPad and provide their government ID. After that, a lottery-like system will notify the lucky few.

But this isn’t just about reducing the size of the crowds and improving customer satisfaction. Apple is using this system to fight scalpers and scammers.

Trolls, feel free to skip to the bottom of this column and post your comments immediately without reading a word. Actually, who are we kidding — you didn’t make it this far.

Everyone else, brace yourselves. You may want small children to leave the room. I’m about to do something I don’t do often — something I always said I’d do if the product deserved it. Something some people seem to think I’m incapable of: praise a Google product — an Android-based Google product, no less.

Is that enough build up for you? Okay.