Plastic iPad 2 “Smart Cover” cases are classifiable in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule as articles of plastic dutiable at 5.4 percent, not as duty-free accessories for automatic data processing machines, said the Court of International Trade in a decision made public Tuesday. Apple argued for the case’s duty-free classification as an accessory because it also functions as a stand. But the court agreed with a Customs and Border Protection ruling that the cases are explicitly excluded from that classification. Apple didn’t comment.

Apple began taking orders Monday for the next generation of iPads, highlighting the “breakthrough price” of its $499 iPad Air and iPad mini starting at $399. Cellular connectivity adds $130 to the price of each. The 10.5-inch and 7.9-inch models feature Apple Pencil ($99) support and the company’s A12 Bionic chip with Apple’s Neural Engine. The company claims a 70 percent performance boost with twice the graphics capability in the iPad Air and three times the performance and nine times faster graphics than the previous-generation iPad mini. Both tablets include Apple’s developer app, Swift Playgrounds. Front and back cameras take 1080p videos. The devices will be in stores next week, and Apple’s video strategy launch event is planned for Monday.

The Coalition of E-Reader Manufacturers got the extra 30 days it sought to prepare a study on technological development, marketing and consumer use trends in the basic e-reader market (see 1902040030). The report is now due March 5, the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau ordered Thursday.

IDC and Strategy Analytics had significantly different takes Thursday on the struggling Q2 global tablets market, with IDC reporting that unit shipments declined 13.5 percent to 33 million and SA estimating the decrease at 6 percent to 40.9 million. Both were consistent in calling Apple and Huawei the only companies in the top five to record year-over-year shipment increases in the quarter. Slate tablets had the majority of the market with 28.4 million units, down 14.5 percent from the previous year, said IDC. Detachable tablets also declined in Q2, “largely due to the high-profile product launches” in the same year-earlier quarter “and the absence of timely updates to those products” this year, it said. Android tablet vendors “are losing share and revenue due to falling prices and little innovation” to spur sales of new models, said SA. Android slates “took a beating” in Q2, it said. Android unit shipments overall fell 10 percent to 23.6 million units. Android tablets’ market share collectively declined by 2 percentage points year-on-year as white-box vendors “slowly consolidate and exit the market while many branded Android vendors have found it very difficult to compete on price,” said SA.

At our deadline, Amazon still hadn’t officially committed to a date for its annual Prime Day, traditionally held in July, but it’s readying new Amazon-branded products, typically the highest-selling products during the summer promotional event available only to Prime subscribers. Amazon began taking preorders Thursday for a new Fire HD 10 Kids Edition ($199) with a Full HD screen, 32 GB storage and 10-hour battery life, it said. The kids tablet offers tools for parents, including a dashboard, discussion cards and controls that allow them to manage time limits by activity, set educational goals, adjust age filters and set a bedtime for shutdown. It also includes one year of access to Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, which offers thousands of books, videos, educational apps, and games curated for age-appropriateness, plus access to websites and YouTube videos with parental control. Amazon also announced a software update for current Fire HD 8 and HD 10 tablets, called Show Mode, which provides full-screen visuals to complement voice responses from Alexa. A hardware complement to Show Mode is a charging dock for each tablet ($35, down from $39, for the Fire HD 8, and $49, down from $54, for the Fire HD 10) that acts as a viewing stand and charger. With Show Mode, users can ask Alexa to show them their calendar, video flash briefings, weather, movie trailers and camera feeds, said Amazon. The charging dock automatically switches the tablet into Show Mode, it said. A pre-Prime Day bundle offers the Show Mode Charging Dock with a Fire HD 8 tablet for $109, $10 savings; the HD 10 bundle is $189, for $15 savings. Show Mode rolls out July 2, and docks start shipping July 11, the date of last year’s Prime Day, it said. Leaked reports last week (see [Ref:1806220051]) pinned July 17 as Prime Day, with specials beginning the previous day. An Amazon spokeswoman confirmed in an email that Prime Day will return this year but didn’t confirm the July 17 date or provide other details. Amazon said in April it was raising the annual Prime membership fee 20 percent to $119 (see 1804270070).

Suppliers shipped 29 million tablets globally in Q1, a 7 percent decline from the year-ago quarter, Strategy Analytics reported Thursday. Huawei and Amazon had the biggest growth in the quarter, each shipping 15 percent more tablets, it said. Market leader Apple shipped 2 percent more iPads, while No. 2 supplier Samsung saw its unit shipments decline 12 percent, it said. “Apple and Amazon have made a focused effort on achieving greater tablet shipments at lower hardware prices in order to support their lucrative services revenue,” said the report. “Huawei has found success in the connected tablet market where other mobile-first companies still struggle to achieve such high rates of cellular attach rates.”

Apple and Microsoft carried the worldwide detachable tablet market to growth in Q4 but the category's continued success depends on other PC makers’ participation and a willingness of international customers to embrace the form factor over convertible PCs, said a Monday IDC report. Worldwide, the detachable tablet market climbed 10 percent over the year-ago quarter but showed signs of slowing, with detachables advancing just 1.6 percent from 2016, IDC said. In Q4, Amazon unseated Samsung for second place in the combined detachables/slate market behind Apple, on holiday quarter discounting, selling 7.7 million Kindle Fires, a 50 percent hike from the year-ago quarter, it said. But end-user demand for slate tablets “has slowed significantly,” with 43.1 million tablets shipping in the quarter and 141.7 million for the year, said analyst Lauren Guenveur. Looking ahead, ARM-based Windows detachables due in Q2 could spur continued growth at the high end of the market, she said, but “what remains glaringly sparse, and needed, are strong players in the mid-segment.”

Four of the top tablet vendors posted growth for Q3, but the category declined 5.4 percent year over year, dropping for the 12th consecutive quarter, said a preliminary IDC report Friday. Samsung was the outlier, with an 8 percent shipment drop to 6 million units as its market share slipped to 15 percent from 15.4 percent, IDC said. Apple continued to lead the segment with 25.8 percent share on shipments rising 11 percent to 10.3 million, it said. Amazon had strong growth at 39 percent, holding 11 percent share on 4.4 million shipments. Huawei and Lenovo rounded out the pack with 3 million shipments each and roughly 7.5 percent share, but Huawei had 19 percent growth compared to Lenovo’s 9 percent. Many low-cost slate tablets are “simply long-awaited replacements,” and first-time tablet buyers are becoming “harder to find,” said analyst Jitesh Ubrani. Meanwhile, growth in the detachable tablet market has been “slower than expected” as Apple and Microsoft make up most of the market, while other PC vendors favor the convertible PC form factor, IDC said. A recent IDC survey showed convertible and detachable tablet owners were “far more inclined” to recommend a convertible than a detachable," said analyst Linn Huang. The holiday season will be critical for the detachables category as momentum "has steadily swung toward detachables,” Huang said. Samsung offers one of the broadest ranges of detachable tablets in multiple screen sizes and operating systems but they're less than 10 percent of its Q3 shipments, said IDC. “These high-priced, halo devices have led to Samsung's premium image,” IDC said, but the company still relies heavily on lower cost Tab A and E devices. That could create “long-term issues as rival tablet vendors often offer products at a better value,” it said.

Huawei began selling its MediaPad T3 and MediaPad M3 Lite tablets in the U.S. through Amazon and Newegg, it said in a Tuesday announcement. The T3, in 8-inch ($139) and 10-inch ($159) versions, have Qualcomm quad-core processors, 16 GB ROM and 2 GB RAM, said the company. The M3 ($199, $249) versions step up in processing power and include Harman Kardon audio, it said.

AT&T announced Monday the Primetime 10-inch tablet will be available Friday in stores or online for $30 with a two-year contract. Under an AT&T installment plan, the tablet is $10 a month for 20 months, the carrier said. The tablet’s TV mode provides access to video apps, including DirecTV (with a subscription), by a tap or swipe, it said. AT&T Unlimited Plus and Unlimited Choice customers can add the tablet to their unlimited wireless plan for an additional $20 per month. After 22 GB of data usage, AT&T said it “may slow speeds.” Maximum data speed under AT&T Unlimited Choice is 3 Mbps, and video streaming maxes out at 1.5 Mbps at 480p quality, the company said. Features include dual Bluetooth streaming, Dolby Audio.