HP CEO Meg Whitman recently said that Apple is poised to be the dominant PC maker in 2012. In an interview with French publication Le Figaro, Whitman admitted that Apple will likely take the lead in the marketnext year.

Whitman says that HP “will try to be champion again in 2013,” and it seems clear that the company’s new CEO is painfully aware of the mess that HP has found itself in during recent months.

Le Fiagaro asked Whitman about the Canalys firm’s recent forecast that Apple will be the number one PC provider in 2012. The report included Macs and iPads as personal computers, which many took issue with when the forecast was originally published.

Whitman’s response to Le Fiagaro (parsed from Google Translate):

“Yes. It’s possible if you integrate the tablets. Apple is doing a great job. We need to improve our game and our products to take over the leadership position. Apple could go past HP in 2012. We will try to be champion again in 2013..  It will take time for the products that I have influence on to make it to the market.”

While HP is clearly still the leader in terms of desktop PC sales, Apple’s iPad is proving to be a formidable force to be reckoned with. To put it plainly: the iPad is cannibalizing PC sales.

The fate of HP’s webOS is in limbo, and the company has even had a hard time deciding if it actually wants to make desktop computers anymore. HP is in a state of disruption right now, and Whitman is trying to figure out how to clean up the rubble and move forward. The tablet market is where HP needs to concentrate its efforts next if it is to have any hope of surviving.

When asked if tablets are comparable to PCs, Whitman responded with the following:

“Not at this time. Internet tablets are mainly used to consume media and e-mails. If you want to use productivity software such as Microsoft, you can not do so. Our studies show that this is an additional purchase that does not encroach on the PC market. This is an important area on which we want to go.”

HP is apparently committed to Windows 8 for its future tablets, so we all know how that will pan out.

A significant portion of iPhone 4 owners paid early-termination fees to acquire the new Apple iPhone 4S, of which 23 percent purchased the most expensive model, according to a survey released on Wednesday.

Consumer Intelligence Research (CIRF) surveyed over 4,600 respondents, then selected 504 qualified people for its analysis. The survey was conducted after the Oct. 14 launch of the iPhone 4S.

In a press release, CIRF revealed out some of its highlights, including the fact that 30 percent of the iPhone 4S owners upgraded from an iPhone 4, which had been launched about a year earlier. That means that those consumers would have almost certainly paid an early termination fee to either AT&T or Verizon to acquire the new phone, as the price assumes a new two-year contract or upgrad 

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An Android app developer has published what he says is conclusive proof that millions of smartphones are secretly monitoring the key presses, geographic locations, and received messages of its users.

In a YouTube video posted on Monday, Trevor Eckhart showed how software from a Silicon Valley company known as Carrier IQ recorded in real time the keys he pressed into a stock EVO handset, which he had reset to factory settings just prior to the demonstration. Using a packet sniffer while his device was in airplane mode, he demonstrated how each numeric tap and every received text message is logged by the software.

Ironically, he says, the Carrier IQ software recorded the “hello world” dispatch even before it was displayed on his handset.

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