iPad alternatives update and what they must learn from Apple’s lead
16 July 2010
In March we wrote a blog article about the future devices that will compete with the iPad - several other devices were due to hit the market in 2010. So now we are in the second half of 2010 we thought a review of the situation would be useful. Were the early reports of 2010 with predictions of huge changes in the form of new competition right and have they come to fruition?
A recent report from Forrester projected that tablets will start outselling netbooks by 2012. This graph shows how where Forrester research sees the market heading:
So given this information, it is clear to see that there is a huge opportunity for the iPad and other devices to eat into the market share of consumer PC sales.
How will long will it be for competitive devices to give the iPad a battle? Matt Burns on CrunchGear seems disappointed by the competition “It’s sad, really. While the iPad caters to the masses with the Luddite-approved iOS, others crave much more usability and none of the tablets announced that claim to fulfill these needs have been released yet.”
The article on TechCrunch provides an interesting insight into the status of the iPad competitors. Of the 13 new devices that were reportedly due to hit the market in 2010; 3 have been delayed including the eagerly anticipated Notion Ink Adam and the HP Slate and at least one scrapped.
There are other devices that have been launched are currently available such as the ModBook, Viliv X70, Archos 9 PC tablet and Viliv S10 Blade, but as yet they do not seem to compete with the usability of the iPad. Matt Burns says “The hardware might leave people wanting more, but the iPad provides a fantastic user experience and that’s actually the most important trait of a secondary computing device.” If we looked back even a few years ago it would have been hard to believe that a bestselling computing device would not even advertise hardware. It’s all about user experience.
We wait in eagerness of future tablet devices to come on the market and if they will learn lessons from iPad’s early lead.
September 2nd, 2010 at 2:00 pm
[...] in our blog we’ve published information about the iPad and competitors that are due and have already been launched. The latest news is today Samsung Electronics Co have announced the launch of the Samsung GALAXY [...]