From the above number, Apple sold almost 15 million iPads last year or just about 90% of all tablets sold. In fact now it is outselling Macs in units, and closing in on revenues. The 7.3 million iPads sold just in the December quarter represented a 75 percent increase from the September quarter, and the $4.6 billion in revenue represented a 65 percent sequential jump. (The iPad was launched in April 2010).

Apple Newton PDA

Now who would have predicted this other than a few Apple FanBoys like me!. This is an incredible story for a completely new computing product. It is so startling that nobody predicted it other than those of us that have been waiting for it for more than 10 years. I was probably one of the early adaptors with purchase of my First smart PDA called Newton.

It was a very long time ago and the only mistake Apple made at that time was to assume that everyone wants to write rather than type. So handwriting recognition that Newton used was a little bit of a hit and miss. The other big problem was that it was a little too early and it was not a connected device. Newton was introduced, 1987 and I bought it in 1995 at £450 GBP and the development sadly ended in 1998.

After this I did not purchase any until iPod touch and later cued up for iPad and got it on the day it was released in UK. And as soon as I got it, I knew apple could sell as many as they can produce. Whilst the predictions of iPad unit sales from both Wall Street analysts and tech bloggers were very low key. The iPad ended up selling almost 15 million units in 2010. The reason for this fantastic figure is that it is the most useful device when I am out and about and even in the house I end up using it for reading rather than my laptop. These days I don’t leave home without it. I rather not go with my phone than go without my iPad.

Apple iPad

The recent report from IDC shows that both the media tablet market and the e-reader market made big leaps in 2010. The market for media tablets grew from 3.3 million in Q2 to 4.8 million in Q3, an increase of 45.1%. That growth was fuelled almost exclusively by the iPad. In Q3, Apple sold 4.19 million iPads, representing over 87% of the media tablet market.

IDC defines media tablets as devices larger than five inches and less than 14 inches running “lightweight operating systems,” primarily iOS and Android.

E-readers growth was led by the Amazon Kindle. 1.14 million Kindles were shipped in Q3, representing 41.5% of the e-reader market. Unexpectedly though, the Pandigital Novel (440 million) beat out the Barnes and Noble Nook (420 million) for second place.

The most interesting part of the report though was the overall forecasts for 2010, 2011 and 2012. For 2010, IDC predicts that about 17 million media tablets will be shipped (they’re still counting up the numbers), but that it will grow to a whopping 44.6 million in 2011 and 70.8 million in 2012. If devices like the iPad 2 and the Motorola Xoom succeed though, then IDC might have to revise its numbers.

In the next couple of years, there is going to be a big push by Android and Windows OS tablets trying to reduce Apple Market share that we all encourage if we want to see these devices improve in both capabilities as well as reductions in price. There is one thing that is little in doubt. These devices will overtake laptop sales, because their keyboard can be virtual as well as physical. They are smaller than laptops and look almost like leather bound book when reading.

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These are various short and long News Articles, Reviews and Blogs by Salar Golestanian and employees of SalarO.com as well as contributors of Scifiwood.com. The subject matter are mixed topics with Pure Science to Science Fiction as well as general topics on Web Trends, Technology, Software Engineering genre, or whatever subject that can affect the convergence of today's technology with Science Fiction in any shape or form. These Blogs and Reviews don't have commercial or corporate aspiration, so they are indeed completely independent views. Some of these entries may be short and just link you to the actual news or site that can expand further on the subject of interest. In Phase II we plan to incorporate some Social Networking applications within the portal.