This is another great Gartner's Press Release about the Tablet Market. With a difference - It is not just showing some forecast - it also giving some hard advice to the competition to what it is that they are doing wrong. The headline just says that Apple’s iOS will continue to own the majority of the worldwide media tablet through 2015, with 69 percent of media tablet OSs in 2011, and represent 47 percent of the media tablet market in 2015.

This is great news for Apple as it was only a few days ago that Gartner also predicted that Android will have 1/2 world Mobile market by end of 2012 and Microsoft Windows Mobile will pass iPhone by 2015. But also it is not a bad news for Google’s HonyComb as their share will also continuously rise all the way to 2015 and beyond.

Reading the analysis - it is clear that Apple did their homework - waited and waited for many years until the product was flawless. I cued up last year to purchase my iPad and it was the first ever First Generation Hardware Software that I have purchased and I found with astonishment that there were no bugs in both hardware and software. In contrast I have tested some of the early Android tablets and quite honestly cannot believe how the manufactures releasing them without enough beta testing. They are clearly beta copy of software as well as hardware not really up to task with lots of issues.

This is probably the most important statement in Gartner’s Press Release:-
“Seeing the response from both consumers and enterprises to the iPad, many vendors are trying to compete by first delivering on hardware and then trying to leverage the platform ecosystem,” said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. “Many, however, are making the same mistake that was made in the first response wave to the iPhone, as they are prioritizing hardware features over applications, services and overall user experience. Tablets will be much more dependent on the latter than Smartphones have been, and the sooner vendors realize that the better chance they have to compete head-to-head with Apple.”

Gartner also states that rapid improvement and increase in sales for Android’s HoneyComb OS from 20 percent in 2011 to 39% in 2015 is largely due to the Google decision not to open it up and therefore prevent fragmentation.

Table 1
Worldwide Sales of Media Tablets to End Users by OS (Thousands of Units)

OS	2010	2011	2012	2015
iOS	14,766	47,964	68,670	138,497
Market Share (%)	83.9	68.7	63.5	47.1
Android	2,502	13,898	26,382	113,457
Market Share (%)	14.2	19.9	24.4	38.6
MeeGo	107	788	1,271	3,057
Market Share (%)	0.6	1.1	1.2	1.0
WebOS	0	2,796	4,245	8,886
Market Share (%)	0.0	4.0	3.9	3.0
QNX	0	3,901	7,134	29,496
Market Share (%)	0.0	5.6	6.6	10.0
Other Operating Systems	234	432	510	700
Market Share (%)	1.3	0.6	0.5	0.2
Total Market	17,610	69,780	108,211	294,093

Source: Gartner (April 2011)

The other very good observation by Gartner is the fact that public really likes the way currently they can pay for an App and have it installable on iPhone, iPod and iPad for the same purchaser. This is a great selling point for the owner of one product with some investments in Apps to want to purchase another from the same brand.

Recently i purchased a £70 European SatNav App for my iPad and I was pleasantly surprised that it also installed free of charge on my iPod. This allows me to us the iPod as a SatNav where a smaller device is needed for a certain trips. So many great iPad games for my 5 years old son doubles up on the iPod for his enjoyment when i am using my iPad on business. Familiarity of User interfaces wills also another selling point to purchase from the same product line. This however, works both ways. Theoretically when honeycomb and associated tablets start arriving in the shops at the right price and with good hardware, the Android phone owner will be much more inclined to purchase the Honycomb tablet if the apps can also be shared in the same way as Apple does so.

Comments

By G.L @ Wednesday, April 13, 2011 5:38 AM

It looks like Apple got the correct definiton of every product manufactured by them i.e., perfection in design and what a product should exactly do; which the other companies are not able to get yet. This is why Apple continues its dominance in pc, smartphone and tablet market. Just the day when other companies would realise this that we would see some fierce competitions with Apple will lead to eventual price fall of high end products will be a win win situation for us common people. So lets see how it all goes in the coming years. Visit GloTech for other tech trends.

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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.