It seems strange to think about how far the tablet ecosystem has come in only one year. Last year Apple controlled a comfortable 81% of the market with the iPad, leaving only 15% for Android and 4% for others like Blackberry with their sadly maligned PlayBook.
Things look quite a lot different now.
The Tablet Market is becoming an increasingly heated place in the mobile device market wars with new models, sizes and manufacturers getting involved by the month.
Apple has lost a massive chunk of its market share, now only around 50% or less. Android, on the other hand, has gained massively now holding somewhere between 49-51%. Of that Android share up to 21% of it is Kindle Fires, which give some idea as to how popular the smaller tablets are these days.
These numbers, however, are about to get shaken up again by the release of Microsoft’s Surface Tablet, which is simultaneously competing with the iPad and also mid-range Laptops with the Pro variant, and of course the much rumoured iPad Mini announcement which is meant to happen tomorrow at an Invitation only Apple press event. Whilst there hasn’t been an official confirmation of the iPad Mini’s existence, the sheer volume of info from the usually reputable Apple rumour mill has gone a long way to sorting out those doubts.
But how is the Tablet market going to look in the next 6 months or so?
Well, as we at Kumulos are supplying you, the developers, with an up-to-the-minute mobile backend as a service, we thought we’d give you our look ahead to see where things are likely to go.
Surface has strong potential in business use
If you have a computer in your office, it’s quite likely it’s running Windows. Despite Apple making impressive strides into the personal computing market recently, Microsoft still has the overwhelming majority.
This causes a problem when businesses are using iPads for their mobile computing and Windows for most of the their office work, because, as we all know, the two do not get on especially well.
But up until now, the iPad, or maybe an Android equivalent, was the only way to go with tablets.
Surface is aiming to change all that by bringing Windows 8 to the market, and also a powerful and potentially productivity boosting tablet package to boot. With the Touch and Type covers combining with the slick magnetic click-in and out of the iPad’s Smart Cover with the work aiding keyboard feature that brings to mind the ASUS Transformer series.
By combining these two design aesthetics, Microsoft may just have hit the nail on the head for what business customers want out of a tablet where functionality, productivity and, most importantly, compatibility, all combine.
Being able to use industry standard file, memory and connection formats rather than proprietary ones individual to each company or OS (Apple, we’re looking at you), is going to go a long way towards enamouring customers who are sick of none of their gadgets getting along with each other.
Adding in the Nokia Lumia 920 that is also releasing with Windows Phone 8 and a very competitive set of features that have had a couple of the guys in our office swithering on whether they’d move away from their home OSs could mean that this will be a positive upswing for Microsoft who have been struggling to compete in an ever more mobile market.
iPad Mini is likely to put the screws on Google and Amazon
Despite the fact that Steve Jobs famously said that he didn’t support a smaller tablet, it’s all but confirmed that tomorrow’s announcement will be about the iPad Mini a new 7” offering from the Cupertino giant.
It’s interesting that Apple have taken this long to respond to the serious inroads the Nexus and Kindle Fire have made into the 7” tablet market where Android is now definitely king. Usually so on the ball about being innovation, Apple have allowed its competitors to surge ahead, but we get the feeling that this may not be as much of a problem as some might think.
First it has to be taken into account that Apple has brand loyalty that most businesses only dream of at night as they clutch their pillows in bitter frustration. The Fruit Fanbase is a powerful entity and is overlooked at peril. Whatever Apple releases, many will buy just because it’s Apple that released it.
Secondly, it’s become increasingly apparent that people want to be part of the tablet world, but aren’t willing to fork out cash that could be spent on getting them a respectably powerful laptop for something that is essentially the same thing but less able. 10” tablets are a little bit too much like neutered laptops for some, where their size makes them portable but not mobile, and their cost makes people cagey about carrying them around like you would, say, an e-reader.
7” tablets, however, are quickly filling a niche where people can buy them for not much more than an aforementioned e-reader and they’re of a much more mobile size that makes them perfect for becoming mobile media hubs in people’s lives.
If you combine the two above, you have a formula that is likely to cash in solidly for Apple.
Provided they don’t release something with it that can match Apple Maps for Gafftastic hilarity that is.
Amazon are ones to watch
The success of the Kindle Fire in its various forms has made people start to take a closer look at Amazon and they are currently tracking surprisingly close to what Apple used to look like.
With Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ reputedly being a stickler for all the details and his ability to make things that people want to buy, all the while offering the experience at a price that Apple, up to now, has not even looked at matching.
In an ever growing world of media consumption, Amazon has latched onto the idea that it shouldn’t be the hardware that they make their money on, but the content that people buy once they have it, and so far it’s working like a large dose of financial fairy dust.
If Apple wants to compete on this market, they’re going to have to start rethinking their approach to pricing and where they want their profit to come from as Amazon will very likely be wanting to follow up their first sucker punch with more solid hits as their fan base grows.
It’s amazing to look at how things have changed in only a year, and you never know what the next step will be in this ever growing industry.
The only thing you can be sure of is, as an app developer, we at Kumulos and our mobile backend as a service have your back through every upheaval, price drop and new technology, so why not sign up for free today?
