iPad To Dominate Tablet Market Until 2015 [STUDY]

by Lauren Indvik

The iPad will continue to dominate the growing tablet market until Android tablets take over in 2015, according to forecasts from Informa Telecoms & Media.

The study estimates that Apple currently owns about 75% of the tablet market, which is expected to expand from less than 20 million units in 2010 to more than 230 million in 2015. By that time, Apple’s share of the market will drop to just 38%, due largely to the proliferation of cheaper and more advanced Android tablets. Still, it will take another year — until 2016 — for Android tablets to outsell Apple ones.

RIM’s prospects for market expansion are less optimistic, the study finds. Once the PlayBook begins supporting Android apps and 4G connectivity — HSPA+ and LTE versions are expected before the end of 2011 — sales are expected to improve.

Other analysts are more bullish on Apple’s market dominance. A study released by Gartner in April predicted the iPad will maintain a 47% share of the tablet by 2015, with Android hovering just above 38%.

Who will win the tablet wars, and how long will it take? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

How many ways can you say 15 billion App Store downloads?

By Philip Elmer-DeWitt

Apple's latest press release manages to do it four times in seven paragraphs

Graphic courtesy of 148apps.biz

In its missives to the press, Apple (AAPL) is usually content to repeat its favorite buzz words -- "incredible," "amazing," "exciting," "revolutionary" etc. -- to drive home how amazing and incredible the company is, especially compared with its humdrum competitors.

But the announcementissued Thursday takes Apple's penchant for banging and banging and banging its own drum to new heights.

It's amazing enough that 15 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store -- more than two for every man, woman and child on the planet -- in less than three years.

But how many times do we have to be told?

The answer, apparently, is four. Once in the headline. Once in the first paragraph. Once in a quote from vice president Phil Schiller. And one more time in the penultimate paragraph.

The other nice round numbers in today's press release:

• More 200 million iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users worldwide
• More 425,000 apps available
• More than 100,000 native iPad apps
• More than $2.5 billion paid to developers

The full text is copied below so you can count for yourself how many times these exciting stats are repeated.

Apple's App Store Downloads Top 15 Billion

 CUPERTINO, California—July 7, 2011—Apple® today announced that over 15 billion apps have been downloaded from its revolutionary App Store™ by the more than 200 million iPhone®, iPad® and iPod touch® users worldwide. The App Store offers more than 425,000 apps and developers have created an incredible array of over 100,000 native iPad apps.

"In just three years, the revolutionary App Store has grown to become the most exciting and successful software marketplace the world has ever seen," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Thank you to all of our amazing developers who have filled it with over 425,000 of the coolest apps and to our over 200 million iOS users for surpassing 15 billion downloads."

"We sparked musical magic when iPhone users experienced Ocarina three years ago," said Dr. Ge Wang, a Smule co-founder and assistant professor at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. "And now with iPad, we've created the Magic Piano and Magic Fiddle apps. Who could've dreamt an iPad would make its way into the San Francisco Symphony?"

"iPad provides us with an unparalleled mobile device for creating gorgeous, immersive games," said Mark Rein, vice president and co-founder of Epic Games. "Infinity Blade has been a runaway hit with customers around the world and we couldn't be more excited about our success on iOS devices."

"We're bringing Martha Stewart, Angelina Ballerina, Sesame Street and many more of the world's most popular books and magazines to iPad," said Nicholas Callaway, CEO of Callaway Digital Arts. "We knew the iPad was going to be a revolutionary storytelling device, but never could have anticipated it would become so popular, so quickly."

More than 15 billion apps have been downloaded from the revolutionary App Store and more than 425,000 apps are available, including more than 100,000 native iPad apps, to consumers in 90 countries. Users of the more than 200 million iOS devices around the world can choose from an incredible range of apps in 20 categories, including games, business, news, education, sports, health, reference and travel. Apple has paid developers over $2.5 billion to date.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

Rant: Android tablet pricing will kill the genre

By James Kendrick

Last month I shared what I believe to be true about the price consumers will be willing to spend on tablets, and with information slowly leaking out that OEMs are determined to price themselves out of contention I can’t keep quiet. My original rant was based on information at the time that the Motorola XOOM was going to be priced at an entry point of $799. I explained why I think that is too high, even for a well-equipped device. Now we are hearing that the XOOM will be retailing in Best Buy for $1199, an insane figure.
LG is showing off its upcoming Optimus Pad at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and it looks really nice with an unusual 8.9-inch screen. The insanity with Android tablet pricing continues, however, as word comes that the LG tablet will sell for €999 ($1350) in Europe. This is so far out in left field that it’s clear the Android tablet genre may be doomed for failure on a massive scale.
Is the problem that vendors are cramming too many high-cost components (or features) in tablets to try to stand out? If so that is a strategy doomed to failure, as it prices the device out of the range consumers will be willing to pay. Apple set the standard with pricing on the iPad, and no matter how any competing device compares with the iPad it better be priced similarly. That means $499 for an entry level model (Wi-Fi only), and well under $1,000 for a fully equipped version.
Tablets are a different class of product that affect how consumers approach the purchasing process. They do not replace an existing class of product, so no price comparison works. It becomes more of a marketing process to stimulate an impulse purchase, and $500 is the magic price point to make that happen. Android tablet makers may be killing the genre before it even gets started. As analyst Michael Gartenberg is fond of stating, a company can sell 50,000 of anything, a point of view I share. But that sales volume is nothing in the consumer electronic space.

Rumor mill: iPad 2, iPad 2.5, iPad 3

by Philip Elmer-DeWitt

Photo: Apple Inc.

Daring Fireball's John Gruber was writing a brief note about HP's (HPQ) TouchPad tablet computer, unveiled Wednesday but not available before this summer, when he dropped the "3" bomb:

Summer feels like a long time away. If my theory is right, they're not only going to be months behind the iPad 2, but if they slip until late summer, they might bump up against the release of the iPad 3.

The iPad 3? It was only that morning that the Wall Street Journal, citing the usual unnamed "people familiar with the matter," reported that a thinner, lighter, faster iPad 2 with at least one camera had gone into production for release in April.
Apple (AAPL) rarely deviates from a 12-month update schedule for its major product lines (iPhones in summer, iPods in fall, MacBooks in the spring). What had Gruber, a blogger with unusually good sources within the company, been told?

Gruber quickly followed up with a longer post explaining that the iPad 3 remark was only a guess -- not a thinly disguised "guess" that was actually based on something one of his Apple sources had told him -- and that maybe the interim product would be more like an iPad 2.5 or an iPad 2 Pro.
But it was too late. The iPad 3 rumor spread through the blogosphere like a brush fire. By early evening, TechCrunch's MG Siegler had fueled the flames: He had been told by "a very good source" that Apple was assembling a "big fall surprise." Moreover, he'd since heard that the new device is no iPad 2.5, but a full-fledged iPad 3.
"As of right now," Seigler wrote, "the plan is apparently to release one iteration of the iPad in the next few weeks. And then blow the doors open with another new version in the fall."
By Thursday morning, the story had moved to the top of Techmeme's news aggregator, with nearly three dozen follow-up stories trailing behind.
Not bad for a guess. Or was it a "guess"?
I have no inside information, but I've seen enough Apple rumors come and go to hold this one at arms length. It makes no sense for Apple to undercut the sales of the current iPad -- never mind an iPad it hasn't yet shipped -- to be floating rumors about a new version two iPads from now.
If I had to put money on what next fall's "big surprise" might be, I'd bet on some kind of iPod. Or maybe a new iteration of iTunes. Or some cloud-based service built around that North Carolina server farm that was supposed to come on line before the end of 2010 but has quietly fallen behind schedule.

Apple's nice timing: iPad production news may freeze consumers, Android rivals

By Larry Dignan

Apple has started production of its latest iPad and talk of front facing cameras and a lighter design is everywhere. The timing of this news, delivered by the Wall Street Journal, is exquisite since it could just freeze consumers as a bevy of Android devices hit the market.
The Wall Street Journal, which has been rock solid about Apple upcoming products, reports that the new iPad will be thinner and lighter, have a camera for videoconferencing with FaceTime, and be available on AT&T and Verizon. In other words, the Journal backed most of the credible rumors about the iPad.
The most notable thing about the Apple iPad 2 production news is the timing of it all. To wit:

• The iPad is in production just as Motorola starts pushing its Xoom tablet to the masses. Motorola chose to take on the iPad with a rather bizarre commercial during the Super Bowl.
• This news surfaces just as Hewlett-Packard plans to unveil its tablet plans, which revolve around the webOS.
• Dell is plotting a 10-inch tablet that runs on Windows 7.
• And it’s also worth noting that there are a bevy of Android-based tablets on deck.

Add it up and the Apple iPad production news is perfectly timed. Just as you’re about to ponder a rival tablet, there’s a great reason to hold out a few weeks—the iPad 2. Couple the prices of Android tablets, which are generally too expensive, and the potential of a better iPad on deck and I’m willing to bet more than a few consumers will hold out for Apple’s latest dream device.
Related:

If it's really priced at $800, Motorola's Xoom won't stand a chance against iPad

By Sam Diaz

Just for the record: an $800 price tag on the Motorola Xoom - the first tablet PC running Android 3 (aka Honeycomb) - is way too high.

Details are leaking out today, via a post on Engadget, that Best Buy will start selling the Xoom on Feb. 24 for $799.99. And it appears that there will be some tiered pricing on Verizon’s 3G data plans for the device, ranging from $20 per month for up to 1 GB of data to $80 per month for up to 100 gigs. Mind you, there’s no mention of the pricing for the 4G data usage on this device, which will be 4G upgradeable.

Image Credit: Engadget

In a post after Google’s Honeycomb preview event last week, I noted that the Xoom - or any Honeycomb-powered tablet, for that matter - could be a serious contender to Apple’s iPad if the experience is just as good as the iPad’s. But I also noted that pricing would be key. If it can beat the iPad on price, consumers who like what they see in Android may be compelled to choose Honeycomb over iPad. If the price comes in too high, consumers might not be willing to buy into the hype, choosing instead to go with an established winner - the iPad.

The $800 price tag on the Best Buy ad is $300 more than Apple’s $500 WiFi -only low-end iPad. Make it a 3G-powered iPad and you’re looking at $629 - still a $170 cheaper than the Xoom.

Can you say D.O.A?

That’s what the Xoom will be - Dead On Arrival - if it’s really priced that high. Granted, we don’t know that to be true. There doesn’t seem to be any confirmation yet from Motorola, Google or Verizon - the big names that all appeared on the Xoom’s debut ad during the Super Bowl. (By the way, the commercial, which I’ve embedded below, left everyone at my Super Bowl party with a head-scratching “huh?” as we watched. Kind of a deep message for a Super Bowl ad, if you ask me.)

For the record, I like what the Xoom brings to the table. It appears - just from what I know - to be a top-notch product with a lot of potential. Add to it the 4G capabilities, the expandable storage and, yeah, even Flash, and you’ve got a product that can really make potential iPad buyers stop and pause.

But none of that will matter when all is said and done because that price tag will likely send some consumers - myself included - straight for the Apple store before anyone can even say “microSD card.”

As soon as we get official word on pricing and availability, we’ll be sharing the details with you.

Five Reasons Why Tablets Like the iPad Are PCs

By Eric Lai

Market research firm Canalys made a gutsy move today: it became thefirst major market tracker to start lumping consumer tablets like the iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab together with other PCs.

This has major implications. First, doing so vaults Apple into third place globally in Q4 among PC vendors, behind HP and Acer, according to Canalys. By contrast, Gartner and IDC, who are better-known for tracking the PC market (and presumably thus more conservative in their methodology), do not (yet) count iPads as PCs.

Also, calling a tablet a PC means that we are acknowledging a tablet is a real computer, not a dismissing it as some limited-use mobile device.

At the risk of wading into a ‘How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?‘ type of debate, let’s examine the arguments against counting tablets as PCs in order to knock them down. Shall we begin?

1) “There’s no [physical] keyboard.” Yes, but as BetaNews’ Joe Wilcox points out, IDC counts Windows tablets as PCs, even though a large percentage of them are stylus/finger input only.

2) “Tablets suck for doing real work like type long memos or build slide decks.” I know plenty of businesspeople, especially managers, who spend the majority of their time in Outlook or Lotus Notes, sending and receiving e-mails. Are they not doing *real* work? Does that mean doing e-mail on a tablet is suddenly not real work? What about pulling up sales leads or mining deep Business Intelligence data via rich analytical dashboards? Sounds like real work to me. These are all business tasks at which tablets like the iPad already excel.

3) “Canalys is just doing the bidding of Steve Jobs and other Apple fanboys.” Actually, Apple doesn’t seem to be interested in lumping iPads with its MacBooks or iMacs, judging by its recent fiscal Q1 earnings call.Nowhere does COO Tim Cook refer to iPads as PCs or computers. In fact, Cook implies that Apple internally sees iPads as being different beasts than Macs: “The iPad teams are building the best iPad for the future, and the Mac teams are building the best Mac, and I can tell you that both groups believe that they can continue to grow and do great stuff, and I believe that.”

4) “Neither iOS nor Android are full-fledged operating systems.” By what metric? Lines of code? Android has 12 million lines of code.Windows NT 3.51 had 10.1 million. Do we retroactively declare that those servers running NT 3.51 weren’t “real” computers? Or do we base this on the fact these iOS and Android run apps, not applications? Well, Mac OS X now has its own App Store. Or is it because iOS and Android run on ARM chips, not Intel? Well, then let’s start thinking of a new category to put Windows in after Microsoft ports it successfully over to ARM.

5) “Tablets aren’t as powerful as PCs.” Actually, ARM’s single-core CPUs last year were already more powerful than their Intel Atom counterparts, according to chip researcher, The Linley Group. The latest dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPUs due to arrive in tablets this year should pull ahead of Atom even more, especially when bolstered by powerful graphics such as Nvidia. Indeed, the graphics chip in the Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset, the 8-core ULP GeForce GPU, supports 1080p video output on up to 2 simultaneous displays (1920×1080 resolution). That’s far better than any laptop I’ve ever owned.

Perhaps we should just let Canalys’ analyst Daryl Chiam, who made the call to redefine tablets as PCs, speak.
“Any argument that a pad is not a PC is simply out of sync,” said Chiam. “With screen sizes of seven inches or above, ample processing power, and a growing number of applications, pads offer a computing experience comparable to netbooks. They compete for the same customers and will happily coexist.”

“Each new product category typically causes a significant shift in market shares,” he continued. “Apple is benefiting from pads, just as Acer, Samsung and Asus previously did with netbooks. The PC industry has always evolved this way, starting when Toshiba and Compaq rode high on the original notebook wave.”

Google eyes Apple in tablet war

By Maggie ShielsTechnology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley 

Google has unveiled an operating system for tablet computers aimed at ramping up the competition with Apple's iPad.
More than 15 million iPads have been sold since Apple launched the gadget in 2010.
The latest version of Google's Android OS is called Honeycomb and it has been specifically optimised for tablets.
The features include the ability to buy applications from a computer, buy features inside the app, video chat and improved graphics.
"This is a serious investment of years of design and engineering to really nail the experience for a larger screen," Hugo Barra, Google's director of products for mobile, told BBC News.
"This is not a large phone - we wanted tablets running Honeycomb to not just be bigger but also to be better."
Motorola will be the first to bring a product running Honeycomb to market. Its Xoom device is due to go on sale this month, although a release date and price have not yet been revealed.
"Honeycomb brings Google closer to parity with Apple and underlines the battle between these two titans," said Ben Parr, co-editor of technology news site Mashable.
"Google has its strengths especially in the cloud, with their open source platform and integration with other Google products like Gmail and Google docs," he said. "But Apple has the design edge and a vast number of apps as well as a new iPad expected in the next couple of months."
'Big win'Google's announcement of a web-based version of the Android market is one that is seen as long overdue.
This now means that users can browse and buy apps directly from the web. Previously users had to purchase through the Android market directly from the device making it difficult to find, download and buy apps.
Thanks to the cloud, users can send apps directly to any Android device with just a few clicks of their mouse.
"There's no wires, no synching with computers - none of that nonsense. Everything is connected," said Chris Yerga, Android engineering director.
Technology blog TechCrunch called the webstore a "big win" for developers.
"It lowers the hurdle you have to go through to buy an app," said Jason Kincaid of TechCrunch.
"If you are bored online, I can imagine a lot of people heading to the webstore and clicking on five apps before they have really thought about it."
Making money 
Google also unveiled in-app purchasing, a new feature to let developers make money by selling virtual goods and upgrades in their apps to consumers.
Convincing developers to back Android is seen as key to drawing in more customers.
So far Android has more than 100,000 apps in its store, while more than 300,000 have been created for Apple's iOS.
At the launch of Honeycomb at Google's California headquarters a number of developers showcased apps designed specifically using the new operating system.
CNN presented a new tablet optimised app while Disney said it would be joining the webstore with three apps including a version of the music rhythm game Tap Tap Revenge.
Disney's head of mobile Bart Decrem said there had been more than 50 million downloads of Tap Tap Revenge on the iPhone alone.
"We have been waiting for in-app purchases and for Android to get to this stage. This really represents a general maturing of the platform and it's a really important one," said Mr Decrem.
'Best foot forward'
Unlike Apple, Google does not make its own devices but gives its operating system to manufacturers for nothing. That approach has served it well in the smartphone market.
To date there are around 145 devices running on Android, including a handful of tablets.
Google said it would be up to hardware sellers when users would see Honeycomb appear in more tablets.
Motorola will be first out of the gate but LG and T-Mobile are expected to follow close behind with their upcoming G-Slate tablet.
"We've put our best foot forward and now it's up to the ecosystem, the manufacturers, to make it flourish," said Google's Mr Barra.
He said some of the features in Honeycomb would find their way on to Android smartphones when that is updated.
But will Honeycomb help Google slay Apple, which has a new iPad out in the coming months?
That depends, says Ina Fried, senior editor of AllThingsD and the Mobilized blog.
"It's a combination of what's the speed, what's the price of the device, what type of apps will be available and when.
"This is about other people's products competing with the iPad. Clearly Google is putting a lot of resources into Android and with this first entry it's going to be a fun thing to watch," Ms Fried told BBC News.

Google unveils Web-based Android Market for phones, tablets

By Mark Milian, CNN







Mountain View, California (CNN) -- As Google prepares to add a new category to its arsenal of portable devices with tablets, the company's mobile team is deploying ways to better tie its different systems together.


It might not come as a surprise that the internet giant is using the Web to do that.


Like smartphones, this new breed of tablets will run Android, an operating system developed by Google. This next version of Android, called 3.0 or Honeycomb, is its first designed for tablets but will also run on smartphones. Like Apple does with its closed system, Honeycomb will let users buy applications on computers and synchronize them between their Google gadgets.


Using the Android Market website in a browser, you can browse, buy and download apps, Google announced at a news conference on the company's main campus here on Wednesday.


From the website, users can beam the app to any number of phones or tablets connected to their accounts. The phone begins downloading the app almost instantly. This feature has already been enabled automatically on Android phones.


Previously, you'd have to open the Android app on a smartphone in order to search for and download programs. Synchronizing between other family members' phones, for example, was a hassle.


In Apple's controlled habitat, the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad share information and apps via a central hub in the iTunes software.


"There are no wires, no syncing to computers, none of that kind of nonsense," Chris Yerga, Android's engineering director for cloud services, said onstage at the Android event. "Everything just works seamlessly, syncing between the two."


The announcement reinforces Google's philosophy of doing everything over the internet, or "cloud" in industry parlance. Android already synchronizes personal information such as e-mail and contact lists through the Web.


"It's the cloud that makes the experience seamless," said Andy Rubin, who leads Android development.


But the synchronization features will mean little if Google can't persuade smartphone customers to purchase upcoming Android tablets. So much of Wednesday's event was focused on a walkthrough of new features that will be available to these devices.


A new app called Music brings the Android system closer in line with Apple's iPod-iPhone-iPad model. Albums and songs are organized in a screen with a heavy emphasis on cover artwork.


Honeycomb also has a live video chat function that will let tablet users talk with other people who are using Gmail on a computer. Apple's portable devices with FaceTime can talk only to Mac computers running a beta program or using Skype's app. Skype does not offer a video-calling app for Android.


The new Android software includes improved multitasking functionality, so you can see a window of what apps you were previously using looked like when you closed out of them. All of this runs thanks to a combination of hardware-acceleration techniques for smooth animations.These techniques also help drive more powerful games.


Google's partners showed a game called "Monster Madness," which is based on a game originally developed for the PlayStation 3. Developers said they didn't need to make major alterations to get it to work on the tablet. They also showed an action-packed, medieval-themed game that taps into the hardware's multicore processors.


Google also attempted to woo attendees and people watching the event's online video stream with a slew of new apps designed specifically for tablets. CNN announced onstage it will offer an Android app with iReport functions and live video capabilities.


The tablets also will be able to run all of Android's 130,000 apps designed for smartphone-sized screens. The apps will fill the tablets' larger screens.


"We've spent a significant amount of effort making sure that existing Android apps run well on tablets," Hugo Barra, Android's director of product management, said onstage.


The first tablet to launch with the new version of Android is Motorola's Xoom, which debuts this month. An exact release date and pricing have not been set.


A Honeycomb tablet from LG, called the G-Slate, will come out in March, T-Mobile USA announced Tuesday evening.


In addition to a camera on the front used for video chatting, that device has a pair of cameras on the back for capturing high-definition 3-D photos and video. You'll need 3-D glasses in order to see the video on the tablet's screen.


T-Mobile and AT&T also announced more information on new Android phones this week, none of which will run the Honeycomb software at first.

'The Daily' and iPad: A revolution in reading?

By Priyanka Boghani, for CNN

(CNN) -- With its glossy touch screen and adaptable content, Apple's iPad is reviving longer-form reading, according to a recent report.


And with the release of News Corps' "The Daily" on Wednesday, the first iPad-exclusive newspaper, it appears media companies are ready to invest in the growing trend.


"The findings show that people are willing to pay for the simplicity and content that the iPad provides," said Roger Fidler, author of the report for Reynolds Journalism Institute.

Murdoch's Daily finally debuts


"They'll pick up their iPads when they're free in the evening and read at their leisure, like they used to with the traditional newspaper.


"Fidler was surprised by the amount of people who said they would cancel their print news subscription and switch to an iPad within the next six months. This, he feels, could cause a serious economic impact on print publications.


At the launch of "The Daily" in New York on Wednesday, News Corps's CEO Rupert Murdoch described the iPad as a device that will "completely re-imagine our craft.""I'm convinced that in the tablet era there's room for a fresh and robust new voice," he told assembled press.


"The Daily" is currently only available to those with U.S. iTunes accounts and costs $0.99 for a weekly subscription.Tablet computers, commonly used as e-readers, were also the talk of the show at Las Vegas' Consumer Electronics Show in January and their sales are set to rocket.\


Consultancy company Deloitte estimates that companies will buy more than 10 million tablet computers this year, while technology analysts Gartner predict the market for Apple's iPad to increase from 19.5 million devices in 2010 to 55 million in 2011.


"This is all exciting news," said Brian Marshall, iPad analyst at Gleacher & Co, referring to both the launch of "The Daily" and the Reynolds report."The iPad is all about content and if research shows that people are willing to spend more time on it then it's a sure win."


Marshall singles out Apple's app store as one of the contributing factors to the iPad's success."It could mean competition for Google with its customized and unique content display," he said.


Major publishers like Conde Nast have already moved their titles including Vogue, Wired and Glamour, onto the iPad, but not everyone thinks that the future for both news publications and periodicals looks more efficient and electronic.


"While anything that Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs do in collaboration is bound to be unique, we have to be mindful of the fact that the tablet is just in its infancy stage -- it's like the early days of the printed press," said Barry McIlheney, chief executive of the UK based Professional Publishers Association.


He believes that newspapers are easy to replace because their format is adaptable to the screen but reading longer passages of texts with images are not.


Publishers will keep a close eye on the emerging trend, he said, but the rise of the tablets will not necessarily threaten printed magazines.


"Magazines are a treat. You immerse in lengthy articles that are both text and image rich. It's a luxurious experience that can't be replicated with electronic publications," he said.


"Not everyone has an iPad, so while the big names are adapting, at the moment, I don't think all our publishers will be directly affected by the tablet."


But tablets, iPads in particular, are affecting how we consume news and even affecting our lifestyles.Another report last month from ReadItLater, a web service that follows web trends, found that the time spent reading on the iPad is even crossing into primetime TV hours.


It reported that maximum iPad text consumption occurs from 7pm to 11pm, a slot traditionally allocated to reclining on the couch and watching TV.


"With tablets the experience is like dining on news," said Fidler.