The definitive gadget of CES 2011 was the Android tablet, heralded by more than one company as the answer to the iPad. A train-wreck of a year later this week at CES 2012, would-be iPad competitors are keeping a low profile with a few key partners still not ready to announce when they'll embrace Google's revamped tablet software.
Among the findings:
Overall, 29% of video service customers watch paid video content via handheld device.
Some 18% of customers use tablets for viewing paid video content, making them the most-often-used handheld device, up from 11% in 2011.
The use of wireless phone customers has increased to 16% in 2012, up from 14% a year earlier.
Viewing of paid content via desktop and laptop (PC/Mac) has declined to 39%, down from 48% in 2011.
In a reversal of today's content publishing model, print magazines pretty soon could start looking a lot like their app equivalents.
"The next redesign of our titles will see them redesigned with our tablet versions in mind," magazine publisher Future's tablet editor-in-chief Mike Goldsmith told an industry forum this month.
As publishers extend their print titles to iPad, they can choose either to repurpose the paper originals, which can seem lazy and ill-suited to the touch screen, or to custom-produce interactive apps with a native interface in mind, which is expensive.
tablet/netbook duo
-do we want to include this as a device prediction? marketing POV could be that even ads on netbooks could potentially need to work well on a tablet too
"Such tablets, Epps claims, won't be able to compete with the low price point and in-store experience that Apple can provide, leading to Forrester's prediction that Apple will score upwards of 80 percent of the U.S. tablet market in 2011."
Amazon launching 2 tablets this year. Android likely to fork along Amazon/Android and Google/Android; Amazon using NVIDIA T30 "Kal-El," a 500% performance increase over the Tegra 2, currently used in the Xoom and the other "high end" Android tablets.
tablets account for 20% of "mobile" e-commerce sales, and 60% of tablet owners say they have used them to "shop" (I guess that excludes shopping for apps). Also examples of apps doing it right: TheFind, Crate & Barrel, Sephora, Jetsetter
research suggests that women go for dedicated e-readers while men choose tablets. A new study of over 26,000 U.S. adults from consumer research firm GfK MRI found that women are 52 percent more likely than men to own an e-reader, and men are 24 percent more likely than women to own a tablet.
Gamestop plans to sell tablets running Android with its own brand across its vast retail network, hoping to entice gamers that tend to prefer iOS with several preloaded games.