iPad Grabs 89% of Worldwide, 97% of U.S. Tablet Web Traffic

[NebulaClash]

It's not the holy grail, but it is a very useful method when used in the right context. Minority Report got it wrong in making it a vertical entry approach. The iPad gets it right in making it a horizontal entry approach, as did Star Trek for the most part.

What I mean is the functionality that could be done with your fingers exceeds our current technology, but it won't forever. Children growing up with touch today will create amazing technology tomorrow.

But we'll always have keyboards, and mice, and voice input, and whatever else comes along. Whatever works. But one thing that works GREAT is touch for certain operations. People who can't see the point of touch make me wonder how they cannot see these advantages.

 

[aughsum]

the tablet market will never me like the mp3 market.

there is already a MASSIVE fan base for android and everything android. this alone will secure future competition. you also sound like you would want it to be 2.0 **** me!!!

competition will do nothing but good for apple and it's consumers.

in a year or so various manufactures such as htc and samsung will release new versions and will quickly catch up to apple and in many way, overtake apple. and thus it will basically be like the mobile market it at the moment.

Just like competitors did with mp3 players - they'll still release products, but they'll be uninspired - they'll tout them as iPad killers, but the manufacturers will know their fate before they're released (evo, xoom, etc). I'm not seeing statistics that suggest the android fan base is as massive as people claim it is.. It seems more and more like a small segment of techies represent all of e noise created by android - even manufacturers are swayed by this noise - they put all this effort into advertising their new hardware, slap an os on them that they think people like, and no one buys them (xoom)

 

[aughsum]

Margins are higher on the substandard tabs. The more they unload the more the company makes. It's not like they are trying to promote whats BEST for people.

Well, yeah - if you put tablet a and tablet b next to an iPad, tablet a and b won't sell. It's like girls intentionally having less attractive friends.

 

[swagi]

<snip>

Frankly, the vast majority of computer use by most people is consumption. There is a subset of users who are heavy producers, and there is a subset of users who are heavy consumers, and some in between. Now I grant you, it is easier to produce with a keyboard and mouse -- because that is what we have been trained to do! I guarantee you the first time most people were confronted with a mouse they were thinking how much easier it is to use a keyboard . . .

<snip>
But the average iPad user is not me, not you, not anyone who learned keyboard shortcuts The average iPad user is going to be consumer first, producer a little bit. But the methods of producing will change and grow as companies learn the ins and outs of what multitouch can do. Look at Garage Band and tell me that was the first thing you thought of when you thought about touch screens . . .

<snip>

I agree with all the things you mentioned. But I habe to point the finger into some obvious oddities why I personally think we are not heading to a post-PC era.

You know, most of the consuming users I know basically once in a while like to produce something - be it a formal letter they have to write or some other document. Currently they have to either buy a new printer from HP to complement your iPad or use a PC based workaround to actually print this stuff.

But as you mentioned GarageBand - yes, I can see that an iPad may be a great COMPLIMENTARY device for manipulating various sliders on SoundFX. The full blown GrageBand OTOH seems to me like a quick and dirty alternative on the road. Nothing more, nothing less.

So this just brings it back to the main point - people like me will not be happy in the postPC era .

Oh - and to all those posters bitching about bad internet experience on Android: I personally prefer Dolphin over Mobile Safari. You should give it a try and then come back.

 

[RawBert]

You know what is the saddest part is you believe that crap.

You know, the saddest part is that you hang out in an Apple-centric forum and never give any credit to Apple for anything. You swear up and down that the data shown in this article is bull. And that you know better because of your personal experience. You get off on trying to discredit Apple to a bunch of MacHeads and Apple product enthusiasts. Pfft.. Please...
No THAT is sad.

 

[aristotle]

I find it funny to see people arguing with people in the tech industry in this thread.

The iPad can replace the need for a laptop for most business users especially executives. They could still have a desktop at their desk but could take their iPad with them to meetings and to use on the road instead of lugging around a laptop.

With the plethora of meeting apps like gotomeeting and webex and remoting apps like VNC clients, RDP client and logmein or splash desktop, you can always connect back to your desktop PC when you need to and join meetings hosted by others without the need for a laptop. That same remoting technology can be use to connect back to your workstation if need be from a shared terminal in meeting rooms as a backup.

I would not be shocked if we see laptops disappear from businesses in the near future to be replaced by a combination of a workstation at the desk and a tablet for portability.

 

[kdarling]

It's not the holy grail, but it is a very useful method when used in the right context. Minority Report got it wrong in making it a vertical entry approach. The iPad gets it right in making it a horizontal entry approach, as did Star Trek for the most part.

Come to think of it, Minority Report didn't use touch that much. The big scenes were about air gestures, a la Kinect, except using old-tech lighted finger gloves.

What I mean is the functionality that could be done with your fingers exceeds our current technology, but it won't forever.

I think that touch functionality hasn't progressed at all in a long while. The productization and marketing of it sure has, though. Which is excellent for developers like me

I do visualize more sensitive touch tech. For instance, being able to detect each whisker of a paint brush. And devices gaining touch along their edges, not just their faces.

Children growing up with touch today will create amazing technology tomorrow.

But we'll always have keyboards, and mice, and voice input, and whatever else comes along. Whatever works.

Yep. Ironically, for the foreseeable future they will create that amazing touch technology while using a keyboard to write the code, and a pen or mouse to draw the product details and schematics.

But one thing that works GREAT is touch for certain operations. People who can't see the point of touch make me wonder how they cannot see these advantages.

I agree. As you no doubt know by now, I've been doing touch for decades, and have a good feel (pun) for what works and doesn't. My homes have had touchscreens in them since the early 1990s. I'm a big proponent of them for some things.

Heck, below is a photo of my youngest daughter back in mid 2004 at the age of two, using her favorite kid's HTML _and_ Flash websites on her own touchscreen Toughbook. (She started when she was one.) Long before she could physically click a mouse, she learned on her own how to drag and drop using her finger. She also learned to write very early by using a stylus-driven handheld with a Windows CE handwriting recognition app.

And yet I also see many things that should still use buttons. Remote controls, for instance. What red-blooded man does not have all the buttons on his remotes memorized so he doesn't have to look down at them while surfing channels or playing videos?

 

[42streetsdown]

i find it hilarious that tablets are being referred to as 'non-computers'. Of course it's a computer, so is your smart phone. it's ridiculous to say otherwise.

 

[foiden]

Post-PC era is really a name, but I also don't see it as truly Post PC. However, tablets could just be very popular, in the future. They do indeed get done what a lot of people forcibly needed a computer for, before. Heck, my laptops (both of them) pretty much are relegated to heavy lifting (professional creation work), burning CDs, and games that only run on Windows or OSX.

Still, the big thing I saw with the tablets is the insane amount of people who are intimidated by using the computer for simple regular (non-work) activities. And even some light-work activities. Sure, typing isn't quite as easy, but everything around said typing is easier and more intuitive.

Excel, might work on a Windows Tablet, as long as it is redesigned like Numbers did on the iPad. iWork on iPad is definitely a different animal, by design, than the OSX versions for great reason. If microsoft are smart, they'll do the same thing with their Office releases. Just do like iWork and make them file compatible and shareable. It's only a bad thing if they try to make it with the same exact interface as the PC version. They've done it before on the tablets that failed.

But the most important things? The reason I bought an iPad for my Mom? It comes down to two this:

She's familiar with iTunes, the default selection of apps are self-explanatory, and I hand it over to her saying, "Ok, this is a touch interface, if it needs a certain input function like a keyboard, just touch where you want to type. This is the sleep button, volume, and lock buttons. iTunes works with it. That one button on the front is how you back out of any application to the desktop." I could technically skip sentence 2. But there's just not much to remember, I could let her loose and she'll go right at it. As she buys Apps, on her time, she'll learn progressively with little to no instruction. Plain and simple.

I did just that. She can learn to make use of it, her way, with the least amount of help from me.

I also think the one portability issue really holding back laptops (yep, even the 11" light as a feather Air) is that they are flip-tops. They require a table (or flat surface) to set upon. So they basically function as desktops for which you can easily carry around to whatever next table you want to place and compute from.

Tablets require none of that, can be carried around in one hand (easily), and used for whatever application they need. They can be used in vertical stands like Piano stands, music stands, etc. That freedom right there, basically makes it a use-anywhere device and keep the comfortable screen real-estate.

 

[RWinOR]

Oh - and to all those posters bitching about bad internet experience on Android: I personally prefer Dolphin over Mobile Safari. You should give it a try and then come back.

You are missing the point the browser just works in iOS. No need to download or tweak or manipulate, as you would need to in Android.

What is really sad... The Fandroids coming into an Apple forum, jumping up and down about what we need and how bad iOS is, and the fact they believe their own propaganda.

iOS works well for most people. Android does not. Then Android fanatics need to find their own sandbox to play in. Why is it that anytime someone says something good about Apple, iOS, Macs, iPad, iPods, or iPhones in an Apple forum, (Yes Android supporters, read the banner on the top, this is Macrumors not Android Rumors) they do not know what they are talking about.

Thank God we have all those Android fans to enlighten us and steer us in the right direction, since it is obvious that Apple does not know what to create or market and needs Android there to push them to be competive. (Sarcasm intended!!)

 

[Rodimus Prime]

You are missing the point the browser just works in iOS. No need to download or tweak or manipulate, as you would need to in Android.

What is really sad... The Fandroids coming into an Apple forum, jumping up and down about what we need and how bad iOS is, and the fact they believe their own propaganda.

iOS works well for most people. Android does not. Then Android fanatics need to find their own sandbox to play in. Why is it that anytime someone says something good about Apple, iOS, Macs, iPad, iPods, or iPhones in an Apple forum, (Yes Android supporters, read the banner on the top, this is Macrumors not Android Rumors) they do not know what they are talking about.

Thank God we have all those Android fans to enlighten us and steer us in the right direction, since it is obvious that Apple does not know what to create or market and needs Android there to push them to be competive. (Sarcasm intended!!)

You do know that a lot of us use Apple devices. Just because we do not worship Apple for all our things does not mean we should not come here.
Sorry I an others do not have our lives revolved around Apple. We use the best tool for what we want. Some times it is Apple other times it is not.

For Phone OS I flat out thing iOS sucks. It is the worse. For MP3 player iOS is great. iPod is bar none the best portable media player and iOS is great for it but for a Phone sorry iOS for me sucks. It is way to limited, it sucks at providing information at a glance. iOS5 provides some and I mean some half bake solutions but still lags behind all the others at providing info at a glance.

For mobile browser sorry but I find Android stock mobile browser to be a lot better than Mobile Safari. I personally do not like the dophin browser some people love it. I like mobile FireFox over it but Android stock one is my default browser on my phone.

Key difference is I have a choice on what I want to use. I am not told by Apple that this is the best for everyone. Sorry but that is not trust.

 

[NebulaClash]

(snip)

Very cute, thanks for sharing the early touch user picture!

One thing I love about touch technology is you don't have to teach either little children or elderly parents how to use it. I gave an iPad to my father without any instruction. The next day he said he loved it, never wanted to read a paper book again he loved iBooks so much. To this day, I've never had to explain how to use the iPad. I've never had that experience with any other technology. I'm still his tech support for his Windows box (go figure), but I got him a MacBook and he likes that too and I rarely have to explain stuff there. But I have to explain a bit, something that never happens with the iPad.

 

[swagi]

You are missing the point the browser just works in iOS. No need to download or tweak or manipulate, as you would need to in Android.

What is really sad... The Fandroids coming into an Apple forum, jumping up and down about what we need and how bad iOS is, and the fact they believe their own propaganda.

iOS works well for most people. Android does not. Then Android fanatics need to find their own sandbox to play in. Why is it that anytime someone says something good about Apple, iOS, Macs, iPad, iPods, or iPhones in an Apple forum, (Yes Android supporters, read the banner on the top, this is Macrumors not Android Rumors) they do not know what they are talking about.

Thank God we have all those Android fans to enlighten us and steer us in the right direction, since it is obvious that Apple does not know what to create or market and needs Android there to push them to be competive. (Sarcasm intended!!)

You know what is really really really sad. Mac users calling other Mac users names like Fandroid just because they don't buy into the iOS propaganda ********.

Proud Mac user since Dual USB iceBook and 10.0.0 - and you?

People bitching about the bad web surfing experience in Android are just plain uneducated. And sorry to burst your bubble, but today my wife and I realized that we had forgotten to put an order out for medical stuff we need. Ah...she just pulled out her iPhone and went to that webpage. She couldn't log in for whatever reason (I don't know if mobile Safari didn't like the cookie, or the switch to https or whatever - I don't give a damn - it hung).

I gave her my phone. Though she bitched about Dolphin not being as easy to use as Safari she at least could log in and send the order. So this is my anecdotal story of how mobile Safari sometimes sucking.

 

[aristotle]

For Phone OS I flat out thing iOS sucks. It is the worse. For MP3 player iOS is great. iPod is bar none the best portable media player and iOS is great for it but for a Phone sorry iOS for me sucks. It is way to limited, it sucks at providing information at a glance. iOS5 provides some and I mean some half bake solutions but still lags behind all the others at providing info at a glance.

Which department do you work for at MSFT? Are you on the Windows Phone 7 marketing team? Twice in one post you basically parroted the windows phone 7 marketing mantra. Listen a small little square on a low resolution screen is not going to give me information at a glance even if it rotates through it quickly. Unless if you have almost no friends with little or no updates happening, a live time for facebook will be useless because it would be faster to fast switch to an app than trying to make out something from a little square. You might as well just have an icon with a badge on it like iOS has.

For mobile browser sorry but I find Android stock mobile browser to be a lot better than Mobile Safari. I personally do not like the dophin browser some people love it. I like mobile FireFox over it but Android stock one is my default browser on my phone.

Key difference is I have a choice on what I want to use. I am not told by Apple that this is the best for everyone. Sorry but that is not trust.

Lovely, you then try to hide your employment by praising the android browser.

iOS 5 will have notifications on the lock screen for "information at a glance' but in reality, you should not be looking at your phone unless if you can devote your full attention to it. That means, you should not be looking at your phone when you are driving for example.

 

[RWinOR]

People bitching about the bad web surfing experience in Android are just plain uneducated.

You keep making my case for me. Android Fans think ALL NONE ANDROID fans are just plain ignorant and uneducated. I have used many different platforms, and many different OS's. The Android experience lacks for surfing the web. That statement is supported by the article that started this thread. You can call iOS users uneducated until the cows come home. Those of us who use it and come to this forum for intelligent threads know this. Is iOS perfect, by no means, is it better then any of todays alternates, ABSOLUTELY.

I have an Android phone, worst piece of crap in the world. Like many new phone owners I was very excited about it when it was new. I tweaked it and thought oh this is great. Then about 1 month after ownership it needed a Hard reset form the phone carrier. Now I get to set it up again. Not quite so fun the second time around. Then I have to redo everything about every 45 days. Still not so fun. The phone company sent me a brand new phone about 1 month ago. I did not bother to tweak it. I just want the blasted thing to work out of the box. With Android it does not work out of the box. It is like a windows PC, I have to customize it and configure the crap out of it. Then it crashes and I get to start over. I do not need to reset ANY iOS device.

You tell me which is the better user experience!!

 

[firewood]

As for Minority Report, Tom Cruise had to take breaks every five minutes because his arms got so tired doing the takes for hand motions in the air. And he was a young guy, too.

Tom must have been a weakling compared to that old college math professor I had who filled 4 large blackboards full of equations pretty much non-stop for a good portion of an hour. (My arms feel tired just thinking about doing that.)

 

[firewood]

By 2020, the majority of consumer computer purchases will be tablets. Not Macs. Not PCs. Tablets.

Since smartphones are already small tablet computers, this is close to happening already.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Tom must have been a weakling compared to that old college math professor I had who filled 4 large blackboards full of equations pretty much non-stop for a good portion of an hour. (My arms feel tired just thinking about doing that.)

Just to point out that you are not holding up the full weight of your arm and more importantly are not having to cover come moment force of your arm hang there. You are pressing back against the blackboard and that is handling the moment forces.

It makes a huge differences. Try holding you arms straight out for a while see how it feels then put a finger against a wall and repeat and tell me which is easier.

 

[kdarling]

Tom must have been a weakling compared to that old college math professor I had who filled 4 large blackboards full of equations pretty much non-stop for a good portion of an hour. (My arms feel tired just thinking about doing that.)

Yeah, it would seem like that, wouldn't it?

However, anyone who's been through military Boot Camp can understand the special pain involved in holding out their arms for long periods. It starts out so easy...

 

[swagi]

You keep making my case for me. Android Fans think ALL NONE ANDROID fans are just plain ignorant and uneducated. <snip>

You tell me which is the better user experience!!

Sorry - we never spoke about user experience. You spoke about surfing experience. These are two different beasts.

Googles stock browser isn't that bad at all. And Dolphin is my browser of choice. The tabbed browsing metaphor works extremely well in contrast to Google's or Safari's window-based operation. You ever had pop-ups in Safari sitting idle in RAM? I experienced this to be the main reason, my my wife's iPhone sometimes is quite unresponsive.

Your point about user experience is granted. I personally also have a lot of gripes with my phone - network protocol sometimes hanging, GPS use sometimes works wonderful, sometimes spotty to say the least. But I cannot agree about the bad websurfing experience.

 

[RWinOR]

Sorry - we never spoke about user experience. You spoke about surfing experience. These are two different beasts.

Googles stock browser isn't that bad at all.

To me the web surfing is part of the user experience. My phone just got an update late yesterday afternoon. I tried the web surfing this morning. It is slightly improved. Previous version would load web pages at full screen so I would have to flip around to see it all. I could not make it small enough to fit on the screen. When going to a web page which requires a password, like my bank, it would hide the PW filed under the keyboard. When going to data entry fields on a web page, it is not smart enough to now the phone number field should bring up the number pad. iOS recognizes these fields and changes the keyboard automatically.

This mornings update at least loads the page so it fits on the screen. To be honest that is all I tested as I really do not like surfing on my Android.

Other issues with Android is all the extra "clicks". For instance I keep GPS off, my phone burns through battery like kids through candy. I have to keep it plugged in. I get 8 hours standby 4 hours talk, and if GPS or hotspot is on, it last 1 hour without charging. I go to a navigation, says GPS is off, takes me to the GPS screen. (so far so good) then I have to start GPS flip to another screen, then the splash screen about dangers etc. After all this it bails out of Navigation program so now I have to go to programs navigate to the NAV program and restart it. Why doesn't it go back to the navigation screen?

How about keeping time. My phone HTC Evil(EVO) needs to be reset so often because of a known bug. It flips time zones and weather location about every 30 - 45 days. Sometimes power cycling fixes it, sometimes going into airplane mode and back out fixes it, and sometimes it requires a hard reset. Once it changes time zones all my text messages, e-mails, alarms etc are out of sync and difficult to follow. This has been an issue for over 1.5 years. Who should be fixing this? is this a Google issue, HTC, or Sprint? the answer is they all point fingers, so the end user (ME), gets stuck with substandard equipment that no one will fix. With iOS, Apple make the hardware, and the software, they are vested in the total experience, therefore something of this magnitude would not go un answered for 18+ months. BTW Sprint says that 100% of the EVO's do this, and the techs have told me to my face.... "it is no big deal just get use to it".

Consequently my phone is ONLY a phone now. I will not set up anything I am using it as a dumb phone with a touch screen.

How about ringer volume, I keep my phone on vibrate. I hate cell phone ring in the office and since my phone is always with me vibrate works well. The problem is at random intervals, my phone changes ring volume from vibrate to loud, or silent. I do not change this Android does it on its own.

The update I got last night was the first update I have received since owning the phone. Apple updates much more frequently.

Edit: New issue discovered... The new update has my screen locked at 40% brightness. It is so dim I can not see it outside. Even gong into settings and forcing the brightness up it does not change. End Edit

You take all these types of issues and it is easy to understand why iOS is ruling the web browsing. I am sure I am not alone in my piss poor experience with Android, perhaps just the most vocal.

 

[singlestick]

To me the web surfing is part of the user experience. ...

Who should be fixing this? is this a Google issue, HTC, or Sprint? the answer is they all point fingers, so the end user (ME), gets stuck with substandard equipment that no one will fix. With iOS, Apple make the hardware, and the software, they are vested in the total experience, therefore something of this magnitude would not go un answered for 18+ months. BTW Sprint says that 100% of the EVO's do this, and the techs have told me to my face.... "it is no big deal just get use to it". ...


You take all these types of issues and it is easy to understand why iOS is ruling the web browsing. I am sure I am not alone in my piss poor experience with Android, perhaps just the most vocal.

Wow. Any company that tells you that something is no big deal is really asking you to switch to a competitor as soon as you can.

 

[RWinOR]

Wow. Any company that tells you that something is no big deal is really asking you to switch to a competitor as soon as you can.

This is exactly why I have not purchased a different phone, I did not want to be stuck for an additional 2 years! As soon as my contract is up I am moving to Verizon.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

To me the web surfing is part of the user experience. My phone just got an update late yesterday afternoon. I tried the web surfing this morning. It is slightly improved. Previous version would load web pages at full screen so I would have to flip around to see it all. I could not make it small enough to fit on the screen. When going to a web page which requires a password, like my bank, it would hide the PW filed under the keyboard. When going to data entry fields on a web page, it is not smart enough to now the phone number field should bring up the number pad. iOS recognizes these fields and changes the keyboard automatically.

This mornings update at least loads the page so it fits on the screen. To be honest that is all I tested as I really do not like surfing on my Android.

Other issues with Android is all the extra "clicks". For instance I keep GPS off, my phone burns through battery like kids through candy. I have to keep it plugged in. I get 8 hours standby 4 hours talk, and if GPS or hotspot is on, it last 1 hour without charging. I go to a navigation, says GPS is off, takes me to the GPS screen. (so far so good) then I have to start GPS flip to another screen, then the splash screen about dangers etc. After all this it bails out of Navigation program so now I have to go to programs navigate to the NAV program and restart it. Why doesn't it go back to the navigation screen?

How about keeping time. My phone HTC Evil(EVO) needs to be reset so often because of a known bug. It flips time zones and weather location about every 30 - 45 days. Sometimes power cycling fixes it, sometimes going into airplane mode and back out fixes it, and sometimes it requires a hard reset. Once it changes time zones all my text messages, e-mails, alarms etc are out of sync and difficult to follow. This has been an issue for over 1.5 years. Who should be fixing this? is this a Google issue, HTC, or Sprint? the answer is they all point fingers, so the end user (ME), gets stuck with substandard equipment that no one will fix. With iOS, Apple make the hardware, and the software, they are vested in the total experience, therefore something of this magnitude would not go un answered for 18+ months. BTW Sprint says that 100% of the EVO's do this, and the techs have told me to my face.... "it is no big deal just get use to it".

Consequently my phone is ONLY a phone now. I will not set up anything I am using it as a dumb phone with a touch screen.

How about ringer volume, I keep my phone on vibrate. I hate cell phone ring in the office and since my phone is always with me vibrate works well. The problem is at random intervals, my phone changes ring volume from vibrate to loud, or silent. I do not change this Android does it on its own.

The update I got last night was the first update I have received since owning the phone. Apple updates much more frequently.

Edit: New issue discovered... The new update has my screen locked at 40% brightness. It is so dim I can not see it outside. Even gong into settings and forcing the brightness up it does not change. End Edit

You take all these types of issues and it is easy to understand why iOS is ruling the web browsing. I am sure I am not alone in my piss poor experience with Android, perhaps just the most vocal.

Yeah I have read threw your stuff and one of 2 things are true.

1. You are lieing and not telling the truth.
2. Your phone is by far and I mean BY FAR an exception and clearly no were close to the norm.

Reason I know one of those two things are true is I do hang out an Android phone that is pretty hard on flaws and I have YET to see a single thing like what you are saying happening pop up which makes me lean even more so to the lieing part.

 

[Bytor65]

To me the numbers look like something is wrong with them. They are so far out of line with market share in phones that it makes me question if any of them are valid. The tablet numbers I know are wrong and the way the data is collected is bad.
Since the data collection is garbage the results are garbage.
To me this is example of the lazy media only caring about headlines because the results do not line up at all correctly and if something looks really wrong 99% of the time it is wrong.

This is the delusion thinking I see from conspiracy theorists and internet fanboys everywhere. Any source that states something they don't like, is somehow flawed.