{"id":2693,"date":"2011-02-21T00:01:27","date_gmt":"2011-02-21T08:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=2693"},"modified":"2011-02-20T10:43:43","modified_gmt":"2011-02-20T18:43:43","slug":"2011-the-year-of-the-tablet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=2693","title":{"rendered":"2011: The Year of the Tablet"},"content":{"rendered":"

The year isn’t even a quarter over yet and already it looks like I missed a big, big prediction.
\n
\nBack in December, I did my annual predictions blog post<\/a>. I mentioned the iPad 2, but I obviously lacked the clairvoyance to see the Tablet onslaught.<\/p>\n

The first anti-iPad of note was the Galaxy Tab. At 7″ diagonal, it’s only about half the size of the iPad. The Tab runs the Android OS, but the phone version of the OS, not the newer Honeycomb tablet version of Android.<\/p>\n

My only disappointment with the Galaxy Tab is that the version being sold in the U.S. lacks telephone service. It’s there, but it’s just not activated on the device. In Europe and Asia, the Galaxy Tab works brilliantly as a phone, which makes it a valuable alternative to the iPad. And that probably explains why the Galaxy Tab overseas has outsold the domestic Galaxy Tab by a wide margin.<\/p>\n

Coming soon is the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which is a full-size version of the existing Tab. It will run the Honeycomb OS, which shows promise. Still, the 10.1 Tab won’t be available in Europe for a few months, with no debut scheduled here in the U.S. I’m hoping later this year.<\/p>\n

So with this blog post, I’m officially claiming that a 10-inch tablet model is now going to be the full-size or standard size. Anything smaller, is hereby diminutive, and anything larger would be a super-size, or whatever, tablet.<\/p>\n

Available this coming week is the Motorola XOOM tablet, which is predicted to be available on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The XOOM looks like it’s the first major competitor against the iPad. It’s about the same size, it already runs the Honeycomb OS, and the price is just a smidgen higher than the iPad.<\/p>\n

My guess is that the XOOM, which I continuously try typing as “ZOOM,” will put more of a dent in the iPad’s sales than the diminutive Galaxy Tab. Still, I don’t see it as the tablet “for the rest of us.”<\/p>\n

Face it, Apple has a death grip on the Tablet market. People are trained to think of the entire category as an “iPad.” So when I take my Galaxy Tab out in public, people ask me if it’s “one of those iPads.” That’s pretty significant evidence of Apple’s marketing efforts.<\/p>\n

I’m not even going to mention the other, sundry Tablets on the market. I do predict that they’ll be more of them as the iPad market grows and other manufacturers want a slice of that pie.<\/p>\n

Will any other Tablet ever seriously compete with the iPad? Sure! It will take about a year, but it will happen. Before then, I predict two things:<\/p>\n

1. Microsoft will get into the Tablet market in an awkward, embarrassing, and ultimately unsuccessful way.<\/p>\n

2. People will actually figure out why the hell anyone would need a Tablet in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The year isn’t even a quarter over yet and already it looks like I missed a big, big prediction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2693"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2697,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693\/revisions\/2697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}