Technology-industry executives showed off their newest table wares to varying degrees of excitement.
Graphics chipmaker
Then there was
— or rather, there wasn’t Apple, which didn’t attend CES but is
expected to introduce a tablet Mac of its own, as soon as the end of
the month.
Indeed, Apple’s shadow led some analysts to assert
that no one would even be talking about tablets were it not for the
anticipation over what the
The popularity and success of the iPhone in
launching a new wave of smart phones is considered a prime example of
why rivals need to get into the tablet market before Apple comes out
with a device that could have consumers thinking any other tablet is
second-best. See story on how company is working on a tablet.
“You can talk about new tablets and applications, but it’s still not enough to make anyone forget Apple,” said
Another question facing any company looking to get
into the tablet-PC market is whether the hype coming out of CES will
amount to acceptance among consumers and translate into real sales.
It’s an issue that has dogged tablet PCs for years.
“Every couple of years it seems like everybody tried something new with tablets,” said
While it is too early to tell how much traction
tablets will gain among potential buyers, analysts say the state of
technology is such that there might finally be the right mix of
applications, hardware and mobility available to make tablet PCs more
than just a niche device in an already-crowded market, with gadgets
designed to deal with almost any computing a person may need.
Gownder estimates that devices that could be considered tablet PCs date
back to the Toshiba Dynapad, released in 1992. The latest iterations
can be traced to late 2002, when
While tablet PCs have found some solid markets in
medical, government and military applications, other devices
(smartphones, digital-media players, netbooks and e-book readers, most
recently) have taken hold among mainstream consumers, effectively
rendering the tablet into a novelty rather than a technological
necessity.
That could be about to change, as a combination of
better applications and mobility has made tablets more feasible,
according to
“The older tablets were much more computer-centric,”
he said, referring to the emphasis on the hardware involved with the
devices. “Now the emphasis is on access to content, the Internet and
mobility. The infrastructure to make tablets popular just wasn’t there
in the past.”
That infrastructure goes beyond just being able to
write on the tablets’ screens. The growth of wireless networking and
Wi-Fi technology — along with easy access to digital content from home
and the office, as well as on the road — are seen as reasons the likes
of
Still, not all are sold on the tablet and its
potential to grab a major stake in the PC market. Part of analysts’
skepticism is due to price points — namely, whether such devices can
push their way into a sector where notebooks are falling below
Then there’s the view that the only reason anyone is
talking about tablets at all is because of Apple, and what its managers
aren’t saying about a company event that it won’t confirm will be held
in
Speculation has been rife for months that Apple will
unveil a tablet version of the Mac sometime this year, in an effort to
maintain its streak of successful new products that stretches back to
the launch of the iPod in late 2001.
“Whatever else is out there,” said IDC’s Daoud,
“Apple is the one company most likely to create content and a platform
with easy access to that content that could make this market appealing
to the consumer.”
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