Apple launches iPad2 into fiercely competitive tablet market

No Middle East launch date has been announced yet, but tablet fans were given a look at the new device in an event in San Francisco last week. The device was unveiled by Steve Jobs, who took a break from medical leave to make the presentation.

The new iPad is 33% slimmer and up to 15% lighter than the previous version and now boasts a dual core A5 chip, making it faster and more powerful than its predecessor.

Market braces itself for iPad2 launch

The impact on the market is set to be huge, with Apple getting to the market with its second tablet effort quicker than its competitors. "In such a fast moving market, Apple is forced to release new versions of its hardware to stay ahead.

Apple clearly had first mover advantage, however, its competitors have been hot on its heels with a slew of tablet devices from big brand vendors such as Samsung, Motorola, HP, HTC and RIM, all of which have announced tablet devices which aim to replicate the Apple experience, which is notoriously difficult to match," explains Ovum principal analyst Adam Leach.

The other major new feature of the iPad2 is the front facing camera to compliment the one on the back. This enables video conferencing between iPad users through the FaceTime software. It is not yet known if the video conferencing will be enabled in the UAE, as there have been issues with its use in the past. Battery life on the iPad2 is the same as its predecessor, 10 hours. The iPad Smart Cover is also a new feature, a magnetically aligned cover that sends the iPad to sleep when it is closed and can also be folded to make it easier to watch content on the tablet and to type.

Tablet market to be worth $35bn by 2012

A recent report by JP Morgan has stated that the tablet market will be worth $35bn by 2012, and this launch is set to have a huge impact on the IT sector, possibly at the expense of the PC. "We expect tablets to have an increasingly negative impact on PC shipments. We are modelling more than 35% of tablets sold in 2012 to cannibalise PCs," Mark Moskowitz, analyst at JP Morgan wrote in a report.

The tablet market is currently dominated by the iPad, although a host of new launches are set to make an impact eventually, with a large number of new devices using the Google Android operating system. "Much of the early growth of the tablet market can be attributable to the Apple iPad, a device whose sales constituted 90% of the total market opportunity in 2010. The remaining 10% of shipments in 2010 was made up of devices running variants of Google's Android OS," states Ovum's Leach.

Apple's dominance could slip over time

It has been predicted that Apple's dominance of this market will slowly wane as consumers look to the Android OS as well as those developed by RIM and HP. "Devices based on Google's platforms will only overtake those based on Apple's platform by 2015, when we forecast 36% and 35% market shares respectively, of a total market with shipments of approximately 150m units in 2015. This compares with Ovum's estimate of 10% for Google and 90% for Apple at the end of 2010," comments Moskowitz.