Market intelligence firm, IDC, reported that almost 18 million media tablets, such as the iPad, were shipped in 2010. The number jumped dramatically from the 3rd quarter of 2010 from 4.5 million to over 10 million in the 4th.
Apple’s iPad accounted for 93% in the 3rd quarter, but then fell to 73% in the 4th pushed down by the popular Samsung Galaxy Tab.
The current target for 2011 is 50 million units.
The eReader market also continued to grow strongly, with over 6 million units shipped in the holiday 4th quarter.
Laptops and Netbook are as powerful as desktop nowadays. These are 'true" computers. iPad is a kind of computer but the limitation are plenty when compare with laptops and netbook. I cannot design and create a program or database on iPad but I can in a laptop or netbook. iPad is a web-base device.. it needs the web to be useful. That is the difference.
I'm not sure anyone was arguing that iPads or tablets were the same as desktops or laptops. However, you can easily say that *any* device without Web access has far less value than one that does.
Additionally there are apps such as Filemaker for the iPad that provide the ability to create databases. Most people do in fact only consume information on the iPad… while it's great for that, productivity apps (many featured on Gizmos for Geeks) and new/updated apps will soon modify how people use the iPad. For example, you can edit together a movie using iMovie easier than ANY PC-based movie editor. Imagine editing a movie on a Windows-based netbook…