The iPad IS Still Apple’s Lethal Weapon in the App Wars

It’s hard to believe that it’s been just four years since the iPad was launched, reinventing how we access the digital world (April 3rd, 2014 marked the four year anniversary of the iPad). Who really knew what the new innovation meant at the time?

A good example is Flurry’s Simon Khalaf recent comments on a blog post on the Flurry website, “When the iPad was first introduced in early 2010, we analyzed its early use cases and pegged it as a media consumption device as opposed to a personal productivity device and a PC replacement. The image we built for the iPad in particular and the tablet in general is that of a living room device rooted in gaming, media and entertainment with a potential to replace the physical magazine rack, the set-top box and eventually the television set. In the past four years, the tablet has had a major impact on the living room of an average US household. In fact, the iPad has become Apple’s lethal weapon in its assault on the living room. In addition to that, the tablet has taken a simultaneous path of replacing the PC and many analysts have labeled the rise of the tablet and the decline of the PC as the “Post-PC” era.”

Yes the tablet has become ubiquitous, not only as an entertainment device, but as a go-to business tool in corporations across the globe. But as reports are surfacing that smartphones are cannibalizing tablet growth - as may be signaled in the softness in current iPad sales - a question can be asked: “What is the future of the iPad and tablets overall?”

Part of the answer can be found in Khalaf’s post, “The Tablet Four Year Report: An Identity Crisis and an Amazing Opportunity.” The company states that one of the goals of the report was to understand the usage of tablet as a media consumption device as well as a productivity (PC replacement) device.

 

The report goes on to state of its findings, “One interpretation could be that the tablet in general and the iPad in particular is having an identity crisis. It has become so many things to so many people and there isn’t really an 80% common use case. Another interpretation is that the tablet has an amazing opportunity ahead of it completely replacing the personal computer as teens and college students begin to enter the workforce and the new breed of personal productivity software designed bottoms-up for the tablet gets the chance to mature.”

Of course, you can draw your on conclusions by reading the report here.