Apple is changing the world again. With its latest innovation – the Ipad, Apple is redefining the way people use computers. In fact tablets sales more than doubled last quarter from 4.4 million to 9.7 million in the fourth quarter.
But Google’s Android is growing fast. Ipad’s tablet shares actually dropped from 96 percent in the third quarter to 75 percent in the last quarter. Meanwhile, Android tablet shares increased by a substantial 10 fold, from 2.3 percent to 22 percent. A good portion of this huge increase in popularity for the Android tablets can be attributed to Samsung’s Galaxy Tablet; the first real competitor to Apple’s Ipad.
With the release of Google’s next OS for Android – Honeycomb (3.0) – especially designed for tablets, competition just went up a notch for Apple’s Ipad.
A preview version for software developer to test their applications was just released and the official Android Honeycomb release is set to be on Wednesday February 2nd.
The redesigned Android OS focuses more on tablets functionality and will include a “system bar” built into the bottom of the screen. This “system bar” will show recently used apps, notifications and can be used to navigate the tablet.
A fresh new web browser will enable the use of tabs for browsing like we currently do on desktops; furthermore YouTube’s web browser will also be redesigned with a 3D video display of available videos.
Last but not least, Honeycomb will incorporate an on-screen keyboard designed to fit the wider size of tablets, and a nice feature that the Ipad is lacking is the possibility to use a full keyboard via USB or Bluetooth.
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