The New iPad is coming!

By YUKARI IWATANI KANE
After much waiting, Apple Inc. is expected to unveil a new version of its iPad tablet device on Wednesday.

Last week, Apple emailed invitations to the media for a special event on Wednesday in San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The company didn't say what the topic of the event would be, but hinted at it with a graphic of its calendar app peeled back to reveal the corner of a device that looked like an iPad.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

When Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad a year ago in January as a "magical and revolutionary device," some Apple watchers were skeptical of the company's ability to sell a device that was meant to fit into a brand new market in between a smartphone and a laptop.

The Cupertino, Calif., company subsequently proved doubters wrong. Apple sold 14.8 million iPads as of the end of 2010, racking up $4.6 billion in sales, or about 17% of its overall revenue, as consumers snapped up the tablets to read emails, surf the Internet, play games and even make work presentations.


This year, Apple's challenge will be to keep up that momentum. Now that the company has established the tablet market, more rivals are racing to come up with devices of their own.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. is expected to ship its PlayBook tablet in March or April at a similar price range as the iPad, which starts at $499. The PlayBook's biggest point of differentiation: it will have tighter security and integration with corporations' back-software.

Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., meanwhile, just launched Xoom, a tablet that will support 4G, the next generation high-speed wireless network, through Verizon Wireless for $599 with a two-year contract. Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and Toshiba Corp. are all also preparing tablets.

Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said Apple is more than up to the challenge this year. "Apple has a strong first-mover advantage," she said, adding that consumers will be comparing a second-generation iPad and more than 60,000 iPad apps with first-generation devices by other competitors.

She predicts that Apple will keep at least an 80% market share in the U.S. in 2011, down from nearly 100% last year. Overall, Forrester expects U.S. tablet sales to more than double to 24.1 million from 10.3 million in 2010.

People familiar with the situation had previously told The Wall Street Journal that the next version of the iPad will be thinner, lighter and more powerful than the original. It will also have at least one camera on the front of the device for features like video-conferencing, these people said.

As with many of its product events, Apple will also likely introduce new ways to use the iPad. The event will also be closely watched to see if ailing Mr. Jobs, who last month announced he was taking a medical leave from Apple, will appear.


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