Are Tablets the Next Big Thing?

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Tablets have recently become very big in the tech community. Since the launch of the iPad, it seems the word tablet is being thrown around as a buzzword as often as the word “cloud”. “Optimized for tablets”, “Tablet-friendly”, and other sorts of phrases have been popping up all over the place, lending evidence to the tablet’s staying power.

But does it truly have any? Is the tablet here to stay, or is it a fad, as so many have derided it?

Some might argue that tablets have been tried before: Microsoft, most famously, has failed repeatedly at pushing Slates and other tablet devices in the past. Technology, however, seems to have caught up with the visionaries, and it looks like tablets are here to stay this time: in 2010, over 15.9 million tablets were sold. Considering the fact that the first major tablet, the iPad, was only released in 2010, that’s nothing short of amazing: tablet sales have gone from virtually nothing to 15.9 million in just a year, and market analysts looking at 2011′s numbers are tentatively saying that those numbers could quadruple in 2012.

More importantly, most of the major players have gotten into the game: Apple’s iPad is dominating tablet sales, and Google is prepping its tablet-only Android version, Honeycomb, for use in the next generation of Android-powered tablets. Combined with the fact that Samsung and Motorola are pushing their own Android tablets, these are very good indicators that the tablet is here to stay: these companies are pumping massive amounts of R&D into tablets and are not about to give up a lucrative market segment that is only projected to grow exponentially.

So what about those who say it’s a fad? Well, that might still be the case: no one’s a foolproof prophet in the tech sector, and those who argue that tablets are a solution searching for a problem may be right. They say that netbooks and smartphones can fill any niche that the tablet tries to fill, and that the tablet craze will fizzle out once the general public realizes that.

While they might be right, the numbers mentioned above certainly aren’t in their favor. Additionally, the tablet does fill a niche: it makes an important distinction between mobile and portable. Smartphones are mobile but lack the display size and functionality of a netbook, and netbooks are portable but lack the pocket-and-go ease of mobility smartphones have. The tablet fits in this particular niche, and the explosive boom in tablet sales say that this niche is one consumers need filled!

Where the tablet goes is anybody’s guess, but the educated guess is that they’re here to stick around: from the rise in sales to the major companies investing in tablet technology, all the signs point to a comfortable niche for tablets that won’t be leaving any time soon.