The hubbub made over tablets like the iPad is certain to be one of the top tech stories of 2010. And the media frenzy on the tablets has yet to die down. The New York Times, which at this point could publish a special extra-large edition of the paper devoted to all of its past iPad articles, ran a piece in the Sunday edition about how Hollywood film and television makers are using the product to pitch new projects. The Wall Street Journal has run three stories related to tablets this week alone, and it’s just Wednesday.
In addition, Sony, Sprint and HP each have app-filled and marketing-ready tablets ready to launch in the next couple of months. The point is that tablets are here to stay, and with a plethora of new tablets to be released before the end of the year, companies are enticing mobile marketers and developers to go ahead and go tablet crazy.
Research In Motion (RIM), the makers of the new Blackberry PlayBook Tablet, understand that apps are the wave of the future for developers and marketers – so much so RIM has gone out of its way to make app production even easier. Instead of forcing developers to download special app software, the folks at RIM are inviting them to use Adobe Air, a product most developers use already. To inspire developers to get busy on special apps for PlayBook, RIM is giving away PlayBooks to selected developers who have their apps approved.
Clearly, RIM sees the benefit of having a fully stocked app library. Tablet fanatics are more likely to pick up a tablet if there’s a ton of apps already available. Nielsen found last month that most tablet users are app crazy. Ninety-one percent of tablet owners snatched up apps, paid or free. The study also found that games are at the top of the tablet app heap, with a monstrous 62 percent of sales followed by books, music and shopping, respectively. All of this tablet trending is certain to mean mobile marketing moves by companies big and small to get busy producing must-have apps.
Leave a Reply