Earlier this week Forrester released new projections for the tablet computing market. While many expected the projection to be high, it is doubtful that anyone expected what Forrester has in mind.
Over at mobile marketing blog Mobile Marketing Watch, they have a breakdown of what Sarah Rotman Epps of Forrester laid out at the Untethered conference:
She expects 3.5 million tablets — including the iPad and other tablets — to be sold this year, growing to 20.4 million in 2015. In addition, she expects desktop sales to drop from 18.7 million units in 2010 to 15.7 million units in 2015.
Take into account that Apple is selling about 1.2 million iPads per month, according to Apple Insider, and you soon realize that tablet computing is here to stay and its impact on web and digital marketing will be significant.
Because of the hype surrounding both the iPad and tablet computing in general, it is likely that digital agencies are being approached by their clients about whether they should take the plunge and develop their own iPad application.
If a client asks about developing an iPad app for their product or brand, first ask them these three questions:
- The most basic iPad costs $500, and the 3G-enabled iPad costs $650. Are your core customers buying them?
- The most successful applications on iPhone and iPad are games, so if your app is not a game, are you OK with not ranking highly in the app store?
- Do you have an iPhone app, and if so, how successful was it? What would be different on the iPad app?
Having an iPad application means offering content all of the time. It is a media consumption device more than a media creation device. You can send e-mails and do most everything that you can do on a laptop or desktop computer, but with the iPad, the experience is different. The screen is large, so design and user experience is much more important.
The iPad offers brands a way to interact with its customers in a new way. But it also requires brands to be more open to these changes, as they are happening rapidly.
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