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Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King
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Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season

By | September 22, 2011, 5:58am PDT

Summary: Gartner says that until Android can get its hardware, software and services act together, the tablet market belongs to Apple’s iPad.

Apple’s iPad is likely to be unchallenged in the tablet market this holiday shopping season, according to Gartner projections.

The research firm projected that global tablet sales will hit 63.6 million units in 2011, up from 17.6 million in 2010.

Media tablets will hit 326.3 million units in 2015.

For now, Gartner estimates that Apple’s iPad will account for 73.4 percent of global tablet sales, down from 83 percent in 2010. However, the number of units has grown substantially. Android will be No. 2 in market share with 17.3 percent of the market (11 million units) and other platforms are lagging with less than 5 percent share.

Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi said that Apple’s integration between hardware, software and services make it tough to beat. She said:

Unless competitors can respond with a similar approach, challenges to Apple’s position will be minimal.

Milanesi blasted Android tablets for high prices, a weak user interface and a lack of tablet apps. She added that Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich release may fix things, but it’s unclear. Like IDC, Gartner seems to be betting that the Android camp is vulnerable.

As for the rest of the field, Gartner said RIM’s QNX platform is promising, but it’s too early to tell whether it’ll do well. Microsoft’s Windows 8 success as a tablet will depend on compromises the company makes to be cross platform.

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Topics

Apple iPad, Gartner Inc., Apple Inc., Tablets, Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
owlnet 22nd Sep
Android selling 116 million compared to Microsoft 34 million in 2015....Ha ha ha ha... this report should be a joke. Windows 8 will kill android tablets and only google fans will probably buy one. How much much people buy a laptop/desktop with Linux installed? may be 2%. Android will end up like that in 2015.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
dsf3g 22nd Sep
@owlnet Never seen so much bluster for a product that's still just vaporware.

Windows 8 may be awesome when it's finally released for production in a year or two, or it may be so far behind the ever developing and evolving tablet market that no one will care. I'm much more bullish on Android than I am on Windows 8. At least Android tablets are shipping now. Where's Windows 8? Buggy developer previews are a poor substitute for something I can walk down to Best Buy and purchase right now.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
owlnet 22nd Sep
@dsf3g
Android tablets run mostly fart apps now. When Android is capable of running heavy lifting apps, corporate class apps, then they are in level playing fields with MS. The current class of android tablets are useless.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
Peter Perry 22nd Sep
@owlnet Really, wow I guess all the apps I have on mine just make darting noises.

Oh and do yourself a favor, everytime you speak in ignorance (which is pretty much every post for you) you make yourself look worse so, think before you type huh!
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agreed
bannedfromzdnetagainandagain Updated - 22nd Sep
showing windows 8 a year or more before it might be ready is the usual microsoft vaporware strategy. a desperate attempt to freeze a market. like they did all those years. it must be a really harsh awakening for them that this doesn't seem to work anymore. outside of some diehard wintel forums no one cares. people just go out and buy ipods, iphones and ipads today, by the millions every week.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
global.philosopher 22nd Sep
@dsf3g
Remember that WinMo phones have been shipping for ten years only to get trounced by Android (same goes for Symbian). The tables can turn very quickly.

My prediction is for Apple to control the lions share of consumers against Android and Apple to compete agressivley with Windows 8 in the business market.

For consumers its all about the Apps and Android Apps simply are either non-existence or suck. MS will push Office on their tablets hoping to leverage Office for business buyers.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
non-biased 27th Sep
@owlnet When you have to resort to "fart apps" comments you have already lost the debate.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
Hasam1991 22nd Sep
@owlnet YO WAKE UP, It is because of Apple that this article was even written and Windows 8 had to adapt to tablets because of Apple... without Apple we wouldn't even be talking windows 8 on a tablet...
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
anono 22nd Sep
@Hasam1991
I agree. Whether you are a fan of WP7, Win 8 or Android, you can thank Apple for that.
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You have absolutely no way of backing up that statement
toddybottom 22nd Sep
@Hasam1991
"without Apple we wouldn't even be talking windows 8 on a tablet... "

Microsoft has been releasing Windows in tablet form for 10 years starting with XP. Then they released Vista tablets. Then they released Windows 7 tablets. All of this before the iPad. In fact, if MS didn't release Windows 8 on the tablet, that would have been news indeed.

If anything, you can thank MS for the iPad because Apple took one look at Windows on the tablet and realized that things could be done so much better. Apple rarely comes up with their own ideas. All their successful products were improvements on existing products and ideas. Apple lacks a lot of vision but they do remarkably well when it comes to polishing the visions of others.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
techconc 22nd Sep
@toddybottom:
"Microsoft has been releasing Windows in tablet form for 10 years starting with XP. "

Yes, exactly. That's the point. Nobody was talking about the crap MS was trying to push in the tablet space. Stylus? Full Windows? The point here is that the only reason anyone is talking about a Windows 8 tablet is because MS is "following" Apple's lead with touch interface, etc. Metro, like iOS is an interface designed for the hardware device. This is a basic concept that Microsoft didn't get until someone else showed them how to do it. Also, if you're going to cite past events, then it's fair to note that Apple's Newton predates all of Microsoft's efforts in this area.

" Apple rarely comes up with their own ideas. All their successful products were improvements on existing products and ideas. Apple lacks a lot of vision but they do remarkably well when it comes to polishing the visions of others.

LOL!.. I get that you don't like Apple. That's fine. There are many negative things that can be said about the company. However, lack of innovation and vision are not among that list. Suggesting that's the case only makes you look ignorant.
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techconc: You are allowed to be wrong
toddybottom 22nd Sep
" Nobody was talking about the crap MS was trying to push in the tablet space. "

You are factually incorrect here. Nothing has changed between the Windows 8 tablet talks and any talk about previous Windows tablets. There has always been a certain level of "chat" about previous iterations of Windows tablet PCs and there is that same level of "chat" about Windows 8 tablets. MS is not going down the iPad route so no, Windows 8 is not "thanks" to Apple. Windows 8 tablets are another iteration over Windows 7 tablets over Vista tablets and over XP tablets. You wouldn't say that Lion was thanks to Windows 7 because Lion was going to come out regardless of whether MS released Windows 7. Likewise with Windows 8 tablets.

"However, lack of innovation and vision are not among that list."

Apple does not lack innovation, I never wrote that. They do lack vision and that's okay. They are still the most successful company in the world. Innovating on the ideas of others is obviously extremely profitable.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
anono Updated - 22nd Sep
@toddybottom
Hardware manufacturers put Windows 7 and below on tablets just like they could put a dumb phone OS in a desktop if they wanted. Doesn't change the fact that Win 8 is the first Windows designed for touch.

Edit: Also if you think nothing has changed in Microsoft's attitude between Win 7 and Win 8 when it comes to tablets then I guess we can expect Win 8 to be an equally large flop in the tablet market.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
anono 22nd Sep
@toddybottom
You could argue that xerox laid out the vision for all computers (in all forms) with a GUI that have existed and ever will exist in the future because they had the first GUI, but I would have to disagree.

Pre Win 8, MS had thought tablets as a mostly content creation device just like desktops, while with the iPad Apple focused on content consumption. To me at least, these are 2 very different visions.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
global.philosopher 22nd Sep
@toddybottom

You are so far off the mark that that is all I can say.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
Rapid Rec 25th Sep
@Hasam1991 +100! What everyone seems to forget, is that Ballmer said the Ipad would be just a fad and die out in a short time.

Not even two years later, MS is rushing around trying to compete with a fad! And yes I can say this since I'm a Windows fan, that also owns an Ipad, that I'm extremely happy with....
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
alexdan2 22nd Sep
@owlnet Get six pack Abs

I???m busy and can???t spend 60 minutes a day with exercises.
Truth About Six Pack Abs does not require this.
30-45 minutes workouts 2-3 times a week should do the trick

go here : goo . gl /YR85Z
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Lol. Sometimes SPAM is funny. How're your six packs coming along? [nt]
olePigeon 22nd Sep
[nt]
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
Champ_Kind 22nd Sep
@owlnet I don't think even the die-hard phandroids will buy one. I have a cousin that is about as anti-Apple as could be... until his daughter bought an iPad 2. He bought one for himself over the Toshiba, Samsung, and Motorola tablets; I'm even a fan of the Toshiba tablet, but Honeycomb just doesn't work as well as iOS, and with 5 out next month the experience is only going to get better.
0 Votes
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
non-biased 27th Sep
@owlnet Since you seem to be able to see into the future why didn't you tell MS that the WP7 would hardly sell and to focus their attention on Win 8 since it needs to hit now not 12-18 month from now. Oh, that's right, you can't see into the future and just assume Win 8 is going to be huge because you are a fanboy.
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the usual gartner BS
bannedfromzdnetagainandagain Updated - 22nd Sep
they have really no idea what they are talking about. or they are doing it on purpose. besides the unproven garbage of success of lower-end tablets in Asia (there are absolutely no information or official numbers available too back that claim), they still account the webos/hp touchpad with 2 million sales in 2011 and the rim playbook (qnx) with 3 million. you gotta be kidding. they have just revised their idiotic predictions from a few months ago (android will kill the ipad!), oops didnt happened, lets just usher another idiotic prediction. how idc, gartner and the rest of these market research companies have any reputation left is beyond me.

it always fascinates me how these people got their jobs / can keep their jobs and how the tech press rehashes that nonsense with no questions asked. by the way, the touchpad is eol and hasnt sold well even at the $99 everything-must-go-price and the playbook has shipped 700.000 so far. shipped, not sold. only 2.3 million to go in 2011 for rim!

and by the way, what is a media tablet?
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
BillDem 22nd Sep
@bannedfromzdnetagainandagain I have to agree. Gartner must have their heads up their collective nether-regions. Their 2015 predictions are complete fantasy. The only number which looks half-believable is the iOS figure.
Here are my predictions for 2015:
Android 40mil
iOS 120mil
Microsoft 85mil
QNX 2mil
nobody cares about the rest...
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
dsf3g 23rd Sep
@BillDem

When it comes to Windows, I think there's a very important distinction to be made: x86 based tablets shipped vs. ARM tablets shipped.

I fully expect the x86 tablet number to be significant, but that's because I suspect the laptop market is pretty much going to evolve into a laptop/tablet hybrid market. I suspect that by 2015 perhaps 40% of x86 "laptop" sales will be machines whose screen can swivel around and fold onto their keyboards. This will accout for a significant number of Windows 8 "tablet" sales.

The bigger question is whether the ARM based, Metro only tablets will enjoy signifcant market success. And here my personal prediction is that by 2015 iOS will have 60% of the market, Android will have 25% and Windows, RIM and whoever else will fight it out for the remaining 15%.
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Yes, RIM is very 'promising': 200 thousand units were shipped in the latest
DeRSSS Updated - 22nd Sep
@bannedfromzdnetagainandagain: ... quarter. To Gartner and IDC, this promises 3 million sales of Playbook this year.

Obviously, there is something wrong with RIM's accounting, since the respectable, venerable analyst-research firms Gartner and IDC predict Playbook's sales rate of totally different order.
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seriously.. 2.5 million units in 3mths??
doctorSpoc 22nd Sep
@DeRSSS .. when they've been averaging about 200,000 -300,000 a quarter?? yeah, that's makes a lot of sense.. how can anyone listen to these morons??
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Android still has 9.3 million tablets to go for this year.
Bruizer 22nd Sep
@bannedfromzdnetagainandagain

Android has managed 1.7 million tablets (based on Google's data) for all of 2010 and 2011.

Dude, Gartner missing the simply data point that Android, in Sept 2011, has still not met 2010 goals yet is simply embarrassing. Do these analysts actually get paid for this?
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
non-biased 27th Sep
@bannedfromzdnetagainandagain The touchpad actually sold very well at $99 but that doesn't really matter because that price point for a quality tablet is not sustainable.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
Badgered 22nd Sep
Does anyone know if Gartner's projections have ever been compared to actual statistics after the fact? I assume there's a reason people keep quoting them, but they seem so wrong.
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HMM
Hasam1991 22nd Sep
Same old argument from the past... do you want to be seen with a ZUNE or an iPOD?
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
non-biased 27th Sep
@Hasam1991 Not sure about anybody else but I don't make my purchase choices on what others will think or what I want to be seen with.
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HMM
Hasam1991 22nd Sep
Same old argument from the past... do you want to be seen with a ZUNE or an iPOD?
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
statuskwo5 22nd Sep
@Hasam1991 Neither. I wanna be seen with an el cheapo MP3 player that's not tied to either one.
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Predicting the future is fraught with problems.
James Quinn 22nd Sep
I think some Android OEM and or Amazon will find it's stride and lead the rest of the Android pack to some form of success. What that will look like I would not dare hazard a guess:). I also think there is "some" promise for a kind of success with Windows 8 again what it will look like is anyone's guess. QNX and WebOS have a harder road to tow but there is a chance.... Just not huge at this point. Now don't get me wrong I still want Apple to thrive but Apple has never needed to be number one to do so and I don't care if when all is said and done if in 2015 Apple is number one in Tablet sales.

Pagan jim
0 Votes
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RIM.. 3mil this year??? LMMFAO... these guys are idiots!
doctorSpoc 22nd Sep
they've sold like 400,00 - 500,000 and it's end of september.. how the hell are they going to sell 2.5 million in 3 months at that rate?? time to get off the crap pipe guys.. OMG these guys ar dumb as a stump!
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Can OEMs sell 9.3 million Android tablets in 3 months?
Bruizer 22nd Sep
@doctorSpoc

I doubt it personally. Even the iOS numbers are grown on some fantasy tree. If we assume 11 million iPads for this quater (160% growth) that only leaves 22 million for the final quarter. Holiday or not, I don't see it as possible.

These are numbers based on wishful thinking used to show Android OEMs how many tablets they can sell. But if they put in realistic numbers for iOS (like 30 million) the numbers will look obviously baked.

So, to sell you services to the various OEMs, you come up with a number like 9 million to make them wet their mouth. But you have a strong entrenched player with the iPad so you can not simply say you will go from 0% to 30% in 3 months so you make a number up (like add 14 million to the iPad forecast) to make the ratios look more believable.

You then offer this amazingly detailed report to OEMs for the small price of $100,000.

Larry, how about some real investigative reporting detailing past failings of these companies, like IDC and Gartner, to show them for the charlatans they are?
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Larry... don't you think you owe it to you readers...
doctorSpoc Updated - 22nd Sep
to say that these predictions do not make any kind of sense.. they are completely ridiculus.. how can RIM sell 2.5 million units between now and january when we know they are selling about 200,000 to 300,000 units a quarter?? anyone who writes that simply does not know what the hell they are talking about..

but how can you just reprint this non-sense with not editorial comment at all... seriously, you should be ashamed to just reprint this garbage!! do better!!
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
ghunda 22nd Sep
There is no way that Android even has that much penetration. Living the silicon valley and working in tech, I have seen ONE Android tablet in the wild.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
Peter Perry 22nd Sep
@ghunda Now how many tablets do you see in the wild? I hardly ever see any.
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Several every day.
Bruizer 22nd Sep
@Peter Perry

When I go into clients office locations. Coffee shops. Hanging out in bars at lunch. Have you been to an airport recently? iPads are everywhere.

iPads are, by far, the most common. The next most common is the Nook. That is it. I see more WP7 handsets than I see non iPad/Nook tablets. In fact, I have never seen a non iPad/Nook tablet in the wild.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
Peter Perry 22nd Sep
They should have stuck with their first Stats! Ice Cream Sandwich Rolls out in OCT / NOV and the super tablets hit shortly after that.

Tablet structure is like that of computers, eventually the performance beasts will win and those will likely be running on Intel hardware.
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So after the holiday season?
Bruizer 22nd Sep
@Peter Perry

Yep, that will help the DEC numbers look great. Android has 1.7 million tablets in the hands of end consumers. Do you think they will get > 9 million tablets sold in 3 months?
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Without an ecosystem to rival iTunes, all tablets will fail
toddybottom 22nd Sep
No one can compete head to head with iPad. It is impossible. Apple has too much of a lead. They can buy their parts significantly cheaper than anyone else. They have exclusive access to the biggest and best ecosystem on the planet: iTunes. For another tablet to succeed (success = profit) the manufacturer must create an ecosystem bigger than Apple's and must charge more than the iPad. That will never happen.

The iPad market is defined. It is a sick market with only 1 healthy competitor in it. This will never change.

Competitors should abandon their entries in the iPad market. The highway is littered with the dead corpses of those who tried to compete against Apple. Apple is too big, too strong, too ruthless.

While I give Windows 8 tablets a very small chance of success, at least MS is going in a different direction. They are not trying to compete with the iPad. There is no reason why both these products can't live side by side in adjacent markets. But entering the iPad market is suicide.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
anono Updated - 22nd Sep
@toddybottom
No one else can succeed in the "iPad market" because Apple has a trademark on the term iPad so they'll sue anyone else who sells an "iPad" out of the market. Sick market indeed; how dare Apple not allow everyone else to use their trademark.

But as you pointed out MS (and Google?) have a chance to succeed if they if they build a different tablet OS and not a clone (thus not getting sued by Apple for copying their OS, trademark.
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
anono Updated - 22nd Sep
@toddybottom
Speaking from a consumers perspective. Loving the $99 touchpads, Win 8, WP7, iOS, android (post iphone)

Glad to see Blackberry clone Android, WM 6, Symbian, crappy expensive Win 7 tablets gone (pre iphone devices)
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
z2217 22nd Sep
Predictions for tablet sales in 2015 seem a bit iffy...

By then Apple will likely have invented something else entirely. Maybe it will be the "iBand" that just streaches around your forehead and "keeps you aware, in touch and in control"' or something similar. ???
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
Detfan 22nd Sep
The soon to be defunct HP Touchpad is still the best tablet in existence. There is not an operating system out there that performs as elegantly as webOS. Maybe Meg Whitman will reverse course.
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lmao...
doctorSpoc 22nd Sep
@Detfan "There is not an operating system out there that performs as elegantly as webOS." ..or as slow! webOS is great.. but still unfinished.. never had a decent eccoystem and alway running on crappy hardware.. and because apps are based on very abstracted web tech.. ALWAYS going to be slow for things like 3d games by its very nature.. it's dead.. just let it be.. RIP WebOS...
0 Votes
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RE: Apple's iPad to have 'free run' in holiday shopping season
watchesn 23rd Sep
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yjabwu,mmhqrgfg53, cfqhf.

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