It all started in 2010, with a revolutionary device called iPad, launched by Apple during a special keynote event. Steve Jobs took the stage on a special day of January 27, 2010 and the iPad became officially the reason that all companies started to design a tablet. You probably remember that Steve Jobs said the iPad was a necessary device claiming that it's something between a phone and a laptop, but not a netbook. He believed that netbooks were slow and using PC software, while a tablet should be fast when performing simple tasks(browsing, email, photos, music, videos, games, ebooks). And once again, he was true! Fast forward one year and half and we find out, from AbiResearch, that in the second semester of 2011, tablets shipments have exceeded netbooks shipments. It might sound odd for you, but the numbers are resounding: netbooks were shipped in 7.3 million units, while tablets were shipped in 13.6 million units. Tablets victory is more than reasonable and the future is black for notebooks, because as the technology world develop more and more, everyone will end up buying a more convenient and faster device, instead of an old and outdated one. Jeff Orr, a group director at ABI, said:

Media tablets are perceived to be easy to use, compared to the keyboard and mouse interface of a netbook computer. Those who have avoided PCs because they are difficult to use – think the Baby Boomer generation and older – see media tablets as an opportunity to re-engage with Internet access. Cost, however, is certainly not a reason driving tablet interest, as the average media tablet costs approximately $600 and the average netbook is only about half of that.

The big winner of this report and situation is, as you already guessed, Apple having 68 percent of the tablets(iPad or iPad 2), while the rest of 32 percent is shared among different producers. More important the analyst predicts that by the end of 2011 tablets could double their number of shipments compared to notebooks shipments. Photo: JaredEarle on Flickr