Egham, UK – A Gartner report said despite increasing pressure
from Android, WebOS and other Internet operating systems, Apple’s iOS will
remain the most used, at least through 2015.
Apple’s iOS and its attendant iPad, will steadily lose market
share over the next several years, but by 2015 it will still lead the industry
with a 47.1 percent market share. This is down from the 68.7 percent share the
OS now enjoys.
One reason for this continued dominance is Apple’s competitors
are focusing on the wrong thing when developing their media tablets.
“Seeing the response from both consumers and enterprises to the
iPad, many vendors are trying to compete by first delivering on hardware and
then trying to leverage the platform ecosystem,” said Carolina Milanesi,
research VP at Gartner. “Many, however, are making the same mistake that was
made in the first response wave to the iPhone, as they are prioritizing
hardware features over applications, services and overall user experience.
Tablets will be much more dependent on the latter than smartphones have been,
and the sooner vendors realize that the better chance they have to compete
head-to-head with Apple.”
Despite Apple’s lock on the category, Android will grab share,
with Gartner forecasting Google’s OS to have 38.6 percent by 2015, up from 19.9
percent this year.
WebOS, QNX and MeeGo will fight for the remaining share. Milanesi
said it will be difficult for RIM to develop a following, but the fact it will
offer consumers and businesses a complete package of smartphones and the Playbook
tablet will help.
