Android devices have gained ground on Apple’s share of the global tablet market, with global shipments of Android tablets reaching 10.5 million units in the final quarter of 2011. This gave it a 39% share of the overall market, up 10% on 2010. Apple, meanwhile, had that 10% extracted from its market share, dropping to 58% from the 68% that was recorded the previous year. Windows operating systems could only account for a mere 1% of the market share, but with the launch of Windows 8 on the horizon, this could change. Overall, sales of tablets were up a staggering 150% with global shipments rising to 26.8million in the final quarter of 2011 from the 10.7 million documented at the same time in 2010. Integrators and installers are increasingly making systems tablet- and smartphone-friendly due to the simplicity the interface can provide users wanting to control various aspects of AV and lighting equipment. Creston, Sonos and HAI are just some of the developers who have designed purpose-made Android apps to control elements of AV and lighting equipment, with a host of others making systems iPad compatible. And with suppliers and distributors such as Amazon, Samsung and Asus driving sales to demanding sectors that are said to consist of consumer, business and education, things are looking healthy for the market and the technology. Samsung has recently announced that Midwich has become the exclusive distributor of its SUR40 40in touchscreen in the UK. The new device, which facilitates interactivity and has been designed to be installed in businesses, does not run on Android, but uses a Microsoft platform. It demonstrates a new emerging segment of the market where larger touchscreen ‘tablets’ are being developed, with the SUR40 bearing resemblance to Promethean’s interactive learning device the ActivTable, which was on show at BETT 2012 along with Samsung.
www.samsung.com
www.android.com
www.midwich.com
