iPad owns 95.5 % of tablet market, new competition to face uphill climb

Its no surprise, really, that Apple's iPad dominates 95% of the tablet computing market as per a report from Strategy Analytics. The iPad, after all, is the only commercially available tablet in the market right now. As we head into the highly competitive holiday buying season, can Apple's iPad sustain its popularity and build on its ecosystem?

There are challengers to the iPad and certainly they have generated some excitement but we can't really count on them as they aren't available. Samsung's 7-inch Galaxy Tab, which was leaked way back in May, still hasn't made it to the market.

The Galaxy Tab is the first official Android OS tablet that will prove whether or not Google's smartphone OS is indeed scalable to a tablet platform. Expected to come to Bell and Rogers sometime soon, the Galaxy Tab sells for US $600 contract-free on Verizon, so that's the ballpark Canadians should be looking out for (although an iPad with similar specs runs about C$679 but has a bigger screen).

Benefits of the Samsung Galaxy Tab are possibly its smaller size as well as its phone capability as well as a competitive software ecosystem in Android.

RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook is not due until 2011 and while it has a similar 7-inch form factor, it is running one a completely new OS which doesn't have an established developer network (nor does it have the tens of thousands of apps that are available for Android). Less is know about this device but it has sure generated a lot of curiosity specially from BlackBerry users who are eager to extend their experience to a tablet form factor.

Both of these tablets  are smaller and more portable, offer dual cameras and the ability to play Adobe Flash content and these are features that differentiate them from the iPad. Whether or not they will be competitive really remains to be seen.

Where are the iPad apps?

During its release back in April, the iPad had a number of compelling apps that were tailored specifically to the tablet form factor. Those, and all the existing iPhone apps, made for an attractive proposition. Six months down the line and we're less than enthusiastic about the state of iPad-specific apps out there. Sure, there are some creative and truly useful apps that work great on the iPad but we feel the rate of new iPad apps has somewhat started to trickle and that there's not as much as we expected.

Some of the most popular iPhone apps, like FaceBook and , haven't even been given their own HD or iPad-specific version. We find this strange but are also aware that the iPad is about to get a big OS update to iOS 4.2 this month. We are hoping that some outstanding apps will accompany this major upgrade which will bring multitasking as well as a printing option to Apple's dominant tablet.