Neil Smyth wrote:In 2011 Gartner, a respected technology analysis and research company predicted that sales growth for personal computers would fall from 15.9% growth down to a much lower 10.5%. This decline is particularly significant when taking into consideration that the global economy was in the process of emerging from the worst recession since the 1930s, a period during which growth rates would logically be expected to increase. This predicted decline in PC sales growth has been largely attributed to the surge in popularity of tablet based computers.

The concept of a tablet computer is nothing new. Microsoft, for example, has been talking about tablet computers for many years and has even made a few, largely unsuccessful, forays into the market. The single event that triggered this market shift was the introduction of the iPad in April 2010. Within the first year Apple sold 15 million first generation iPad units. The iPad 2 shipped in March 2011 and was sold out within the first weekend of sales in each of the countries in which it was launched. The tablet market will, of course, not be left entirely to Apple. At the CES 2011 trade show in Las Vegas approximately 70 new tablet computers were previewed, many of which were expected to reach the market within the following 12 months. The fact remains, however, that if not for the success of the iPad few, if any, of these tablets would even have been created. More importantly, none of these tablets will be running iOS (most will run the Honeycomb release of Google's Android OS) and, perhaps most significantly, none will be part of Apple’s formidable ecosystem.

When developing for the iPad it is important to understand that you are not just targeting a hardware device. In essence you are leveraging an entire ecosystem consisting of the device hardware, the iOS operating system, software development kit (SDK), iTunes platform and, perhaps most importantly, the App Store. No longer is the success of a mobile device platform a matter of simply the operating system and hardware. Instead, a platform will succeed or fail based on the ecosystem to which it belongs. Google's understanding of the importance of the applications market, for example, has contributed significantly to the success of Android based devices. Conversely Nokia’s failure to create a successful ecosystem was cited by CEO Stephen Elop as a contributing factor to the demise of the Symbian operating system and the company’s move to Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform for future Nokia smartphones.

Gartner expects 69.5 million tablets to be sold in 2011. A significant portion of these sales are expected to be iPads and predictions of iPad sales in 2012 range from 30 – 40 million units. Without doubt, by choosing to develop for the iPad you are tapping into a vast market of potential customers for your iPad app. It is our intention that this book provide the knowledge you need to start building that app.