Apple lovers everywhere, you will be pleased to know that the second generation of Apple's industry disrupting iPad will be available for purchase starting this Friday. Numerous upgrades have been made to the device, including a 33% thinner design, front and rear-facing cameras and up to nine times faster graphics.
For marketers, this signifies three major points of interest:
- Tablets are firmly here to stay.
- Mobile gaming is becoming ever more prevalent.
- User-generated mobile video will continue to rise.
Optimization for Smaller Screens
For internet marketers, the iPad 2 indicates a greater necessity to optimize web content for the tablet and mobile screen sizes. In addition, new challenges to monetize visitors arises when one considers that a significant portion of web display advertising utilizes Adobe® Flash® – a technology publicly rejected by Apple. HTML5, a proposed standard of the “new” web supported by Apple's iOS, is slowly replacing Flash®, but will not itself be ratified by the W3C1 until 2015 at the earliest.
1 World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards.
Gaming
The iPad 2 is important to gaming marketers thanks to the device's improved hardware and graphics capabilities. As the iOS community has seen through impressive titles like Epic Games' Infinity Blade, mobile video games have matured to the point where they are beginning to challenge console systems for sales. Expect to see this trend continue throughout 2011 as other platforms such as Android and Windows Phone 7 mature and manufacturers continue to create exponentially more powerful devices.
Mobile Video
In the world of video, the iPad 2's front and rear cameras facilitate the creation of content on the go. Marketers should consider creating apps that take advantage of this functionality, as it is already present in the iPhone 4 and continues to rise in popularity. Additionally, the iPad's 9.7″ screen size is well suited for viewing HD video content. Brafton has reported that YouTube receives more than 200 million daily mobile views, creating opportunities for mobile marketers to monetize video content through Google's ad network.
