One in four US adults now owns a tablet computer, with Android catching Apple’s iOS iPad, according to a new report. The study, from the Pew Internet and American Life Project indicates that about two-thirds of those who own tablets bought them in the last year.
Apple dominated the tablet market in 2011 with four out of five users owning an iPad. However, this year numerous manufacturers have come out with Android devices, giving Google’s tablet operating system nearly half of the market share.
Amazon has also proven itself to be a powerful competitor with its Kindle Fire helping to reduce Apple’s dominance.
There are notable differences between users of different tablet devices. iPad owners are overall more likely to use their tablet than Android owners.
They are also more frequent news consumers with 43 percent of iPad owners getting news daily news compared to 29 percent of Android owners.
Kindle users unsurprisingly are the most likely to read books daily; 38 percent of Kindle owners read books daily compared to 12 percent of iPad owners and other Android owners.
Android owners are less likely to use their tablets for other daily activities including social networking, and overall spend less time on their tablets than iPad owners.
Read the full report ‘The Future of Mobile News’ here