Mobile phones with cameras are certainly becoming ubiquitous and with them a flurry of apps battling to take control of their mini desktop.  But what about Tablets?

They might not be the most practical tool to take pictures but they are certainly perfect for  everything else . Bigger screens, higher resolutions makes them ideal viewing, editing and sharing ( especially with people physically next to you).  Worldwide  sales of tablets to customers reached 195.4 million units in 2013, a 68%  increase on 2012, according to Gartner, Inc. and shows no signs of slowing down. At the same time,  tablets have become lighter, faster and increased  definition. 

The second screen

The great majority of photo apps  designed for iOS or Android are tablet compatible. But most are designed for phones first and look out of sort in the tablet environment. Few are designed for the tablet first. The tablet is currently considered as the second screen of photography, where images, taken either via a phone or a camera, come to be be massaged before their final destination.

One reason is that tablets offer less capable cameras, 5 MP for the Ipad Air and 8 MP for the  top Android tablets. Compared to the 8 MP of the current Iphone series and the 16 MP of the Galaxy S5, they still lag behind in resolution. But for how long ? After all, there is not much new features a tablet can offer that others don’t already have besides a powerful camera. It will certainly not surprise us to see the next generation of tablets offering massive increases in that field, if only to have a distinctive selling point.

So what about users ?

While it seems cumbersome to take a picture with a tablet – especially at a time where  point and shoot cameras are in heated battle to be as small as possible – it is also a fact that more and more people are using their tablets to take pictures. One key reason is that, unlike the small screens of a mobile phone, they can clearly see what they are taking.  And also clearly see the results. In an economy where the baby boomer generation is rapidly losing their eyesight and where teenagers have grown up around big vast HD TV’s, it could quickly become a key appeal.

Phablets: The tablet Killer

Phablets are the new tablets
Will Phablets kill the larger Tablets market ?

There are 19 Million pictures taken by one or another version of the iPad on Flickr today with an average daily usage higher than those equipped with an iPhone 5C. With new versions of tablets coming out almost daily and a market share expected to reach 386 million shipped units by 2017 according to IDC , it is certainly not to be ignored. The big unknown for now is how much larger phones – the so called phablets – will eventually cannibalize the larger tablet market.  One theory is that while it will kill the smaller tablets – like the Nexus 7- it might also increase the adoption of larger screens as consumer will want to have a larger difference in screen sizes between their phones and their tablets.  Either way, photo apps developers should consider today shifting their focus towards a mass adoption of tablet as a camera and create platform specific apps.

Design for the tablet first

The success of apps like  Facetune , an app designed for the  Ipad, is a clear signal . While no public numbers can yet confirm, it is becoming palpable that the increased success of photo editing apps have more to do with their capitalization of the second larger screens tablets offer rather than their usefulness on a phone device. However, the second screen, especially with stronger cameras, is shifting to become the first screen. There is a  clear growing opportunity for a photo app company to target the tablet market first, using all its particular features, and like Instagram, capture an emerging market as it grows, becoming its champion app.

Top 10 iPad photo/video apps for April 19, 2014
Top 10 iPad photo/video apps for April 18, 2014                                                                     source

 

Author: Paul Melcher

Paul Melcher is a highly influential and visionary leader in visual tech, with 20+ years of experience in licensing, tech innovation, and entrepreneurship. He is the Managing Director of MelcherSystem and has held executive roles at Corbis, Stipple, and more. Melcher received a Digital Media Licensing Association Award and is a board member of Plus Coalition, Clippn, and Anthology, and has been named among the “100 most influential individuals in American photography”

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