2010 was the Year of the iPad (never mind that it launched in the spring, nobody counts January or February anyways). Today at a press event in Cupertino, Steve Jobs took to the stage – immediately boosting Apple’s stock by 1% – to take the wraps off of the highly anticipated sequel, aptly named the iPad 2.
I’ll let you find details of the iPad 2 elsewhere – from people who made it to the press event and have hands-on accounts. Here, we’re all about the data, and I’d like to take this opportunity to ask if publishers are ready for another spike in not-quite-smartphone-but-not-quite-a-computer traffic.
We predicted in December that by the end of 2011, the iPad alone will make up about 2% of all Internet traffic. New releases don’t change that, nor does the borderline pathetic growth of non-Apple tablets being used across our network.
The bottom line is, just like smartphone traffic, web publishers need to be ready for the continued explosion of iPad usage. Check your site: does your content feature Flash heavily? If so, nobody on an iPad can see it (except the jailbreakers, of course).
How does your site look on an iPad? An easy way to find out is to sign up as an Apple developer and download their iOS Simulator. The simulator does what it sounds like: it gives you a launchable iPhone window within your system where you can check what your sites look like on mobile. What you see on the simulator is what any iPhone or iPad user will see when they get to your site.
What do your ads look like there? Remember, if they can’t see your calls-to-action, they can’t click on them.
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