When Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) reported second fiscal quarter earnings in late April, the company revealed that it had shipped 3.1 million fewer iPads than it did in the same quarter a year ago. Predictions for the collapse of Apple were certainly overwrought, but if, as CEO Tim Cook said, iPad is Apple’s fastest growing product ever, there is at least an anomaly in what we’re hearing.

Research firm Flurry has taken a look at how tablets are being used by consumers. Flurry’s view is that tablets — and the iPad in particular — are just beginning to demonstrate their full potential. The opposite side of that argument is that the more ubiquitous and more useful smartphones are displacing not only PCs but tablets as well. It’s not smartphones and tables versus PCs any more, it’s small screen versus big screen.

Flurry’s research broke tablet users into two demographics, teens and college students (ages 13 to 24) and working adults (age 25 to 54). The research found that tablet app usage by time of day followed the same pattern for both groups, with peak usage occurring at around 8 p.m.

The research also showed that working adults rarely swap their PCs for a tablet during working hours. However, the recent announcement from Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) that it would make its Office suite of products available on the iPad may change that. Flurry believes that as productivity apps become available for the iPad and other tablets, usage of these devices will surpass PCs.

The alternative view is based on the vast numbers of smartphones now in use and that are being sold every quarter all over the world. Literally millions of apps are available both for Apple’s iOS and for the Android operating system from Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). The richness of this ecosystem is its most crucial advantage and one that it won’t relinquish any time soon.

Apple’s strength is that the iPad stands virtually alone in the tablet space garnering some 77% of all tablet based web traffic in the U.S. and Canada. If the tablet ecosystem can grow in richness, tablets are very likely to fulfill Tim Cook’s prediction that tablet sales will surpass PC sales. How tablets fare against smartphones remains to be seen.

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