CES 2012: What to Expect
2011 is almost over, which means the most anticipated event after Christmas and New Years Eve is the 2012 CES. Taking place January 10-13 in Las Vegas, the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is the biggest consumer electronics tradeshow in the world. This is an important event, not only on our calendar, but for the global CE industry as a whole. The last CES attracted a total of 149,529 attendees including exhibitors, visitor, press, industry analysts and key speakers.
With so many of the world's leading consumer electronics brands exhibiting, there's one that's notably missing from year to year: Apple. This makes sense, given that CES is a platform for companies to show off their latest product innovations, while Apple is notorious for their shroud of secrecy around new products. If Apple displayed at CES, we would only see the same products that we already know and love.
That's not to say that Apple's presence is not felt at the show. The iLounge Pavilion has become the world's largest dedicated exhibition of iPod, iPhone and iPad related products and services. In fact, we're also exhibiting in this hall - booth #4822 - so please come by and hello.
The top trend for the 2012 CES seems to be a release of products that emulate Apple's. For example it's expected that every computer company will debut their own "ultrabook" models - ulta slim notebooks without any optical drives, similar to the Apple MacBook Air. While the Mac's OS X operating system will always be unique to Apple, hardware design remains open to copycats. Apple may have cause for more lawsuits again other manufacturers in the year to come once these new ultrabooks are released.
Since the release of the original iPad, we have seen a spate of new tablet devices on the market. Even though the Apple Vs Samsung lawsuit continues, we should expect even more Android tablets in 2012 set to compete against iPad 2 and the pending iPad 3.
Although Apple themselves do not attend CES, their influence and presence is still felt. Whether you're an Apple fan or not, CES is a hotspot of new gadgets and technology and we couldn't be more excited about the 2012 show.
