The iPad Is Leading The Charge In The E-Mail Revolution

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Reading-iPad

When I’m not seated in front of a computer, I use my iPad mini for almost everything I need to do online. Checking my emails, banking, streaming movies and music, and reading the day’s news — it’s all done on a tablet. And it turns out I’m not the only one who’s abandoning my PC for a handheld.

Perion, the creator of IncrediMail, today unveiled the results of its latest survey of 4,400 iPad owners in the United States. The majority of respondents said they consider Apple’s popular tablet their favorite device for reading and writing emails, beating PCs and smartphones by a wide margin.

A whopping 90% of the people who responded to the survey said that using email on the iPad was either very important or extremely important, with two-thirds checking email on their iPad more than three times a day. 31% of respondents now use the iPad for sending all of their emails, avoiding a computer entirely.

55% of iPad users said they now prefer using their tablet to read emails, while only 32% said they prefer reading on their PC. Surprisingly, only 10% like to read emails on their smartphone. When it comes to writing emails, the numbers are a little different: 48% prefer a tablet, while 41% prefer a PC, and 9% prefer to use a smartphone.

According to Perion, this result mirrors a growing trend that shows tablets are quickly becoming the most used, and most loved, computing devices amongst their owners, with one in four adult Americans now in possession of a tablet device.

“The result is even more staggering when considering the simple nature of today’s email clients on the iPad, most of which are simple copies of their desktop counterparts,” the report said. Due to these limitations, only 41% of those surveyed said that they were “extremely satisfied” with the email client they use on the iPad. That’s “uncharacteristically low for iPad users who are usually passionate about their devices,” Perion says.

Perion believes its study is the most comprehensive into the ways in which people use email on their iPad to date. While others have looked at general iPad usage, none have focused on email.

Another interesting thing the survey found is that women are more satisfied with reading emails on the iPad than men; they’re also more likely to send emails from the tablet, too. Additionally, the majority of women (68%) use their iPad for personal emails, while more than half of men use it for business communication as well.

Apple’s built-in Mail app is the most popular client — likely because it’s the default client — being favored by 41% of users. 31% use the official Gmail app, while 13% use Hotmail. 18% prefer to check their email in the iPad’s web browser than using a native client.

“With our extensive experience creating amazing email clients for our users, we understand just how important email is to people and how much they rely on it as a communication tool in their lives,” said Ron Harari, General Manager, Communication Products Division at Perion.

“This is why we are so interested by the results of this survey. Email has been heavily used on the iPad since its launch but on a closer examination of usage and attitudes, different usage patterns appear. Clearly, the device is popular but the market is still looking for the right email app.”

Source: BusinessWire

Image: Flickr

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