A few years back, the multipurpose devices that came with an operating system and touch features took the world by storm. Tablets today are slowly fading. In recent years, the number of users and popularity of tablets has declined. One reason is increasing the popularity of smartphones. Tablet users have shifted towards smartphones. Here are few facts about tablets that at least all should know.

• There are 1.1 billion tablet users around the world
• Apple released the first touchscreen tablet called iPad in 2010
• As of 2017, Apple has sold 360 million iPads around the world
• Apple has been leading the global tablet market with maximum shipments recorded
• Google’s Android operating system is the leading OS in the tablet market
• Last year, Apple sold more than 40 million iPads
• In addition to Apple, companies such as Samsung, Amazon, RIM and Hewlett-Packard are leading tablet vendors around the world
• It is expected that tablet shipments around the world will exceed 170 million units
• The first quarter of 2017 witnessed 36.2 million tablet shipments around the globe
• Tablets with medium screen (9-13 inches) are expected to shipped more by 2020 than tablets with small screens (7-9 inches)

Today tablet comes with many innovative features. In addition to its traditional features such as touchscreen display and keyboard, tablets now offer exciting features that are listed below.

Speech recognition
This feature was first on a tablet device by Google, when in 2009 the company enabled its Android 2.1 device to respond to voice inputs. In 2010, the company introduced voice action in Android 2.2. Then, the tablet responded to five languages, now the number of languages has climbed to 40.

Accelerometer
An accelerometer in a tablet helps detect tablet’s physical movement and orientation. Thus, touchscreen display switches from portrait to landscape more. For instance, a tilt of the tablet can be used to steer in the driving game.

Character recognition
Some tablets respond to a written text that is stored in the intended storage to replace the use of the keyboard.

There are other features such as ambient light and proximity sensors, gesture recognition and near-field communication that have the advanced tablet to a great extent.