Gadgets galore but no Apple at Vegas show

North America's largest consumer electronics show opens in Las Vegas on Thursday, with the notable absence of some of the most popular electronic gadgets on the market and the company that makes them — Apple.

Apple doesn't do trade shows. When it has new products to reveal, such as iPads or iPhones, it stages its own events.

But nearly every other company in the industry will be at the International Consumer Electronics Show, which runs until Sunday. A good many of them will show off their tablets — computing slabs with touch-sensitive screens. Big names expected to do so include Motorola Inc. and Dell Inc.

DisplaySearch analyst Richard Semenza estimated that a hundred different tablet models are in development, though not all of them will reach store shelves.

Competing tablets will have a hard time catching up to Apple's lead, at least this year. Certainly, no one managed to do so last year, even though a lot of manufacturers, including Dell, brought out tablets. Samsung did have some success with its Galaxy Tab, but sales didn't come close to the iPad numbers.

'For the next year or two, we expect there to be a lot of false starts, failed attempts, and disasters.' —Richard Shim, DisplaySearch analyst

"For the next year or two, we expect there to be a lot of false starts, failed attempts and disasters," Richard Shim, another DisplaySearch analyst, said in a blog post.

Apple sold 7.4 million iPads through September, in the device's first six months on sale. That means they're already outselling Apple's Mac computers, but not iPods or iPhones.

Analyst Shaw Wu at Kaufman Bros. believes Apple sold another 6.1 million iPads in the holiday quarter, and there's every indication it was a popular holiday gift. 

Apple's would-be competitors include Motorola, which has been hinting that it will show off its first tablet at the show. Dell and Acer Inc. are also expected to show tablets. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will likely touch on tablets in his keynote speech Wednesday, an annual fixture the eve of the show's opening.

The electronics industry's need for a hot new product is especially strong this year.

Overall, the recent holiday season was the best for retailers since 2007, but electronics sales were up just 1.2 per cent from the previous year, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse, which tracks spending across all transactions, including cash. They're still down 10 per cent from pre-recession levels.

For about five years, the industry has been bolstered by consumers rushing out to buy flat-panel TVs. Now, that rush is slowing, as 61 per cent of households already have such sets, according to Leichtman Research Group.

Meanwhile, sales of other products that have driven growth, such as GPS units, picture frames and digital cameras, have tapered off. The people who really want them already have them, while the rest make do with their cellphones instead.

Other technologies that have been promoted at CES in recent years have been met with tepid interest from consumers.

3D TV fails to stand out

At last year's CES, Japanese and Korean TV makers showed off 3D TVs as a way to keep consumers buying newer TVs. But when the sets hits stores a few months later, sales were disappointing. Samsung estimates all manufacturers combined sold one million 3D sets in the U.S in 2010, far short of its initial estimate of three million to four million.

This year, manufacturers aren't giving up on 3D, but some of them are likely to change their strategy to make 3D viewing a bit more affordable and comfortable. Last year's 3D sets require bulky, battery-powered glasses, which cost about $100 a pair. This year, we're likely to see more sets that use thin, unpowered glasses of the kind used in 3D movie theatres. Vizio, the No. 1 maker of LCD TVs for the North American market, already introduced one model with this kind of "passive" 3D screen in December.

Aside from the benefit of cheaper glasses, the image flickers less with passive 3D technology. On the other hand, it cuts the resolution in half. It's still high-definition, but less so.

"Having convinced the world to adopt 'Full HD' TVs, someone is going to have to get creative to market 'Half HD'," Semenza said.

'Basically, the TV will look like your smart phone and have access to the internet.' —Gary Shapiro, CEO Consumer Electronics Association

TV makers will also push internet-connected TVs at CES.

"Basically, the TV will look like your smart phone and have access to the internet," said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, which organizes the show.

Internet-connected TVs have been around for several years and are starting to gain consumer interest now that they can display video from such online sources as Netflix. 

At the show, manufacturers are set to talk about TVs that are even "smarter," with access to better downloadable applications for social networking and other tasks.

"This is going to be the year for ... the first generation of truly smart TV applications, where people are building them for the first time unique to this platform," said Eric Anderson, vice-president of content and product solutions at Samsung. 

Apple is involved in connecting TVs to the internet as well, through its Apple TV add-on box. But Apple's isolation from the rest of the industry may be hurting it here. It hasn't let anyone build its software into TVs, so its $99 add-on box is competing with software that comes free with many TVs.