"The iPad did not seem destined to be a runaway product success straight out of the box," Bernstein Research analyst Colin McGranahan wrote, according to CNBC. "By any account, the iPad is a runaway success of unprecedented proportion."

Reports in China claimed that Apple is planning to switch its baseband allegiance to Qualcomm for the fifth-generation iPhone and second-gen iPad.

The Dell Streak is much smaller-with just a 5-inch screen and makes cellular voice calls, something the Apple iPad can't do.

Spansion on August 6 filed three complaints against Samsung, alleging patent violations in a broad range of Samsung flash memory products that go into devices like tablets and smartphones. A Spansion spokesman declined to comment on which products those may be. However, Apple's iPad and iPhone 4 use Samsung flash memory.

But publishers said it is still too early to gauge for the entire industry whether the growth of e-books is cannibalizing sales of paperback books, a huge and crucial market. Amazon's chief executive, Jeff Bezos, also countered the perception that sales of the company's Kindle e-reading device had suffered due to competition from other devices, such as Apple's iPad.

WebOS tablet is expected to have most of the features and functionality missing from the iPad. A tablet built on a mobile OS, but including USB or SD memory card ports, front and/or rear facing cameras, and compatibility with Adobe Flash content offers business professionals a number of compelling reasons to shun the iPad.