Last year may have been the first chance for punters to have the new wave in tablet computers under their Christmas trees, but this was the year it really got interesting.

Even as laptop computers chugged along in their boring but reliable way – what else is there to say about an industry where the most exciting trend is the release of burnished-aluminium 'ultrabooks' – the biggest mobility trend during 2011 was the prevalence of these tablets. Still dominated by Apple’s iPad, the market was a haven for dead-pool fans as myriad vendors tried and failed to topple the company's market dominance even as it reset the technology expectation of consumers, employees and businesses alike.

HP’s TouchPad fire sale may have seized the record for the shortest consumer-electronics launch ever and Dell’s discontinuation of its 7-inch Streak 7 tablet the lowest-profile mercy killing – but the slow, plodding train wreck that is Research In Motion (RIM) is the biggest example of how the iPad has turned the market on its head, forcing market Goliaths to reconsider their strategies and push out of their comfort zones.

In RIM’s case, the push into tablets was constrained by its legacy in providing business-focused smartphones. RIM tried to add the word ‘play’ to the name of its PlayBook in order to give it consumer nous, but the decision to tether the device to RIM’s BlackBerry smartphones, and to deliver the device without email capabilities of its own, proved just as popular in the market as many punters initially thought it would.

Although vendors such as Acer have scored a few hits with bulk deals to schools like Brighton Grammar, Apple continues to dominate the market and – I think – is likely to do so through 2012. And there is a simple reason for this: by serving consumers a high-quality product and uncompromising content ecosystem, Apple has wormed its way into the sensibilities of consumers and, almost through osmosis, has seen the iPad drawn up into ever-higher visibility within the corporate world.

IT managers, as a consequence, have been caught scrambling to figure out how the iPad changes the mobility equation; the saving grace, perhaps, is that iPads run the same operating system as iPhones so devices running them can be managed using a similar mobile device management (MDM) infrastructure. Good thing, too: recent figures suggest Aussies are swarming towards tablets.

I have not yet mentioned Samsung, of course, but I have not in any way forgotten it. This whole ugly patent stoush between Apple and Samsung was the most sensational thing to happen in the tablet market during 2011, but I regard as bizarre reports that Samsung has somehow “won” the battle by being able to offer its Galaxy Tab 10.1 for sale before Christmas.

Apple never needed to ban the Galaxy Tab permanently; all it needed to do was delay the device so long that it missed the key Christmas market – which is largely has. For all its apparent goodness (and I have not, to be open and honest, used one yet) the emergence of Google’s ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ Android update means the Galaxy Tab is an expensive device that’s running an outdated operating system and will soon be swamped by a crush of ICS-based devices.

Whatever beauty the device may have had, will fall by the wayside next year when ICS spawns a new rush on Android tablets – and, presumably, brings an updated version of the Android Kindle Fire to our shores. Combined with a do-or-die Windows 8-based effort by Nokia – which will likely be too little, too late – and the emergence of the Pad 3, which by definition cannot be too little or too late, and next year’s mobility market will be interesting indeed.

Of course, there is a wildcard in the form of Motorola, which has managed to get the iPad and iPhone banned in Europe on the basis of a yet-to-be-resolved patent claim. This sort of Mexican standoff is stunning irony and could be disastrous for everyone in the mobility market: love it or hate it, Apple’s tablet market is suckling at the teat of Apple’s iPad supply chain – particularly in Australia where iPads are increasing their market share at the expense of Android tablets. Were a patent suit to interrupt this flow, the follow-on effects would be both dramatic and problematic.

Samsung could take advantage of the disruption to make up for lost time: as a huge player in Android and a massive consumer-electronics operator, it has the same customer-friendly focus that Apple has developed over time. This should prevent it making the blunders of HP, RIM or Dell in producing boring devices that nobody really wants. But even as standard-bearer for Android tablets, there are great questions about whether Samsung can convince the buying public to abandon the iPad en masse.

In the longer term, there are equally significant questions as to whether enterprises will allow consumers to bring any old tablet into their working environments, especially as a replacement for long-proven laptop finance options. Tablets will disrupt corporate mobility planning in many ways, and keeping up with the changes will remain a key challenge for IT managers moving forward.

But that’s another story – or, as the case may be, another year of Carry blogs. In the meantime, have a wonderful holiday season and here’s wishing you all the best for the new year – no matter which tablet you buy. As one friend recently told me: as long as it plays Angry Birds, I’m good.