Apple’s iPad will continue to reign the swelling tablet market this year even though it already has several competitors from various computer and mobile-device companies, according to a report released by research firm Gartner.

Gartner said iPad, which is synonymous to the term “tablet,” sets the standards for what the device really is, thus, leaving a small room for alternatives.

The firm expects 70 million tablets to be sold within this year and about 108 million in 2012. The expected number is way beyond the 17.6 million tablet sales in 2011.

Google trails behind Apple in the second position. The firm said Google’s Android operating system is still insufficient to match up with Apple.

However, Gartner said Google’s shares will rise to 39 percent in 2015 from 20 percent this year while Apple’s shares will gradually drop to 47 percent from 69 percent.

Research in Motion’s Playbook tablet, which uses the new QNX platform, gets the third spot in the market this year with a 5.6 percent market shares, which Gartner believes will rise to 10 percent in 2015.

The firm said time and remarkable effort is required for RIM to obtain more customers and developers that will deliver a more innovative group of services and applications around QNX. Carolina Milanesi, Gartner analyst said this method will make a feasible alternative to Android or Apple.

Milanesi said organizations that will be interested in RIM’s new QNX-run tablet will consist of those who have RIM’s infrastructurre or those who have strict security requirements.

Viacom Incorporated and Time Warner Cable Incorporated allowed the federal court of New York decide on their dispute regarding iPad applications on Thursday. Both companies filed lawsuits against each other because Time Warner placed about a dozen of its cable channels in Apple’s iPad.

Four Networks, including Viacom Inc., News Corporation, Discovery Communications, and Fox Cable Networks, have requested Time Warner to pull out their programming from the iPad application they own, that was launched a month ago. The networks said that Time Warner is violating their contracts by putting their programs in their application. They further said that Time Warner should pay extra if they put their shows on air other than the television.

Time Warner insisted that their current contracts provided them with those rights. However, they decided to take off all 12 shows from the iPad application, April. But Viacom still thinks it is necessary to get a court order to make sure Time Warner won’t return the shows in its application. Furthermore, Viacom is asking for a $2 million fee for each area of the contract violated by the company.

Time Warner is steadfast in their stand that their customers should view the programs in their cable system in whatever platform, and should not be asked to pay extra for it. Now, the cable company wants the court to confirm what they originally think is correct, said Marc Lawrence Apfelbaum, Time Warner general counsel.

Apple Inc. is reaching out to Verizon Wireless to assist in selling the iPad this Christmas, thus weakening their sturdy tie-up between AT&T Inc. The gadget will be available in both companies this Thursday, October 28.

The surprising news created a disturbance between the relationship of AT&T Inc. and Apple.  AT&T Inc. was the exclusive carrier of iPhone, and was primarily tapped as the network that will give the iPad’s mobile plan when this computer tablet was released last spring.

Apple’s iPad are priced equally by both companies. On the other hand, Verizon will be offering the gadget with a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot bundle that will work for their network.

Walter Piecyk, a BTIG analyst said that the decision of Apple to sell the iPad through Verizon is a simple one. He said that Apple wants to sell more products of these as possible and this decision will truly sell more items. Piecyk said that if Verizon’s network works better, then why not Apple sells the iPad tablets there.

He said that Verizon’s retail sales will help them be accustomed with the tablet’s software, as well as to prepare them from selling iPhone items. These two gadgets share the same operating system.

Verizon is pushing a high-speed connection by bundling the gadget to its portable hotspot. Prices start from $629 for the 16 Gigabyte iPad reaching to $829 for the 64 Gigabyte model.

Verizon Wireless has about 2,000 stores compared to AT&T’s 2,200. Their shares closed up to 0.7 percent while AT&T shares increased to 0.1 percent. Evidently, Apple climbed to 0.7 percent shares.