According to a study by investment banker Needham & Company, an iPad processes 3.2 times more mobile data than a smart phone, while a mobile laptop PC processes 22 times more mobile data than a smart phone.  The reason has little to do with the processing power of mobile devices.  It’s because of the limited bandwidth of 3G and the current less than 1% penetration of 4G – while Wi-Fi is increasingly available everywhere and way past the tipping point in both offices and homes.

Wi-Fi will be a much bigger driver for mobile media content than 4G, at least for the next couple of years. This helps explain why the iPad over Wi-Fi in the living room ( e.g., think Apple TV ) is poised to be a huge game-changer for cable television and games.