11 ms·

Look, that's because non-iPad tablets with a real (touchscreen, tablet-sized) OS didn't exist until 3 months ago. Give Android a year and a half to let the And

Look, that's because non-iPad tablets with a real (touchscreen, tablet-sized) OS didn't exist until 3 months ago. Give Android a year and a half to let the Android Market populate with some great tablet-sized software, and who among us doubts that the tablet market will look just like the phone market does now? EDIT: The commenters responding to me made a really good distinction -- phones are near-necessity devices that are subsidized by carriers, whereas right now, tablets are more or less a luxury purchase. I agree that this might have an effect on how things play out.

danilocampos 15y ago
> who among us doubts that the tablet market will look just like the phone market does now? I do. For one thing, building tablet software is hard. I mean, extremely hard work from a UI perspective. It makes stuff for the phone look like a cakewalk (I'll share a blog post sometime). So if Android Market continues sucking ass in terms of rewarding developers versus what they can make on the App Store, you'll get a bunch of turd apps and not much magic because what's the point of all that sweat? Secondly, Android is inflated by the fact that if you want a cell phone you will be given an Android device for free if you start new service. There is no magic free Android tablet tree – the economics are completely different. There's the argument that you might see a halo effect from all those phones... but people don't tend to value what's free and the carriers are doing whatever they can to cram these phones with junk anyway. So, like I said, I do.
- mquander 15y ago
  I know you said you're working on a blog post, but I'd be really interested in if you could elaborate on the challenges inherent to building tablet software -- I build big enterprise-y software that is on Windows Mobile phones and Windows tablets, and I find the tablet part to be much easier in terms of designing a usable interface for the form factor. Are there particular things you have in mind that are much easier to design for a phone than for a tablet?
  - danilocampos 15y ago
    It's a focus thing, really. I suppose it depends on perspective. With a phone, right, you have this 3-4ish inch screen to work with. You absolutely have to focus. You've got a gun to your head requiring focus, commanding the basic flow of the application fit tidily within the confines of this small space, this teensy viewport the user has into what they're working on. Now, it's still possible to make crap (definitely) but the kinds of mistakes you're able to make are limited by both space and what the user can realistically accomplish with the limited time and tools inherent to the phone form factor. Now. You get to tablet land. Holy shit! Look at all this room. I can put things here, and over here, and this place is nice – and then you have this jumbled, unfocussed mess. For me, the tablet gives you a lot of rope to hang yourself. Since the form factor isn't compelling focus and clarity, now you have to do it yourself. I love the luxury of creative constraints. Tablets just have fewer constraints. A blessing and a curse, to be certain. Lots of great stuff you can only do on a tablet, too.
    - stcredzero 15y ago
      Now. You get to tablet land. Holy shit! Look at all this room. So instead of hard, you're saying it's too easy for its own good.
      - masklinn 15y ago
        Not hard/easy, constrained/unconstrained. For decades now constraints have been recognized as drivers of greatness and innovation. By relaxing the constraint, you make greatness harder to achieve, because the developer has to make more choices, and precision/accuracy/focus suffer. It's like a laser. If you put lots and lots of light in a very small (constrained) pinhead-sized surface, you can cut steel like it was butter. If you put as much light in a surface the size of a plate, you might barely heat the surface.
    - nazar 15y ago
      We've been developing for desktop/laptop computers for years now. They also give developer plenty of space to play with. From your comment I conclude that developing for desktop must be the hardest thing ever, not talking about the 27' iMacs.
- Kylekramer 15y ago
  Not enough software and non-competitive prices are exactly where Android on phones was three years ago. And both are those easily, almost inevitably, fixable. We are talking about a moving target, a target that pulled off the same basic trick once already. The apps will come and the prices will drop. I still haven't seen a compelling reason why the iPad is any different than the iPhone in this regard. Apple is betting against an entire industry, and you very, very rarely win betting the house (disclaimer: I am sure Apple will still profit handsomely and own a decent percentage of the market).
- whakojacko 15y ago
  Not only is there no free magic Android tablet, customers don't have to worry about carrier lock-in. I would guess some non-trivial portion of the Android customers on T-Mobile/Sprint would have rather have an iPhone, but they can't because they are part of some family plan/etc.
  - dannyr 15y ago
    For a US-centric view, this may be true. You know the stats for the rest of the world? IPhone is not locked-in to a specific carrier unlike in the US and Android has the largest smartphone market share worldwide.
- whatusername 15y ago
  cough I can go out right now and sign up for a new service plan and get a "free" iPhone4. On any carrier I want. But Android is still growing pretty damn fast.
  - zwily 15y ago
    Compare with iPad, not iPhone 4.
    - whatusername 15y ago
      I was responding to this comment in the OP: "Secondly, Android is inflated by the fact that if you want a cell phone you will be given an Android device for free if you start new service."
- aphexairlines 15y ago
  The prices are reversed in Japan: Softbank gives away the iPhone and charges less for iPhone data plans at about US$56/mo whereas Android phones will cost you $500+ for the device and $75/mo for the data plan. Yet Android has overtaken the iPhone there too.
  - Steko 15y ago
    This is largely inaccurate. You can buy unsubsidized android and subsidized android phones and there are tons of plan options on every carrier. See this for one example of buying an android phone in Japan: http://www.withinjapan.com/htc-desire-x06htii-buying-a-smartphone-in-japan-684 http://www.withinjapan.com/htc-desire-x06htii-buying-a-smart...
    - aphexairlines 15y ago
      The flat 4,410yen/mo data plan is gone for all smartphones except iPhone. There are sometimes discounts on Android handsets, but they don't reach Softbank's discount of just completely giving away the iPhone.
- zmmmmm 15y ago
  > There is no magic free Android tablet tree – the economics are completely different. There's not the same "magic free Android tree" - but there are some analogous patterns. With Android the carriers needed Android to succeed. So they made it succeed. No carriers for tablets (well, that's not quite true, but as an approximation). So who needs Android tablets to succeed? Well, every major hardware vendor and every major retail outlet. The hardware manufacturers are obvious - without a counterpoint to iOS they are screwed in potentially a huge strategic category. But even retail outlets need this. Some of them are lucky enough to be allowed to resell Apple equipment - but they know they are at Apple's mercy. After the warm glow of selling some iPads wears off they will know that they have to foster an alternative or have Apple dictate terms to them and take their margin and eventually even screw them by establishing Apple stores nearby. But that's not even talking about retailers not privileged to sell Apple gear. Those guys are absolutely going to stock Android tablets and advertise and market them heavily. So we may not see "free" tablets but we absolutely are going to see the same vacuum effect that caused a giant glut of Android phones to hit the market and the same "coalition" of interests rises to compete with the iPad and create publicity, awareness, brand image, and they will eventually compete heavily on price and features - things consumers will respond to.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
jsm386 15y ago
The phone market is not the same as the tablet market...unless Verizon/ATT/etc start giving away/heavily subsidizing Android tablets en masse. If that happens - eg, Great $100 Android tablet that requires a two year data contract from Verizon, then perhaps it will look the same. Right now you can get Galaxy Tab from verizon with a 2 year data contract for 199. So the idea exists..but do people want 2 year contracts for a 2nd device with their carrier? Even then - you need a phone. You don't need a tablet. I think aside from the operating systems, you're really looking at two entirely different situations
cletus 15y ago
People like analogies. Sometimes they're appropriate. Sometimes they're not. Take iOS and Android as an allegory for Mac and Windows. It might be superficially similar but that's as far as it goes. IMHO tablets are similar. Android is, without question, a stunning success in the phone world. As is iOS, which singlehandededly transformed the mobile phone industry. People expect the same pattern to repeat in the tablet world. I disagree. There are several fundamental differences: 1. Phones have a specific purpose, which for most people is the ability to make phone calls, send and receive text messages and use maps. I would guess that these are the three biggest uses of smartphones (but it is only a guess). What's more, I think these account for the majority of actual usage. Apps are of course important but they are an add-on. Some people will use their smartphones almost completely app free (seriously). People I think forget this too. Tablets are a different beast. There is much less inbuilt and obvious functionality. Apple has a vision of what the use case for this. I don't think anyone else really does (yet). The ecosystem then becomes far more important and it's Apple with the music, movies/TV and, to a lesser extent, books (mainly due to Kindle, which is cross-platform). Android simply doesn't have this ecosystem so the use case for Android tablets for most people is a much tougher and less obvious sell. I just don't see Android tablets (or any non-iPad tablets for that matter) gaining serious mass market traction for years to come.
- bryanlarsen 15y ago
  In my experience, a tablet has a much more specific purpose than a phone: to view web pages. I'm willing to bet that 99% of iPad usage is for web pages, apps that are essentially just iPad optimized web pages, and games that could have been done in a properly touch-enabled Flash (which may not exist yet, but will come eventually).
  - gtufano 15y ago
    Well, ot in my experience. Native apps still have an edge. For example: twitter web interface is nice, but twitter the iOS app is WAY better on iPad. Also, I don't see something of the quality of Flipboard coming as web app (and clipboard get content from web, after all). May be this will change, but we are still not here.
hnsmurf 15y ago
20 years ago computers were a rich people toy. They quickly became a near necessity. Same with cell phones 10 years ago.

danilocampos 15y ago

> who among us doubts that the tablet market will look just like the phone market does now? I do. For one thing, building tablet software is hard. I mean, extremely hard work from a UI perspective. It makes stuff for the phone look like a cakewalk (I'll share a blog post sometime). So if Android Market continues sucking ass in terms of rewarding developers versus what they can make on the App Store, you'll get a bunch of turd apps and not much magic because what's the point of all that sweat? Secondly, Android is inflated by the fact that if you want a cell phone you will be given an Android device for free if you start new service. There is no magic free Android tablet tree – the economics are completely different. There's the argument that you might see a halo effect from all those phones... but people don't tend to value what's free and the carriers are doing whatever they can to cram these phones with junk anyway. So, like I said, I do.

mquander 15y ago
I know you said you're working on a blog post, but I'd be really interested in if you could elaborate on the challenges inherent to building tablet software -- I build big enterprise-y software that is on Windows Mobile phones and Windows tablets, and I find the tablet part to be much easier in terms of designing a usable interface for the form factor. Are there particular things you have in mind that are much easier to design for a phone than for a tablet?
- danilocampos 15y ago
  It's a focus thing, really. I suppose it depends on perspective. With a phone, right, you have this 3-4ish inch screen to work with. You absolutely have to focus. You've got a gun to your head requiring focus, commanding the basic flow of the application fit tidily within the confines of this small space, this teensy viewport the user has into what they're working on. Now, it's still possible to make crap (definitely) but the kinds of mistakes you're able to make are limited by both space and what the user can realistically accomplish with the limited time and tools inherent to the phone form factor. Now. You get to tablet land. Holy shit! Look at all this room. I can put things here, and over here, and this place is nice – and then you have this jumbled, unfocussed mess. For me, the tablet gives you a lot of rope to hang yourself. Since the form factor isn't compelling focus and clarity, now you have to do it yourself. I love the luxury of creative constraints. Tablets just have fewer constraints. A blessing and a curse, to be certain. Lots of great stuff you can only do on a tablet, too.
  - stcredzero 15y ago
    Now. You get to tablet land. Holy shit! Look at all this room. So instead of hard, you're saying it's too easy for its own good.
    - masklinn 15y ago
      Not hard/easy, constrained/unconstrained. For decades now constraints have been recognized as drivers of greatness and innovation. By relaxing the constraint, you make greatness harder to achieve, because the developer has to make more choices, and precision/accuracy/focus suffer. It's like a laser. If you put lots and lots of light in a very small (constrained) pinhead-sized surface, you can cut steel like it was butter. If you put as much light in a surface the size of a plate, you might barely heat the surface.
  - nazar 15y ago
    We've been developing for desktop/laptop computers for years now. They also give developer plenty of space to play with. From your comment I conclude that developing for desktop must be the hardest thing ever, not talking about the 27' iMacs.
Kylekramer 15y ago
Not enough software and non-competitive prices are exactly where Android on phones was three years ago. And both are those easily, almost inevitably, fixable. We are talking about a moving target, a target that pulled off the same basic trick once already. The apps will come and the prices will drop. I still haven't seen a compelling reason why the iPad is any different than the iPhone in this regard. Apple is betting against an entire industry, and you very, very rarely win betting the house (disclaimer: I am sure Apple will still profit handsomely and own a decent percentage of the market).
whakojacko 15y ago
Not only is there no free magic Android tablet, customers don't have to worry about carrier lock-in. I would guess some non-trivial portion of the Android customers on T-Mobile/Sprint would have rather have an iPhone, but they can't because they are part of some family plan/etc.
- dannyr 15y ago
  For a US-centric view, this may be true. You know the stats for the rest of the world? IPhone is not locked-in to a specific carrier unlike in the US and Android has the largest smartphone market share worldwide.
whatusername 15y ago
cough I can go out right now and sign up for a new service plan and get a "free" iPhone4. On any carrier I want. But Android is still growing pretty damn fast.
- zwily 15y ago
  Compare with iPad, not iPhone 4.
  - whatusername 15y ago
    I was responding to this comment in the OP: "Secondly, Android is inflated by the fact that if you want a cell phone you will be given an Android device for free if you start new service."
aphexairlines 15y ago
The prices are reversed in Japan: Softbank gives away the iPhone and charges less for iPhone data plans at about US$56/mo whereas Android phones will cost you $500+ for the device and $75/mo for the data plan. Yet Android has overtaken the iPhone there too.
- Steko 15y ago
  This is largely inaccurate. You can buy unsubsidized android and subsidized android phones and there are tons of plan options on every carrier. See this for one example of buying an android phone in Japan: http://www.withinjapan.com/htc-desire-x06htii-buying-a-smartphone-in-japan-684 http://www.withinjapan.com/htc-desire-x06htii-buying-a-smart...
  - aphexairlines 15y ago
    The flat 4,410yen/mo data plan is gone for all smartphones except iPhone. There are sometimes discounts on Android handsets, but they don't reach Softbank's discount of just completely giving away the iPhone.
zmmmmm 15y ago
> There is no magic free Android tablet tree – the economics are completely different. There's not the same "magic free Android tree" - but there are some analogous patterns. With Android the carriers needed Android to succeed. So they made it succeed. No carriers for tablets (well, that's not quite true, but as an approximation). So who needs Android tablets to succeed? Well, every major hardware vendor and every major retail outlet. The hardware manufacturers are obvious - without a counterpoint to iOS they are screwed in potentially a huge strategic category. But even retail outlets need this. Some of them are lucky enough to be allowed to resell Apple equipment - but they know they are at Apple's mercy. After the warm glow of selling some iPads wears off they will know that they have to foster an alternative or have Apple dictate terms to them and take their margin and eventually even screw them by establishing Apple stores nearby. But that's not even talking about retailers not privileged to sell Apple gear. Those guys are absolutely going to stock Android tablets and advertise and market them heavily. So we may not see "free" tablets but we absolutely are going to see the same vacuum effect that caused a giant glut of Android phones to hit the market and the same "coalition" of interests rises to compete with the iPad and create publicity, awareness, brand image, and they will eventually compete heavily on price and features - things consumers will respond to.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

jsm386 15y ago

The phone market is not the same as the tablet market...unless Verizon/ATT/etc start giving away/heavily subsidizing Android tablets en masse. If that happens - eg, Great $100 Android tablet that requires a two year data contract from Verizon, then perhaps it will look the same. Right now you can get Galaxy Tab from verizon with a 2 year data contract for 199. So the idea exists..but do people want 2 year contracts for a 2nd device with their carrier? Even then - you need a phone. You don't need a tablet. I think aside from the operating systems, you're really looking at two entirely different situations

cletus 15y ago

People like analogies. Sometimes they're appropriate. Sometimes they're not. Take iOS and Android as an allegory for Mac and Windows. It might be superficially similar but that's as far as it goes. IMHO tablets are similar. Android is, without question, a stunning success in the phone world. As is iOS, which singlehandededly transformed the mobile phone industry. People expect the same pattern to repeat in the tablet world. I disagree. There are several fundamental differences: 1. Phones have a specific purpose, which for most people is the ability to make phone calls, send and receive text messages and use maps. I would guess that these are the three biggest uses of smartphones (but it is only a guess). What's more, I think these account for the majority of actual usage. Apps are of course important but they are an add-on. Some people will use their smartphones almost completely app free (seriously). People I think forget this too. Tablets are a different beast. There is much less inbuilt and obvious functionality. Apple has a vision of what the use case for this. I don't think anyone else really does (yet). The ecosystem then becomes far more important and it's Apple with the music, movies/TV and, to a lesser extent, books (mainly due to Kindle, which is cross-platform). Android simply doesn't have this ecosystem so the use case for Android tablets for most people is a much tougher and less obvious sell. I just don't see Android tablets (or any non-iPad tablets for that matter) gaining serious mass market traction for years to come.

bryanlarsen 15y ago
In my experience, a tablet has a much more specific purpose than a phone: to view web pages. I'm willing to bet that 99% of iPad usage is for web pages, apps that are essentially just iPad optimized web pages, and games that could have been done in a properly touch-enabled Flash (which may not exist yet, but will come eventually).
- gtufano 15y ago
  Well, ot in my experience. Native apps still have an edge. For example: twitter web interface is nice, but twitter the iOS app is WAY better on iPad. Also, I don't see something of the quality of Flipboard coming as web app (and clipboard get content from web, after all). May be this will change, but we are still not here.

hnsmurf 15y ago

20 years ago computers were a rich people toy. They quickly became a near necessity. Same with cell phones 10 years ago.