7 ms·

There really isn’t much of a “tablet” market

39 points by dean 15y ago

joejohnson 15y ago
>>These manufacturers aren’t software companies: they’re hardware companies that write software out of necessity. Apple is a software company that makes hardware out of necessity. I like that, but I don't think it's true. Apple computers are (in my opinion) more reliable hardware; a lot of the appeal to Apple laptops are their simply designed hardware and their durability. However, the opposite point is true: Apple's competitors are not in the software game.
- burke 15y ago
  I don't understand why everyone feels a need to argue over whether Apple is a Software company or a Hardware company. This is not a fruit-or-vegetable question. They do a lot of both, with roughly equal degrees of effort and success.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
schuz0r 15y ago
Um Apple is a hardware company, not a software company. Their revenue is based almost entirely on hardware sales. They create software and either give it away or sell it cheap in order to sell hardware.
- fredoliveira 15y ago
  They're a "system" company. They sell you a system (software and hardware).
Pewpewarrows 15y ago
Two years ago: 'There really isn't much of a "smartphone" market'. See the difference?
- pohl 15y ago
  Trick question, right? The difference is that the smartphone market was well-established with models from Symbian, Palm, Windows and BlackBerry. Oh, and that two years ago nobody said "there isn't a smartphone market".
  - burke 15y ago
    There were a lot of people claiming that the smartphone market would never approach this size, though.
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
> But the market for non-iPad tablets is about as big today as it was before the iPad. Citation needed. The original Galaxy Tab sold ~2 million in the first 3 months, the Playbook sold ~250k in the first 3 months. [1]. Were Windows tablets selling that well? [1] - http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/18/250000-blackberry-playbook-tablets-sold-to-date-rbc-says/ http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/18/250000-blackberry-playbook-tab...
- bonch 15y ago
  http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/01/31/samsung-galaxy-tab-sales-actually-quite-small/ http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/01/31/samsung-galaxy-tab-sa... But during the company’s quarterly earnings call on Friday, a Samsung executive revealed those figures don’t represent actual sales to consumers. Instead, they are the number of Galaxy Tab devices that Samsung has shipped to wireless companies and retailers around the world since product’s formal introduction in late September.
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    That's an already debunked mistranslation; the article you link to has a correction. I don't know why some people don't want to admit that the Tab did pretty well but the evidence is that it did. Not just the numbers but the fact that they made another one, and those same retailers and wireless companies are gladly stocking it yet again. They wouldn't have done so if they says were "quite small" as many media outlets were happy to (falsely) report.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  "The Tablet PC popularity nowadays is decline if compared to the launch time in 2002. IDC data also shows that sale of Tablet PC in 2007 is around 3,3 million units, or only 1,2% from total sale of all PC in around the world." From: http://ngadgeti.blogspot.com/2008/04/hp-pavilion-tx1209-review-new-tablet-pc.html http://ngadgeti.blogspot.com/2008/04/hp-pavilion-tx1209-revi... With that said, I think its absurd to say that the market for non-iPad tablets is the same today as it was 18 months ago. People are definitely more interested in tablets now. I wouldn't be surprised if there were 50M tablet PCs with Win8 sold next year.
wvenable 15y ago
Marco contradicts himself: Neither Google nor Microsoft will ever be able to tailor their software to other manufacturers’ specific (and varied) hardware devices ...followed by... Anyone can cobble together the same processors, DRAM, flash, and radios as Apple, put them into a plastic case What is the iPad? It's a touch-sensitive screen. It has a border and a few buttons. What is every non-Apple tablet? The exact same thing. In terms of other hardware, tablets are far less varied than PCs. Microsoft and Google don't have to tailor their operating systems to varied hardware -- in terms of interface, all tablets are the same. The problem is they're a few years behind Apple in the whole software ecosystem. The big point, and here Macro and I would certainly agree, the iPad has a reasonable software ecosystem and everyone else doesn't. I don't see Android or Windows making a dent in this anytime soon but, assuming the tablet market has legs, it will happen eventually. But for now, it doesn't seem like a non-Apple tablet is a good buy.
- pohl 15y ago
  in terms of interface, all tablets are the same. How true is this? I thought some tablets have navigation buttons while others do not. I also thought that there was some variation in screen sizes, and therefore screen real-estate. I also thought that Microsoft, in particular, seeks to support older windows software (I'm getting this notion from the Win8 video that was released the week prior to WWDC), and therefore has additional user interface concerns. Isn't there at least one tablet out there that has a stylus? I understand how easy it is to think "glass rectangles; how different can they be?" but I think that's a big mistake. Because of this, I disagree with the notion that the author contradicted himself.
  - wvenable 15y ago
    I stand by my argument. While some tablets have more or less buttons, that is hardly a significant factor. In some new Android tablets, where the OS demands dedicated back and menu buttons, are implemented on screen in software. It's really just not that much of differentiating factor. Screen size is a bigger factor but we've already seen that play out on smartphones. And despite a number of 7" tablets, the market is clearly leaning towards a 10" form factor as standard. Microsoft does seek to support older windows software but the user interface concerns comes from the fact that they're bringing that to touchable glass rectangle hardware.
johnrob 15y ago
The best bet for an iPad competitor would be someone delivering a standard desktop OS in tablet form, somehow solving the input (keyboard/mouse) issue. At that point you'd be matching Apple's ecosystem with an even bigger one from OSX or Windows.
nir 15y ago
Seems to me the real killer would be the "$35 tablet" type devices, and they won't compete with with iPad or with laptops, but with paper (and that's a market Apple probably isn't even interested in)
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Tichy 15y ago
Is that a Daring Fireball copycat thing? Trolling with Apple works every time, it seems.
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
There isn't a tablet market because there isn't a need for them. The iPad is popular for reasons that the buyers can't give you (prior to purchase). They just know that they want one. My girlfriend is the target audience for an iPad. She's not great at computers, she consumes media but doesn't create her own. She wanted an iPad and so I got her one for Christmas. She loved it, at least at first. But I rarely see her using it (and I don't use mine much either). When she wants to get on the internet quickly she pulls out her macbook. The iPad really is a device that you use for a specific purpose, it's not the low-level general purpose machine that it's made out to be. I would say ditto for the rest of the tablets as well. I don't think it's because tablets are a bad idea, I just don't think they are very good at this point. They can't keep up with a desktop web browser (the reason most people use computers) and they aren't very easy to use.
- cageface 15y ago
  I've had a similar experience. Now that I've had my iPad for a while I just use it as a glorified Kindle. And aside from technical books with lots of diagrams or equations it's an inferior Kindle. I rarely use it for web browsing anymore since I often want to add a comment to a thread or something like that and I'm 10x faster on a real keyboard. The portability of my phone makes it very handy but the iPad is almost as big as my Macbook so I'm not really any more likely to take it along.
- learc83 15y ago
  My friend and his wife use their iPads completely differently. They keep their computers upstairs in their respective offices to use for serious work, and whenever I come over one of them is on the couch browsing the web on an iPad.
phodo 15y ago
The best way I would explain it is the following: In (way old skool) Eddie Murphy's "Raw" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092948/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092948/)... he talks about growing up wanting to eat a Big Mac at McDonalds. Yet, his mom refuses to take him there and keeps making him bologna sandwiches to save money. It's the same thing, she says! He cries and cries. He wants his McDonalds! It's just not the same as a homemade sandwich, he blurts back! His mom, of course, was optimizing on the wrong variable. She never get's the difference between the homemade sandwhich and McDonalds. You can tell that Eddie Murphy is quite bitter at the whole thing. Anyway, I never seemed to have forgotten that story when I think about good vs. bad marketing.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
nl 15y ago
I remember almost exactly the same argument being made in 2009 about Android on phones. Here's how it unfolded chronologically then: 1) "no one can complete with Apple because of the quality of design" 2) "no one can compete with Apple, only geeks buy Android phones" 3) "no one can compete with Apple, except if you are a geek or want a phone on a non AT&T network" 4) "no one can compete with Apple, except if you want a non AT&T phone or want a low end handset" 5) "Ok, Android is outselling Apple, but Apple is more profitable" So... why, exactly will the tablet market be different?
- Pewpewarrows 15y ago
  It's sad how much a certain subset of HN users have the memory of a goldfish when it comes to this sort of history of technology. Back when they just had OSX, market-share meant nothing. It was all about quality. When Android released and iPhone was dominating the smartphone sector? Market-share was all you'd hear about. When Android surpassed iPhone in market-share? It's all about the size of the App Store, man. Android Market set to outnumber the App Store? Doesn't matter, look at how much more money Apple's paid to its developers! (Let's conveniently ignore the fact that the App Store's been around about twice as long). Now we get the see the same arguments happen all over again for the tablet market. I, for one, will enjoy watching it repeat itself with my bowl of popcorn.
  - nl 15y ago
    Oh yeah, I forgot about the size-of-appstore arguments. Edit: So how am I supposed to interprete the downvotes? Is it just a vote against me being dumb enough to forget it? That the argument doesn't exist? Please explain!
    - Stormbringer 15y ago
      I downvote meta-discussions about downvotes on general principles
  - Stormbringer 15y ago
    Gruber is a prime example of this. Exactly as you describe, when Macs didn't have market share it was all about how market share didn't matter. And, to be honest, he made a pretty compelling argument. But every time Apple jumped up a rank in US or global sales there was a gleefulness and gloating aspect to the posts that would report it. When rumours of the iPhone was leaked there was enormous sledging of Apple. People literally made mocking posts about how ridiculous a one button phone would be. Apple and their one button phone were the laughing stock of tech punditry. For months people wrote about what idiots Apple and their fanboys were. Then Apple demoed the iPhone, and everybody suddenly realised that the "drooling idiot fanboys" were right after all. So yes, guys like Gruber are being hypocritical with their banner waving "we're number one" stuff. but they took so much crap for so long, that to resist that urge to thumb your nose and do the "nyah nyah I told you so" thing would require super-human self-control. ---- In market share there is almost never a complete victory. Even Microsoft almost but not quite had a complete victory in the OS wars. They could have killed off Apple, but didn't. Now, 10-15 years later, if you looked at profitability or the market cap you'd be forgiven for thinking that Apple had won that war. But if you look at market share you'd still think that Apple had one foot in the grave. The problem is that all these one dimensional views are (surprise!) myopic. We love to make straight-up comparisons of Apple and Microsoft - but Apple is predominantly a hardware/entertainment company and Microsoft is predominantly a software/business company. It's like trying to compare an insurance company with a supermarket (which is possible, but it requires hard work and patient analysis, neither of which pundits are generally blessed with an abundance of). Would we compare Microsoft and Dell, and say that Microsoft had "beaten" Dell? No? Why not? After all, there are people who hold the view that Microsoft encouraged and pushed the commoditisation of PC hardware, which meant that the hardware manufacturer's profitability kept getting chipped [sic] away at. Fanboy gladiatorial aspirations aside, you could probably make a better argument about Microsoft being at war with its hardware partners (atn: Nokia -> Microsoft is not your friend) like HP and Dell than it being at war with Apple.
micah63 15y ago
I just drummed for a gig and the sound man walked up and set my monitor levels using an iPad standing beside me on the stage, no wires, no yelling, no pointing, no charades. It was unbelievable. For those who say that tablets are toys, not useful, not practical.... get ready. Apple will enjoy for a while and Androids will crush in 2 years (unless Oracle wins it's lawsuit).
RayVR 15y ago
self-fulfilling prophecy. These companies set out to be a better iPad, so they choose a few things they think apple got wrong or consumers will really appreciate. Then they make a 7" ipad with an sd slot. Except the UI isn't polished, the materials are cheaper, etc. If you look at the way android started to win in the mobile OS market it's through the sheer number of offerings. Yes, there are some Android phones out there which are blazingly fast or have a great screen. At the end of the day, Android is winning because everyone accepted it as the one thing to use to go after iOS (except HP with the acquisition of Palm). The true value Apple is offering, as many HN readers already understand, but the author of this article does not, is the integrated experience (on top of being the first to market). Apple's integrated experience may be lacking some of the features (for now) that make Android really awesome but the sheer perfection of the things that iOS _does_ do is outstanding. Now let me go back to my android phone...
rsheridan6 15y ago
I'd prefer an Android tablet to an iPad because I use an Android phone, not an iPhone, and I don't feel the need to learn the app ecosystems for two different OSs. There is no Android tablet right now that looks like a good buy, but that will change.
ZeroGravitas 15y ago
I'm just about to buy a "tablet", its screen is 4.3 inches and it also makes phone calls. People keep asking if the "tablet" market is going to be like the smartphone market or the iPod (i.e. PMP) market. I think it simply is the smartphone market. People like Marco don't want this to be true, because they think Apple has already lost this market. That's why there's so much effort expended trying to desperately to separate the two. It's like the old business school cliche of "what business are you in?". The trains thought they were in the train business, but really they were in the people moving business and got disrupted by aircraft. Tablets and smartphones are just two ways of accessing the web (in its widest sense). At some point we're either going to start calling tablets "phones" or phones "tablets" and the two will merge into a range of devices with no clear transition point.

39 points by dean 15y ago

>>These manufacturers aren’t software companies: they’re hardware companies that write software out of necessity. Apple is a software company that makes hardware out of necessity. I like that, but I don't think it's true. Apple computers are (in my opinion) more reliable hardware; a lot of the appeal to Apple laptops are their simply designed hardware and their durability. However, the opposite point is true: Apple's competitors are not in the software game.

burke 15y ago
I don't understand why everyone feels a need to argue over whether Apple is a Software company or a Hardware company. This is not a fruit-or-vegetable question. They do a lot of both, with roughly equal degrees of effort and success.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

schuz0r 15y ago

Um Apple is a hardware company, not a software company. Their revenue is based almost entirely on hardware sales. They create software and either give it away or sell it cheap in order to sell hardware.

fredoliveira 15y ago
They're a "system" company. They sell you a system (software and hardware).

Pewpewarrows 15y ago

Two years ago: 'There really isn't much of a "smartphone" market'. See the difference?

pohl 15y ago
Trick question, right? The difference is that the smartphone market was well-established with models from Symbian, Palm, Windows and BlackBerry. Oh, and that two years ago nobody said "there isn't a smartphone market".
- burke 15y ago
  There were a lot of people claiming that the smartphone market would never approach this size, though.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

> But the market for non-iPad tablets is about as big today as it was before the iPad. Citation needed. The original Galaxy Tab sold ~2 million in the first 3 months, the Playbook sold ~250k in the first 3 months. [1]. Were Windows tablets selling that well? [1] - http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/18/250000-blackberry-playbook-tablets-sold-to-date-rbc-says/ http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/18/250000-blackberry-playbook-tab...

bonch 15y ago
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/01/31/samsung-galaxy-tab-sales-actually-quite-small/ http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/01/31/samsung-galaxy-tab-sa... But during the company’s quarterly earnings call on Friday, a Samsung executive revealed those figures don’t represent actual sales to consumers. Instead, they are the number of Galaxy Tab devices that Samsung has shipped to wireless companies and retailers around the world since product’s formal introduction in late September.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  That's an already debunked mistranslation; the article you link to has a correction. I don't know why some people don't want to admit that the Tab did pretty well but the evidence is that it did. Not just the numbers but the fact that they made another one, and those same retailers and wireless companies are gladly stocking it yet again. They wouldn't have done so if they says were "quite small" as many media outlets were happy to (falsely) report.
kenjackson 15y ago
"The Tablet PC popularity nowadays is decline if compared to the launch time in 2002. IDC data also shows that sale of Tablet PC in 2007 is around 3,3 million units, or only 1,2% from total sale of all PC in around the world." From: http://ngadgeti.blogspot.com/2008/04/hp-pavilion-tx1209-review-new-tablet-pc.html http://ngadgeti.blogspot.com/2008/04/hp-pavilion-tx1209-revi... With that said, I think its absurd to say that the market for non-iPad tablets is the same today as it was 18 months ago. People are definitely more interested in tablets now. I wouldn't be surprised if there were 50M tablet PCs with Win8 sold next year.

wvenable 15y ago

Marco contradicts himself: Neither Google nor Microsoft will ever be able to tailor their software to other manufacturers’ specific (and varied) hardware devices ...followed by... Anyone can cobble together the same processors, DRAM, flash, and radios as Apple, put them into a plastic case What is the iPad? It's a touch-sensitive screen. It has a border and a few buttons. What is every non-Apple tablet? The exact same thing. In terms of other hardware, tablets are far less varied than PCs. Microsoft and Google don't have to tailor their operating systems to varied hardware -- in terms of interface, all tablets are the same. The problem is they're a few years behind Apple in the whole software ecosystem. The big point, and here Macro and I would certainly agree, the iPad has a reasonable software ecosystem and everyone else doesn't. I don't see Android or Windows making a dent in this anytime soon but, assuming the tablet market has legs, it will happen eventually. But for now, it doesn't seem like a non-Apple tablet is a good buy.

pohl 15y ago
in terms of interface, all tablets are the same. How true is this? I thought some tablets have navigation buttons while others do not. I also thought that there was some variation in screen sizes, and therefore screen real-estate. I also thought that Microsoft, in particular, seeks to support older windows software (I'm getting this notion from the Win8 video that was released the week prior to WWDC), and therefore has additional user interface concerns. Isn't there at least one tablet out there that has a stylus? I understand how easy it is to think "glass rectangles; how different can they be?" but I think that's a big mistake. Because of this, I disagree with the notion that the author contradicted himself.
- wvenable 15y ago
  I stand by my argument. While some tablets have more or less buttons, that is hardly a significant factor. In some new Android tablets, where the OS demands dedicated back and menu buttons, are implemented on screen in software. It's really just not that much of differentiating factor. Screen size is a bigger factor but we've already seen that play out on smartphones. And despite a number of 7" tablets, the market is clearly leaning towards a 10" form factor as standard. Microsoft does seek to support older windows software but the user interface concerns comes from the fact that they're bringing that to touchable glass rectangle hardware.

johnrob 15y ago

The best bet for an iPad competitor would be someone delivering a standard desktop OS in tablet form, somehow solving the input (keyboard/mouse) issue. At that point you'd be matching Apple's ecosystem with an even bigger one from OSX or Windows.

nir 15y ago

Seems to me the real killer would be the "$35 tablet" type devices, and they won't compete with with iPad or with laptops, but with paper (and that's a market Apple probably isn't even interested in)

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Tichy 15y ago

Is that a Daring Fireball copycat thing? Trolling with Apple works every time, it seems.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

There isn't a tablet market because there isn't a need for them. The iPad is popular for reasons that the buyers can't give you (prior to purchase). They just know that they want one. My girlfriend is the target audience for an iPad. She's not great at computers, she consumes media but doesn't create her own. She wanted an iPad and so I got her one for Christmas. She loved it, at least at first. But I rarely see her using it (and I don't use mine much either). When she wants to get on the internet quickly she pulls out her macbook. The iPad really is a device that you use for a specific purpose, it's not the low-level general purpose machine that it's made out to be. I would say ditto for the rest of the tablets as well. I don't think it's because tablets are a bad idea, I just don't think they are very good at this point. They can't keep up with a desktop web browser (the reason most people use computers) and they aren't very easy to use.

cageface 15y ago
I've had a similar experience. Now that I've had my iPad for a while I just use it as a glorified Kindle. And aside from technical books with lots of diagrams or equations it's an inferior Kindle. I rarely use it for web browsing anymore since I often want to add a comment to a thread or something like that and I'm 10x faster on a real keyboard. The portability of my phone makes it very handy but the iPad is almost as big as my Macbook so I'm not really any more likely to take it along.
learc83 15y ago
My friend and his wife use their iPads completely differently. They keep their computers upstairs in their respective offices to use for serious work, and whenever I come over one of them is on the couch browsing the web on an iPad.

phodo 15y ago

The best way I would explain it is the following: In (way old skool) Eddie Murphy's "Raw" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092948/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092948/)... he talks about growing up wanting to eat a Big Mac at McDonalds. Yet, his mom refuses to take him there and keeps making him bologna sandwiches to save money. It's the same thing, she says! He cries and cries. He wants his McDonalds! It's just not the same as a homemade sandwich, he blurts back! His mom, of course, was optimizing on the wrong variable. She never get's the difference between the homemade sandwhich and McDonalds. You can tell that Eddie Murphy is quite bitter at the whole thing. Anyway, I never seemed to have forgotten that story when I think about good vs. bad marketing.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

nl 15y ago

I remember almost exactly the same argument being made in 2009 about Android on phones. Here's how it unfolded chronologically then: 1) "no one can complete with Apple because of the quality of design" 2) "no one can compete with Apple, only geeks buy Android phones" 3) "no one can compete with Apple, except if you are a geek or want a phone on a non AT&T network" 4) "no one can compete with Apple, except if you want a non AT&T phone or want a low end handset" 5) "Ok, Android is outselling Apple, but Apple is more profitable" So... why, exactly will the tablet market be different?

Pewpewarrows 15y ago
It's sad how much a certain subset of HN users have the memory of a goldfish when it comes to this sort of history of technology. Back when they just had OSX, market-share meant nothing. It was all about quality. When Android released and iPhone was dominating the smartphone sector? Market-share was all you'd hear about. When Android surpassed iPhone in market-share? It's all about the size of the App Store, man. Android Market set to outnumber the App Store? Doesn't matter, look at how much more money Apple's paid to its developers! (Let's conveniently ignore the fact that the App Store's been around about twice as long). Now we get the see the same arguments happen all over again for the tablet market. I, for one, will enjoy watching it repeat itself with my bowl of popcorn.
- nl 15y ago
  Oh yeah, I forgot about the size-of-appstore arguments. Edit: So how am I supposed to interprete the downvotes? Is it just a vote against me being dumb enough to forget it? That the argument doesn't exist? Please explain!
  - Stormbringer 15y ago
    I downvote meta-discussions about downvotes on general principles
- Stormbringer 15y ago
  Gruber is a prime example of this. Exactly as you describe, when Macs didn't have market share it was all about how market share didn't matter. And, to be honest, he made a pretty compelling argument. But every time Apple jumped up a rank in US or global sales there was a gleefulness and gloating aspect to the posts that would report it. When rumours of the iPhone was leaked there was enormous sledging of Apple. People literally made mocking posts about how ridiculous a one button phone would be. Apple and their one button phone were the laughing stock of tech punditry. For months people wrote about what idiots Apple and their fanboys were. Then Apple demoed the iPhone, and everybody suddenly realised that the "drooling idiot fanboys" were right after all. So yes, guys like Gruber are being hypocritical with their banner waving "we're number one" stuff. but they took so much crap for so long, that to resist that urge to thumb your nose and do the "nyah nyah I told you so" thing would require super-human self-control. ---- In market share there is almost never a complete victory. Even Microsoft almost but not quite had a complete victory in the OS wars. They could have killed off Apple, but didn't. Now, 10-15 years later, if you looked at profitability or the market cap you'd be forgiven for thinking that Apple had won that war. But if you look at market share you'd still think that Apple had one foot in the grave. The problem is that all these one dimensional views are (surprise!) myopic. We love to make straight-up comparisons of Apple and Microsoft - but Apple is predominantly a hardware/entertainment company and Microsoft is predominantly a software/business company. It's like trying to compare an insurance company with a supermarket (which is possible, but it requires hard work and patient analysis, neither of which pundits are generally blessed with an abundance of). Would we compare Microsoft and Dell, and say that Microsoft had "beaten" Dell? No? Why not? After all, there are people who hold the view that Microsoft encouraged and pushed the commoditisation of PC hardware, which meant that the hardware manufacturer's profitability kept getting chipped [sic] away at. Fanboy gladiatorial aspirations aside, you could probably make a better argument about Microsoft being at war with its hardware partners (atn: Nokia -> Microsoft is not your friend) like HP and Dell than it being at war with Apple.

micah63 15y ago

I just drummed for a gig and the sound man walked up and set my monitor levels using an iPad standing beside me on the stage, no wires, no yelling, no pointing, no charades. It was unbelievable. For those who say that tablets are toys, not useful, not practical.... get ready. Apple will enjoy for a while and Androids will crush in 2 years (unless Oracle wins it's lawsuit).

RayVR 15y ago

self-fulfilling prophecy. These companies set out to be a better iPad, so they choose a few things they think apple got wrong or consumers will really appreciate. Then they make a 7" ipad with an sd slot. Except the UI isn't polished, the materials are cheaper, etc. If you look at the way android started to win in the mobile OS market it's through the sheer number of offerings. Yes, there are some Android phones out there which are blazingly fast or have a great screen. At the end of the day, Android is winning because everyone accepted it as the one thing to use to go after iOS (except HP with the acquisition of Palm). The true value Apple is offering, as many HN readers already understand, but the author of this article does not, is the integrated experience (on top of being the first to market). Apple's integrated experience may be lacking some of the features (for now) that make Android really awesome but the sheer perfection of the things that iOS _does_ do is outstanding. Now let me go back to my android phone...

rsheridan6 15y ago

I'd prefer an Android tablet to an iPad because I use an Android phone, not an iPhone, and I don't feel the need to learn the app ecosystems for two different OSs. There is no Android tablet right now that looks like a good buy, but that will change.

ZeroGravitas 15y ago

I'm just about to buy a "tablet", its screen is 4.3 inches and it also makes phone calls. People keep asking if the "tablet" market is going to be like the smartphone market or the iPod (i.e. PMP) market. I think it simply is the smartphone market. People like Marco don't want this to be true, because they think Apple has already lost this market. That's why there's so much effort expended trying to desperately to separate the two. It's like the old business school cliche of "what business are you in?". The trains thought they were in the train business, but really they were in the people moving business and got disrupted by aircraft. Tablets and smartphones are just two ways of accessing the web (in its widest sense). At some point we're either going to start calling tablets "phones" or phones "tablets" and the two will merge into a range of devices with no clear transition point.