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The first question that popped in my mind as I read this was: how will this affect Apple over time? If tablets with decent specs are available in China at rela
by cs702 14y ago
The first question that popped in my mind as I read this was: how will this affect Apple over time?
If tablets with decent specs are available in China at relatively low volumes for $35 each, it's a matter of time before we start seeing free and nearly-free tablets in developed countries like the US. (Not just Amazon; companies like Verizon and Comcast could throw in a free 7" Android tablet just for signing up with them.)
Will consumers continue to shell out for iPads, iPhones, or iPods to the same degree when they can get decent Android devices for near zero?
- spiralpolitik 14y agoIf the market follows the iPod model then consumers on a whole will prefer the Apple models over the "cheap" alternatives. This will continue until the market is superseded by another market. If the market follows the PC model then Apple's share will collapse to a modest percentage, but will still control the profit share. In either case Apple wins.
- archangel_one 14y agoI'd argue that following the iPod model rather relies on the competition's devices remaining fairly horrible by comparison - none of them ever had such nice hardware, and I never tried one with adequate software to handle several thousand songs on the device. This seems unlikely to repeat itself to me; IMO* the Nexus 7 is an extremely nice little tablet which proves this kind of thing can work, and other manufacturers can take advantage of Android to provide good software, which often let down the iPod competitors. There is a third option of course; that the market follows neither model that have gone before, and Apple does not win this time. We won't know for sure until after, though. * Disclosure: I work at Google, so my opinion is not without potential bias.