yep
18 months ago i was going to buy a hyundai because it had a few more features than a CR-V, but ended up with a honda
at this point Apple is honda/toyota and everyone else is brand x
Once again Market share doesn't make a product better... I'm not interested in how many of my friends mothers are buying whatever product. I want to buy the best product available on the matrix of price and quality. When looking at that matrix the iPad dominates... period. It's a much better product.
Inevitably people will buy some Android tablets... mostly because they don't know the difference and want to save a buck.
In my mind the market breaks down to 3 basic segments.
1. Your mom... the average Joe user who doesn't really know anything and is driven primarily by marketing and prices. iPad's marketing is absolutely stellar, and their prices are highly competitive. Android gains some marketshare here because plenty of Joes walk into the Verizon store and are told the Android tablet is just like an iPad and costs $50 less...
However if you were advising Joe HONESTLY about which device they should purchase... the iPad is the better product and price point 90%+ of the time.
2. The loyalist... these guys will buy x brands product even if it's really ground up monkey turds. The Apple loyalists will buy iPads and the Android loyalists will buy Androids. Doesn't matter which product is superior here. I think Apple is carrying a bigger following still... but Android is gaining ground. iPad is still the superior product here whether we Android fans admit it or not.
3. The geek... these are the guys who evaluate the detailed technical pros and cons of each device and try to pick the superior product. From this point of view iPad is clearly the superior product, Android does win brownie points for it's customization capability, and it's lively hacking/developing community. But again when you really look at it technically... iPad is a superior product. Android Tablets will always have some market share here as they're fun to Tinker with.
But at the end of the day iPad still dominates, and will continue to dominate as long as it's
1. the superior platform
2. competitive price
3. brilliant aggressive marketing.
Sure Android will sell some tablets... just like some people drive Suzuki cars... but really who are we kidding?
I see some numbers listed here like 38% market share by Android... get real. Do those numbers include e-Readers? I bet they do. Take a walk around any public place and count 100 tablets being used... how many of them are iPads vs Android? It's not even close.
Samsung, Asus, Sony, Motorola... these guys need to get their crap together and offer something compelling, and I just don't see anything on the roadmap in the same ballgame as what the iPad3 looks like it'll be.
. Your mom... the average Joe user who doesn't really know anything and is driven primarily by marketing and prices. iPad's marketing is absolutely stellar, and their prices are highly competitive. Android gains some marketshare here because plenty of Joes walk into the Verizon store and are told the Android tablet is just like an iPad and costs $50 less...
2. The loyalist... these guys will buy x brands product even if it's really ground up monkey turds. The Apple loyalists will buy iPads and the Android loyalists will buy Androids. Doesn't matter which product is superior here. I think Apple is carrying a bigger following still... but Android is gaining ground. iPad is still the superior product here whether we Android fans admit it or not.
3. The geek... these are the guys who evaluate the detailed technical pros and cons of each device and try to pick the superior product. From this point of view iPad is clearly the superior product, Android does win brownie points for it's customization capability, and it's lively hacking/developing community. But again when you really look at it technically... iPad is a superior product.
Samsung, Asus, Sony, Motorola... these guys need to get their crap together and offer something compelling, and I just don't see anything on the roadmap in the same ballgame as what the iPad3 looks like it'll be.
I personally don't care about market share. I think the best tablet on the market right now is the Transformer Prime. If you feel it's the iPad... then get an iPad? I'm not seeing the problem here...
The iPhone 3GS will 3 years old in June. And it will still run the same iOS as the current gen 4S does. Same thing with the iPad. Outside of a few diferences (no gestures on the 1st gen...WTF Apple?) and facetime due to the cameras, the iPad 1 runs almost entirely the same as the 2nd gen. There's no fear of it being immediately abandoned by the developers. There's no confusion on what vendor specific things will and will not work. It's just a well supported, fairly future safe device (as far as luxury electronics go) that isn't a flash in the pan reaction to the market.
I think the "cult of Apple".."apple fanboys"..."Jobs worshippers"..."because it's trendy" ect is a small portion of Apples sales at this point. Android has just as many devoted/blinded fanatics. Toyota and Honda don't sell a million Camry's and Accords because people think they look cool driving them. They sell them because they are reliable, easy to operate cars that do a lot of things good but nothing in particular "great".
That's what Apple's portable devices are like in this point in their life. You are buying into a history of well supported devices (both 1st and 3rd party) that may not have the best hardware, or some high end options, or the uniqueness of some quirky import, ect. But it's not a bad purchase because it does do a lot things (for it's purpose) well.
You think the prime will compare to the iPad3?
If you set up a chart of time on market versus sales, Android tablets are *ahead* of iOS tablets, and they are ramping up faster. I think Apple really needs to focus in on why they are losing so much ground so incredibly quickly in the market. This isn't like the phone market where they reached a certain market level and then remained in that ballpark, their tablet marketshare is dropping like a stone. They still have time, perhaps the iPad3 can do something other then offer resolution improvements.
My mom gets an Android tablet, I set it up and put all the widgets she wants on it and she likes it far better then the iPad, it also supports Flash which makes things easier for her when the grandkids want to go to their websites. For the record, I still set up every new Windows PC she gets too, along with every other electronic device she gets. I would say more then anything Moms are the strongest potential group for Android tablets over iOS. iOS just makes things so much more complicated compared to a properly setup Android tablet.
I think you would find that Android has close to zero support from this faction, Apple owns this market. Android followers simply seem to want the best that they can get, that seems to have close to zero impact on the Apple loyalists(that doesn't mean every consumer who ends up buying an iOS device btw).
iOS is dead in this market, they never really had a chance. They don't compete on specs, they offer close to zero usability for customization out of the box, the OS is *far* behind the competition for even trivial functionality(widgets anyone? How long has MacOS had this feature now?)- Apple has never gone after this market and doesn't appear to be starting too now.
You can make arguments for the others, but Asus would be very poorly served making anything more compelling then they already do. Try to buy an Asus tablet within two months of launch. When they can ramp production to exceed demand how compelling they make their product can be discussed, as of now though it seems they remain supply constrained for a reasonable amount of the life cycle of their products as is. It would be bad business to make it any more desirable.
The car analogy doesn't exactly hold up though as Android has over double the market share of Apple in the smart phone market. Then again, car related analogies are not usually the best way to convey a point.
As I've already said numerous times, the tablet market is still fairly new. When we've had a couple of years with both iOS and Android offerings it will be interesting to see what the landscape looks like. It won't be an exact mirror of the smart phone market, but I do think the numbers will greatly differ commpared to what we see today.
An example of failing is RIM. They are losing ground. Android is doing the opposite, they are gaining ground in the tablet market. That's a fact.
The car analogy doesn't exactly hold up though as Android has over double the market share of Apple in the smart phone market. Then again, car related analogies are not usually the best way to convey a point.
After using CM9 on my Touchpad, I feel a lot better about Android's chances. Awesome OS. Apple needs to figure out Widgets.
First gen iPad officially got gestures with 5.0.1.Outside of a few diferences (no gestures on the 1st gen...WTF Apple?
for what? most people don't care about them
there are already apps in the app store that negate any need widgets provided 3 years ago
Please link me to these apps that negate the need to launch apps...
Not having to launch an app and being able to access data from just looking at your phone is THE reason why widgets exist and are so useful. No app is going to replace a widget.
Please link me to these apps that negate the need to launch apps...
Not having to launch an app and being able to access data from just looking at your phone is THE reason why widgets exist and are so useful. No app is going to replace a widget.
Please link me to these apps that negate the need to launch apps...
Not having to launch an app and being able to access data from just looking at your phone is THE reason why widgets exist and are so useful. No app is going to replace a widget.
Widgets are pretty cool. Are they the killer app that will get people to choose android tablets over iOS? I don't think so. It could bring people over the line, but I think a lot of people buy tablets to be in an 'ecosystem'. That is why the kindle fire seems to be selling so well (and the fact its only $200)
I would say that Widgets are a killer feature. Apple needs to figure them out before Android catches up on the ecosystem.
IMO the smartphone market is completely different.. Android dominates in all three categories now... Marketing, price and the high-end Android phones are superior to the Apple iPhone 4s. So they're killing there, and will continue to do so for a long long time.
Widgets are pretty cool. Are they the killer app that will get people to choose android tablets over iOS? I don't think so. It could bring people over the line, but I think a lot of people buy tablets to be in an 'ecosystem'. That is why the kindle fire seems to be selling so well (and the fact its only $200)
Please link me to these apps that negate the need to launch apps...
Not having to launch an app and being able to access data from just looking at your phone is THE reason why widgets exist and are so useful. No app is going to replace a widget.
No they aren't the "killer feature" but, why does it need to be? Android is gaining ground in the tablet market. People that like iPads/iOS will continue to like them.
We need to stop looking at this as apples to apples. Anand has said it in his own reviews. As time goes on I think Android and iOS will continue to diverge in their own directions.
According to Eric Schmidt, Apple has until June 6th, 2012 to get widgets then!
http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/1...velopers-prefer-android-over-ios-in-6-months/
i played with them when i had an android phone last year and didn't like them. even at 4.3" the screen is too small for a lot of things. i found that 90% of the data they pulled was useless and annoyed me about battery life. a lot of them are buggy
for news on my iphone and ipad i use feedly, zite, flipboard, and news360. i open the app and get a lot more news in a snapshot than having a widget there the whole time. breaking news i get push notifications to my idevices. no need for widgets
I think comparing apples to apples is all we can do at this point. Apple went into the cell phone market, google entered afterwards and became a direct competitor. Apple created the tablet market as we know it, and google followed them into it as well with honeycomb.
Until they diverge in their own directions, its very fair to compare android and apple tablets uhmmm....apples to apples.