2011 Year of the Other Guys Tablet ?

[OSMac]

2011 the year the other guys tablets arrive.

Google, RIM, HP, Microsoft, Dell, Asus, Samsung, Toshiba, etc., etc., all planning to get a share of Apple's iPad market.

Let's say Apple finished 2010 with 99% of the current tablet market, what do you see happening in 2011?
Who has the best chance to compete, where will Apple's market share be this time next year?

 

[Piggie]

Well, If the Blackberry Playbook launches as expected then obviously it's going to be a large hit with Blackberry lovers, in the same way, but a smaller extent as Apple lovers were throwing money down to buy iPad's even before they knew what they were.

Personally I think the Playbook will take a small sector of the market, but quite a strong smaller area, as it seems designed heavily to work very well with Blackberry phones.

The main thrust is going to come from Honeycomb of course for the mass market, and we will have to see the time frame for that to pan out.

Unless Apple can pull out something spectacular year on year, then they will take second place to Android tablets eventually just due to sheer maths.

If you have a dozen top electronics giants, offering the public a range of devices at different price points, all running the same OS then it's a hard railway train to keep ahead of.

Apple could do it, but I think they will sit happily in their niche and let the railway train roll on by over the next few years.

Of course this is still early days, and the Tablet format is still unproven. Funnily enough I could still see some Laptop/Tablet combo winning the day in the longer term. It just needs to get the hardware right, and no-one really knows yet, it's all experimenting.

I've no doubt, Apple will still be No.1 by the end of 2011, but the beavers will have started gnawing away at Apples Dam they have had a year to construct.

The ball it totally in Apple's court. They have the lead, they have the Apps store. they will either push ahead fast, hard and strong, and keep at the cutting edge and show others how it should be done, or they will be a bit lazy, only do the minimum to keep their loyal customers happy, and see other current iPad customers perhaps switch to other tablets when they get good enough, perhaps offer more, or offer more flexibility than Apple will allow.

It would be nice to zoom ahead to 2020 and see how all this pans out

 

[phyrexia]

i will require a long thoughtful conversation with myself come springtime. iPad2 or motorola's googlepad?

 

[Apple...]

i will require a long thoughtful conversation with myself come springtime. iPad2 or motorola's googlepad?

Well, it looks like Motorola's Droid XOOM tablet has no buttons (besides the power button). I don't know - whatever you like best, choose that. I'm sticking with iPad.

 

[Piggie]

i will require a long thoughtful conversation with myself come springtime. iPad2 or motorola's googlepad?

To be fair, I think we may have to give Android Tablets a little slack at 1st.

There will be a bit of re-jigging and re-thinking as a few models pass by and the builders find their feet. A bit like the Android phones are starting to come up to some kind of general acceptance on what they should be like.

I'm personally not expecting iPad2 killer with their 1st attempts.

I'd think another year after launch or even two before we really see proper high end product from everyone competing.

 

[Apple...]

To be fair, I think we may have to give Android Tablets a little slack at 1st.

There will be a bit of re-jigging and re-thinking as a few models pass by and the builders find their feet. A bit like the Android phones are starting to come up to some kind of general acceptance on what they should be like.

I'm personally not expecting iPad2 killer with their 1st attempts.

I'd think another year after launch or even two before we really see proper high end product from everyone competing.

Possible, but I still don't like the fact that the Motorola tab won't have any buttons (nor touch capacitive ones). Ugh.

 

[darngooddesign]

Sure, just like the onslaught of iPod killers.

 

[el-John-o]

I think it will only improve the iPad in 2012. The iPhone was, sorry to say it, a terrible smartphone. Slower CPU than my much older WinMo phone, no 3G, and an average-at-best screen, but by being a pop-culture phenomenon, having multi-touch, and being the platform of choice for developers it became "THE" smartphone. Then Android came out. Consumers had a choice, you could get virtually all of the same Apps (I know iOS has more but the most used Apps are on both platforms), and there were a variety of different handsets to suit your style. Now the iPhone outperforms most handsets, has a fantastic screen, excellent form factor, and etc. I think we will see the same thing with the iPad. Real, powerful Android / Windows 8 / Blackberry tablets giving consumers a choice because developers will be interested on all platforms, which will prompt Apple to give you a reason to make the iPad a no-brainer.

I hope 2011 is the year of the tablet, because the fierce competition will make 2012 the year of the super-tablet!

 

[Apple...]

Sure, just like the onslaught of iPod killers.

I think we can say the same thing with the iPhone. Nobody gets it, do they?

 

[vw195]

If Apple concedes the 7" tablet market as it appears they are going to do, I think it is quite likely that android can sell quite a few units.

 

[Lhendrick]

Verizon just lowered the price of the Samsung Tab 7" by $100. It's not so easy to go up against the Ipad.

 

[phyrexia]

To be fair, I think we may have to give Android Tablets a little slack at 1st.

There will be a bit of re-jigging and re-thinking as a few models pass by and the builders find their feet. A bit like the Android phones are starting to come up to some kind of general acceptance on what they should be like.

I'm personally not expecting iPad2 killer with their 1st attempts.

I'd think another year after launch or even two before we really see proper high end product from everyone competing.

ipad 3 with ios 5.5 vs android 4.0 tablet, coming spring '12

i won't be giving the android tablets any slack. the apps may never be on the same level as apple's app store and that may hurt android tablets. certainly the iPad would not be the same caliber device without all the great software available for it.

the playbook will be a hit in business but not in general public, i foresee.

 

[Dragoro]

I think we can say the same thing with the iPhone. Nobody gets it, do they?

Considering android phones have a bigger share of the market now.....

 

[gdeputy]

Just like the smartphone market, noone is going to be able to create a better touch OS interface with the support that will match apple already.

It just won't happen. I really really hope it happens, competition pushes the market, but it won't. 2011 and moving forward belong to apple unless they screw up or someone else hits it big (which I doubt).

 

[Dragoro]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/01/nielsen-android-makes-huge-gains-in-us-smartphone-marketshare/

K guess it depends on what survey but neilson is as reputable as they come and even it shows that android is on the way to conquering the iPhone.

 

[LadyHoneyBabe]

I wonder what's going to happen when iOS comes out on Verizon...iPad & iPhone

 

[Stirolak123]

Why does Apple keep updating their ipads every year like their phones? I understand phones needing to be update year after year due to competition but why tablets? I mean you dont see game consoles or psp or nintendo ds being updated every year do you?

 

[Kainz]

Apple keep revitalising old dead areas of tech. PMP Players (iPods), Mobile Pbones (iPhone), Tablets (iPad). Before Apple came along each of these areas were either dead or stale (pmps).

Apple need to re-engineer their latest devices to keep hold of each of those areas or they'll lose it it to competitors all vying for a slice of your wallet.

Let's face it, smart phones were rubbish prior to the iPhone, and it forced every company to get their R&D projects off the drawing board. The best MP3 players were iRivers, Creative Zens and Cowon D2's - they all had superior audio quality but the seamless iPod+iTunes integration pretty much won it for apple.

Tablets is where it's at now. The iPads biggest weakness is lack of ram, 256mb is a joke for a device like this. Can the A4 SoC handle the next generation of apps, games, and upcoming iOS releases with it's new api's? The AppStore is always evolving so the hardware needs to match up. PSP's would be in the same situation if they had a similar store.

 

[wyneken]

Sheer maths may triumph here, but I'm not sure the situation is directly comparable to the iPhone vs. Android phones. I mean, people buy phones because they need them, and they shop around for carriers and features and prices, but the choice is mostly driven by necessity.

I don't think people (broadly speaking) feel any need to own a tablet. So in that respect the iPad is more like the iPod in the first year of its launch. People buy iPads for different reasons than they buy phones. It would be useful, as a start, for competitors to figure out what those reasons are.

Also, in some respects, sheer math (as we say here) works against any given competing tablet. I mean look at the title of this thread. We're not talking about Apple vs., say, Samsung. We're talking about the iPad, a known and entrenched product, available in retail channels everywhere, vs. a pack of largely unknown and unlaunched competitors. How does any particular competing tablet gain product recognition and retail shelf space and consumer mindshare? Some will, but most won't.

One thing I believe we can predict about the near future is that a lot of the companies rushing to enter the tablet market in 2011 will quietly exit it in 2012. Then we'll look at the players still standing -- not all of which will be running Android -- and maybe this time next year the situation will look very different. It might well be multipolar: iOS vs. Android vs. WebOS vs. Blackberry vs. Windows Something and maybe Meego. It's not clear to me that Android can dominate a space like that.

 

[azentropy]

Considering android phones have a bigger share of the market now.....

And then questioned about it, you back it up proving yourself incorrect.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/01/nielsen-android-makes-huge-gains-in-us-smartphone-marketshare/

K guess it depends on what survey but neilson is as reputable as they come and even it shows that android is on the way to conquering the iPhone.

You contradict yourself. "on the way" is not the same as "android phones have a bigger share".

Anyway, back on topic - I'm interested to see what comes from others in the tablet market after Google releases Android optimized for tablets. Was not impressed at all by the Samsung Tab as to me it just felt like a oversized phone that is priced about $200 too high in the first place. A WiFi only version at $299 or $349 would have been a nice tradeoff, but $599 for those who don't want a contract is is a poor value IMO.

 

[kdarling]

Well, it looks like Motorola's Droid XOOM tablet has no buttons (besides the power button).

Isn't that one of the coming features of Honeycomb? Allowing onscreen Android buttons that move with the screen orientation so they're always on the same side?

Not quite the same, but I just got an Archos 101 (10" screen, webcam, HDMI out, 8GB for $299) tablet to play with. It has no physical buttons besides power and volume. The four Android buttons are part of the capacitive screen, although hardcoded to one side.

Edit: I was wrong. The Archos buttons do move per orientation over all four 90 degree positions. Always to the right or bottom, and the icons rotate to stay upright. I wasn't able to confirm before, because it's my daughter's new favorite Angry Birds platform, and I couldn't interrupt her level.

 

[bossxii]

Isn't that one of the coming features of Honeycomb? Allowing onscreen Android buttons that move with the screen orientation so they're always on the same side?

Not quite the same, but I just got an Archos 101 (10" screen, webcam, HDMI out, 8GB for $299) tablet to play with. It has no physical buttons besides power and volume. The four Android buttons are part of the capacitive screen, although hardcoded to one side.

I'd love to hear your feedback from using this. I have followed this company for a while and actually purcahsed the 5" PMP back a few years ago. Just wasn't very responsive and the add on cost to record TV and the fourty dollar apps to gain basic functionality was the breaking point for me to return it.

I would appreciate any thoughts you have regarding how Android runs on the device and the build quality. My experience with Android has been on an older Samsung and more recently the HTC Evo. Not sure how to compare this tablet but any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Glideslope]

2011 the year the other guys tablets arrive.

Google, RIM, HP, Microsoft, Dell, Asus, Samsung, Toshiba, etc., etc., all planning to get a share of Apple's iPad market.

Let's say Apple finished 2010 with 99% of the current tablet market, what do you see happening in 2011?
Who has the best chance to compete, where will Apple's market share be this time next year?

No serious players till 2012. Blackberry has the best shot IMO, if they can get the battery drain under control without a redesign.

Android will continue to grow and fragment as more and more device makers use inaccessible proprietary firmware making their Android 3.0 different from another device's Android 3.0 (like being a Windows Developer).

A year from now we will be looking at Android and LOAO thinking iOS was going to be the less open mobile OS. Guaranteed.

 

[kdarling]

No serious players till 2012.

I read a market prediction saying Apple would keep (drop to) 65% in 2011, which is still a lot.

Blackberry has the best shot IMO, if they can get the battery drain under control without a redesign.

RIM claims the battery issues are only with prototypes that some had in the field. We'll see.

Android will continue to grow and fragment as more and more device makers use inaccessible proprietary firmware making their Android 3.0 different from another device's Android 3.0 (like being a Windows Developer).

1) What proprietary firmware? I've not seen any that affects mainstream app developers. I've only seen such that adds value to a particular device. E.g. Samsung adding their cool settings shortcuts to the notification shade.

2) Android, while open for any use, has standards to meet if you wish to use its name. To say your device is a certain version of Android, then it MUST run a standard set of APIs for that version.

3) In real life (not in forums), Android (and iOS) fragmentation is not a major problem. Heck, Rovio -- author of Angry Birds --just came forward to note that anyone claiming it is (such as Jobs) is just making a mountain out of a molehill.

A year from now we will be looking at Android and LOAO thinking iOS was going to be the less open mobile OS. Guaranteed.

Can you clarify what this means? Thanks.

 

[Apple...]

No serious players till 2012. Blackberry has the best shot IMO, if they can get the battery drain under control without a redesign.

Android will continue to grow and fragment as more and more device makers use inaccessible proprietary firmware making their Android 3.0 different from another device's Android 3.0 (like being a Windows Developer).

A year from now we will be looking at Android and LOAO thinking iOS was going to be the less open mobile OS. Guaranteed.

I think it will be a bit more than a year...