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iPad Grabs 58% of Tablet Shipments in 4Q 2011

0dev said:
If the Kindle Fire isn't Android because it's been customised, then surely the same goes for all phones with HTC Sense, Samsung TouchWiz, etc? :confused:
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Take 6...no google apps, no google market, no google branding, yadda yadda yadda.

it's quite easy to see the difference between a Motorola XOOM and a Kindle Fire.
 
voonyx said:
Because it resembles Android in no way. No Google Market, no Google Apps, no Google sync, no Google branding, not the same menu structure, not anything at all in common with any android tablet that any OEM has ever released.
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Oh, I see, so they changed the UI and removed some features that make money for google. Therefor it's not an Android device.

Sorry, still a pretty arbitrary line you're drawing. Especially the part of it not "looking" like Android. Have you see the extent that some of the phone manufacturers have modified the Android UI to make it look completely different?
 
thenerdal said:
This article is not about what is sold. It is what is shipped. Read it again.
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I did read it. The point of these articles is to DISTORT the view of the tablet market, especially at a glance of the article title.

Android Captures Record 39 Percent Share of Global Tablet Shipments in Q4 2011

It's a misleading headline meant to portray Android is catching Apple...especially if it's a investor or someone else who doesn't know the difference in definition.

If you were to go up to an average person on the street and say 'Hey, my business just shipped 1 million X gadgets', they'd be like...'That's awesome...your company must be doing REALLY WELL.

That person is missing a key piece of information. That is shipped doesn't mean sold or bill of sale.

To the everyday consumer, shipped in the real world means something SOLD...whether you bought it at Amazon or Target or some other place.

In the world of distributors...shipped from a manufacturer to a store/distributor doesn't mean an end sale...it just means stock that can be returned.

Notice how they leave out how many of the X shipped are sent back. If you ship 1 million tablets and 980000 are sent back, that's a vastly different concept to people. That is what happened with the Touchpad.
 
voonyx said:
Take 6...no google apps, no google market, no google branding, yadda yadda yadda.

it's quite easy to see the difference between a Motorola XOOM and a Kindle Fire.
Click to expand...

Only reason it has no Android Market is because it's on Gingerbread and Google only let Honeycomb and ICS tablets have the Market. And, of course, Amazon have their own.
 
aperry said:
Oh, I see, so they changed the UI and removed some features that make money for google. Therefor it's not an Android device.

Sorry, still a pretty arbitrary line you're drawing. Especially the part of it not "looking" like Android. Have you see the extent that some of the phone manufacturers have modified the Android UI to make it look completely different?
Click to expand...

No I have not. Care to provide an example of a modified Android UI on a phone that looks completely different from stock android to the point that you wouldn't recognize that it's android?
 
0dev said:
Also, if no GApps means it's not Android, surely Cyanogen isn't Android either by that logic?
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LOL...i mean, if you want to argue for the sake of arguing we can do this all day. If you cannot see the vast differences between the Fire and another Android tablet, or phone, there's not much that I can say that could convince you, right?
 
Last edited:
yeah shipped vs sold, when I went to best buy they had portable storage units out back just stuffed with all the shipped android tablets that haven't sold

:rolleyes:
 
aperry said:
Sure, you could do that. Why not? It wouldn't be as detailed and informative as this study, but yes, technically Android is a Linux based OS (as stated in the first line of it's Wikipedia page).
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Who benefits from a study that combines Android and Android-based OS ("Not-Android", for short) sales? Who is that information relevant to? Developers? They still need to target multiple android platforms. There is no guarantee of API compatibility with Not-Android devices. Consumers? Kindle and Android are different platforms to them.
 
voonyx said:
No I have not. Care to provide an example of a modified Android UI on a phone that looks completely different from stock android to the point that you wouldn't recognize that it's android?
Click to expand...

Seriously? Ok, here's one from over a year ago that popped up on a quick google search.
http://androidforums.com/android-lounge/182579-my-depth-comparison-android-uis.html

If anything, changes like these are even more dramatic today. Companies are transforming Android into anything they want it to look like.
 
voonyx said:
LOL...i mean, if you want to argue for the sake of arguing we can do this all day. If you cannot see the vast differences between the Fire and another Android tablet, or phone, there's not much that I can say that could convince you, right?
Click to expand...

What vast differences are you on about? Amazon slapped a new skin and some custom apps onto the Fire just like HTC slapped a new skin and some custom apps on their tablets. They both still run the same OS underneath.
 
BaldiMac said:
Who benefits from a study that combines Android and Android-based OS ("Not-Android", for short) sales? Who is that information relevant to? Developers? They still need to target multiple android platforms. There is no guarantee of API compatibility with Not-Android devices. Consumers? Kindle and Android are different platforms to them.
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I have no idea who "benefits". Maybe someone who's interested in global penetration of Linux based OS. Doesn't take away from the fact that Android is based on Linux, and technically these are Linux based devices. I don't understand why this is so challenging for people to accept.
 
aperry said:
Seriously? Ok, here's one from over a year ago that popped up on a quick google search.
http://androidforums.com/android-lounge/182579-my-depth-comparison-android-uis.html

If anything, changes like these are even more dramatic today. Companies are transforming Android into anything they want it to look like.
Click to expand...

Different icons confuse you? You can still tell those are Android. If you go into the Settings app, it'll look the same (I know I've owned phones with all three UIs), they all will have the same shortcuts to do different things like adjust display, adjust volume, change wallpaper, add an account, navigate the market.

Sense, Blur, and Touchwiz are just UI themes, if you use them you won't be wondering "is this android??"
 
thenerdal said:
No such thing as Kindle OS.
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Really, so all android manufacturers have access to the assets used on the kindle fire? Just because they haven't named their OS doesn't mean it hasn't become proprietary in some way.

Would you consider the failed Grid OS to be android?
 
BaldiMac said:
Who benefits from a study that combines Android and Android-based OS ("Not-Android", for short) sales? Who is that information relevant to? Developers? They still need to target multiple android platforms. There is no guarantee of API compatibility with Not-Android devices. Consumers? Kindle and Android are different platforms to them.
Click to expand...

The reason Kindle Fire has it's own marketplace is because Amazon wants developers to develop for the Kindle Fire. Like iOS Developers develop for the iPhone and iPads.
 
0dev said:
Yeah the Fire pushed up the Android shipments. It's all good, Android's a decent OS and even if you're iOS faithful, competition is good to make sure the iPad 3 is as good as it can be :)
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Once again, apple has demonstrated (by releasing the iphone in 2007, and creating a new ipad market, for example) that it does not need copy-cat subpar 'competition' to inovate.

Geesh....
 
voonyx said:
Different icons confuse you? You can still tell those are Android. If you go into the Settings app, it'll look the same (I know I've owned phones with all three UIs), they all will have the same shortcuts to do different things like adjust display, adjust volume, change wallpaper, add an account, navigate the market.

Sense, Blur, and Touchwiz are just UI themes, if you use them you won't be wondering "is this android??"
Click to expand...

I think it's already been proven that you want a consistent look and feel across all devices of your eco-system.

Android doesn't provide that because they just provide the OS and let the manufacturers tweak it.
 
voonyx said:
Different icons confuse you? You can still tell those are Android. If you go into the Settings app, it'll look the same (I know I've owned phones with all three UIs), they all will have the same shortcuts to do different things like adjust display, adjust volume, change wallpaper, add an account, navigate the market.

Sense, Blur, and Touchwiz are just UI themes, if you use them you won't be wondering "is this android??"
Click to expand...

You know what a UI is, right? It's an *interface* to software services, Android in this case. Amazon built one for the Fire. Others built theirs to suit their purposes. They all look completely different, and they all have different depths to how far they decided to take it (settings, for example). Who the hell cares? If I build new custom UI for Linux that looks nothing like KDE or Gnome, doesn't matter if I buid it from the ground up or just build a theme on top of another UI technology, it's still considered Linux!

This is so ridiculous. Just show me one official document that states what is allowable and what is not allowable in terms of Android customizations before something becomes "not Android" and I'll shut up. Otherwise you're wrong, as demonstrated by 100's of manufacturers who have customized it in thousands of way and are still universally considered "android".
 
i.mac said:
Once again, apple has demonstrated (by releasing the iphone in 2007, and creating a new ipad market, for example) that it does not need copy-cat subpar 'competition' to inovate.

Geesh....
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Any market with multiple firms offering a product - assuming there's no collusion going on - has competition. Apple doesn't have a stock of magic fairy dust which excludes it from the rules of economics.

I think the stats here prove that Android is now growing to be just as much of a competitor in tablets as it is in smartphones. I personally prefer iOS but I still see this as a good thing because it keeps Apple on the ball.
 
0dev said:
What vast differences are you on about? Amazon slapped a new skin and some custom apps onto the Fire just like HTC slapped a new skin and some custom apps on their tablets. They both still run the same OS underneath.
Click to expand...

I think the best way for you to be convinced (although at this point I doubt it's possible) is to just Youtube the Fire, the Galaxy Tab, The XOOM, and the Transformer Prime. Find videos that show navigation, UI elements, etc. If you can't see the differences between the Fire and the other tablets, and the similarities between the other ones, then there's no point in arguing with me, because I won't be able to convince you.
 
Mr. Snrub said:
I work with people who use the Xoom and have used it myself. It's functions wonderfully and convinced me to buy one. Gotta open your mind sometimes.
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Deep down inside you'll know that you are not using an original device but a wannabe iclone. If this does not bother you, then good for you... Enjoy your expensive iclone.
 
Im going to parrot the shipped vs sold argument as I also believe the sales figures matter much more than the shipped figures.

I also wonder how much the actual tablet shipping market has increased in that time span and how you could represent that. Lets say for arguments sake that in '10 the total number of tablets shipped was 1 million and then in '11 it was 5 million. 58% for Apple (down from previous year in percentage wise only) would actually show gains for apple in this case because they still have a large portion its just that the pie got much much bigger with the onslaught of android tablets. Another words, going by percentages alone is very misleading without actual numbers in there.

TLDR-analogy: 58 percent of a large pizza is much more food than 68 percent of a small pizza.

Still, sales figures are much more interesting than shipped. I mean, according to RIM the playbook was a success because of how many they shipped. Month later, fire sale...
 
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