You can ignore it, you can say it is weak, you can say the iPad will crush all comers, but there is competition now. Both in quality and commerically.
Of course, as always, it is hard to get a man to understand something when his job requires that he does not. For example, where are all these bad reviews for the Xoom? Most put it a bit below the iPad.
Here's the basic problems with the XOOM: it is priced higher than the iPad, isn't much better, and has less apps designed for it. It has more ports, but consumers don't seem to care.
A lot of the old PC vs Mac decision making factors in on the consumer side. Cheaper has its own quality, but combined with Apple's design - well. It is very much if the Mac mini was priced at $199 versus the rest of the PC market at $399.
I think HP will be seriously competitive and Microsoft might finally give up on the Windows 7 tablets and get someone to make WP7 tablets. Honeycomb looks good, but cellphone makers seem to have a lot of problems crossing to tablets because they love their business model with subsidies from the carriers. I think the first company that has a better iPod touch based on Android, webOS, or WP7 will be the sign post for their tablet to be a true iPad competitor. I think it will show they get the whole market.
It's barely priced higher than the equivalent iPad model. $729 for the 3G/32GB iPad vs. $799 for the 3G/32GB Xoom.
IMHO, Honeycomb is far beyond the current iOS iteration for iPad. Granted I'm a Google services oriented person and Apple will most likely be releasing a new version of iOS for the iPad 2 in March, but apples to apples comparison: I've owned both now and I prefer Android. Not for "openness", or because I don't like Apple, but because the functionality is just more intuitive and convenient. Google really did good with Honeycomb. Most specifically is the tabbed browsing (though apps like Google Reader still don't work correctly).
I realize there's no WiFi model at the moment to compete with the iPad's lower end choices but I would imagine that's coming. Obviously there's a serious lack of apps for Android tablets as the Xoom is the first major tablet to be put out. I think these problems will be solved in time and only be a concern to early adopters.
tldr; Android is serious competition for Apple and without some serious innovation they're at serious risk of falling behind. I purposely purchased my Xoom so that the 14-day return window include the March 2nd iPad2 announcement, so I'm definitely not staying with the Xoom if Apple pulls a rabbit out of their hat.
FWIW, I totally agree with what you said. Honeycomb is looking really good - to the point where using iOS feels restricted to me. (Bought mine yesterday and not changing it for anything - to me the stock Google ROM and unlockable bootloader have huge potential for development and trying out custom ROMs.)
Another big winner for me (on any Android 2.2+ device): tethering via portable WiFi hotspot. Although it's much more satisfying when I run my Nexus One on my AT&T unlimited data plan than when I get molested by Verizon for my data usage on the Xoom 3GB plan.
Theoretically this feature will be coming to iOS soon (it's already present in the Verizon iPhone 4 refresh), depending on how badly AT&T decides to continue to gouge their customers.
I can't really imagine why they wouldn't have released one. The only plausible reason I can come up with is that their manufacturing costs couldn't come close what Apple was able to do to put out their $499 16GB WiFi model.
A 32GB 3G iPad is $729. EDIT The Xoom costs $800, has a higher-resolution screen, two cameras, and the price includes an upgrade to 4G (whenever Verizon and Motorola sort that out). So I think it's actually pretty close. Well, at least the hardware is, which I know is not the whole story :-)
Almost all the non-techies I know have the WiFi iPad, not the 3G version. I'm not sure of the exact sales figures, but I would expect the WiFi iPad is much more popular. Effectively the XOOM is competing against something that costs $500, not $729 + recurring fee.
The title is misleading. He doesn't mean competition like "there are no other tablets out that can compete against ipad", he means competition in the sense that he believes that nobody is doing anything innovative in tablets except for Apple. Apple does something, then everyone rushes to copy it. Nobody else is doing anything impressive that Apple rushes and other vendors try to copy.
"Motorola has the Xoom, but so far the reviews haven’t been the best."
What reviews has he been reading? I have read several and most have said in short "While there are still a few kinks to work out, this is better than the iPad right now."
"Go where the puck is going to be"
You mean like putting 2 cameras, HD aspect ratio and resolution, dual core processors, 4G upgrade-ability, true multi-tasking, a UI that relies on no hardware buttons other than power and volume (orientation free), Wi-fi hot-spotting, workstation style docks, etc. into a tablet ahead of the current market line? Kind of like the Xoom perhaps? Yes I know iPad 2 is coming but I don't expect it's specs to exceed that by much feature wise.
From the very first line: "Jim Dalrymple has been writing about Apple for more than 15 years." I had a strong expectation this was going to be an "Apple's Best' article and that's exactly what it was. I would like to give it more weight than that as I have occasionally respected his views in the past but this time I just can't. There are "fan-boys" in every camp and this article is to me another example.
Android has a large ecosystem that is getting bigger and bigger, and will continue to get bigger, and is destined to overshadow Apple in the not-so-distant future. Can you tell me what makes the iOS ecosystem so much better?
The question is more whether you can tell me what besides it's size is great about the Android ecosystem? Yes it allows you to do anything and do not curate but that is not in my world a benefit in this context.
What is great about the iOS ecosystem is that the quality is much higher, people actually pay for their apps apple constantly and consciously help evolve.
It might be a walled garden, but it is a very well kept garden.
I hate to see this getting so many points. You just arbitrarily indicated that all apps are better on iOS and that people pay for apps on iOS but not Android. Well, people pay for apps on Android devices (see http://eddiekim.posterous.com/an-android-success-story-13000... from almost one year ago; Android has only grown since then) and there are plenty of high-quality apps there too. I've used both the iOS and Android apps and found them roughly equivalent -- I certainly haven't noticed a huge quality decline on the Android side. Do you have any evidence or reason to believe that there is a big problem with crappy Android apps?
How is Apple "helping evolve" (apps? iOS?) in a way that Google and its various partners aren't? The Android Market has features and categories, Android gets lots of new features on each cycle, and it's totally open-source. So what's the problem here? What is the big secret special thing Apple does that makes everything magically better on iOS?
The big difference is that Apple starts with design & Google starts with engineering.
Also I am not talking about the quality of the apps only, I am also talking about he quality of the app-store, the payment process, access to music so easily and so on.
All these things are what matters at the end of the day much more than crazy tech specs or complete freedom.
And of course you can make money on Android but there is a reason why Angry Birds is free there and not on the iPhone.
The big difference between Android ecosystem and Apple ecosystem is that Android want's to make their ecosystem big so they can make money on ads. Apple want's to make their app market great so they can make it big.
That is a rather fundamental difference and explains why the android marketplace is one big sorry mess with no direction. I wish it would be different but it's not.
The difference between the chaos on the internet and the Android ecosystem is almost non-excisting.
So I think it is fair to not spend much time if any on Androids ecosystem. What is there really to say about it other than it's big?
He actually does mention Honeycomb: "No matter how good Google makes Honeycomb, the fact is, almost every company out there will be using it."
It's kind of a shitty argument, though, if you ask me. I don't follow the Android market all that closely, but it seems competitors are, in fact, doing things to differentiate themselves, even if they share the same core OS.
The iPad won't be dethroned on specs alone, even when it's feasible, which it currently isn't. It defined a product category and it can't be cloned. The usurper will need a killer feature that everyone wants and Apple can't match. I have trouble imagining what that would be.
My best guess is that some day tablets will be "essential", in the way that phones are, and there will be cheapo Android tablets for those who can't afford iPads or don't have enough taste to care. Both of those things are a long way off though, if they ever happen.
The conclusion seems a bit forced to me. Considering how long the iPhone was without credible competition, and how quickly the landscape changed (and is still changing) you'd have expected a more circumspect reading of the iPad situation.
And the article does not take into account the effects of Apple's overreaching control of their platform, which I think has as big a punitive effect on their platform's growth as anything their competitors do.
I'm rooting for competitors, but I have a hard time picturing many of them coming near Apple's quality in either hardware or software.
Apple has a vast amount of experience in creating consumer software and interfaces, and even with Google's help, Samsung, Motorola and HTC will have a hard time matching that in the near future.
Motorola, for instance, I lost much trust in due to the endless stream of problems I've had with my Droid 2 phone. Many of these problems are said to be present in the original Droid, too (the most current issue? The camera's focus is stuck at about 1 foot). What Motorola seems to lack is Apple's high standards.
The author is absolutely correct in regards to his central thesis: Apple's iPad has got the market cornered.
However, he builds so many little strawmen that I fear that argument will be lost. For example, there is competition. The Xoom is competition. Apparently, it's pretty good, too. No, it won't beat the iPad, but it's there. It's good. We've yet to see how well it does, even.
Who knows what will be a real threat to the iPad–it probably won't be Android; the iPad is not fungible (just like the iPhone has proven not to be). Instead, Android devices will carve out market of their own, and continue to compete against each other.
I wonder if it would take an entirely new OS and an entirely new company to successfully compete. I doubt we see anything soon, but I can only hope. Apple's making me feel more and more walled in, every day, even as I enjoy their products.
All the iPad clones, while they might be half decent, fail to excite. As in they bring nothing surprising to the table. Give us something like, I dunno, Kinect-powered interaction, seamless 2nd-monitor functionality for Windows/Linux, holographic projection, 3D television, built-in offline/syncing wikipedia, free internet plan, velcro wall-mounting kit, an FM transmitter, spectral analysis, hook it up to specs-mounted camera and let me Sky+/TiVo my day, something game-changing, anything, just not another USB port.
I think you're right. Tablets are new territory. This should allow some sort creativity to happen. One possible approach is to ask "what apps could exist if we added hardware x?".
Yeah, or at least look at problems with the iPad that are non-obvious because they seem insurmountable: too big to fit in your pocket (fold-up tablet?); screen is poor for outdoor use (e-ink display on the back side?)... rather than 'we do Flash.' I remember so many people saying 'that will never catch on' or 'nobody needs that' in reference to the iPod, iPhone, iPad, because they broke the mold. They need to put out something that makes iPad owners sit up and think 'actually, that's pretty cool' or 'what?... that will never work!'
To be precise, what you would like is a USB port and software support for what could be a subtly wide range of peripherals. A USB port brings the expectation of seamless software support for all of the following:
- removable storage
- wired networking
- audio speakers
- scanners
- printers
- cameras
- keyboard
- mouse/trackball
- joypad input
- any of a million other HID inputs like fingerprint readers, graphics tablets, biometric sensors...
I can understand Apple wanting to avoid opening that Pandora's box. Do all those device vendors really want to write and support iOS drivers in addition to all their other platforms? Does Apple really want to be involved in vetting and approving driver code for all that? Does Apple want the inevitable support burden for when those devices don't work?
Good points all, but I really just want to be able to hook it up as a peripheral via usb, not the funky and extremely proprietary iDevice connector.
Hooking up my Android devices to anything and everything as a peripheral via usb has proven useful numerous times. In several cases it has literally saved the day while my colleagues sat there in silence brandishing useless (for that moment) iPhones and iPads.
Not using a standard old USB port on iDevices has mystified me since they iPods first started coming out.
(oh, and since I'm wishing here, SD card support would be super great too)
Apple is not in the tablet market or the phone market. They are in the clairvoyance market. If you're reacting to the present instead of predicting the future, you're obviously not in the same market.
Surely any technology company is trying to predict the future and create products that people want. The iPad was, what, 5 years after Microsoft's tablets, the difference is that Apple can execute well.
Most the of the other vendors, Motorola included, don't control their OS.
Actually if the iPod, iPhone and iPad stories have taught us anything it's that Apple is visionary (whether or not you, personally, agree with that vision or not is immaterial; the market has generally decided in their favour).
Everyone else is just copying last year's Apple product with a shotgun approach with no idea of why they're in the market (other than Apple is in it), what their vision for their product and company is or what consumers actually want.
There are also countless examples to prove that just because you take a working formula and add stuff to it, it isn't by definition any better. In fact, it can be worse.
And the iPhone wasn't the first phone or even the first smartphone.
And the iPod wasn't the first MP3 player.
His point about being first is misguided. It's more accurate to say Apple was the first to do each of these things right. The competition are simply mimicking what Apple already did right and, in doing so, chasing last year's model.
Maybe you should reread the post. You've actually just restated his supposedly "misguided" point that Apple succeeds due to its excellent execution of existing product concepts, not by inventing those concepts.
I'm not sure how you define "first product of its kind," but as far as I'm concerned Apple created the first tablet with a multi touch OS targeted at consumers. You can argue that the crap tablets MS and its partners put out beat Apple to the punch, but that's missing the entire point.
Nothing that was released prior to the iPad was anything like the tablets that people have decided are so exciting now, and to pretend they were is disingenuous at best.
"You can argue that the crap tablets MS and its partners put out beat Apple to the punch, but that's missing the entire point."
Actually, that is the entire point. That's exactly what is being discussed. Apple did not invent the tablet, they took an existing idea and improved its implementation dramatically.
"Nothing that was released prior to the iPad was anything like the tablets that people have decided are so exciting now, and to pretend they were is disingenuous at best."
The IPad certainly evolved far beyond its predecessors. That doesn't mean it took nothing from those designs. Clearly there are some similarities if they've all been labeled 'tablets'. To pretend there aren't is disingenuous at best :-/
Where Microsoft failed with tablets was trying to shoehorn desktop Windows onto a device with a touch interface. I'm planning to ditch my iPhone soon but I still consider it to be the biggest disruptive event in mobile history since middle class people started carrying cell phones. It really did set the standard, and also proved that there was room for a brand new ecosystem of applications that was done correctly (who else would use Obj-C otherwise?). They just naturally followed their success into the tablet market.
Microsoft's tablets were PCs. The iPad is a giant iPhone. Similar form factor, far from the same product category.
The iPad is best compared to a console gaming system: an entertainment appliance with a curated application library. Marrying that to the tablet form factor was the winning insight.
"Invention" is probably a better term than "clairvoyance" for what Apple does. They aren't so much predicting the future as creating it.
WebOS and the TouchPad will absolutely complete well with the iPad on both the hardware and software levels. I'd be very surprised if the iPad2 was released with better hardware than what is in the TouchPad. WebOS is the best mobile operating system out there and it's such a shame that it wasn't handled better until this point. It has had features in it for years that all other mobile OSes are still trying to catch up to. Hopefully HP will do a great job marketing everything because that's the real key to competing with Apple.
And with the iPad selling 15 million copies, and the iPad 2 coming out Tuesday, they need to get the damn thing out the door and into the hands of customers.
One upon a time someone had the bright idea to close the first Mac in that no one could open it up and customize...
PCs came in at a lower price and less features and in 2 years time Apple was losing..
So which vendor infrastructure is now acting as wintel?
Every OEM/Mobile Operator combination that did not get an iPad deal is gunning to beat Apple..no one tablet has to out compete iPad..the sheer number of choices and volume of those choices will..
Of course, as always, it is hard to get a man to understand something when his job requires that he does not. For example, where are all these bad reviews for the Xoom? Most put it a bit below the iPad.