Android Catching Up In the Tablet Market 191
TyFoN writes "Year to year, the iPad market share is down from 94.3 percent to 61.3 percent while Android is up about the same, going from 2.9 percent to 30.1 percent in the same period. 'Some 4.6 million Android-based tablets shipped in this year's second quarter as compared with just around 100,000 in the year-ago quarter, according to Strategy Analytics. ...the tablet OS market as a whole grew a whopping 331 percent in the last year and Apple grew right along with it in terms of unit shipments. Tablet makers shipped 3.5 million in the second quarter of 2010, with Apple easily leading the charge with 3.2 million iPads shipped. The number of units shipped exploded to 15.1 million in this past quarter— Apple was a bit behind the pace of that growth, but still managed to ship an impressive 9.3 million iOS-based tablets. Microsoft, meanwhile, had the third largest share of the global tablet OS market at 4.6 percent, with about 700,000 Windows 7-based tablets shipped in the recent quarter.'"
Shipping share vs. market share (Score:4, Informative)
The reported numbers are all shipping share [daringfireball.net], not market share. The number of Android tablets being sold is pretty dramatically less....
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
This is how Samsung is able to push out such huge numbers for the Galaxy Tab, etc, because they are basically artificially inflating their numbers.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Read article (Score:3)
It may be less, but I doubt it's "dramatically" less.
Stated "shipping share" is an order of magnitude more than the number sold - read the article, it uses Google's own activation numbers and device counts to arrive at that position.
Now granted perhaps a lot of Android tablet owners are collecting them for posterity and never removing them from the box. But somehow I do not think that is the case.
Tablet makers aren't feverishly pushing them out just to lose all their money as they rot on the shelves.
That certainly is not what they HOPE to do. But the market can have other ideas.
Blackberry is shipping a lot of Playbooks but those aren't selling either. Obviously they did not put them out to "rot on shelves" either.
They activate out of the box (Score:2)
What proportion of users do you think bother "activating" their tablets?
Every one that turns on one, because they contact Google servers to check for updates and other things. Just what did you think "activation" meant in the context of tablets anyway?
Re:Read article (Score:2)
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:3)
Three words: Eee Pad Transformer. It would be interesting to see its share of the Android tab market, but you know that with the exception of maybe a few days of delay, shipping share equaled sales share for a few months. It was not until the past few weeks that Transformer backordering and price scalping ended.
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
It may be less, but I doubt it's "dramatically" less. Tablet makers aren't feverishly pushing them out just to lose all their money as they rot on the shelves.
Actually, yes, they are.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news/samsung-comes-clean-galaxy-tab-numbers-not-consumer-sales/775 [zdnet.com]
Apparently the number of Tabs sold to consumers is far less (10-20%?) of those shipped so far (Samsung won't comment on that number, of course, because it's a lot less than they hoped). Compared to the iPad (which is still hard to keep in stock at all) that's pretty dramatic.
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
Don't be too sure. Way back when--and I think it's still true--Apple used an "agency" model. The difference is somewhat subtle.
As an Apple reseller, you are an agent of Apple. What this means is that you sell stuff for Apple. Apple gets the money from the sale when you sell it. You may have 50 iPads sitting in your warehouse, but those are Apple's iPads. They are not your iPads. This is in contrast to the retail model where you, say, Samsung a wholesale price and then add whatever mark-up the market will bear. So those 50 Samsung tablets sitting in your warehouse are your tablets--bought and paid for and you're responsible for moving them.
That said, some wholesale agreements have a "saleability" clause where if you can't sell it, the vendor will buy it back. Vendors will also do "channel stuffing" [wikipedia.org] where they knowingly ship too much inventory in order to make their sales numbers look good. Later on, when they have to take these things back, they take the hit but by then the salesman has already made his commission or the company has gotten the appropriate good press.
So, yes, Tablet makers may be stuffing the channel in order to get the good press. If I say that I sold 1 million tablets (to the channel, not to customers) it's good news. Investors are happy, the press has a story about "Samsung selling tons of tablets" which may get actual customers into those stores ("Hey, if Samsung sold 1 million tablets, they must be good.") to help move the glut.
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:5, Informative)
Oh really? [techcrunch.com]
Samsung didn’t give any figures, but when a company describes sales of a flagship product as “quite small,” you better believe those sales are microscopic.
As you heard, our sell-in was quite aggressive and this first quarterly result was quite, you know, fourth-quarter unit [figure] was around two million. Then, in terms of sell-out, we also believe it was quite small. We believe, as the introduction of new device, it was required to have consumers invest in the device. So therefore, even though sell-out wasn’t as fast as we expected, we still believe sell-out was quite OK.
This was back when people were touting the "2 million Galaxy Tabs" sold when in fact that was just the shipped figure and then Samsung is saying the sales were "quite small". Yes, that would lead very much to believe that it is "dramatically less". Otherwise, if the sales were so great why don't they quote the actual sales numbers rather than the shipped numbers? Businesses do this to hide the fact that actual sales suck.
This would be true, except that later that day (or perhaps the next day) a redaction was submitted, saying he was misunderstood. What he really said was "quite smooth" [businessinsider.com].
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
This would be true, except that later that day (or perhaps the next day) a redaction was submitted, saying he was misunderstood. What he really said was "quite smooth" [businessinsider.com].
Riiiiiight. You mean that's after the PR department unanimously facepalmed, and scrambled to find a way to spin his words...
And what kind of QUANTITY do you think "smooth" represents?
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
Quite smooth is a meaningless snonsensical tatement and quite small is accurate.
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
Oh yes be in denial! Yes nobody wants Android tablets! After all they are crap...
Hey did I not hear this record before? Oh yeah it was with Android smartphones. What happened? Oh yeah Android is kicking iOS arse and now everybody is quiet about the numbers. But instead we have this debate on how Apple gets more money and so on with iOS. Well to all of you Apple owners congratulations for overpaying for a piece of hardware. I understand its a free country and you have that right.
BUT please stop with the commenting that Android tablets are not gaining traction. They are!
Yeah but only in N. America (Score:2)
B&N in their infite wisdom have not seen fit to sell it into a bigger market that is open to them.
viz Europe.
330Million People.
So your statement should read.
The Nook Color seems to be selling well in the US. Shame that the rest of the world do not get a look it.
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
Based on...? His wild speculation on how get a number of android tablets? Is ignornig the shipping is based on demand?
That was a terrbile article.
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:5, Informative)
As for Android tablets, Robert Synnott suggested on Twitter a way to approximate actual tablets sold. First, five days ago Google CEO Larry Page announced that Android was in use on 135 million total devices. Second, Google’s Android developer site publishes a regularly-updated breakdown of the Android OS version numbers in active use. For the 14-day period ending July 5, 0.9 percent of Android devices were using Android 3.0 or 3.1 — a.k.a. Honeycomb, the versions of Android specifically for — and only for — tablets.
Round that up to an even 1 percent to be generous, multiply by 135 million devices, and you get 1.35 million tablets.
So it looks like Apple has sold, to customers, over 21 times more iPads than all Honeycomb Android tablets combined.
These are Google's own numbers here suggesting that the iPad is still eating their lunch.
Does this include the Nook? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Does this include the Nook? (Score:3)
Re:Does this include the Nook? (Score:2)
Not to mention that many android tablets, the early ones, aren't running Honeycomb either.
And you are telling us that those abismal failures suddenly started to sell well, many months after they came out?
Re:Does this include the Nook? (Score:2)
It probably doesn't- because B&N wasn't claiming it to be a tablet but purely an e-reader until they pushed the Froyo based update wherein they officially expanded the abilities on the out-of-box machines. The biggest problem of the tablet sales is that they went with Honeycomb with most of them instead of doing a variant like Cyanogenmod's done for devices like the NC and the G-Tablet. Gingerbread or Froyo could've already mostly handled a tablet without the stuff that they did with Honeycomb- even though what they did there is a major jump all the same. Now, having said this...if the prices on the devices were a little more compelling and Honeycomb a bit more robust...be a differing story on the uptake. Not everyone likes/wants Apple's stuff- and there's quite a few that would like to see an Android tablet. If they'd not stubbed their toes on this, we'd really not be having this conversation.
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:3)
And? in my country the big promoted table for one of the biggest Telco, and the one with the best 3G (not perfect 3G only the best in comparison) is selling a tablet running 2.2 and that is the Galaxy Tab, the only Tablet being sold directly here by a telco. So it is ok to ignore 2.2 Tablets just because 3.0 was designed for tablets?
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah...but you're missing out on quite a few things there...
~1.35 Million HC Tablets checked in.
3+ million Nooks.
How many tablets running Froyo or Gingerbread because the vendors are "iffy" right at the moment with HC and waiting until ICS?
Quite simply, there's quite a few more Android tablets out there than your estimate. How many? Not sure- trying to find the numbers on those from that third line I gave you. It's a lot- but you can't just go off of Honeycomb activations to see what the space looks like. Not really.
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
Only suggests that if you assume that because all Android Honeycomb devices are tablets, it necessary follows that all Android tablets run Honeycomb. This is, to say the least, not true. The vast majority of Android tablets don't run Honeycomb.
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
Shipments are done based off expectations, not demand. Restocking is based on demand, but even then you may have large chains receive stock they did not request. Large supply chains have deals in place where should the hardware not sell, they will just return it, so other than space and time, they don't loose much money by accepting to carry products that don't sell.
If non-iOS tablets were selling so well, manufacturers would be more willing to just state how many they have actually sold and stop avoiding the question every time it comes up.
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
As someone linked above, that's a famous misquote. "Quite small" was never said. The REAL quote is, "quite smooth".
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
You mean the same guy above who retracted his statement?
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
The only thing famous about it is how pathetic the damage control was after accidentally telling the truth. He had to backpedal. You don't have to buy into something that lame. You can, for instance, look around and wonder where all those Galaxy S tablets are that people supposedly bought. I can see Android phones but not much luck finding the mythical Android tablets in the wild. YMMV.
This has the odor of a pump priming attempt to create the impression of wide scale adoption hoping that more people will consider an Android tablet as a viable option. If you buy an Android tablet you are a brave pioneer and you may be rewarded or you may be the owner of the equivalent of the Zune.
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
Just to summarize some of the numbers from the Daring Fireball link for those who don't feel like reading through all of it, John Gruber borrowed Robert Synnott's method, which uses Google's regularly updated statistics on Android OS versions in active use, then applies them to the 135M activations of Android devices that Larry Page mentioned about a week ago on Twitter. According to Google's own statistics, only 0.9% of Android devices are running 3.0 or 3.1, which are tablet-specific. Gruber then works off of the assumption that 2.x tablet sales were negligible (and by all accounts, they were), but rounds the 0.9% up to an even 1%, which means that there are roughly 1.35M Android tablets being used. In contrast, Apple reports actual units sold rather than shipped in its financial reports, and it's sold 28.73M through the end of June.
One thing Gruber and Synnott didn't account for is the difference between sales and use. Since Google's active use numbers only reflect those devices that are still being used, any devices which were sold but have been lying idle would not be counted. So, it's possible that people who buy 2+ devices but only use one may be deflating the 1.35M number. Even so, I can't imagine them making up a large portion of the market already, given that Android tablets haven't been on the market for very long. And if they do make up a large part of the market because people are buying multiple Android tablets, then that makes a negative statement on the quality of the products in the Android tablet market; having customers that are willing to pay hundreds of dollars within the first year of ownership to abandon your first generation product for a different first generation product is never a good thing.
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
One thing Gruber and Synnott didn't account for is the difference between sales and use. Since Google's active use numbers only reflect those devices that are still being used, any devices which were sold but have been lying idle would not be counted. So, it's possible that people who buy 2+ devices but only use one may be deflating the 1.35M number.
Sure. It's also possible that people bought several Android tablets, found them all lacking, and then bought an iPad - clearly Android tablets are outselling iPads.
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
Exactly. I merely wanted to acknowledge that use != sales, but, for the life of me, I can't figure out a positive way to spin that for Android, which is why I said later in the paragraph that it'd be a negative statement on the quality of the Android tablets. I thought about mentioning what you just said, but I felt I was already running a bit long with what I wrote, so I decided to skip that exact point. Plus, it'd just be rubbing salt in the wound. ;)
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
And even then, the exact same survey company said Android had 22% tablet market share in the Christmas quarter [bloomberg.com]. So it went from 2% to 22% from calendar Q2 to Q4 last year, then 22% to 30% from last Q4 to this Q2. Sure looks like even their over-inflated, Android-biased survey shows Android tablets asymptotically approaching about 35% of the market someday. Their growth curve-- and it's the most optimistic one of all the Android tablet research out there-- doesn't look good for Android taking a majority of the market any time soon.
The elephant in the room. (Score:2)
Let's assume that Gruber's wrong(I have no reason to believe he is; I'm a huge Gruber fanboy and his logic's pretty good).
This means that 61% of the tablet market is owned by 1 vendor, and between Moto, HTC, B&N, RIM, Samsung, etc. that's at least 5 with the distinct possibility of way more vendors fighting for 39% of market share.
1 vendor, Apple, owns *atleast* a solid plurality of tablet market share if not an outright majority.
Re:Shipping share vs. market share (Score:2)
Not to mention that some of them are cheap £100 tablets which will get bought, used for about 5 minutes then stuck on ebay when the purchaser realises you get what you pay for.
What about the cheapo crap tablets? (Score:2)
The ones sold by Walwart, ASDA etc but the truckload. The ones priced at less than $150/£100.
IMHO, the Tablet/fondleslab market should be segmented.
At the top, things like the Playbook, Galaxy Tab and iPad.
etc etc.
Then we might get some more realistic figures especially if the measurements were done by units sold rather than shipped.
If the Galaxy Tab was a bit cheaper I'd buy one.
Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
any x86 tablet. they got their uses, though I don't know if industry etc machines are counted into these statistics, exopc's has been out for a while too. they tend to cost significantly more than discount android tablets though.
what should be remembered with these analyst stats is that they're just published to drum up visitors and customers to the analyst in question - what they've probably done is have gone through some quarterly results for q2 from each of these companies for some shipped unit figures, which is less than ideal, then they spin a dramatic spin on it, like android gaining up marketshare dramatically(but ipad was still selling more). you know who base their business on these and choose target platforms based on these figures? idiots.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Heh... I would want the hardware and not the OS. Make for a decent target for Linux/MeeGo. The OS would just be a waste as it'd never get used. :-D
Re:Wow (Score:2)
any x86 tablet. they got their uses, though I don't know if industry etc machines are counted into these statistics, exopc's has been out for a while too. they tend to cost significantly more than discount android tablets though.
First people complain when somebody counts iPads towards "computer" sales, then they turn around and count what Microsoft claims are full PCs as "tablets"?
Re:Wow (Score:3)
There are lots of them - and have been for good long time. I have one of these [cnet.com], that I got when a local hospital was selling off the old generation of computers and upgrading to these. [motioncomputing.com] These things are freaking amazing - usable in full sunlgiht, nearly indestructible, great battery life (plus hot-swappable batteries), but they do cost $2000+, which is why you never see them, except in hospitals or government contracted job-sites, or on sci-fi tv shows. [tabletpcreview.com]
Fujitsu [shopfujitsu.com], Acer [cnet.com], HP [hp.com], Dell [dell.com], or Lenovo [trustedreviews.com] all have Windows tablet offerings. They just tend to be full-fledged computers, rather than toys, and so carry a higher price. Windows 7 with gestures / flicks works quite well as a tablet OS, but it is helpful to have the active digitizer with stylus, regardless of whether you also have a iPad style touchscreen.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
My daughter has one. It's one of those Asus netbooks with a reversible touch screen where you can turn it around and push it flat and make it into a rather thick, heavy tablet. Comes with Windows 7 Dust Bowl Edition, (or whatever they call the lowest level) which does not have touch support, so the first thing you have to do is upgrade the OS. We upgraded to Windows 7 Pro being the lowest level that's actually useful on a network.
So, what she's found is that Windows 7 has almost no touch screen support, most of what they call "support" actually being existing Accessibility tools that have been rebranded as "tablet support". So you can call up a screen keyboard but it doesn't come up automatically when you need to enter text and it comes up in a random place on the screen, usually covering where you're trying to work. There is a 1990's era handwriting recognition toy, sorry, tool but it has the same problems as the virtual keyboard, with the added feature of accuracy worse than products available 20 years ago. (Graffiti, anyone?)
Mouse support is... interesting. Rather than change the paradigm to make Windows touch friendly, Microsoft has layered on a set of gestures that emulate the actions of a 2 button mouse. The advantage of this approach is that they don't have to change the GUI in any basic way, but it makes navigating rather cabalistic. For instance, to rename a file requires that you do the counter-clockwise circle gesture to emulate a right mouse click so you can choose "rename" from the popup menu. (And then you have to call up the on-screen keyboard and move it somewhere where it doesn't cover the text you're trying to enter.)
And on and on.
So in general, one could state in a court of law that "Windows 7 has touch support", but it's so aggravating and counter-intuitive to use that daughter finally gave up and uses the device as a standard netbook now. She will occasionally use the touch screen with drawing programs that support it (which was the original reason for purchase) but otherwise always uses keyboard and mouse.
The moral, to me, is: Don't buy a Windows tablet unless you can attach a keyboard and mouse, else you will find it becomes shelfware in a month or so. Unless (this is important) you're buying it for a very specific purpose, to run an application that has touch support, and you only intend to run that application.
The reason for this is that at a very basic level, Microsoft's strategy for touch support is not to create a new "touch friendly" paradigm as did Apple and Google, but to (a) layer on gestures that allow fingers to emulate mouse operations, and (b) leverage old crufty accessibility tools that, at least on paper, perform similar functions to the entry and edit functions of iOS and Android devices. This allows them to claim touch support in marketing pamphlets without the expense and lead time of actually writing a touch-friendly GUI.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Perhaps, (although I am skeptical about improvements in handwriting recognition) but this breaks the tablet paradigm as most commonly practiced, which is finger-oriented. It's like saying you can alleviate the lack of reasonable alternative mouse gestures by including a mouse. Some people would argue that it's no longer a tablet at that point.
The thing is, Microsoft *has* a cutting edge touch interface in Microsoft Surface. But they insist on continuing to market the product as a studio prop instead of incorporating the technology into consumer products.
Hell, even Windows Mobile 7 would be a better choice, from a user interface standpoint, for Windows tablets.
Yet here we are, forced to either memorize un-ergonomic curlicues that emulate two button mouse gestures, or use specialized input devices (mouse analogs), when Microsoft's competitors have long ago (measured in consumer product lifetimes) created interfaces that can be easily and intuitively manipulated by the fingers on the end of your hands.
I would say "it just boggles the mind" but given Microsoft's history of "reuse existing products at all costs", even if it costs them a marketplace, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
I think they still call the old bulky laptops with stylus sensitive screens that turn around and weight 20 pounds and spinning hard drives to be "Tablets." After all, they are called TabletPCs.
For a long time i been thinking we should never have called these touch screen flat devices "tablets". We need a new term to distinguish them from the horrid thing that is a TabletPC. Slate? Pads? Touch Computing? I dont know, something other than Tablet.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Amazon at least...
Google is your friend
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Heh... Nothing like a little bit of extreme temperature analysis, eh?
The vast majority of those tablets (Score:3)
"Shipped"? (Score:2)
I am curious how they got to those numbers; namely, what do they mean by "shipped". Do they mean produced and sent to stores? Or actually sold to customers?
We know how many iPad's are actually bought by people; but how much of that 30% this analyst is claiming Android has is retail channels filling up but not actually being bought? Where are they getting their numbers?
I'm not saying there aren't plenty of people who may be interested in some of the latest Android offerings, but a 2:1 ratio of iPad's:Android's doesn't at all jive with what I've seen or heard in reality. (Granted, my anecdotal evidence isn't all that more awesomer then your anecdotal evidence)
Re:"Shipped"? (Score:3)
Usually "shipped" means "sent to retailers", which doesn't necessarily mean sold. However, it tends to be an accurate enough approximation of units sold, since retailers wouldn't stock up on millions of devices they never would sell. Should that happen, the units shipped would quickly drop to almost nil after the first few months, which isn't the case here.
Still, I have to agree in that I have never seen anything but iPads around. Then again, I can't seem to glimpse anything but iPods and iPhones either, so maybe I'm just surrounded by a statistical anomaly.
Re:"Shipped"? (Score:2)
Re:"Shipped"? (Score:2)
Many retailers, specially large ones, have the power to return unsold units. Many large chains will even receive stock they never asked for and be forced to return it or try to sell it. Since the return may be a bit of a pain they may give the product a bit of floor space and see if it moves at all before sending it back.
So "shipped" is only accurate enough if the product is in such high demand that you can't manufacture them fast enough, as is the case with Apple and the iPad.
Re:"Shipped"? (Score:2)
Don't even need to go anywhere. Just listen to the radio or watch TV.
"INVENTORY REDUCTION SALE!" "WE'VE GOT TO MAKE ROOM!" "OUR LOT IS BURSTING AT THE SEAMS WITH NEW SUBARUS!"
(All caps for the reason that they really are yelling)
Re:"Shipped"? (Score:2)
"Shipped" means to stores. Note: this number does not discount stores getting unwanted inventory and returning it. They shipped your Best Buy 100 units and the manager returned them because they were not moving? No matter, those 100 count as "shipped."
A silly submission (Score:4, Interesting)
Strategy Analytics is talking about units shipped. Unit shipments aren't the same as actual sales to customers. Microsoft used that same word-twisting when they tried to convince everyone that Vista was doing well. As John Gruber pointed out yesterday [daringfireball.net], what Strategy Analytics is calling market share is actually "shipment share." That's not market share in the way most people think of it. If you go by actual sales, the iPad has sold almost 30 million total, while Android tablets have only sold about 1.35 million.
I'm surprised Apple's earnings report didn't make it to Slashdot's front page. Sales of the iPad have tripled [cnbc.com] since last year, at 9.25 million, and iPhone sales more than doubled. iPad sales have been so successful that retailers reserved inventory space for them at the expense of PCs. PC shipments declined by about 6% [slashdot.org], and the PC industry overall declined by 4.2%. I think that's the biggest untold story of all in this--after decades of growth, the PC is in a downward trend because of the iPad.
Because it's percentage-based and can therefore fluctuate based on total size, market share is not as important a figure as it's often made out to be. It can be used to paint a negative picture where there isn't one. It can also be twisted by citing units shipped rather than sold. The iPad is doing better than ever and doesn't seem to be stopping any time soon. I realize that Slashdot is historically pro-Linux and will present Linux-based products as always "catching up" or being on the cusp of taking over, but there's just no evidence of that happening at this point in time.
Re:A silly submission (Score:2)
Re:A silly submission (Score:2)
How can PC be in a downward trend when sales of PCs continue to grow [zacks.com] (yes, even if the growth is less than estimates)? Oh right, it's not.
Re:A silly submission (Score:2)
That article you links says "PC shipments in the U.S were also down 4.2%." Both IDC and Gartner reached the same conclusion about the declining PC market.
Re:A silly submission (Score:2)
That article you links says "PC shipments in the U.S were also down 4.2%."
In the US, where pretty much everyone already has a PC.
BTW, how are these figures calculated? I have five home-built 'PCs' which wouldn't be on any list of PC sales unless they're tracking motherboards.
Re:A silly submission (Score:2)
Re:A silly submission (Score:2)
USA != world (Score:2)
Re:A silly submission (Score:2)
The second derivative of PCs sold over time is negative?
Re:A silly submission (Score:2)
What you wrote doesn't contradict my point. People are choosing tablets because they're easier to use and maintain than PCs.
Re:A silly submission (Score:2)
I thought Jobs summed it up reasonably well here [youtube.com]
Re:A silly submission (Score:2)
Because it's percentage-based and can therefore fluctuate based on total size, market share is not as important a figure as it's often made out to be.
Well, that's one problem. The other problem is that the tablet market was created out of nowhere by Apple less than 18 months ago, and its only in the last 6 months or so that there has been anything significant in the way of non-vaporware alternatives. So the fact that Android has increased its market share now that there are a number of viable iPad alternatives is definitely one for the department of urso-sylvanian scatology or the journal of papal denominational studies.
Re:A silly submission (Score:2)
The other problem is that the tablet market was created out of nowhere by Apple less than 18 months ago
Re:A silly submission (Score:2)
Well, to be perfectly precise, itsdapead's statement should have been, "The tablet-that-doesn't-totally-suck market was created out of nowhere by Apple less than 18 months ago."
But most reasonable people knew what he meant.
Front Page News (Score:2)
I'm surprised Apple's earnings report didn't make it to Slashdot's front page.
I'm not; You and I were around when Slashdot was more even tempered than it is today. As soon as I saw that "Shipping Share" article I knew it would be on Slashdot.
Re:Front Page News (Score:2)
You young whipper snappers. Why I was first on /. we didn't have UIDs. All the stories were about OS/2 and 486s and that's the way we liked it! Now where'd I sit that floppy disk?
Re:A silly submission (Score:2)
Re:A silly submission (Score:2)
I'm surprised Apple's earnings report didn't make it to Slashdot's front page.
Microsoft's record quarter didn't make it to the front page either.
The Key (Score:2, Informative)
The key word here is SHIPPED, not sold.
All "tablets" reported from AAPL's quarterly were SOLD, not merely shipped and waiting to be bought.
Whatevers though, small point, and many Android tablets will be sold but the fragmentation will not abate.
Re:The Key (Score:2)
Re:The Key (Score:2)
That's because the fragmentation is small and separates the first generation of iOS hardware from the past two or three generations of hardware. There are advances in hardware that newer iOS versions would used (front facing camera for example, or amount of RAM). Of course this would mean older hardware can't support it. Other than these few differences in hardware, the majority of the apps still run on all versions of iOS.
Contrast this with Android which have fragmentation within the same generation of hardware.
Re:The Key (Score:2)
Contrast this with Android which have fragmentation within the same generation of hardware.
The main fragmentation issues with Android are due to the carriers' reluctance to allow users to upgrade to newer versions of the OS. A 3.1 tablet or 2.3 phone can run the overwhelmingly vast majority of the apps in the market, with the exception of apps that targetted a specific device (i.e. Xperia Play) or they where the devs took shortcuts with their code (i,e, used fixed values when settings up screen layouts).
What "Android" are they talking about? (Score:3)
Considering there are $99 Android 2.1 tablets that you can get in stores like Walgreens or CVS, is it any wonder they're "gaining marketshare"?
They're on the low end of the spectrum, but they do browse the web and can play Angry Birds.
Re:What "Android" are they talking about? (Score:2)
Considering there are $99 Android 2.1 tablets that you can get in stores like Walgreens or CVS, is it any wonder they're "gaining marketshare"?
They're on the low end of the spectrum, but they do browse the web and can play Angry Birds.
What does the price of the Android tablets have to do with the number of units sold? If it will make you feel better, I'll sell you the same $99 tablet for $499. As an app developer, the fact that machines are available for a modest sum that can run (and therefore purchase) my apps is a plus, not a negative.
Re:What "Android" are they talking about? (Score:2)
Re:That $99 Android tablet can't play Angry Birds (Score:2)
Craig E-Pad CMP738A [craigelectronics.com]
7 inch Digital Touch Screen (800 x 480 , 16:9)
Processor Speed 700MHz
Operating System : Powered By Google Android 2.2
4 GB Built-in Flash Memory
Built-in 256MB DDR II RAM
Built-in WIFI (802.11b/g)
Support Video Format : MKV/AVI/RM/RMVB/FLV/WMV/MP4/MPG/VOB (Up to 720p)
Support Audio Format : MP3/WMA/WAV
Support Photo Format : JPEG/BMP/GIF/PNG
Support e-Reader Format : PDF/PDF DRM/TXT/EPUB/EPUB DRM/HTML/FB2
Automatically Rotate Function
Mini HDMI AV Out Jack (720p)
Mini USB to Connect to Computer
USB Host
Landscape to Portrait Screen Function
Built-in Rechargeable Battery
Built-in Speaker & Microphone
Micro SD Card Slot (Support Max. 32GB)
Supports Browser, e-Book Reader, e-Mail, Photos, Maps, Video, YouTube, Facebook, Music, SlideME Marketplace, Clock
3.5mm Stereo Headphone Jack
Can Connect With PC as a Storage Drive
For $99 at CVS, what are you complaining about?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This may turn out a lot like PCs did (Score:3)
That extra competition will do nothing for Android pricing. Right now Android tablets are already facing full competition pressure from the iPad. Android prices aren't high because makers are ignoring the iPad and only pricing against each other. Android prices are high because Apple is buying components they took options on years ago in lots of ten million. Android makers are buying components based on current availability in lots of hundred thousands or even ten thousands.
Re:This may turn out a lot like PCs did (Score:2)
Re:This may turn out a lot like PCs did (Score:3)
Re:This may turn out a lot like PCs did (Score:2)
Re:This may turn out a lot like PCs did (Score:2)
Once they get complete dominance that greed will be turned towards reduction in product quality.
And you're basing that one their history of having done so in the iPod market, right? I mean, they continue to have 70% market share in the music player business, and it's obvious that the product quality has really taken a nose dive in the time that they've been on top. All of these new iPod nano and iPod Touch devices have really set the market back by a number of years, rather than driving the innovation and quality forward.
Or maybe you're basing it on what they've done with their 90% market share of the $1000+ PC business? If so, you're definitely on the money, since Macs are known for their shoddy workmanship and poor quality. I can't think of any consumer reports or user satisfaction polls that have spoken favorably of them in a number of years. Once they nailed that market, they just decided to rest on their laurels and stop making decent stuff. Lion is simply the latest iteration in a long line of low-quality operating systems, and I have yet to find a review that speaks well of it. Hell, I'm such a lemming that I installed it already, and I've been self-loathing ever since then. The experience of using it is equitable to pulling teeth.
Apple's strategy all along has been to dominate a market, then release crap periodically, and it's definitely worked for them.
</massive sarcasm>
Or, for the less sarcastic version, Apple has demonstrated that if greed and a love of money is your motivating factor, then putting out high quality products is the best way to satisfy your desires. If they start to put out crap, the iPad will follow the path that the Mac took in the early days, and will quickly be eclipsed by competitors. Apple is at its best when it's competing, and history shows us that when they rest, they fall. But for now, we have no reason for saying that Apple is planning to rest anytime soon, since your examples of greed have yet to generate the effect that you indicate they will produce, despite having been present for a number of years already.
Re:This may turn out a lot like PCs did (Score:2)
Re:This may turn out a lot like PCs did (Score:2)
Oh, I didn't have an issue with your personal preferences. To be clear, people who don't like Apple products are fine in my book, and I always advocate getting whatever works best for you (for me it's Macs, for others it's not, but it's all cool). All I took issue with were your claims that they'd suddenly start reducing product quality once they achieved market dominance, which is an idea that's not borne out by fact or history. Even if we go with your stance that their products are already "tripe", clearly you think there's room for sinking lower (else you wouldn't have mentioned reducing product quality), but I'd say that there are no indications that the quality of this tripe has changed at all. Whether you think the current quality is high or low, it still doesn't indicate that they reduce it once they dominate, which goes directly against what you attempted to argue.
Re:This may turn out a lot like PCs did (Score:2)
Re:This may turn out a lot like PCs did (Score:2)
I wasn't a fan of the iPod touch either until I tried my son's first generation iPod touch and found that Apple had snuck a unix work station with an innovative interface onto a hand held device. Yes, you can play your music, watch porn, play games etc. You can also ssh into your server and accomplish useful work, the browser is actually useful and standards compliant and thousands (more?) of developers are applying their ingenuity to creating new tools for your use.
Re:This may turn out a lot like PCs did (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:2)
Re:Seriously misleading (Score:2)
Meanwhile when I was looking for an iPad I was essentially told to be waiting at the store first thing in the morning for the truck or order online. They're literally selling them faster than they can ship them at the three Apple stores I went to. In a way I'm happy about that, after more though I paid half as much for Nook, and it's more than adequate for the main use case I was interested in (Web and e-mail capable e-reader).
at least you can expect an upgrade (Score:2)
all the people that bought into g tablet have effectively been abandoned by viewsonic.
viewsonic could not resist the temptation of adding their "special touches" to otherwise generally serviceable 2.2 that rendered the unit utterly unusable (slow, crashes often) and compelled people to either return the unit or root the unit and overwrite the stock rom.
moral of the story - don't buy stuff you expect fw updates from 2 bit companies like viewsonic, because you won't get any.
Re:Pitty about the upgrades though (Score:2)
And this is precisely why I don't have either an iPad, or a Xoom. one of my requirements was an SD card slot. And I don't count any feature as existing until it works. I never count on companies to provide "upgrades" to enable functionality, experience has taught me better than that.
It's no wonder that android is starting to really take over the market though, the Ipad2 has about half the features of most of the new android tablets that are coming out now, and the ipad2 is more expensive too... give it some time for a few more android tablets to become available and apple will be relegated back to their usual minority market position.
Re:"Year to year" (Score:2)
Re:Now be honest, everybody... (Score:2)
Of course: We all remember Steve Ballmer on stage at CES giving praises to the HP Slate.
Which then HP tried to make people forget about by making it almost impossible to actually buy.
Re:HP TouchPad (Score:2)
I'm a HUGE HUGE HUGE Apple fanboy.
But you're not alone here. I'd still buy an iPad over a TouchPad any day of the week... But the TouchPad feels like the first real adult response to the iPad. Gingerbread/Honeycomb tablets are over priced or too small, and quite frankly I couldn't figure out how to get out of the browser and check out apps or other day to day system behavior. The playbook's the same way.
OTOH, the TouchPad's not just open, but ELEGANT. It's not about open or closed, it's about usability. The TouchPad's got rough edges, but it is proof that Apple's not the only one doing right in the industry. I might even buy one to play with if they announce a TouchPad 2 and I can get one for relatively cheaply.