During today’s Q1 2011 earnings call, one consistent strain ran throughout: Apple could not be happier with the success of the iPad, and could not be more contemptuous of the competition.
Asked about the threat of competing tablets, Apple COO Tim Cook was dismissive of their current threat to iPad’s incredible domination of the market.
“With tablets that are using the Windows operating system, you have weak battery life; they’re heavy and thick and require a keyboard or a stylus,” said Cook. “From our point of view, we’ve seen that customers just aren’t interested in these.”
But what about Android? It’s not yet a threat, says Cook.
“The Android OS wasn’t designed for a tablet. Google’s even admitted it, so this isn’t merely an Apple point of view by any means. Currently, then, Android tablets are basically scaled up smartphones… and that’s just a bizarre product in our view. These are not tablets we have any concern with.”
As for next-gen Android tablets, specifically those shipping on Google’s tablet-centric Honeycomb update to their Android OS, Cook was more restrained, saying simply: “They aren’t shipping yet. We’ll assess them as they come out. However, we’re not sitting still. We have a huge first move advantage, an incredible user experience with iTunes and the App Store, and a huge App Ecosystem.”
“We’re very, very confident.”
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
