PC makers looking to ride the tablet wave and overcome Apple’s lead have had a rude awakening.
As a result “widespread reductions” in build plans of up to 10 percent are part of what one analyst described Wednesday as “an early dose of reality.” High-profile attempts to beat the iPad include Motorola’s Xoom, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook.
“The technical and form factor improvements of the iPad 2 stand to make it tougher for the first generation of competitive offerings to play catch-up, meaning actual shipments could fall well short of plan,” JP Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz tells investors.
Unlike its rivals, Apple is in the enviable position of not being able to keep up with demand. Because of which, Wall Street experts have cut iPad shipment expectations to 6.75 million for the June quarter.
We’ve talked about how tablets are destroying the netbook market. Moskowitz says tablets will comprise 3 percent of all handset sales this year and 11 percent of smartphone sales. If you count tablets as PCs, they account for 32 percent of desktops and around 21 percent of notebooks, according to JP Morgan.
This isn’t the first time we’ve reported tablets could cut into PC sales. In April, Goldman Sachs said tablets are a “disruptive force” that will eliminate 21 million PC purchases.
Can the competition ever match the iPad? They’re certainly not doing a very good job so far, but surely, Android coming to dominate the tablet market is inevitable… isn’t it? Let us know how you feel in the comments.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
60 responses to “Tablet Makers Realize They Can’t Beat iPad”
I am constantly amazing at the hype Android gets in vaporware. It isn’t just build hardware, add an off the shelf operating system throw in some apps, and Apple here we come. If it isn’t designed to work together it rarely does. Add iCloud with full integration, licensed services from the major data providers and make for convenient and rapid transfer to any and all of your devices … it’s called winner. We are all learning … we got an iPad2, did we need it (not really) … did we want it (absolutely) … are we using it (it’s the first device my dear wife wants to use)… we have PC’s (mostly sitting idle) … Macs … use ’em all the time. So it goes. Gaming a little bit, photography and blogging … all the time … internet and e-mail … all the time. Reading books … doing it more … wife likes jigsaw puzzles from digital images…fun. Most of this is duck soup on the iPad2. Have fun all.
There aren’t a limited number of bright ideas for products. Because Apple was first with its well-patented ideas and its well designed and built products, along with a well developed infrastructure, doesn’t mean competitors can’t meet or outdo them.
But it DOES mean that the task will not be an easy one. Some have already tried, and I’m rather amazed at the apparently high level of presumption and/or delusion that they expected to be successful by merely throwing some components together without a similarly bright and different idea.
Umm.. duh? The Motorola Xoom was a horrible, unfinished, work-in-progress tablet which no one would bother buying compared to the redesigned iPad 2. AND IT COST LESS!
Geez, who thought it was a bright idea to sell a tablet for 2 months at only $799 when the iPad starts at $499? That’s not just dumb, that’s insulting. And because Google hasn’t gotten it’s act together, no Honeycomb tablet really competes with the iPad in terms of features (and definitely not in selection of apps).
If anything, the HP TouchPad is the most likely competitor to go somewhere in this market. WebOS has some definite improvements over the iPad (multitasking is a better experience I’d say) and it’s price is likely to start at $499. Plus, it’s been in the oven a little bit longer, so it should be fully baked unlike that other OS of sugary confections.
Keep in mind that the 64gb 3G and the 16gb wifi only ipads are the best selling, there is plenty of people willing to pay what the xoom and other tablets cost…
That of course means that the cost isn’t the problem and those tablet’s still aren’t selling, crappy as they are :p
Remember all the critics and companies that berated the iPad before its release, saying “Nobody needs it. Nobody will buy it.” Well. millions have bought it and millions more want it. Now all those critics are working hard just to catch up to the 1st Gen iPad. And by the time they do, Apple will be on their 3rd Gen.
It’s not enough to be reactive in the market place, you need to be proactive. Apple seems to have mastered that…
Why wasn’t the eee pad transformer mentioned? What one needs to realize is the game has just started. Android is maturing and the manufacturers are just starting to release some pretty impressive equipment. I know Android isn’t for everyone… well… neither is iOS…
Are you … really … William … Shatner? … :-)
Then, why are you here? Go back to CultofDroid. Seeya.
Microshaft invented the tablet, but it was Apple that perfected it. Apple knew that the tablet was going to be successful, and they jumped on the bandwagon before companies knew what hit them.
Apple saw the future of computing in the tablet and smartphone, and while most companies coming out with tablets, Apple is in their second generation of the iPad while most Android tablets are either in their first generation or they are working on their second generation Android tablets. The Motorola Xoom could of been a nice alternative to the iPad if it were not for a couple of gripes; too expensive when it first came out; $800 (If I am going to spend that kind of money, I’m getting an iPad), no Wi-Fi model (at the time), needed to sign up for 3G service either you wanted it or NOT (you couldn’t even use Wi-Fi without signing up for 3G service), Honeycomb crashed frequently and multitasking was almost impossible because the Xoom crashed with just two apps open.
Remember when the iPod first came out in 2001? People were talking about how Apple made a mistake, blah, blah, and blah. Cut to 5 YEARS later, Microshaft comes out with their MP3 player the Zune calling it “a iPod killer”. Look at where the Zune hardware is: dead.
Here is the mistake of companies calling their product “an iDevice killer”. When you call your device “an iDevice killer”, uh, usually it’s the other way around; it’s your device that ends up getting killed, not the iDevice.
I honestly think that Apple is going to stay ahead of the alternative tablets; sure they are going to be cheaper tablets on the market (just like their are cheaper alternatives to the iPod), but just like the iPod is king in the portable music arena, iPad is going to keep on getting better and better every generation.
I’m not interested in an iPad killer because I’m not the target audience for the iPad – it does not fit my needs. That means I’ll be looking elsewhere for my technology. I am not alone.
So far the ASUS Transformer (with keyboard dock) has turned out to be a fabulous piece of equipment. It has a gorgeous IPS screen which makes the Xoom screen look cheap and nasty.
While I fully understand that this is a site dedicated to all things Apple most of this article is just hearsay or inaccurate. Take
“Unlike its rivals, Apple is in the enviable position of not being able to keep up with demand.”
for example:
ASUS have had precisely that problem, aside from that, it was component and display shortages that held up iPad production, nothing else. The events in Japan have had a huge impact on the supply chain for all technology manufacturers.
Also presuming that all Apple (Mac) users want only Apple equipment is flawed.
You are quite ignorant… I use iOS and Android products as well as Linux (a few distros) and Windows (including Server 2003 and Server 2008) OSs. I do have my favorites but I am not limited to any one. My profession requires me to be knowledgeable with most operating systems… unfortunately the company I work for does not develop for OS X so I don’t get to play… um… work with MACs.
Don’t want to sound like I’m attacking you but I think your wrong. First this is coming from financial analyst. Second have you seen iPads market. The iPad is even being used by military pilots. The iPad is being intergrated into most buinsness aspects. That alone puts them in a high spot. Also it’s not just apple buying all the parts. People at this point are not interested in a tablet that is not the iPad. I’m sorry you don’t need to do surveys to see this. You can go to your local best buy stand by the tablet section and see how much of a ghost town it is. Apple is crushing the competition. At this point if you add the sales of all android based tabs I doubt you will even hit a quarter of what the iPad has sold and what it is expected to sell.
Don’t want to sound like I’m attacking you but I think your wrong. First this is coming from financial analyst. Second have you seen iPads market. The iPad is even being used by military pilots. The iPad is being intergrated into most buinsness aspects. That alone puts them in a high spot. Also it’s not just apple buying all the parts. People at this point are not interested in a tablet that is not the iPad. I’m sorry you don’t need to do surveys to see this. You can go to your local best buy stand by the tablet section and see how much of a ghost town it is. Apple is crushing the competition. At this point if you add the sales of all android based tabs I doubt you will even hit a quarter of what the iPad has sold and what it is expected to sell.
Apple’s devices – especially the iPhone, iPad, and Air – are the cream of the crop in the mobile computing space. They are not the most technically advance from a hardware perspective – but they are lightyears ahead of the competition in usability, functionality and value!
As an IT manager for a non-Apple friendly company I am amazed at the number of “rogue iOS devices” in our office. With a huge push to displace iPhones and iPads for Hemdroid devices we are seeing employees actually LEAVE the company rather than use the Google crap. THAT is huge – for a device to have that much of an influence as to determine an employees morale is a testament to the genius that is Apple.
Form, design, function, usability, cohesive user experience and a CONTROLLED environment – those are the reasons Apple is winning.
“Open” is not equivalent to a good user experience – Linux failure to penetrate the desktop market proves this, Googles failure to create a buzz WITHOUT Adobe Flash proves this, even Adobe’s difficulty convincing the market place that Flash is still relevant proves this. People (real people, not pimply faced garage geeks who salivate over rooting their Hemdroid) want consistency, stability, reliability and functionality. The industry proved this with MS Windows and now it is proving it again with the Apple Juggernaut of OS X and iOS.
Apple will continue to lead, continue to innovate and continue to win consumers hearts and wallets (where it matters for a business). Google will still “move units” but their revenue will pale, their innovation will be nonexistent and their customers will continue to bemoan not having an iOS device. If not for AT&T exclusivity of the iPhone for the first few years the Hemdroids would have never taken off. Verizon and AT&T prove this in their numbers – more people who are spending $200+ for a Smartphone are buying Apple’s iPhone, the bulk of their Android customers are buying the cheap <$99 devices with a lame data plan – you know, the wannabe’s :-) and these people have very little disposable income to spend on apps – as Google Marketplace is proving.
In the end, revenue is king. Google’s Hemdroid ecosystem cannot even compete with Apples iOS ecosystem. This becomes a vicious cycle for developers who are going to develop for a platform that generates revenue. As they see very little interest in Hemdroid users actually buying apps and iOS users buying them by the dozens their attention will naturally drift toward the App Store and iOS. AND that is where the battle will be won – not in hardware specs, or number of units sold, but in the ecosystem that supports the devices. Once someone has a investment in one platform or the other – moving them will be more difficult. Based on the numbers of apps sold – iOS is winning and moving an iOS user to a Hemdroid is tantamount to moving a mountain.
I agree with you on the high level of presumption, and my guess is that prior to the iPad, they were just used to introducing a new computer, touting it’s specs and then having a reasonable expectation of what their sales may be. That was much easier in the fragmented PC marketplace, an approach that probably works fine with Android phones too. Versus the iPad, which fair pricing, great usability & an incredible app store that approach will never work.
It isn’t necessary to be blind to Apple’s flaws and others’ strengths to be part off CultofMac, is it?
It’s better not to keep your head buried…in the sand, let’s say, so you’re able to correct what you have control over. Or you might end up like so many other smartphone and tablet manufacturers.
its taken them a while and millions to eventually realise, apple are the market leaders
You do make some sense with this, but it would probably go over better, if you had shown some respect for the competition, instead of calling it “hemdroid”. Doing so makes you seem to be just another Apple Fanboy.
Honestly, Apple’s ability to obtain the parts and infrastructure, supply chain way in advance of the product releases is probably the biggest reason why other tablets have such a hard time competing with the iPad. Apple’s stranglehold on the supply chain is making it harder for other competing companies to compete with Apple in terms of quality, price, features, and value. I do see other tablets coming out, but its not looking very bright with the stranglehold that Apple possess over the supply chain of parts. Apple learned so much from the supply chain when the iPod came out, that they are being proactive in all fronts. It will take years before the competition needs to follow suit and copy Apple’s way of owning the market share in profit, not in quantity.
Honestly, Apple’s ability to obtain the parts and infrastructure, supply chain way in advance of the product releases is probably the biggest reason why other tablets have such a hard time competing with the iPad. Apple’s stranglehold on the supply chain is making it harder for other competing companies to compete with Apple in terms of quality, price, features, and value. I do see other tablets coming out, but its not looking very bright with the stranglehold that Apple possess over the supply chain of parts. Apple learned so much from the supply chain when the iPod came out, that they are being proactive in all fronts. It will take years before the competition needs to follow suit and copy Apple’s way of owning the market share in profit, not in quantity.
I don’t see your response as an attack, I’m happy to discus this.
First of all I’m not saying that the iPad caused component shortages I’m saying the disaster in Japan caused shortages, not just of silicon, which affected everyone including Apple. I’m also not saying that the iPad doesn’t have a massive market share either – it does. I have no idea why military pilots are using iPads at all especially considering most military equipment goes through years of testing.
A quick search show iPads used for training nothing is showing up for active personel and I can only find one dodgy looking link about U.S Marines using them in “KC-130J Harvest Hawk, F/A-18 Hornet and AH-1W Cobra.” – there’s no source so I’m going to ignore that for now.
I don’t see how or where the iPad (or any tablet) is being integrated into any parts of business let alone most. I can count the number of times I’ve seen an iPad in a working environment (and not just someone bring one into the office) on my hands. Maybe you live in SoCal – but that’s not going to be representative of business integration really is it?
Ultimately there are probably more people in the world that’d be happy to use an iPad than not but I’m not one of them. The 32GB iPad 1 was recently available in the UK for £160 – not even that tempted me. It’s not for me and I know it’s not for me. Again, I’m not alone.
This isn’t a competition where only one device wins I get to pick mine (ASUS Transformer) you get to pick yours (iPad). I believe that an Android device in this situation gives me much more freedom.
Sure it has some shortcomings but these days we’re all beta testers whether it be for Apple, ASUS or Google. Just as cut an paste came to the iPhone eventually, features and fixes for android will also appear. It’s all about software upgradability these days. Honeycomb 3.1 fixes a lot of issues.
I have the impression that consumers who buy Android are more protesters against the iPad than that they are happy android users.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkAz8r...
Watch this video. You might enjoy it :). I agree with everything you said. Pimply faced nerds are the only people I see who actually like android. Everyone else thinks it is meh.
Android and its devices suck, simple and to the point. If it was going to be an amazing device, it would have been. You Apple haters can all complain how its just hype and being a apple fanboy which has increased the sales of the iPad.
HINT TO MANUFACTURERS:
MAKE TABLET 100% COMPATIBLE WITH iOS. SELL FOR 1/2 PRICE OF iPAD.
You stick with your iPad then. I appreciate you think that anything not made by apple is junk and that no one could possibly like something not created by apple.
How hateful… I caught that powermichiel stated an impression… He did not, however, call android junk. It seems you are the one with an issue.
Please tell me how is it hateful? He’s clearly saying he thinks most people who buy android are protesters. Nobody with any common sense says they’re going to buy a tablet or a phone and then excludes the ipad / iphone solely on it’s origin, Apple. It’s what fits their needs and despite what many think the ipad isn’t the be all and end all.
I often wonder how many people here have even touched an android tablet because the instant you did you’d see very clearly that they’re two closely related but different markets.
From my point of view I don’t like the interface at all and I have some real concerns over the direction apple is headed with Lion. I can see, in the near future, a MBA running IOS… and that’s only be the start of a downward spiral.
Look beyond the issues of hardware and Apps.
It’s also a fundamental business and marketing issue. In branded product sales, first is everything. Mars snack food is massive in Russia because they boldly invested $100m in 1993-4 when everyone else was running scared.
And when you’re first with best quality hardware and support it’s worth billions to a tech company.
Then, all the also rans (tablet PC & Android) are losing money on retail price, on unsold stock, on purchase parts contracts. And Apple can sweep up the profits, sweep up the cut price parts, and press on with generation 3 whilst everyone else is still trying to get a stable generation 1.
You should see how many people suffer from the “iPad regret syndrome” here in the US. I am one of them. I bought the the 32GB/ 3G for $760 when it first came out. With tax & warranty & expensive productivity Apps ( real useful Apps, not games) I ended up paying more than $1,200. For the same price I could gotten a ( real) computer like Mac Air, with a good battery life, unlike iPad, which battery drains out out so fast when you have download the big Apps that you will actually need. When I first bought it, the battery life was7-10 hours, now I am lucky if the battery can survive for 3hrs. All tablets and Pads have this problem, despite what they claim. So until they come with an energy efficient tablet, I am sticking to laptops, although i’ll be missing touch-screen option.
You should see how many people suffer from the “iPad regret syndrome” here in the US. I am one of them. I bought the the 32GB/ 3G for $760 when it first came out. With tax & warranty & expensive productivity Apps ( real useful Apps, not games) I ended up paying more than $1,200. For the same price I could gotten a ( real) computer like Mac Air, with a good battery life, unlike iPad, which battery drains out out so fast when you have downloaded the big Apps that you will actually need. When I first bought it, the battery life was7-10 hours, now I am lucky if the battery can survive for 3hrs. All tablets and Pads have this problem, despite what they claim. So until they come out with an energy efficient tablet, I am sticking to laptops, although i’ll be missing touch-screen option.