A few months ago, I said there was still plenty of room in the tablet market, despite the runaway success of the iPad. But as I discuss in my weekly column over at GigaOM Pro, I’m beginning to wonder if anyone else can come up with a hit tablet for mainstream consumers.
The iPad continues to gain ground. The Register insightfully noted that the 4.19 million units sold represented a 28 percent increase over the previous quarter, and iSuppli last week upped its forecast for fourth-quarter iPad sales, saying component-availability problems are improving.
The iPad’s success is due largely to the fact that it can replace lots of minor devices. It serves as an e-reader, mobile gaming system, digital photo album and portable media player, in addition to being a great device for browsing and running all sorts of other apps. It’s intuitive enough that anyone from my four-year-old to my great-grandmother can pick it up for the first time and use it successfully.
Yes, the device has obvious flaws, including a lack of Flash support and true multitasking functionality. But most of its shortcomings will surely be addressed in time, and, additionally, any real competition has yet to appear on the radar. Would-be manufacturers of Android-based tablets like Lenovo and LG have delayed product launches, citing the platform’s failings when it comes to the emerging form factor. Meanwhile, the price tag for Samsung’s Galaxy Tab won’t sway many shoppers away from the iPhone, and Dell’s $550 Streak hasn’t attracted much attention.
A handful of manufacturers are wisely vying for room in the space by targeting budget-conscious users with less-attractive hardware. Archos is building out an impressive line of gadgets that start at $100 and top out at only $300. Asus is taking a similar tack with $300 and $400 tablets. There will be room for high-end devices targeted at road warriors and workers in the field. (That’s a market Research In Motion will try to tap with its upcoming PlayBook and Hewlett-Packard is going after with the Slate 500.) When it comes to the mainstream tablet market, though, Apple will dominate the space, at least for the short-term.
Read the full post here.
Image courtesy flickr user John.Karatkatsanis.
Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):
- In Q3, the Tablet and 4G Were the Big Stories
- Forecast: Tablet App Sales To Hit $8B by 2015
- Web Tablet Survey: Apple’s iPad Hits the Right Notes
Yes! Add an active digitizer for pen input or inking. And include support for onenote.
Tablets with pens has been a tiny submarket for the longest time. Pens and virtual ink is needed by a very small minority of people. You, a few artists, maybe some mindmappers and flowcharters. Works out to much less than 1% of users. So if Apple can sell 100 million tablets in two years in the US, that means pen enabled tablets represent a 300,000 to 500,000 size market. If any manufacturer is satisfied with selling that number in a 2 year period, then they should step up and sell the product, but I don’t think it will be one of the majors and it will not be a threat to Apple.
I have to agree with your point. Plus, we as consumers should be shouting for competition, because if the competition adds features we desire enough, then Apple will add them the iPad 2, and we will benefit. So I am anxious to see how the emerging tablet market goes.
I have high hopes for the hp slate 500 as it should allow for existing windows stuff to work, like flash and other line of business apps while bringing pen input to tablets. If only they could beef up the CPU, I think my people who use the new hp slate will find it sluggish, but i will hold off until I get to test one…
After using the Streak, I will agree with Steve on form factors. Perhaps a 7″ will be popular, but the difference in size is not enough to warrant a new form factor. More to the point of the article, none of the competitors are really going to devise a new paradigm for computing on the device profile.
The Streak suffered from a lack of support, something I was pretty vocal about on the boards. But, is Dell really going to provide a tablet interaction outside of the Android experience? Is Google ready to do so? I bet the Chrome devices will be more popular than an Android tablet, and for good reason.
My personal experience with Android tells me that the OS is a browsing experience. Apple owns the app world. BB the text world. Chrome and Android should merge and likely will, and the browser will become the de facto mobile experience on such devices. I have stated that Nokia should have moved to such a platform, but Google has the technology and the people to make that happen.
What will tablets be like without interfaces per se? What will phones similarly be like? That is where the Google tablet platform will emerge, and it will compete.
While the points about the UI are extremely important and spot on, that Apple’s UI just “works” and is intuitive enough for a non tech person to use, IMO the hardware aspects are potentially much more important. In particular are instant on and true all day battery life, without these 2 essential hardware factors I’ll bet any tablet fails. The true strength of the ipad is that it is ubiquitous in it’s use, you don’t worry about booting up and you don’t worry about plugging it in, and that’s extremely powerful, especially in this world of huge power bricks and such.
It just seems that while all the other companies are going in the wrong direction, once again Apple senses what joe blow the consumer (and not necessarily joe tech( wants and delivers it. The only thing Apple missed big time was pen input.
The iPad is being used by more executives in business despite some alleging that it lacks enough “enterprise” support. As Steve Jobs said this week, Apple may have caught a tiger by the tail.
I guess it all depends on how you define “short term.” Beyond 6 or 12 months, suggesting that Apple has a total lock on the market is sort of like suggesting the Atari 2600 was a lock, back in 1977.
I think Apple locked up dominance for 6 to 12 months when the iPad launched, Jack C. They’ve built on that window substantially since the launch, and the competition has simply failed to answer the call. I think they’ll dominate the space for the two years, at least, and probably twice that long.
Colins,
I doubt they can dominate for two more years.
Apple had a run with iPod for nearly five years. Competitions is catching up with Apple.The competition is now matching or exceeding APPLE in most areas. Android is firing on all cylinders. RIM can sell a few of the Playbook. HP, if releases that WebOS tablet, can dent APPLE on consumer space. They can compete with Apple on the corporate business.
My prediction, Apple will sell good for one more year before Android takes over, followed by HP.
The iPod had a ten year lock, give or take. Mostly because the specs were good enough, the design was terrific and the software lock-in was just what most people wanted. Also, they improved when they needed to and maintained the iPod’s functionality in its two successor devices.
Although the tablet is a accessory that most people don’t have a use for between a laptop and a smartphone, thus is a small niche market, Android tablets are better than the iPad. Most people who are getting tablets, are holding off getting an iPad and are waiting for Android tablets.
How do you figure this? Millions already sold? But people buying are holding off to get a different product?!? If they are buyin aren’t they obviously buying iPad? Have you used any tablet for any length of time?
The fact of the matter is, if other Tablet manufacturers don’t start to offer completely custom experiences on their devices, the iPad will keep on gaining market share, leaving others in the dust.
People are looking for something that works the way it does because it was DESIGNED FROM THE GROUND UP to be that way! Slapping Windows 7 Ultimate onto an HP Slate with its tiny screen is NOT a customized experience. It’s still the same desktop-grade OS running on a tiny screen that wasn’t meant to be interacted with by touch.
Apple dominates another sector of the market. Not surprising, they were the first ones in it. I think their success will mimic that of the MP3 marketplace where they take majority marketshare.