Apple CEO Tim Cook said during his company’s recent earnings call that iPad sales haven’t really been affected by the Amazon Kindle Fire, which is no doubt contributing heavily to the success of Android tablets. It’s also likely the Barnes & Noble Nook Color and Nook Tablet are included in the Android figures. Instead, Cook admitted the iPad has had some cannibalization effect on sales of Macs, and he predicted that one day, the tablet market will be larger in volume than the PC market.

Compared to Android, Apple still has a dominant position in the tablet market, with a 57.6-percent share compared to Android’s 39.1 percent, according to Strategy Analytics’ most recent numbers. In terms of year-over-year growth, the tablet space has grown by 150 percent between the end of 2010 and 2011. In other words, even if shares were more evenly split, the iPad would still be seeing big gains in unit sales.

The PC market, on the other hand, contracted by around six percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to research firm Gartner. That’s despite 20 percent growth by Apple’s own Mac line of computers. Kevin Tofel recently pointed out here on GigaOM that half of computing device sales are now mobile. If the trend of growing tablet and smartphone sales continue, and PC sales continue to decline, we’ll soon be in a position where mobiles are considered a primary device by the majority of users.

Apple will continue to sell iPads. A new refresh expected in the coming months might even help it turn the tide of slipping market share, since while the low-cost Kindle Fire may be a success, other Android tablet makers still seem to be having a hard time putting out a product consumers can get genuinely excited about. Kevin wrote last week about how Android 4.0, while it improves the Android tablet experience, still has a lot of glaring pain points. Also, Android’s tablet-specific app library lags considerably behind Apple’s, and isn’t catching up anywhere near as fast as the market on the smartphone side.

The companies putting out Android tablets that fail to achieve the Kindle Fire’s level of success are the same ones being hurt by the slowing PC market, and they’re the ones that stand to lose the most. Amazon’s Kindle fire has reportedly sold as many as 6 million units through the end of 2011, according to estimates, which would make it the world’s best-selling Android tablet.

Apple continues to appeal to a steadily growing audience of tablet users, but Amazon is answering the call of those who were happier buying bargain-priced netbooks for their basic computing needs, rather than spending more on an iPad. That’s the market PC makers should have been trying to retain with their own tablet efforts, and also the one Amazon has positioned itself best to appeal to.

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According to ABI’s calculations, iPads make up 68 percent of the tablet market, although depending on who you ask, that number could be even higher. Regardless, the iPad makes up at least more than two-thirds of the tablet market, so when that market sees 13.6 million sales during the 2011 summer, most of the benefit goes to Apple.

Netbooks, on the other hand, aren’t benefitting from the tablet’s rise. During the same period in which 13.6 million tablets were sold, only 7.3 million netbooks made their way into consumer hands.

Netbooks maintain popularity in developing countries, where their inexpensive price tags and general compatibility with Windows software and files make them useful as a primary computer, but in developed nations where a lot of the consumer power lies, iPads and tablets are much more appealing to shoppers hungry for the next big thing. Tablets better suit the role of a secondary device, too, since they’re more portable and easier to get up and running quickly in cramped quarters, while commuting, for example.

The iPad has long shown signs of toppling the netbook, but now it’s really putting up the numbers to prove it. Will the iPad (and other low-cost tablet options like the Kindle Fire) ever kill it completely, or can the two formats coexist peacefully?

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PC shipments in the U.K. for the second quarter of this year were only 2.5 million units, a decline of 15 percent compared to the year before, and Western Europe saw an even more precipitous decline of 18.9 percent year over year, with a total of 12.7 million shipments. Mobile PCs were the hardest hit with a 20.4 decline overall, and mini-notebook shipments (which includes netbooks) dropped a whopping 53 percent in Western Europe. France and Germany also saw big downward trends in PC sales, with 17.8 and 13.3 percent declines overall, and 49 and 43 perent drops in mini-notebook sales.

Click to see data from other European markets at Gartner.

Samsung saw the best growth in the U.K. market by increasing shipments 5.2 percent. Apple was the only other top vendor to see positive growth there, with a one-percent increase in shipments in the U.K., and a 6.4 percent gain in France.

Gartner notes that this data does not include mobile devices like tablets or smartphones, and that’s likely a considerable factor in the overall declines. It’s a pattern we’ve seen developing over the last few months all over the world, with the PC and tablet sectors’ growth trajectories moving in opposite directions.  It’s particularly telling that mini-notebook sales are suffering the biggest losses, since Apple’s iPad and other tablets are seen to be filling that gap for a lot of consumers, and in some cases replacing traditional PCs. The iPad is leading the way in this shift: While Apple still lags behind competitors in overal unit sales in the PC space, once you include the iPad it takes the lead.

Meike Escherich, an analyst with Gartner, doesn’t think this is a trend that we’ll see reversed anytime soon, either. “This quarter’s results highlights the ongoing weakness of consumer demand, and could indicate a structural change in the market that threatens to continue in the near future,” she said.

That should be a wake up call for PC manufacturers trying to get in on the growing tablet market: If they can’t ship mature devices with strong software at prices that consumers find attractive, Apple will soon occupy an even more dominant market position in consumer computing.

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Netbook Demand

Survey respondents who said they planned on buying a netbook within the next 90 days dropped drastically over the course of the past year. It accounted for 20 percent of laptop-buying consumer’s intentions in Oct. 2009, and now represents only 14 percent. Netbook demand has been dropping steadily since its peak in June 2009.

The iPad fills the hole many were looking to fill with a netbook, specifically, that of a portable device for web browsing and media consumption. Pricing on the iPad is comparable to higher-priced netbooks, and Apple’s introduction of the MacBook Air should reel in consumers who want the portability of a netbook with a little more power, and have slightly larger budgets.

iPad Demand and Satisfaction

ChangeWave found iPad owner satisfaction among respondents to be very high; 72 percent replied that they were “Very Satisfied” with Apple’s tablet, while another 23 percent said they were “Somewhat Satisfied.” The next largest group, representing only 3 percent of those surveyed, answered that they either didn’t know either way.

Going forward, the prospects are good for the tablet market: 26 percent of all respondents say they’re planning a purchase in the future. Apple will reel in the majority of those customers, if current sentiment remains the same; 80 percent of those likely to buy a tablet are planning to get an iPad. RIM’s PlayBook is the next closest in terms of anticipated demand, with 8 percent of respondents choosing the BlackBerry solution.

Double Advantage

The iPad’s success in the survey shows it has two major advantages over its competitors. First, it’s far and away the first thing consumers are thinking about when considering a tablet computer purchase. Second, its very high customer satisfaction means that once customers do opt for an iPad, it will take a lot to convince them to switch device makers for future purchases.

Apple is sitting pretty atop a market that should show a lot of growth in the coming year. Whatever the future brings from the competition, it’s very unlikely Apple won’t emerge the winner once again in 2011.

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iPad LapDock Prototype

LapDock and Clamcase look like they both had the same idea at the same time: convert the iPad into a netbook/slate hybrid, and get the best of both worlds. The idea is genius, and the execution, from what we can see so far, looks great, but are the two products trying to fit a round peg in a square hole?

Two things come to mind when looking at the these cases: one, the iPad is all about the touch interface, and two, bluetooth keyboard support is not fully baked yet. After using the iPad for a couple of weeks, the conclusion I come to is that hardware keyboard support was an afterthought. Many of the normal features of a keyboard do not work, and the bluetooth keyboard is missing a few of the special keys that the Apple keyboard dock has. It’s hard to say, without using the case, if it will turn out to be awkward, if the iPad will be easy to pop out of the case, if the iPad’s screen will be protected from the keys on the keyboard when the case is closed, or how heavy the case will be. Both the LapDock and Clamcase seem to want to shoehorn the new paradigm of the touch computer interface into the old familiar one.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. We are at the beginning of the wave of new world devices, a wave that has not nearly begun to crest yet. The keyboard has been used as an input device for decades, so finding a middle ground between the new world of touch screens and the old world of the touch typist is a reasonable objective. Apple has made a similar admission by including support for hardware keyboards in iPhone OS 4.

The real test of any new product is answering the question “What problem does this solve?” For me, the answer is simple, if I had the Clamcase now, I would have typed out this article sitting on the couch with my iPad in my lap, instead of at the table.

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Netbook sales apparently peaked last summer, when its growth rate reached an impressive 641 percent increase from the  same time the previous year. Since then, it’s been trending downward, though punctuated with some comebacks and maintaining impressive growth overall. Then in January of 2010, things start to go downhill fast, with a dropoff from 68 percent growth that month to only 5 percent in April of 2010.

So what’s the iPad have to do with anything? Apple’s category-spanning device was announced in January of 2010, you may recall, and it was released the following April. Considering that that period perfectly intersects with the netbook’s most significant growth drop-off to date, it’s hard not to see the two as causally related. Especially when Apple moved 1 million iPad units sometime in there, counting pre-orders and sales of the device since its release.

This is only anecdotal, but I’ve seen a number of friends put their Dell hackintoshes up for sale following the iPad announcement and release, in most cases explicitly because they don’t need their little Frankenstein monster anymore now that Apple’s provided its own affordable ultraportable. As a side note, it’s probably a good time to grab a cheap, lightly used hackintosh Mini 9 or 10v if you’re in the market.

It isn’t just the netbook’s sales growth slump that points towards the iPad’s success over those devices, either. In a survey conducted in March, 44 percent of those polled claimed that they were buying the iPad instead of a netbook or notebook PC. And if that same survey is any indication, the iPod touch is next.

41 percent of those polled said they were planning on buying an iPad instead of Apple’s marquee media player device. It can’t really be a surprise to the company, since the price gap between the two isn’t really that significant and you get so much more (screen real estate, connectivity) for your buck with the iPad. My own theory is that Apple intended this, and will try to swing the pendulum back by introducing an iPod touch with camera before doing the same six months later with the iPad.

Will the iPad kill the netbook? I hope so, but I think that device was doomed regardless of whether or not an iPad-type device came around to finish it off. Will it kill the iPod touch? That’s another story altogether, and one that I think will depend heavily on how much further Apple can push the iPhone in terms of market saturation. In theory, I can see the iPad and iPhone squeezing out the iPod touch as the markets of those two more versatile devices expand. What do you think?

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Small Laptop Price Premium Dynamic Turned On Its Head

I agree, and along with Magid note the irony of a changing dynamic where, reversing erstwhile conventional wisdom that computer consumers would be obliged to pay extra for the required engineering of miniaturization, with smaller laptops often costing more than larger siblings of the same brand (think PowerBook Duo vs. PowerBook or MacBook Air and MacBook), netbooks have turned the cost/weight equation on its head.

Mainstream netbooks, particularly ones equipped with the latest Intel Atom N270 processors running at 1.60 GHz, with a GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive, are perfectly adequate for most common tasks people use computers for such as Web surfing and e-mail, and even for watching web video. At least for non-touch typists, their usually undersized keyboards are also considered tolerable.

Downward Pressure On All Laptop Pricing

Then there’s the netbook phenomenon’s collateral effect of exerting strong downward pressure on standard sized notebook computer prices, to which even Apple has not been immune, as exemplified by the 13″ MacBook Pro being cheaper than its aluminum unibody MacBook predecessor, and the debut of a lower entry level 15″ MacBook Pro stripped of its ExpressCard Slot and discrete graphics processor/VRAM.

A prima facie topical example is Lenovo’s new ThinkPad Edge, which has a 13-inch display, a typically excellent Lenovo full-size keyboard, an AMD Athlon dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 320GB 5400 RPM hard drive, three USB ports, runs Windows 7, offers five-hour real world battery runtime, and is priced starting at an easy-on-the-wallet $599. Move up to a 1.3GHz Core Duo Intel processor and 4GB of memory and you’re still at $799.

That’s of course only $200 less than Apple’s entry-level MacBook, which at $999 has a much more powerful 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo processor and Nvidia 9600M 9400M integrated graphics, but only 2GB of RAM, a measly two USB ports, and a 250GB hard drive. To get the same 4GB of memory and 320GB of storage specs as the $799 Lenovo or even a $399 Dell Inspiron 15, you’re up to $1,149, while a comparable spec MacBook Pro will set you back a whopping (by comparison) $1,399 — a thousand dollars greater than your typical netbook.

Mac Still Greater Value, But Gap Narrowing

Now personally, I still think greater value is found in the Macs, especially due to their OS X-clusivity, and projected durability over the longer haul, or if you need the extra processing and graphics power they offer. But, with PC competition stiffening, and consensus building that Windows 7 is actually a pretty decent operating system, the OS X advantage is diminishing. That base AMD-powered Lenovo ThinkPad Edge for $600 bucks looks particularly enticing for cash-strapped or value-oriented users whose computing power needs are typically modest, especially in this challenging economy

That’s why I continue to stubbornly contend that the forthcoming iPad notwithstanding, Apple still needs a conventional clamshell notebook contender in the $600 – $700 price category.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Report: The Future of Netbooks!

The Register’s Tony Smith notes in a report that the last 12 months have been good for netbook makers, who cumulatively shipped 30.2 million of the mini laptops in that period. According to market watcher Strategy Analytics, that’s 79 percent more than they moved in 2008 and amounts to 50-60 percent of total portable PCs shipped and around 17-20 percent of PCs sold overall.

The researcher also forecasts further growth this year as netbook chips deliver more performance and ARM licensees take on Intel’s dominant Atom platform.

The iPad notwithstanding, I’m still convinced that Apple has fumbled the ball in not offering a netbook. If it can sell an iPad for $500, I deduce that a netbook with a clamshell form factor, a real keyboard and trackpad, plus ideally a low-powered Intel Core CPU, decent connectivity, and capability to run the real Mac OS, should be eminently possible at an entry-level price of $600-$650 — at which I contend it would be a strong seller. It’d certainly be a machine that would appeal to me much more than the iPad does in its announced configuration.

Chinese Knockoffs

A knockoff outfit in China is showing the way, having released a tantalizing example of the potential for a truly appealing Apple netbook, if Apple were inclined to play ball. The Chinese tech industry-watching blog M.I.C (ie: “Made-In-China”) has posted a review of what it calls “the ultimate MacBook Air knockoff” — the best MacBook Air wannabe ever, featuring a real glowing Apple logo and a form factor almost as thin as the real MBA — which M.I.C. thinks is possibly the most beautiful product the Chinese knockoff makers have ever copied. I’m inclined to agree.

Of course it’s not really a Mac, and OS X is not supported. It is a PC netbook in ersatz Mac clothing, powered by the latest version of the ubiquitous 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 CPU with 1GB of RAM (upgradable to 2GB RAM at a modest additional cost of $180 RMB), a 160GB hard drive, a 13.3-inch (1280 x 800) LED-backlit display and a swappable 4-cell battery, plus 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and, get this — selling for only $1,900 RMB (about $280). To say it’s much more affordable than Apple’s real MacBook Air is an extreme understatement.

The M.I.C. reviewers say typing is a pleasure on the MBA knockoff’s full-sized keyboard, and there’s a spacious trackpad too, although it doesn’t support multitouch technology.

Connectivity-wise, the knockoff netbook is somewhat less challenged than a real MacBook Air, with two USB 2.0 ports rather than the MBA’s one, a mini-HDMI port, and one headphone jack, but you also get an Ethernet port and a SD-card slot — not bad at all for a $280 laptop. There’s also a webcam along with an infrared detector beside it.

The downside cited is noise, with the fan reportedly running almost nonstop during basic operation, which would be tiresome, especially if you’re fan noise-averse like me.

As far as I can tell, these units aren’t likely to ever make it to North America as it’s a given that Apple Legal would have a lot to say about it. But if they were available, I don’t think I could resist. It looks like a great little inexpensive solution for taking on the road, and possibly running Ubuntu or Puppy Linux on instead of Windows.

How about you? Would a machine like this appeal? More pointedly, don’t you wish Apple would build a netbook Mac like this?

The day is upon us, and if you’ve been to Apple’s homepage, like I have, you’re no doubt already disappointed. The sales today limit themselves to accessories only, and even those aren’t that impressive. There’s nothing even close to a real, deep discount. The good news is that everything in the Apple store ships free between now and December 23, including all small ticket items.

Apple’s Deals

As for the deals themselves, hardly any seem to have wide-appeal. Here’s a quick rundown:

• Monster Beats by Dr. Dre – Regular $299.95, on sale for $269.95. Not a bad price, and the new white ones are pretty slick.
• mophie Juice Pack Air (Red) – Regular $79,95, on sale for $71.95. It’s only the red version, but if you’d like a bit of a discount on the black one, Amazon has it on sale for $3 off.
• L.A.M.B. Bags – Tote was $399.95, is now $359.95. Ultraviolet 13-inch sleeve was $199.95, is now $179.95. Ultraviolet Gadget Bag was $99.95, is now $89.95. Considering these are basically uglier versions of incase products, designed by Gwen Stefani and marked up, I’d take a pass. Especially on the “Gadget Bag,” which won’t fit any actual computing device and seems to be a glorified pencil case.
• Vestax Spin DJ – Regular $249.95, on sale for $224.95.
• Eye-Fi 2GB Geo SD Card – Regular $59.95, on sale for $53.95. This is the one thing I’d consider buying, since Eye-Fi Geo is an exclusive Apple store product and it would go great with my new Canon. Not a great discount, but better than nothing.
• LaCie Starck 500GB USB Drive – Regular $139.95, on sale for $125.95.
• MoGo Talk for iPhone - Regular $129.95, on sale for $116.95.
• Hello Kitty Air Jacket for iPhone 3GS – Regular $39.95, on sale for $35.95. The four-dollar discount was enough justification for me to pick this up as a gag gift for my girlfriend, so something good came out of this cyber monday.

Better Deals Elsewhere

If you want to do some real Apple shopping this Cyber Monday, take a look elsewhere. Mac Mall, for example, has some pretty great discounts on actual Apple computers, including 25 percent off the more expensive MacBook Air model, and 10 percent off current generation iPod touch models.

My favorite Apple-related Cyber Monday deal? Dell’s offering the Mini 10v netbook for $279, after $119 in instant savings. That’s not much to spend for what remains probably the best hackintoshable netbook out there, even despite Apple’s latest attempt foil at-home modders by removing Atom support in Snow Leopard.

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PowerBook Duo: A hint of things to come?

PC Mag’s Sascha Segan posed an intriguing question the other day: “If you put a smartphone in a dock, it could replace a netbook. So why hasn’t anyone succeeded at doing that?”

Good question.

Now that I’ve been thinking about it, the idea of a dock into which you could pop an iPhone or an iPod touch, thereby quickly connecting it to a decent-sized external display, keyboard and mouse, some USB ports, Ethernet, and maybe an SD Card slot, you would have, if not best of both worlds, at least an attractive hybrid.

A dockable smartphone/Internet computer would no doubt cost more than a PC netbook, but it could also be much more versatile, and arguably a better overall value.

Indeed, external input device support over Bluetooth alone would make handhelds much more appealing to me. As Segan observes, with “65,000 apps for the iPhone alone, it’s hard to believe that there aren’t thousands of people who would want to use those apps with a nice big keyboard and screen.”

Of course, to make a docked iPhone or iPod touch truly competitive with the netbook segment, it would require driver tweaking and some re-engineering to support the necessary hardware inputs and outputs. There’s also the issue of what Segan refers to as “the OS problem,” specifically: The iPhone OS as presently configured is not really up to the job of supporting the kind of robust productivity apps that can run on a netbook under Linux, Windows, or OS X.

I’ve long been a fan and admirer of the Apple PowerBook Duo concept from the early to mid ’90s. It combined a subcompact laptop module that could be used as a freestanding notebook, and a Duo Dock with a full-size CRT monitor, a full set contemporary of I/O ports, and internal expansion slots for desktop power with few compromises.

Toward the end of the ’90s, laptop computers became powerful, versatile, and gained improved connectivity and display options. Many of the the Duo’s advantages were negated, but it seems to me quite logical that the PowerBook Duo concept could be successfully updated, using a handheld instead as its “core module.”

Indeed, it’s so logical that it seems a wonder no one has yet acted on the idea. Segan thinks the reason is that Apple and the wireless carriers don’t want it to happen. Presently, folks who have both a smartphone and a netbook need two wireless service subscriptions, whereas our proposed dockable handheld hybrid device would theoretically only require one. As for keyboard-supporting iPhones, he thinks that won’t happen because Apple doesn’t want to erode MacBook sales.

All that sounds a bit conspiratorial, but also lamentably plausible. Even so, look at the issue from the angle of a similar new product category. While Microsoft has a complicated relationship with the netbook phenomenon, and Apple is downright contemptuous, consumers voted with their wallets and made the netbook the hottest-selling category in computers. Now that the dam has burst as it were, Microsoft is playing ball with the netbook-optimized edition of Windows 7.

I think platform convergence and rationalization between the smartphone and netbook spaces could likewise catch the consumer imagination and take on a life of its own. It seems just too good an idea to be able to keep suppressed indefinitely.

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