The War of Tablets
April 13, 2010 29 Comments
by Elias Shams
I thought I had covered all the iPad competitors till I just read about Google tablet on The New York Times yesterday. The company expected to release tablet too. They are also joining the tablet vendor club. Awesome! What’s even more Awesome is their support of flash I think 
Google CEO Eric Schmidt reportedly divulged some details about the device to friends at a recent party in Los Angeles, while people with knowledge of the project told The Times that “the company has been experimenting in ‘stealth mode’ with a few publishers to explore delivery of books, magazines and other content on a tablet.”
The company is also reportedly considering an apps marketplace for tablet PCs.
The competition certainly going to heat up, once Google comes into the arena. I love to see an Android powered tablet device. Competition in this field is exactly what we need. iPad is a fantastic device, but too poor to afford. With Google Buzzing in Jobs ear, we all win. I hope these guys tear each other to pieces because the hardware will only shine the brighter.
As for the browser, I’d personally prefer a Chrome OS tablet to Apple’s device. Baked in Flash, extensions, full browser, not mobile. Although, I can survive with Android though. If Google manage to master multi-touch like Apple did, then I think their tablet will be iPad killer. With Android powering a range of devices beyond phones, Android could become a quietly dominant OS.
The Times reports that Nokia also plans to release a multifunctional e-book reader device, while Microsoft “is flirting with the idea” of releasing a slate. HP is expected to release its tablet PC by mid year.
Here is a clip about Notion Ink Adam tablet I previously covered. I doubt anyone will like the way their mouse is designed:
About Elias Shams
Elias Shams
Kamran Abdi
Tatiana Sorabi
Apple struck a homerun with the iPod and ever since, anything they do seems to be copied.
I think Apple’s success with the iPod and iPhone will help them in the tablet space, but if Google really leverages its muscle, it may provide serious competition as it has a chance to do with Droid (especially if Apple sticks with it’s exclusive agreement with AT&T as a wireless carrier).
Since the iPad runs the iPhone OS, the security vulnerabilities are similar to that of the iPhone & iPod Touch. While I think iPhone OS is getting better, Apple has been aiming their mobile devices at the consumer market instead of the enterprise customer where security is more of a concern. It is an interesting problem since employees *will* buy these devices and want to use them to access their email, calendars, and internal networks regardless of how good the security is on the devices.
I think apple has been doing ok with iPhone for enterprise. Check out my previous coverage related to this: http://awesomedc.com/?s=mobile+enterprise
The previous products in this space lacked competitiveness, leaving a far larger opportunity for Apple than perhaps they deserved.
The Amazon Kindle is not an e-Reader, instead it is over expensive with inbuilt keyboard, inbuilt WAN capability, and too proprietary.
The various netbooks are quite good. Both the HP Mini and Acer (equivalent) are very good, based on firsthand experience. The category suffers from Intel, Microsoft, Dell, and others halfheartedly supporting and then criticizing in turn.
There is room for a competitively priced simple e-Reader (perhaps the new ViewSonic VEB620) device, that does not have 3G/4G, color, WiFi, and a touch screen. There is also room for a (relatively) simple media-playback device, with touch-screen, video playback, and WiFi (for audio/video streaming).
The ideal hub / controller for these ‘disposable’ purchase items would be a Linux based netbook, all preloaded and configured. Until such ‘killer-app’ price/performance products try to compete head-on with Apple, they will get a free ride.
Otherwise no one will be willing to question the obvious shortfalls of this latest Apple offering. These include proprietary control of applications (and soon DRM), poor WiFi (and presumably 3G when it arrives), battery life, poor multi-tasking (based on lack of CPU power), and poor choice of from-factor (too large, too fat, liable to be dropped).
In terms of entertainment, it opens a lot of markets. But essentially the tablets are presumed to be the “future”.
But the one thing you should take not of Elias is that some universities are starting to recommend students buying a tablet. For example, there is much speak of Penn State University including an iPad in their tuition to allow students to buy their textbooks via online. As a student, I hate buying textbooks. They are heavy, expensive and almost 70% of my professor don’t use them. But with that said, if this trend catches on. The college student is an excellent market as most of Generation Y and Z are extremely tech savvy.
In terms of the predictions of winners, I don’t want anyone to win. As competition always breeds excellence. iPad is good, but the HP Slate has more features and a webcam.
But TV shows should start broadcasting their shows online as well as TV. Take my situation, with my hectic schedule of work, class, work and social life; the last 5 TV shows I saw, 4 of them were online.
Tablets are revolutionary, but in reality they are just bigger smartphone. But that doesn’t mean it minimizes your market. It expands it, and you would best get on board to have a competitive advantage against your competitors.
-Bassem
Thanks for the notes. Point taken and right on. What is your thought on my previous post:
Thanks To iPad, Brace Yourself For Obesity 3.0
http://awesomedc.com/2010/04/08/thanks-to-ipad-brace-yourself-for-obesity-3-0/
Well yes, that is true and no.
I believe it is always important to have time for each activity to devote yourself too.
I grew up in “Obesity 1.0″. I actually played a lot of video games, but I was also extremely active in sports and other activities.
I still actively play video games. Without them I wouldn’t have had a profound appreciation for classical music and artists. I am also still very active.
I know I am a small percentage, but it is important for society to point the lack of time management out.
I agree with your point though.
This war will win who has a store behind with powerful applications …..
At the moment the first position has the iPad
The ipad isn’t available here in the UK yet, but the hype surrounding it is filtering through. It looks cool, feels cool and is desirable to make the user feel cool is the feeling I’m getting but what is it for? no one seems to know. Well in my opinion things like the ipad (or whatever anyone else brings out) is the way the media industries want to go. Tablets will provide publishers with a new revenue stream as they can sell more books, magazines and newspapers on it. It finally gives them a reason to charge for online services. The hardware companies are selling cameras with both photo and video and these devices – which allow photos and videos to be watched – provide a good medium.
The public may not need an ipad or whatever else, but the media industry does and therefore I for one hope they all succeed.
Gavin, while you are at it, be aware of the connection between iPad and Obesity I pointed out here too:
http://awesomedc.com/2010/04/08/thanks-to-ipad-brace-yourself-for-obesity-3-0/
I look forward to get your thought on it. I just want to make sure it is not only me thinking this way. Cheers
Though tablets are cool, I just don’t think they are practical for most consumers. I really feel that most people are perfectly happy with a smart phone and a laptop.
That being said I feel that Google will be the leader in the tablet computing space Google has the capital, the brand, and the brains to completely take over in this space. I also feel Google is more likely to embrace the commercial applications for tablet computers. Consider how a 3G enabled Tablet could change how a Realtor conducts business or how it could improve the productivity of a sales rep. Think about how much money companies could save on paper!
To this point Apple has been pushing the iPad primarily as an entertainment device, who really wants to watch movies on an over sized iPod Touch?
I have the iPad and it is a beautiful device. I purchased it due to my experience with the screens on the iPod Touch which reproduce photographs beautifully. I thought that the iPad would be a great way to show some of my photos to galleries and I think it will be. The reproduction of the photos is fantastic with easily created slide shows. A lot of people have complained about the lack of a built in webcam but this was not a real factor for me. Ultimately, I think the iPad will win out for several reasons 1) first to really impact the market, and 2) the iTunes interface. Apple makes it so easy to obtain and manage all of your digital media through one well conceived interface. Although some of the other companies are likely to produce hardware that is as good or better, they are all years behind Apple on the interface side.
I really believe the iPad has the potential to revitalize the publishing industry. I’ve let my own magazine subscriptions lapse, as have many others, as I now get a majority of my news even faster online. The result is a loss of ad revenue and a sizable portion of the industry going under. With its great photo quality, the iPad could once again bring back the magazine and newspaper. That means jobs for that staff, plus writers and photographers. I personally wouldn’t mind paying $5-$10 for a subscription to my favorite magazines on an iPad. And it means less paper waste! Now if only I had the extra cash for an iPad…
I couldn’t agree more Joe
I’d say thebig question isn’t “which tablet will dominate” (any more than “which ereader or televion set wil dominate”) but whether these gadgets really fill any appreciable need or even wants in the general public.
It will be interesting to see how the reported 450K iPads already sold are eventually used. Ultimately, that will depend on the problems they solve. Even though laptops are getting lighter, the very thin, lighter, unencumbered design increases portability vs. laptop w/o the loss of readability vs. iPhone and with more functions vs. eReader. I see them being used for reading some material now in print, short note taking in meetings, as a lightweight personal TV set, some games, for showing documents and materials to clients, as a surrogate for memory [flies, photos, etc.] If Apple can manage the ecosystem [including commercial] as well as it did with the iPod, their solution will please many upscale users. Convenience is a benefit people will pay for. Apple may not need to own every space in the tablet sector; just the high end. However, if they become arrogant and too demanding, the game is theirs to lose.
I have to agree with you Bill Tanner. Apple actually has a rather interesting challenge. It’s one thing to toss all the iPhone apps onto the device, and have a ton of other players produce apps, but I’m torn as to how effective the iPad will be once people want to start doing the kinds of things with it they can do with a Laptop or Netbook, where you have access to an operating system and being able to put what you want on it. (Not to mention the user costs are significantly higher for Apps that are iPad ready)
There’s a definite gap in the space there between mobility and functionality. I think Apple seriously needs to release an iPad Pro, which would essentially be OS X capable not the iPhone OS. To me that’s the missing piece — because people are clamoring for a business capable tool, not just a media device. People still have to get work done, and they aren’t as happy as they’d like to be about lugging a laptop around.
I bought one of the last 3 in Orlando last Sunday.
I have no more need for my laptop when home or on the road.
I have never read the newspapers on line, I now read 3, this really is the game changer. Once the 3G version is out I will no longer need a cell phone…
I’ve been discussing with friends for a while that if anyone can beat Apple on this it would be Google. I’m an avid Mac fan, but seeing as my livelihood presently revolves around Flash (until other options are really viable for digital magazines/small publishers), I’m rooting for Google in this one. Sad, but true. Little aside – despite all the bashing – I really enjoy Flash magazines, so I’d love to keep creating interactive mags in that format if we can have a presentation that will fly well.
Just read wherethe use of iPads has been outlawed on a growing number of college campuses and even an entire COUNTRY (Israel) because their wifi has adverse affects on provider band width.
I think it’s weird that the universities would be trying to “fix” a problem caused by Apple’s screwup.
Seems like that should be the manufacturor’s problem.
I have a REALLY hard time seeing any educational advantage to students having iPads on campus. (The rich ones, that is)
Like the iPhone, it’s all about the Apps! The viability of the device will be directly manifest in the its ease of app access and development. And as for the iPad and Flash, will the tail wag the dog? I speak to the iPad and eLearning on page 14 of Elearning Age magazine here: http://tiny.cc/HunterArticle
Actually, Daniel, Elias’ article specifically quoted a college spokesman as saying that there aren’t really any textbooks available for the iPad.
And if their irresponsible wifi is getting them kicked off campuses, there probably won’t be.
And the idea that textbook publishers–probably the biggest scam in the industry with the cozy way they get profs to assign new versions of their books each quarter,etc–have NO motivation to spend a lot of money to switch to this format because it saves students money by cutting their own sales.
So MUCH of rah-rah for iPad seems to revolve around this sort of “glorious communistic future” type thinking, seeing a iPad world out there without stopping to ask if it really works.
Think how much could be saved on Textbooks! Once a platform seems viable, whether it’s Flash or some other interactive format, textbooks on paper should quickly become obsolete. Perhaps print a few paper versions as reference objects, but students should all use digital versions. Easily updated, live links for more info, videos instead of plain photos. With their own iPad, they can carry all their textbooks in just that small item.
While I agree with your condemnation of the current state of the textbook cuddle-fest publishers enjoy with college campuses, Linton, the trend as a whole is a ship that has already left the dock.
Textbook content is being produced for both print and electronic media already, and products like the iPad are just another channel for publisher’s sales. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Kaplan Publishing, McGraw-Hill Education, and Pearson are just a few of the players already committed to porting content to the iPad.
To the original point, the iPad is not the product that will define the tablet niche, rather Apple’s entry will almost certainly herald innovation and accelerate competition…as you’ve pointed out the price-point and features that really make a viable alternative to textbooks for a campus environment are laptop’s and netbook’s turf…the convergence of which is the tablet’s promising potential.
“Almost certainly” is far from certain.
I see absolutely no reason people will adopt these gadgets on any major scale. They are just not convenient enough.
The potential is not even really a promise. It’s a wish.
By the way, the incentive of universities to move to iPads is as low as the publishers. College bookstores tend to be run as a profit cow for the school and professors share in the whole scam by getting books published and royalties paid because they can assign the books and force their purchase.
All the other stuff about videos and links can be handled just as well by laptops and netbooks available at half the price and NOT screwing up the wifi…and much better actually, since they allow people to type and multi-task.
Digital books and magazines are already running great on netbooks and laptops, of course. I just think the portability of a tablet, the nice screen size, and the touch screen at that size, will appeal to students (and likely many people) and thus widen the audience for the digital publications. Open the doors, raise awareness, all that. I agree that with a laptop, a student gets the added advantage of doing several other things at the same time. But for me, my laptop still feels awkward somehow and my hope is that a tablet would not. So in the many instances where I was not multi-tasking, it would be a smoother “read.” And I’d assume that once the student purchased or subscribed to the digital textbook, they could view on either the laptop or their tablet, as desired. Well, in non-iPad/non-App situations. (I’m rooting for Google here.)
All this said, I, myself, haven’t tried one yet. But the feel seems to be key. And I do know several folks that I thought would never enjoy a Kindle, and never before carried around any “device” and have turned out to love them.
I think there is a market for the ‘pads’. It isn’t the same market as any of the e-readers or for the iPod users but there is a market.
The difference between a gadget that will fit in my purse/pocket and one that won’t is important to some people. The pads aren’t as portable as a Kindle or iPod. but they are capable of more or are better format.
I look forward to watching the developments in the coming months.
Exactly, and the typing is a BIG factor. It’s one of those that looks cool on the web, but people won’t know until they try it how they like that touch screen typing. There have already been a LOT of people who don’t. Apart from the awkwardness of the onscreen keyboard…there”s the factor of constantly smudging the screen.
So, they’re thinking kids will want to have this $500-800 gizmo that they can’t take pictures with, can’t play music on while they’re working, can”t check the web while they’re working, can’t pocket, is fatiguing to type on and blocks a lot of sites…AND is a wifi offender that screws things up for people around them.