Acer chairman J.T. Wang expects Apple’s iPad market share to drop from close to 100% currently to only 20%-30% after the tablet PC market stabilizes, according to a report by Digitimes’ Joseph Tsai referencing a interview with the Chinese-language Economic Daily News. Tsai also cites a research report indicating that Android smartphones’ market share has already surpassed that of iOS models, and observing that based on past experience, a closed platform will eventually lose to an open one.
This week CNET’s Don Reisinger says also reported that LG’s vice president of marketing for its mobile-devices Chang Ma told the WallStreet Journal that believes his company’s forthcoming Optimus tablet it has what it takes to supplant the iPad as the most desired tablet on the market, acknowledging that the iPad is a fine device, but criticizing it for not letting people “do much work on it,” and that the Optimus’s primary focus will be productivity.
I have to say I’m inclined to agree with Mssrs. Wang and Chang Ma, and of a mind that Apple’s overwhelming dominance of the tablet computer market is about to pull up short. Of course, I never imagined that the iPad would be the spectacular sales success that it turned out to be, so I could be mistaken about its future prospects now, but with a horde of tablet competitors about to be sprung in consumer space for the holiday ramp–up, my suspicion is that iPad market performance is about to hit a sharp dip.
The availability of a lot more choices in up–to–date tablet computers will inevitably bleed some demand away from the iPad, but it goes beyond that. A major factor in the dynamic world be that many of the iPad’s imminent competitors are being designed with a focus on giving users what they want, rather than what Apple insists they should have.
For example, a Vouchercodes survey released earlier this month asked respondents what features they would most like to see on a revision B iPad found that two thirds as many shoppers would prefer the next generation of the Apple iPad to support Flash or feature USB ports over the built-in digital camera that the rumor mills suggest is coming with an iPad refresh likely for early next year
Similarly, almost half of consumers (48%) wanted USB connectivity to upload files and more than 44% called for support for Adobe Flash Player in the findings of a poll of 3,000 people commissioned by the German shopping website Gutschein-Codes.de, compared to just 29% who favored a built-in digital camera.
In my opinion, it seems here that consumers have more common sense than Apple does. Lack of USB is my biggest gripe about the iPad, and having no Flash support is cl.ose behind.
According to the Gutschein-Codes survey results, the top six desired missing iPad features:
48% USB
44% Adobe Flash
42% optical drive
38% TV Tuner
30% waterproof and shockproof
29% camera
Unfortunately the rumor mills have remained silent on the prospect of USB I/O on the Revision B iPad, and Flash is also expected to remain unsupported, rendering a substantial proportion of online content off-limits to iPad users. High on my own wish list would be true multi-tasking support.
Now, there’s a philosophical divide in play here. More than a few folks have argued that what they like about the iPad is its minimalist simplicity. I expect there is an element of making a virtue of necessity here on the part of fervent Apple apologists, but I’ll accept that a fair proportion are sincere in their affirmation that less is really more. A complaint about computers has long been that despite major advances in user–friendliness, they are still too complex and frustrating for people who just don’t want to, or don’t have the time to, master the technical demands of keeping a PC — even a MacOS PC — properly configured, updated and running at its optimum peak, and for them the iPad with its minimal range of user input effort is a breath of fresh air.
However, the other side of the coin is that the iPad’s manifold limitations have been a disappointment for people, me for instance, who like the idea of a compact, easy to handle and carry tablet, but want something with the power, flexibility, expandability, and connectivity to make it a real productivity and content creation tool, rather than principally a content consumption device, although even content consumption is somewhat compromised with the iPad due to Steve Jobs’ stubborn boycott of Adobe flash.
The iPad appeals to me for its instant-on and low hassle characteristics, quietness, and I don’t dispute in the slightest that it can be an extremely useful tool in some sorts of use. However for most of my computing work I need multitasking and standard Mac OS applications, so iPad’s utility to me for the sort of stuff I mostly do with computers is questionable.
User interface-wise, even if you connect a BlueTooth keyboard, you’re still stuck with the touchscreen for pointing, dragging and clicking. The body English required can be charitably described as “awkward.” I think there are some third-party hacks that can enable use of a mouse with the iPad, but that shouldn’t be necessary.
Wireless is an inadequate alternative to real, hardwired USB support for a whole raft of reasons. If tiny digital cameras and iPod shuffles have room for hardware USB connectivity, there’s no rational reason why the iPad shouldn’t. The iPad’s paucity of onboard storage is one of the reasons I want a USB port. I like to take my stuff with me on the road (collected works, research materials, photos, etc.) That requirement can be met with an external hard drive, but that’s not a solution open to iPad users. I could live with just one USB port on a tablet device, although two would be nice, and as well with the necessity of self-powering the remote drive (my external drives all require that anyway, even with a MacBook). Some PC netbooks have three USB ports.
Other tweaks? A mouse driver. Support for non-bluetooth keyboards. Tabbed browsing. Real multitasking. A decent text editor. Upgradable RAM, Printer support…. Maybe some of these will come with the Revision B iPad, which I hear will have a new ARM Cortex-A9-based processor and 512MB of RAM
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But what I want is a tablet that can run a real personal computer OS and support real computer productivity applications. My first preference would be the MacOS, but I have to say that I would much rather have a tablet running Linux or even Windows, than being stuck with the limitations of a smartphone OS, and I need sufficient I/O support for convenient file transfers, backups, printing, and so forth. Ergo, a tablet machine that is at least a bare-bones personal computer in its own right.
Something like Axon’s recently announced Haptic tablet computer that gives you the choice of which OS you want to boot into, supporting Linux, Windows, or Darwin. The company coyly notes that while Apple Inc.’s Snow Leopard is a “darling OS,” (and a Darwin variant dontchaknow?), unfortunately Apple’s EULA specifically prohibits installation on “non-Apple–branded” computers.
Axon’s Haptic tablet gives you vastly more ways to connect to the world than Apple does with its iPad. You can connect via WiFi, 3G or Ethernet. There’s also a front-facing 1.3 megapixel WebCam, and yes — Adobe flash is supported.
Unlike iPad, the Axon Haptic has standard USB 2.0 ports – indeed three of them — plus an SD Card reader, a mic-in jack, a headphone jack, stereo output, a built-in microphone and a VGA video port, plus the Bluetooth can be used to hook up to a GPS. The Haptic has a 10–inch, 1024 x 600 resolution resistive touchscreen that can be used with the machine’s built-in stylus or your fingers, There’s 2GB standard RAM (upgradable), and the Haptic comes with a 320 GB standard 2.5” laptop hard drive, and has a user-swappable battery, and is Haptic is powered by a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 netbook CPU — no ball of fire, but more muscle than the iPad’s smartphone CPU — and ti still weighs under two pounds.
Sounds delightful, especially the comprehensive port and connectivity array, the hardware expandability, and of course the and OS multidexterity.
The Axon Haptic is expected to sell in the $750 – $800 range, but it’s just the tip of a competition iceberg bearing down on the titanic iPad. The Kiplinger Letter’s Drake Lundell says that more than 30 new tablet computers will flood the market this fall from PC giants HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo and Toshiba, to name just a few, as well as smartphone makers like Research in Motion (RIM) with its forthcoming Android “BlackPad”, Samsung with its Galaxy tablet, LG’s Optimus, and a Motorola tablet, which which will give buyers many more options and put downward pressure on prices.
Lundell also reports that at least some of the competing tablets will have USB port and support for Adobe’s Flash — even dual-core processors for higher speeds such as Intel’s just-announced N550 netbook CPU, which Intel claims has a battery drain (and heat generation) profile similar to that of the ubiquitous single-core 1.66GHz N450 netbook chip, which consumes up to 5.5W of power, thanks to the N550 running at a lower clock speed of 1.5GHz. The operative theory is that the extra processor core more than compensates for the slower clock speed.
Consequently, while I anticipate that I’ll eventually have a tablet computer, I’m increasingly doubtful that it will be an iPad.
I haven’t visited the pbcentral site for a while so I have just caught up with the critiques of the iPad concept. I bought one on the release day in the UK with some real trepidation but several weeks down the line am really pleased and very surprised, no staggered even, by the power of the machine.
When the specs were first announced by Apple the tech press slagged them off. In the UK PcPro a monthly magazine was scathing. I commented on one thread that whilst the journalists and other commenters were criticising the iPad people who bought it and developers would be simply pushing the hardware and form factor to the limit, finding new and innovative uses for it.
Interestingly having got their hands on the kit the staff at PcPro have changed their tune.
I guess that at best I am bemused at the ongoing critiques of the iPad when my experience is very much at odds with them.
With apps like Dragon Dictate (free) and WritePad handwriting recognition (very reasonably priced) the iPad has changed my workflow. I now attend meetings and take notes, backing notes up wirelessly, edit photos, paint, draw, play games, e-mail. I can open MS Office documents using Docs to Go Premium less than £7 and use Bento and a whole range of other useful functions. Presentations, no problems. All day battery life you got it.
And there are several browsers (with tabs) out there the best I have found costs 59 pennies (UK).
Before the UK release some of my friends at our Mac User Group articulated many reasons not to get an iPad.
I find their slide towards purchase and growing enthusiasm, since they have seen what it can do, very amusing.
Rather than concentrating on things that it doesn’t do, how about some focus on how people are using the iPad every day to do real work, have fun and in my case get rid of the lopsided gait that even a 13 inch MB gives when combined with a charger, magazine, notepad, newspaper, book and other no longer essential items for a business trip to London (a full day away on the train, very early start and very late finish, from my neck of the woods).
As Jon Honeyball of PcPro (a real top notch IT consultant) wrote after a trip to a conference on the west coast of the US, from the UK, during which he used his iPad exclusively (his laptop stayed in the hotel room to act as abase station.
“I have seen the future”.
Bit like the original Mac really, a revolution.
Best wishes Kane.