OK, we’ve seen the best tablets now that the industry can offer.
At CES Motorola Xoom won best of show.
Last week we saw the HP TouchPad, which looks even better.
Finally, today, at the very end of its presentation, Samsung launched a 10-inch Tablet.
But let’s go back through my mantra:
“The only thing that matters is apps.”
I want you to repeat that over and over until you get it.
Which one has Flipboard? iPad.
Which one has the History of Jazz? iPad.
Which one has Rupert Murdoch’s Daily? iPad.
Which one has Oprah’s new app? iPad.
Shall I go on? I could go on all day long.
The entire tablet world comes down to apps.
Does Android’s (er Motorola, Samsung, or all the others) new large tablets have them? No.
Does HP’s new large tablets have them? No.
Does RIM’s new large tablets have them? No.
Does Microsoft’s offering have them? No.
Nokia? It isn’t even in the game.
In other words, what the entire industry just did is give Apple a huge differentiator that they will drive a truck through. One that will be packed full of iPad 2s headed to its stores.
Where Samsung took only a few minutes to show off what it’s tablet actually does, look for Apple to showcase new app after new app.
We’re living in an iPad world. All the others can only dream.
Photo credit: I shot this picture of an iPad ad in the Paris subway.
Scobleizer 
Similar to gaming consoles (it’s the games stupid), I agree completely – it’s the Apps that will drive adoption.
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Apps are the huge part of this and the other is that, unlike the iPhone, the iPad is available everywhere and other tablet makers are having a hard time competing on price.
While everyone mentions MS vs Apple in regards to Android’s current popularity, this has just as much potential to become the dominance Apple has had with the iPod.
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Yes, but iPhone’s lead is less clear. Android’s phone ecosystem has largely matched the app differentiator (at least to a point where Android phone purchasers don’t feel stupid buying it, like they will if they buy an Android tablet) and has other advantages (carrier and handset choice, lower price, etc).
These advantages don’t matter on the tablet side very much, if at all, so it’s an iPad world we live in.
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The iOS has an advantage, no doubt. Giving Apple a 1 year headstart in the tablet arena wasnt’ very wise of it’s competition… and what in the hell was Nokia thinking? They are gonna go the way of the 8 track, if they don’t figure it out. I’m not sure hitching it’s pony to MSFT is all that wise. Time will tell, but they FAILED big time these last 2-3 years.
I have an Android phone, Droid 1, and an iPad and iPod Touch… we buy WAAAY more apps on iOS than on the Droid… partly because of the 256Mb app memory fail on the Droid. I’m scared to download anything since I’m already almost completely full… and as a result, it’s slow enough as it is.
While I like Android… I may go to an iPhone 5 on Verizon, when it’s released, but I haven’t completely made up my mind, yet.
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I guess that’s the benefit of having a product in the market for longer… honestly this seems sort of obvious and sounds a lot like the talk that occurred when the first Android phones were coming out. Like then, time will tell.
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Ya, but once these other platform’s become readily available developers will look to target, and the new ‘up-and-coming’ devs will do it cross platform with tools like phonegap, monotouch and straight html5. No developer wants to maintain multiple codebases. Ipad has the lead for now, but just like Iphone, its days are numbered.
http://scobleizer.com/2009/12/16/iphone-developers-abandoning-app-model-for-html5/
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Pretty soon Apple will be announcing the iPad2 with more advance features and all these HP, Motorola, Samsung tablets will look so outdated, and I’m guessing iPad1 price will be dropped, there is no way these other new tablets can compete, i think i saw motorola xoom priced $1199, no apps, good luck with that.
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Agree that it is all about apps . However let’s see in a year from now. Android Market already has caught up with App store on mobile. I’m sure they will also on tablets because with Google, Motorola, LG, Samsung, HTC and others pushing for this Android has a good chance to dominate the market. Robert you might want to read Clayton Cristensen books if you have not already: Innovator’s dillema, Innovators solution. There you will see that history repeats itself all the time and that fully integrated solutions such as iPad, iPhone in the beginning are very successful but once the market becomes a commodity the winning strategy is where different manufacturers make components.
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We’ll see in a year. For now it’s an iPad world. Will that change a year from now? Maybe, but the developers I’ve talked with say they aren’t taking Android seriously in tablets … yet.
Will that change this summer? We’ll see. Not so far.
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Of course they don’t take Android serious yet because there are no serious android tablets out in the market yet. Same happened with Android phones. Now that Android phones have market share developers also concentrate on Android. It is inevitable that Android will get a good market position simply because so many big companies are coming out with Android tablets. You will also see that cheaper Honeycomb tablets will come out which will be attractive for a new market segment that only wants to spend a few hundred dollar on a tablet.
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I am curious why you think developers were willing to take Android phones seriously, thus allowing Android to catch up so rapidly to the iPhone app onslaught, but that this won’t happen for Android tablets.
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With HTML5 and pervasive connectivity how important will OS specific apps be in the long-run?
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Please do make me laugh. Have you ever really looked into HTML 5? Have you really tried to use it to create a bleeding-edge app like Flipboard, Angry Birds, the Daily, et al? No you haven’t. It isn’t there and won’t be a factor. At least not this year and at least not for the best-of-breed apps.
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Android has ZERO apps designed for a 10-inch tablet. Talk about a more pompous and incorrect comment…geesh.
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Not only does Android not have apps designed for a 10″ screen size but they don’t have an OS designed for 7″ which so many tried to promote. At 7″ the screen is 45% as large as a 10″ screen which means that the whole design of the OS needs to be changed. Otherwise it will look odd and be more difficult to use.
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I try to understand you’re reasoning, I understand the importance of apps, but there are a lot of people out there who are now getting acquinted with Android. You can bet that these people are more inclined to choose an Android powered tablet over an iPad because they know the apps which run on that platform.
Furthermore Apple is trying to get the newspapers world wide to hand over part of the process to them. I don’t care about Rupert Murdochs paper as I want one in my own language. Apple trying to get a hold on every small transaction will push a lot of publishers to the other platforms (especially if they are more willing to forego this Apple tax). Apps are nice indeed, but don’t forget the value of content. I’m pretty sure flipboard will be available on other platforms, know why? Because others will else fill in this gap.
Off course it will take approximately at least one year before the Android powered tablets will approach the sales of iPad and you can guess what then will happen. It will be interesting to see how HP will end up, and whether the manufacturers will start to compete with the iPad based upon price, just as they’ve done with the iPhone.
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The problem is that the apps made for Android are for the phone, not for the big device. So far there are ZERO apps that are designed for the 10-inch form factor. The seven inch Galaxy Tab works OK because there you can just run apps designed for the phone. But that doesn’t fly on a 10-inch form factor.
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Ah, but apps i mostly use on the phone like mail (gmail), calendar and the browser are already ready, so You’re ZERO probably should be no external apps, though I even doubt that. It’s the same problem Apple had when starting with the iPad and also that was solved pretty quickly, my take is that Google has thought this over.
The stuff I like about Android are it’s widgets and the excellent Google integration. For most games like Angry birds, the migration towards the larger screen is moot. And don’t forget one important thing, it’s got flash with a load of it’s games readily available.
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For me widgets are annoying and feel ‘old school’.
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The nice thing is, you’ve got a choice, if you don’t like them, ditch them. I have a preference for widgets as they provide me with the most important information.
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Two issues with this. One; when the iPad came out it had the same problem. Since then apps have gone universal, no reason one wouldn’t expect the same to happen with Android. Two; a lot of the phone apps are doing what we normally did through a web browser. Do you really need a twitter, facebook or gmail app when you’ve got a full sized screen and browser to work with?
When I’m looking at a device to buy I’ll consider what I’ll do the most with it – that’s listening to music on Slacker and Grooveshark, watching movies and TV shows (primarily on Netflix), browsing websites and communicating via email and IM. Anything else is secondary, and while some obscure app might be cool to have, I’m more concerned about primary usage, and the 10 inch form factor gives me instant access to that.
Apple fans will trumpet “Apps, Apps, Apps!” as loud as they can, but apps only matter after basic functionality is covered, and so far the iPad is inadequate. The iPad 2 might change that, but it still won’t support flash…
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“Jazz,” “Oprah,” really!? The future success of tablet computing will NOT be decided by misc. personal interest applications like these. It’s going to be decided by Mission-critical general business and vertical market applications, created and/or endorsed by each industries innovation leaders.
The industry leaders do care about market share, but are not naive enough to confuse early adopter Apple “fan-boy” buzz, with long-term market share potential. If the the Smart Phone market is any indication, with Android-powered device sales surpassing and pulling away from the iPhone, the future of the tablet market will not be determined solely by which platform has the greatest number of apps.
App quality, integration and the ability to leverage market share are all huge factors in the still nascent tablet computing market. Microsoft can afford to give away a tablet-optimized version of Microsoft Office as part of their corporate licensing agreements, for an indefinite period of time. With their new alliance with Nokia and existing industry relationships with HP, Dell, IBM, etc. not to mention their customer relationship with 85% of business users, by virtue of MS Windows & Office installed on their desktops, they are a potentially formidable tablet competitor.
Google has the #1 selling mobile OS and a direct marketing (Internet Advertising) advantage that can’t be overlooked and Apple, despite being loaded with cash, simply can’t ignore or underestimate. With independent Android developers quickly eliminating any advantage Apple has in application volume, Google only has to do two things to beat Apple, continue to refine and optimize their Google Apps platform for Android and make it easier and more profitable for Android developers than Apple does for iOS developers, something they are already succeeding in doing.
I will concede that the Apple application advantage probably does mean that Apple will wind up trouncing HP’s WebOS and RIM’s Blackberry platform. For both HP and RIM this means they will ultimately make a shift, like Nokia to Windows 7 or Android or both as their mobile/tablet OS of choice. Either of these choices spell a further erosion of any potential commercial market share Apple might hope to have in the future.
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You are wrong, but that’s OK. By the way, at the World Economic Forum there were iPads EVERYWHERE. You think the CEO is gonna let you write your freaking lame ass enterprise apps and not have them run on iPads? Think again.
And I just gave you a few apps. http://www.quora.com/iPad/What-are-the-must-have-iPad-apps-Why?q=iPad+apps has a much deeper list.
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Yes, the mandate is coming from the C-level, not the IT room. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but computing is being powered by the users.
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Also, most enterprise apps can be written in HTML 5. It’s only the bleeding edge ones like Flipboard or AngryBirds that need more “oomph” or APIs hooking into the various sensors on the iPad. So, enterprise apps will NOT be the driver here. Consumer apps WILL be. Just ask all the CEOs at the World Economic Forum.
Mark Benioff? He was showing off his iPad. Salesforce.com is hardly the only one betting on iPad.
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Angry Birds is bleeding edge? You’re gonna have your eyes burn out when you see some stuff running on the PSP2 at the end of the year….
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When the iPad came out ALL the apps for it were mainly written for the iPhone and need to be run in the “pixel doubling” mode on the iPad and they looked like sheer crap. Just because Android don’t have apps for the 10 inch platform doesn’t mean it never will. It took most of the iPad’s first year for all the big apps to get an “HD” version that rain at the iPad’s native resolution.
Sure it’s about the apps, but you always forget that the iPhone/iPad didn’t have those apps when it first launched. Those same devs who are telling you they aren’t taking Android tablets seriously, ask them if they were taking Android phones seriously a year ago, and if they are today. I bet you find a different story.
Developers do all their potential customers a disservice by ignoring an entire (popular) platform.
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I never said it never will. Just not this summer. So, we live in an iPad world right now. Will that change next year? Maybe.
And I TOTALLY disagree there were no apps on launch of iPad. I stood in line with dozens of developers who shipped apps on day one.
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That is NOT true. Even Rackspace had an app made for iPad on day one.
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^ that’s right. I also heard something about it
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Your HTML 5 debate does indeed have merit, but it also works against you. Quick, tell me the market share Apple hardware enjoys in either the SMB or Enterprise market? your vaunted World Economic Forum CEOs are not using iPads because they have made a strategic Corporate-wide decision to use the iPad platform in their organizations, they’re doing it for the same reason they drive BMWs, Mercedes and Audis and wear Rolex watches, to be SEEN doing it!
Who sells and supports the technology businesses use? If you’re a SMB organization, the answer is independent VARs who as a whole, do NOT like or support Apple products. Enterprises support their own systems, are still largely run by people who want little to nothing to do with Apple.
So, if HTML 5 applications dominate, making the choice of hardware OS irrelevant, which hardare platform do you think has an advantage, Apple, HP, Dell, Acer? Companies will continue to purchase the hardware platforms that offer the greatest level of ROI. Think Apple wins in that decision? Think again, they haven’t been able to do it with desktops, why do you think they will succeed long term with mobile devices?
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Exactly, CEOs buy iPads just to carry it around, not for the apps. As in the case of all Apple consumer toys, it’s cool. Does it have anything to do with their work or how they run their companies? NO.
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You are really an idiot if you believe that.
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Seriously, I believe you can manage better replies than ‘you’re really an idiot” or “you’re wrong” without explaining it further.
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I don’t quite agree. In the case of phones, this is true – the screens were so small that web browsing isn’t the primary thing you do. In the case of tablets, they’re large enough to run websites properly, but XGA resolution doesn’t cut it. When the iPad was announced with 1024×768 resolution, I immediately wrote it off – too small for proper web browsing, and not doubled from the iPhone (960×640 or 1440×960 would have made sense). 1280×720 is about the minimum resolution that websites expect these days, and it’s also perfect for watching HD video. The TouchPad also has 1024×768 resolution, so I’m writing it off as well for now, but the Xoom & Galaxy Tab 10.1 have 1280×800 resolution, which is perfect for web browsing (I don’t think I’ve come across a single website that requires a higher resolution), and it runs flash, which on a smartphone is sluggish, but on a tablet with a more powerful CPU and GPU will run well. On top of that, if the Xoom/Tab 10.1 gets Netflix, it’ll be awesome for watching HD videos while in bed.
If the iPad 2 comes in with better resolution, possibly 1280×1024 (to keep the aspect ratio the same), it migh be in the running, but there’s a little more than apps in play, because the number one thing I use my computer for is web browsing, and I’d expect a tablet to be the same way.
The Galaxy Tab has been selling very well already, no reason for the 10.1 not to continue that trend, and insufficient specs plus, no flash is a big hole for the Android tabs to drive a truck through.
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mm. Angry birds avail on Android already, Fruit Ninja avail on Android already, NY Times app is great on HTML5, Kindle, available on Android now, B&N reader app available on android now,, PDF better on Android.. Google apps (all) better on Android… oh wait the B&N Nook device IS Android.. Android browser somewhat more advanced than Ipad now… Sorry the app hype is just that… Can’t wait for open and reasonably priced Android tablets to hit the street in a giant Tsunami the current batch is overpriced however,, but the pipe-line is filling mightily… Lots of smart people are waiting for OPEN flexible devices…
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At $250, Nookcolor does quite a lot for me. Reading is great inside or out in the sun. Webbrowsing and typing work passably, and soon they’ll have Flash. I find it’s good enough, and I like to read with it in my lap. 250 seems to me a powerful number
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Root it and install Android 3.0/Honeycomb. Do a search for it, there are people already doing this as we speak…
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well, Daily just came out. I’m sure the smart developers are ramping up for Android releases, it would easily double their sales overnight. So as long as it took for apps to appear on the iPad, it will take less time for them to appear on Android as the apps only need to be ported. And Android tablets have the one thing the iPad will never have… Flash! There are minions of videos on the web which are still FLV based, I leave my iPad home and lug around my 17″ MBP because I’m studying Photoshop tutorials only available in Flash. NAPP, Kelby Training… so much content you can’t get to on the iPad. I can’t even order checks from my bank on the iPad.
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One reason I’m not getting into the Android tablet game…the uncertainty over updates. I’ve had it with my galaxy s, the long wait to froyo and now the uncertainty over gingerbread. I have no confidence that the tablets will be any better. At least Apple will support you for a couple of years.
Isn’t that ironic, Apple, the guys who wrote the book on obsoleting products actually support their products the longest?
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Very true – the real success of the iPad was that it could use all the mass of iPhone Apps and it had apps ready to go. Most likely why Microsofts tablet attempts failed. Its really become a peer system of selling your friends on cool apps to get them to invest in the hardware.
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Very true – the real success of the iPad was that it could use all the mass of iPhone Apps and it had apps ready to go. Most likely why Microsofts tablet attempts failed. Its really become a peer system of selling your friends on cool apps to get them to invest in the hardware.
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The Daily?? Don’t make me laugh. How many would buy a tablet for the Daily? It’s like people outside US gives too hoots about Oprah and the Daily. Overall, subscription to digital magazines is low. It’s a myth, people don’t read magazines on their tablets (and won’t until greedy publishers get their pricing right). It’s very easy to say iPad will continue to dominate, but I think you’ve forgot this is a nascent market, there’re plenty of space for more players. Why would I need an App for NYT? I just open my browser. And for your information, the Economist is developing app for honeycomb. and you can expect others to follow.
I think you need a second mantra, “manufacturers, manufacturers, manufacturers” (why else did MS takeover Nokia?). If the market is ready, the products there, the marketing money is there, it will sell. and developers will come.
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You don’t happen to be in the iPad app business?
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I still go for the iPad. Yeah, it is all about the apps. Where else in the world can I play Angry Birds and Infinity Blade!? lol
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wow I wonder if the the time tracking app from http://www.tsheets.com would still find itself usable there.
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Flipboard can’t be done in HTML5. Nice to know you haven’t seen the little touches that take advantage of Apple’s APIs.
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Since the process is trivial, I suggest you get to work and make the next Flipboard. If you have the ability, why waste it on comments; get to work!
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As much as I’m rooting for the TouchPad and the Android Honeycomb tablets I must admit that Apple has a huge head start in the development game. I really feel it’s all about apps. Whenever my coworkers show me a cool new app for their iPad I want to get one!
Any other tablet is nowhere near as mature as that and I think it will take a long time for everyone else to catch up. I feel eventually there might be three players in the tablet market but it will take several years for anybody to come close to Apple’s offerings.
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But the iPad has no phone, a phone on a tablet is a great feature, saves on two susbcriptions each month.
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It will be interesting to see how Nokia and Microsoft fair in the mobile space!
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The iPad is totally a league of its own. Apps to make it awesome. Everyone wants it personalized and other tablets can’t do that, why would you pick it? Btw, just for my information, how exactly will the 2nd version be different?
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Congrats, You just made me laugh. Not providing choice is remniscent of dictaterships 😉
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Choice only exists if the choice is real. So far there is no choice. I am not sure how you interpret the above comment, but you missed something. Bringing pseudo politics into an argument is immature and thoughtless. Where does dictatorship not exist? You obviously exercised your form of dictatorship with your above comment.
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Congrats, You just made me laugh. Not providing choice is remniscent of dictaterships 😉
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I thought it was funny too that he included The Daily as a major benefit for iPad. iPad’s market share will drop to less than 50% this year, but hopefully they stop with the $800 price tags, and actually try to compete directly with Apple at the $500 level.
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Everyone chose Windows back in 1995-onward, because Windows had “more software” (quality questionable). History repeats. Apple makes a more compelling solution all around & at a price people are willing to pay. Good on them.
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