AllThingsD’s John Paczkowski reports on a new Bernstein Research survey that states:
We find that consumers are not interested in form factors that deviate from the benchmark set by Apple. Few consumers, less than 15 percent prefer the 7″ screen size versus the 10″ screen of the iPad. Over 50 percent of respondents are firmly in favor of the 10″ screen, which leads us to conclude that the 7″ tablet models recently launched, like the Blackberry Playbook, are destined for failure. Consumer’s preference for the 10″ form factor explains the lukewarm response to Samsung’s 7″ Galaxy tablet and the rapid introduction of larger screen models in that series.
MacDailyNews Take: One naturally thinks that a 7-inch screen would offer 70% of the benefits of a 10-inch screen. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. The screen measurements are diagonal, so that a 7-inch screen is only 45% as large as iPad’s 10-inch screen. You heard me right: Just 45% as large.
If you take an iPad an hold it upright in portrait view and draw an imaginary horizontal line halfway down the screen, the screens on these 7-inch tablets are a bit smaller than the bottom half of the ipad’s display. This size isn’t sufficient to create great tablet apps in our opinion. While one could increase the resolution of the display to make up for some of the difference, it is meaningless unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of their present size.
Apple has done extensive user testing on tough interfaces over many years and we really understand this stuff. There are clear limits of how close you can physically place elements on a touchscreen before users cannot reliably tap, flick, or pinch them. This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps… The 7-inch tablets are tweeners. Too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with an iPad.
These are among the reasons we think the current crop of 7-inch tablets are going to be DOA. Dead On Arrival. Their manufacturers will learn the painful lesson that their tablets are too small and increase the size next year, thereby abandoning both customers and developers who jumped on the 7-inch bandwagon with an orphaned product.
Sounds like lots of fun ahead. – Steve Jobs, October 18, 2010
Paczkowski reports, “Said Bernstein, ‘Fifty percent of respondents preferred Apple over all other brands. There is a remarkable degree of unanimity in consumer’s preferences for the iPad over competing products. … In the US, we find that Apple has more than double the brand appeal of Blackberry, HTC, Motorola, Nokia and Samsung combined… No surprise then that Bernstein sees the tablet market playing out in two ways, each with Apple in the catbird seat.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s iPad is consigning Google’s Android to Smartphoneland, a fragmented chain of ten thousand islands with no or dirtier water than the iOS users enjoy back on the mainland.
Apple’s iOS is a platform, not just a smartphone OS.
Related articles:
Multiple Android tablet peddlers give up, focus on 4- to 5 -inch smartphones – June 17, 2011
JPMorgan Chase: iPad knockoffs fail to gain traction – June 3, 2011
Admitting iPad is perfectly sized, Acer delays 7-inch Android tablet – May 25, 2011
People don’t want prototypes, they want iPads – April 27, 2011
Gartner: iPad wannabes will not threaten Apple’s tablet market dominance – March 21, 2011
I have seen one other tablet in the wild, a Motorola Xoom at a Giants game. Everything else, iPads.
I saw an ad for the Playbook, and whilst it looked rubbish, one shot showed the buy playing a game, and the size seemed good for holding. Admittedly I’ve only got an iPad 1 so weight is still a factor, and the split keyboard is coming so I think even the small advantage of a smaller form factor is going to disappear and wouldn’t be worth the complications of adding in another form factor to tailor apps for.
Uhm, all those ads are faked. Read the fine print. Look close at where the person touches the screen, it’s never in the right spot.
I was at Radio Shack (for cables) and saw their Blackberry PlayBook display…no functioning unit, just a CARDBOARD CUTOUT!!!
It actually made me sad and tired just looking at that.
50% seems reasonable and sustainable. Some people are always going to go contrarian to Apple, and others are always going to go for the heavily discounted or discontinued items or impulse buys.
The more vendors that join the Android party, the more the remaining 50% will be fragmented and more that they will all lose.
There is certainly room enough for more than one mobile OS platform. At this point, however, there is no *reason* for more than one because the competitors are not yet truly worthy. Time will tell. Right now, life is good!
Kingmel wrote: “…life is good!”
That’s what Lotsa Garbage (LG) is trying to make us believe.
I tried playbook at office depo, and i couldnt figure out how to navigate that damn thing.
Jobs was pretty much telling the entire market how to make a decent tablet. Woe to those who dismissed his comments and rushed to market a POS. . .
What he knew was that anybody trying to compete with iPad on price point would have to go with a smaller screen. It’s a classic mind-f*%k — very Jobsian.
Feel this way….
There are a lot of motorcycles. But only one Harley Davidson!
Perhaps not the best example. In 2010 HD sold 70,000 bikes, while Japanese models over 500cc sold nearly 700,000. Hopefully Apple will have better market share than that.
I’d have liked to see one question asked by the survey: did you buy a non-Apple tablet for its features or simply not a fan of anything made by Apple?.
I played with a Xoom for about an hour.
I have to say it was a good tablet, far beat me expectations of a moto device.
I think it would be a great seller if the iPad didn’t exist. lol. It was good, but compared to the iPad not great.
I played with one for about ten minutes …. Performance was so bad I almost “threw” it down, piece of junk ….
@ Dude: I daresay that, contrary to your last paragraph, the Exhume wouldn’t even exist if the iPad didn’t exist.
What’s the matter MDN? Can’t handle the truth? We know who owns you.