“The market for Android tablets is exploding,” Nathan Olivarez-Giles reports for The Verge.
“From the end of 2012 to the end of this June, Android tablet activations jumped from 10 million to 70 million. Nearly one in every two tablets sold nowadays runs Android, Google says,” Olivarez-Giles reports. “And of all the Android tablets sold over the last year, more than 10 percent were Google’s Nexus 7, elevating the small slate to blockbuster status for the Nexus line. But as big as the growth spurt is, Android tablets still lag behind Apple’s iPads — not only is there an undeniable lack of compelling tablet apps, Google executives say hardware needs to step up, too.”
Olivarez-Giles reports, “In what’s becoming an annual tradition, Google is insisting that the app situation on Android tablets is improving. And while Android currently offers many great tablet apps — Google+, Pocket, and Flipboard are solid examples — it still can’t come close to matching the number of iPad-tailored apps found on iOS. Popular tools like Twitter, Rdio, Spotify, Dropbox, and Yelp get tablet-specific experiences on the iPad, but their Android counterparts are little more than blown-up phone apps. Hugo Barra, Google’s vice president of Android product management, believes the disparity is shrinking. ‘The absolute position that we’re in is one where well over 60 percent of the apps that you’d expect in a given category are already available with a decent tablet UI,’ Barra tells The Verge. While 60 percent is better than nothing, it’s far from 100 percent.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hugo, define “decent.” Betcha it doesn’t come close to Apple’s definition.
Just like Microsoft always says… just wait for the next iteration of (insert product here) it’ll be great – much better than the current one!
What he meant by change is coming is that as soon as Apple has the new iPad features list out, they’ll copy them…
Google and their bitch Samsung really annoys the heck out of me. Both talk as of they both created and innovated this market. Specially the iPhone era. They look stupid from people who knows the true innovator in the category. It’s only the clueless minions that worship these ripoff artist with their asses in the air to take as much of their fist without lube! lol
I agree, but why do so many posts sound like they’re directly quoted from comics? Dr. Doom, perhaps? I mean… “Minions?”….
Next time should I say “Kneel Before Zod”? 😉
Fingers crossed for a great next 12 months from Apple…
In movie theaters I see more and more android device users. I see the rubber banding action constantly. Ripoff!
It is funny, on the fast train in Japan they only used iPhones.
Copiers have an advantage to refine the products better than the original. The users got more choices because of intense competition.
Oh please. Show me any tablet that’s better than the iPad.
Clue: there aren’t any.
=:~)
Ok here on the gadget show they rated the new Sony pretty close and in the street it was split about 60/40 to the iPad but people loved the Sony’s lightness. So lets not be too compacent or it will be another iPhone situation.
No it won’t. Android is only popular in the phone space because carriers pimp it via SPIFF hungry sales drones, not because of consumer preferences. The same thing can’t happen in the tablet space because there won’t be a large number of people willing to sign 2 year contracts.
There is a second reason, I just helped my brother in law pick out a phone for his teenage daughter. Ended up with an LG from Walmart because:
It was $199 with no contract
$30/month got her unlimited text and data (Tmobile)
It had “wifi calling” (calls made while in wifi are routed via wifi and are not charged against your minutes)
If / when Apple wants to address this market I have no doubt they can / will dominate (his daughter wanted an iPhone but was “ok” with the LG, interestingly she didn’t want a samsung “because derps carry samsungs” (“derps”?? don’t know, didn’t ask))
Urbandictionary defines “derp” as a retarded person or statement. And “derps” is apparently an Australian slang for underpants.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=derp
Thanks for the link, but none of the definitions there seem to say anything even close to that.
Asked the niece,
A “derp” is someone who looks or acts “dorky” or “geeky”, social ineptitude, lack of coolness and or presence.
If you’re talking about The Gadget Show in the UK, they have long displayed an anti-Apple agenda and have done many hit pieces against Apple or their products. They frequently point to alternative devices which they claim are as good or better than particular Apple devices. Oddly enough, those alternative devices always seem to fade from view pretty rapidly.
I work in TV and often do Vox Pops interviews in the street. You can tell any story you want by asking leading questions and selecting the answers that you want. Vox Pops are essentially meaningless. I worked on one story where they were trying to show how bad a restaurant chain was. Rather inconveniently for the agenda, the views from the public were mostly positive and so were almost entirely left out of the edited programme, but the three people who were critical were featured prominently, while the positive comments that were included from other people were selected to come from people who you wouldn’t like. In effect they implied that only stupid people liked that place.
I would add that when I said I worked on a story where they were trying to make a restaurant look bad, I didn’t mean The Gadget Show team, but the producers of the restaurant programme I was working on. Being selective with quotes from Vox Pops is a fundamental tool used by people with an agenda and is very widely used to distort the truth.
Interesting topic, I have a serious question: how do you reconcile the deception you participate in? Does it cause you any moral qualms at all, or do you chalk it up to: ” it’s my job”. Not trying to be a smart as, it is a serious question..do you define the agenda or are the assignments given to you with a clear understanding of the desired outcomes?
@ Truth
My job is on site at the point of the recording. Editing is done afterwards by other people. I have no input over the editing process and the only knowledge I have of what the finished programme is like is if I manage to see it once it’s aired.
The director ( and producer ) are the ones who shape the programme. Mostly they are reasonable people, but you sometimes encounter ones who have their own views and wish to shape a story to reinforce their views. Working to an existing agenda is common in the written press too. You can often predict how a given newspaper will report certain stories and that others will tell that same story quite differently.
As we always work freelance, it’s normal to work with people you’ve never worked with before and you don’t necessarily become aware of any agenda until afterwards.
Copiers = intense ‘competition’.
No. This is a seriously deranged perception.
Competitors CREATE competing technology. They don’t RIP OFF the creative companies. Ripoff companies are called “PARASITES”, not ‘competitors’.
Therefore, have fun with your parasite Android gear. Keep in mind that it would not EXIST without Apple, the neck upon which the parasites SUCK.
Thus: Google and Samsung SUCK. They don’t compete.
Reminds me a bit of the “This will be the year of Linux on the desktop” babble.
Didn’t happen.
Not yet, but just you wait ’till next year!
What do you guys have against Linux? Linux never tried to directly compete against Apple, we simply wanted an alternative to corporate operating systems. In fact, some of us are anti-Microsoft, so we are pretty much on the same team. If anyone should get hate, it should be Google and Microsoft, not the many developers of Linux.
What a strange world we are in!
If I don’t agree with someone, I am a hater?
If I frankly don’t are about Linux one way or the other, I am a hater?
Nothing against you, but that word is the most over-used buzz word in the world these days.
“don’t are about Linux” should read don’t care
This blog needs an edit button
I have nothing against Linux. As a matter of fact, I have used it for some of my projects including my XBMC media center. It has been nice watching it progress over the years.
However, be cautious of the Canonical corporation. They seem to be dictating the direction Ubuntu goes nowadays.
Lastly, yes, I have a deep seeded hate for Google. I used to hate Microsoft equally as much but, now, they seem like a wounded dog and I find myself pitying them sometimes.
Nothing at all against Linux, but I do get irritated with people who blather on about “open” vs “closed” referring to Apple and then point out how android is “open” when this is a lie, and Apple is “closed”. Android is only “open” in the sense it is trivial to write malware for it and it has over 95% of all mobile malware, while it is very locked down on actual handsets sold to consumers and very hard to upgrade for the vast majority of Android phones.
A funny thing happened over the course of this century in personal computing.
Initially, applications (“programs”) were all-important. The Windows PC platform had most of the apps, and the Mac had difficulty competing.
Then, the web took over. People were doing things on web sites more and more, and applications became less important, except for one, the web browser. As long as the platform had a good web browser, the advantage of having more apps mattered less and less. Apple released Safari, and the Mac platform prospered.
During Year Two of iPhone, Apple turned the tables and made apps relevant again, on mobile devices. On devices with small screens, a specialize “native” app provides a far better user experience compared to a web site in a generalized browser, even if that web site is designed for mobile devices. Apple now had the “app advantage,” at least for small mobile devices.
Then, Apple released iPad, and extended its advantage in apps to a larger screen. All the iPhone apps would run on iPad, but developers quickly upgraded their apps to take advantage of the larger screen. Tablets are the “personal computers” of the future.
This time, Apple has the “app advantage,” and the “other platform” is the one crying that it doesn’t matter so much because
“The absolute position that we’re in is one where well over 60 percent of the apps that you’d expect in a given category are already available…”
“The absolute position that we’re in is one where well over 60 percent of the apps that you’d expect in a given category are already available…”
I.e., there’s a 1 in 3 likelihood the app you want isn’t there.
There’s also an exponentially increasing chance that those Android apps are MALWARE. Android malware increased by 614% over the last year.
See my post below for gory details.
Where are all these android tablets? I don’t think I’ve dpseen one yet except for those ereaders. I wonder how far they lowered the bar to call something a tablet?
Well, in the malware app category, Android has an insurmountable lead!
😆
Hugo is paid by the word.
That should be paid by the turd!
=:~)
Fuck Android! Fuck Android shitateous tablets! Fucking pieces of worthless shit.
And fuck Barra, that lying sack of shit. Fuck him in the ass good.
Hey dude … Fuck you!
Ok , how much profit different ? Say your market share is x times more than Apple , if your profit is not x times more than Apple , this is a failure.
Apple should just point out that Android has a vast % of the marketshare of purchased but unused tablets that sit gathering dust on shelves.
It’s funny for selling so many tablets, I never see anyone using one all I ever see are iPads. The usage statistics seem to support this, people who buy android powered devices don’t use them. Every time they publish mobile web usage statistics iOS has 80-90 percent marketshare.
Same here,
Where are the 70 million? I haven’t seen a single one in the wild. All I see are iPads. So this guy must be high on crack.
Apple is really focus company building an ecosystems products vs Google all over thousand places.
These all must be $100 tablets sold in developing nations. What was iPads web usage share, 84%?
In what’s becoming an annual tradition, Google is insisting that the app situation on Android tablets is improving
Really. A better way to put it is that the proliferation of malware Trojan horse apps for Android is ‘improving’, at an alarming, exponentially increasing rate.
From June 26, 2013:
Malware infestation running amok on Android
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/06/26/android-malware-choice/
The growth of malware apps targeting users of Google’s mobile operating system rose an unbelievable 614 percent in just the last year…. More than 500 third-party Android stores host the malware…. Android is responsible for 92% of all known mobile malware. An increase from 47% in 2012…. 77% of Android threats could be largely eliminated today if all Android devices had the latest OS. Currently only 4% do….
As I’ve previously stated Android malware is all hyped up
http://www.esecurityplanet.com/mobile-security/android-malware-separating-reality-from-hype.html
Most malware actually comes from side-loading apps(i.e installing apps from unknown sources). Sticking to the playstore reduces the risk tremendously.
The numbers you show are from people who specifically go into the wild in search of malware threats. As I’ve always said, there can be a million malware threats but if they can’t get to the user then they aren’t effective.
Android Malware problems shouldn’t be taken lightly but it also shouldn’t be exaggerated.
I call BS on this one. Its true that most Android users do not currently have malware, but most Android users also DO NOT INSTALL APPS. The attachment rate for iPhones is well above 15 apps per device. I have seen reports putting the number closer to 100.
The malware problem on iPhones is non-existant and the malware problem on Android is rapidly and exponentially getting worse. It will not be long before every single phone will have to come with virus checkers and need to updated frequently, and Android will resemble Windows XP. Or likely far worse.
This means in practical terms it will not be safe to use banking, or any secure transactions on an Android phone. And given that these phones can track your calls, communications and location, the implications are even far more scary.
But by all means keep telling yourself there’s no problem. Go ahead.
As I’ve proven via multiple articles linked here at MDN: Android malware has not been hyped up. It has been proven to be in all the 500+ Android app stores, including Googles. It has been proven to have increased by over 600% in the last year. It has been proven to be over 90% of all mobile platform malware.
This is getting REALLY old ‘green’. Give in to the data. It’s a lot more useful than vague personal statements. No exaggeration required.
The smartphone market should be an eye-opener in underestimating Android. This are warning signs that the tablet market could undergo an Android take-over. There was a time when most Android users kept their iPads but the situation is changing as the Android tablet market matures.
The 1st Android tablets were just blown up Android smartphones but nowadays the tablet has differentiated itself with attractive functionality that takes advantage of the bigger canvas.
iPads have the advantage in apps but this will not be enough as the smartphone market showed us.
If Apple still want to enjoy their advantage in the tablet market they should sit down and re-think the iPad, a retina screen and an attractive design are not enough. They shoud look at new functionalities and capabilities, make the iPad more maximum and be more aggressive about it. If they don’t Android will and the smartphone scenario will repeat itself.
You are at the wrong site. Try http://www.gaggle.gov.
When we speak of ‘tablets’, we say ‘iPad’. Why? The answer is quite simple really, there is nothing else!
Not exactly because there is nothing else but because it was the first.
iPad is still the dominant tablet (no doubt about that) and will remain the dominant tablet for some time but it’s certainly no longer the only one (Also in the high end market).
Just to give you an example:
For many years, the “fridge” was called “Frigidaire” in French. Why that? Because Frigidaire was the first brand who produced fridges in France and was the market leader for quiet a long time.
Even in 2013 (50 years later) I sometimes hear people say “Frigidaire” instead of fridge.
No. Fridge comes from reFRIGErator.
Hawk is correct, however I still call it an “icebox.”
Oh my…
I was talking about the usage of the word FRIGIDAIRE (which is a BRAND) instead of fridge or refrigerator in FRENCH language… It was an anecdotical example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frigidaire
If you want to correct me on such trivial things try at least to be right.
“Because Frigidaire was the first brand who produced fridges in France..”
uh, dipshit, Frigidaire is an American company and was founded as the Guardian Frigerator Company in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and developed the first self-contained refrigerator (invented by Nathaniel B. Wales and Alfred Mellowes) in 1916. You cite it as a French derivation which is incorrect. Just as Hawk pointed out to you it’s brand name was derived “refrigerator.” Don’t piss down my leg and tell me it’s raining.
also, fuck you.
The “market” for Android tablets is exploding because everyone is buying iPads!