MacDailyNews Take: If you want to buy a consumer-friendly tablet computer today, why the hell wouldn’t you want to purchase Apple’s iPad? What, did you hit your head or something?
Sutter continues, “The iPad currently has no real competitors, and the touch-screen computer is so far ahead of the market that it has some gadget makers running back to the drawing boards, according to technology industry analysts. ‘In essence, what Apple has done is created a wake-up call to the rest of the industry — that they need to look at what they’re offering,’ said David Daoud, research director for the firm IDC. ‘They raised the bar significantly.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple. The alarm clock of the clueless.
Sutter continues, “Tech analysts still expect as many as two dozen different tablet computers to go on sale before the end of the year. But they say it’s questionable whether any of the devices will be able to replicate the iPad experience, which includes not only hardware but also a phone-like operating system, a touch-screen interface and a robust app store.”
MacDailyNews Take: “A phone-like operating system.” Yet another paradigm defined for the world by Apple. (Yes, despite its now-outmoded name, Apple’s iPhone OS (OS X) is much more than a “phone-like” OS. It really does need a new name, Apple.)
Sutter continues, “Meanwhile, it appears that some of the most-talked-about iPad competitors may be getting retooled to better compete with Apple’s high-profile gadget. The HP Slate and the Microsoft Courier — two prototypes of iPad-like devices — were both expected to go on sale later this year.”
MacDailyNews Take: Exactly who expected that and do they have any cash? We ask because we’ve just taken ownership of a very nice bridge in Brooklyn and…
Sutter continues, “Apple’s success is ‘causing a lot of tablet entrants to rethink what they’re bringing to market and how it’s being used by consumers,’ said Van Baker, an analyst at Gartner Inc.”
MacDailyNews Take: What else is new? Steve Jobs defined the personal computer (three times so far, maybe four: Apple II, Mac, Mac OS X, and perhaps iPad) — the portable media player and online media store (iPod and iTunes), the so-called “smartphone” (iPhone), the Multi-Touch™ user interface (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad), and the tablet (iPad).
Sutter continues, “Baker’s company predicted that, of the 10.5 million tablet computers he expects to be sold this year, the majority will be from Apple. On Monday, Apple announced it had sold 1 million iPads in the 28 days since the gadget went on sale.”
MacDailyNews Take: Another analyst who’s forgotten to factor in Christmas and Apple’s imminent international iPad rollout.
Sutter continues, “Other tablet makers will have to get in the game soon to have any chance of competing with the Cupertino, California, company, which also makes the popular iPhone and iPod, said Ashok Kumar, senior technology analyst at the investment group Rodman & Renshaw. ‘You need to have a product on the shelf by fall to make the holiday deadline,’ he said. ‘If you miss that window of opportunity, you essentially give Apple an insurmountable lead.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Surely Eric T. Mole can have his boys, along with HTC or some other collection of too many cooks, shit something out by Christmas for the morbidly befuddled market, right? Barring patent infringement injunctions, of course.
Sutter continues, “Leslie Fiering, a researcher at Gartner, said as many as two dozen consumer-friendly tablet computers — also sometimes called slate computers — will debut by the end of the year. It’s unclear who the main competitors will be, she said, but it may take more than a year for other companies to create a product “ecosystem” that is as useful as Apple’s.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, it’ll probably take more than a “year.” (Hoots of laughter ring throughout the cavernous hall of the palatial MacDailyNews HQ.)
Sutter continues, “Daoud, from IDC, said he doesn’t expect any iPad alternatives this year, in part because the iPad has been so successful. He expects Apple to come out with a new version of the iPad before another tech company takes its first swipe at the idea.”
MacDailyNews Take: Sing it, Roy!
Sutter continues, “It’s unclear exactly what the leading rivals to the iPad will look like, and who will make them, the analysts said. But one thing is clear: They will have some catching up to do.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “silverwarloc” for the heads up.]
@HMCIV
Darn, Pierre beat me to the punch. Let’s see, the Dell Tablet CX200LS201-AV, the Dell Tablet CX120SS104-HD, the…you get the picture. A dozen variations on an inherently flawed design.
No one wants to have their a$$ handed to them. W7’s touch UI must really be lacking. Why else would HP do all that R&D;just to turn around and drop $1.2 billion into Palm and cancel the Slate.
@ Dirty Pierre le Punk
I suspect that Dell will come out with two dozen wanna-be iPads and 25 of them will be crap.
Not that I don’t like Dell – their computer make good boat anchors.
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As for the rest, no hope. Not all of them combined have the lucid creative genius that Apple has. Period!
@ HMCIV
Two dozen?
Computers, not manufacturers. And considering the manufacturers in countries that we don’t really hear about, 24 may be low.
Does the iPad have competition? Now?
Absolutely. It’s called Ignorance And there is a lot of it.
The others can’t match the Mac (iMac, MacBook, etc) the iPod, iPhone and now iPad. Love it!
They are still working on the iPhone and now they have to focus on the iPad.
I’m sure this is why HP bought Palm. The “it’s just a big iPod touch” turns out to be the biggest problem for competitors. If Apple did what they were “supposed” to do, and make a MacBook with only a screen then they were prepared for that, and have been trying at that for years, and could at least pretend to do a me too product but add bigger hard drive, camera, higher res screen… Because they all still live in a world where consumers use specs to understand value. But this?! More iPhone OS?! Make the bad man stop!!
It’s been a big masterful halo effect pathway….. Give the PC users an iPod, now iPhone, then iPad, and eventually that leap to using a Mac computer isn’t such a leap after all.
It’s the app store/multi-touch os/ hardware integration that they can’t compete with….. And those that learned from their iPod killer making experience will now scrap their tablets, buy a multi touch OS and try to copy Apple from that end, and then put a bigger screen or some other BS to try and get in on some of that.
@TT,
please… back away from the crack-pipe.
Eric here said something that made massive amount of sense:
…”they all still live in a world where consumers use specs to understand value.
In other words, it was easy for HP, Dell, etc. to sell more laptops than Apple, because all they needed to do was to say “MHz for MHZ, GB for GB, dollar for dollar, we are better value”. Consumers don’t know the value of OS X, so they bought cheaper computers with more RAM and HD space.
How do you compare your device with the iPad??? There aren’t MHz numbers on the iPad! We can’t find out what is the size of RAM! All we know is the available storage (32GB, 64GB). So, for consumers, the ONLY way to compare, besides the storage, and possibly screen size, is how it actually works!
Rather than writing an entire article to answer the question from the title, the author could have simply said: “No.”
“Baker’s company predicted that, of the 10.5 million tablet computers he expects to be sold this year, …”
sounds reasonable:
Apple sells 14 million, the rest of the industry buys 3.5 million, so altogether the industry sells 10.5 million.
Crack pipe?
You mean my blow torch and beacon-bulb?
I ain’t no amature…..
@HMCIV, “Tech analysts still expect as many as two dozen different tablet computers to go on sale before the end of the year.”
Radio shack.
Vons.
Tandy.
It’s Amechure, not amature. You stupit ideot!
The game already is OVER. Innovation of this magnitude combined with strict patent protection steamrolls the “competition”.
Apple is using a strategy which prevents “competitors” from introducing a “competing” product, which no one can, after Apple has introduced its product. There are no competitors to Apple.
ABSOLUTELY brilliant strategy, and even more brilliant products by Apple.
Students will be studying Apple’s business strategies 5 years from now.
“It’s Amechure, not amature. You stupit ideot!”
actually, I meant to write “immature”
so, as my ex used to say, the joke is on me.
-wait….
There was only once chance for everyone else – and that depended on the iPad being a flop. Now that it is clear that the iPad is a huge success, everyone else is effectively dealt out of the game.
iPod – everyone else is out of the game
iPhone – everyone else is out of the game
iPad – everyone else is out of the game
What’s next Mr Jobs?
What the competition should do instead of launching into the usual “copy Apple and fail” mode is try to innovate and come up with something different and compelling in its own right. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?
The opening statement implies it is reasonable and acceptable to hate Apple and not buy their products. I’m not sure what the underlying assumption is. Are Apple products are so superior, and their leadership so competent they make some people feel small? Or that Apple products, in being so stylish, beautiful, functional, enjoyable, and popular make them elitist? Wouldn’t you want elite? Does mediocrity feel more comfortable? Do some people feel microsoft, dell, et al, are “us,” and Apple is “them?” I don’t get it, never have.
“What’s next Mr Jobs?”
“Return of Beneath the Planet of the AppleTV IV”
Coming to a widescreen near me…..
The game is never really over, that, ironically is the fact that apple gets. No company has a patent on innovation and every company can be overcome by someone. The only company that could have done this easily was Google but they rushed to market and took shortcuts and basically set fire to the good name that they had. Someone will overtake apple but it won’t be the person who rushes out a spec sheet device but the person who sits down and thinks about what could work (although it is unlikely to happen this decade)
Imagine that you want to develop an application for a tablet computer.
What else are you going to develop for? Android? You have no idea what size the screen will be, or whether there’s a market for you out there.
Judging by the miserable experience that is running most iPhone apps on the iPad, an Android tablet isn’t going to be much fun without tablet-specific apps.
And, I’m guessing, there aren’t many, and won’t be for a while.
Hey, 4654864631312
I’ve got your number….
@John
“Students will be studying Apple’s business strategies 5 years from now.”
the matter of fact is that Apple is bringing to the table the old communist way of planning 10-20 years ahead. This is a wake up call to all the boys in charge and not a pleasant one..
It’s funny watching all these other manufacturers hurriedly skating to where the puck was….
And Apple still has this billion dollar server farm they’ve yet rolled out and they still have the next gen iPhone they’ve yet rolled out and they’re just starting to beef up the eco system they already have to fully embrace all their “toys” so that the USER can gain maximum benefit from them.
Meanwhile Apple’s competitors, having brilliantly, again, skated to where the puck was are standing there asking themselves “How do we imitate Apple so we can increase our profits and take the maximum amount of money from people?”.
Apple, always on the move, is already moving towards the next contact point with the puck; preparing itself to take another goal shot… and the crowds of consumers are waiting, watching… cash in hand… ready to GIVE Apple record amounts of money in appreciation of Apple’s efforts to give THEM the best time they’ve ever had. A splendid time is guaranteed for all!
One other factor that has to be a huge consideration for any tablet manufacturer:
Apple will sue you if you violate their iPhone OS IP. Just ask HTC.
That factor alone will delay any competitor by 6 months at least beyond a normal “hurry up and copy Apple” product development cycle. Add in that Windows 7 will run like a 30 year old dog on any tablet processor and give you about an hour of battery life, and you have huge problems.
@doc e
A splendid time is guaranteed for all!
The sensation of something new, wonderful, and different produces an unusual little thrill through the nervous system, an experience of delight.
In contrast to a bland landscape of limited possibilities that deadens the soul, and cries out for imagination and leadership