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“Though Samsung, LG Electronics, Acer, Hewlett-Packard, Asus, Research In Motion, and Dell have announced or hinted at touchscreen tablets that will arrive between now and March 2011, they’re way late to the party,” Ogg reports. “Since the iPad’s debut in April, Apple has built a huge lead in this category–in terms of actual devices sold but also in many consumers’ minds.”
“The category is new–a large touch-screen device bigger than a smartphone and running a lightweight operating system wasn’t widely available to consumers prior to the iPad’s introduction–but Apple got out of the gate and hasn’t looked back,” Ogg reports. “The company is selling about 1 million iPads per month and has not noticeably slackened its pace since.”
Ogg reports, “Six months from now, just after the yearly Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the tablet landscape is going to look a lot different than today–expect to hear many iPad wannabes announced at the show. But for all of the new products introduced, there are a few key things that need to happen if they’re going to make a dent in Apple’s lead: find a tablet-oriented operating system, pull together great hardware and get app developers on their side.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock…
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Not just a mountain to climb but a Himalayan peak!
I’m still surprised that Apple underestimated demand so badly for the iPad. They could be selling 4-5 million iPads a month if they only predicted properly and ramped up production early enough.
I think that the so called “wannabes” don’t have to be afraid because there is a lot of ignorant people in the world. The market for crappy products is HUGE!!
My favorite line:
“find a tablet-oriented operating system”
good luck on that one.
The wannabes face a lot of obstacles:
Most want to still try to be a laptop. iPad is ground up designed as a tablet.
Others don’t have the mobile market experience Apple has now.
With the exception of Android, there really aren’t any other serious mobile operating systems contenders (geeks who want to run Linux on their toasters do not count as serious).
So it’s an uphill battle for whoever wants to compete…they are going to have to bring something new to the table.
Windoze 7 WAS MY IDEA!!!!!
What about Microsoft…weren’t they teaming up with HP? I know they dropped their first tablet abortion but does htis mean they are ‘out’ of the action.
Wonder if they aren’t going to be tapped for the tablet OS (mini Doze 7)?
@iJah420
Wrong!
I dreamt up Windoze 7…. the day after my lobotomy.
It’s actually around 2 million iPads per month, and growing.
I thought from business 101 that an ACTUAL product was needed, not just an announcement.
And based on the slew of products at Best Buy to compete with the iPad /sarcasm/ the Android solution for software hasn’t been figured out yet.
And I really think the media needs to keep reminding the public that Microsoft had touchscreen tablet devices(technically the software part) out 10 years ago, the main problem being, well, windows.
That anyone of these companies could build an iPad-like device, I have no doubt, but that’s not what’s at issue.
When Steve Jobs said his company was five-years ahead of the competition, he was referring of course, to the mobile interface and multi-touch.
Apple’s competitors’ greatest disadvantage is still the button and what it represents. Without the benefit of a virtual interface layer between the user and their data, they’re stuck with the button.
The button is their roadblock to granularity. The button is the lowest common denominator that determines the physical attributes for the rest of the device, much like the battery is for Apple.
Apple is leading because it found a substitute for the button and once they overcome the limitations of the battery their products will become smooth as silk.
I won’t be buying this over-sized iPad touch.
The next one, most likely.
The one after that, if there was some reason not to buy the second in line.
The point is, I fully expect to buy one. From Apple. Current supply restrictions do not matter to me.
Did anyone else see the red-clad iPad (the “victim’s”) on Rizzoli and Isles last night? The color threw me for maybe a second, then I flashed “cover”.
O.T.There will certainly be a lot of competition coming out in time for CES. Linux (Android?) models, for sure, Windows models … I don’t want to guess. It may well be possible (not probable) that one, or many, will prove to be superior, one way or another, to the gen-1 iPad, but can they compete with the software available for it? That’s going to be a deal-breaker for many. The name recognition value will also make life difficult for the new-comers. Then, of course, there will be the gen-2 iPad coming out after the introduction but before the 3rd-party software can ramp up.
This is a battle Apple can lose. If they screw up royally. They do not have a record of doing that – not this century.
CES will bring a deluge of touch-screen lead weights. It’s so weird that nobody can make a tablet as cool/useful/lightweight as the P.A.D.D. from ST:TNG. That’s what I want. I bet other geeks do too.
Yeah, all those android tabs are really going to make it to market after Oricle GUTS the os. Anyone that was thinking of developing a droidtab is currently back at square one with linnux.
@macbill
I don’t think it’s a case of anticipation. Alan Kay told Steve Jobs if you build a Touch with a ten-inch screen you’d rule the world, or something like that, and you don’t go into a project of that magnitude without some idea of the scope of what it means to “rule the world”.
Besides, no one knows better than Tim Cook what it requires for Production to be firing on all cyllinders. Given the existing facilities at their disposal, they began churning product out as fast and efficiently as possible.
I have no doubt that the facilities used to make iPods have begun devoting resources for a refit and retool, to absorb some of the workload, at least until Foxconn’s new 100-million dollar facility goes on line.
In the meantime, Apple isn’t losing sales to a competitor and won’t be threatened by them for another few years.
Even if their competitors announce that a slew of tablets are on the way it will do little to slow Apple down. Even then, these tablets will suffer from the same kinds of weaknesses found in today’s iPhone “killers”.
I went in to the Apple store last week to buy the iPad 3G and it suddenly occurred to me, there might no be any, like it is with the iPhone right now, but I wasn’t disappointed.
The iPads are available, it’s the iPhone that has me worried, especially after Apple unleashes the iPhone to the rest of the carriers.
Go Foxconn!
one million a month? no, they already sold more than one million a month in the first quarter before any meaningful international rollout. it is on back order in all the countries where it is available and it will be available in dozens of more countries soon. 2 million a month now, 3 million a month soon.
@MDN
Your iPad App is a dog. It’s buggy and slow and suffers from terminal wagon wheel.
In landscape mode, the headlines column fails to refresh properly and article side is blank, except for the wagon wheel. It remains that way for minutes, or until I just hit the Home button.
The Touch version is terrific but I don’t relly want to use it. So instead I fire up iPad’s Safari to access MDN.
“…….(mini Doze 7)” a nap
Windows 7 the Big Sleep
Apple has more than a THREE year lead. The iPhone was released in 2007 and the iPad is it’s direct descendant.
Add in the entire iOS device ecosystem… Apple Store, App Store and the huge third-party accessory market and disadvantage doesn’t even BEGIN to describe the hurdles so-called competitors face.
Mountain to climb? It’s more like an assault on K2 (2nd highest mtn, far more difficult climb than Everest) with base camp at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
Right now, according to my own manual count (at http://www.letstalk.com), Android OS is available on (at least) 19 different, unique models, ranging from HTC, Samsung, Motorola, as well as some T-Mobile branded devices (made in China, probably by HTC). All these phones combined seem to be selling no more than a single iPhone model of today. Let’s not even mention that the ‘Android’ definition is a fairly broad and loose one, considering the vast differences in the OS versions among those 19 devices. And this doesn’t even count WinMob devices, RIM devices, the two PalmOS devices, and all the Symbian smartphones out there.
After January CES, there may well be 19 different models of tablets. I have a hard time picturing those 19 selling as many, together, as Apple sells iPads. Anytime soon.
A whole lotta ifs and maybes about iPad competitors who don’t have an original innovative thought just ” me too!” and the mentality of “more is more.” As others have pointed out Apple has a system that works well for 95% of users, extreme control geeks notwithstanding. Frankly I have no inclination to take my iPad apart, wade through thousands of cheap crappy Androidish apps, nor put porn apps on it. I have my desktop machine for that!
“…there is a lot of ignorant people in the world”
you is a shining example of your statement…
I agree with G4Dualie, MDN needs to fix their iPad app, it’s WAAYYY too buggy and frustrating. I like the app when it works but find I have to launch the Safari browser and then come back to launch the MDN app. Plus that box at top and to the left of the MDN logo in landscape mode doesn’t do anything. I see a letter or two going offscreen (an N and an e?) but no clear idea of what this is supposed to be. I suppose it’s an article link option of some kind.
“assault on the tablet market,”
Assault? That word brings to mind D-Day, Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great.
The iPad wannabes are more like sheep meandering around without a clue…
Pssshhh… whatever. The iPad still doesn’t play my Erica Ogg Vorbis files.