“As competing manufacturers trip over themselves to out-spec each other, I have to wonder if they’re missing the point. In fact, it feels a little like deja-vu after spending the past four years watching companies wage a failed battle of specs against the iPod,” Donald Bell writes for CNET.
“If Apple really wanted to screw with the competition (and tech analysts), it should just slap a ‘No. 2’ sticker on all the iPad boxes out there and see what happens,” Bell writes. “I suspect the iPad in its current configuration would still outsell all other tablets this year.”
Bell writes, “there are some things Apple does better than anyone else, and a true competitor to the iPad can only do so much with a dazzling spec sheet before confronting the following Apple strongholds head-on.”
• Apps
• Music, podcast, and lecture downloads
• Movie and TV downloads
• Desktop sync software
• Accessory support
• Games
• Device ecosystem
• Battery life
Bell writes, “More than any justification I’ve given so far, the best advantage Apple has is that it got to consumers first, shaped their expectations, and essentially set the terms for how other manufacturers would compete for years to come.
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Yes, I agree. The current iPad offers more value to consumers than all the other tablets combined, even if they do have faster processors, or more RAM. They don’t have the ecosystem, which is where most of the value comes from.
Having said that, my iPhone 4 is faster than my iPad. I’m looking forward to an iPad with more RAM or whatever it is that makes the iPhone faster.
And that is why you’re a writer for CNET and not working at Apple…
^like
My iPod is way more useful than any iPad look-e-likey. They haven’t even caught up to that one yet.
He’s missing the point that the company who designed both the software and the hardware it runs on down to the A4 chip level, can still beat the latest and greatest unreleased dual core tablets in terms of speed and interface fluidity and graphic quality. No company is going to come near the iPad in terms of processor, screen, & battery efficiency for years – that is why there is so much vaporware.
Didn’t Yogi Berra say that?
“Deja vu all over again.”
Didn’t Yogi Berra say that?
“Deja vu all over again.”
“Deja vu all over again.”
Didn’t Yogi Berra say that?
Didn’t Yogi Berra say that?
“Deja vu all over again.”
Didn’t Yogi Berra say that?
“Deja vu all over again.”
@Stan Winstone
Huh????
Huh yourself. To suggest Apple slap a #2 sticker on the iPad box, stop its forward momentum and ongoing development and sit still because things are so great right this second is just dumb. The only way to maintain their advantage is moving forward at full speed.
Of course the author might have just been speaking figuratively…
The author was not suggesting that Apple actually re-release iPad 1 as iPad 2, but rather said that iPad 1 would still prevails against would-be competitors, even the virtual ones everyone has been comparing to it. The point is that the iPad 2, with it’s new features and enhancements will blow away all the Johnny-come-latelys
The only competitor to the iPad is iPad 2.
Exactly.
The iPad is great, and the competition is woefully incompetent. But the iPad still needs an I/O port and a front-facing camera.
Yes, when I was loading several hundred more photos on to my iPad this morning, I was thinking “Gosh, I wish this thing had some sort of I/O port.”
The problem with adding ports is which ports to add. USB? Why? Firewire? Too big, and pretty much dead. SD? Well it looks like we’ll get one of those, and somebody might transfer their photos directly to the iPad, but that won’t do me much good until it gets a RAW converter.
I’m with you on the camera (2 of them, actually) but I’m fine with a dock connector and nothing else to mess up the compact design.
RAW IS WAR!!!
So, what exactly do you consider the Dock Connector Port…
a Rectum?
The genius, beauty and simplicity of the Dock Connector is it’s incredible flexibility. Syncing, charging, audio/video in/out, card reader, USB. And with adaptors… VGA, HDMI, line-out audio, analogue audio/video.
Do you miss iRDa, Parallel and Serial ports?
One person’s entrance is another’s exit.
All I/Os are readily available on the dock connector. Adaptors are easy.
It is evident that the only way so called dinasour competitors can fight Apple is to throw as much FUD or negative news at it and draw any negative attention, whether true or not, to it publicly, in order to desperately try and slow down it’s retail momentum and consumer fanfare. Do they really think that they can catch up in the mean time? Come on..! By the time they catch up to what they think it is that wil make the difference, Apple will bury in a blazing trail of new numbers and breakthroughs that will forever have them chasing their tails.
Time to get some fresh blood and talent bozos, how about creative brain power, instead of greed and power?
More specs than sex, baby!™
http://taketotask.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/introducing-the-vaporpad%C2%AE/
The writer of this article must have water in his brains. iPad 2 is very necessary for Apple to stay ahead of the chasing pack. iPad 1 is feeling its age due to insufficient memory – multitasking is a pain. Not to mention an increase in pixel density is needed to make images pop like the iPhone 4.
Standing still in the tech world is tantamount to surrendering your lead.
He missed a bullet point – Price
Exactly.
Remember last year before the iPad was announced everyone…
and I mean EVERYONE…
EXPECTED the iPad to cost $899 or $999 or more.
The $499 price point was like a stiff kick in the groin to every would-be competitor out there. It was obvious that NONE could beat the iPad on price alone.
The only “real” competition was Microsoft’s Courier vapor-tablet. How many were absolutely convinced it would kill the iPad? And what deafening silence there was when the fog of fantasy dissipated.
I still hear people mourning the Courier from time to time.
I can’t fucking believe they actually believed it was real.
I still hear that too. And they really get wistfully wishing that Courier “would have been finished”. My god people. It was never started. It was *fiction*. That’s like being really upset that GM never released that hovercar they’d been promising.
“The $499 price point was like a stiff kick in the groin to every would-be competitor out there.”
..and they’re still doubled over trying to catch their breath. 😉
But-!!
I’ve been waiting for a ‘2’ before I make my own purchase… I wonder how many other hold outs there are?
Probably a few like you are still waiting for a “2”, but, truthfully, most of those still waiting aren’t “hold outs”; they’re just waiting.
Well yes, the current iPad could outsell anything the competition has or has planned, and cost less still starting at $499. That’s how advanced it was when released.
That’s why iPad 2 will be a refinement of the original design, not a radical overhaul, with just a few completely new features. And still starting at $499, to undercut anything the competition can throw together.
Camera?
Camera √
He left off the biggest reason competitors can’t compete with Apple: iOS.
iOS fundamentally changed the way we use mobile devices, and no other manufacturer can possibly compete with it. Android, while the best competitor, isn’t even tablet-friendly and remains to be seen what happens when a tablet version is released and retail devices actually run it.
And does Apple really need the iPad 2? Yes. Apple needs to stay far ahead of the competition, and needs to add features like cameras, lighter weight, etc.
When you have your foot on the throat of your enemy, you don’t let up to be nice and give them a chance to fight back. You press harder.
iPad vs. the competition:
Oh, the humanity!
Oh, the humanity!
Just hang out at the digital camera area of Best Buy or Big Box store. Someone will ask “What’s the difference between these two cameras?” and the clerk responds “That on is 10 megapixel, but this one has 12!” And the customer makes their decision and buys the 12 (because we all know 12 is better than 10 but no one cares that 4 takes amazing photos)
MY POINT IS… the competition is only offering a minor upgrade to the iPad… Oh it uses 256 ram, ours uses 512… no port… ours has a port… nothing about the ecosystem or user experience… some consumers just think more is better, but more of what!!
I think the number of consumers that fit into that category is decreasing, and more specifically I don’t think it applies to tablets. Before 2010 virtually no one was considering tablets, no one knew why they would want one. Apple change all of that and (apart from battery life) they didn’t do it with specs such as cameras, ram, processors etc. They did it by offering to the consumer the familiarity of the Apple experience/ecosystem that many were already familiar with from using and loving their iPods/iPhones/computers. When you consider the average non techie consumer, they will choose the iPad based on those things because that is the benchmark that Apple set when they re-invented the tablet industry. Had Apple come out and sold it based on specs then it might be a different story, but instead all the commercials show off the apps and its usefulness.
And further more it is also painfully obvious to the average non techie consumer that all the coming tablets look very similar to the original iPad. What this does is forces the consumer to see the competition as a knock off product regardless of specs. Imagine if next month Mercedes released the worlds first flying car and then 12 months later a lesser brand i.e. Hyundai released one with slightly better specs at a similar or slightly higher price. I’m guessing that most would still go for the Mercedes because the customer is familiar with the Mercedes experience and brand value. They sell their cars based on a trust of quality, luxury, and engineering. For Apple it is a similar concept. All of coming tablet makers will first need to convince the consumer that they can offer the same level of product (i.e. ecosystem) and that can take a very very long time regardless of specs. Also I think comparing this to how cameras are pushed at best buy isn’t correct because their isn’t much that a kid at best buy can say about a camera that will make sense to the average person looking for something to say take on vacation or shoot pics of her kids lacrosse match.
I love how all these manufacturers have jumped into making tablets and saying how much better than the iPad their tablet is, when they wouldn’t be making or selling a damn thing if Apple hadn’t invented the whole market/category with the iPad in the first place. They all talked about how tablets didn’t sell, people didn’t want them, etc. Now that Apple has sold millions, they want in so bad they can’t stand it. The only problem is, they don’t know how. They couldn’t do it then, and they can’t do it now. All they know is to take an iPad, copy it as best they can, talk about how much better it is (that’s why it’s more expensive, don’t you know?) and flush it out onto the streets to be picked up by gullible consumers. FAIL!
Need more storage. Go to 256G or, better yet,
an SD slot.
All of you live in a dream world… They need to take all of their competition serious to continue the success. It will soon be cool to buy something different and people will jump off the band wagon… It really was a defining moment for some of apples success before. I have heard so many complaints from tech illiterate people bitching about their iPads inability of displaying content I can’t help but pointing out that the whole flash debacle will cause some hurt once there is comparable products. Sites like YouTube (not the mobile version) has way more content that is inaccessible on iOS that these consumers find as a hurdle when deciding to use a apple tablet as a main device. They need to level the playing field and come out with a full features ipad2 and maybe the option to turn flash plugin on and off.
“the whole flash debacle will cause some hurt once there is comparable products”
No. Not at this point anyway. Watch how Flash runs on Android: Like a one-legged dog. No one is bragging about Flash on Android unless they’re a Marketing Moron (as opposed to Marketing Mavens, who tell the truth). The resulting battery drainage is dire. Thank Adobe.
Meanwhile, if you really want to play Flash on an iOS device, go buy the 360 Browser app. Among other things, transforms Flash video into real video that doesn’t eat your CPU alive.
– increase the amount of RAM to make things run really snappy. An updated processor can’t hurt either.
– include one or more camera to push the adoption of FaceTime as a standard
– release it in fall so that its so-called competitor agonize a little longer only to get a swift kick in the nuts just before the holiday season. Let them release their crap and get all the bad reviews and the inevitable “wait for the iPad 2” recommendations
Am I the only one that thinks FLASH is important?
Apple and Adobe need to stop throwing sand at each other on the playground and get FLASH going! If Google Tabs can do it perfectly, so can Apple. I’m not buying the “resource hog” excuse anymore.
You don’t have to buy it. That is, you don’t have to buy Apple iOS devices and you don’t have to buy the “resource hog” excuse. Based on past quotes from Steve Jobs, this is the official Apple position on the matter. Personally I don’t ever want to see flash on my device, I’d prefer more adoption of HTML5 (which is on a steady uptrend). I don’t understand why people (less, and less) continue to complain about this issue. If you want flash there are other devices out there that you can buy, Jobs has made it clear that he won’t be upset if you don’t buy his products.
I would like Flash to work beautifully on hand held devices. If Adobe knew how to recode the Flash Player to stop the blatant resource hog problem, I’d want it!
But Adobe has NOT addressed the blatant resource hog problem beyond providing code to access the GPU. The version of Flash Player for Android continues to be a resource hog, running like a one-legged dog, chewing on the CPU while not even playing a Flash file for lord knows what reason, killing battery life.
Keep in mind that Adobe bought Flash technology. My guess is that Flash source code is poorly documented, preventing easy repair or modification.
Flash’s problems never were a subject of argument or rumor. They’re facts that anyone can verify if they bother to do their homework, despite hyperbole and propaganda to the contrary.
I recently posted an article citing 6 blatant flaws in Adobe Flash at one of my blogs:
Why Adobe Flash Is Naughty and Requires Spanking
You don’t have to buy it. That is, you don’t have to buy Apple iOS devices and you don’t have to buy the “resource hog” excuse. Based on past quotes from Steve Jobs, this is the official Apple position on the matter. Personally I don’t ever want to see flash on my device, I’d prefer more adoption of HTML5 (which is on a steady uptrend). I don’t understand why people (less, and less) continue to complain about this issue. If you want flash there are other devices out there that you can buy, Jobs has made it clear that he won’t be upset if you don’t buy his products.