“Despite Apple’s absence from the Consumer Electronics Show, its iPad looms over the event,” Eric Zeman reports for InformationWeek. “Reports of the iPad 3 continue to push real news about announced hardware from the top headlines. The latest information suggests that manufacturers already are ramping up production of the iPad 3, which might arrive as early as March.”
“Meanwhile, in Las Vegas on Monday, hardware makers churned out a handful of new Android-based tablets,” Zeman reports. “They run Google’s Android operating system and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The problem is, none of them will steal a significant share of the tablet market from Apple’s dominant iPad.”
MacDailyNews Take: It’s not a problem for anybody but non-Apple hardware makers and, perhaps, the people who are paid to write about them.
Zeman reports, “Apple’s iPad is a juggernaut in the tablet space, and this year, serious competitors failed to show up at all.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s iPad is not a juggernaut in the tablet space, it is the juggernaut. Otherwise, Zeman is correct.
What is this ‘tablet’ market I keep hearing about? Why do they consider the iPad a ‘tablet’? All I see is an iPad market! Manufacturers are trying to emulate the iPad and its ecosystem; not create a ‘tablet’ original in design and ecosystem to compete in its own NEW space!
… because the iPad was NOT the first to arrive and because it is NOT alone there.
There were several models ahead of it. And the iPad grabbed the bulk of the market from them quickly.
Several new models have been introduced since. And the iPad continues to OWN the market despite their presence.
ALSO!
If you call it “the Tablet Market” you don’t actually have to count it in with the “real computers”. Like you do with “the Ultralight Market”, “the NetBook Market”, and “the LapTop Market”. Which means you can preserve the illusion that Windows-OS PCs still own a substantial majority of the total “PC” market, slowing the appearance of Apple’s growth.
Let’s not get into including “the Smart Phone Market” in that tally! 😉
True. the M$ Windoze crowd did have a 10 year head start on Apple. They all FAILED to sell any appreciable quantities of ‘tablet’ computers, or even establish parameters for what constitutes a ‘tablet’ computer. Then Apple came along and introduced the world to the iPad. Apple clearly defined the iPad market and sold millions. Meanwhile even with a 10 year head start M$ Windoze and company can’t even define ‘tablet,’ (much less sell any,) except to point to Apple. Therefore: there is an iPad market, but NO ‘tablet’ market.
As I’ve said before, 2012 is the year Apple’s iPad competition gives up trying to match iPad based on specs, features, and price. Every attempt has ended in a money-losing fire sale.
The next phase is going where Apple will NOT go.
The obvious way to do so is to go for the “low end.” Unfortunately (for the competition), Amazon has “blocked off” the low end with the $199 Kindle Fire, a product that loses money by design (with the hope that the sale of content will provide a net profit). That’s a game most companies cannot play, and it remains to be seen if it will work for Amazon. Kindle Fire helps (not hurts) Apple in the long run. The competition is caught between not being able to match iPad and not being able to undersell Kindle Fire.
I also predict other attempts to go where Apple will not go. For example, a revival of the “convertible” tablet that has a built-in physical keyboard. An ultra-large tablet that is too heavy to hold in one hand comfortably; I guess you’d call it a “desktop tablet.”
It’s a repeat of the iPod phenomenon. It’s like a terminator that silently decimates the competition without the competition knowing.
No iPad Killers my ass.
Didn’t anyone check out the Neural Interface booth?
There was more to be seen there than just the hot booth babes.
Got a link to the hot booth babes?
http://www.bestboothbabes.com/
the major OEM’s are all hanging back, afraid to launch new tablets. Amazon’s Fire is killing their low-end sales and hope for any profits there, and the upcoming iPad 3 will make all the current Android models obsolete when it comes out in a few months.
once they see what they need to copy with iPad 3, we’ll finally hear about a batch of new tablets coming in the Fall.
The more tablets and android iPad want-to-be are released the more the market will segment and the stronger the iPad will be
It is the same like laptops today, when you walk to a computer store it is too confusing and segnted to make sense, while apple products are simple clear and stand strongly on their own.
So go ahead and let them come!