I don't see a future where they have over 20% of the market. I'd be surprised if it ends up being significantly over 10% actually. iPhone's market share growth has halted and Android is growing leaps and bounds. I think Apple is OK with this too, they can make plenty of money taking the top 10% of the market just like they do with computers.
They are correct about the iPhone, and will be correct about the iPad - it's not really about closeness in this case, but price.
Cheap Android tablets are already popping up and Apple will probably prefer maintaining their domination of the high end rather than compete with $150 (and in a few years $35?) products.
Sure but given the choice of buying let's say a acer tablet or the rumored 7" iPad for a little more (guessing the price is going to be 200ish less than the current iPad).
Apple has a good knack for keeping ahead of the market and their competitors.
If the price is comparable I think Apple will maintain leadership, regardless of platform openness (at least in the short term).
It remains to see if Apple would be interested at all in competing at the low range. They mostly avoid it in the desktops/laptops market, but do compete with iPods, so who knows.
Yeah I agree on the low-end aversion thing. I just don't think it's a matter of 'low-end' versus 'high-end'; I think it's more about brand awareness and pricing accordingly.
If Apple has a comparable product at a similar price (read: slightly more than everyone else), they are going to clean up. Most people are going to pick a brand they know well and is publicly very highly regarded over a similarly priced, 'cheaper knock-off'. And sure Apple didn't invent the 'tablet' but as far as mainstream buyers are concerned they did.
I'm really not sure about the iPhone and the iPad being comparable products. The iPad (and other tablets) needs apps. Without apps, it's a very expensive web browser. Yet, as much as the tech world has complained about the closed nature of the App STore, we are still seeing most of app innovation occuring in Apple's marketplace.
Just to clarify that last statement, it is true that there are a few small classes of applications that Apple's terms and conditions make impossible to implement on an iOS device. But in my opinion, these types of apps make up only about 10% of all possible apps (I just made that number up, but call it an educated guess based on a test I tried out about a year ago, where I sat down and tossed out a bunch of ideas for apps - about 90% were acceptable to App Store rules), and for the rest of the market, we constantly see apps first on the Apps Store and only afterwards do we see them in the Google Marketplace, if at all.
I'm not seeing any signs of that trend changing, which means that Apple is going to remain software king-of-the-hill for quite some time, and that does not auger well for the success of Android tablets.
Yeah, I think you are probably right (though maybe not quite on the prices).
But remember when the iPad was still "secret"? How everyone thought it was going to cost 1000$ and it was going to be trashed by Android/Windows tablet at 500$? Apple has priced it a lot more competitively then they used to do. I wonder how much room will give the competition to undercut them on price.
Wishful thinking, it sounds like one of Balmer's pronouncements over the years. You don't see Apple trash-talking potential competitors (well not until the antenna thing) in the run up to a product launch, they just quietly polish up a better product than everyone else, and people buy it. Maybe another company could try that.
Completely agree with you about the trash talk... but don't put the Mac vs. PC ads in the same basket!
a) They are ads: they are not making a prediction, just trying to explain the advantages of mac vs. pc (obviously ignoring the disadvantages, but that's ads.)
b) Talking of features and how they affect the user is a lot more concrete than "Apple will go to 20-30% market share, because they are not open". Why not 10% then? Why not 50%? If he came up with a quantitative number (and with an interval at that) then I imagine he can explain a bit more.
And "closed" is not the bane of the world. Windows is closed and it goes strong. So are many other software. I do believe he may very well be correct, but he should have explained a bit better _why_ that matters.
Incidentally as I said I do believe Apple trash talks just as much as the next guy. Just check all those old SJ presentations!
Obviously profit share is the most important, but in consumer electronics it is very hard to keep high profit share with low market share. Electronics have a lot of efficiencies of scale so the people with higher market share will eventually start making their stuff much cheaper and thus they will be able to both lower prices and improve their margins, which will really squeeze your profits.
And eventually you will have to be content with selling the same hardware as your competitors with your brand and your own software on it. Sound familiar?
Although iOS will have lower market share than Android, the iPad will probably have higher market share than any individual Android tablet, and thus the hardware economy of scale actually goes to Apple.
Also, is there any additional economy of scale beyond, say, 10M units per year?
Exactly. This is why HP can have so much more of the laptop market, yet Apple's laptops are much better engineered. Apple sells so many units of each SKU that they can afford to spend more designing each one.
Windows is a remarkably open operating system for users and integrators. While Microsoft doesn't give out the source, they don't have to -- you can dramatically customize virtually every part of it, install whatever you'd like, do whatever you'd like, etc.
I don't think the Windows analogy flies at all, except perhaps to support Android.
I haven't been able to find such a quote from eight years ago, but the same logic doesn't apply to the iPod... You can play any MP3 file you want on an iPod without Apple's approval, and playing MP3s is arguably the iPod's primary function. In this respect, it's just as open as any other MP3 player.
It's easy to talk, harder to release stuff. Hundreds of interesting tablet ideas have been "announced" over the last year, most of which haven't been released. No matter what Apple gets wrong, one thing stands: they actually ship products they announce.
I'd argue that—most of the time—Apple announces products they're ready to ship.
This has been somewhat less true for the iPhone because of FCC certification requirements, and iPad because they needed developers to build compelling apps in order to sell the device.
You're right, though the result, as compared to others, looks the same. Apple releases what they announce. Not everyone does, as anyone who keeps an eye on the e-reader or tablet markets will be sadly aware.
Wow, the story should actually be that a journalist manages to create a 300 odd word story out of a 90 word article. That's a lot of hand waving for no real substance.
I doubt it. Once the manufacturers start loading their crap on these Chrome-based "open" tablets and the tablets start looking like the crummy Windows computers you get from HP and Dell that have 20 icons of crap on the desktop, discerning consumers will continue flocking to the iPad.
What I really want to see is a fold up tablet. In fact I'd say the two most important things to improve with iPad is weight and outdoor visibility. I imagine they'll improve that with the next version or at least within the next few years. But for a longterm 10 year target, I think someone will come up with a iPhone sized device that folds out to iPAd size.
See how much better can phones really get? Tablets are a more interesting prospect at least physically. Competition should be more interesting.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 82.2 ms ] threadiPhone market share has not "dropped". It has been constantly increasing.
Cheap Android tablets are already popping up and Apple will probably prefer maintaining their domination of the high end rather than compete with $150 (and in a few years $35?) products.
Apple has a good knack for keeping ahead of the market and their competitors.
It remains to see if Apple would be interested at all in competing at the low range. They mostly avoid it in the desktops/laptops market, but do compete with iPods, so who knows.
If Apple has a comparable product at a similar price (read: slightly more than everyone else), they are going to clean up. Most people are going to pick a brand they know well and is publicly very highly regarded over a similarly priced, 'cheaper knock-off'. And sure Apple didn't invent the 'tablet' but as far as mainstream buyers are concerned they did.
Just to clarify that last statement, it is true that there are a few small classes of applications that Apple's terms and conditions make impossible to implement on an iOS device. But in my opinion, these types of apps make up only about 10% of all possible apps (I just made that number up, but call it an educated guess based on a test I tried out about a year ago, where I sat down and tossed out a bunch of ideas for apps - about 90% were acceptable to App Store rules), and for the rest of the market, we constantly see apps first on the Apps Store and only afterwards do we see them in the Google Marketplace, if at all. I'm not seeing any signs of that trend changing, which means that Apple is going to remain software king-of-the-hill for quite some time, and that does not auger well for the success of Android tablets.
But remember when the iPad was still "secret"? How everyone thought it was going to cost 1000$ and it was going to be trashed by Android/Windows tablet at 500$? Apple has priced it a lot more competitively then they used to do. I wonder how much room will give the competition to undercut them on price.
As for wishful thinking, I may be that but it might also be history repeating itself.
a) They are ads: they are not making a prediction, just trying to explain the advantages of mac vs. pc (obviously ignoring the disadvantages, but that's ads.)
b) Talking of features and how they affect the user is a lot more concrete than "Apple will go to 20-30% market share, because they are not open". Why not 10% then? Why not 50%? If he came up with a quantitative number (and with an interval at that) then I imagine he can explain a bit more.
And "closed" is not the bane of the world. Windows is closed and it goes strong. So are many other software. I do believe he may very well be correct, but he should have explained a bit better _why_ that matters.
Incidentally as I said I do believe Apple trash talks just as much as the next guy. Just check all those old SJ presentations!
And eventually you will have to be content with selling the same hardware as your competitors with your brand and your own software on it. Sound familiar?
Also, is there any additional economy of scale beyond, say, 10M units per year?
I don't think the Windows analogy flies at all, except perhaps to support Android.
I'd argue that—most of the time—Apple announces products they're ready to ship.
This has been somewhat less true for the iPhone because of FCC certification requirements, and iPad because they needed developers to build compelling apps in order to sell the device.
Original story:
http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/NewsSearch.asp?DocID=PB000...
A hell of a lot has probably been lost in translation here.
See how much better can phones really get? Tablets are a more interesting prospect at least physically. Competition should be more interesting.