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Does the iPad Have Competitors? No. Alternatives? No. iPadversaries? Um, ok.
I cheerfully admit that I’ve defined the term “iPadversary” loosely.
I've written about how tech pundits are itching for the iPad to have competition even as they must acknowledge it does not. Articles on the subject have taken to calling them "alternatives" instead of competitors. Now Technologizer's Harry McCracken has gone further, calling them adversaries in a clever take on the name.
I kind of like it.
This isn't a critique of McCracken's piece. Indeed, I appreciate his admission that there's really no rhyme or reason for items included in his list. If we applied some rationality, there's a number of reasonable criteria we could use to toss many of these out:
- Already on sale before the iPad? Then they've got to go, since obviously no one knew, or cared, or bought.
- Pure vapor? I don't mean "just" vapor, as most of these are, but there are some with so few details it's beyond the realm of reasonable thinking to include them on anything but a fun adversaries list.
- Android OS too old? C'mon, is it really anyone's contention that Android 1.5 or 1.6 is a viable competitor to even iOS 3.2, let alone the 4.x coming to the iPad in a month or so, especially long-term?
- And, if you really wanted to be serious, all the vapor devices would go, so 25 items drop off the list.
It seems clear McCracken is just having some fun with all the possibilities, while also providing a nice summary (as much as possible) about these devices. There are 32 of them, and one wonders how many will ever get to the mainstream market.
What's interesting is that if the iPad had even one real competitor—a device where one could make a reasonable case that a meaningful number of consumers would seriously compare the two and pick one over the other as a tablet—then none of this expanded definition of the playing field would be possible. (And the first commentor to point at some 1" thick, 3 pound netbook with the keyboard snapped off as a "real competitor" has lost the concept of the iPad entirely.)
Lacking a legitimate competitor, everyone's free to point out as contenders a number of devices in wildly varying form factors, even though we know the criteria being used is faulty at best. It makes for a fun write up, even fun reading, but can't be taken seriously.
Bottom line is that yet another article of this type serves to prove the only non-vapor and actual fact that we know: there is no iPad competitor right now.
Steve Jobs comes back to Apple and we all know what happened. Michael Dell comes back to Dell and, wow.
The SEC says that the company should have disclosed to investors that it was drawing on these reserves, but did not. And it claims that, at their peak, the exclusivity payments from Intel represented 76% of Dell’s quarterly operating income, which is a breathtaking figure.
It's bad enough Dell never did particularly well after Dell's return, but now we discover it would have been even worse had it not been for "accounting shenanigans" through the use of "cookie-jar reserves" made up of Intel's money.
The iPad's Competitors Drop Like Flies. Actually, They Never Even Took Off.
The iPad is the king of tablets and might hold that title for years to come. However, there are a ton of alternatives that we’ve featured over the last few months… But since [then], a lot has changed and while some managed to make it to the market, others were delayed or scrapped entirely.
Nice article describing what's happened to alleged iPad alternatives (are they called alternatives to recognize the iPad has no competitors?) in the last few months.
I've written the iPad has no "alternatives", and CrunchGear makes it's easy to see why. We can dismiss seven of them out of hand:
- ModBook - This is a MacBook reconfigured. A laptop with a desktop OS.
- Viliv X70 - A tablet with a desktop OS (XP, no less).
- Archos 9 - A tablet with a desktop OS.
- Viliv S10 Blade - A "convertibile" device. Again, a laptop with a desktop OS.
- Spring Design Alex - This is an eBook reader, what's it doing here?
- Lenovo Skylight - A netbook, not sure how it made even an exaggerated list of competitors.
- Lenovo IdeaPad U1 - Another "convertibile" that comes apart. Desktop OS as PC, and maybe Android as a tablet?
Some of these are not even available, but even if they were they're not iPad alternatives. They're not iPad tablets in any sense. It's not just about form, it needs a touch, not desktop, OS and apps. The human finger doesn't have the precision for software written for the precision of a cursor tip. A stylus can address that, but styli are a big failure, no one wants them. Why would any hardware maker (or anyone else) ignore the decade of failure "desktop tablets" have had in the market?
After weeding out the above, of the six remaining (I left the HP Slate because rumors say it won't run a desktop OS), four of them—Notion Ink Adam, HP Slate, WeTab, and ExoPC—are nowhere to be found. These devices are delayed, or maybe even killed altogether. In any case, they can hardly be called alternatives now. They're vapor, and I remain convinced the iPad will outsell vapor.
So that leaves just two devices: the enTourage eDGe dualbook, which isn't any good; and the Dell Streak, whose too-large-for-a-pocket but too-small-for-a-tablet form factor isn't winning any converts, and it's not yet available in the US.
The tech press loves for Apple to have competition, and sometimes go out of their way to invent it. In the case of the iPad, however, it simply doesn't exist. Not even close. Maybe by the end of the year, but certainly not now.
The fragmentation of Android continues
[The Dell Streak features] A customized multi-touch version of the Google Android operating system that features Dell user interface enhancements
The device is not yet available, but when it arrives it'll be running the older Android 2.1. An OTA upgrade to 2.2 is said to be in the works for "later this year".
This is what Android has wrought. To differentiate their devices from others running the same OS, manufacturers must implement custom interface tweaks. It becomes an issue with Android upgrades because the manufacturer must ensure their custom tweaks, as well as the hardware, work properly.
Did somebody wake up Dell’s designers?
After reportedly passing around prototypes of a phone that everyone passed on due to being to boring, Dell must have either stepped up their game or hired a new design team. A number of “leaks” have revealed some pretty stylish devices...
Dell's Streak Earns a Rave… Tweet?
I’ve heard anecdotal reports from media types who are lukewarm about the forthcoming HP (HPQ) tablet. But here’s a rave mini-review for Dell’s (DELL) Streak from Greg Clayman
The alleged "rave mini-review" is a tweet. That's right, a tweet.
It's sad that Peter Kafka can compare the iPad to the Streak (in his article's headline) and back it up with only a 10-word tweet. Kafka's piece is such an obvious hit-whoring affair I refuse to link to it.
Adobe: For a Great Flash Experience on Tablets, Get One That Doesn't Exist
Mind you, not one of those companies is (as yet) selling a competing tablet, and it's not like there's some magical formula that will make 720p Flash video run smoothly on a bare Atom CPU (remember, Ion GPU acceleration is not yet available for the Linux-based JooJoo), but who are we to stand in the way of a carefully worded damage limitation statement?
As if Adobe's management hasn't been misguided enough -- putting the survival of Flash above all other priorities -- their PR group has lost it, too.
Netbook Sales Growth Sagging: What Took So Long?
The sales growth of netbooks, priced from $200 to $500 and resembling shrunk-down laptops, slowed markedly in the first quarter, according to market researcher IDC.
This should come as a shock to no one, but of course it will. The netbook is a cheap cheap laptop, OK? That's all it's ever been. Nothing more, nothing less. Laptops went from well over $1K, to cheap laptops in the $600 range, and netbooks brought them down to $300.
Those lower divisions brought cheaper components, lower quality, weak processors, etc. They had to. For some that might be good enough, but it doesn't change the fact that netbooks are a significant compromise to the laptop they emulate. For many, the netbook brought disappointment when they found out there really is no such thing as a $300 laptop.
As for manufacturers, they found out that, while they could brag about sales in terms of number of units, there's little profit. No wonder the big names are scaling back.
Is There More Behind Dell's Discontinuation of 12-inch Netbooks?
Intel doesn’t like 12-inch netbooks because they are deep into dual core territory, where Intel has much healthier profit margins... Intel has put pressure on OEMs to build netbooks that have 10 inch or smaller screens.I don't doubt this -- and I'm not the only one -- but I believe Microsoft may have something to do with it as well. Windows 7 is almost here, and the "netbook" version (Starter Edition), is not available for netbooks with screens over 10 inches. In an article I wrote for GigaOM Pro (subscription required), I said that "[s]ome have called the strategy price-fixing. While that may be debated, at the very least it’s “hardware fixing.”" Without Starter, a 12 inch netbook requires at least Home Premium, and the associated price hike that takes it out of typical netbook territory. This is doubly true if Intel charges by screen size as TechCrunch states. These two corporations have made it all but impossible to build a 12-inch netbook for appreciably less than, say, a 13 inch cheap laptop. If a 13-inch laptop is only a little more then why wouldn't you prefer it? Because it's not a netbook. It's bigger, bulkier, much heavier, runs hotter and has much less battery life. If you just wanted a netbook a bit bigger than 10-inches, with a keyboard less cramped, a 12-inch could be perfect. Perhaps too perfect in Intel's and Microsoft's eyes.
Scoble Is Slobbering Again
this is the first Dell that has me slobbering in a very long time.And with that ringing endorsement he also says he'll be "dumping" his Mac. OK. From the photo it seems like a nice looking machine, in that black MacBook sort of way (which is a nice looking machine). But isn't that kind of a "been there, done that" design? And it still runs Windows, right? I couldn't help but notice it has the requisite PC stickers on it. Further, was Scoble only interested in Macs for their hardware/design? The Mac OS meant nothing? You can see more about the new Latitude Z here. Meanwhile, don't dump your Mac, Robert, sell it. Or send it to me.
