Dell kills its 5" Android tablet as ABI searches for success among tablet failures - Page 2

That might work if their shareholders are very lenient. What is the likelihood of that in today's economic climate? Throwing millions of dollars into R&D then watching a product bleed cash?

Remember, the primary responsibility for any publicly traded company is to increase shareholder value.

How does a company increase shareholder value by repeatedly laying turds? Answer: they don't.

Do you mean For example or One example?

A typo a day keeps the readers away!

Hate to say it, but that's a pretty stupid point you're trying to make there, the only thing it shows is that you didn't actually get what Jobs was saying. When the iPad was released, it came with one of the crappiest 'iPhone app compatibility' mode anyone could think of, it just ran iPhone apps on a tiny portion of the screen, or hideously pixelized at 2x, without any resampling, and still not using the whole screen. Very un-Apple to release a half-baked solution like that, but that made it all the more obvious that Apple didn't want you to run phone apps on a tablet. Apple basically forced developers to create custom tablet interfaces that were much richer in terms of the amount of information and controls you see on the screen, instead of compartmentalizing every application in multiple smaller steps like on the iPhone.

What Steve Jobs was saying, is that you either make your application in a way that works well for smartphones with small screens, or you make it in a way that works well on a large screen around the size of an iPad. Anything in between doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because at 7" a phone UI would be ugly and wasteful, but a tablet UI would have to be scaled down so much it would be very hard to control. According to Apple, the sweet spot for phones is somewhere around 4" and for tablets it's around 10". Screen resolution has nothing to do with this by the way.

I think Jobs was right on the money with his statement. All the 7" or smaller tablets have been downright disasters right now, Samsung already went from 7" to 8.9" to 10.1", and all the so-called 'competing Android tablets' are of the 10" variety. Apparently there is some truth in Jobs vision, like there is most of the time: people are not waiting for a killer tablet with a size halfway between a smartphone and a full-size tablet.


Whatever makes you feel better... Turns out Dell wasn't too successful with their oversized phone/undersized tablet idea, and so far no-one else has.

BS he said it and now denies it.

Yeah, should have been "DOA on announcement"

A UI optimized for 3.5inch is going to look bad at 7inch. A UI optimized for 10inch is going to be horribly fiddly at 7inch. But there's nothing to stop App UIs being designed for 7inch. The question is, whether it is worth fragmenting the App market further by introducing a tweener size, and that's unclear. Jobs may well be right, he often is, and the market may not be big enough. Jobs may also be wrong, it does happen - there may be a market for tweener devices that is big enough to justify optimized apps. There may be an enterprise market for 20inch+ tablets. Who knows?


Thing is right now all we know is that Android tablets fail at 7inch, since they also fail at 10inches that's not proving anything is it? I mean it's kinda like the movie industry's assumption that Lord of the Rings was unfilmable because the animated feature was so bad.

There's a product already. I don't think it has yet been determined if there's a market:
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en/us/default.aspx

Well there probably isn't a market for that product, in much the same way that there isn't for most android tablets. I imagine that any functional market for super big tablets will grow out of the iPad in time.

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When those numbers are proven to be actual units sold and not just those shipped to resellers, call me.


Funny how you people keep posting this stuff when it obviously doesn't matter.

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So you are convinced that you are the only person who matters? A good mental health professional can probably help with that.

The fact is that it has not sold in numbers anywhere close to the iPad. Reviews are not as good and there are some serious deficiencies as well as concerns about durability.

And, whether you like it or not, "shipped" is not the same as "sold". I realize that none of you fandroids have figured that out yet, but it's reality.

You sound so much like DaHarder that I actually forgot for a moment that it wasn't him.

Please quote where I said none had been sold. Please quote where I said anything about any sold numbers.


I believe the proper term is "spec whores". I was being nice.


Your sarcasm is particularly funny when you consider that's actually what will happen.


Indeed.

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Well played. I'll rephrase that: Please quote where I said anything about actual numbers sold. I neither implied none had been sold nor that a large volume hadn't. I simply implied that the numbers in that article are very probably shipped, not sold, as MANY Android "sales" reports resort to that number.


To quote 2005, "It's a feature!"




And software is how people define the iPad.

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Latest info on sell for google tablets

http://developer.android.com/resourc...-versions.html

Given that honeycomb 3.2 is at 0.2% penetration that would imply that Asus has sold no more than 300k units to consumers as of 1st August.

The transformer might be the best selling non-Apple tablet, it might not - but so far all the rumours really say is that Asus is increasing supply.

I'm waiting to see how many of the Android machines shipping with Honeycomb will transition smoothly to Ice Cream Sandwich... or will it just be a sticky mess.

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Nobody is really suggesting a huge warehouse a la Indiana Jones - but the channel can hold considerable numbers of units, especially once you go to a fully global distribution. There were 5.9 million iPhones in the channel at the end of Apple's Q3.

However you parse the honeycomb numbers there are only around 2million Android tablets in circulation.

... and this is something I have believed all along... the Android system tabs will keep coming until one of them finds traction... and with 6 or 7 manufacturers pitting themselves against Apple eventually sheer numbers alone will get people adopting Android tablets and the ecosystem will grow... just as it did with Android phones.

The question I have to ask, though, is, will there be a smooth transition between OS updates... the next one being ICS. If Android fails in this department then you will have a lot of pissed off people when they find out that apps built for ICS will not work properly on a Honeycomb tablet. Apple's transition has been quite smooth (and I don't mean that in a Samsung way).

I've also mentioned previously that I give a bit of credence to an iPad update this fall. With the onslaught of Android tablets I'm thinking that Apple may try to keep as much distance as possible between them and the competition.

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That's still a full quarter worth of sales for Asus combined with two quarters of sales of the Xoom, 2 months of Galaxy 10.1, a full quarter of the Acer Iconia, over a quarter of the LG slate and probably some others that I haven't heard of. Combined they've managed less than the iPad did in its first quarter, by a significant margin - even after accounting for channel inventory.

Source?

They report channel numbers in every conference call, their target is around 4 to 6 weeks inventory.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/2803...?source=nasdaq

We were pleased to launch a number of new carrier relationships. And by the end of the quarter, iPhone was available through 228 carriers in 105 countries, compared to 186 carriers in 90 countries as of the end of the March quarter. We ended the quarter with about 5.9 million iPhones in channel inventory, a sequential increase of about 700,000 to support strong iPhone demand, carrier addition and expanded distribution. We remained within our target range of 4 to 6 weeks of iPhone channel inventory.

OK. Thank you for that.

So if Apple wants to use the same metric as everyone else and report number SHIPPED rather than sold, you'd have to add 5.9 M to the numbers that Apple is reporting for iPhones sold. Makes the 'iPhone killers' look even worse.

If you're talking quarterly figures I think that the 20.34 mil headline figure is shipped not sold, so you'd have to subtract off the inventory change of 700k. I believe that Apple uses the same approach of reporting shipped units because it's the GAAP accepted approach, but then they provide the additional channel inventory numbers so analysts can easily see the sell-through.

At any rate that appears to be Gartner's interpretation, and presumably Apple would correct them if it was wrong, since it is lowering the iPhone end user sales number.

http://www.bgr.com/2011/08/11/gartne...hones-q2-2011/

Haven't read a single comment yet, but based on the article title all I can say is THANK GOD.

Android tablets are immature Pieces of Excrement.

I see so much potential there, yea, but so far the execution has been rushed and incomplete and just plain sad.

Plus I expected the hiring of the Palm guy to yield a slicker looking interface...granted I don't find honeycomb unattractive it's more like an average girl you WOULD frack but not someone you necessarily have to frack like iOS is upon first sight (IMO iOS is like a beautiful girl who is bad in bed).

but yes, android tablets, especially pre-3.0 are simply horrid...and the 3.0 launch was definitively botched by a) buggy software. b) not releasing the 3.0 sdk in time to allow app devs to actually make apps. and c) unfinished.

iOS will have the tablet market on lock for the foreseeable future and I know when I can figure out a need for one unless android ups it's game I will be the proud owner of an iPad #.

Your argument, while it seems plausible on its face, is mistaken because it leaves out the question of utility. It's worth compromising on size with a phone UI at 4" because you can fit it in your pocket and the advantages of being able to carry it with you everywhere outweigh the disadvantages of a lack of screen real estate.

A tablet at 10" offers enough screen real estate that you can design a UI and apps that begin to be able to do some very interesting things, yet remains "portable" enough that you can still hold it easily in one hand.

At 5 or 7", a tablet doesn't provide enough screen real estate to be able to really do tablety things and it doesn't have the ultra-portability advantages of a 4" phone. In short, these "tweener" sizes inherit all the disadvantages of pocketable phones and 10" tablets and don't offer any of their advantages. For a dedicated device like an e-reader, the "tweener" sizes may be suitable, but for general purpose computing/communications devices, while they could be made to "work", they just aren't able to offer a compelling or useful experience.

Most things don't come in all sizes for a reason. Size and function are intimately connected, and things intended for a function tend to work best at some optimal size. Hand tools are of a size that fits in your hand. More powerful tools are of a size optimized to their purpose.

Apple doesn't bother correcting Gartner because Gartner is always wrong and everyone knows it already.

Apple reports units sold, not shipped. Everyone else reports units shipped, not sold. Add 5.9 million to the units sold figure to get to unit shipped.

If you're correct you would still only add 700k to the quarterly number. I disagree regarding the likelihood of Apple correcting Gartner, while they wouldn't for a forward looking estimate I think it's likely they would for past data where the number is a factual one and not a projection.

Apple most likely reports the units sold that match up to the revenue reported. Revenue is recognised when the unit leaves Apple's possession, so they almost certainly do include units shipped to resellers, though they may well not include those shipped to Apple Stores. Only 12% of Apple's sales are through their own retail so if they're treating that differently from the other channel it's not that big a deal.

If Apple are recognising revenue and not reporting shipped units then industry calculations for the ASP would be too high. If Apple aren't recognising revenue of items shipped then I believe that would probably conflict with GAAP rules.

Do you have a source for a definitive statement on when Apple is recognising revenue, or sales?

Some further indications of this:

'Net sales consist primarily of revenue from the sale of hardware, software, digital content and applications, peripherals, and service and support contracts. The Company recognizes revenue when persuasive evidence of an arrangement exists, delivery has occurred, the sales price is fixed or determinable, and collection is probable. Product is considered delivered to the customer once it has been shipped and title and risk of loss have been transferred.'

Source - Apple's 10-Q SEC filing

http://files.shareholder.com/downloa...Q_07.20.11.pdf

LOL. Which part? The part where he says he whipped out his surrogate manhood and passed it around and people couldn't keep their hands off it?

It seems a lot of people actually like the form factor, a lot of reviewers have commented that they find them more comfortable for long use. Now if 7inch is suitable for an eReader, then the question is - why pay $200 for a 7inch eReader if you can pay $300 for a 7inch tablet that can also play video, audio, games etc. 7 inch may be too small for productivity, but it's plenty for 'media tablet' - the fact is that the iPad is MUCH more than a media tablet, but that doesn't invalidate the product concept.


Actually most things come in a variety of size. PMPs, televisions, laptops, desktops, etc. etc. Hand tools come in a variety of size, the only real limit being small enough to hold in your hand.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c...og&sa=N&tab=wi

There are tiny handtools, big fat professional tools, tweener sized tools.

When it has shipped TO THE CUSTOMER, it is considered sold. If it's sitting on a store shelf, it has not been delivered to the customer yet.

There is a reason why Apple uses the term 'sold' while competitors use the term 'shipped'.

The customer in this sense would include Verizon - they are an Apple customer. At that point the title and risk of loss have been transferred

You may be right about the unit sales numbers, but you're definitely wrong about the revenue numbers. That might actually explain why Apple's ASP seems so high when derived from revenues.

Verizon is not the customer. They're a distributor.

No. In no sense is Verizon a 'customer'.

They are indeed a customer, they purchase handsets from the vendors, at which point it goes onto their balance sheet as inventory, and they register an offsetting liability to Apple, until they pay.

They operate on the wholesale model and not the agency model. Do you think that if there is a theft of the devices from Verizon that Apple eats that loss, or claims on its insurance? No - title has passed to Verizon, and so Apple have recognised the revenue. Again ...

Product is considered delivered to the customer once it has been shipped and title and risk of loss have been transferred. For most of the Company’s product sales, these criteria are met at the time the product is shipped. For online sales to individuals, for some sales to education customers in the U.S., and for certain other sales, the Company defers recognition of revenue until the customer receives the product because the Company retains a portion of the risk of loss on these sales during transit.

Read the quarterly filings and it's all quite clear. If for most of their non-online sales they are recognising revenue at shipment then I really don't see how you can argue, at any rate you aren't arguing with me - you're arguing with Apple.

Edit: It's not just Gartner taking that 20.34mil number as shipments, Horace Dediu at Asymco is clearly doing so too - in fact I'll be interested if you can find any analyst reporting that they shipped 21mil handsets as your interpretation would require. Are all the analysts wrong, but Apple can't be bothered to correct any of them?