You can in fact patent an idea, whether it is implemented in the code or not. It happens all the time. For example, Google has licensed a mathematical algorithm that Stanford university holds a patent for. You can also copyright both the code and the look of the GUI. Oracle is suing Google for using its copyrighted code.
Apple could also make a case that the Google guy that shall not be named breached his fiduciary duties by leaking Apple secrets to Google. When you are on the Board of a company you have legal duty to act in the best interest of that corporation. The Google guy used his insider information to benefit Google. After the iPhone iOS became public, Google radically altered the operating system to copy Apple. Before it didn't even use a touch screen.
Apple's probably not pursuing it because right now Apple needs Google. If Apple sued Google, Google could possibly pull search, maps, and other software from the iOS platform.
For now, the two companies have to play nice though.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
Apple cannot patent the idea only the code a UI methodology. Google did not use any of Apple's code or directly use the iPhone's UI.
From the way it sounds getting an early peek at the iPhone gave Google a road map with where to go with Android development.
Now with the tablet space they have no direct access to Apple's ideas and have to develop it all on their own.
Smart phones are just.... handsets. Consumers trash them almost as often as they trash tennis shoes and t-shirts.
iPhone revolutionized the smartphone market and Android was able to copy it well enough to allow handset makers to sell a lot of phones and take a lion's share of that market.
Tablets are a whole different beast. They are more akin to netbooks, laptops or even full-blown PCs (I think their sales should be classified as PCs).
Companies like Motorola and HTC showed they could compete well in the smartphone handset market - they were already entrenched there!
The PC market is a whole different story. Companies like Apple, HP and (heaven forbid) Microsoft have been in the PC market for decades (I would expect Acer to be able to compete here too). How many desktop or laptop systems have HTC and Motorola sold? They have no credibility in this market and the consumers are no dupes.
Google has been talking about Chrome OS for a long time, but nothing much has really come of that. Honeycomb sounds ok, but Google is not clear about their strategy: Chrome, Honeycomb or none of the above?
"Lower-than-expected Xoom sales prompt Apple iPad competitors to delay tablets"
The only people who "expected" moto xoom sales to be any better than they were are the delusional minds at motorola who actually thought everyone was going to run out and blow $800 on a device that is suppose to be direct competition to a device you can buy for $500 at entry level. And don't get me started on the contract they initially tried to rope you into with Verizon.
Don't get me wrong, I think the Xoom is packed with some exciting features but they certainly don't act like they want it in the hands of the common Joe. After being very excited at the prospect of owning a Xoom; here I sit typing this message with an iPad and that's all because Motorola wasn't willing to be price competitive.
For the other iPad competitors I say this. Fear not, just release hardware with specs similar to the Xoom and don't act like total morons with the pricing and you'll be fine.
Smart phones are just.... handsets. Consumers trash them almost as often as they trash tennis shoes and t-shirts.
iPhone revolutionized the smartphone market and Google was able to copy it well enough to allow handset makers to sell a lot of phones and take a lion's share of that market.
Tablets are a whole different beast. They are more akin to netbooks, laptops or even full-blown PCs (I think their sales should be classified as PCs).
Companies like Motorola and HTC showed they could compete well in the smartphone handset market - they were already entrenched there!
The PC market is a whole different story. Companies like Apple, HP and (heaven forbid) Microsoft have been in the PC market for decades (I would expect Acer to be able to compete here too). How many desktop or laptop systems have HTC and Motorola sold? They have no credibility in this market and the consumers are no dupes.
Google has been talking about Chrome OS for a long time, but nothing much has really come of that. Honeycomb sounds ok, but Google is not clear about their strategy: Chrome, Honeycomb or none of the above?
...it would be a big shame if everyone keeps failing like this, leaving the market to just iOS (which has a plan and a vision behind it) and Android (which is just a cheap tool for manufacturers and a vehicle for delivering more ads for Google)
Well said. To think that many manufacturer's are promulgating an OS that (apparently) only exists as a driver of ad sales. Hmm.
Smart phones are just.... handsets. Consumers trash them almost as often as they trash tennis shoes and t-shirts
That's a very good point, but I think there's a little more subtlety to it. I don't think consumers actually thrash their phones, but that they think about their economical lifespan in terms of how long their contract lasts, which is usually 2 years. Because the actual cost of the device is amortized over that period, they get the impression phones are 'free' or at least 'very cheap' if they just keep renewing their contract, so after 2 years they basically dump the thing and get a new one.
Tablets are different. First of all you don't actually need to have a contract with them, because most tablets will see much more indoor use than outdoor, so paying a monthly fee for 3G seems wasteful. Because consumers aren't lining up to get these tablets on contract, it's much harder to knock down prices and make consumers view tablets as 'disposable items' with a fixed 2-year economical lifespan. Now, personally, I think most tablets will be replaced within 2 years anyway, so you'd think there is no difference with phones, but I think there is. The human brain has interesting (often irrational) ways to judge value propositions, and I think it's likely that many consumers will buy a tablet with the idea they will use it for a long time. Because they are not already counting on replacing it within a determined, fixed time after purchase, they will research the product more, be prepared to spend a little more for premium quality, etc. It's not a disposable item in their mind, so they will take more time deciding if and what tablet they buy.
With smartphones consumers are much more susceptible to impulse decisions, and much more often get stuck with a device they'll quickly start to hate. Just pay some attention to what friends, colleagues etc. are saying about their phones some time, you'll quickly find out how many people complain and moan about their phone, and how much they are looking forward to replacing it. Now compare that to tablets, how often do you hear someone complain they bought the wrong tablet?
You can in fact patent an idea, whether it is implemented in the code or not. It happens all the time. For example, Google has licensed a mathematical algorithm that Stanford university holds a patent for. You can also copyright both the code and the look of the GUI. Oracle is suing Google for using its copyrighted code.
I'm not sure if we are in disagreement or just using a different context of the term idea. An algorithm is an actual working tool.
I mean you cannot patent the generic idea of a GUI based phone and literally protect it from anyone else using it. While you can protect a specific GUI implementation.
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Apple's probably not pursuing it because right now Apple needs Google. If Apple sued Google, Google could possibly pull search, maps, and other software from the iOS platform.
For now, the two companies have to play nice though.
Google's services are open to anyone. I don't see how it would serve them to block Apple.
I think Apple would have a pretty tough case in trying to sue Google over Android. Most people would perceive it as being petty. Its much better to just compete in the open market and make a better product.
In my experience how much the board knows about what is going on varies from company to company. I imagine in Apple they know very little beyond, "we're going to make a phone".
I beg to differ. In my experience, board members need to approve the strategic directions of a company, and entering the cell phone segment is a major deviation from Apple's core strategies - At the time, I don't think there was any hint of what a smart phone would be, sure, Blackberry was doing email, but that was pretty much it. The board members may not know every technical details, but I am sure the vision and strategy were shared and vigorously debated.
1. Don't rush the product just to beat Apple. Whether it's Samsung last year or Motorola in March or RIM preannouncing in September, it's bad form to release half-baked. Unlike phones, people are reading the reviews on these things to see which ones work best. The ones with mediocre reviews aren't selling. Apple got its fans to buy in, which created a network effect as new apps and functionality was released. Few of the competitors will be able to do that.
2. Tablets aren't phones.Both Samsung and Motorola thought they could simply leverage the same old carrier-based subsidy/spiff sales style and rack up the sales. They did not foresee that people didn't want yet another contract. Now Samsung is being forced to practically dump its products and the first 3g-based Xoom sales are weak.
3. Margins are going to be crushing. Apple was taking a risk when selling the iPad because it's a higher cost to build, potentially lower margin product. They made up for that by having built-in value-add as the average selling price over time is over $600. If people looking for an alternative don't like Apple's "premium" brand guess what's going to sell? The ultra cheap models with razor thin margins. Just like netbooks it'll be a race to the bottom all over again. Then again, Google is forcing higher hardware specs for Honeycomb, which should help keep the discounters at bay.
4. The component crush. Apple buying up over half of the touchscreen market (and other parts with upfront cash) makes it harder for the compeitiors to forecast and book production. Can new plants come online fast enough to meet demand? If you're Apple, not fast enough.
Tablet sales are being propelled by one simple question, "Tablets are different, but why are they good?" Apple has answered that question. When the others start capably solving that riddle, their sales can start to take off too.
This is good news for Apple in both the short to mid-term of course. But also likely good news for two others: HP (already mentioned) and MS (barely mentioned).
Google indeed seems to have approached tablets as mostly larger smart phones with more "screen estate."
HP and MS, conversely, are apparently taking the time to release something resembling finished, thought-through products. Both are going to be part of company systems with deep hooks from phones thru tabs thru desktops. And both companies are to various degrees emulating Apple's basic paradigm.
HP in fact looks to want to break out of the commodity model and become another company which uses an OS and software to market complementary hardware. And even on these boards WebOS gets at least some grudging praise if only because it was designed partly by people associated with early versions of iOS.
Yesterday's forum discussion on the new touch gestures in Lion being later suitable for a touchscreen iMac made me think of HP's new tilt-screen PC which is a suitable prototype for just such a device, in that it's a solution for the ergonomic problem of having to reach out to a vertical screen that Jobs has discussed.
Their big problem is scaling WebOS to be a fully competitive desktop OS (and garnering apps for it) - and it remains to be seen how well their initial dual-OS approach (Win AND WebOS on desktops) will work.
MS also can't match Apple from stem to stern because it lacks the hardware base of Apple and HP - but is trying to exert more control over its licensees than Google's done with Android. They lost time with Windows Phone 7 by pulling the phone group into the Win 8 dev process, but stand to reap eventual gains by having done so, especially with Google's stumbling approach into the tab space. And their 2012 release date no longer seems as hopeless as it once did. (Win 3.0 wasn't released until the Mac had been out for five years, after all.)
Windows 7 is clearly the "least sucky" version of Win to date - and my reading indicates that's because they began emulating Apple's approach to its development by modularizing sections of the code, and only including stable modules in the overall build process instead of trying to sort out system-wide effects of throwing in this function and that as they went along. They've built on that in the Win 8 process by including tab-specific and phone-specific layers from the beginning. And they have been building touch pieces into Win for some years now with their "3 screen" goal (phones, slates, PC's) - which has now become 3 and half screens - since there will be two types of Win 8 tabs - one running full (touch enabled) Win 8 (and thus full Office) on Intel processors and another running the lighter version on the ARM processors which will be powering their Metro-skinned phones as well.
So there will be (nearly? fully?) as much correspondence between Win 8 and their phone/slate OS's as there is between iOS and OS X. Which as we all know is a proven model.
They're also scaling down Office to have some functionality and full compatibility on their ARM hardware and WT8/WP8 - and that will certainly have some value in marketing to businesses. (Though I do expect in time that there will be Office-like offerings on the iPad. MS makes good money on Office for Mac, and they need their apps - or at least their file formats - to be on such a popular platform which is already demonstrating considerable business uptake.)
Of course that's a lot of targets to hit simultaneously for a company famous for slipping release dates and still burdened with huge legacy code issues. But we shall see.
So I'll stop there without going deeper into HP or RIM (which is in at least fairly deep doo-doo and still scrambling with a half-baked release), except to note that besides "closing" access to Android 3.0, Google's hired 1900 people in the last three months, indicating they're realizing they have a bigger job on their hands than they realized when they blithely tried to simply occupy more pixels with bigger widgets when entering the tab space. I've also heard they're also finding out they're not getting as much ad revenue from Android devices as expected, giving them more to re-think.
Bottom line, Apple's iPod-like market share of the tab market is likely to continue for another year or more, but it will eventually find itself, if still the clear leader, in a market with several other serious players in in the mix for the longer run. The "post-PC" era is a reality and everyone else finds themselves in a position of having to bet a considerable portion of their farms on gaining a toehold.
I beg to differ. In my experience, board members need to approve the strategic directions of a company, and entering the cell phone segment is a major deviation from Apple's core strategies - At the time, I don't think there was any hint of what a smart phone would be, sure, Blackberry was doing email, but that was pretty much it. The board members may not know every technical details, but I am sure the vision and strategy were shared and vigorously debated.
Oh yeah, I agree with that - I'm sure they would have known that Apple were targeting the smartphone segment, and probably the price points and expected margins Apple would be going after.
What I would doubt would be whether they saw any "meat on the bones" so to speak. I've been involved in preparing presentations to boards in the past (never had to actually present!) and the level of detail is specifications etc. without showing much detail of how things would actually work.
So they sat on a completed, fully ready product for 4 years?
No.
They worked on the iPad concept and technology but it was not "ready for market".
Maybe not quite ready for "market", but Apple waits for and builds the market before marketing products, determining how to market to the market they developed in an evolutionary fashion.
Very true. The Xoom is a very nice piece of hardware but without a proper OS and a slew of apps its not enough. I actually feel bad for Moto because its more Google's fault then theirs.
Don't put out an $800 model when your competitor with tens of thousands of tablet apps has a $500 model.
Don't put out that model with your best advantages--flash, LTE, and SD card support--not working.
A $400 wifi model like ASUS is going to put out would have made the most sense and even then it would not have sold that well with no apps. $350 would have been the price point to go for.
The problem here isn't Google and it's not ecosystem related, it's a Motorola problem. If they had waited until it was finished, sales would probably have been pretty good. Now even when they do finish it, sales will be muted because in peoples minds it will always be the tablet that has to be sent back.
Oh, there are lots of blame to go around, and Google is part of it. Centrally part of it. They themselves are, indirectly, admitting that Honeycomb is not ready by not releasing Honeycomb source code and have admitted they took shortcuts to get it shipped. Reviews of the Xoom and other Honeycomb slates corroborate this with reports of unstable software. Android 3.0 is still in an alpha or beta state and Google let Moto ship it. In fact, they are letting Samsung, LG and Asus ship systems with it. Software is harder to do hardware, and Google basically is doing all of the software.
They could have easily held back and had 3.0 systems ship over the Summer, and have another design cycle and a real QA cycle happen for the software. For some stupid reason, the "OHA" thought that they couldn't let Apple have an iPad 2 sales cycle all to themselves.
Don't put out an $800 model when your competitor with tens of thousands of tablet apps has a $500 model.
Don't put out that model with your best advantages--flash, LTE, and SD card support--not working.
A $400 wifi model like ASUS is going to put out would have made the most sense and even then it would not have sold that well with no apps. $350 would have been the price point to go for.
I think Apple adds value to the their product in a few more ways -
- iTune - it's just a wonderful place to get both free and paid media.
- Brick and Mortar stores - You know where to take an iDevice to get fixed if something breaks - the Apple stores have an excellent reputation.
- Updates - you know you are likely to get updates and bug fixes for a couple of years - I read an article just today about this not clear if any other device had had regular updates!!
- Investment protection - You know all the Apps most likely will run on the next iDevice!
To me all this adds up to another $100 - $200 value that the other guys need to provide
Oh, there are lots of blame to go around, and Google is part of it. Centrally part of it. They themselves are, indirectly, admitting that Honeycomb is not ready by not releasing Honeycomb source code and have admitted they took shortcuts to get it shipped. Reviews of the Xoom and other Honeycomb slates corroborate this with reports of unstable software. Android 3.0 is still in an alpha or beta state and Google let Moto ship it. In fact, they are letting Samsung, LG and Asus ship systems with it. Software is harder to do hardware, and Google basically is doing all of the software.
They could have easily held back and had 3.0 systems ship over the Summer, and have another design cycle and a real QA cycle happen for the software. For some stupid reason, the "OHA" thought that they couldn't let Apple have an iPad 2 sales cycle all to themselves.
Yeah fair comment.
Still, I'm told "open" software is the best. I say I've been told that, I've never seen it demonstrated yet.
I think it's all about making a finished product. I mean honestly, who in their right mind would buy something that needs sending back to be finished.
The problem here isn't Google and it's not ecosystem related, it's a Motorola problem. If they had waited until it was finished, sales would probably have been pretty good. Now even when they do finish it, sales will be muted because in peoples minds it will always be the tablet that has to be sent back.
I said back in January, a full month before that pos hit the streets, that Motorola was going to bring out a rushed and unfinished product... also mentioning that honeycomb wasn't even finished and wouldn't be at a test stage until the week that Moto was bringing the Xoom to market.
The writing was all over the wall. Samsung's pos brought out in December was the harbinger of doom for Android tablets...
How confident can you be in buying a samsung tablet that an update may or may not come in it's cycle lifetime? Potentially leaving you unable to run current applications. It's not a good place to be in.
Now that's really the big question, isn't it? I don't see Google being perceived as a good partner and how many tablet makers want to be beholden to a 3rd party who may or may not issue periodic updates that you hope will work on your specific hardware? As much as I dislike MS at least MS has been very diligent in issuing patches and updates to its Windows franchise, making it a great partner for hardware manufacturers. Google? I don't think it has a clue how to pump out patches to security breaches or updates and upgrades. What's the incentive? Once you give away a copy to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who's building Android devices, why spend the time? Google's making its money from the ad revenue so as long as Android is on a few million devices, Google's happy.
I hate to sound like a member of a chorus, but it's so true that it's the ecosystem that Apple has created that leaves nothing to chance for the unsuspecting buyer.
Eric Schmidt sat on Apple's board when the iPhone was in early development, so, He was able to steal it while it was happening, I'm not sure why Apple has not sued the pants off him for that. Now that Google wasn't on the Apple Board.....well.......ya get ...Honeycomb in all its glory. With all the Tablet manufactures putting their eggs in one basket, so to speak, they all get to fail together.
Funny you mention that. I read that when Steve jobs saw Android, he was so pissed at Eric, that untill Eric was finally kicked off the board, anything about the iPad was specifically kept from Eric. F'ing theves!!
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Apple could also make a case that the Google guy that shall not be named breached his fiduciary duties by leaking Apple secrets to Google. When you are on the Board of a company you have legal duty to act in the best interest of that corporation. The Google guy used his insider information to benefit Google. After the iPhone iOS became public, Google radically altered the operating system to copy Apple. Before it didn't even use a touch screen.
Apple's probably not pursuing it because right now Apple needs Google. If Apple sued Google, Google could possibly pull search, maps, and other software from the iOS platform.
For now, the two companies have to play nice though.
Apple cannot patent the idea only the code a UI methodology. Google did not use any of Apple's code or directly use the iPhone's UI.
From the way it sounds getting an early peek at the iPhone gave Google a road map with where to go with Android development.
Now with the tablet space they have no direct access to Apple's ideas and have to develop it all on their own.
iPhone revolutionized the smartphone market and Android was able to copy it well enough to allow handset makers to sell a lot of phones and take a lion's share of that market.
Tablets are a whole different beast. They are more akin to netbooks, laptops or even full-blown PCs (I think their sales should be classified as PCs).
Companies like Motorola and HTC showed they could compete well in the smartphone handset market - they were already entrenched there!
The PC market is a whole different story. Companies like Apple, HP and (heaven forbid) Microsoft have been in the PC market for decades (I would expect Acer to be able to compete here too). How many desktop or laptop systems have HTC and Motorola sold? They have no credibility in this market and the consumers are no dupes.
Google has been talking about Chrome OS for a long time, but nothing much has really come of that. Honeycomb sounds ok, but Google is not clear about their strategy: Chrome, Honeycomb or none of the above?
The only people who "expected" moto xoom sales to be any better than they were are the delusional minds at motorola who actually thought everyone was going to run out and blow $800 on a device that is suppose to be direct competition to a device you can buy for $500 at entry level. And don't get me started on the contract they initially tried to rope you into with Verizon.
Don't get me wrong, I think the Xoom is packed with some exciting features but they certainly don't act like they want it in the hands of the common Joe. After being very excited at the prospect of owning a Xoom; here I sit typing this message with an iPad and that's all because Motorola wasn't willing to be price competitive.
For the other iPad competitors I say this. Fear not, just release hardware with specs similar to the Xoom and don't act like total morons with the pricing and you'll be fine.
iPhone revolutionized the smartphone market and Google was able to copy it well enough to allow handset makers to sell a lot of phones and take a lion's share of that market.
Tablets are a whole different beast. They are more akin to netbooks, laptops or even full-blown PCs (I think their sales should be classified as PCs).
Companies like Motorola and HTC showed they could compete well in the smartphone handset market - they were already entrenched there!
The PC market is a whole different story. Companies like Apple, HP and (heaven forbid) Microsoft have been in the PC market for decades (I would expect Acer to be able to compete here too). How many desktop or laptop systems have HTC and Motorola sold? They have no credibility in this market and the consumers are no dupes.
Google has been talking about Chrome OS for a long time, but nothing much has really come of that. Honeycomb sounds ok, but Google is not clear about their strategy: Chrome, Honeycomb or none of the above?
All I can say is: serves them right.
Exactly!
...it would be a big shame if everyone keeps failing like this, leaving the market to just iOS (which has a plan and a vision behind it) and Android (which is just a cheap tool for manufacturers and a vehicle for delivering more ads for Google)
Well said. To think that many manufacturer's are promulgating an OS that (apparently) only exists as a driver of ad sales. Hmm.
Smart phones are just.... handsets. Consumers trash them almost as often as they trash tennis shoes and t-shirts
That's a very good point, but I think there's a little more subtlety to it. I don't think consumers actually thrash their phones, but that they think about their economical lifespan in terms of how long their contract lasts, which is usually 2 years. Because the actual cost of the device is amortized over that period, they get the impression phones are 'free' or at least 'very cheap' if they just keep renewing their contract, so after 2 years they basically dump the thing and get a new one.
Tablets are different. First of all you don't actually need to have a contract with them, because most tablets will see much more indoor use than outdoor, so paying a monthly fee for 3G seems wasteful. Because consumers aren't lining up to get these tablets on contract, it's much harder to knock down prices and make consumers view tablets as 'disposable items' with a fixed 2-year economical lifespan. Now, personally, I think most tablets will be replaced within 2 years anyway, so you'd think there is no difference with phones, but I think there is. The human brain has interesting (often irrational) ways to judge value propositions, and I think it's likely that many consumers will buy a tablet with the idea they will use it for a long time. Because they are not already counting on replacing it within a determined, fixed time after purchase, they will research the product more, be prepared to spend a little more for premium quality, etc. It's not a disposable item in their mind, so they will take more time deciding if and what tablet they buy.
With smartphones consumers are much more susceptible to impulse decisions, and much more often get stuck with a device they'll quickly start to hate. Just pay some attention to what friends, colleagues etc. are saying about their phones some time, you'll quickly find out how many people complain and moan about their phone, and how much they are looking forward to replacing it. Now compare that to tablets, how often do you hear someone complain they bought the wrong tablet?
That's my impression at least
You can in fact patent an idea, whether it is implemented in the code or not. It happens all the time. For example, Google has licensed a mathematical algorithm that Stanford university holds a patent for. You can also copyright both the code and the look of the GUI. Oracle is suing Google for using its copyrighted code.
I'm not sure if we are in disagreement or just using a different context of the term idea. An algorithm is an actual working tool.
I mean you cannot patent the generic idea of a GUI based phone and literally protect it from anyone else using it. While you can protect a specific GUI implementation.
Apple's probably not pursuing it because right now Apple needs Google. If Apple sued Google, Google could possibly pull search, maps, and other software from the iOS platform.
For now, the two companies have to play nice though.
Google's services are open to anyone. I don't see how it would serve them to block Apple.
I think Apple would have a pretty tough case in trying to sue Google over Android. Most people would perceive it as being petty. Its much better to just compete in the open market and make a better product.
In my experience how much the board knows about what is going on varies from company to company. I imagine in Apple they know very little beyond, "we're going to make a phone".
I beg to differ. In my experience, board members need to approve the strategic directions of a company, and entering the cell phone segment is a major deviation from Apple's core strategies - At the time, I don't think there was any hint of what a smart phone would be, sure, Blackberry was doing email, but that was pretty much it. The board members may not know every technical details, but I am sure the vision and strategy were shared and vigorously debated.
1. Don't rush the product just to beat Apple. Whether it's Samsung last year or Motorola in March or RIM preannouncing in September, it's bad form to release half-baked. Unlike phones, people are reading the reviews on these things to see which ones work best. The ones with mediocre reviews aren't selling. Apple got its fans to buy in, which created a network effect as new apps and functionality was released. Few of the competitors will be able to do that.
2. Tablets aren't phones.Both Samsung and Motorola thought they could simply leverage the same old carrier-based subsidy/spiff sales style and rack up the sales. They did not foresee that people didn't want yet another contract. Now Samsung is being forced to practically dump its products and the first 3g-based Xoom sales are weak.
3. Margins are going to be crushing. Apple was taking a risk when selling the iPad because it's a higher cost to build, potentially lower margin product. They made up for that by having built-in value-add as the average selling price over time is over $600. If people looking for an alternative don't like Apple's "premium" brand guess what's going to sell? The ultra cheap models with razor thin margins. Just like netbooks it'll be a race to the bottom all over again. Then again, Google is forcing higher hardware specs for Honeycomb, which should help keep the discounters at bay.
4. The component crush. Apple buying up over half of the touchscreen market (and other parts with upfront cash) makes it harder for the compeitiors to forecast and book production. Can new plants come online fast enough to meet demand? If you're Apple, not fast enough.
Tablet sales are being propelled by one simple question, "Tablets are different, but why are they good?" Apple has answered that question. When the others start capably solving that riddle, their sales can start to take off too.
This is good news for Apple in both the short to mid-term of course. But also likely good news for two others: HP (already mentioned) and MS (barely mentioned).
Google indeed seems to have approached tablets as mostly larger smart phones with more "screen estate."
HP and MS, conversely, are apparently taking the time to release something resembling finished, thought-through products. Both are going to be part of company systems with deep hooks from phones thru tabs thru desktops. And both companies are to various degrees emulating Apple's basic paradigm.
HP in fact looks to want to break out of the commodity model and become another company which uses an OS and software to market complementary hardware. And even on these boards WebOS gets at least some grudging praise if only because it was designed partly by people associated with early versions of iOS.
Yesterday's forum discussion on the new touch gestures in Lion being later suitable for a touchscreen iMac made me think of HP's new tilt-screen PC which is a suitable prototype for just such a device, in that it's a solution for the ergonomic problem of having to reach out to a vertical screen that Jobs has discussed.
Their big problem is scaling WebOS to be a fully competitive desktop OS (and garnering apps for it) - and it remains to be seen how well their initial dual-OS approach (Win AND WebOS on desktops) will work.
MS also can't match Apple from stem to stern because it lacks the hardware base of Apple and HP - but is trying to exert more control over its licensees than Google's done with Android. They lost time with Windows Phone 7 by pulling the phone group into the Win 8 dev process, but stand to reap eventual gains by having done so, especially with Google's stumbling approach into the tab space. And their 2012 release date no longer seems as hopeless as it once did. (Win 3.0 wasn't released until the Mac had been out for five years, after all.)
Windows 7 is clearly the "least sucky" version of Win to date - and my reading indicates that's because they began emulating Apple's approach to its development by modularizing sections of the code, and only including stable modules in the overall build process instead of trying to sort out system-wide effects of throwing in this function and that as they went along. They've built on that in the Win 8 process by including tab-specific and phone-specific layers from the beginning. And they have been building touch pieces into Win for some years now with their "3 screen" goal (phones, slates, PC's) - which has now become 3 and half screens - since there will be two types of Win 8 tabs - one running full (touch enabled) Win 8 (and thus full Office) on Intel processors and another running the lighter version on the ARM processors which will be powering their Metro-skinned phones as well.
So there will be (nearly? fully?) as much correspondence between Win 8 and their phone/slate OS's as there is between iOS and OS X. Which as we all know is a proven model.
They're also scaling down Office to have some functionality and full compatibility on their ARM hardware and WT8/WP8 - and that will certainly have some value in marketing to businesses. (Though I do expect in time that there will be Office-like offerings on the iPad. MS makes good money on Office for Mac, and they need their apps - or at least their file formats - to be on such a popular platform which is already demonstrating considerable business uptake.)
Of course that's a lot of targets to hit simultaneously for a company famous for slipping release dates and still burdened with huge legacy code issues. But we shall see.
So I'll stop there without going deeper into HP or RIM (which is in at least fairly deep doo-doo and still scrambling with a half-baked release), except to note that besides "closing" access to Android 3.0, Google's hired 1900 people in the last three months, indicating they're realizing they have a bigger job on their hands than they realized when they blithely tried to simply occupy more pixels with bigger widgets when entering the tab space. I've also heard they're also finding out they're not getting as much ad revenue from Android devices as expected, giving them more to re-think.
Bottom line, Apple's iPod-like market share of the tab market is likely to continue for another year or more, but it will eventually find itself, if still the clear leader, in a market with several other serious players in in the mix for the longer run. The "post-PC" era is a reality and everyone else finds themselves in a position of having to bet a considerable portion of their farms on gaining a toehold.
I beg to differ. In my experience, board members need to approve the strategic directions of a company, and entering the cell phone segment is a major deviation from Apple's core strategies - At the time, I don't think there was any hint of what a smart phone would be, sure, Blackberry was doing email, but that was pretty much it. The board members may not know every technical details, but I am sure the vision and strategy were shared and vigorously debated.
Oh yeah, I agree with that - I'm sure they would have known that Apple were targeting the smartphone segment, and probably the price points and expected margins Apple would be going after.
What I would doubt would be whether they saw any "meat on the bones" so to speak. I've been involved in preparing presentations to boards in the past (never had to actually present!) and the level of detail is specifications etc. without showing much detail of how things would actually work.
So they sat on a completed, fully ready product for 4 years?
No.
They worked on the iPad concept and technology but it was not "ready for market".
Maybe not quite ready for "market", but Apple waits for and builds the market before marketing products, determining how to market to the market they developed in an evolutionary fashion.
Apple is quite remarkable in this regard.
its all about the ecosystem.
Very true. The Xoom is a very nice piece of hardware but without a proper OS and a slew of apps its not enough. I actually feel bad for Moto because its more Google's fault then theirs.
Don't put out that model with your best advantages--flash, LTE, and SD card support--not working.
A $400 wifi model like ASUS is going to put out would have made the most sense and even then it would not have sold that well with no apps. $350 would have been the price point to go for.
The problem here isn't Google and it's not ecosystem related, it's a Motorola problem. If they had waited until it was finished, sales would probably have been pretty good. Now even when they do finish it, sales will be muted because in peoples minds it will always be the tablet that has to be sent back.
Oh, there are lots of blame to go around, and Google is part of it. Centrally part of it. They themselves are, indirectly, admitting that Honeycomb is not ready by not releasing Honeycomb source code and have admitted they took shortcuts to get it shipped. Reviews of the Xoom and other Honeycomb slates corroborate this with reports of unstable software. Android 3.0 is still in an alpha or beta state and Google let Moto ship it. In fact, they are letting Samsung, LG and Asus ship systems with it. Software is harder to do hardware, and Google basically is doing all of the software.
They could have easily held back and had 3.0 systems ship over the Summer, and have another design cycle and a real QA cycle happen for the software. For some stupid reason, the "OHA" thought that they couldn't let Apple have an iPad 2 sales cycle all to themselves.
Don't put out an $800 model when your competitor with tens of thousands of tablet apps has a $500 model.
Don't put out that model with your best advantages--flash, LTE, and SD card support--not working.
A $400 wifi model like ASUS is going to put out would have made the most sense and even then it would not have sold that well with no apps. $350 would have been the price point to go for.
I think Apple adds value to the their product in a few more ways -
- iTune - it's just a wonderful place to get both free and paid media.
- Brick and Mortar stores - You know where to take an iDevice to get fixed if something breaks - the Apple stores have an excellent reputation.
- Updates - you know you are likely to get updates and bug fixes for a couple of years - I read an article just today about this not clear if any other device had had regular updates!!
- Investment protection - You know all the Apps most likely will run on the next iDevice!
To me all this adds up to another $100 - $200 value that the other guys need to provide
Oh, there are lots of blame to go around, and Google is part of it. Centrally part of it. They themselves are, indirectly, admitting that Honeycomb is not ready by not releasing Honeycomb source code and have admitted they took shortcuts to get it shipped. Reviews of the Xoom and other Honeycomb slates corroborate this with reports of unstable software. Android 3.0 is still in an alpha or beta state and Google let Moto ship it. In fact, they are letting Samsung, LG and Asus ship systems with it. Software is harder to do hardware, and Google basically is doing all of the software.
They could have easily held back and had 3.0 systems ship over the Summer, and have another design cycle and a real QA cycle happen for the software. For some stupid reason, the "OHA" thought that they couldn't let Apple have an iPad 2 sales cycle all to themselves.
Yeah fair comment.
Still, I'm told "open" software is the best. I say I've been told that, I've never seen it demonstrated yet.
I think it's all about making a finished product. I mean honestly, who in their right mind would buy something that needs sending back to be finished.
The problem here isn't Google and it's not ecosystem related, it's a Motorola problem. If they had waited until it was finished, sales would probably have been pretty good. Now even when they do finish it, sales will be muted because in peoples minds it will always be the tablet that has to be sent back.
I said back in January, a full month before that pos hit the streets, that Motorola was going to bring out a rushed and unfinished product... also mentioning that honeycomb wasn't even finished and wouldn't be at a test stage until the week that Moto was bringing the Xoom to market.
The writing was all over the wall. Samsung's pos brought out in December was the harbinger of doom for Android tablets...
How confident can you be in buying a samsung tablet that an update may or may not come in it's cycle lifetime? Potentially leaving you unable to run current applications. It's not a good place to be in.
Now that's really the big question, isn't it? I don't see Google being perceived as a good partner and how many tablet makers want to be beholden to a 3rd party who may or may not issue periodic updates that you hope will work on your specific hardware? As much as I dislike MS at least MS has been very diligent in issuing patches and updates to its Windows franchise, making it a great partner for hardware manufacturers. Google? I don't think it has a clue how to pump out patches to security breaches or updates and upgrades. What's the incentive? Once you give away a copy to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who's building Android devices, why spend the time? Google's making its money from the ad revenue so as long as Android is on a few million devices, Google's happy.
I hate to sound like a member of a chorus, but it's so true that it's the ecosystem that Apple has created that leaves nothing to chance for the unsuspecting buyer.
Eric Schmidt sat on Apple's board when the iPhone was in early development, so, He was able to steal it while it was happening, I'm not sure why Apple has not sued the pants off him for that. Now that Google wasn't on the Apple Board.....well.......ya get ...Honeycomb in all its glory. With all the Tablet manufactures putting their eggs in one basket, so to speak, they all get to fail together.
Funny you mention that. I read that when Steve jobs saw Android, he was so pissed at Eric, that untill Eric was finally kicked off the board, anything about the iPad was specifically kept from Eric. F'ing theves!!