Quote:
Originally Posted by seajewel
I'm getting really uncomfortable in this thread however.
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The thread really ran out of gas quite a while back.
While there is some minor amusement value in watching the bullets fly, the acrimony is starting to overwhelm even that. And so far neither camp seems to be addressing the elephant in the room.
It all boils down to two hard to swallow truths:
1- iPad mini is going to sell by the million, despite its specs, despite its price
2- Apple no longer controls the media consumption tablet market
For the next year or so the media consumption tablet market is going to be in total flux as it goes from being an Apple-dominated niche to a wide-open competitive market with multiple categories and niches and one where iOS is a *minority* player. Apple will still be biggest single player for a while longer but from here on out the arguments are really going to be about mission suitability and the price of lock-in rather than "innovation" or "revolution" hype.
The game is no longer about specs per-se--that game died with the iPad3--but rather "what's it for?". And once you get serious about *that* you''ll start seeing a *lot* of sales going to tablets that are neither iPads nor generic Android.
Apple no longer defines what a consumer tablet is (it never got even close to defining what a business or institutional tablet is) but that doesn't mean Google gets to define it either.
The new boss is the consumer; not Apple, not Google. The game is no longer a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, but rather the good old consumer electronics game of trade-offs. Of knowing what you personally value and and how much and then cross-shopping until you get a match.
The dirty secret of the media consumption devices is that the OS is really irrelevant. Look at smart TVs and audio receivers; most have Netflix and Hulu and Vudu and Amazon Video and Pandora and LastFM. So do most high-end Blu-ray players and most media streaming boxes. Gaming consoles, too. When mainstream consumers buy any off those they neither know nor care what the OS is. All they care is about the added value of the "right" apps be there. And *that* is where consumer tablets are headed.
For all the sniping about Apple Vs Google (because that was the tablet Apple chose to highlight) the real disruptor in this game is Amazon. They're the ones driving prices down by selling tablets at cost, they're the ones threatening to derail Google's Android plans by forking it and thus forcing Google to do the Nexus in the first place, and they're the ones that took 22% market share in a few months by showing that people *did* want a 7in media tablet if the price was right.
Both Apple and Google are *reacting* to Amazon (and to a lesser extent, B&N) while trying to hide the fact that neither is calling the shots.
I'm thinking that the longer the argument of iOS vs Android lingers on specs and marketting and lock-in, on sheep vs drone name-calling, the more often the real-world answer is going to be "who cares?" (meaning the forked Android tablets) or, worse; "Windows".
New game, new rules.
And both Apple and Google are behind the curve now.
What I'm interested in is saying who recovers first.