HP Touchpad: 'the last stand for competitors for the iPad'

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Sony Betamax outsold any individual brand of VHS for a long time...

Try again.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by HarryT

people want to run pretty much the same stuff on a tablet that they do on their laptop or desktop PC.

But it has to be built from the ground up to work with a touch interface...

Up until now, no one has had tablet success any other way.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

No, your point was that Apple iPhone sales were slowing and that Apple was being trounced.

If that's what I said, why did you link to a post where I didn't say that?

You can see what I originally said here.

Originally Posted by bhartman36

People haven't stopped completely buying HP/Palm phones, but I think it's safe to say they're trounced. I don't necessarily think the iPhone is being trounced, but clearly, the bar is a little bit lower than you imply here.

(Emphasis added.)

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

In no sense of the word is that happening when they are breaking both their own sales and profit records quarter by quarter.

As I've said, quarter to quarter increases don't, alone, tell you how the iPhones are doing against the competition.

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

But lets divorce the OS from the discussion and talk about the hardware -- after all, Apple does both hw and sw while Google mostly does just one (rightly so--wasn't the nexus one a sales disaster?)

How many of Google's partners (HTC, Samsung, etc) have a single cell phone model that is outsells the iPhone on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis?

I don't know of any. Probably, the closest to iPhone status was the Droid (although I don't know how many they sold). But you're never going to see that phenomenon with Android, because the platform offers more choice. If you want iOS, you have to accept whatever hardware Apple throws at it. If you like Android, you've got dozens of choices in phones. I would find it extraordinary if any one piece of Android hardware took a commanding lead.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

But it has to be built from the ground up to work with a touch interface...

Up until now, no one has had tablet success any other way.

I think that's going to be the serious issue for Windows 8 for tablets. There are too many legacy Windows apps. I'm sure they'll get Office running on a touch interface, but what about all the other things people depend on?

The other problem will be the identity crisis. Tablets are used very differently than laptops or desktops, and if Microsoft intends Windows 8 to go on desktops, laptops, and tablets, how are they going to create a coherent experience?

[RockdaMan]

Look at what we have here:

Apple's iPhone is back to driving the growth of smartphones in the US, according to a recent Nielsen study. In a survey of recent cell phone acquirers, the proportion of new iPhone owners has jumped to 17 percent from 10 percent at the beginning of the year, while percentages of new Android phone owners has plateaued at 27 percent.

Those numbers show that Android still makes up the majority of new smartphone sales for customers who picked them up in the last three months, but interest in the platform has stopped growing for now.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/...-in-the-us.ars

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

whatever hardware Apple throws at it

But look at the sales of that one model. If you're selling 'em like hotcakes, you don't make changes very quickly, very much, or at all. Don't dilute the brand. Thats not a weakness, its a strength.

Compared to other hardware, it's probably the dominant model on the planet, certainly in the top three or five.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

How many of Google's partners (HTC, Samsung, etc) have a single cell phone model that is outsells the iPhone on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis?

I think the iPhone heads the pack in the US, but in the UK the top-selling smartphone is currently the Samsung Galaxy S2, with the iPhone 4 in second place.

http://www.gaj-it.com/33944/samsung-...rtphone-in-uk/

Impressively, HTC has five handsets in the top 10.

Graham

[RockdaMan]

The best review of the Touchpad is on a Mac site. Imagine that...

I don’t really have any complaints about the hardware. It’s bulkier than the iPad 2 but not unpleasantly so, and I think Apple’s proven the appeal of a tablet with a 10-inch screen and a 4:3 aspect ratio. HP’s accessories are solidly built, its Touchstone wireless-charging technology is clever, and even the product packaging is elegant.

HP has gotten a lot right here, but on the software side, it’s just not all there yet. The interface isn’t responsive enough, app launching is slow, and there are too many other quirks that scream that this is a 1.0 release of a tablet operating system. (Even HP seems to acknowledge this: The company says it is already readying an over-the-air update to webOS that will fix bugs and improve performance.) Some aspects of what HP is doing with the webOS are really interesting, including the Synergy feature that brings all online-service data together into a unified interface and the superior app-switching interface.

http://www.macworld.com/article/1608...irst_look.html

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

Look at what we have here:



http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/...-in-the-us.ars

The article seems to attribute this (reasonably, in my opinion) to the introduction of the Verizon iPhone:

The introduction of the Verizon iPhone likely had something to do with this swapping of roles, as analysts predicted shortly after its introduction.

Opening up the iPhone to another U.S. carrier is a big deal, and the fact that it was Verizon was even bigger. So where is Apple going to find the extra sales from to overcome the market lead Android has? I don't think they can. Not unless Sprint and T-Mobile get their own versions of the iPhone and iPad.

The problem for Apple is that Android competes well. Carriers aren't so desperate to get iPhones anymore, because they can carry two or three Android phones that, together, will give them as much business as the iPhone would.

I think Apple's best move now would be to release several different versions of the next iPhone. Expand the hardware options, and you'll entice some of the people moving to Android because they want things like micro-SD card slots or hardware keyboards.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

So where is Apple going to find the extra sales from to overcome the market lead Android has?

Don't have to.


Remember, in battling 'Android' they are by themselves battling a conglomerate of hardware companies. Focus on those the hardware makers individually, and Apple is already one of the 800 pound gorillas in the room.

Put another way --> monitarily, an Android quarterly 'win' is divided among many different companies. Look at it as it really is --> Apple vs. HTC, Apple vs. Samsung, etc. and they are already winning more of the money flowing into the market than most of the companies competing against them.

Google brags, but it's partners pull their hair out.

[RockdaMan]

From Engadget: Hilarious!

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

Don't have to.


Remember, in battling 'Android' they are by themselves battling a conglomerate of hardware companies. Focus on those the hardware makers individually, and Apple is already one of the 800 pound gorillas in the room.

But they're not fighting against those companies individually. They're fighting against Android. All of those manufacturers separately take a piece of Apple's phone market. And also, it makes a difference with developers. If I want to choose between developing for iOS and developing for Android, I'm going to look at my potential market. If iOS has a much smaller market share, I'm going to put my money towards Android, even if the iPhone is still the best selling single phone.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

Look at what we have here:



http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/...-in-the-us.ars

Interesting because...
Verizon iPhone sales are already slowing down, analyst says

Nielsen: Android Still Number One as Smartphones Outpace Feature Phone Sales

[=X=]

Originally Posted by Graham

I think the iPhone heads the pack in the US, but in the UK the top-selling smartphone is currently the Samsung Galaxy S2, with the iPhone 4 in second place.

http://www.gaj-it.com/33944/samsung-...rtphone-in-uk/

Impressively, HTC has five handsets in the top 10.

Graham

The reason why no one Android phone beats the iPhone is because with Android you have choices. Choices of phone types and carriers. However there are instances where some phones do surpass iPhone sales an example is the Thunderbolt. However the next "new" android phone shortly came out and most likely cannibalized the sales of the Thunderbolt.


That said when the Galaxy SII hits the states that will be a hot selling phone. Right now it is by far one of the best android phones on the market. But then again you do have LG Optimus 3D.

[HansTWN]

Well, Rockdaman, you can try to argue away everything. But so what? Marketshare wise Apple is on the way down, that is a fact.

It is a basic problem with Apple's business model, the closed system, the total control, no hardware options -- you can't dominate a market in the long run this way. And Apple made strategic mistakes, they should have moved to a 4" screen last year, they can't seem to move to 4G in time, they did not introduce more hard ware options. They already have lost the public perception of being a technology leader in the phone space (which they obviously never were, but Android took away their ability to easily spin it that way, because Android phones have offered real innovations and features that matter --- Apple has been relegated to playing catchup as OS5 shows).

They may put their head in the sand and say "everything is running great, sales figures are going up" (I believe Steve Job's is not stupid, they see the freight train coming at them). But the Android Tsunami is pushing them back into their usual market share corner, and Nokia/Microsoft haven't even started. Nokia has the best connection to Telcos the world over.

And as for tablets -- yes, Google is still struggling. But I predict, that in 2 years we will have the same situation in this market as with phones.