2011: The Year of Too Many Tablets

iPad has 350,000 apps for it. 92% of all developers write apps for it. IBM’s strategic business language is targeting it. Oracle ERP is targeting it. Everybody has it. Hundreds of copycats are copying it.

And this is only the first generation iPad.

No wonder Steve Jobs calls the iPad magical.

By original, I’m assuming you’re incorrectly referring to the iPad. Selling the most of something doesn’t make it “the original.”

Tablets have been around for over ten years and while they never made it in the consumer market, they were never really designed for consumers.

Now if you’re referring to internet/media tablets, Archos is one of several who have been doing that for several years. Archos has also been sporting a mobile (read: phone) OS since Android 1.5, so I guess they can’t really claim to be the pioneers in that one either.

I’m not saying that an xp tablet pc or an Android 1.5 media tablet can compete with the iPad but they definitely came into existence long beffore the iPad was even vaporware.

Unlike most of the general public, Apple can’t claim they didn’t know about these other products when they first started designing the iPad. So, even Apple knows this isn’t “the original.” It is just the most streamlined version of a VERY old design (at the moment.)

The fact of the matter is eventually (read: next couple years or so)the majority of the tablet buying public will buy Android for the same reason the majority of the pc buying market buy Windows. Better or worse,

WOW, 92% of all developers?! I didn’t realize that the vast majority of software developers had jumped ship and started writing 99¢ apps for a mobile platform. Who’s out there writing software for OSX, Windows, Linux distros, Blackberry, WinPhone7, Web OS and any other platform I can’t think of at the moment? Gee, I guess everyone else should just throw in the towel now, I mean if “everybody” already has the iPad, what’s the point in developing anything else ever. Nothing else could possibly do what iPad does. I mean it’s a big touch screen that runs applications. How could anyone hope to be able to produce something more functional than that?

Of course my usb port, mini hdmi port, sd card slot, built-in kickstand and front facing camera are handy but they’ve got nothing on that proprietary jack and single button on the iPad.

Lots of people are willing to pay out the nose for iDevices no matter how lacking they are in basic features, that’s why Steve calls it magical.

96% of these wannabees will be gone by summer… If you DON’T have one – wait. If you do and it’s not NOT an iPad – you’re screwed.

Sebaldi, I tip my hat to you. I actually left the newton out of it on purpose due to its complete and epic failure. I’ve found that saying Newton to an Apple fan is the equivalent to kicking him in the crotch, it’s the one thing a man shouldn’t do to another man.

As far as the public’s view on other tablets, I’m fully aware and in fact made reference to it in my fifth paragraph. If public perception equals fact then at one point the earth was flat. I was merely clearing up a misconception.

While the iPad is currently “it,” that doesn’t really matter. The iPhone was unrivalled in its category (consumer smart phone) for awhile too. Regardless of which OS you like better, Android has given IOS some stiff competition. The fact is that people can fight all day long about who’s “winning” but unless one of them drops out completely, there is no finish line so how do you win? The fact is, Web OS could climb out of the woodwork with some major redesign and kick the crap out of both sides (I think we can agree this is HIGHLY unlikely.)

My point is that everybody thinks what they chose is the “right” choice and for them it is. A lot of people dismissed the iPad as a big phone when it was announced, claiming there was no market for it. Now, those who stood by it and helped make it popular want to dismiss Android tablets and claim there’s no market for them. They helped CREATE the market!

iPhanboys will buy iPads, Phandroids will buy Androids and everyone else will decide for themselves whether they like this friend’s iPad or this friend’s Android. Keep pushing IOS hard because I’m pushing Android. We’re both right and we’re both wrong and in the end nobody wins!

FLAME ON!

How to view: As a list of things that are going to be available in large quantity on Ebay in the not too distant future.

Prices are going to drop and features expand on these devices like they never have on the iXxxxx ones and people will quickly abandon their $600 device for a $300 one that does more. And then $100.

We will finally have the $100 PC that Ballmer says the world needs. Only it won’t run Windows.

Tablets are coming out sooooo slowly and this one seems to make a passing grade all around. Count me in for a purchase

Why do these companies even bother?