

The iPad’s dominance of tablet usage, even 1.5 years later, is astounding - daviday
http://www.splatf.com/2011/10/ipad-usage-comscore/

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mechanical_fish
Is anyone really surprised that the iPad is crushing all these things-that-
are-obviously-trying-to-be-just-like-the-iPad? Customers aren't actually as
stupid as birds: You can put a newborn cuckoo in a bird's nest and the bird
will feed it -- it doesn't actually know what its own offspring are supposed
to look like -- but you can't just build a thing with a screen that looks
superficially like an iPad and expect folks to mindlessly buy it. Especially
when you're selling to the early-adopter crowd that buys devices from two-
year-old categories.

But, really, the lesson of articles like this one is that tech business
analysts are prisoners of their own categories. The iPod Touch is not a
"tablet" because it is too small; obviously all those smartphones are not
"tablets" because they can make phone calls, which clearly makes them
completely different, because... hey, when analysts were growing up the
telephone was _a completely different thing_ than the computer, instead of
just one application that runs on your computer and that gets less use with
each passing year.

And the Kindle is somehow not a tablet, because... uh, it doesn't have pretty
colors? And the B&N Nook is not a tablet, because... uh, I guess you can't
view animations on it? (Okay, seriously, it's probably the absence of touch
that defines a non-"tablet". But does anyone want to bet that the new touch-
enabled Kindle will get to be called a "tablet"? I somehow doubt it. It's just
not iPad enough.)

Obviously, netbooks -- the hot category of yesteryear -- are not "tablets" and
therefore don't appear on these charts, even though the most obvious reason I
can see to buy an iPad alternative is to _get a keyboard_ and/or the ability
to run PC apps. And, of course, the eleven-inch Macbook Air isn't a tablet
either.

If you allow the iPad to define a category and then draw the boundaries so
narrowly that only the iPad fits, surprise! It dominates the category!

What would be more interesting to look at is the iPad's share of "things with
similar screen size and weight", or "things that can play portable games", or
"things that can read Kindle books", or "things with half-decent web browsers
and 3G support".

~~~
ryanhuff
Digging into how tablets are impacting specific established product categories
would be interesting, as it would help understand the impact that tablets are
having beyond old-school computing use-cases to this point, and what other
use-cases tablets might see success in the future. The obvious example is
physical books, as well as medical. I am sure companies that are threatened by
the encroachment of tablets into their markets are paying close attention.

However, as many are assuming (possibly incorrect) that the tablet is the
future of mass-market information consumption, I think it is important to
understand why Apple has (so far) dominated the tablet market, and whether
competitors can respond successfully.

~~~
alperakgun
The stats are wrong. Android tablet's just launched in acceptable
configurations, sony, samsung and amazon.. Soon android will dominate.

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jonnathanson
Despite all the hooplah and endless praise, analysts _still_ manage to under-
credit Apple for the iPad. They do it by describing the iPad as a "tablet" PC,
as if it somehow lives in the same category as all the tablet PCs that came
before it.

In a physical sense, sure, it does and it is. But to consumers, it's not a
tablet; it's an iPad. That's a crucial distinction. Consumers just weren't
buying tablet PCs before the iPad came out. They didn't grok the tablet
category, full stop. They didn't see a need for a PC-like device that wasn't a
PC. Apple changed all of that. It breathed new life into a stillborn category
by tearing down that category and reinventing it. That's a monumental
accomplishment.

So, while it may be technically correct to lump all of the pre- and post-iPad
tablets into one category, such analysis misses the spirit of the matter. And
that's what Apple understands that its competitors do not. Apple doesn't
market its products as part of existing categories; it markets them as
categories unto themselves. An iPhone isn't a "smartphone;" it's an iPhone. An
iPod isn't an "mp3 player;" it's an iPod. And so on and so forth. As for
Apple's competitors? They see themselves in the "mp3 player" category, or the
"smartphone" category, or the "tablet" category. They've lost the battle by
misunderstanding the battlefield.

~~~
notatoad
i agree with the concept of your post, but i think that the market can change.
the iPad is definitely a market unto itself, and the iPhone used to be. but
not anymore. the iPhone basically cracked the doors open to the smartphone
market, and while it used to be the only real choice, it isn't anymore. plenty
of normal people are buying android phones, because android phones have gotten
good enough to compete with the iPhone on an even footing. in the same way, i
have faith that mass-market tablets will eventually catch up to the iPad. it
might be win8 instead of android that prompts this change, but apple will
eventually have a competitor.

~~~
jonnathanson
I think that's a fair critique, and I agree with your assessment over the long
run. The iPad, like the iPhone, can't stay uniquely compelling forever. Sooner
or later, the market moves toward saturation, and from there, commoditization.
Even the most diehard fanboy, of which I fully confess to being, would be
negligent in dismissing the Mac vs. Wintel Clones battles of the 80s and 90s.

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BlazingFrog
People don't want a tablet, they want an iPad. It's that simple.

Does anybody seriously believe that the average consumer walks into Best Buy
(or any other store) and say "Hello, I'm shopping for a tablet, what selection
do you offer?". And then proceed to compare side by side an iPad and a Xoom
(or any non-iPad) to, ultimately, decide on the iPad? As of today, this is the
fantasy world those non-iPad tablet makers are living in, thinking they can
compete on specs (but apparently not on looks or price).

OTOH, this will change with the Kindle Fire that will swoop the entry level
tier.

~~~
Hyena
I think this is accurate. Once the KF sweeps the low end, the tablet/iPad
identity will start to break. I think there was a similar dynamic in mobile
phones: there were phones and Blackberries, then iPhones along and finally
most people started thinking about "smartphones" as a category.

~~~
alperakgun
From many android tablets I see around since septembers, no you are ignoring
that other tablets just arrived.

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pbsurf
With the recommended configuration, the Honeycomb browser on my Android tablet
(Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet) identifies itself as Chrome running on Windows XP. I
don't know if this is the case for other Android tablets but, if so, that
would certainly skew these traffic stats.

~~~
rsynnott
The configuration as recommended by the manufacturer? That seems bizarre.
Certainly, most Honeycomb tablets identify themselves as such.

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saturdaysaint
Really interested in seeing what iOS 5 does to these numbers. When it's
updated, I'm planning on the iPad being my grandma's next computer.

~~~
jsavimbi
If you find yourself responding to family IT requests on a constant basis, the
iPad will make all of that go away. Matter of fact, you may never hear from
them again.

Just set up the printer and ensure there's enough paper and ink to go for
awhile. Check back in six months.

~~~
protomyth
Oh, you'll hear from them again once they discover FaceTime and how it costs
nothing to call you. :( or :)

On a more serious note, I am looking into the exact workflow that would be
needed to use iPads for students so that assignments (receive / turn in) would
be seamless to normal students. Might still be a few years, but I can feel
which way the wind is blowing.

~~~
WiseWeasel
Why not have them email their assignments to you?

~~~
protomyth
That's kind of the last resort. I would prefer something a bit, uhm,
integrated. I am not really talking about 1 class, I am talking about all
classes. I just want to get something that is simpler than e-mail.

~~~
jsavimbi
Are you taking direct advantage of the iOS Developer Library for the iPad? If
you're not, then maybe all you need is a fancy HTML5 app. It's not as sexy as
an app store app, but you control all of the content without worrying about
having future releases rejected.

~~~
protomyth
Technically, if they are school iPads then I can go the enterprise route. Not
sure if that will be the case (school's until grad, then here you go)

I am a reg developer and am still saying my options.

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Pewpewarrows
I'd hardly take the analytics numbers from mobile web browsers on an Apple-
focused blog as substantial evidence in any way, shape, or form.

Here's the numbers I come up with. According to Google, 1.8% of current
Android devices that are activated and have accessed the Android Market in the
last 2 weeks are running Honeycomb (their tablet OS). In July they were up to
130 million total activations, with 550,000 new ones every day. Assuming that
number hasn't grown at all (which is being extremely conservative considering
that number shot up from 400,000 only 2 months prior), that would put the
number of active Android devices around 180,000,000. That puts the current
number of Android tablets that are sold and active on the Android Market at
over 3 million. Apple's numbers look to be about 30 million iPads.

Assuming that Apple and Google are the only players in this market (hint:
they're not), then that puts Android at around 10% of the tablet market. Still
dominated by the iPad, yes, but at least these numbers have weight to them.
It'll be interesting to see how this pans out over the next 8-12 months. The
iPhone having real competition served to improve the entire smartphone market
all around. Hopefully we've only begun to see what tablets can do.

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cletus
This is what I don't understand. Based on published sales figures the iPad is
~85% of tablets, which I simply don't believe. There can be no explanation for
this other than the non-iPad manufacturers are basically lying, which
typically means "in channel == sold". It may also mean they don't count
returns.

The iPad having 97% of tablet Web traffic is intuitively a far more accurate
number. Just think about how many tablets you see in the wild and how many of
them are iPads.

As for why: I think the answer comes down to the ecosystem being _far_ more
important on tablets than on phones. Any smartphone can send and receive
calls, send and receive text messages, send and receive emails and use some
variety of maps. IMHO that covers the vast majority of most people's usage.

But on tablets? Games matter. Apps matter. Far more than on phones (IMHO),
hence Apple's unrelenting dominance of the space (so far) and also why people
expecting a repeat of Android's rapid growth in the phone space just don't
seem to understand the difference. But I guess that's the danger of analogies.

Android's Kindle Fire is (IMHO) the first serious iPad competitor to emerge
and the first non-iPad that will get remotely serious (>1M units) marketshare.

~~~
notatoad
"I think the answer comes down to the ecosystem being far more important on
tablets than on phones."

from what i've seen in my friends and customers usage (and my own experience)
you couldn't be more wrong. on a phone, a mobile app often provides
significant usability improvements over a website. on a tablet, all anybody
cares about is having the web. games are nice, but ultimately not that big of
a deal, and the iPad doesn't have a significantly better ecosystem as far as
games go. the app advantage on iPad is apps that are clones of a website.

the reason that android tablets are failing is because they are an inferior
product to the iPad in terms of style functionality and raw specs, and yet
they cost the same or more than the market leader.

~~~
dagw
I'll just add a second, conflicting, anecdote. Most of the iPad owners I know
use them heavily for games. If you took away the games I have no doubt the my
girlfriend, for example, would sell her iPad instantly.

Also the difference in the quality of games between the iPad and Android is
huge, probably far bigger than any other app categories. Lost of big name
studios like EA and 2K games and getting behind the iPad and producing games
of a quality you don't even approach on Android.

Now I'll admit I have no idea how important games are, really. But if I was to
go purely on personal observations I'd say it's highly significant.

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aw3c2
I hate Apple with all my heart but I still do not know of another option if I
want a good tablet at that size.

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jbondeson
I think the problem is that people are looking at this backwards.

The vast majority of people buy the iPad not because they want a tablet, they
buy it because _they want a really big iPhone_. HP, RIM and most of the others
seemed to not understand this and attempted to build a really big iPhone...
without the iPhone ecosystem. Surprise, surprise they failed miserably.

Apple did a very smart thing, they took a product that was selling like
hotcakes, and they introduced a product that was identical save for the form
factor. Every iPhone user (which is a whole lot of people) was suddenly an
expert iPad user! They felt at home, they felt safe, they got what they
wanted: a really big iPhone.

~~~
marcc
The iPad isn't just a "really big iPhone". Have you spent much time using one?
It's familiar because it runs the same OS, but the experience is unique to the
iPad. I agree with your statement that the ecosystem has a lot to do with the
success of the iPad, however, it's definitely not "a really big iPhone".

~~~
jbondeson
It sounds like you think I'm belittling the iPad. I really don't know what's
bad about being a really big iPhone. A different form factor of an excellent
product can still be excellent. Apple made a great piece of hardware with some
pretty crazy hardware wizardry, but non-techies don't care about that because
_they expect it from Apple_.

I'm merely trying to describe what I've heard my non-techie friends praise
about the iPad. They _like_ that the user experience is almost wholly
translated to the iPad. They _like_ that they can get all the apps they have
on their phone on their iPad. They _like_ that it's bigger.

I've never heard a non-techie say "I really like this new dual-core
processor," or "I really like the 4:3 aspect ratio as opposed to the 1.5:1 on
the iPhone!" We (royal HN we) may love to obsess about all the little nuances
that make the iPad different from the iPhone, but the fact of the matter is
that most people just don't care.

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sambeau
The dominance of the iPad has always been about the walled garden and iTunes.

Amazon will clean up in the lower end of this market because they also get the
importance of content and to some degree walled garden.

To stretch an analogy somewhat:

    
    
      We geeks are the cowboys who want to roam in wolf-infested
      hills, looking for gold. Normal people want to play in a
      beautiful, safe garden filled with lovely shiny toys.
    

Who can blame people, after years of viruses, malware, stupid UIs and techno-
babble, to want to sit on a sofa and noodle on the internet while watching TV.

~~~
ceejayoz
> The dominance of the iPad has always been about the walled garden and
> iTunes.

I really can't agree. I believe the dominance of the iPad stems from an
operating system designed for touch input instead of having it shoehorned in
like Windows did for years.

Android tablets will do just fine for the same reason. They've been struggling
thus far because it's currently hard to match Apple on price - they've done a
hell of a job in supply chain management.

~~~
rsynnott
Most Android tablets are the same price as the iPad or a little cheaper (with
the exception of the hilariously expensive 3G/4G Xoom). Honeycomb, however, is
rather buggy still, and the app ecosystem really isn't there.

~~~
alperakgun
No they are cool. Apple just sold a brand people show in cafes for prestige,
android is just starting in tablets, when stats start to change, I will see
you are wrong in few quarters. , written from my samsung galaxy tab.

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zerostar07
I think it's because it has the best web browsing experience, but i may be
wrong.

