

There really isn’t much of a “tablet” market - dean
http://www.marco.org/2010/12/31/there-really-isnt-much-of-a-tablet-market

======
nl
I remember almost exactly the same argument being made in 2009 about Android
on phones.

Here's how it unfolded chronologically then:

1) "no one can complete with Apple because of the quality of design"

2) "no one can compete with Apple, only geeks buy Android phones"

3) "no one can compete with Apple, except if you are a geek or want a phone on
a non AT&T network"

4) "no one can compete with Apple, except if you want a non AT&T phone or want
a low end handset"

5) "Ok, Android is outselling Apple, but Apple is more profitable"

So... why, exactly will the tablet market be different?

~~~
Pewpewarrows
It's sad how much a certain subset of HN users have the memory of a goldfish
when it comes to this sort of history of technology.

Back when they just had OSX, market-share meant nothing. It was all about
quality. When Android released and iPhone was dominating the smartphone
sector? Market-share was all you'd hear about. When Android surpassed iPhone
in market-share? It's all about the size of the App Store, man. Android Market
set to outnumber the App Store? Doesn't matter, look at how much more money
Apple's paid to its developers! (Let's conveniently ignore the fact that the
App Store's been around about twice as long).

Now we get the see the same arguments happen all over again for the tablet
market. I, for one, will enjoy watching it repeat itself with my bowl of
popcorn.

~~~
nl
Oh yeah, I forgot about the size-of-appstore arguments.

Edit: So how am I supposed to interprete the downvotes? Is it just a vote
against me being dumb enough to forget it? That the argument doesn't exist?
Please explain!

~~~
Stormbringer
I downvote meta-discussions about downvotes on general principles

------
wvenable
Marco contradicts himself:

 _Neither Google nor Microsoft will ever be able to tailor their software to
other manufacturers’ specific (and varied) hardware devices_

...followed by...

 _Anyone can cobble together the same processors, DRAM, flash, and radios as
Apple, put them into a plastic case_

What is the iPad? It's a touch-sensitive screen. It has a border and a few
buttons. What is every non-Apple tablet? The exact same thing. In terms of
other hardware, tablets are _far_ less varied than PCs.

Microsoft and Google don't have to tailor their operating systems to varied
hardware -- in terms of interface, all tablets are the same. The problem is
they're a few years behind Apple in the whole software ecosystem.

The big point, and here Macro and I would certainly agree, the iPad has a
reasonable software ecosystem and everyone else doesn't. I don't see Android
or Windows making a dent in this anytime soon but, assuming the tablet market
has legs, it will happen eventually. But for now, it doesn't seem like a non-
Apple tablet is a good buy.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
It's funny how so many people come to the same, in my opinion correct,
conclusion but get there for all the wrong reasons. Marco almost gets it in
the first paragraph, then stumbles around trying to explain it. There's
nothing to explain; people want the iPad because it is a desirable "sexy"
device, plain and simple. Trying to go further and you've missed the point
entirely. It's the cumulation of years of brand strengthening, good products,
and good advertising. If you ask the average person who wants an iPad (and
I've done this) they won't be able to tell you any one thing, and no "apps"
have absolutely nothing to with it. All they know is that the iPad is cool,
people who have one are cool, and they must have one as well.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I disagree with this. "Sexy" can get you in the door, but only if you actually
solve some need (perhaps not yet known) can you develop market share. If the
iPad had only sold 240K machines the first year then you'd say "Its just a
sexy device without solving a real problem." But it did much more than that.

So you go back and ask "What was it?"

And that is what market research is all about.

I don't know, I've not surveyed thousands of iPad owners why they bought, how
much they use now, if they would upgrade, so I can only go by the limited
exposure to friends, family, and various hacker types.

The itch it seemed to scratch, which was un-met by the 'touch' was "instant on
access to email and web."

The 'conventional' wisdom was that this "wasn't enough" to justify a $500 -
$900 purchase. Or a laptop would be the answer. Apparently the wisdom was
wrong.

There are other things it does of course, and more all the time. I got into a
fierce one sided debate inside Google where I was advocating e-readers were
important and being countered with "your stupid, I can do that on my phone, no
one will buy an e-reader who isn't stupid." (Almost word for word, seriously)
You can't see what you can't see.

So while I agree that a strong brand can sell stuff which isn't useful,
developing beyond the afficiandos takes actual value which the iPad (and
tablets) seem to have.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
I'm upvoting you for a well-written, well-reasoned reply but I'm not
convinced. Chrome OS's sweet spot is instant on web and email also, but I'd
venture to guess it isn't going to sell nearly as well as the iPad has/will.
Certainly it's not as good in other areas, but if that really is what this
trend boils down to it should be a big success as well.

I've never heard a potential iPad owner give a reason for wanting an iPad. The
iPad is a fashion accessory. I've seen people crowd around them at parties
during the early days lustfully wanting it, but no one mentioned apps or email
or anything like that. Or anything about the experience at all.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
A related comment that supports your thesis:

From the developer of the highly successful Professor Layton games for
Nintendo DS:

 _"from our analysis, we found that light users – users who had the Nintendo
DS Lite system – were more likely to possess a game system for the sensation
of having a popular item than because they were seeking ultimate excitement
and quality from games."_

[http://www.nintendo.co.uk/NOE/en_GB/news/iwata/iwata_asks_-_...](http://www.nintendo.co.uk/NOE/en_GB/news/iwata/iwata_asks_-
_nintendo_3ds_third_party_game_developers_31641_31607.html#top)

Sounds like the description of a lot of iPhone and iPad users to me. (Note I
have a DS and an iPhone, and family have iPads, and think they are all great
products).

~~~
ChuckMcM
I agree, although its the 'light users' thing. I see folks who own iPads as
fashion accessories and have no use for them at all too. My claim was that if
that was the only category of user, then the overall sales figures would be
much smaller (the 'fashion' user base is limited). I've seen business folks
(sales people for example) come to meetings with an iPad as their only tool,
they type on it like they might a laptop. It doesn't seem to be 'fashion' for
them.

And there are folks who use them as color e-readers too. I've got my entire
O'Reilly book collection on mine, not something I thought would be useful but
it is. And there are the kids in schools using them to replace textbooks.

Its hard to get real data without actually polling those users to see if they
are 'just experimenting' or if they have changed their workflow to require an
iPad or tablet. If its the latter the change is durable.

Sales volume of 15 million for the iPad 1? [1] And more than 20 million
projected for the iPad 2? That many 'light' users who have $500 minimum to
shell out for a fashion accessory? (if they are re-buying and the bizjournal
article says they are) then really that is over $1000 for that accessory. So
I'm interested in what the actual use case is that it putting iPads into
people's hands and keeping them there.

[1] [http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2011/03/14/apples-
ip...](http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2011/03/14/apples-ipad-sales-
blow-past-projections.html)

------
phodo
The best way I would explain it is the following: In (way old skool) Eddie
Murphy's "Raw" (<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092948/>)... he talks about
growing up wanting to eat a Big Mac at McDonalds. Yet, his mom refuses to take
him there and keeps making him bologna sandwiches to save money. It's the same
thing, she says! He cries and cries. He wants his McDonalds! It's just not the
same as a homemade sandwich, he blurts back! His mom, of course, was
optimizing on the wrong variable. She never get's the difference between the
homemade sandwhich and McDonalds. You can tell that Eddie Murphy is quite
bitter at the whole thing. Anyway, I never seemed to have forgotten that story
when I think about good vs. bad marketing.

------
MatthewPhillips
There isn't a tablet market because there isn't a need for them. The iPad is
popular for reasons that the buyers can't give you (prior to purchase). They
just know that they want one.

My girlfriend is the target audience for an iPad. She's not great at
computers, she consumes media but doesn't create her own. She wanted an iPad
and so I got her one for Christmas. She loved it, at least at first. But I
rarely see her using it (and I don't use mine much either). When she wants to
get on the internet quickly she pulls out her macbook. The iPad really is a
device that you use for a specific purpose, it's not the low-level general
purpose machine that it's made out to be. I would say ditto for the rest of
the tablets as well.

I don't think it's because tablets are a bad idea, I just don't think they are
very good at this point. They can't keep up with a desktop web browser (the
reason most people use computers) and they aren't very easy to use.

~~~
cageface
I've had a similar experience. Now that I've had my iPad for a while I just
use it as a glorified Kindle. And aside from technical books with lots of
diagrams or equations it's an inferior Kindle. I rarely use it for web
browsing anymore since I often want to add a comment to a thread or something
like that and I'm 10x faster on a real keyboard. The portability of my phone
makes it very handy but the iPad is almost as big as my Macbook so I'm not
really any more likely to take it along.

------
micah63
I just drummed for a gig and the sound man walked up and set my monitor levels
using an iPad standing beside me on the stage, no wires, no yelling, no
pointing, no charades. It was unbelievable. For those who say that tablets are
toys, not useful, not practical.... get ready.

Apple will enjoy for a while and Androids will crush in 2 years (unless Oracle
wins it's lawsuit).

------
nir
Seems to me the real killer would be the "$35 tablet" type devices, and they
won't compete with with iPad or with laptops, but with paper (and that's a
market Apple probably isn't even interested in)

------
joejohnson
>>These manufacturers aren’t software companies: they’re hardware companies
that write software out of necessity. Apple is a software company that makes
hardware out of necessity.

I like that, but I don't think it's true. Apple computers are (in my opinion)
more reliable hardware; a lot of the appeal to Apple laptops are their simply
designed hardware and their durability.

However, the opposite point is true: Apple's competitors are not in the
software game.

~~~
burke
I don't understand why everyone feels a need to argue over whether Apple is a
Software company or a Hardware company. This is not a fruit-or-vegetable
question. They do a lot of both, with roughly equal degrees of effort and
success.

------
ZeroGravitas
I'm just about to buy a "tablet", its screen is 4.3 inches and it also makes
phone calls.

People keep asking if the "tablet" market is going to be like the smartphone
market or the iPod (i.e. PMP) market. I think it simply _is_ the smartphone
market. People like Marco don't want this to be true, because they think Apple
has already lost this market. That's why there's so much effort expended
trying to desperately to separate the two. It's like the old business school
cliche of "what business are you in?". The trains thought they were in the
train business, but really they were in the people moving business and got
disrupted by aircraft. Tablets and smartphones are just two ways of accessing
the web (in its widest sense). At some point we're either going to start
calling tablets "phones" or phones "tablets" and the two will merge into a
range of devices with no clear transition point.

------
MatthewPhillips
> But the market for non-iPad tablets is about as big today as it was before
> the iPad.

Citation needed. The original Galaxy Tab sold ~2 million in the first 3
months, the Playbook sold ~250k in the first 3 months. [1]. Were Windows
tablets selling that well?

[1] - [http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/18/250000-blackberry-playbook-
tab...](http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/18/250000-blackberry-playbook-tablets-sold-
to-date-rbc-says/)

~~~
bonch
[http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/01/31/samsung-galaxy-tab-
sa...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/01/31/samsung-galaxy-tab-sales-
actually-quite-small/)

 _But during the company’s quarterly earnings call on Friday, a Samsung
executive revealed those figures don’t represent actual sales to consumers.
Instead, they are the number of Galaxy Tab devices that Samsung has shipped to
wireless companies and retailers around the world since product’s formal
introduction in late September._

~~~
MatthewPhillips
That's an already debunked mistranslation; the article you link to has a
correction. I don't know why some people don't want to admit that the Tab did
pretty well but the evidence is that it did. Not just the numbers but the fact
that they made another one, and those same retailers and wireless companies
are gladly stocking it yet again. They wouldn't have done so if they says were
"quite small" as many media outlets were happy to (falsely) report.

------
RayVR
self-fulfilling prophecy. These companies set out to be a better iPad, so they
choose a few things they think apple got wrong or consumers will really
appreciate. Then they make a 7" ipad with an sd slot. Except the UI isn't
polished, the materials are cheaper, etc.

If you look at the way android started to win in the mobile OS market it's
through the sheer number of offerings. Yes, there are some Android phones out
there which are blazingly fast or have a great screen. At the end of the day,
Android is winning because everyone accepted it as the one thing to use to go
after iOS (except HP with the acquisition of Palm).

The true value Apple is offering, as many HN readers already understand, but
the author of this article does not, is the integrated experience (on top of
being the first to market). Apple's integrated experience may be lacking some
of the features (for now) that make Android really awesome but the sheer
perfection of the things that iOS _does_ do is outstanding. Now let me go back
to my android phone...

------
rsheridan6
I'd prefer an Android tablet to an iPad because I use an Android phone, not an
iPhone, and I don't feel the need to learn the app ecosystems for two
different OSs. There is no Android tablet right now that looks like a good
buy, but that will change.

------
johnrob
The best bet for an iPad competitor would be someone delivering a standard
desktop OS in tablet form, somehow solving the input (keyboard/mouse) issue.
At that point you'd be matching Apple's ecosystem with an even bigger one from
OSX or Windows.

------
Pewpewarrows
Two years ago: 'There really isn't much of a "smartphone" market'. See the
difference?

~~~
pohl
Trick question, right? The difference is that the smartphone market was well-
established with models from Symbian, Palm, Windows and BlackBerry. Oh, and
that two years ago nobody said "there isn't a smartphone market".

~~~
burke
There were a lot of people claiming that the smartphone market would never
approach this size, though.

------
Tichy
Is that a Daring Fireball copycat thing? Trolling with Apple works every time,
it seems.

------
schuz0r
Um Apple is a hardware company, not a software company. Their revenue is based
almost entirely on hardware sales. They create software and either give it
away or sell it cheap in order to sell hardware.

~~~
fredoliveira
They're a "system" company. They sell you a system (software _and_ hardware).

