Why Android will win the tablet wars

Android tablets were up to 22% of the market last quarter... on what? Galaxy Tab? That's an absolutely incredible number with really no great product on the market.

Unless Apple has a trick up their sleeve for iPad2, Q2-Q4 of 2011 will likely split 75/25 for Android in the tablet space.

For all the grief I give Google, their dev model around Chrome and Android have been lessons to the industry. Why is no one paying attention?

This is my big problem with this whole class of analysis. It keeps coming back to the Mac example and not the more relevant iPod. The conference call gave a hint, Apple is spending $3B to prepay for supply of some new components. Which Android manufacturer can do that? Samsung probably has the best chance since they source a lot of components themselves (heck, they build some for Apple).

The current Android tablets are not significantly cheaper than the iPad (especially considering the smaller screens). Apple with the iPod started at a high rate and kept moving the price point down to make life very difficult for competitors. If Apple keeps the current iPad and makes it the new entry model at a lower price point (much like the iPhone), then the problems for other manufactures will be increased.

At this point, I really think HP will surprise a lot of people, but I don't seen the Android tablets (or Blackberry with its bizarre connectivity requirements) being major competitors until they resolve their pricing issues.

I despise people who prognosticate with certainty. (I was going to say "love" but sarcasm is cheap. So I'll go with honesty.)

First of all, who cares? More Hyundais sell than Ferraris. Obviously Hyundai is better. Hyundai wins!

Second, let's see how Android does in the US after the Verizon launch -- if Android does as well relative to Apple on Verizon as it has done on AT&T well, that would be sad for Android, wouldn't it? (I'd _guess_ things will be less one-sided on both carriers -- but I wouldn't claim certainty.)

I'd love for Android to "win" in the sense of becoming as good or better than iOS and sustaining the lead, but if Apple gets eaten alive by competitors, all the "victors" will do is race to the bottom on price, quality, and user satisfaction.

You haven't seen those devices because Apple's brand-name competitors are choosing to enter the high value markets first. Anything with a recurring data contract brings in far more money.

And Google itself would rather make the devices and the contracts cheaper, so that the users can spend more time online using Google products. They'd rather replace a kids iPod (inc. Touch) with an always net-enabled "phone" if possible.

But away from the headlines there's been generic, wifi-only Tegra2 tablets on the market for a couple of months now at half the iPad price. Not only does the Tegra2 beat iPad hardware, it's in line with the rumours for iPad 2 hardware. So the magical Apple hardware efficiency and price competitiveness doesn't really add up.

Note these generic tablets have plastic bodies, screens with poor viewing angles and non-tablet Android often without market access or official Tegra2-optimised Flash out of the box, so they're a tinkerer's delight rather than an iPad killer right now, but that's a separate issue from the power and cost of the hardware.

Are you a time traveler from the past?

You might have had a point a year ago. Now, sorry, your argument is tired and dated. People want something that can play a couple of games, access Facebook and Twitter, visit websites, etc. There is a lot of competition, and the iPhone is only one option.

It has no entitled right to that market, nor is it necessarily the superior option. For many users it is the inferior option, rhetoric and flag waving aside.

A lot of customers are deciding among the available smartphones and walking out of the store with a Galaxy S or some other high-end Android device (which overwhelmingly dominant Android sales, despite the continued notion that it's some sort of low-end platform). It does what they want.

And that competition is only getting fiercer. Gingerbread, plus the upcoming (meaning weeks) gauntlet of devices == Android is putting aside the training bra.

But again, let's revisit this in six months. I'm sure there will be some new angle.