back to article IDC: Google needs DEEP tablet price slash to crack Apple

Google must work closely with the fondleslab makers to slash prices if it is to loosen Apple's strangehold on the market. Or so says research analyst IDC, armed with data showing that the iPad accounted for three-quarters of the 1 million tablet devices shipped into the UK during Q3. "Apple has tight control of the platform …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.

Page:

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    When you buy the Standard Leader you expect to pay more.

    When you buy the Standard Leader you expect to pay more, why would you pay the same or more for a brand that is not associated with that sort of kudos...

    As with all products in a market, when you buy the market leader you pay the price for it.

    Apple mac books you pay for the name and the product, would you compare a windows/linux/etc laptop as the same thing...

    This is why the tablets need to be reduced in price, given the choice for a 400pound apple product and a 400pounds adroid tablet the mass will go with the Apple, it may not even matter if specs are better, people are just like that, a named product that has been established.....

    Android needs to bear the brunt of cheap tablets until they can stand on the software and the services that are already around that apple have, not by having this app for that, and this app for this, to get the same functionality that they will with everything rolled into one and works out of the gate.

    I can see only android actually becoming competitive once people start buying them in massive quantities, and with the products on the market with the current pricing it just isn't going to happen, android will be the geek alternative for a tablet, not a users alternative for a tablet.

  3. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

    Content wins: price is not Google's big problem

    Amazon will sell millions of Fires, not because it's Android, but because they're a trusted brand and because once you've bought the thing, they can supply you with stuff you might actually want, at a reasonable price. iPads take the same content-consumption idea, and add some limited editing and creation facilities, but they're primarily readers and viewers. But has what people want to watch changed, just because the screen has? I don't think so.

    Google hobbled themselves long before this race began by not cleaning up YouTube when they acquired it. Their mad dash for more and more eyeballs has alienated them from the people they need now: the people who make the TV shows and Movies that help to sell tablets. When Apple have the lion's share of the tablet market, why would I strike a deal with a company that not only has had dubious success, but is also the main cause of my lost royalties and syndication fees. Sony(Ericsson) may be an Android partner, but there's more than one Sony, and Sony Pictures/Columbia is a lot cooler on the idea of putting its stuff on Google's platform.

    To me, the sleeper here is, strangely enough, Microsoft. The media industry can deal with MS, like they can with Apple, but MS pursues a partnership model that shares the wealth with its partners (very much unlike Apple), and in Windows 8, it may have a better tablet proposition than Android does. Isn't it amazing what a bit of competition can do?

  4. al 3

    @dpGoose - fondleslab is a perfect term for these devices, I have yet to receive a well defined business case for an employee having one, other than, er, it'll be cool, but everyone has one, but I want one, but, but ,but........

    On a more serious note, Google really needs to sort out the inablility to install root certs in order for the citrix receiver to work through a netscaler, this is the killer app for, at least, my enterprise..

    I have been trialling a Samsung Galaxy tab 10.1 tab dooh daah, a rim playbook and an an Ipad2 at home to establish strategic technical direction we want to take, at least a short term one, in terms of protable computing :-)

    Over three months...... I like the Playbook best, (battery, UI, build) it should be noted that I only need a device to run a citrix reciever,

    I'm sure that the fact that there aren't 250,000 fart apps in it's i(app)store ? must mean it is shit, well only if you followed though.... :-)

    So Rim will fail apparently because they don't have enough apps, Android have an opportunity in the enterprise, if they drop prices, Apple ? leave that for the consumer....

    In 30 years in IT I've never seen a form factor create such a mastubatory reponse in humans as tablets.... it's a pity I still reach for the laptop when I actually want to do some real work rather than simply read stuff...

  5. Shonko Kid
    FAIL

    It's not the cost of the things

    No amount of cost cutting is going to allow an Android tablet to compete with the iPad, as the iPad's USP is that it is an iPad.

    If they want to seriously compete, then they need to come up with an actual compelling use for the damn things.

    Functionality of a Phone, Convenience of a Monitor just doesn't cut it. Unless it's from Cupertino of course.

  6. miknik

    Android maturity may settle things down

    I've just binned my HTC Desire in favour of a Galaxy Nexus after enduring painful waits for software updates to Android.

    While the HTC Sense overlay was a real benefit to Android 2.2 I think having used vanilla 4.0 for a few weeks Android is now maturing to the point where it may not be so necessary to skin the UI as manufacturers have in the past.

    If manufacturers stop skinning then the update procedure becomes far less painful. Whether they insist on doing so to maintain their brand identity is another matter.

  7. Greencat
    Thumb Up

    Peter 48 has it

    There are plenty of cheap Android tablets. Price is not the issue. Awareness is.

    Also there's a problem with quality and out-of-the-box experience on the Android devices I've tried. I got a Kindle Fire the other week - out of the box it's laggy and has a quirky interface. Plus it has some very strange hardware choices - speakers on the narrow end? A recent update has improved some of that though.

    For the average person, they want a device that just works really well rather than one that needs a custom rom and an afternoon of researching to get the best out of it. Then repeat again in 3 months when the next version comes out (if it does). Android market is also a complete mess - plus there are around a dozen competitors.

    Sad to say, Apple have the computer as an appliance market well and truly dialed - a good mix of user control, ease of use and price.

    I do struggle to understand why other very big companies cannot achieve the same - as well as take Apple on about the control freaky stuff.

  8. sam tapsell
    Happy

    iPad zombie

    OK, when I bought the iPad I wasn't quite sure what I would use it for. I thought it would be like my iPhone, but bigger. For the first couple of months I didnt use it much and thought I had wasted my money. For proper internet or general use, sit at a computer. To look something up, glance at twitter, then the phone is always in my pocket. Where did the iPad fit in?

    Then I had an exam to prepare for, with loads of PDF guidelines to navigate, and the need to read things up on the internet. I met in a study group at different places (using 3G).

    Suddenly the iPad became fantastic. I can carry a huge library of PDF resources (goodreader is worth the money) and have the biggest book - the internet - to hand. Switching on, opening a browser and sending a query to google is just so quick. I have not seen a PDF reading device half as good as an iPad.

    Most of this would be possible on the competitor tablets I agree, but now all my photos pop up on the iPad via the auto sync. It has turned my camera on my phone to a great document archiving system.

    And now I have a USB MIDI interface connecting my MIDI keyboard to garageband. Now that is really clever.

    I cant go back.

    Its a shame, as the competition is hotting up: The Galaxy S2 looks great, the quad core acer tablet looks nice. But I'm all in with apple. Hopefully the competition will keep them on their toes...

    Sam

  9. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Bloody anal-ists

    Android has had a poor start in tablets. This could initially be put down to hardware / software mismatch (Samsung and Toshiba's first efforts) then hardware delays (Motorola's Xoom, etc.) and incompatibilities - some apps, unfortunately, such as The Economist don't run on Honeycomb yet. So, while the hardware is now there, the developers are playing catch up. Maybe Android 4 will help sort this out as a unified release for phones and pads. Then there are the legal shenanigans designed to hold the competition back just long enough.

    In the meantime it seems to me that the other manufacturers really have caught up on features and build quality - essential for this market - with Samsung definitely starting to look like a leader with the S II and the Nexus S - surely the phones to have this season? And the Note is definitely of, er, note.

    Assuming Google can start looking after its developers and help the manufacturers to release updates a bit faster then I can see Android gaining pad market share in much the same way it did with the phones. Cheap but "good enough" devices from ZTE and Huawei, incidentally for whose Android phone there is an ad in this week's Economist, together with the Kindle Fire should do the rest. Of course, even if Apple's market share of new devices drops 30 % over the next twelve months they'll still be creaming it in.

Page:

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like