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And why is the rest of the market so fixated on phones?

Because Google cannot sell an Android device on its own. They tried, remember?

Google as an institution knows even less about selling retail products than the average hot dog vendor. Meanwhile, Apple has very deliberately spent a decade building the best direct-to-customer retail operation in the tech industry, perhaps even in any industry.

So Google's customer-facing sales operation consists of mobile phone carriers. That's been effective so far, though I still wonder how much of its success is driven by the existence of iPhone carrier exclusivity -- nothing motivates Verizon to sell, sell, sell those Android devices like the threat of losing a flood of subscribers. But carriers are only interested in selling phones, because phones come with usage fees and contracts.

The lack of direct connection to the customer has all sorts of side effects on Google's business, and one is that they have no obvious way to effectively bring an Android-powered iPod Touch to market. They need to build a retail system from scratch - an even more difficult version of the task at which Gateway, Sony, and Microsoft have already failed - or they need a partner. Which partner? Existing gaming companies, the ones with the brands, all have their own platforms. Microsoft, for the moment, has their own platform. PC vendors have been selling commodity widgets for so long that they've forgotten how to sell something new. Is Google supposed to just buy shelf space at Best Buy and hope? Go back in time to the 1990s and ask the old Apple Computer how well that strategy worked.

> Because Google cannot sell an Android device on its own. They tried, remember?

I'm not sure about that, if you're talking about the N1. They barely even tried to sell it, I see the N1 as defining a (tentative) baseline for Android, which is supported by rumors of its configuration (1GHz CPU, 512MB RAM, 800xwhatever 3.5" screen) being the minimum configuration required for gingerbread.

"5 years ahead of all competitors."

I like your future guessing skills :-). I don't think I have clue what's going to happen next month.

How long would it take a company, even of Google's size, to create a handheld android device that competes with game handhelds? How long would it take to create a tablet that is as successful as the iPad? How long would it take to create a platform and store and get all the deals with the music industry, movie industry, book publishers, attract video game developers and more that could beat Wal-mart? All that isn't happening in a month...

I think 5 years is actually pretty generous considering it took Apple about 10 years (while they control both the hardware and software side making it much easier) and everyone else can see the path that worked.

I don't know if we're going to be using handheld devices like the iPad 5 years from now.

I don't want to make fun of you or anybody but trying to predict the future, seems to be something everyone fails.

People fears to say "I don't know" it's kinda like religion, lol.

@igorgue: Not trying to predict the future just stating how long it would take to catch up to present products/platforms based on how long it took Apple to create them. The nature of this question was speculative and I was basing it on some current present facts. I don't know for sure but that is the way it seems, this whole topic is about predicting the future.

So you don't think handheld devices like the iPod Touch, DS, PSP will be around in the future? iPad aside if you don't think people will use larger screen flat devices in the future.

I thought we were having a discussion not just joining the religion of 'I don't know', how fun is that? Ok then the probability of people carrying personal media, creative, entertainment, gaming devices is probably going to go up rather than down. But I don't know for sure...

I just don't know, that's my opinion, maybe we're going to be using something like Futurama's eyePhone.

I disagree, we can use the past to inform the future so it's not the same as religion. I think it's a much better bet to say that devices like the iPad will be more popular 5 years from now than to bet that they're going away. Sure it's silly to put specific numbers to it, but we can estimate the broad strokes to a better than chance accuracy.

Don't predict the future. Bet on the future. If you want to have the mobile skills that will be in demand two or even five years from now, pick what that will be and invest in learning them. You can always hedge by dabbling in the other platform.

For me, I am learning iOS first and Android later (Actively pursuing and coding iOS projects and monitoring the latest flavor-of-the-month Android state-of-the-art and evolving best-in-class Android apps with interest)

To answer your first two questions, it would take many years. But unless you're privy to insider information from a lot of different companies, you can't rule out that all those devices are several years into their development already. I would be shocked if there aren't at least a couple Android tablets that have been under development for more than a year. As for your third question (how long to line up the content providers): not very long at all. Once Apple has paved the way, it is much easier to get those same media companies to give the same deal to a competing device, since those media companies don't like Apple having that much control over their content i the first place.

> Apple iOS and the platform is at least 5 years ahead of all competitors.

I disagree. The technology in iOS is pretty much at par with the competition -- a little better in some areas and a little worse in others. A few years ago, they were clearly on top but Android is decisively closing the gap.

But I understand you're just not speaking of their technology: they've got a very clear market lead in handheld devices and that's a gap which is much harder to bridge. But the competition is closing in fast here as well -- by Christmas there will be lots of Android (and perhaps other platform) tablets. Most will be cheaper yet just as capable. Android is already outselling the iPhone.

Also, it is clearly a phone-only market. The reason the iPhone exists at all is because Apple saw the writing on the wall: the iPod was going to be irrelevant when phones contained all the same capability. Mobile devices that aren't connected (in some way) to a mobile network are going to irrelevant soon.

Apple isn't making a play for all entertainment devices. They make one model of phone, one model of PDA, and one tablet. They purposely (and profitably) think small. Their goal isn't and has never been world domination.

It's funny you bring up Apple II's in schools because I'm almost certain we're going to get a great lesson in history repeating itself. Except this time it won't be Microsoft with the dominant platform, it will be Google.

Market share is not the same as technical quality. By that logic MS Windows is also years ahead of it's competitors.

Most people consider Apple's products to be superior technically than Microsoft's respective products.

That explains Apple's share of the computer market perfectly.

That explains Apple's share of the iPod and iPod Touch markets perfectly.

Snark aside, most consumers don't know software and hardware well enough to understand who has a superior product. They know that they click on the blue E to get to the internet. That's it.

By that logic, they also "know" that if they want a smartphone, they should buy an iPhone, and if they want a tablet, they should buy an iPad.

I'd argue that most people know that an iPhone or iPad will buy them the best experience currently available in their respective markets.

But they also know the figure on their weekly paycheck. And as the difference in user experience between iPhone/Android is narrowing, many[1] seem opt for second-best at half the price.

[1] http://moconews.net/article/419-android-sales-exceed-iphone-...

In terms of desktop market share Windows is still years ahead. I think this is the same approach that Android is taking, they want the market share and to become the new windows on mobile.

The one problem with that is that the iOS is actually more like windows creating a common platform, similar form factors and simplifying the features and complexity of the consumer handheld devices. That is actually the same approach Windows took to get your mom on the internet and using office.

For far too long the mobile market was fragmented. Windows consolidated the desktop market to create many more platforms and markets for people. Apple iOS is a common platform in mobile while the others are still pretty fragmented. Apple is looking to do the same for entertainers, developers, marketers etc. Once they open it up by selling at Wal-mart and get other carriers it will be a true test.

I think its more like 5months. I do get it.. they are driving amazing innovation, and exceptional polish that everyone else will have to copy. But they will catch up, because its fundamentally about engineering - its better when you decouple hardware and software.

Most people wont pay for the difference of that extra level of superb integration that Apple offer.. the gap will close as there is so much volume and competition in the mobile and tablet space.

I actually think we are close to optimizing the mobile form factor.

What other hw features could you have on these devices.. [natural spoken language translation in realtime?] its all software from here on up.

What other hw features could you have on these devices.

Solar panels, e.g. Apples's patent for a screen integrated one, contactless inductive charging, pixelqi style sunlight readable display, e-ink style display which uses no power to keep a static display, display privacy with a display that can change it's viewing angle right down, make the back optionally touch sensitive as well, if you remember Doc. Brown from back to the future had some augmented reality binoculars, you could speculate about possible camera improvements which would aid that kind of thing such as infra red sensitivity to help apps locate people in scenes, haptic feedback more than just 'vibrate', and again very speculatively dynamic changing materials - e.g. If the handheld device could change texture, kinetic charging, pico projectors, pressure sensitivity both on the screen and on the device generally, someone made a nice hack to wear a magnetic ring so they could gesture above their phone and sense it using the compass - theremins can do similar using some kind of em field distortion, could a device integrate anything like that without a huge aerial?

I'm not sure if you're saying there's nothing else we could put in a device now in hardware terms, or if there's nothing else interesting we could put in a handheld device ever, or just nothing we could put in that a consumer would want, but I'm not convinced for any interpretation.

its better when you decouple hardware and software.

Citation needed.

Im saying theres not much more we could put on a mobile device that is a game changer [and yes I entertained the tricorder idea with a DNA sampler & diagnosis, but I guess thats out of range for a decade ]

Agreed longer battery life has room for improvement, but would it change usage, given current devices can be used for 4 or 8 hours already?

re decoupling hw / sw : Ill give an explanation, rather than a citation :

We write in high level languages that use logical abstractions, not machine specific ones. These can be ported across various hardware platforms, and thus reused, saving work.

I think everyone prefers to have the same HTML5/javascript api work on all devices.

brings the total iOS devices to over 100 million

so Apple's shipped about the same number of iOS as MS has Windows 7?

http://www.asymco.com/2010/06/10/the-next-100-million-ios-de...