Why Can’t Tablet Makers Just Freaking Ship?
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Apple just happened to have caught the entire planet with it's pants down when they introduced the i-Devices. I mean, look at what Google was working on[1] after Apple introduced the original iPhone. Google was chasing the market leader in style and interface at the time (Blackberry). When Apple introduced iPhone 3G, all bets were off and Google went back to the drawing board.
iPod Touch is introduced, and the only real competitor that comes to the fore is Microsoft, with the Zune (RIP) brand that mimics the Touch to no end and barely does anything better (yes, I'm taking the soon-to-be-dead Zune Pass into account).
Now it's tablets, and again, the rest of the industry reacts. I'm certainly surprised MS hasn't tried to hook up with a HW vendor to make a Phone 7 tablet.
Apple is on a hot streak. First with seriously consumer-friendly smartphones, then with software and media ecosystems, now with disruptive computing platforms.
It'll eventually run out of steam, but will the rest of the industry kill itself trying to keep up in the meantime?
I'm more excited about HP's webOS stuff than iPhone 5 or iPad 2.
To that end Xoom is looking great and may be webOS will beat it in most key departments, but I can buy Xoom like next week.
There's tons of things to consider with hardware related products. Imagine all the conditions: from software, to users, people with disabilities, hardware conditions, if it heats up, if the environment is too humid, too cold, if it gets dropped, and so on.
This things take time. If a tablet pops up today it doesn't mean it was built in 3 months by a handfull of hackers and redbull, there's tons of work behind. Apple just happend to execute really, really well on it.
The fervor over subscriptions should be a key to these idiots that there is a strong market for an actually open device: instead they're taking the main competitor, an open source project even, and making it functionally more closed than iOS to an average user. Apple is hammering away at the middle-road consumer, and Google's OS is not only positioned as "me too, but also everything!", it's being filtered through handset manufacturers who have their own agendas, which run counter to what Android suggests to be.
My suggestion? Google builds a durable tablet for academics and scientists to research in the field with. Because of Android's open nature, it would be trivial to open up an entire ecosystem of sensors and data loggers that would integrate. The best gift I ever got for my father was a kill-a-watt, there's a huge, untapped consumer market for data collection and processing.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positioning_(marketing)#Product...
I think it would be easy for Apple to match this: they can just add a USB host port to the iPad and allow apps to talk to connected devices. Almost everything today is USB-based.
Apple just does a little step at a time instead of completely opening the barn door as the first step.
They don't: http://itunes.apple.com/app/audiotools/id325307477?mt=8
Apple has kinda done this via the dock connector. For example I just bought one of these to turn my iPod touch into a sound level meter: http://www.studiosixdigital.com/iphone_measurement_micropho....
The bad news is that it's not compatible with the iPad or newest iPhone/iPod touch so possibly Apple is removing the external interface capability.
edit: there are also ODBII interfaces although I don't know if they work with the newest iDevices
The dock connector is actually pretty good for providing power and basic connectivity-up-to-a-USB-port, but I'm betting it would be shut down by App Store rules. Which is a shame, because Cocoa is probably one of the best frameworks for a researcher or hobbyist to build in.
Which is where Google would come in: they could provide a great API for building out sensor platforms, not only in WiFi and Bluetooth, but also whatever 2.4ghz home-rolled or XBee modules people are using.
"Apple has the tablet component market sewn up. An entrepreneur I talked to in China described the difficulty he still has buying touchscreens that are worth a darn. The real reason most of the current tablets are 7 inches? Because Apple bought up all of the 10-inch capacitive touchscreen stock and if they didn’t then they drove the price too high for smaller orders. There is no way to dabble in the market without paying a premium."
Really the issue is that hardware is hard to get right and requires a lot of resources, resources that Apple has and many other companies do not.
More than just that, Apple also has the considerable advantage of owning almost all of their stack. They make their own chips to power their hardware which runs their OS which uses their applications and their infrastructure. Apple has aggressively taken control of the entire top to bottom stack (eg App Store reviews, acquiring PA Semi) like nobody else has been willing and/or able to.
Edit: It does appear that Samsung helped design it, thanks for the correction HN :) I think my overall point still stands though
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A4
The Samsung Galaxy S has the S5PC110 processor. This processor combines a 45 nm 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 based CPU core with a PowerVR SGX 540 GPU made by Imagination Technologies which supports OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0[21] and is capable of up to 20 million triangles per second.[3] The CPU core, code-named "Hummingbird", was co-developed by Samsung and Intrinsity.[22]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S#Processor
I guess you also consider added a wing and a skirt to a Civic "original design", with the car merely "manufactured" by Honda.
Sonly also doesn't fab their own processors for mobile devices like Apple now does.
Sony is also 130% the size of Apple in terms of revenue, 180% the size of Apple in terms of assets and 340% the size of Apple in terms of employees headcount.
> Sonly also doesn't fab their own processors for mobile devices like Apple now does.
Apple does not fab their own processors (for mobile devices or otherwise), and — up to the A4 anyway — don't have that much input into them (the A4 is almost of-the-shelf, we'll have to see for the A5 but so far there's been no great works there)
Which suggests that Sony makes ~39% of the revenue per employee that Apple does.
I mean, even Nokia had to capitulate to stay competitive in the smartphone market, ceding control to a not-even-second-place Phone 7 software stack with an app store ecosystem that literally has to bribe hot developers to port over their stuff let alone have a fiercely competitive market like App Store or Android Marketplace.
There's a general lack of focus or apparent belief that their core competencies should only include one (1) of hardware or software among most consumer electronics brands, it seems. And a lot of timidity regarding innovating something new that cannibalizes your sales of some older thing.
Motorola, Samsung, Nokia et al don't have the extensive software culture.
Palm/HP is the only one that does.
[1] Also a weakness with Android phone manufacturers - my phone has a small screen, making the icons just too small to hit accurately - Apple would never let a device like that leave the building, Samsung are quite happy to and Google are OK with having their name slapped on the back of it.
EDIT: forgot about formatting
It just not that simple as slaping few components together, put some software on top and you are done.
My guess on the age of engaget, or "i build an web app in two weeks" posts, people expect that manufactures can come with great new devices overnight.
Also when you are working with hardware you have to consider supply chain capacity, component quality, etc.
Hardware is just a lot harder to build and harder to scale(and maybe thats why PG advocates startups to steer away from it as much as they can).
You have to wonder how component supplies will be affected by Apple's orders. I hear they're responsible for 60% of all display orders right now [0], and they also have the famously secretive "component agreement" they announced during their last earnings call. It's possible that non-Apple product shipments will be delayed out to 2012 as a result.
[0] http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/02/17/with_60_of_wor...
In the grand scheme of things, who actually cares whether the Xoom ships on Feb 17 or gets "delayed" to Feb 22, or that RIM announced March availability for the PlayBook and will instead ship it in April?
But in all seriousness the Android phones we have today are way better than our choices from back in that era, even the ones running dated 2.1 OS... curse you AT&T!
Blackberry REALLY changed mobile phones. Then a lot of catchup. Apple did it again. Then a lot of catchup. I don't expect the story stops here...
Look at the education market:
Right now schools are signing up to give iPads to their students, and text book companies are beginning to ship their text books as iPad apps. Not as HTML5 apps, or both Android & iOS apps, but exclusively on iPads.
The same thing is happening in any industry you can name, and the nature of these things means once a platform gets a lead it's pretty hard to catch.
Personally, I don't want the iPad to be the Windows of the next decade, with every other platform relegated to quasi-supported status like the Mac was in the 1990s.
The only way to stop that happening is for other manufactures to ship credible products in numbers large enough that software companies cannot ignore them.
This brave new world of embedded devices sucks.
1. It takes time to develop the supply chain, product design and so forth;
2. Apple completely caught the industry with its pants down, creating a market where previously there was none where the consensus seemed to be that tablets were niche products;
3. Apple's competitors are constantly chasing last year's Apple product. It's why it's a huge mistake (IMHO) for competitors to draw attention to the iPad: at some point very shortly there will be a newer better iPad and suddenly they won't want to make those comparisons anymore (at least not for awhile);
4. These companies generally have absolutely no understanding of the markets they're entering. It's what I call the Cargo Cult School of Product Management; and
5. Whereas Apple went all-in with the iPad into unknown waters, every other suppliers seems to not believe in their product. It's a typical business strategy: test the waters, don't overcommit.
The problem is that Apple's "overcommitment" helped bring the price down.
Seriously though, what is so compelling about the non-shipping tablets that makes them worth waiting for (or complaining about) than what Apple is already shipping?
Aside from the arguments that don't impact most consumers (jailbreaking, etc.) could it be that it's just not in the cards at the moment to come out with a device that competes with the iPad (price, performance, whatever, pick your metric)?
Neither of those things are stuff that doesn't impact consumers.
That is really one of the problems with Apples' competitors - they just don't get the use cases.
"Apple secures 60% of global touch panel capacity, causing tight supply"
It took Microsoft over 10 years to create a consumer-friendly version of Windows NT, and almost another 10 years to deliver an acceptable followup.
Software is hard. Consumer software much harder. Platforms take years and years to develop and mature.
Most people attribute Apple’s stunning financial performance to its differentiated products, which integrate excellent hardware, software, and content. If you dig deeper, however, you realize that other critical factors have played a substantial role in Apple’s financial performance over the last decade.
One factor rarely discussed in detail, but that has significant impact on Apple’s success, is the way in which the company manages the critical forces within its industry. There are five key industry forces, according to Michael E. Porter, but here I just want to focus on one force: “the bargaining power of suppliers.”
Let’s start with the iPod and iPhone. Most iPod’s except for the “Classic,” rely on flash memory -- instead of a hard drive -- for storage. The benefits of flash memory are reliability, form factor, and energy consumption. Realizing the significant benefits of flash memory for portable media devices, Apple formed long-term relationships with Samsung, Intel, and Micron, and by mid-2007 commanded about 25% of worldwide flash production.
Fast forward to today, and we are seeing a similar scenario unfold for the iPad and the tablet market. It turns out that Apple has secured about 60% of global touch panel capacity, with a focus on 10-inch displays. As mentioned in the article, this has forced some competitors to initially focus on devices with 7-inch screens, such as Samsung with its Galaxy Tab.
What’s the effect of commanding such a large portion of the worldwide supply of a key component for a product?
First, because Apple is buying these components in such large quantities it can exercise significant leverage over suppliers. This leverage enables Apple to negotiate favorable terms and pricing. For instance, South Korean Fair Trade officials alleged that Apple struck a special deal with Samsung to obtain flash chips at below market rates. This favorable pricing means that Apple has a lower cost structure for its products relative to competing products. And all else equal, this lower cost structure results in higher margins for Apple versus a competitor.
Second, when Apple commands such a large portion of the global market for a key component it creates enormous barriers to entry for potential competitors. Competitors can obtain the component in limited quantities but at a higher price, therefore placing the competitor at a cost disadvantage. Next, the competitor can launch a different product -- a hard drive based portable media device or a 7-inch touch screen tablet – that may not match the preferences of consumers. Alternatively, the competitor can just sit and wait until more supply of the component is made available, which in some cases takes years.
In sum, Apple’s financial success as a company hinges in part on commercializing differentiated products. But this is just part of the story. As important to Apple’s success is the company’s strategy around managing key industry forces. As described above, Apple’s control over the worldwide market for key components has reduced Apple’s cost structure and has created significant barriers to entry for competitors. This yields significantly higher margins and market share for Apple, among other benefits.
The logistics of getting the product efficiently to the shelves reduces waste by tracking exactly what sells geographically and why. The analogy breaks down on this since Apple is creating the end product, but the principle of getting preferred pricing due to scale is no different.
This is true, but it also creates enormous opportunity for potential suppliers of the component that apple has secured.
Apple's operating here to ensure they are able to meet their own internal demand. They have a lot of difficulty doing this, as was acknowledged in the last conference call. This means that they lose out on sales they would have otherwise made.
Over time, the component industry grows capacity to support Apple and everyone else. This does take time and is a competitive advantage for apple in the short term. But it is not sustainable. Meanwhile the long term pricing contracts on critical components is a financial (rather than supply) advantage.
But note that the barriers to entry are only for competitors creating a derivative product.
If HP or any of these other companies had spent the last 10 years working on a tablet design, they would have likely made different choices than Apple and likely arranged for a different spec components. It is only because they want to quickly ship a replication of the iPad that they are going after 10 inch displays.
If they'd developed their own touch UI and their own ergonomics they would have their own specs and thus be seeking different components.
Now you're attributing another motivation to them, and what are you basing this motive on? The secondary effect of constrained supplies? Aren't you just simply assuming that apple is doing this to keep competition out?
And isn't it obvious that actual competition-- companies that like apple saw the opportunity and spent years working on a tablet- aren't likely to need the same component?
And wouldn't any reduction in availability immediately cause all the non-apple suppliers to boost output?
Trying to corner the market on anything they can make more of is a foolish proposition.
Apple is struggling to source enough components to satisfy it's own demand. By buying up all it can it is able to secure a supply for itself. If there was enough components for everybody it wouldn't have to do this.
I fail to see how paying suppliers to build new factories equates to blocking competitors.
It's limited by the ability to forecast the future as well as the costs (in money and time) to build a new panels factory and ramp up its production.
> or why Apple's competitors just don't build their own factories?
Because most of them have no core competency in manufacturing, because manufacturing is expensive to setup and evolve, because manufacturing is hard and because manufacturing does not mean you'll make money (one part of Apple's come-back strategy was to get rid of all its manufacturing capacity, a plan executed by Tim Cook)
I think that Honeycomb introduced a lot of uncertainty into requirements. When would it be ready and would the shipping product be able to support it? Would Gingerbread be sufficient?
When Android 1.0 was released a lot of vendors approached it with caution, 2 years down the road same story again...
Ever wonder why it's taken a year for anyone to build a 9"/10" iPad competitor? It's because no one can get capacitative touch screen in sufficient quantities. Even Samsung (which owns the factory!) had to make do with 7" screens. Now, finally new factories are beginning to come online, which means that competitors can release their products. The problem for them is that Apple locked in much lower prices (because of their bigger purchasing power), which makes it hard to compete on price.
1. Almost all except Samsung Galaxy lacked direct use of Android market. 2. Some had software problems with bad out of box experience. (For example: http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/18/viewsonic-g-tablet-pulled...) 3. Regular apps built for Android phones did not give good experience on the tablets
For the future tablets, waiting for Android 3.0 may not be a good reason. They always can release the hardware and then update the software later. HTC flyer is following this approach. There is a risk of users turning away if the first impressions are really bad. Announced prices for several of them are on the very expensive side. Among the announcements I also notice that very few come with wifi only option which is another reason for high price.
I collect tablet information at tbltpc.com.