Apple’s iPad is a hit. The company sold 7.3 million iPads in the December quarter of 2010, a 75 percent increase from the previous quarter. But judging from all the Android tablets announced at CES, it is about to face an onslaught of competition. So far, though, Apple COO Tim Cook has “no concerns” with the tablets that are out there today, and goes so far to call current Android tablets “bizarre.” On today’s Apple earnings call, Cook characterized the competition as falling into two buckets: Windows-based tablets, which are “big, heavy and expensive” and suffer from “weak battery life,” and current Android tablets, which are “scaled-up” smart phones.
Here is his response to the question, based on MG’s notes:
Q: What about iPad competitors?
TC: There’s not much out there as you know. There are two kinds of groups today (in the market) — the ones using a Windows-based operating system. They’re big, heavy and expensive. Weak battery life. Need keyboard or stylus. From our point of view, customers aren’t interested in that.
Then you have the Android tablets. The variety shipping today, the OS wasn’t designed for a tablet — but Google said this. So you wind up having the size of a tablet that’s less than reasonable. Or one that’s not even a real tablet experience. It’s a “scaled-up smartphone” – that’s a bizarre product in our view. Those are what is shipping today. If you do a side-by-side with an iPad, some enormous percentage are going to pick the iPad. We have no concern there.
In terms of next generation. There’s nothing shipping yet. So I don’t know. “Today they’re vapor.” However, we’re not sitting still. We have a huge first-mover advantage. And a huge user advantage from iTunes to the App Store. Huge number of apps and an ecosystem. We’re very confident entering into a fight with anyone.
He thinks Apple is just scratching the surface in terms of fulfilling demand for tablet computing. He notes that there is interest across the gamut from consumers to enterprises.
The Apple iPad, formerly referred to as the Apple Tablet, is a touch-pad tablet computer announced in January 2010, and released in April 2010. It has internet capabilities running on either WiFi or 3G, and offers an optional dock with a full size mechanical keyboard. The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc. primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. Its size and...
Android is a software platform for mobile devices based on the Linux operating system and developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. It allows developers to write managed code in Java that utilizes Google-developed software libraries, but does not support programs developed in native code. The unveiling of the Android platform on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 34 hardware, software and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards...
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