Source: YCN
Dozens of new tablets were unveiled at CES this year, most of them running Android -- Google's "organic," open-source operating system, that people and corporations can use without paying a license fee. It gives them a head start in creating devices you'd want to use, whether they're hot new toys in the spotlight (like the Motorola Xoom) or relatively obscure cult favorites (like the Notion Ink Adam).
Despite the plethora of Android-powered options, though, the iPad still dominates tablet computing, with about 73 percent of the market. Its share of that market's profits? Given Apple's premiums, it's probably higher than that. So why is that the case? With all of these Android tablets around, how come there's no iPad killer yet?
Economies of Scale
As Fortune tech blogger Philip Elmer-DeWitt points out, Apple's got the numbers stacked in its favor. It gets huge discounts on components, because it buys so many at once. It designed its own processors, instead of having to buy them from others. And it sells iPads through its own retail and online stores, which gives it an even bigger chunk of the cash from each sale.
On top of all these advantages, Apple deliberately keeps the iPad 2's price low, to make things harder for its competitors. So when even a "name-brand" tablet like the Xoom comes out, it has few advantages over the iPad and a serious price disadvantage.
Virtuous feedback cycle
"We have a huge first-mover advantage," says Apple COO Tim Cook, "and we have an incredible user experience, from iTunes to the App Store and an enormous number of apps and a huge ecosystem."
The iPad 2 didn't just come out of nowhere. Whether it'd planned to or not, Apple's been building up to it for years; first with iTunes, then with the iPhone, and then with the App Store. Now there are over 65,000 apps for the iPad, all of them made just for it and all of them only available through Apple channels. Many app developers target only Apple products, since there's less money to be made anywhere else.
From the Apple Store's retail cathedral, to the first sync with iTunes on a Mac or Windows PC, to playing with new apps and games from the App Store, everything takes place within an ecosystem that Apple's painstakingly built. Android, by contrast, has Google's apps ... but Google, which gives everything away for free and then "makes it up in volume" with ads, has never been able to duplicate the seamless user experience that Apple fans keep paying for.
Fragmentation
That's what it's called when each of the Android smartphone and tablet companies has to go it alone, trying to compete with Apple on Apple's terms. They all have Google's Android OS, but few of them bring anything else to the table ... like HTC's Sense user interface, that it based on its work for its pre-Android phones.
Trying to plug all the disparate components into a coherent whole is a hassle, and one reason that Apple wins is because it controls all the parts that it uses. But Android's open-source nature offers a potential solution: What if Android hardware makers cooperated to make the pieces that they were missing? Instead of all of them doing a poor job, they could all do a great job together, and differentiate based on their areas of expertise.
In a way, that's what they're doing right now. But as we've seen so far, the results leave something to be desired.
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Dozens of new tablets were unveiled at CES this year, most of them running Android -- Google's "organic," open-source operating system, that people and corporations can use without paying a license fee. It gives them a head start in creating devices you'd want to use, whether they're hot new toys in the spotlight (like the Motorola Xoom) or relatively obscure cult favorites (like the Notion Ink Adam).
Despite the plethora of Android-powered options, though, the iPad still dominates tablet computing, with about 73 percent of the market. Its share of that market's profits? Given Apple's premiums, it's probably higher than that. So why is that the case? With all of these Android tablets around, how come there's no iPad killer yet?
Economies of Scale
As Fortune tech blogger Philip Elmer-DeWitt points out, Apple's got the numbers stacked in its favor. It gets huge discounts on components, because it buys so many at once. It designed its own processors, instead of having to buy them from others. And it sells iPads through its own retail and online stores, which gives it an even bigger chunk of the cash from each sale.
On top of all these advantages, Apple deliberately keeps the iPad 2's price low, to make things harder for its competitors. So when even a "name-brand" tablet like the Xoom comes out, it has few advantages over the iPad and a serious price disadvantage.
Virtuous feedback cycle
"We have a huge first-mover advantage," says Apple COO Tim Cook, "and we have an incredible user experience, from iTunes to the App Store and an enormous number of apps and a huge ecosystem."
The iPad 2 didn't just come out of nowhere. Whether it'd planned to or not, Apple's been building up to it for years; first with iTunes, then with the iPhone, and then with the App Store. Now there are over 65,000 apps for the iPad, all of them made just for it and all of them only available through Apple channels. Many app developers target only Apple products, since there's less money to be made anywhere else.
From the Apple Store's retail cathedral, to the first sync with iTunes on a Mac or Windows PC, to playing with new apps and games from the App Store, everything takes place within an ecosystem that Apple's painstakingly built. Android, by contrast, has Google's apps ... but Google, which gives everything away for free and then "makes it up in volume" with ads, has never been able to duplicate the seamless user experience that Apple fans keep paying for.
Fragmentation
That's what it's called when each of the Android smartphone and tablet companies has to go it alone, trying to compete with Apple on Apple's terms. They all have Google's Android OS, but few of them bring anything else to the table ... like HTC's Sense user interface, that it based on its work for its pre-Android phones.
Trying to plug all the disparate components into a coherent whole is a hassle, and one reason that Apple wins is because it controls all the parts that it uses. But Android's open-source nature offers a potential solution: What if Android hardware makers cooperated to make the pieces that they were missing? Instead of all of them doing a poor job, they could all do a great job together, and differentiate based on their areas of expertise.
In a way, that's what they're doing right now. But as we've seen so far, the results leave something to be desired.
