There’s lot of talk about tablets coming to market that will compete against the iPad but the realities are that it may not be this year, says this article from Rider Research.
To make a viable iPad competitor, it’s absolutely necessary to have several key technologies:
– A mature operating system that has the capabilities a tablet needs such as touchscreen friendly, bug and malware free, stable and reliable, quick to start and the ability to display at least 720p HD video.
– A processor that is powerful enough to run applications quickly but sufficiently low in power usage to allow for at least 8 hours between charges.
– Thousands of apps to provide capabilities consumers want.
– Access to lots of content, either through apps or an online video/music service. After all, an iPad, at least in its first coming, is considered a gateway to content and information.
There are two main operating systems that all iPad competitors can use: Windows 7 and Android. Each in their current form has significant weaknesses.
Windows 7
Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer, although continuing to push Windows 7 for tablets, has said that it needs a future Intel Atom chip, the Oak Trail, to run it. Oak Trail is not due out until 2011, perhaps as late as the summer of 2011. Windows 7 is also said to be limited currently by shortcomings in being operated by a touchscreen.
No currently marketed smartphone uses the power hungry Atom processor. Most smartphones use a version of the processors that ARM designs and are made by the likes of Qualcomm, Samsung, Marvell and Texas Instruments.
Android
Android, designed for smartphones, is also said to be limited by its use of touch screens and the paucity of apps. Android 3, due out in 2011, is thought be significantly better for tablets and 2011 gives time for more Android apps to be developed. The Android-based Streak tablet that Dell launched has been widely criticized by critics as being too small for a tablet and too large for a cell phone.
Samsung and ViewSonic launched Android tablets at IFA in Berlin this week.
WebOS and MeeGo
That leaves HP’s Palm WebOS and Intel/Nokia’s MeeGo as OS candidates for tablets that can compete against the iPad.
WebOS has some maturity from its days at Palm and a few apps but nothing like the iOS operating system Apple uses in its iProducts. The Palm smartphones did not prove themselves capable of beating the iPhone and Android smartphones.
Anyway, it’s only this week that HP released a version of WebOS to developers who will create apps for it. WebOS with its roots as an OS for smartphones is designed to use low-power ARM-designed processors.
So is MeeGo, but Intel, of course, wants a MeeGo version for its Atom processor too.
It seems unlikely that the unreleased and totally untested MeeGo can compete against Apple’s iOS this year. If developing a competitive tablet were easy then someone like HP or Dell or Samsung would already have done it. HP demonstrated a Windows 7 tablet at CES last January. It then squashed the product after the iPad launched, probably because it could not match the iPad’s performance.
HP has said it’ll have tablets that run both Windows 7 for the corporates and its own WebOS for consumers but isn’t saying when. Technology companies are capable of ingenious developments but it does not appear they can conjure up a worthy iPad competitor until 2011 because of the current limitations of processors, in the case of Atom, or operating system, in the case of Android.
By then, it’s expected that Apple will have sold 10 to 12 million or more iPads and will have them available in every major country. And, who knows, it may even have a new iPad model by then. In the meantime, we stick with our view that an iPad worthy competitor won’t appear until at least 2011.
Faultline comment: We’re a little more optimistic about tablets running Android at Faultline, and already the Samsung Tab is out and causing some operator interest ‘ see elsewhere in this issue.