Look, that's because non-iPad tablets with a real (touchscreen, tablet-sized) OS didn't exist until 3 months ago. Give Android a year and a half to let the Android Market populate with some great tablet-sized software, and who among us doubts that the tablet market will look just like the phone market does now?
EDIT: The commenters responding to me made a really good distinction -- phones are near-necessity devices that are subsidized by carriers, whereas right now, tablets are more or less a luxury purchase. I agree that this might have an effect on how things play out.
The phone market is not the same as the tablet market...unless Verizon/ATT/etc start giving away/heavily subsidizing Android tablets en masse. If that happens - eg, Great $100 Android tablet that requires a two year data contract from Verizon, then perhaps it will look the same.
Right now you can get Galaxy Tab from verizon with a 2 year data contract for 199. So the idea exists..but do people want 2 year contracts for a 2nd device with their carrier?
Even then - you need a phone. You don't need a tablet. I think aside from the operating systems, you're really looking at two entirely different situations
> who among us doubts that the tablet market will look just like the phone market does now?
I do.
For one thing, building tablet software is hard. I mean, extremely hard work from a UI perspective. It makes stuff for the phone look like a cakewalk (I'll share a blog post sometime). So if Android Market continues sucking ass in terms of rewarding developers versus what they can make on the App Store, you'll get a bunch of turd apps and not much magic because what's the point of all that sweat?
Secondly, Android is inflated by the fact that if you want a cell phone you will be given an Android device for free if you start new service.
There is no magic free Android tablet tree – the economics are completely different. There's the argument that you might see a halo effect from all those phones... but people don't tend to value what's free and the carriers are doing whatever they can to cram these phones with junk anyway.
Not enough software and non-competitive prices are exactly where Android on phones was three years ago. And both are those easily, almost inevitably, fixable. We are talking about a moving target, a target that pulled off the same basic trick once already. The apps will come and the prices will drop. I still haven't seen a compelling reason why the iPad is any different than the iPhone in this regard. Apple is betting against an entire industry, and you very, very rarely win betting the house (disclaimer: I am sure Apple will still profit handsomely and own a decent percentage of the market).
> There is no magic free Android tablet tree – the economics are completely different.
There's not the same "magic free Android tree" - but there are some analogous patterns. With Android the carriers needed Android to succeed. So they made it succeed. No carriers for tablets (well, that's not quite true, but as an approximation). So who needs Android tablets to succeed? Well, every major hardware vendor and every major retail outlet. The hardware manufacturers are obvious - without a counterpoint to iOS they are screwed in potentially a huge strategic category. But even retail outlets need this. Some of them are lucky enough to be allowed to resell Apple equipment - but they know they are at Apple's mercy. After the warm glow of selling some iPads wears off they will know that they have to foster an alternative or have Apple dictate terms to them and take their margin and eventually even screw them by establishing Apple stores nearby. But that's not even talking about retailers not privileged to sell Apple gear. Those guys are absolutely going to stock Android tablets and advertise and market them heavily.
So we may not see "free" tablets but we absolutely are going to see the same vacuum effect that caused a giant glut of Android phones to hit the market and the same "coalition" of interests rises to compete with the iPad and create publicity, awareness, brand image, and they will eventually compete heavily on price and features - things consumers will respond to.
I know you said you're working on a blog post, but I'd be really interested in if you could elaborate on the challenges inherent to building tablet software -- I build big enterprise-y software that is on Windows Mobile phones and Windows tablets, and I find the tablet part to be much easier in terms of designing a usable interface for the form factor.
Are there particular things you have in mind that are much easier to design for a phone than for a tablet?
It's a focus thing, really. I suppose it depends on perspective.
With a phone, right, you have this 3-4ish inch screen to work with. You absolutely have to focus. You've got a gun to your head requiring focus, commanding the basic flow of the application fit tidily within the confines of this small space, this teensy viewport the user has into what they're working on. Now, it's still possible to make crap (definitely) but the kinds of mistakes you're able to make are limited by both space and what the user can realistically accomplish with the limited time and tools inherent to the phone form factor.
Now. You get to tablet land. Holy shit! Look at all this room. I can put things here, and over here, and this place is nice – and then you have this jumbled, unfocussed mess. For me, the tablet gives you a lot of rope to hang yourself. Since the form factor isn't compelling focus and clarity, now you have to do it yourself.
I love the luxury of creative constraints. Tablets just have fewer constraints. A blessing and a curse, to be certain. Lots of great stuff you can only do on a tablet, too.
Not hard/easy, constrained/unconstrained. For decades now constraints have been recognized as drivers of greatness and innovation. By relaxing the constraint, you make greatness harder to achieve, because the developer has to make more choices, and precision/accuracy/focus suffer.
It's like a laser. If you put lots and lots of light in a very small (constrained) pinhead-sized surface, you can cut steel like it was butter. If you put as much light in a surface the size of a plate, you might barely heat the surface.
We've been developing for desktop/laptop computers for years now. They also give developer plenty of space to play with. From your comment I conclude that developing for desktop must be the hardest thing ever, not talking about the 27' iMacs.
Well, the quality of the "typical website" (aimed at desktop browsers) certainly seems to support that conclusion...
There's certainly a very different mindset you adopt when developing for a phone sized screen, and the constraints require super tight focus on the site goals and processes that is often missing from the planning and requirements stage of less-constrained web development.
Google the "mobile first" movement, and pay particular attention for the writing of Luke Wroblewski - while not fully subscribing to "mobile first" myself, I'm seeing some _strong_ benefits from at least considering it at the very early planning stages of any new web project.
> developing for desktop must be the hardest thing ever
Among the hardest challenges you could ask for UX-wise, definitely. That's why so much desktop software has been shit since the 80's. As a guy who specializes in mobile, desktop stuff is horrifying. You have to consider all kinds of screen resolutions, interactions with other apps, huge variations in system performance, printing... On and on. No constraints to speak of.
I mean, Office only recently (last five years) emerged from mediocrity into something decent. And even then, it's not awesome. Though I'll always have a place in my heart for Excel. What a great product.
Meanwhile, look at Skype. The latest Skype for Mac is utter shit. This is not easy work.
The prices are reversed in Japan: Softbank gives away the iPhone and charges less for iPhone data plans at about US$56/mo whereas Android phones will cost you $500+ for the device and $75/mo for the data plan.
Not only is there no free magic Android tablet, customers don't have to worry about carrier lock-in. I would guess some non-trivial portion of the Android customers on T-Mobile/Sprint would have rather have an iPhone, but they can't because they are part of some family plan/etc.
I was responding to this comment in the OP: "Secondly, Android is inflated by the fact that if you want a cell phone you will be given an Android device for free if you start new service."
People like analogies. Sometimes they're appropriate. Sometimes they're not. Take iOS and Android as an allegory for Mac and Windows. It might be superficially similar but that's as far as it goes.
IMHO tablets are similar. Android is, without question, a stunning success in the phone world. As is iOS, which singlehandededly transformed the mobile phone industry. People expect the same pattern to repeat in the tablet world.
I disagree. There are several fundamental differences:
1. Phones have a specific purpose, which for most people is the ability to make phone calls, send and receive text messages and use maps. I would guess that these are the three biggest uses of smartphones (but it is only a guess).
What's more, I think these account for the majority of actual usage. Apps are of course important but they are an add-on. Some people will use their smartphones almost completely app free (seriously). People I think forget this too.
Tablets are a different beast. There is much less inbuilt and obvious functionality. Apple has a vision of what the use case for this. I don't think anyone else really does (yet).
The ecosystem then becomes far more important and it's Apple with the music, movies/TV and, to a lesser extent, books (mainly due to Kindle, which is cross-platform). Android simply doesn't have this ecosystem so the use case for Android tablets for most people is a much tougher and less obvious sell.
I just don't see Android tablets (or any non-iPad tablets for that matter) gaining serious mass market traction for years to come.
>1. Phones have a specific purpose, which for most people is the ability to make phone calls, send and receive text messages and use maps. I would guess that these are the three biggest uses of smartphones (but it is only a guess).
People who buy phones with a specific purpose buy dumbphones. The average iOS user has 50 apps on them nowadays. You've narrowed the use case too much.
That's also the appeal of the Apple brand to consumers: Buy it today, who knows what else you'll be using it for tomorrow?
With iMessage, a lot of people paying AT&T for unlimited texting are going to be dropping those plans. In theory, if all your friends have iPhones and will only have iPhones, you never need to pay for a text message plan on top of your data plan.
>Tablets are a different beast. There is much less inbuilt and obvious functionality. Apple has a vision of what the use case for this. I don't think anyone else really does (yet).
They really don't, and they're not marketing tablets to consumers intelligently at all. Regular consumers don't care about Flash. Heck, that holy war is pointless even among geeks. What consumers want is an easy way to view the view on the web: be it native apps or a flash plug in. They don't care about HOW. They just care that they can' Most consumers don't see the iPad as "crippled without Flash" because something like 80% of the video on the web is accessible through Apps. (Whereas I don't believe any of the Android Tablets have Netflix).
Netflix is trying hard to replace cable for consumers. For me, a device not having a netflix tie in is a dealbreaker.
In my experience, a tablet has a much more specific purpose than a phone: to view web pages. I'm willing to bet that 99% of iPad usage is for web pages, apps that are essentially just iPad optimized web pages, and games that could have been done in a properly touch-enabled Flash (which may not exist yet, but will come eventually).
2. Ultimate Mortal Combat 3 for iPad (3D Fighting)
3. Splashtop Remote Desktop for iPad (Remote Desktop)
4. Angry Bird Rio HD
5. Pages
6. Angry Bird HD
7. Words with Friends HD
8. GarageBand
9. Gangstar: Miami Vindication HD (3D ACT)
10. Real Racing 2 HD (3D Racing)
Only 4,6,7 fit your discription and for now the Chrome Store port of Angry Bird performs rather poorly on a duo core Atom system. And the facebook version of Scrabble doesn't compare to the iPad version.
My reply was more targeted at this part of his comment:"apps that are essentially just iPad optimized web pages, and games that could have been done in a properly touch-enabled Flash (which may not exist yet, but will come eventually)."
But if you want evidence for people not spending majority time using browser on iPad, here is Flurry's analytic data:
1) apps that could be web pages are generally free so don't show up on the "top ten paid apps" list. The cooking apps I used are a prime example here.
2) flashy games are often purchased but forgotten, it's the apps with good gameplay but not necessarily as flashy graphics that get replayed and replayed and replayed. canonical example: angry birds.
3) Flash can do 3D too.
4) in your top ten list, only #3 and #8 would not be possible as a web site.
Most apps could be web sites, so any stats that say most time is spent in apps is meaningless.
No they could not. There could be and in some cases already are Web based similar services out there. But they are inferior, unpopular among iPad users. Connected Application can not necessarily translate into a web application and remain the same attraction or even feature parity.
Angry Bird/Tiny Wings/Fruit Ninja etc are not as graphically demanding as say Infinite Blade, but they are still very well done games with impressive art work. As a matter of fact all the Zynga games and Gameloft titles in the top 10 are not flashy by any means, to be honest Gameloft's 3D engine is so out of date it's laughable.
I'm sure given enough motivation Adobe can make Flash do anything, it could do your dishes and make your coffee. But it doesn't mean you should let Flash take over.
IMHO your wishful thinking is as meaningless if not more, especially when you don't even have stats.
I think it's more accurate to say that the iPhone and iPad are game platforms that happen to have very good web browsers and email clients. Games utterly dominate the top 25 app lists on both sides.
If you put aside anti-virus stuff and Microsoft Adobe's flagship products (namely Office and PS), you'll see all games on paid PC software chart too, if there was a chart. * In consumer space.
I own one. I'm surprised you haven't noticed the lag when trying javascript intense sites (like games). Here are the iPad Nitro Sunspider results: 2121ms vs. Chrome 11: 248ms. That would make Mobile Safari javascript 8x slower than desktop Chrome (other desktop browsers have similar speeds).
Well, ot in my experience. Native apps still have an edge. For example: twitter web interface is nice, but twitter the iOS app is WAY better on iPad. Also, I don't see something of the quality of Flipboard coming as web app (and clipboard get content from web, after all). May be this will change, but we are still not here.
I don't get the appeal of Flipboard at all. It's pretty, but the reason that good books are pleasant to read is that someone has carefully laid out all the content on each page. Splashing a bunch of random news items with truncated headings on a virtualized book doesn't get you there.
I suspect we'll look back on this early period of tablet software design with a laugh. All these clones of real-world objects (iBooks) will seem quaint and naive and conservative.
web surfing (is that phrase even in wide use anymore?) is the sole reason I bought a NOOKcolor... which is incidentally exactly what I'm writing this on. It is of course rooted.
Just my two cents: I think the ideal functionality of tablets is relatively obvious. It's "how I use my laptop when I'm not in work mode". "Work mode" is when I'm at my desk and creating documents, spreadsheets and writing code. Non-work mode is when I'm on the couch, watching television and I want some electronic entertainment for 3-4 minutes while the television displays advertisements. I'm in non-work mode while at a coffee shop too. What I do there is email, instant messaging and web surfing. My assertion is that tablets just replace the non-work activities on your laptop. At least that's how it's played out for me. In the past I've watching flash videos and read news on my laptop. Now that I have an iPad I just do all the entertainment stuff there.
While I agree that the ecosystem for tablets is more important than for phones, I'm not so sure this will automatically lead to a Windows/Mac situation. Windows benefited a lot from lock-in and network effects. These are becoming less relevant as more services are online. Obviously this is true for web apps, but even native apps usually have a large online component, think Facebook app or Kindle. Because of this, it's much easier to switch to a different platform.
That said, Apple is of course trying to create that lock-in by creating an ecosystem with content (music, movies, etc.) that only works on Apple devices. So you might very well be right that Android tablets won't get any real traction, but I think the forces are less strong than they were for Windows and Mac in the 90s.
EDIT: The commenters responding to me made a really good distinction -- phones are near-necessity devices that are subsidized by carriers, whereas right now, tablets are more or less a luxury purchase. I agree that this might have an effect on how things play out.