iPad 2 Forces Samsung To Reevaluate Galaxy Tab

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iPad 2 Forces Samsung To Reevaluate Galaxy Tab

Posted by Soulskill on Monday March 7, 2011 @12:23PM from the competition-is-easy-except-for-the-competition-part dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Apple's iPad competitors are still spec-obsessed, and Apple's next-gen iPad coupled with the same price point is forcing Samsung to rethink its tablet strategy and pricing methodology altogether. The South Korean Yonhap News Agency relays a quote from Lee Don-joo, executive VP of Samsung's mobile division, about Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Tab 10.1 compared to the new iPad. 'We will have to improve the parts that are inadequate,' Don-joo said. 'Apple made it very thin.' Features aside, Samsung also finds itself in a bind price-wise. The upcoming Galaxy Tab model, complete with a 10.1-inch screen and Android 3.0, was initially going to be priced higher than the current 7-inch Galaxy Tab. Apple's iPad 2, however, is forcing Samsung to 'think that over.'"

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Excellent! by Twigmon · 2011-03-07 12:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

This is awesome news. Competition is good for us!
1. Re:Excellent! by N1AK · 2011-03-07 21:08 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Maybe I'm just completely out of touch, but I'd much rather have a full-featured tablet than one that is 2mm thinner but doesn't have the features I want.
  You are completely out of touch if you think the difference in depth between the iPad and IPad 2 is as inconsequential as a 2mm change would be. Setting up a strawman (a fictional 2mm change) and attacking that, rather than 4.6mm (35% thinner) and also 127g lighter (16%).
  
  Obviously the size of the device is important, otherwise we'd all be happy walking around with devices the thickness of a novel. You might be both informed and think that the difference in this specific incidence is not important. Frankly I doubt it. I can say that having played with both devices the size and weight difference is noticable, and beneficial.
  
  I won't be buying an iPad because I have numerous issues with Apple's business practice. I do however greatly admire their current hardware. Hopefully other manufacturers won't ignore this in the next batch of android tablets because, frankly, I'm getting tired of waiting.
2. Re:Excellent! by BasilBrush · 2011-03-07 23:42 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I think what they're getting at is we still haven't seen anything particularly special from tablets. iPads are essentially just large iPhones with an almost identical OS and very few tablet specific features.
  The difference is that the much larger screen allows for much richer applications. The minimum size of an interactive element is limited by the size of a finger tip. The minimum size of text is limited by what's easily readable. In both cases there's a lot more that can therefore be put on an iPad screen. And I'm not talking about more application icons on the home app. I'm talking about different UI architecture.
  Consider the many apps that involve drilling down through data. e.g. In eMail: Mailbox->List of Emails->Contents of email. On the iPhone, that involves a hierarchy of lists/content to navigate, with each list on a separate screen. On the iPad the experience is more like a PC email app. With different panes for list and content.
  OK that's a very pedestrian example, but pretty important because people use email so much.
  A more sexy example is Garageband for the iPad. A multi-track recording and editing app. Take a look. The richness of it's UI just would not be possible on a screen the size of an iPhone.
3. Re:Excellent! by am+2k · 2011-03-08 02:03 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I guess I'm waiting for the company that will design a tablet.
  Why would you need a tablet? You don't really need a tablet, you want a tool to help you do what you want to be done. User experience is just the fancy word for "the way someone does something".
  
  I like to design my own experiences, thank you very much.
  That's because you're technically minded (I can say that just by the fact that you are posting on /.). Technicians like to know how things work and like to tinker with it. Everybody else doesn't give a crap and just wants the work to be done. There's a market for both (think Debian vs. Mac OS X), but the former is tiny compared to the latter.
  
  If I want someone to "design an experience" for me, I'll watch a movie, read a book or have dinner with my wife at a restaurant.
  Why would that be any different?
  
  I don't need a "user experience" to carry in my pocket or pack when I'm running around town trying to get something done.
  Why not? Bad user experience means that you're standing for 1h in a store in front of a TV looking up the price on the Amazon webpage on a 2" display. Good user experience means that the phone scans in the barcode and tells you the price in a matter of seconds. Which one would you prefer?
  
  I need a tool.
  Then you're in luck, because that's what the iPad is. It's a tool where a lot of brainpower was invested in thinking about how it's going to be used (by Apple itself and all the app developers).
  
  You make them sound more like a dungeon master than a tech company.
  Well, I'm a desktop software developer, but in secret I'm also a game developer in training, and let me tell you that books about user experience design and game design are eerily similar to each other. The reason probably is that both are trying to generate enjoyable emotions in the user. There are huge overlaps, for example, /. karma points are just like experience points in roleplaying games. Did you know that Flickr was developed by a game company?
Anyone know... by rsilvergun · 2011-03-07 12:27 · Score: 4, Interesting

how is Apple making the iPad so cheap? Nobody tries to go head to head with Apple. It's a waste of time. They're just too hip. So you fight on price or you fight on features. If the other tablet makers are neck & neck with Apple on price there must be a reason....

--
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
1. Re:Anyone know... by RzUpAnmsCwrds · 2011-03-07 12:33 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Does anyone else sort of get the feeling that they are losing money on the sales and making it back in app store?
  No one who knows anything about electronics manufacturing thinks this. The $499 16GB iPad, by all estimations, costs under $250 to manufacture.
  Manufacturers love tablets because they are cheaper to manufacture than netbooks (smartphone-type SOC CPU, smaller battery, etc.) yet they sell for more.
  This works because tablets are differentiated products, not commodities. Android is going to change that by doing the same thing it did in the smartphone market. Expect to see 10" Android tablets for $300 or less by the end of the year.
2. Re:Anyone know... by peragrin · 2011-03-07 12:33 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  but they aren't losing money on the parts.
  Instead Apple is using it's massive cash reserves to buy 10 million of each part ahead of time knowing that they CAN sell them.
  Samsung is only buying 2-3 million at a time. he who buys 5 times the parts you are is going to get a better price.
  
  --
  i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
3. Re:Anyone know... by Drakino · 2011-03-07 12:40 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Apple's financials still show a majority of their profits come from the hardware. The App store is grouped in with the overall iTunes store, and remains a smidge over break even. That 30% Apple gets from paid apps helps to also pay for all the bandwidth free apps consume, along with the other free content in iTunes such as the podcasts they cache and help host.
  Apple is able to make the iPad and other devices cheeper due to controlling the supply chain and manufacturing to a very deep level. They made a strategic investment in flash (storage) years ago to ensure they always had access to what they need. They did the same again recently for displays. Apple has also moved to making their own batteries, enclosures and other components to help strip out any unnecessary cost. The unibody design they use in so many products, including iPad helps reduce manufacturing labor quite a bit. Instead of having a worker sit there screwing together all the internals to make a frame, then slapping a case around it, they instead just screw in all the components directly to the unibody case the machine spits out.
  Apple is one of the few companies out there that takes a lot of time to design everything down to the screws. A little bit of time spent paying a few designers to come up with a more efficient PCB layout and cabling assembly adds up when you make millions of a particular device.
4. Re:Anyone know... by painandgreed · 2011-03-07 12:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Like it or not, Apple has good internal design skills. They threw the industry off when the iPhone came out and it was mostly battery and thus had a much longer time than competition thought they'd have and thus was much more of a threat than they gave it credit for before it came out. They know how to design the internals of their devices and can factor price into it I suspect. Also, they knew what they were working towards and could buy up parts when nobody else wanted them. There was an article not too long ago about Apple buying up all the touch screens. They did so when it was much more of a buyers market and they could set a low price. Probably the same with the other components. Afterwards and when everybody is trying to compete to make their own tablets, it's much more of a seller's market and prices are going to be higher even if Apple hadn't bought up most of the production already. Add in that the tablet was the original idea that the iPhone came out of. I suspect that just as OS X was being compiled on x86 the entire time but kept secret till they wanted to switch processors, that the iOS was already prepared and prepped for tablets the entire time the iPhone was coming out. Thus most of the work to make a tablet OS had already been done and was ready to move over to a tablet.
5. Re:Anyone know... by BearRanger · 2011-03-07 12:42 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  This idea of "Apple making it back in the app store" needs to be squashed. Apple's financial disclosures make it clear how much money they make on the App Store/ iTunes Store. The profits are just beyond break even. Apple is and always has been a hardware company. Not only that, but they're now a hardware company that can leverage economies of scale with their suppliers.
  The reason the iPad is so cheap is because Apple buys components to make it in bulk. In some cases they'll buy the entire output of a supplier. There are also documented instances where Apple have provided the capital for suppliers to expand their production facilities in return for buying the complete output of those new facilities. This is easy to do for certain items that get used across your entire product line, such as flash memory. Doing this means Apple can get parts at prices their competitors can't match, and in return they can sell their products for lower prices. When you have Samsung making and selling you flash memory at a price they can't match for their own subsidiaries, you know you're doing something right. It's amazing planning on Apple's part and a testament to the faith they have in being able to deliver on their product roadmaps. Whatever Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook is getting paid has clearly been worth it.
6. Re:Anyone know... by jo_ham · 2011-03-07 12:42 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Expect to see 10" Android tablets for $300 or less by the end of the year.
  I hate to bring it up, but that's what everyone said *last year* when the iPad 1 launched (at several hundred dollars under the estimates that people were quoting), and that "cheaper, better" Android tablets would waltz in and crush the iPad. Any day now, just you wait... etc etc for 9 months.
  As yet, it has still not happened for tablets of the same spec as the iPad - the Xoom is as close as anyone has come and it is still more/about the same give or take.
7. Re:Anyone know... by peragrin · 2011-03-07 12:51 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  That is why apple is secret. don't tell people you have a full port for intel, or sparc chips. just make sure it works, wo when you do switch no one will know when until it is too late.
  the apple phone rumors started in what 2005? that means apple had 2-3 years more development time than everyone else on the market. The ipad 3 is already under design, it's spec's may have already been mostly set too. competitors are designing to the original ipad, and maybe the ipad2 if they are lucky.
  It took the competition 3 years before they couldn't really start to challenge the iphone. First movers have the advantage you can shift target goals easier.
  
  --
  i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
8. Re:Anyone know... by node+3 · 2011-03-07 13:19 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  No one who knows anything about electronics manufacturing thinks this. The $499 16GB iPad, by all estimations, costs under $250 to manufacture.
  No one who knows anything about products thinks this. The tear-down component price estimations are deliberately lowballed, and it costs a lot more than just the sum of the components to take those components and combine them into boxed and shelved iPad, ready for purchase.
  
  Android is going to change that by doing the same thing it did in the smartphone market. Expect to see 10" Android tablets for $300 or less by the end of the year.
  Not going to happen, except possibly for some humorously bulky, crappy-screened, and overall completely inadequate caricatures of a proper tablet.
  You Android folks were saying this was going to happen by Summer of 2010, then it was Fall 2010, then it became "sometime in 2011" (skipping over the Winter, which was clearly lost by the time Fall came around). If you think there will be iPad-quality Android tablets for under $300, you are going to be quite disappointed when 2012 rolls around. It's not even a sure thing that there will be proper Android tablets for the same price as an iPad by then, let alone $200 cheaper.
9. Re:Anyone know... by markdavis · 2011-03-07 13:21 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  >"I hate to bring it up, but that's what everyone said *last year* when the iPad 1 launched"
  Not that *I* remember, and I follow this stuff pretty closely. People did NOT expect any good iPad competition until AFTER Google optimized Android for tablet use, which is what 3.0 (Honeycomb) is all about.
  As an aside, Apple went through the same thing with necessary changes to iOS for tablet use.
  Now that 3.0 is released, Android tablets will, indeed, take off. Samsung ridiculously overpriced their pre 3.0 tablets, just because they could get away with it. That will certainly end this year. Even the $600 price tag on the Xoom will probably fall significantly within this launch year. (People have spotted reliable intel that it will even be at Sam' s Club for $539 when first released, placing it below the iPad price). Even so, I am not sure if reasonable (powerful, complete) 10" 3.0 tablets will hit the $300 price point this year, though. $500? Certainly. $450? Probably. Anything else might be pushing it. The point is they will be priced lower than the respective iPad model (they HAVE to if they want to compete).
  Competition is a great thing... Samsung is just greedy and will (thankfully) have to stand aside if they can't play the game :)
10. Re:Anyone know... by node+3 · 2011-03-07 13:32 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  > The $499 16GB iPad, by all estimations, costs under $250 to manufacture.
  I'd be shocked to find Apple paying more than $175 for em off the docks in China and I'd put my money on $150. That is for the basic WiFi version.
  Listen up folks, there ain't nothing in a tablet. Compare a typical low end netbook that retails for $300 to a typical tablet.
  Tablet has a touchscreen, and motion sensor over a netbook.
  The iPad has an IPS display, which you most certainly *don't* find on a typical $300 low end notebook. Also, it's much more/much different inside, not much less (unless you are talking simply mass and volume which is not relevant to the price of the parts and assembly). You have all sorts of additional sensors and IO. The iPad is also made of aluminum and glass, not plastic and plastic.
  
  This story is a sign that market forces are likely to start working more normally. $250-$350 tablets by Xmas that have capacitive touchscreens, motion sensors and robust ARM chips is my prediction.
  And if you really think they cost $175, fully packaged and ready to ship, then Apple will still be able to undercut these tablets. Tablets which are somehow magically going to cost 1/3 of what they cost now. Tablets which have sold extremely poorly and if they actually *could* undercut the iPad by half, they should have done so long ago.
  No, we won't see proper tablets, Android or otherwise, for $250-$350 by the end of the year. There might be some laughable attempts, but nothing that really competes with an iPad or a compelling Android tablet.
11. Re:Anyone know... by node+3 · 2011-03-07 13:34 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Samsung is only buying 2-3 million at a time. he who buys 5 times the parts you are is going to get a better price.
  The funny thing is, Samsung makes some of these parts. Flash memory and displays (although maybe not tablet-sized displays).
12. Re:Anyone know... by node+3 · 2011-03-07 13:44 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Apple's competitors have been up-speccing their machines quite a lot compared to the iPad. The original iPad has a paltry 256MB of memory compared to the GB most of the Android tablets are packing. They also include faster processors, fancier screens, tons of ports, etc...
  I've not heard of any with better screens than the iPad. Usually they have smaller screens or widescreens (both of which are worse for a tablet). Maybe that's 'fancy'?
  The memory and ports mean very little outside of the geek realm.
  
  But mostly they've been trying to keep profit margins healthy.
  At the cost of market share? No. They are so expensive because they can't beat or even match the iPad's price. Do you really think they can build their tablets cheaper than Apple does theirs, but are marking the products significantly more than Apple? Isn't the mantra here that it's Apple who is overpriced? So when Apple's prices are cheaper, instead of rethinking that assumption, you just assume Android tablets are so fantastic that they can mark their prices even higher? Really?
13. Re:Anyone know... by peragrin · 2011-03-07 14:11 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  if you have to wait a year for a third party to develop your useful apps then you have already lost.
  if you have to wait 18 months and then hack a security update onto your system because it is being blocked by your carrier you have already lost.
  Apple is developing good apps already paving the way for IOS developers. Google is letting other people do the heavy lifting and porting.
  
  --
  i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
14. Re:Anyone know... by 4iedBandit · 2011-03-07 14:32 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I do remember thinking that Apple simply had a glorified iPod touch. Then I tried one. Is the device "magical?" No. But it is a game changer, in more ways than people realize yet. I believe Apple has very big plans for this device, and the size of the case is just the tip of the iceberg.
  Apple isn't hiding what they are doing. They are being very deliberate and open. In the iPad2 product release Jobs stated that they believe tech and art are not mutually exclusive. Their competitors are still all tech oriented. Even Google and Android is tech oriented. Most of the Apple haters here are still tech oriented and think that the art side just needs some flashy doo-dads and window transparency to come out on top. So it's not surprising to see so many people think that Android will blow the iPad out of the water.
  Android tablets will come, but until companies realize that the consumer market really wants computing devices which don't feel like computing devices, they will simply be in a race to the bottom and Apple has already made it clear they aren't interesting in winning the race to the bottom. That said, their competitors need to keep in mind that as Apple's economies of scale get larger they will be pushing the bottom farther down.
  It will be very interesting to see how the market responds. Windows on any clone isn't the target anymore. Now it's tight integration between excellent industrial design and user interface. I can't think of any company oriented to even start seriously competing and if Apple continues raising the bar every year like this then they will continue to lead the market space until someone can push the bar higher or until Apple brings a piece of crap to market.
  
  --
  "The avalanch has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote." -Kosh
15. Re:Anyone know... by jo_ham · 2011-03-07 14:45 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  No, they don;t have to be as feature-full as the iPad to sell well. If sub-$100 tablets have a market, then more power to them.
  My point was that people on slashdot have been saying since before the iPad came out that there would be cheaper, better specced Android tablets, pretty much every month they were "just around the corner". Then it was "just wait for Honeycomb!". We're still waiting. I think the hardware vendors, and the tech community in general really *were* astounded that the iPad is selling so well (one of the best tech product launches ever) , and they were expecting better specced tablets to come along at a lower price... and it just hasn't happened. Either the price is the same or more than the iPad, or it's compromised considerably to get the cost down.
  I think the fundamental issue seems to be that they just can't make them much cheaper than the iPad already is, with the same featureset, without it being uneconomical to do, otherwise we would have seen it already - Honeycomb or no Honeycomb.
16. Re:Anyone know... by Anubis+IV · 2011-03-07 15:05 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Just to preface my comments, I may be an Apple fanboy, but I love Android too, despite what it may sound like here. At the very least, I want to see Android thrive so that Apple is constantly spurred on to innovate. Even better, I want to see it surpass iOS in all regards, because as much as I love Apple, I love good products better. Also, I, personally, don't get this whole tablet thing yet. I think they're great for some people, but I have no plans to buy one for myself anytime soon, since I'd much rather just use my laptop.
  Moving on, you follow stuff closely. That's why you, quite reasonably, didn't expect Android to take off in the tablet market last year. Most people don't follow it as closely as you do. That's why there were quite a few people saying that it would happen.
  As for pricing, if the competition is going to try and price their products at 80-90% that of the iPad 2, as you suggest, they're in a bad place. At those numbers, the price difference between the "normal" device and the "premium" device is small enough that plenty of people will make the jump. Low-end PCs are significantly cheaper than Macs, so they can make it up in volume by filling in at a price point that is far lower than Apple wants to go, but when going head to head against Apple in the premium market, none of them can hold their own (the last numbers I saw were that Apple had ~90% market share in computers over $1000). The same has been true in the MP3 player market as well, of course.
  What really has allowed Android to be the exception is that Android has had a large retail and advertising presence thanks to the backing of the carriers that are using it to fend off market share advances by the iPhone's carriers (normal people don't actually know or care what Android is, so it certainly isn't because of consumer education and awareness, or even branding of Android as a platform). Those Android smart phones were being pushed heavily in their stores, oftentimes as a free upgrade, hence why it was able to pick up so much steam as a platform.
  In general, however, iOS adoption is still much higher than Android adoption (see GigaOm from last October, and note also that Apple announced 100M iPhones and 15M iPads sold to date as of this last week), since Apple has their own line of retail and online stores that have been successfully pushing out iOS devices for years. They are leveraging those stores for the iPad 2, but Honeycomb tablet manufacturers have nothing like that going for them. Carriers aren't advertising on TV or making big displays of Honeycomb devices at their retail stores, Apple gets better product placement and treatment in stores like Best Buy or Walmart, and the manufacturers don't have their own retail chains like Apple does.
  Not only that, but with the iPad and iPad 2 Apple is starting aggressively in terms of pricing, and no one has managed to make a device in its class that comes in at the sorts of discounts we see in the consumer PC space that allow them to sell in volume. Basically, they're trying to compete in the premium category without premium retail space, or, in many cases, even devices that could be reasonably considered to be premium in terms of build quality and features. And since they lack an ally that will use them as leverage against Apple, I don't see that situation changing anytime soon.
17. Re:Anyone know... by Karlt1 · 2011-03-07 16:30 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  HP and RIM seem to be doing more innovating than imitating. They've already surpassed the iPad in terms of the UI. Check them out -- they can't honestly be called iPad clones.
  They have? You mean I can buy a Blackberry tablet or an HP tablet now?
  
  Apple was years late in the smartphone game. I guess that's why they haven't really been able to challenge early leaders like RIM.
  I think Apple is quite happy making 50% of the industry profit in cell phones compared to 14% for RIM.
  http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/10/30/iphone-4-of-market-50-of-profit/
  Or do you think that market share is more important to a publicly traded company than profit?
It's their retial strategy. by mosb1000 · 2011-03-07 12:45 · Score: 3, Interesting

Apple runs it's own retail chain that is extremely cost effective (I believe they make the most $/square foot of any retailer). So while their competitors sell products wholesale and end up with two layers of markup (one for them and one for the retailer), Apple handles the marketing and retail aspect itself, and that's where they achieve their savings over the competition. Even the article you're responding to is free advertising for Apple, savings in action. So next time you're complaining about the free advertising Apple gets, keep in mind it's part of the reason you can buy an iPad for $500.
Remember everyone saying iPad was overpriced? by guidryp · 2011-03-07 12:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

It is amazing how the conversation changes. I remember a year ago, there was a lot of people dumping on the iPad as overpriced, that they could get a more powerful netbook for hundreds less.
Now today, it is all about how is Apple making them so inexpensive.
Strange...
1. Re:Remember everyone saying iPad was overpriced? by markass530 · 2011-03-07 15:00 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  yea I've been wondering whats up with that. To me they are all still way overpriced, considering the Zio & Archos 70, and even the dell streak 7
Re:Change by peragrin · 2011-03-07 12:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

but would you pay more to beta test it too?
The xoom is shipping with a broken sd card slot, no flash(other than the ads saying it has it) and if you want the full 4G modem your paying for you have to mail the unit it)
spending more for a crippled unit doesn't sound right. Apple should be doing that not everyone else.

--
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
don't compete on specs by RapmasterT · 2011-03-07 13:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

Its' too little too late. Don't even try to compete on specs, or other bullshit...compete on price and targeted use. Get a $100 capacitive touch screen tablet that is little more than a portable web browser...watch how many you sell. I'll take 3 today. Hell, I'll sell my ipad and buy however many I can with the proceeds.
Re:Anyone know...Yes. by __aazsst3756 · 2011-03-07 13:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yes, it is very easy actually.
1) They have huge quantities of scale. While other manufacturers are making 100's of models, Apple focuses on a few. Easier to get great prices on millions of the same part, then to get prices on thousands of different parts with retooling in between.
2) That huge cash reserve? They are using it to hedge prices. For example they are pre-purchasing key components so that the manufacturer does not have to add in risk costs for unknown future prices. They are also sharing the cost of new manufacturing facilities as part of a contract to get better prices. Hard to compete when you can't buy components because they have bought up half the supply, leaving everyone else to fight over the other half.
3) The entire company is ran very lean, probably the biggest lean manufacturing company in existence. Since all their effort is very focused, they do not have the overhead that most other companies their size have. Check out their R & D spending versus sales. Incredible.
For those that think they are running razor thin margins to get iPad hardware sales to make it up on the back side, you do not know Apple very well. They make healthy margins on everything they do. They have even hinted that they could drop the prices on iPads if they need to and still make a lot of profit. They are a public company, check it their filings.