Android Beats iOS As the Top Tablet OS

sfcrazy writes "Linux is on a roll. After conquering the smartphone space, Android is now dominating the tablet space. According to a new study by Gartner, 'the tablet growth in 2013 was fueled by the low-end smaller screen tablet market, and first time buyers; this led Android to become the No. 1 tablet operating system (OS), with 62 percent of the market.'" Also, everyone is buying tablets.(~200 million sold in 2013 vs ~115 million in 2012). Microsoft still only has 2% of the tablet market.

Comments

Questionable Numbers

[whisper_jeff]

Sure, if you go with Gartner's numbers which undercut Apple's reported sales figures (you know, numbers that undergo SEC scrutiny for accuracy) by almost 4 million units while also adding in Android "white box" units that include TV dongles which track as tablets despite being not-at-all tablets while also clouding the results by reporting Apple's sales-to-end-users numbers with Android's shipped-into-channel numbers. So, yeah, if you cut Apple's numbers and artificially inflate Android's numbers, yes, Android is beating iOS in the tablet space.

And now you may mod me troll while claiming I'm just an Apple fanboy for speaking the truth.

I have such fond memories of when this site wasn't such a blatant tool of spin doctors for certain industry interests...

Gartner can't add

[david.emery]

From http://appleinsider.com/articl...
"The most glaring inconsistency is a disconnect between Gartner's 70.4 million iPad sales and Apple's self-reported 74 million unit sales for 2013. From the first quarter — Apple's second fiscal quarter — to the fourth, the company reported iPad sales of 19.5 million, 14.6 million, 14.1 million and 26 million, respectively. The total: 74.2 million iPads sold during 2013. "

Note these numbers are reported by Apple on SEC filings, not on press releases.

Re:Slightly biased...

[Bing Tsher E]

My two year old iPod Touch is considered obsolete by Apple. I paid full retail for it and it can't run the new iOS. It was one of my biggest mistake purchases recently.

Re:ANDROID != LINUX

[schnell]

So what?

Giving Linux credit for Android is like saying that FreeBSD is a major desktop OS because of MacOS X, or a major mobile OS because of iOS. It's not. All the bits that make it a success were added by someone else and the underlying kernel is essentially invisible to the end user.

Celebrate Google's success with Android. Don't try to turn it into a success story for Linux when it's not. Linux has succeeded remarkably well in the server and embedded spaces but has not been terribly successful in the desktop or mobile spaces. And you know what? That's okay.