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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.
It is finally here! Now we just need it to be an open platform.
Don't believe.
There is NO Posix userspace on Android.
Posix kernel land is locked/limited.
Why does it take 16 GB RAM to compile the Android tarball? That's some BEAUTIFUL community inclusion!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Who is making all these tablets? Here's the rough breakdown of 2013 unit volume from Gartner for worldwide:
* Apple 36%
* Samsung 19%
* ASUS 6%
* Amazon 5%
* Lenovo 3%
* All others 31%
the first notable thing is that Apple sells more than Samsung, Asus, Amazon, and Lenovo combined. The second notable thing, who is the "all others"? All sort of white-label chinese makers? Who is buying these? And can you say that these are truly Android tablets if they have some sort of modified android 2.3?
Here are the categories that I see in this market:
* iOS
* "Premium" Android. The Galaxy Tabs, the Nexus tablets, etc. Sold in US, EU, etc. The ones we are familiar with
* Kindle
* MS Surface
* white label tablets. Presumably built and sold in China, elsewhere.
We need to recognize that premium android might as well be a different OS than white label android. The apps will be different, the languages will be different, the monetization will be different, the fragmentation will be different. For all intensive purposes premium android is as removed from white label android as it is from kindle.
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...
I'd avoid any of these compromise tablets like the surface. I've used them (at work) an they really combine all the disadvantages of a tablet with the disadvantages of a laptop, they're the worst of both worlds.
For example, you can't use the keyboard cover of the surface unless it's on a flat surface. Personally I often use my laptop in bed, which needs a solid keyboard.
The surface has a mix of Metro and desktop UI, I ended up getting frustrated when trying to manipulate the desktop UI I ended up plugging in a mouse.
Some of the control panel items are in Metro, others are Windows Classic.
Microsoft have not shown a good history in updating their consumer devices, for example most Windows Phone 7 devices could not be updated to WP 8.
Android IS an open platform. It's entirely up to you if you want to be locked into Google's ecosystem or not. Install Cyanogenmod or another third-party ROM, then look as there's no GApps or Google all over your phone. But remember it's now up to you to sideload a new app store and get the APKs to what non-Google services you use.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
No idea how they make up sales numbers.
Apple's own sales numbers say they sold 74 million iPads in 2014. Not sure how gartner lost 4 million.
Also, Apple's numbers are reported as sales to users, everyone else uses sales to channel (the channel can return unsold stock to the company in the following quarter but can still claim it sold that many)
On both iOS and Android you can use something called Puffin browser. Five minutes using that thing, and you realise why no mobile OS has any interest in supporting Flash. But if you really need Flash, it's there.
It's Adobe that dropped support for Flash on Android.
In the end it's a good thing. It's a massive battery drain and if both iOS and Android don't support it then there"s less use of it for needless purposes.
Gartner has a terrible track record. If you see any article citing Gartner statistics or predictions, you are best served by ignoring and moving along.
http://www.zdnet.com/why-does-...
http://seekingalpha.com/instab...
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.
you can add Debian and its ports to Android
quit your whining, you pansy
Our iPad gets probably 30 hours use a week by all of our family. It seems to be useful to each member of the family for different purposes.
Perhaps it is missing key features, but I don't really think we notice because we each have our own way of using it.
And when we need real computing power we just jump on the desktop machine.
We haven't really regretted having an iPad for any reason.
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.
Samsung dominates Android tablet sales. ASUS, Amazon, and Lenovo are the next 3 leading brands of Android tablets (combined they are about half the Android tablet space - meaning on-par with Apple in total tablet sales). None of them sell low-end/cheap tablets. It's not price that is driving people to Android tablets - it is their familiarity with Android via their cell phones. Android dominates cell phones; it is only natural that people used to Android on their phone would look to use the same platform for their tablet.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
These are annual sales figures. That is, they're not the number of tablets in use, they're the first derivative of the number of tablets in use. People don't buy a new tablet every year - they keep it around for a few years. So the tablets you'll see in use are a weighted culmination of 2011, 2012, and 2013 sales, which if I remember were about 85% iPad, 60% iPad, and now 36% iPad
Despite what the Apple apologists have posted above, the important thing is the trend. And it's pretty clear that the trend is down for Apple (in market share - growth in the market means their unit sales are still increasing, just nowhere near as quickly as Android's unit sales are). They will need to come out with better products with better features (or lower prices) and more options (the iPad Mini was a good step) if they want to regain the market lead or even hang on to their current market share. Of course Apple being Apple, they might not care about that. They may be content having just 5% of the market if it's a very lucrative 5%.
And about 2/3rds of phones I see in use are Android, about 2/3rds of the tablets are iPads, and the last time I saw an iPod Touch was in a drawer gathering dust.
I see lots of tablets at elementary schools.
Seems like all the kids have them now since they got them as stocking stuffers.
My kids keep asking why they can't get tablets and take them to school.
Seems they are the only ones without devices at recess.
hahahaha