Analyst Mark Moskowitz with J.P. Morgan revealed on Friday that his conversations with industry insiders have revealed that Apple's next iPad will not be available until sometime in 2012, even as prototypes for the device begin to circle in the supply chain.
"In our view, Apple should be in no rush," he said. "The other tablet entrants have stumbled so far, and that trend-line could persist deep into 2012."
Throughout 2011, reports persisted that Apple planned to release a high-end successor to the iPad 2, which was released in March. Rather than replace the iPad 2, it was said the new model would grow the iPad family, perhaps by offering a higher resolution display.
And while Apple works behind the scenes on its next iPad, in July an alleged "iPad 3" part was discovered. A report accompanying that component suggested the model would sport a "brand-new design."
But Apple should be in no rush to grow the iPad lineup, in Moskowitz's view, as competitors like Motorola and Research in Motion have disappointed with their own competing offerings. RIM announced on Thursday that it has shipped just 200,000 PlayBooks, far less than the 9.25 million iPads Apple sold in its most recent quarter.
Moskowitz believes the next tablet to stumble will come from Sony, which recently demoed new hardware. The analyst said he was not impressed by what he saw.
"To us, Sony's tablet lacks the refined, sleek feel of the iPad and its bezel-like back is not user-friendly," he wrote in a note to investors. "Lastly, the sony tablet runs on the Android O/S, which has failed to garner as much interest in tablets as it has in smartphones."
In fact, IDC announced on Wednesday that Apple's iPad 2 actually took market share away from Android tablets shipped in the second quarter of calendar 2011. Apple represented 68.3 percent of the market, growing its share as Android dropped to 26.8 percent of shipped hardware.
Moskowitz sees Amazon as having potential to create a true second-place tablet in the market, though he believes an e-reader carries "diminished user expectations" when compared to a full-fledged tablet, making the transition from e-ink to color touchscreen difficult. The device is expected to launch in the coming weeks with a 7-inch color touchscreen and a $250 price tag.
"Amazon's Kindle may not be a harbinger of the company's future success in tablets, in our view," he said. "Until we see how Amazon fares, we think the next potential threat to Apple's tablet dominance is not until late 2012 when Windows 8-based tablets could hit the market."
95 Comments
Too bad for those that invested into the other tablets. Especially that Xoom monstrosity that costs well over $800. I don't see an e-reader competing with the iPad anytime soon. You also have to eliminate the stigma of an e-reader, where its not up to par with a full fledged tablet, whether it is or not.
Apple has the thousand yard stare for Windows 8 tablets at the end of next year. Being able to see the competitions platform and innovate around it a full year out is one hell of an advantage. That is of course saying that the MS Windows 8 platform will have legs, and from the looks of things, having to have a fan inside a tablet spells major disaster.
An "amazon tablet" can hardly be considered "Android" when it lacks the Android Marketplace and tight integration of Google's services. That's the risk google took with open-sourcing android.
The whole idea behind android is to keep the door open to consumers so Google can deliver search results. They gave away the OS on smartphones and it worked - 50% marketshare. But it's not working on tablets. What happens when Windows 8 and iOS become the two major tablet platforms, and Apple suddenly switches the default search engine to Bing or Yahoo, and starts providing their own Maps service? Trouble in Mountain View.
Too bad for those that invested into the other tablets. Especially that Xoom monstrosity that costs well over $800. I don't see an e-reader competing with the iPad anytime soon. You also have to eliminate the stigma of an e-reader, where its not up to par with a full fledged tablet, whether it is or not.
Apple has the thousand yard stare for Windows 8 tablets at the end of next year. Being able to see the competitions platform and innovate around it a full year out is one hell of an advantage. That is of course saying that the MS Windows 8 platform will have legs, and from the looks of things, having to have a fan inside a tablet spells major disaster.
REALLY? You are going to pull the fan comment out? Dude, that hardware is not the final hardware by any means. It was merely run on the Samsung(?) tablets as an early developer demo. Did you even read the Windows 8 articles or are you just trying to spread FUD? The final product will run on a low-powered ARM processor....no fan, no heat.
RIM announced on Thursday that it has shipped just 200,000 PlayBooks, far less than the 9.25 million iPads Apple sold in its most recent quarter.
9.25 million in 90 days is equivalent to 102,777 everyday
The final product will run on a low-powered ARM processor....no fan, no heat.
No, actually, the final product will run on ARM hardware AND intel hardware - which may very well struggle with heat dissipation. We haven't seen anything from Intel suggesting otherwise.