When Google puts out its Android tablet OS, there will already be 20 million iPads out there being used by consumers. About 90 days ago, Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, proclaimed that Google was Apple’s number one competitor when it comes to smart phones and tablet computers. He went on to say that the Android operating system and the manner in which Google took care of it as fake, full of holes and hard to understand to both developers and users.
Apple COO Tim Cook revved up the stress with Google into high gear by calling the Android tablets as merely a scaled-up smart phone and he also called the next-generation models as nothing but smoke and mirrors.
All by itself, that was pretty harsh. However, both men’s comments are far from mere bragger due to the actual success Apple has had with the iPad, which came out less than 10 months ago.
In the quarter that ended Dec 31, Apple sold 7.3 million iPads, and made $4.4 profit. You can get the iPad in 46 countries, and it increased profits in that quarter to more than 80%, which was much more than the 65% it had the previous three months.
During CES in Las Vegas, there had been speculation that the Android tablets by Google would shatter the hold Apple’s iPad has on the market. This was important because of the ever enlarging desire for businesses, both large and small, to give their employees a lightweight, and simple to use mobile device that will help speed up their decision-making and help make collaboration go more smoothly.
Many questions remain from whether or not these businesses should wait for a tablet Android OS or not, and whether they should trust such a platform to be able to handle their needs since it is new.
Apple COO Cook spoke out on the company’s tablet competitors during a recent Apple earnings call this week, saying that the Android OS wasn’t designed for a tablet and that even Google had said something just like it. He also said the product was very strange.
And that the tablet was too small and was more like a scaled up smart phone, not a real tablet computer, which made it very odd in their opinion.
He added that there weren’t even worried about it. And that the Android tablets didn’t have prices, timing or performance specs, which makes all their information only talk with no substance.
In the mean time, Apple keeps pushing ahead and making sure it can support the ever increasing demand for their product. Apple is making sure that its component suppliers are paid in advance and is also making active payments for capital investments for process equipment and tooling.
These are the things in the way, but they aren’t impossible to handle. However, at the same time these extremely different ways of getting themselves ready between Apple and the Android devices that are yet to come, show just how hard it is predicted to be for any other companies that plan to develop tablet computers.
Apple intends to keep making new features, and to keep encouraging others to come up with tens of thousands of new iPad apps to go with the estimated 40,000 now out there for users.
Cook also reported at a meeting that he believed that Apple’s approach to customer service was far better than Google’s as well. He based this announcement on recent customer surveys which showed the iOS system was on top by large margins.
It’s quite likely that Google and CEO Eric Schmidt will interpret all of this quite differently. Google is likely to say that they offer many choices on the Android tablet platform, and that their users have the advantage that comes from many competitors who are working to do better than each other in both feature development and can do for them.
Google will probably end up with a fantastic tablet and operating system, and its hardware partners will put out some great new features and designs. However, Jobs believes that Apple and Google looks at things in a far different manner, and that in the end, the way Apple does business will prevail.
