In talking with some some analyst colleagues both in the industry and financial sector, I've come across some interesting perspectives regarding Android tablets. Most of it extremely shortsighted and uninformed, yet these are credible voices with powerful opinions. My goal in this article is to add some perspective about the tablet market but also point out why Android tablets are not doomed to fail.
Read The Full Story
- Opera web browser for Android leaves Beta: we go hands-on
- Google Glass Original Prototype eyes-on with Isabelle Olsson
- Google Glass creators talk of final consumer device release
- Google I/O 2013 on-site Wrap-up: Glass, Developers, and Services on tap
- Google Maps-driven Map Dive 3D-tracking hands-on
- Mary Lou Jepsen encourages Google X attitude in hardware engineering
- Google I/O and the year of the Context Ecosystem
‘Ben Bajarin’ Stories
Android Tablets Have Room to Grow
Tablet vs Notebook: The Consumer Decision
If you are anything like me you get asked questions like what computer to buy, what phone to buy, or what TV to buy. Now, more recently I’ve been getting this interesting question: “should I get a tablet or upgrade my notebook?” This question goes to show how much upside this tablet category has in the computing paradigm shift we are observing. However, with where we are in the early days of this category, does it really make sense to recommend a tablet over a notebook?
Palm Made HP Relevant Again
It’s no secret that mobile, namely smart phones and tablets, is the hottest topic in the tech industry today. It’s almost as if companies who don’t have products in these categories are not even in the conversations dominating industry trade shows and conferences.
Had HP not purchased Palm this would still be the case. However they did purchase Palm and now HP finds themselves right back in the middle of this fascinating mobile conversation, this time with a fresh suite of mobile products.
Why My Kinect is Not Collecting Dust
A few days ago a fellow SlashGear columnist Don Reisinger elaborated on how his Kinect was collecting dust. If I put myself in Don’s shoes I can relate to his article and his questioning of whether or not the Kinect can meet the needs of hard core gamers and a hard core gaming experience. I, however, in coming at it from a different angle, have a completely different experience with my Kinect.
The Impact of the Verizon iPhone on Android’s Growth
Typically after press conferences I attend or when major industry announcements happen, I take a lot of questions from the press asking my opinion on the news. I’m always happy to speak with journalists on stories they are working on and provide them a quote. As a professional analyst, this is part of my job.
Yesterday was no exception. After the Verizon iPhone launch press conference I spoke with a number of folks in the press, and one question in particular came up which I thought required further analysis. That question was what impact would iOS’s presence on Verizon have on Verizon’s current and future Android devices.
2011 The Year of the Super Phone
I first heard the term “Super Phone” used as it relates to a new category of devices at a conference I attended last month. I’ve thought for a while now that the industry needed to come up with a term other than smartphone to distinguish these new classes of devices. Even though I’m not completely in love with Super Phone as a term (and I’m pretty sure consumers don’t care about these terms anyway) it is perhaps the best so far.
Can Tablets save Desktops?
With all the latest forecasts from my analyst colleagues at IDC, Gartner and Forrester showcasing declining desktops market share over the next few years, i’d like to pose an alternate question. Can tablets, like the iPad which was not on the market at the time the forecasts were made, actually re-invigorate the desktop market?
The Real Android Opportunity: Core Apps
Google’s Android operating system has proven itself a growing force to be reckoned with as adoption rates among manufactures and consumers continue growing at considerable rates. I feel that Android 2.1 has finally reached a point where it is ready for the mass market. I’ve also had the opportunity to use a Nexus One with the next release 2.2, AKA Froyo, for the past month or so, and have found it even more ready for the mass market and perhaps even the enterprise.
Apple’s latest iPhone 4 innovation [Updated with video]
Apple once again has built and delivered the most advanced mobile device in the market. Steve Jobs, during his interview at the Wall St. Journal conference last week, mentioned that his companies passion was to build the best products around and in this analyst’s opinion they have again set the bar by which other mobile phones will be judged.
This doesn’t mean that other competitors won’t catch up or include key innovations of their own, however for the time being the iPhone 4 and the newly named iOS4 is packed with innovation useful for everyday consumers and tech enthusiasts alike.
It may be easy for many people within the press – including the Apple naysayers – to look at today’s announcements and complain that there was anything truly innovative announced. Statements like these miss the broader picture of not only what Apple is doing but what Apple is doing for the technology industry at large. That being said, I want to highlight several things that require a deeper look.
The Fate of Windows Phone 7
With the KIN entering the market, HP’s acquisition of Palm, and a number of other industry events, I have been asked quite a bit about Microsoft’s chances of success with Windows Phone 7. Microsoft is losing traction in this market rapidly and is in desperate need of strategy that will keep their operating system competitive in a market dominated by RIM, Apple, and Google. If you look at the numbers released by Gartner toward the end of last year projecting mobile OS market share, they projected in 2012 Microsoft to rank 4th on the list with just over 12% of the smartphone OS market share. 12% of the market is not bad and would come out to roughly 70 million devices in that year. That being said, I can’t imagine Microsoft being content with 4th place. So what do they need to do to be successful in a fragmented smartphone OS landscape in which we expect some consolidation to happen in the next few years?
From Click to Touch – iPad & the Era of Touch Computing
It’s been interesting to hear all the negative press and comments from the media about the iPad. Many people have been looking at the iPad and saying “What’s the big deal? It’s just a big iPod touch.” Others have gone so far as to criticize Apple and Steve Jobs directly, expressing their high expectations of innovation and then reveling in their disappointment at the lack of innovation they see in the iPad. What is clearly missed by the critics in industry and media is that the iPad represents much more of a vision of the future than people realize. The iPad ushers us into the era of Touch Computing.
The Connected TV Reality
In March of last year, I canceled my service with DISH Network to embark on a simple experiment. The question was, did I need my television service provider, and the experiment was to see if streaming shows from the Internet could satisfy my television habits. I connected one of my more powerful notebooks as elegantly as possible to my TV via HDMI and the experiment began.
The TV shows they are a-streaming…
In the first few weeks of this experiment, I came to find out that 90% of the TV shows my wife and I watched on a regular basis were available online from either the networks’ websites themselves or from Hulu. What suffered however was live sports and shows for our kids, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing as kids probably get enough TV as it is.
REVIEWS
![JH Audio JH16 Pro with Freqphase Custom In-Ear Monitor Review [2013]](http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/P2111170-sg-320x80.jpg)
- POPULAR STORIES THIS WEEK
- Big Xbox Dashboard update tipped to pave Xbox 720 transition
- Xbox 720 prototype secrets leak: TV, DVR, streaming, AR and more
- Hisense Sero 7 Pro Tablet leaks to take on the Nexus 7
- Verizon HTC One speculation returns as DROID DNA offer arrives
- Nexus 7 refresh gets teased in Google+ Hangouts video
- Xbox 720: what's to be expected at tomorrow's announcement
- Student creates 30-second cellphone battery charge, tapped by Google
- Google+ Hangouts for Android now live, replaces Google Talk [UPDATE]
- RECENT COMMENTS
