iPad Competition: Without HP Slate & Microsoft Courier, Where’s the Beef?

Who is left to compete with the iPad?

With Apples’ multitasking O/S 4.0, Android’s Flash playing 2.2 and HP purchasing webOS as well as the introduction of Windows 7 phones, Symbian 3, and Blackberry 6.0, we have a fierce competition brewing in the consumer market for smart device O/Ses that can only benefit us all.  But who will come out on top?

Tech Crunch has posted a rumor that they believe is legitimate.  The HP Slate is no more.

“Hewlett-Packard has killed off its much ballyhooed Windows 7 tablet computer, says a source who’s been briefed on the matter.

The device was first unveiled by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at CES 2010 in January and was supposed to hit the market in mid 2010. But our source tells us that HP is not satisfied with Windows 7 as a tablet operating system and has terminated the project (something CrunchGear mentioned months ago).”

Obviously since the acquisition of Palm, it would be easy for HP to revise the Slate concept yet with webOS rather than Windows 7.

Then Gizmodo reported the next shell shocker. Microsoft has cancelled the Courier.

“According to sources familiar with the matter, Microsoft has cancelled Courier, the folding, two-screen prototype tablet that was first uncovered by Gizmodo.

We’re told that on Wednesday, Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer Microsoft execs informed the internal team that had been working on the tablet device that the project would no longer be supported. Courier had never been publicly announced or acknowledged as a Microsoft product.

It appeared from the leaked information last year that a Courier prototype was probably near to completion. The combination of both touch- and pen-based computing was compelling. Perhaps the strong launch of Apple’s iPad, currently the only available “mobile tablet” from a major vendor, caused Ballmer to reassess the commitment of Microsoft in a soon-to-be-crowded market.”

But wait, within the same general time Adobe had decided to throw in the towel regarding Apple support in the future.  I would assume that they will continue to make their Creative Suite’s but not include Flash dev in the package for Apple.  Here is the Dear John letter to Apple.

Moving Forward

This morning Apple posted some thoughts about Flash on their web site.
The primary issue at hand is that Apple is choosing to block Adobe’s
widely used runtimes as well as a variety of technologies from other
providers.

Clearly, a lot of people are passionate about both Apple and Adobe and
our technologies. We feel confident that were Apple and Adobe to work
together as we are with a number of other partners, we could provide a
terrific experience with Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

However, as we posted last week, given the legal terms Apple has
imposed on developers, we have already decided to shift our focus away
from Apple devices for both Flash Player and AIR. We are working to
bring Flash Player and AIR to all the other major participants in the
mobile ecosystem, including Google, RIM, Palm (soon to be HP),
Microsoft, Nokia and others.

We look forward to delivering Flash Player 10.1 for Android
smartphones as a public preview at Google I/O in May, and then a
general release in June. From that point on, an ever increasing number
and variety of powerful, Flash-enabled devices will be arriving which
we hope will provide a great landscape of choice.

So, what are our device choices for a tablet/slate type of tool at this point?

According to  the Apple Blog:

“Worldwide, the iPhone accounts for more than half of the total overall smartphone usage. It’s worth noting that doesn’t necessarily mean that the iPhone’s actual market share is double that of all other companies combined, only that iPhone owners use their devices much more than the owners of any of its competitors do.

Still, it’s definitely good news for Apple. High device usage means iPhone owners are obviously, for the most part, enjoying their smartphones, which in turn means that they will be more likely to speak well of the iPhone to others and to purchase another Apple product in the future. It also means Apple’s revenue from iPhone app sales will likely remain very healthy for the foreseeable future.

Symbian had the next strongest showing, with 21 percent of the overall usage share. But geographically, Nokia’s OS only leads in Africa and Asia now, while the iPhone has surged ahead into the lead position in both North America and Western Europe, two very lucrative mobile markets. 54 percent of smartphone usage in North America was on an iPhone, and in Western Europe 78 percent occurred on Apple’s device. More than half the OS share in Eastern Europe belonged to Apple, too.”

King of the Hill:

Apple iPhone/iPad O/S 4.0 – The current heavyweight and O/S to beat. This is amazing considering it’s not even out yet! Since all eyes are on Apple, competitors already know most of what O/S 4.0 is going to bring to the table and therefore what they will need to compete with.

Pro’s: With 1,000,000 iPads sold and approximately 200,000 apps in the Apple store and a projected 300,000 by Dec of 2010, this is the top dog of the tablet computing devices.  Granted, the Apple gear are entertainment driven devices but you can still be productive with an iPhone or 3G enabled iPad as well a wireless iPad because of access to many business oriented applications and all of the WiFi hotspots littered everywhere.  With O/S 4.0, many of the annoyances will be removed (see folders & multi-tasking). Also, the addition of a keyboard for the iPad and apps like iDisplay give Apple another push when they are already in the lead. Rated Pg-13 only.

Here is a quick overview of some of the new features of O/S 4.0 (nicely done, young YouTube man)

Con’s: The operating system is very closed. No Flash, Dev tools Apple only. Rated Pg-13 only

# of Apps- almost 200,000

The Competition:

1.  Android O/S 2.2 (Froyo)

2.  Windows 7 Desktop O/S

3.  webOS (If HP decides to use it in their tablets)

Possibly:  Windows 7 Phone O/S (It could happen) , Symbian 3,  Blackberry O/S 6.0

The Pro’s and Con’s:

1.  Android 2.2-

Pro’s: Let’s just knock this one out right away. Android is amazing.  Especially the potential of version 2.2, also know as Froyo which is short for Frozen Yogurt because of the incrementing O/S nickname conventions; cupcake, donut, eclair, etc.  Due to the open nature (to a degree) of the software, many of the more hackery apt folks have dug in and created applications that multitask, file share, tether, etc. The possibilities are huge when developers have access to the API’s created by Google to design functionality directly into the system. And interestingly enough genius Google developers have included many of the hacked options users had created using rooting, in Android 2.2, such as tethering.

John Mahoney of Gizmodo said: “It’s not about pretty icons, Apple fanboys, and its not about business use, Windows Mobile Nerds: its about giving people the true tools to build whatever they want without lame App Store limitations and OS handcuffs. It’s about giving phone makers shackled to Symbian and Microsoft’s phone OS the chance to build with something different and better and free. And who’s going to complain about that?

The most humorous part of this statement is that with companies making the Sense UI overlay for Android Devices like the Sprint HTC Evo and Free Exchange Server Apps, Android is a pretty little business machine that guns with the best of them now.

Android usage is on the rapid rise as well with the stats recently overtaking iPhone usage in the US according to Tech Crunch.

Products:

ICD Gemini -

Engadget states: “Built around the 1GHz Tegra 2 SOC, the 11.2-inch ICD Gemini should provide comparable endurance to Apple’s A4-sporting iPad, while besting it in the grunt stakes with its glorious ability to chew through 1080p video when required. If that wasn’t enough, the rest of this thing’s spec sheet reads like a wishlist. Headlined by a 3G connection that allows cellular voice calls (crazy, we know!), it also includes a user-replaceable 40Wh battery, an SD card reader, FM radio, GPS, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth, MicroUSB connectivity to PCs and USB peripherals, stereo speakers, and dual webcams — a 2 megapixel front-facing unit and a 5 megapixel autofocusing snapper on the back. Multitouch displays will be available in both resistive and capacitive flavors, with the 1,366 x 768 resolution being filled by Google’s snappy Android OS.“

Notion Ink Adam

The list of advantages is growing, starting with the Pixel Qi display, which allows the screen to turn into an Ebook power saver instantly granting up to a claimed 160 hours of battery usage, moving on to 1080P HDMI output, an Nvidia Tegra 2 GPU, roughly double the battery life (or more) of the iPad, multitasking, multitouch, Wi-Fi N, 3G, a front facing OR rear facing camera on a patented swivel mount,  and ending with Flash 10.1 support.

Speaking of Flash support, The Android Police have a couple articles about the performance (+450% over 2.1 !?!)  of new O/S Android 2.2 and how fast it seems to be after the re-visioning Google has done to prepare for Flash 10.1 to be utilized without affecting the speed of system operation negatively.

Rumor has it that Froyo (Android 2.2) will be released at the Google I/O conference, most likely on its second day – May 20th.

The new acquisition of BumpTop 3D by Google should fit well with tablet interaction. With the advent of a new multi-touch version of the software, it shouldn’t be too long before we see this being implemented in phones, tablets, and anything else Android.

Con’s: Android isn’t perfect. There are issues with video codec support that may or may not be dealt with in 2.2. But over all any negatives have been overcome by excellent development revisions.

# of Apps- Ove 50,000 as of May 2010

2. Windows 7. Anything you can do on your PC you could do on this tablet.

Pro’s: This is verily the most difficult and probably the most promising of third place competitors to discuss.  Since there is a multitude of software available for Windows 7,  the world seems to be at a user’s fingertips.  Or is it?  Part of the problem here is that even though a Windows operating system can play any game, any type of video, any type of music and well, basically anything, this freedom comes at a price.  Why should consumers buy an App?

Without app sales to drive the community of developers productivity (see pay me) and consumers expanding the usage of inexpensive and quick fixes for our entertainment and productivity needs via the “app”, the market for developers will become dry and consumers will return to the normal software titles available. And when I say available I mean rampant file sharing makes everything available for everyone, for free, harming developers in the long run.

MSI Slatebook

Digitimes reports:  “Micro-Star International (MSI) will showcase a tablet PC, the MSI Slatebook, based on Intel’s mobile Internet device (MID) platform at Computex 2010, which will be held from June 1-6 in Taipei, Taiwan, according to sources from notebook players.

MSI’s Slatebook tablet PC will adopt Windows 7 with Intel’s latest Atom Zxx series processor (Menlow), a 10-inch display, and built-in 3G and Wi-Fi modules. The unit will be priced below US$500, the sources noted.”

Pegatron Windows 7 Slate PC :   Pegratron slate has an 11.6-inch touchscreen and runs Windows 7 Home Premium on an Intel Atom CPU.  There’s also 1GB of RAM and a 32GB SSD, along with a webcam and HDMI connectivity.

Con’s: Unfortunately, the Windows 7 operating system requires an Intel/AMD based CPU such as the Atom or Athalon series.  While Intel has stated that they will be getting into tablet and phone sectors with the Atom Z6, but with Android and other comparable software only.  Windows still requires a meatier CPU.  Additionally, the idea of an Aps store for windows users is an odd and tricky sell point.  Not only do Windows users have most of the “Apps” they need already in the form of software, they also aren’t in the market for entertainment/media consumption in the way an Apple iPhad user has proven to be.

Although it is obvious that Android has broken into the Apps market successfully which drives sales of the device as well as development of more entertainment software, Windows users may not be as easily swayed to concentrate on a specific allotment of applications when they are more used to full software programs to use in their environment.

# of Aps-  None yet. Unless you count Windows Marketplace Apps, of which there are around 1K and all are created for Windows Mobile 6.5 users.  But these will eventually be updated for use on Windows 7 Phones which may be another reason why a “giant” version of Windows 7 Phone O/s on a table might be  an appropriate competitor.

Software?-  Unlimited.  There is so many programs on Windows you won’t know where to begin.

3. webOS also known as Palm is now owned by HP.

Pro’s: The latest version 1.4 seems to be a decent performer in the multitasking environment and has much of the functionality minus the popularity of Android. Can this O/S be recreated to run an HP Slate device in the future or will HP release a Windows 7 tablet of some sort? Stay tuned.

Con’s: Being sort of the underdog of phone operating systems that has evolved from the popular Palm handlheld is sort of a con by itself.  Due to it’s lesser known hardware, the Palm Pre & Pixi, along with far less applications being made for the system is a hurdle that HP will need to overcome with serious concentrated efforts.  This will be especially necessary to keep users up to date with the latest innovations, which may end up being hand-me-downs from Apple and Google devices.

# of Aps – approx. 2100

Extras:

Windows 7 Phones O/S

Gizmodo stated:

“Windows Phone 7 is connected in the same sense as Palm’s {now HP} webOS and Android, with live, real-time data seamlessly integrated, though it’s even smoother and more natural. Live tiles on the Start screen, which you can totally customize, are updated dynamically with fresh content, like weather, or if you’ve pinned a person to your Start screen, their latest status updates and photos.

The meat of the phone is organized around a set of hubs: People, Pictures, Games, Music + Video, Marketplace, and Office. They’re kind of like uber-applications, in a sense. Massive panoramas with multiple screens that are each kind of like individual apps. People, for instance, isn’t just your contacts, but it’s also where social networking happens, with a real-time stream of updates pulled in from like Facebook and Windows Live. (No Twitter support announced yet, it appears—a kind of serious deficiency, but one we’re sure will be remedied by ship date.)

As another example, Music + Video is essentially the entirety of Zune HD’s software, tucked inside of Windows Phone 7.”

Windows Marketplace for mobile has around 1000 apps in the store right now.

Symbian 3

While the US favors iPhone, Android, and RIM (Blackberry) phones, it seems that the rest of the planet has not yet caught up. Many countries still favor the Symbian 2 phone O/S.  Symbian 3 is now on its way.  Symbian has approximately 3400 apps in its marketplace.

“Introduction of the Symbian Signed system in which application developers need to pay in order to use some of the more attractive smartphone features (as contrasted to platforms like Palm OS and Windows Mobile) is making it an increasingly unpopular platform for Open Source projects, independent developers and small startups. This situation is worsened by the fragmentation of user interface systems (UIQ vs S60 vs MOAP), meaning that developers need to build and maintain multiple incompatible versions of their software if they want to target multiple devices which use the same underlying Symbian OS version.”

Blackberry 6.0

While RIM enjoys some fairly effective business minded markets, the use of push/pull with email and exchange servers on Apple and Google smart phones along with the more robust multimedia environment and social networking apps has created pressure for RIM.  The result?  The new Blackberry O/S 6.0.  Blackberry’s App world has around 6500 apps currently. And rumors of a RIM tablet device have been floating around for a bit already.

Of course this is claimed to be only for cell phones right now. But the market is young so who knows what the future holds.

What is the hold up already?

Apple beat everyone to the punch, this is true.  Apple also easily has the most successful app store thus far with Google catching up quickly.  Just like with the first iPhone successor, the next iteration of the iPad will be that much better, and even before the release of the second iPad version, the 4.0 version of the Apple O/S will be available.  So what is the hold up you ask?

First, Android isn’t ready to be a tablet without being competitive.  The first few versions of Android were a work in progress.  Android 2.2 (Froyo) is a flash enabled speed king.  If it has the additional multimedia codec and external device via USB/Bluetooth support (bluetooth dial hasn’t been enabled up to now) consumers are asking for then it will be a viable competitor.  Until then a pre-release of an unfinished tablet will be compared to Apple’s social powerhouse and easily be dismissed by the self proclaimed sexy Appleonian’s which as we all know, is the crowd Google really wants to capture.

Second, Microsoft’s Windows 7 requires a powerful hardware configuration to be useful and even then it is not designed for touchscreen use only, instead that is an afterthought.  Once the right hardware comes out with a CPU/GPU (graphics card) that doesn’t crush it’s battery life, it will definitely take a piece of the pie.  Most likely from the netbook sector that already runs Windows 7.  Remember, “there’s an App for that” has become a recognized saying that won’t be in the mouths of many Windows users. Well, may be the Windows Phone 7 users if Microsoft drastically improves app support for their new Windows 7 Phone O/S.

Third, HP may or may not have canceled the Slate.  Most likely it has, due to the silence on the subject.  Although HP is unofficial at this time,  its very recent acquisition of webOS means they will need time to redesign webOS for tablet use. IF that is the real plan.

What will I do you ask? Even if you didn’t I will tell you anyway.  Wait.  By Christmas this year or possibly even earlier,  we will have some of these devices and updated operating systems in hand.  Or at least major reviewers will.  We will also know who is trending upwards on app development and what the final version of Apple O/S 4.0 will bring to the table as we move into 2011.   Around September of this year the Notion Ink Adam (a potential fav of mine) will release.  Android 2.2, and Apple 4.0 should both be available.  Additionally, some variation of a Windows 7 slate device may be on the market.

As a very wise man once said, “patience young Padawan…”.  Later a Sith stabbed that master in the heart killing him.  Then with a vengeance and zero patience the master’s disciple rushed in frantically, filled with anger and cut the Sith in half completely disregarding this adv…oh nevermind.

Email me with any questions and I will be happy to attempt an answer. djbrady@mobilelocalsocial.com