Is the Tablet War Already Over?

March 5 2011, 11:33 AM  by The Head

Well, March 2nd came and went, and of course it ushered in the era of the iPad 2. Many, many tech enthusiasts were waiting eagerly for the announcement, and it seemed like everyone and their mothers had some sort of "insider information" as to what the device would be. Some of the rumours were pretty much common sense (cameras) while others were a little less likely (retina display).

In the end, we got what amounts to a revision rather than a redesign. A front facing camera for Facetime, a back facing camera for video, an improved processor, a much thinner and fairly lighter design, and... Well, that's about it really.

Almost as noticeable in regards to what improved is what didn't improve. The iPad 2 keeps the same resolution of the original: 1024 x 768, keeps the same storage options (16gb, 32gb, 64gb) without the possibility of expandable storage, and has been surprisingly mum on the amount of RAM it has. The original iPad came equipped with 256mb of RAM, and Apple has yet to say what the iPad 2 is packing. The latest iPhone comes with 512mb, and it would be especially strange for the iPad to come with less, but why not say? 

In all honesty, from a purely specs standpoint, the iPad 2 can be summed up best with the following: "Meh..."

It's not that it looks like a bad device, or is horribly disappointing, but I do think that it's a little tough to call it the iPad 2 as opposed to something like "The Revised iPad" or the "iPad Plus". They added some features that were desperately needed (the front facing camera for one, and the option to HDMI out for another), but these were things the competition had already told us they were implementing. Apple came out with a neat product, but nothing that is completely "WOW" worthy.

Heck, from looking purely at the specs, the Motorola Xoom, the newly released Android Honeycomb tablet is technically "better". It has more powerful cameras, a higher resolution display, has USB and a native HDMI port, and can be converted to run on a 4G network.

And yet, the iPad 2 is going to dominate the competition.

Apple has done the one thing that the competition has failed at: Announce a product and have it available for purchase almost immediately. Don't give people an extended period to think about it, don't give the competition time to see what you are doing and pop out something better. Steve Jobs is an absolute expert when it comes to telling people why they should want something and bringing the point home just how awesome a device it is. He doesn't just show you what it can do, he also shows you why it's good, and how you'll love it. He creates excitement for a product, and then delivers the product. Announced on March 2nd, available for purchase on March 11th (25th in Canada and other countries). No waiting, no time to hem and haw over competing products. Apple announces, and brings the product to market almost immediately.

That is killer. Look at the competition. The Xoom was announced at CES in the beginning of January, and released at the end of February. Almost two months go by before the product is available, and that is a relatively *short* window compared to the competition. The Blackberry PlayBook was announced in September of last year, and it's looking like it might hit the market this April. The HP Touchpad was announced at the start of February, and is rumoured to come out this Summer. Meanwhile, other players in the game start shoring up their tablet responses, and working what they plan to bring to the market. Customers are left waiting, seeing newer and newer products announced.

By building anticipation, and then announcing and following that up with immediate release, Apple avoids the entire issue. Their product does not have to be superior simply because they don't give the competition a chance to trump them before they get to market.

Apple does two other things that are going to hand them the market, and they are ridiculously simple.

1) Perfect pricing. Apple doesn't need to make each version of the iPad 2 a steal, so long as they kept at least the low end version at less than $500. As long as they can say that somebody can have a brand new magical iPad for less than $500, they've hit the perfect market price, one that they themselves set with the original. Anything less is viewed as a cheap knock off, anything more is viewed as overly expensive.

2) They have a set infrastructure in place, and it's all theirs. Ranging from Apple Stores to online sales, to a set App store loaded with thousands upon thousands of iPad apps. Not just scaled up iPhone apps, but genuine iPad apps. Plus they themselves control it all. No other company has such a setup. Either they'll be depending on the Google Market or their own application storefront that will be almost completely empty.

Apple has positioned themselves exceptionally well. They don't need the best tablet on the market, and frankly they don't have it. But they've managed to build an environment that will be next to impossible to beat. By using exceptionally effective marketing, getting their product to market quickly, establishing *the* price point to go with, and owning an already amazingly put together environment that makes it ridiculously easy for people to get content and applications onto their device (and all of it pure profit to Apple), they have cornered the market before many of the players have even shown up.

Tech specs appeal to the geeks and tech enthusiasts. What Apple has done appeals to everyone else. And whether we like it or not, they are the overwhelming majority.

Is the Tablet war over? No, but it's late in the fight and Apple is ahead on points. Can any of the current competition score a last minute knock out? My gut tells me no. But there is one player that has yet to show up. Microsoft's tablet entryway is said to be based on the upcoming Windows 8. But that's looking like 2012 at the earliest. Can they afford to give Apple a 2 year head start before they even enter the game? 

Either way, Apple is going to be making some crazy money between now and then. It goes to show you that you don't always have to have a better product than the competition. Sometimes you just need to know how to play the game.