Android Tablets and Differentiation

Jonas Wisser on the problems Android tablet makers face differentiating their products in the market:

There’s no consistent brand name, no consistent experience (thanks in large part to OS fragmentation), and no consistent update cycle. Instead, each tablet is forced to differentiate itself with some sort of hardware or software gimmick; the Sony tablets will have Playstation Suite, while LG’s G-Slate has dual rear cameras that shoot in 3D.

(A brief discursion: if the previous paragraph sounds exactly like the situation in the smartphone market to you, you’re not wrong. The difference is that consumers are used to that kind of fragmentation and gimmickry in the phone market — they were exposed to it for years prior to the arrival of the iPhone. Not so in the tablet market, which has been dominated by the consistent experience of the iPad since day one.)

Will the market for tablet computers strongly resemble the market for mobile phones? That’s the question.

★ Tuesday, 26 April 2011