The first Google-blessed iPad competitor, the Motorola Xoom is set to ship on Thursday, Feb. 24. For a device with no paricular use case, the Xoom isn't exactly flying out of the gate with today's revelation that it will ship without Adobe Flash support. One of the only supposed advantages over the iPad is now not coming for "a few weeks," with some sources reporting that the Xoom may not receive an update to enable Flash until the Spring. Even if it doesn't take that long, the lack of Flash support at launch is one more thing to quiet the masses who just last months were predicting that the Xoom would hit the market and usher in a new wave of iPad competitors (they don't bother to say "killers" anymore) that would significantly cut into Apple's market share.
Daniel Eran Dilger of RoughlyDrafted Magazine has an exhaustive 3-part series on the reasons why these Android Honeycomb tablets aren't likely to be a real threat to the iPad. I agree with most of what he says, but the issue isn't so complicated that it absolutely needs an explanation that long. The Xoom is going to usher in a new group of tablets, but they are all plagued by issues that will hurt them in a market that isn't as well-defined as some would have you believe. These issues are both short- and long-term, and are likely to leave people at this time next year humorously reflecting on the launch of the Xoom.
In the short-term, there is a significant lack of any compelling case for these Android tablets. There is no such thing as a tablet market. It's the iPad market for all intents and purposes. Consumers today only know the iPad, to the point that many people watching the expensive Super Bowl ad for the Xoom thought that the device at the end was an iPad. It's a complete reminder of the days in the last decade when every MP3 player was referred to an an "iPod." It's indicative of the fact that there is no popular demand for a slate-style computing device right now. The selling point for these devices really is as simply as, "Oh, Apple's got that new iPad. My friend showed me his and it looked really cool. I could use that as my portable computer. I'd love to have one." The main reason the iPad looks so strong right now is that it already has a huge ecosystem of apps. In just a year, Apple has established iPad-specific apps and brought the same level of interest from developers that it already owns in the phone market. Google seems to be barely able to get the Xoom out the gate with very few details on apps or why it is a better device. Right now, what consumer will choose to buy a Xoom over an iPad?
The Android apologists will object, of course, and say that in the early going it will take a little while. Long-term, however, Android tablets will attract developers and will start to pick up steam. This is all based on the fact that Android supposedly ate into the lead that the iPhone had in the phone market. First of all, I'm not convinced Android did eat into that market. The iPhone started with a tiny market share that grew quickly and has stabilized recently. But consider that all the manufacturers of Android handsets are the same companies that were around before the iPhone. They've almost all now switched to Android, essentially retaining some share they had (though certainly not in profits, as the iPhone has grown to eat half of the profit in the mobile space). Second, despite passing the iPhone in total quarterly market share, Android has not drawn the developer interest one might expect, primarily because almost nobody is buying apps in the Android Market. iOS remains the place to be for a developer, with Android the secondary concern that receives disturbingly sub-par variations of popular iOS apps.
Alright, then if apps on the iPhone are more numerous and of higher quality, how did Android take its current place in the market? Part of it has to do with the retail channel. Everyone needs a phone and they go to their carrier's retail store to pick a new phone. Even discounting the fact that the iPhone was only on AT&T in the U.S. until just recently, that puts Android handsets of different sizes and price points before the consumer. Inevitably, in that scenario, people are going to choose Android phones for a variety of reasons. A tablet doesn't follow that scenario at all, though. Not everyone needs a tablet. A tablet is less like a smartphone than it is a computer or an MP3 player, which is where Apple proved their dominance in the last decade. They have their own retail stores as well as prominent placement in a number of mainstream stores such as Best Buy and Target. If HP thinks it holds an advantage in being able to sell its upcoming Touchpad through their usual retail channel, you couldn't find a less convincing retail channel for Motorola. All of a sudden, the iPad now has far better presence in consumers' minds, as well as a more familiar and trusted app network.
Which leads to the other key area where an Android tablet won't have an advantage: price. While most premier Android handsets debut at $200, alongside the iPhone equivalents of $200 and $300, those prices always drop significantly. It's also clear that a huge portion of the Android phones that make up their marketshare are cheap, low-end devices that are coming on strong in Asia. Apple's always maintained the identity of a premium brand, but even so it's becoming clearer by the day that nobody is able to compete with them on price in the tablet war, due largely to their economies of scale. Samsung built their Galaxy Tab entirely in-house and could only meet the iPad's price, a sad accomplishment given the Tab's 7-inch screen vs. the iPad's 10-inch screen. The Motorola Xoom matches the iPad's price for the 32 GB model at $600, but they fail to offer a 16 GB model at that magical $500 price point. What's worse, the WiFi-only Xoom isn't even available at launch, meaning that early adopters can only choose the $800 Xoom with a month of 3G service required. By the time Motorola releases their $600 Xoom, the iPad 2 will be near or in the market, rendering the Xoom practically dead on arrival.
There are other areas where these Honeycomb tablets, and the Xoom in particular, fall short. There are a number of questions surrounding the UI choices in Honeycomb and how third party apps fit into those choices. The above reasons, though, are basic market realities that are hard to escape. Is the iPad less of an iPhone and more of an iPod, a consumer electronics product that allows Apple to dominate by merit alone?