Android Tablets Pushing Aside iPad: IDC
Influx of low-cost Android-based devices will tip the tablet market in Google's favor this year, says IDC.
[...] Android tablets may have a leg up on the Apple iPad and iPad Mini thanks to their lower price point. Devices such as the Asus Nexus 7, with its $199 price tag, are appealing when compared to more expensive Apple hardware. The iPad Mini, for example, starts at $329 and jumps up quickly if you add features such as LTE 4G or more storage. Consider, also, the recently announced Galaxy Note 8 from Samsung. This appealing 8-inch tablet brings many of the Note II smartphone's features up to tablet size at a price that still beats the iPad.
The Nexus 7, Galaxy Note 8 and other Android tablets will account for 48.8% of the 190.9 million tablets shipped during 2013 (about 93.6 million tablets). That's up from IDC's previous forecasts for the year, which were much lower at 41.5%.
At the same time, IDC said, Apple's share of the tablet market will slip from the 51% of shipments it held at the end of 2012 to about 46% of shipments (about 87.9 million) by the end of 2013.
That means Android-based tablets will outmatch the iPad for the first time, with 48.8% of the tablet market this year, compared to 46%. That will certainly sting Apple, as it defined the current tablet market with the iPad.
Android and Apple aren't the only players in the game, however. Believe it or not, Microsoft is going to make some noise in the tablet market this year, said IDC, thanks to Windows 8 (think Surface Pro) and Windows RT. Both of Microsoft's tablet platforms will steal share that would otherwise have gone to Apple or Google, but not everything is necessarily going well with Microsoft's tablet plans. [...]
But then there is also Samsung's own operating system, "Tizen":
Samsung's future is Tizen, not Android
[...] Up until now, everybody had assumed that Tizen would focus on the lower and middle end, with Android focussing on higher-end phones (and also low-end). This new statement by Samsung seems to contradict just that; Tizen will be on high-end devices.More choice. Good! Read more about the open-source Tizen OS here.
Add all of this together and it becomes clear what Samsung is going for. The company wants to decrease its dependence on Google, and Tizen is the way they're going to do that. For most Samsung smartphone owners, TouchWiz is Android, and since Tizen could easily get a TouchWiz-like user interface, the average consumer wouldn't notice a thing. OpenMobile's Application Compatibility Layer takes care of the application situation, and will allow Android applications to run on Tizen unmodified.
In other words, since most Samsung users are familiar with TouchWiz and Android applications, Tizen should not provide them with any difficulties - yet, at the same time, it will give Samsung control over its own platform, independent from Google. It won't have to conform to Google's wishes, it won't have to deal with sudden code drops from the Android team - it can do what it wants.
Of course, this won't happen overnight; it'll be a gradual process that may take several years. I also highly doubt Samsung will drop Android altogether - most likely, Samsung's big sellers, top-of-the-line devices will run Tizen, while others will run Android. [...]
