iPad 3 or iPad HD, the name matters little as Apple’s tablet will continue to dominate

No other company does product launches quite like Apple. The highly secretive company keeps a tight lid on new product announcements unlike the final keynote, and this seems to create even more buzz, gossip and speculation among bloggers, tweeters and journalists. There was a time when the mainstream present didn’t care enough to cover Apple events, but now the company is the darling of the good news ball. I was picking up my morning coffee and the barista was even banging on about the new iPad 3 (or iPad HD). Not everyone will be aware Apple is about to pull a hat-trick, after all only the most hardcore news junkies would be tapped in.

The new iPad has been on mind lately as a result. I’ve been reflecting on just what makes the iPad so great for a few months now, and it seemed one writer put into words some of my thoughts on the competition iPad faces (or doesn’t) over at Gigaom (http://gigaom.com/apple/why-tablet-makers-need-to-make-ipad-events-matter/). Basically there is little competition because Apple has the lead and is not resting in first place, yet even a minor upgrade will still keep the iPad ahead of other tablet makers. And there are a lot of reasons: better software, the whole iTunes ecosystem and Apple’s invention of the tablet market.

With each new product release it’s easy to see that Apple is slowly changing an industry, but the big picture is often lost in the discussion stream in the moment. At time of writing this article, the new iPad has not been released (and assuming I type fast enough, it’ll be published ahead of the launch). It would be easy to speculate about the new rumored features, but I know from experience that there will be a bit of a let down.

Apple product rumors are not unlike Grindr profiles (and dating site profiles) promising one thing and then when you get to the guy’s house (or he shows up at your apartment) there’s the reality. Yes, we’ve all been there. Coincidentally there’s very little discussion about the iPad’s inches, all the chatter is about the quality of the screen not its’ size. Obviously it’s about how you use it, but the iPad has always had the bigger screen advantage over the mini-tablets.

Putting rumors aside, the next iPad will likely be an incremental improvement. That’s how Apple does it. Personally I think they need to leapfrog the competition with this new model, but honestly it doesn’t matter. The tech bloggers with write at length how Apple failed to deliver but most consumers won’t care or notice. For one, there is virtually no competition. Ultimately Apple hardware is beautifully designed to the smallest detail, but this is less than half the experience because the on screen experience is what really matters. And this is where Apple has the complete advantage.

Apple invented a market for tablets
When Apple announced the iPad, Microsoft didn’t seem phased. They believe they had invented the tablet, their beefy laptops with touch screens requiring stylus. But very few people bought them, they were expensive, impractical and not geared to the right market. Steve Jobs famously mocked the machines for requiring the pen, in his heart he knew tablets shouldn’t have pens, that your fingers are good enough.

Along came the iPad and what many dismissed as an expensive toy took off. Then the competitors ‘quickly’ attempted to copy Apple’s success, and most have failed. Google’s Android tablet software is unpolished and inconsistent from one manufacture to another. Even techies who prefer their Android phones won’t buy the Android tablet. HP had bought Palm to gain their WebOS technology that actually scaled well to the bigger screen, but then they killed the platform, taking out a serious competitor to Android. Research in Motion announced, delayed and then finally shipped their Playbook tablet. They had to hunt around for an operating system, then released a half-finished product. Microsoft hasn’t arrived to the party yet, but they’re already boosting their new system will be superior, and while they’ll have a long way to go to catch up to Apple, Microsoft could be a challenger because they won’t be focused entirely on the hardware (they just lack an ecosystem).

This last holiday season, the gift everyone really wanted with an iPad. Some bloggers even joked that the Kindle Fire would be the gift bought by people who didn’t know better. As much as Microsoft claims to have invented tablet computing, Apple brought it to the mainstream. The competitors are fighting for second place, not first. But we don’t call them tablets, we call them iPads and iPad copies.

Apple can be given credit for creating a new market. At the end of the last quarter Apple had sold 55 million iPads. In the same Gigaom article on ‘Why tablet makers need to make iPad events matter’, the writer speculates that Apple could have sold another 8-10 million since. In less than two years the market for tablets has gone from none to something approaching 90 million. In a recent report Forrester Research found that Apple’s device now has a 73% share of the market, and no single Android device has broken 5%. Sure Apple’s pie is being carved up slowly, but as with the iPod by the time competitors catch up, Apple will have moved on.

It’s about the software
Tablet and computer makers are throwing a lot of product numbers around. Microsoft is now onto Window 8 (though it’s a year away from full release), and Android is not too far behind Apple. In four years Apple has gone from a brand new operating system to it’s fifth major version, and iOS 6 is probably not far away. Apple is staying ahead of the competition by quickly releasing solid updates that give users more features with each release than on the hardware side. iOS is actually a variation of the software that powers the Mac, OS X, which is already 12 years old and built on technology even older. That’s not a bad thing, using an established technology that’s already had the bugs worked out. As for the competition, their operating systems are still clunky and sophomoric. Because of the nature of Android being free for tablet makers, the quality is not present and each tablet maker tweaks the user experience on their device, making Android a fragmented and inconsistent tablet. Google has a lot of work to do just to catch up to Apple, but they have the talent and now having bought Motorola, Android might be a serious contender if only they can make sure tablet makers stick to one familiar interface. Then again, Amazon took the Android and made it their own for the Kindle.

And the ecosystem
The Kindle Fire is just a beefed up ebook reader. It captured only 5% of the tablet market over the holidays, good for Amazon it’s bottom line, but not a major wine for Android. The Fire is in a category all it’s own. Amazon is trying to make the Kindle more than an ebook reader, yet to keep costs down they have made sacrifices, naming size and quality. The advantage that Amazon has is simple, they have an ecosystem that can actually compete with the iTunes store. Microsoft has failed to achieve this, and Google has only just rebranded their various stores under one banner, the Google Play Store. Apple still has the advantage, a head start from years of delivering content for the iPod. When it comes to music, iTunes has the best selection and it’s immediate. Their television offering is good, as are their new release movies (however they need to work on price and face competition from Netflix but not on the quality of movies), but Apple excels in the app marketplace especially for the iPad. With companies reluctant to invest in making apps for the Android tablet, Apple will continue to deliver the tablet best experience.