The Tablet Choice

Christmas this year there appears to be 3 main Tablet choices and other than the iPad which is still king of the roost, the 7 Inch wars are hotting up.because the iPad Mini, Nexus 7 and Amazon Fire are 3 very capable devices offering the user a huge amount.

This 7″ form factor seems to have found its place in the consumers hearts and this will be a great thing for the market in the long term, for the past few years finding that right form factor has cost the industry a lot of money, this seems to have now broken into into the 7″ and 9″ devices and from a hardware manufacturer point of view this is all gravy as now the form factor has been determined the specs can now be fought over. The Apps can be designed quicker, tested better and hopefully become cross platform quicker.

The iPad Mini

Apples late entry into the 7″ Tablet arena was perfectly timed for the Christmas period, drip feeding the early adopters to get the devices into the hands of the fanboys, the best marketing tool any company has, and the message was spread quickly. Apple’s device comes with a pedigree app store and the knowledge that this is an Apple product.

Every Christmas has a Grinch and in apples case the Grinch could be the speed at which Apple recycle this new device and put out and updated model with a retina screen and a better processor.

The Google Nexus 7

Google’s 7″ device has become the flagship for Android, while Samsung and Asus have been pushing the Android brand with tablets of so many sizes the ruler is covered from 5 to 10 inches. It took however Google to bring out a device to polarize the market and push those Android sales sky high.

Sure initially many people may be buying this device who would prefer an Apple iPad, Google however have an equally impressive app store and the tablet is just as polished as Apple’s offering.

The Kindle Fire

Where Apple and Google are aware that owning the stack is important from hardware to search engine and the apps in between  Amazon know something a little different. The Kindle Fire is a portal to a huge sales business and a method of generating money on both digital content and physical items. Amazon have taken Google’s Android and not just themed it, they have rewritten the book to do just this created a portal to the world of AMAZON.COM

Giving the user a curated App store and access to Amazon’s digital content and locking out Google’s OS as much as possible they may actually trump Google at their own game in the long run.

Conclusion

During the reign of the Desktop PC spec’s were king across the board processor specs, then graphics cards it was all about power and number. Not with these tablets. I’m willing to bet most users don’t know how much RAM, what processor the tablet runs or any other spec other than the screen size. The Tablet owner isn’t worried about specs they are all about the content and finally content is king. While Apple and Google have produced some epically proportioned App stores and jimmied in some music and videos for your entertainment all the systems are a little fragmented. Amazon however are proving that knocking out a tablet at cost and providing a seamless interface for access to their world may well be the way forward for any company who wants to break into this market.

This is just the start, we have a platform now and this will be built on, other OS providers such as Microsoft, Ubuntu and the like have had the hard work done for them. Hardware is expensive and now the work has been done it’s open season out there..

Then there is the Games business… and thats one for another post…