Amazon to release tablet in September or October - danger for Apple?

Rumors are out that Amazon is going to introduce a color tablet based on Android In fall this year. Will it be successful?




(Image copied from Wired.com)

Apple introduced their tablet (iPad first generation) April 2010. Since then many tablets have come on the market with more or less no success.

According to a market research, Apple's iPad accounted for 89 percent of worldwide tablet traffic on the Internet in May, easily besting Android-based tablets and other slates.

Apple has sold 25 million iPads since the tablet's launch in spring 2010. Moreover, iPad held 87 percent market share in 2010, according to research firm IDC. Another research firm, Gartner, said it believes the iPad will own 68.7 percent of the market in 2011. Android devices, on the other hand, will only have 19.9 percent share this year, the firm said.

Why did so far none of the competition pick up on Apple? In my opinion there are many reasons, but mostly because the OS is too limited (like the playboook from RIM, which can only do mail with a Blackberry) or because the hardware is not as light as good and has shorter battery life (like Galaxy and Zoom). Plus none of the tablets are cheaper than the iPad. Another important factor is the amount of applications and the quality of applications. There are already 5,000 apps for Android tablets but the quality of many apps is not good because google does not control the applications.

The consumers are ready for another tablet which can compete with the iPad, not because the iPad is bad or the price is too high, but because we don't like to have only one real choice.

Amazon has a great chance to be the second winner in the tablet market. Which is an irony because Amazon is not a leading hardware company. But Amazon has something nobody besides Apple has. Amazon has a good app store and does control all submitted apps. It has less restrictions than Apple but more than Google.
And Amazon is like Apple a retailer and does know how service and support works which Google is just not good in.

Amazon is the biggest online retailer and has a big customer base, therefor they can and will market their apps in their store better than Google. As a amazon app developer i get frequently emails from Amazon with tips and helps to support me or to market my app.



There are a lot of complains from developers that Google does not support them . The latest example is Lodsys patent infringement claim. Apple is taking the fight but Google leaves it to the developers.

Amazon will and can do it better than Google, and can build a fast thin tablet with long battery life. Even if the kindle is not a tablet, Amazon still learned in the last few years a lot about tablet devices and integrated services.

Amazon has not only the retail experience but as well music service, video and ebook experience. A tablet could combine hardware with all these services.

If anybody can really compete with Apple on the Android market then it is Amazon. Pretty sure in 2013 we will have 50 or 80 different tablets but only two will share 70% of the market. All others will have together 30%. One of the two is Apple and the second one could be Amazon.

Microsoft can still catch up but yet we need to see a windows tablet or some success with windows phones. Microsoft missed the idea that the OS is not the most important part, it is the services around the OS. Windows got only so big because there was more services and apps available then for Apple computers.

Same happens right now with Apple iOS, regardless if the iOS is great or not, there are so many apps and services available that it would not make much sense for the user to buy something which would limit them.

But as I wrote, we never just like one choice, and I believe Amazon could win big against all other tablet manufactures.

Now here comes a thesis which is maybe totally crazy. Amazon will grow to the biggest Android market place that in 4 years most of the people won't remember who originally did develop Android.
Or do you remember which Linux was the first and who Linus Tovald is?

Stay tuned and keep your eyes open for a new Amazon device.

- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69

Location:Anacortes, Skagit, Washington