Report: Android Tablets Gaining on iPad

Something seems a little off here. Has anyone actually seen any of these devices in the wild? I commute in Manhattan daily, and travel very often (2-3x a month) to London, HK, SF and Chicago. I see ipads all the time, kindles (ebook) all the time, and have only seen a half dozen non-ipad tablets (one galaxy tab, one kindle fire and a few playbooks). Those airports, train stations, etc. are pretty busy places, so it's a lot of people I'm talking about! I know it's anecdotal, but 39%?? Really?

There's been a concerted effort to discredit these numbers. That is ridiculous, though of course I'm looking forward to Gartner and IDC estimates as well. First, someone not seeing Android tablets out in the world doesn't suggest a worldwide trend. Your experience is your experience. The Mac may have 20 percent share in the US. There are other countries. Second, it's amusing to me that there is suddenly a well-spring of people who see a difference between devices that are sold directly to consumers (i.e. "sales") and those that are sold into the channel (i.e. "shipped" or, in their minds, suddenly, "not sales."). This is something that comes up every time Microsoft makes a Windows license sales announcement, and that's not coincidental. There is a crowd of Apple fans out there that simply cannot bear to hear the truth. But here it is. A sale is a sale. Microsoft and most Android tablet makers do not sell directly to consumers. They sell to retailers and to wireless carriers, and so on. That point at which the company is paid for a product is when the sale is registered. For Apple, that point is typically when a person buys the product. For these other companies that point is typically when they ship a device to a retailer of some kind. Both of these are valid "sales", both are impacted by returns on a quarterly basis, and while both are not pedantically 1:1, they are indeed comparable. Neither is more valid than the other, just as neither sales strategy is more valid than the other. So yes, please, keep up your hypocritical attempts to explain why this (or I) am biased while being biased towards Apple's way of doing things. We can't help that Apple or its competitors have chosen different ways of making money. But we can absolutely compare them. And that is exactly what this survey is doing. It is valid. Comments and criticisms are welcome ... unless they're ridiculous. Most of the responses so far have indeed been ridiculous.

Yes, that's ridiculous. Strategy Analytics is not measuring channel stuffing. They're measuring device shipments. Yes, some will be returned. So will some of Apple's devices, thus the well-stocked Refurbished section of its online store. Again, this is a valid way to compare "sales." It's the only reasonable accurate way, in fact.

We won't know whether there's a difference between ARM- and x86-based tablets until Microsoft tells us one way or the other. Right now, based on what they've said, they will all be considered PCs. But let's see how they turn out.

Many reasons. PCs are open platforms where any user can install any application and/or hardware peripheral from any source. PCs are content creation devices first but can of course be used for media/consumption; tablets are far more limited, especially for creation purposes, and are light use/consumption devices primarily. etc. PCs are infinitely configurable, not closed boxes, like a toaster. etc. At some point, iPads and their Android counterparts will get sophisticated enough that we'll either consider them PCs for all intents and purposes, or we'll simply start looking at "computing devices" instead of PCs.

Nope. Those were just a few things off the top of my head. This is simple, though: An iPad is too generally limited today to be considered a PC. That, again, may (or will almost certainly) change. Likewise, our definition of "PC" is changing, downward, and the PCs of the future will be simpler devices, and more like iPads. It's a moving target to be sure. Steve Jobs talked about cars and trucks. To beat that to death, I'd say we're going to see some minivans and crossover vehicles too. Defining what is and what isn't a PC will be difficult sometimes.