Apple COO Tim Cook during the company's fiscal Q1 2011 results call had criticism not just for existing tablets from rivals but future ones as well. He split the competition in the market into Android and Windows devices but saved most criticism for Android. Reiterating Jobs' criticisms of seven-inch tablets, he characterized the small sizes and lack of optimization as "bizarre" and no real threat to the iPad.
"[With] the variety shipping today, the OS wasn’t designed for a tablet; but Google said this," Cook said. "So you wind up having the size of a tablet that’s less than reasonable, or one that's not even a real tablet experience. It's a scaled-up smartphone; that's a bizarre product in our view. Those are what is shipping today. If you do a side-by-side with an iPad, some enormous percentage [is] going to pick the iPad. We have no concern there."
The executive openly dismissed Windows tablets altogether. Current designs are "fairly big, heavy and expensive" with "weak battery life." They also need to have a keyboard or a stylus for input and were largely irrelevant in the market. "From our point of view and what we've seen, people just aren't interested in them," Cook said.
He didn't know how future tablets, most of which would run Android 3.0 like the Motorola Xoom, would perform on the market. None of them were shipping, so it was impossible to comment on how well they would do or what their performance and prices would be like. "Today, they're vapor," Cook said.
While he wouldn't comment on the next iPad, the COO also stressed that Apple was "not sitting still" and letting others come in. "We have a huge first-mover advantage," Cook explained. "And a huge user advantage from iTunes to the App Store. [There's a] huge number of apps and a huge ecosystem. We're very, very confident entering into a fight with anyone."
Apple is expected to be at least competitive with opponents and match devices like the Xoom or the BlackBerry PlayBook with a dual-core processor and dual-core graphics. It may even have a unique 2048x1536 display that could provide better visual quality than the 1280x720 and 1280x800 screens most Android 3.0 devices will have to use.
0 comments