2012 is going to be interesting in the tablet space

Like just about everybody else I reading Steve Jobs Biography. That's why my blog posts have been so focused on him in the last month. The book gives a good insight to the tablet wars and a lot of what makes the Ipad such a success and the various Android tablets such a failure. What is interesting is that the Ipad pre-dated the iphone and that the iphone success as a user interface was from Apple's prior development of the Ipad. I'm probably the only person in the Western world who does not have an Ipad or used one much. This means that the IPad has about a 3 year development lead over Andriod 2002 verses 2005. Honeycomb was very pretty but not that usable, it was rushed to market. I had a hacked version on my Nook for a while and it was a step in the right direction. Most of the Android tablets used a 2.X versions designed for cell phones because Homecomb was not ready for primetime. I've never been a fan of the Java VM which is at the Androids core. So why is it such a success? The carrier/handset makers seem to be trying to customize it to death literally. It's interesting the market for custom roms that set the interface back to a standard android UX. I've heard that ICS has a much more polished UX but will we ever get to see it given the handset manufactures tinkering. CM9 where are you. Given all this why is Android a success two words "OPEN", "APPS". The world needed an OS to battle IOS and it was free. This created a critical mass for APPS as it was adopted. This makes it a success. The Iphone is out of the reach of a lot of people especially in the 3rd world. Android will run on an inexpensive ARM processor. Apple wants 100% mark up. They controlled the supply chain so they could hold up the prices. They also had the best SOC (system on a chip) in their own customer A processor. Their war with Samsung will free up that manufacturer to supply chips to 3rd parties and multiple ARM SOC at a low price will be available this year. The Android UX is improving with ICS. Apple needs to knock the Iphone 5/Ipad 3 out of the park if it want that three year development lead to continue. Ask your 10 year old if he wants a Kindle Fire or an Ipod touch. Most will say the fire a 7" screen verses a 3.5" to watch netflix or play games on. Remember they are the same price and they have a large installed APP base. Though people complain about the ergonomics of the Fire, it is very usable and probably by the time Amazon ships version 2.0 of the OS. Apple has iTunes but Android has spotify which is just as good as iTunes. I own a Nook which has evolved a lot of since last year. I restored the nook color to a stock ROM last weekend version 1.4.1 is a very usable UX. Everybody has counted out Microsoft. They took alot of false starts in the mid 2000's. Windows 8 and surface show a huge history that microsoft has had with touch interfaces. What is interesting is that the press has given Microsoft a lot of grief about how slow to market but Windows 8 will be a huge introduction to a lot of people for the Metro interface which works well and is very usable. Microsoft are not going to just give up like they did with the Zune, they bet the farm on Metro with Windows 8. What is interesting is that Apple focus on legal methods to kill Android. It was Steve's dying wish to sue Android(Google) out of existence or is Apple concerned that they cannot evolve the Ipad faster than the competition. It going an interesting year in 2012.