Apple's next-gen iPad: New battlefields emerge
Summary: Apple's competitive set has swollen as the vertically integrated tech giant plays in more spaces. The formula works as long as Apple can keep innovating.
Apple's launch of its latest iPad illustrates how technology's most valuable company in terms of market capitalization competes with damn near everybody.
The rollout of the and HD iPad brought the usual pyrotechnics. The iPad features LTE with a whopping 9 hours of battery life on 4G---unheard of in the world of smartphones. A retina display also adds a differentiation point from rivals. There's also a new chip---the Apple A5X---that offers better performance. And the price tag---starting at $499---stays the same. For good measure, the iPad 2 now goes for $399 to start.
Meanwhile, Apple will launch the new iPad March 16.
Reading between the lines of Apple CEO Tim Cook and Phil Schiller, marketing chief, it's clear that the company's competitive set has swollen as the vertically integrated tech giant plays in more spaces. The game for Apple is still the same---integrate hardware and software better than anyone and use the supply chain as a weapon---but the battlefield is immense.
Related: Apple's New iPad In The Enterprise: Laptop Replacement Gets Closer | Nvidia on Apple's iPad A5X graphics claims: Show us the benchmarks | CNET: Apple's new iPad: First Take | Techmeme
Among the key nuggets from Apple's iPad event highlighting the competitive set.
Semiconductors: Schiller showed a slide of Apple iPad's graphic performance. The Apple A5X chip has four times the graphics performance over rivals. "It's a graphics powerhouse," boasted Schiller. The competitor: Nvidia. Nvidia's Tegra 3's graphics performance was the stubby foil in Schiller's presentation. Also: Nvidia on Apple's iPad A5X graphics claims: Show us the benchmarks
PCs: Apple was more blatant than ever about its plan to lead the post-PC era. This fact is going to complicate PC upgrade cycles everywhere. The better specs the iPad gets the more it's going to look like a replacement for the laptop. It's possible that many companies will go for iPads over laptops.
PC makers: Cook took direct aim at HP, Dell, Acer and Lenovo in terms of units vs. the iPad. Apples and oranges so to speak? You bet. But Apple clearly sees the iPad as a way to hit its PC competition. Maybe it sells a few Macs on the way.
Samsung and Android tablets: Apple poked Samsung in the eye early on. A Twitter app was shown on a Samsung Android tablet. Cook noted that the Android app looked like a blown up smartphone version. It was. Apple is extending its lead in tablets. To make the price wars on tablets more interesting the iPad 2 will now start at $399.
Amazon and Barnes & Noble e-readers: Cook duly noted that reading e-books was a favorite activity on the iPad. With a retina display it's clear Apple has the pixels to compete with e-readers.
Digital video cameras: Apple executives noted the latest iPad has an enhanced iSight camera and a lens that will improve video. More interesting is the software integration that can shoot video and remix it easily in iMovie. Add it up and you have 1080p HD video camera with software built in.
There are a lot of rivals emerging for Apple. That formula works as long as it can keep delivering leapfrog technologies.
Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.
Talkback
So ZDNet is wrong about all this "Post PC" nonsense.
So can ZDNet stop this "post-PC" rubbish from now on.
Thanks.
Clearly they won't
It just shows.
I'm pointing out that Apple itself, you know the creator of the gospel, is claiming that iPads are personal computers. It's even part of the article. It's quite clear to see. I guess people only see what they want to see.
Clear distinction between the iPad and x86 desktop-based PCs...
Tell Apple that, not me..
It doesn't matter what ZDnet calls the iPad when the creator calls them PC's... Does it.. Sir.
Bozzer, you obviously missed the show
Not getting it.
Not to be confused with the "PC" branding (or should I say hijacking) by Microsoft and partners over the decades for their marketing of x86 computers. Windows PC, Tablet PC, UMPC (Ultra-mobile PC), even Pocket PC was branding for Microsoft and partners computers - the iPad is non of that, it is post-traditional-Microsoft-branded-"PC".
Recap - the iPad is a modern 'personal computer' or personal computing device, not to be confused with the whole "PC" branding. That it is not, it's post-pc.
Actually
@ dave95 Missing one small point....
That is why throwing around 'post-pc' does not make it a reality. We are not post-pc, the iPad is not by any stretch replacing the PC and it is in fact quite possible we never will be 'post-pc'.
Post PC Era is an Apple pipe dream.
Its going to be Apples big downfall if they don't face reality. Bringing out the iPad and declaring PC's are dead or almost dead is much akin to the stupid hype that Dean Kamen tried to stir up before the Segway came out. There were times he implied it was the beginning of the end of the automobile as we know it.
I jut read a great article today where several people knowledgeable in the field made it plain that all this "post PC era" talk is extraordinarily premature. Its beyond me why there are ANY writers at ZDNet entertain this kind of talk.
Use your brain!! Look at workplaces, look at the home where gamers are playing, where people have media systems. Please please just look!!!! Its PC's!!! Sure people use smart phones for internet and sure multi millions of iPads have sold but they are not and can not do what a PC can. Sure these gadgets take up a large part of todays computing but the very largest part of that is NEW computing, not replacement computing. Nobody is throwing away their PC.
Apple is pushing the whole post PC era idea because they are hoping if they say it often enough people will start t believe it. Mr. Jobs and crew could not break Microsoft's grip on the PC market no matter how hard they tried so now..now they are trying harder then hell to get people to somehow believe that PC's no longer exist!!
YOU HAVE TO PURCHASE AN IPAD!!! ITS THE POST PC ERA AND ITS ALL THATS LEFT!!!
Its pure nonsense! Its garbage and its subliminal advertising at its poorest. PC's are now more reliable and better working then ever before. In fact, as far as tablets go it looks to me that with any luck at all Microsoft will have a tablet that works more like a PC style computer, giving most people what they were hoping to get, but didn't, when they put their hard earned money into an iPad.
To Apple, "PC" always meant a Windows computer. And make no mistake, what Apple is really trying to convince the public has happened is that Windows computers have all but left the building. Meanwhile, its like too many journalists haven't bothered to even look INSIDE the building because if they did they would see its bloody packed to the rafters with PC's, and although they are not pouring in as fast as they used to, they are still piling in!
The current situation hardly qualifies as being anything close to a post PC era. Apple is punch drunk and I would hope we soon get a few writers pointing that out.
You might have a point ...
... if Apple had failed in the marketplace with these devices instead of becoming the most valuable company in the world.
Their own data said as much!
I work for a company that has more than 50,000 PCs in use. It also has iPads...numbering in the dozens. The official policy set forth by the governance department is that iPads, even corporate owned ones, are considered personal devices in the same category as smartphones, and therefore are not allowed on the corporate network. And I don't see that changing in my lifetime...unless the user is footing their own bill for 3G data, I can't imagine them ever becoming very useful if they can't even be used in wifi mode.
@jvitous
Bank on it....
And the other stuff didn't make Milwaukee famous
Budweiser is pushing this whole "King of Beers" nonsense because they are hoping that if they repeat it often enough, people will start to believe it!
I share your concern with these marketing slogans. We all need to get our shorts in a bunch over every one of them! Have you ever actually heard anyone say they are a Pepper? Me either. Do all of your kisses begin with Kay? Probably not. We need to get our shorts in a bunch over that one as well.
Ummm really
On gaming consoles, of many size and shapes. Two things are slowing PC sales (growth for 2011 was .05%)
1. Internet based/cloud based apps. A browser is all you need. My wires company uses Quickbooks online and Office 365. No one uses local mail/calendaring apps on computers in her small company, its all via the browser or mobile device.
2. Millions upon millions of PC users should have never been...but for the few things they wanted to do there was only the PC. That is changing rapidly. A iPad is all many people need. Each version of it cuts the cord more and more. iCloud is helping that.
In my company 80+% of users have Wise Thin clients. They are hitting a VDI or terminal server but they don't have the a PC anymore. More and more of their daily apps are via web browsers.
And it still isn't. Think about it for a second - why isn't iMac up there?
But suddenly, something that isn't a traditional OEM PC (It's not even that similar to their own Mac "PC" line) is now a "PC"?
If iPad didn't sell that well, they wouldn't be calling it a "PC". That name is for the sake of the moment, nothing more, IMHO.
iMac wasn't being released or updated
Go back to your anchor position Ron Burgundy.
Don't take it so seriously.
The iPad is not a smart phone
It's physically larger allowing for a larger, and thus higher capacity, battery. One would hope it could exceed a smaller, lower capacity battery equipped device.
Well spotted, it's not a smart phone, it's an iPad!