@Heenan73 (and others) At least someone talking some sense with no famnboi bias (either side). I couldn't agree more.
The manufacturers should wake up and understand that pricing the same as an iPad won't cut it. Apple has created a successful ecosystem supported by strong marketing campaigns and a loyal user base (and if one loves them or hates them it's completely irrelevant), who will fend off for free any attack to their beloved electronic devices as if they were paid to do so. What more proof are manufacturer waiting for to wake up???
They should understand that:
1) Selling at the same price point of an iPad or slightly less is a loosing proposition. If manufacturers can't figure out a way to offer a device even better than the iPad for 50~60% less might as well save themselves the hassle and focus on markets other than Tablet. It's not that since they are all tablets, competitors can be priced the same and expected to sell... that means there is a complete lack of understanding of the current market and its customer base... either that or manufacturers are in complete denial. Look it's real simple: if you can buy a Mercedes/BMW at the same price of a Ford/Chevy which car would you buy? (And notice I am not saying Ferrari, Bugatti or Porche here!)
2) Competitors' devices have to rock on the hardware side being not just as good as, but better than the iPad hardware because feature parity is no longer enough gain the trust of new customers driving them away from iPads, let alone have iPad owners to switch! That's the price to pay for coming late to the Tablet party... sorry but that's reality,
3) It's already hard to beat hardware specs since everyone has access to the same building materials from CPUs to LCDs etc. Therefore manufacturers will really need to go the extra mile thinking through features like long battery life, powerful computing power... you name it,
4) The OS must be as powerful and as stable as iOS. Dancing around releasing immature betas as if they were ready for prime time is not an option... see the problems that damaged even further the perception of Android with failed releases like 2.3 which soon became a 3.0 that even then didn't deliver what the market expected. Again stability of the OS would not be enough. The OS will have to offer simplicity and power as well as a level of freedom to the user in all areas... especially those where the competition keeps a tight leash in defense of its ecosystem
5) Manufacturers should join forces to create a single ecosystem where everyone has the same amount of interests at stake. The android and its market is already offering something along those lines, but too often manufacturers (or wireless carriers) push their own content and market app and do not ship with the Android Market or limit available content, requiring separate downloads and at times requiring rooting the devices. All this trying to "screw the competition and reach market dominance" is utopian especially when coming back on earth and realizing that there is already Apple to cover the role of market dominator (and here it is totally irrelevant to debate on sales forecast). The behavior that all the players in the iPad competition have adopted will detrimental to all of them and will only help consolidate the iPad as the only tablet customers will go for, while the rest of the products are too busy to battle each others.
Note: Just consider that the currency of the EU, the Euro, was created to counter balance the strength of the Dollar... not all countries loved and it was not cheap nor painless to be part of it. But in the end that seemed to work for EU and maybe if the manufacturers will put away the "war axe" and start smoking the peace pipe (instead of continuing to smoke crack), at least in this mutually beneficial alliance may let them reap some good results. And this is only one of the options available.
5) The alliance would not be fruitful if creating content for the devices will not be an easy task part of the success of iOS were the (debatable) "there is an app for that". The more apps offered (often free) the more users were likely to buy into the platform. Therefore it would be pretty much a must to have an easy environment where developer (even lightweight ones) can make apps rapidly and release them to users effortlessly. Adobe AIR and Flash come to mind immediately here to leverage existing knowhow without having to learn how to program for Android, QNX, etc.
6) The Os has to be even easier than iOS to use. Sure one could be a geek and love all the power android/QNX/Windows/iOS can offer when going under the hood and heavy in configs. But tons of users do not fit that profile. Mostly think very simple use like: I want to listen to music without being bothered with a bunch of options for sync, managing, etc. same goes for any other apps, whether that's SMS, Mail, Web, Taking a picture, a video, watching a movie etc...
Maybe create profiles customizable for users so that when grandma logs into the device it's all big buttons and one click away, and when the geeky grandson logs in to develop his new game "happy birds" he'll have its own customized super geeky and flexible experience.
And for those who made it this far, some additional considerations... QNX may be a great OS but unfortunately is yet another experience and UI to learn, another point of division, another internal battle which sees only iOS coming out as a winner. Same goes for Windows Mobile who came late in the game despite many (like myself) had even been delusional enough to write to the PocketPC team suggesting it was time for a different kind of experience... now they started listening, but it's too little too late.
How many more wrong marketing and development choices do manufacturers thing that the consumers can take? And while they keep failing Apple keeps establishing its role as the only company that knows what they are doing and that eventually deliver!
For instance RIM made a huge-screen phone instead of making a tablet. 7" really? When the acclaimed standard "Tablet" was shy of 10"? Talking about wrong choices. Develop your own OS... yes that's what consumers needed! A new proprietary OS with different UI, new stuff to learn, and obviously even less apps made for it! Not to mention that will be impossible to bring those apps with us when we change device. At least now when going from and Android device to another users can keep all the apps already bought without needing to reinstall since they are all backed up to their account. But is not only RIM to make mistakes... there have been plenty of Manufacturers (Archos, Motorola, Acer etc. for instance) too many to discuss about.
Another fatal mistake is to keep crying wolf and RIM did just that in Sept. 2010 promising to ship by EOY, but nothing cames through even months later in 2011. When it finally shipped the tiny 7-incher was priced like an iPad therefore killing it on the spot for anyone willing to even consider it as an alternative.
Maybe manufacturers should let user decide. Those users who are giving devices other than iPads a try may love the device but not the OS? Then why not let them run whatever OS they feel is the best for them? That would mean allowing them multi-boot and separating machine from OS as it's always been in the PC world. Manufacturers have many option and I think time is running out for acting on them... the alternative is either do something sensible or try to still keep pushing blindly their own hardware and OS choice to eventually perish to iOS dominance.
If what has happened so far is not enough of a motivation to take bold steps such as forming an alliance, I really don't know what would. There is only so much that people will take and even the most hard core non-Apple fanboi will have to come to terms with that, if they want something that works and keeps being supported... sorry if you thought 1984 Apple's ad was all about freedom, it actually was a prediction of the future of the company.
Concluding this long winded post a short note to James: why the heck did you even reply to the "you are biased" post? Geez man, with your work if you start to reply to all who disagree with you or attack you saying you are this and you are that, we would end up reading only posts where you rehash that you are not this or that. Listen, who cares! You write what you write and if people disagree they have the right to their opinion which takes nothing away from your articles and matters not if you are right or wrong. Time will tell. You should not feel you have to justify your position like as if you were being bullied by some kids in kindergarten. Let them think what they want and to H with them ;P I'd love if all posts were like that of Heenan rather than being fanbois flaming wars.... that is what drove me off from reading threads which I do only sporadically, like in this case.
Well don't blame me for the lengthy post... blame it on the mistakes of the manufacturers and the relentless nonsense talk of fanbois of all sides! You provoked this logorrhea! ;D
Cheers!
PS: sorry for any grammatical "horrors". I am not a paid editor so I did not spell check and review the massive post
The tablet space is the most active in the mobile world with just about every company trying to cash in on the iPad success. BlackBerry producer RIM has been beleaguered lately over poor performance and was hoping its PlayBook tablet would turn things around, but a report indicates that is not the case. Meanwhile Amazon is rumored to be readying its own tablet for market, which has industry watchers ready to scrutinize its first entry into the tablet market. Android tablet makers are vying for sales to compete not only with the iPad but with each other for a piece of the slim pie. While Android tablet makers jostle for sales, Apple just keeps selling iPads like hotcakes.
I own several Android tablets, no iPad. I own an Android phone, no iPhone. Yet I am biased against my preferred platform because I refuse to adopt your conspiracy mentality and deny that iPads are selling massively more than the Android competition, which I personally prefer and spend my own money on. Total amusement, thanks for making me smile yet again. 
