In Now it is being predicted that Googles Android OS might capture up to 40 percent of the smartphone market by the second half of 2011. But in the tablet space, Android has failed to deliver. Apples iPad continues to be the giant gorilla in the room; it commands the interests of the buyers, as well as the community of app developers. In the later part of the year 2010, Google had accepted that the Android was not geared to fulfil the needs of the tablet users. That was supposed to change with the launch of Honeycomb version of the OS. But Motorolas XOOM, which was the first tablet device to be launched with Honeycomb, was a gigantic flop.
Released with much fanfare, the XOOM was supposed to cram every possible feature that could supposedly wean users away from the iPad. But the most important of these features, the incorporation of a microSD card slot, which would have allowed users to augment their storage, did not work. Such a hardware glitch is simply unforgivable, especially when a device like iPad has already set sky-high standards. There was also some confusion about who was to blame for this glitch Google or Motorola. Off the record, some Google executives maintained that the microSD card slot not working was Motorolas fault, as the slot was working perfectly in other Honeycomb tablets.
The bottom line is that a user is not that much interested in blame games. He only wants value for money. So if the microsSD card slot is not working on a particular device, he will turn his attention to other products. The XOOM was doomed to fail. Since then other Android based tablets have come into the market, but they have not been able to eat into the iPad market in any significant manner.
The 65000 apps, that Apples tablets have access to, are a big draw. The backers of Android will have to work a lot before they can start offering this kind of choice to their users. As in the case of iPhone, Apple had a huge head start while making the iPad, and it is way ahead of competitors like Google. It is also a problem that the Android platform is totally fragmented. Every company tinkers with the OS and this leads to different user experience in different devices. Perhaps this makes it difficult for a user to make up his mind about what kind of platform he is actually buying.
Googles strategy is to wean customers away by creating cheaper Android based tablet models. That might not work. The tablet consumer is by definition already upwardly mobile. He might not be that price sensitive as a mobile phone user is. In fact, he might readily pay little extra for a product that is of high quality and is more stylish. Apples iPad enjoys an iconic appeal, which Android based devices are finding it difficult to match. Perhaps Android will be able to make a dent in the tablet space, once Amazon comes out with its Android based tablet. But it is certain that while using the core Android software, Amazon is going to tinker around a lot to make the final OS feel like something that has come out from Amazons stable and not from Googles.
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