What does a Google Tablet mean?

“In the next 6 months, we plan to market a tablet of the highest quality” – Eric Schmidt

The above move from Google had to come sooner or later. Most of us will agree that the year 2011 was the year when Google pushed really hard to bring out a competitor to the hugely successful iPad. Has Google been successful? Let’s look at some numbers for finding out answers.

According to a recent report that was published by IDC (International Data Corporation), Apple’s iPad leads the tablet market share with about 61.5% while Google’s Android tablets took the second place with 32.4% and Samsung having the highest market share (among Android) with 5.6%. So, a group of big names like Samsung, Motorola, HTC, Asus etc. who supported Android couldn’t quite match up to Apple’s iPad which continues to dominate the tablet market even today. From the start of 2011, when everybody witnessed the much awaited XOOM tablets from Motorola to the end of 2011, when everybody saw the latest Galaxy Tabs from Samsung, Google has never been able to produce a worthy competitor.  Why?

The answer mainly lies with respect to ownership of hardware and software. As I already said in my previous posts, Apple is always in control of both of its components that make up the tablet: Hardware and Software. So, it precisely knows how to produce a tablet that contains software that can take the maximum advantage of the underlying hardware. This was what was lacking in Google’s tablet strategy. The fact is that Google has always been producing software (with not much of a great idea regarding the hardware’s cohesiveness with the software) which was being modified extensively by other android-tablet manufacturers who put that software onto the tablets. Google never really worked closely with any of the manufacturers as far as tablets are concerned when it ideally should have, as Google is not responsible for the hardware part of the devices. The reason that people can see a great phone like Google’s Galaxy Nexus today is because Google hasn’t left any stone unturned in its desire to produce a phone that can take the user experience to a next level. It has coordinated really well with partner companies like Texas Instruments, Samsung etc. and the result now is there for everybody to see.

So, does it now make sense for Google to produce its own tablet? Absolutely. Many experts have always believed that the stock ROM offered by Google is always better than the modified ROMs like Touchwiz and Sense in terms of general zippiness. There is some truth in these opinions as evidenced by the benchmark scores that the devices get and the kind of lag that some people experience in tablets being produced by manufacturers. The latest truth comes in form of stock Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) running in the Galaxy Nexus. Thankfully, Google has realized this and is now wasting no time in bringing to market as what Eric Schmidt said "the tablet of the HIGHEST quality". Go Google.!!

Stay tuned..!!

Samsung & Apple: Are they Competitors or Co-Operators?

Do you know what has been powering Apple’s iPhones, ranging from the original iPhone released in 2007 to the latest iPhone 4S in 2011: SoCs manufactured by Samsung. Not only for the iPhone, but also for Apple’s Macbooks, Samsung is one of the most critical component supplier as it supplies parts like DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) module and SSDs (Solid State Drives). But do you know who has been suing ‘Samsung’ all over the world for the past few months: Apple. So, are they Competitors or Co-operators?? Let's find out.

Before Samsung, Apple already had a long list of lawsuits filed against Android device manufacturers like Motorola (who actually was the first to file a lawsuit against Apple), HTC etc. as it believed that the technologies being used by the devices seemed to infringe a number of Apple patents.

I believe that the actual fillip for Apple to file a patent lawsuit came when Samsung came out with the ‘Samsung Galaxy S2’ which was touted by the reviewers of many gadget websites, as the best Android Smartphone available at that point of time and they foresaw that it would sell in millions. Also, many tech enthusiasts believed that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is one of the best Android tablets that have come closest to dethroning iPad in the tablet category.

Apple had a filed a host of patent infringement cases: 7 utility patents, 3 design patents, several iOS system application icons case and a host of trade dress registrations and packaging that each of Samsung's devices come with. I am not going to detail what each and every patent infringement case was but some of the bottom-line things that you need to take note of are as follows:

• Apple believed that Samsung’s Galaxy range of phones like the Galaxy S 4G and the Nexus S were awefully similar looking to the iPhone.
• The way Samsung had modified the vanilla Android OS with its ‘TouchWiz’ skin to display application icons also had an overwhelming resemblance to the way Apple was displaying icons on both the iPhone and the iPad.
• Apple also had a problem with the way Samsung had packaged its phones. It said that the packaging was also very similar to the way in which its iPhones were packaged.

On a funnier note, there was a recent incident where a Judge had held the iPad 2 (Apples’ tablet) in one hand and a Galaxy Tab 10.1 (Samsung’s tablet) in the other and asked Samsung’s group of lawyers to distinguish both the devices from a distance of 10 feet away. Samsung’s lawyers did pick their own device correctly but not before an aweful lot of time had passed. This shows that there is a lot of similarity between the iPad 2 and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and when you have a look at their external design and specifications it is not hard to fathom why. This might be the reason why Apple has been able to get a temporary injunction on Samsung selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia and Galaxy Tab 7.7 in Germany.

Samsung has also filed some lawsuits against Apple citing that Apple’s iPhone violates patents related to wireless communication: 3G. Samsung claims that Apple can’t sell a 3G compatible device without using Samsung’s Technology.

The irony is that even as Apple and Samsung are trading blows against each other, Apple has reportedly awarded Samsung the contract to supply the next-gen Quad-Core A6 CPUs which are most probably going to be used in iPhone 5 (or whatever the next generation iPhone is going to be called) and the iPad 3. Apple had reportedly considered other options like the ‘Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’ (TSMC) but had found that TSMC hasn’t quite stabilized its foundry good enough to manufacture the A6 CPU.

So, are they Competitors or Co-Operators? The Question still remains..!!

Stay Tuned..!!