Jason Hiner may be a bit premature in suggesting that the Android tablets have failed but he does point to some very relevant limitations of Android tablets when compared to the iPad. Based on the explosive growth of the Android phones in 2010 many tech commentators expected the Android tablet to at minimum match iPad sales in 2011 but this never happened. Hiner offers the following for reasons for Android tablet lack of success in 2011:
- The price
- The lack of tablet apps
- The enterprise doesn’t trust Android
- The 16×9 problem
While I agree these are significant limitations with the Android devices, I also think that you need to take into account the poor battery life, unreliability of the Android OS and apps as well as the fragmented user experience. In the past month two months that I have been using a Samsung Galaxy Tab I have been shocked at how easily I can repeatedly cause applications to crash or freeze, how poor the battery life is not and how long it takes to recharge the Galaxy Tab.
Perhaps the biggest indicator that I don’t trust Android and the Galaxy Tab surfaced on a recent ski trip that my family and I took over the Christmas break. I didn’t want to pack so much so I limited myself to only my laptop and one tablet. I chose my iPad because it was much more reliable and the battery life was so much better. When one is traveling you don’t want to spent time tinkering with a device, you just want it to work.
I won’t go so far as to agree with Hiner and suggest that the Android tablets are a failure I will agree with him that there is a long way to go before they reach the level of functionality and reliability. The sooner they get to this point the better it is for everyone–the more competition there is in the emerging tablet space the more we all win.
