The Tablet Race: Who’s Winning? iPad vs. Android
Posted February 16th, 2012
Tablet computers have actually been around for about 20 years, but nobody was really buying them until April 2010, when Apple shook up the consumer electronics marketplace with the iPad.
The iPad caught fire immediately with the public and turned tablet computers into a major product category. People realized that tablets are the ultimate in electronic simplicity: Highly portable, attractive, easy to use and just plain cool.
Competition came fast. Google had already released an open-source operating system for smart phones called Android, so they simply scaled it up for tablet computers the way Apple scaled up its iOS operating system for the iPad.
Android tablets are enough like iPads that at a casual glance a user unfamiliar with the two types might mistake one for the other.
How to decide which is the better tablet? Rather than comparing apples with oranges, it’s like comparing one or two apples with a whole basketful of oranges.
First, only Apple makes the iPad and there are only two versions: the iPad and the iPad 2.
But any company that’s able to manufacture hardware that will support Google’s operating system can make an Android tablet.
In the end, whether you buy an iPad 2 or an Android may come down to which you consider more important: the hardware, the software or the price.
If hardware specs matter, you’ll need to compare the specs for the iPad2 with the specs for each Android tablet on the market
If software matters, you’ll probably choose the iPad 2, which is far more likely than an Android tablet to have exactly the apps that you need.
And if price matters, you’re unlikely to undercut Apple’s prices by more than about $200. But if that $200 makes the difference, there are low-cost Android tablets out there.
One area where Androids are still unequivocally beating the iPad 2 is video resolution, with most running at 1,280 x 800 pixels compared to the 1,024 x768 pixels on both iPads. And unlike some Androids, Apple doesn’t support USB connectors.
But in the all-important area of apps, the iPad 2 is still ahead—way ahead. There are now over 100,000 apps available through the Apple App Store. Google doesn’t make their tally of apps public, but a July 2011 New York Times blog estimated the number at a surprisingly paltry 232. Apple is definitely winning the app war.
Apple vs. Android: it looks like the first is still the best, almost all things considered.
