It’s All About the Apps, Or Is It?

06/05/2011 Comments Off on It’s All About the Apps, Or Is It? iPad, Tablets & Technology Like

Why does the Apple iPad remain the #1 tablet of choice? Is it mainly because of the plethora of iOS apps available? Is it because the iPad was out and available to consumers before any other tablet? These are questions I’ll be answering today.

Some people claim that the iPad remains the most popular tablet of choice because it was the first of it’s kind and there are so many apps to choose from. Having lots of apps and being the first is a great advantage but these are not exactly ultimate reasons for Apple’s success. Let’s just humor ourselves for a moment here and pretend the iPad wasn’t the first of it’s kind to hit the scene. Would Apple still dominate the tablet wars?

Apps for iOS devices such as the iPhone and iPad have had some time to evolve whereas other companies are struggling to catch up. However, apps are just one factor of the equation. Great success results not from one factor alone. Too many times companies have a “follow the leader” type mentality when realistically they need to focus more on being leaders themselves. This is something that has to come naturally and cannot be faked or forced. Plain and simple, you’re either a leader or you’re not.

You see it all too often, companies coming out of the woodwork and attempting to gain a piece of the pie with no real effective marketing approach or strategy. They claim their product, gadget or in this case tablet device is better. A lot of really nice tablets have come out lately. In some cases they do in fact have better specs compared to the iPad 2. Despite this, the iPad 2 still remains the #1 selling tablet in the world, why is this? For starters, trying to dazzle people with cool specs will only get you so far. If it were all about specs and great features then everyone would be cruising around in Aston Martin’s or Ferrari’s. Success is a blend of many different ingredients.

Ok, back to the number of apps available for the iPad. This number is large and growing more each day. People want to get the most for their hard earned money so having a device like the iPad 2 that can run so many useful, productive, practical, fun and entertaining apps is wonderful. What’s more impressive than the number of apps though is how there came to be so many in the first place. There’s obviously a reason so many people want to develop iOS apps. The point of this article though is not to necessarily praise Apple over everyone else, rather to help other companies see things from another perspective.

Portable touch screen tablet manufacturing companies need to really ask themselves why they continue to fail time and time again even after spending countless amounts of money on advertising and production. Truth is, you could have the biggest budget and the best financial advisers on the planet but without an honest, long term and well thought out marketing approach you’ll never surpass any goals you set out to achieve. As I mentioned above, you have to ask yourselves why people are enticed to develop so many iPad 2 apps in the first place. An even better question for companies to be asking themselves is not “How can we outperform Apple?”, but rather “How can we improve and make tablets better for the end user?”, wouldn’t you agree? You can’t possibly get good answers if you don’t ask the right questions. So many companies overlook the most simple things whether intentional or not. If a company wants to make headway in the tablet industry they need to think far beyond dollar signs alone and create something unique that will actually get people’s attention. I don’t mean for just a short while either, things don’t exactly stay new for very long these days so you have to think long term. You need to have staying power and longevity.

Touch screen devices were around long before the iPad came out, but Apple took the concept of touch screens and created something entirely different and more interactive. This changed the way we do things. Be honest, have any tablets that followed the iPad really changed the way we do things? Other than a few different operating systems and hardware specs, the answer is no. This is called reverse engineering, not innovation and that’s where a lot of companies fall flat. It’s not to say other tablets can’t or won’t do well, but they’ll most likely lack the wow factor and easier methods of doing things that consumers are looking for in a new device.

I have to give some credit to companies that are persistent. But, I do pity those companies that are unrealistic. If you launch a touchscreen tablet and it flops, launching a new one with a larger screen and faster chip is not going to guarantee success. Adding a few upgraded specs and reverse engineering something won’t keep you in the race. It will help, but unless you are actually appealing to the masses, providing a solution to a problem or truly thinking out of the box you’ll always just be labeled as a company trying to compete with Apple, at least as far as tablets are concerned.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Please share your comments below, I’d love to hear what you have to say.