You might have said the same thing about the Altair or, ironically, the Apple II a few decades ago.
This is still early days in the market, nobody has a lock on it. How old was the mobile MP3 player industry when Apple introduced the iPod?
the iPad is a good device, for now. But it's not the end-all-be-all of tablets, it's just generation 1.5. In 5 years the iPad2 will look as limited and outdated as a flip-phone does today. Apple will need to continue innovating in order to maintain the advantage they have right now. They may very well do so, but it's silly to imagine that this horse race is won, it's only just started.
> This is still early days in the market, nobody has a lock on it. How old was the mobile MP3 player industry when Apple introduced the iPod?
And now that there is an iPod, how many credible challengers have we seen? None, really. So Apple is able to lock down a market. The question is whether or not the competition is catching up or falling farther behind. Android is a great platform in principle, but the high price of hardware may be a barrier to entry for mainstream buyers.
You make the mistake of thinking that the iPad is the iPod of tablet computers. While MP3 players require only a minimal featureset this is not the case for tablet computers, there is still a lot of room left and a lot of market left. Apple could lock down this market, but the market has not even fully developed yet so it's silly to imagine that they have done so yet.
The portable media player industry was a still a relatively small market when Apple introduced the iPod, and the iPod itself was in its third iteration or so before it really became a runaway hit.
It's not the early days of the tablet market at all. Tablets have been around for a very long time—Microsoft, Archos, et al—it's a much older market than the portable media player was when the iPod was introduced. There just hadn't been any hit tablet products until the iPad.
We're still in the early days of the iPad-style tablet market, true. But the key advantage for Android in the mobile phone market is/was carrier lock-in, and that's not a factor with the iPad. They have to compete on product and price. And Apple is extremely competitive in both those areas.
It's also worth mentioning that, in this market anyway, Apple has a major advantage in its excellent retail channel.
This is still early days in the market, nobody has a lock on it. How old was the mobile MP3 player industry when Apple introduced the iPod?
the iPad is a good device, for now. But it's not the end-all-be-all of tablets, it's just generation 1.5. In 5 years the iPad2 will look as limited and outdated as a flip-phone does today. Apple will need to continue innovating in order to maintain the advantage they have right now. They may very well do so, but it's silly to imagine that this horse race is won, it's only just started.