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2012年03月10日
段永平（发布） · 网易博客 · 2012-03-11
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The iPad Is Unbeatable
Why Apple’s tablet competitors don’t stand a chance—and maybe never will.
By Farhad Manjoo
Updated Thursday, March 8, 2012, at 7:01 PM ET
120308_TECH_iPad（图片暂未归档）
Imagine you run a large technology company not named Apple. Let’s say you’re Steve Ballmer, Michael Dell, Meg Whitman, Larry Page, or Intel’s Paul Otellini. How are you feeling today, a day after Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled the new iPad? Are you discounting the device as just an incremental improvement, the same shiny tablet with a better screen and faster cellular access? Or is it possible you had trouble sleeping last night? Did you toss and turn, worrying that Apple’s new device represents a potential knockout punch, a move that will cement its place as the undisputed leader of the biggest, most disruptive new tech market since the advent of the Web browser? Maybe your last few hours have been even worse than that. Perhaps you’re now paralyzed with confusion, fearful that you might be completely boxed in by the iPad—that there seems no good way to beat it.
For your sake, my hypothetical CEO friend, I hope you’re frightened.
Bear with me; there’s a good chance I’ll run out of superlatives to describe Apple’s tremendous, astonishing, stupendous, unbelievable emerging position in the tablet market. But I think the overkill is justified, as I worry that Apple’s rivals haven’t adequately taken stock of the potential disaster that lies ahead of them. Since the middle of 2010, when it became obvious that the then-new iPad would become a blockbuster, I’ve been sketching out two possible scenarios for the tablet market. First, it could go like the smartphone business—one in which Apple commands a healthy share of sales and an even better share of the profits, but where its fortunes are nevertheless circumscribed by competitive rivals whose products have come to be seen as acceptable alternatives. If the tablet market shaped up like the smartphone market, it wouldn’t be a great outcome for Microsoft, Dell, Intel, HP, Samsung, HTC, or Google, but it wouldn’t be catastrophic, either.
The other potential scenario, though, is far less optimistic for Apple’s competitors. It’s the iPod model. In this story, Apple begins by releasing a novel, category-defining product. Then, as rivals scramble for some way to respond, Apple relentlessly puts out slightly better versions every year, each time remaining just out of reach of the competition. Meanwhile it lowers its prices and expands its product lineup, making its devices more accessible to a wider audience. Then, to finish the game, it finds a way to boost its position through network effects and customer lock-in. (In the iPod’s case, it accomplished this through the iTunes software and built-in music store.) Put it all together and you have a device that’s unbeatable. In 2011, 10 years after its release, the iPod still represented a whopping 78 percent of the market share in music players.
It’s been two years since Apple’s tablet went on sale. Rivals have released dozens of alternatives, but the iPad still represents more than 60 percent of market share. Worse, the rest of the market is dominated by two devices that are being sold at a loss—Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. At yesterday’s launch event, Apple did everything it needed to do to repeat the iPod story. First, the iPad’s new “Retina” display and 4G networking will improve the device just enough to make it difficult to match, let alone beat. More importantly, Cook expanded his product lineup and lowered his prices. The new iPad starts at $499, as the iPad 2 originally did, but the older version is now selling for $399. See how this shaping up? The iPad market is looking more and more like a sequel to what happened with the iPod. Like most sequels, this one will be bigger and way scarier for everyone involved.
Let’s go back to pretending you’re one of Apple’s competitors. How can you possibly beat the iPad? Well, not on price. Even before the new iPad, rivals were having a hard time matching Apple’s prices while still making a profit. Now that the cheapest iPad cost $399, they face an even tougher road. Because Apple has used its plentiful cash to corner the market on key tablet components—like touch-screen displays—many competitors will find that the only way to make a tablet with comparable features but a lower price is to sell it at a loss. You can’t do that unless you have some other way to make money, like a big digital media store.
OK, so price is out. How about features, then? What if you make a tablet that includes all the stuff that Apple didn’t add to the iPad? That’s precisely what most competitors have been trying to do for the last two years, and it hasn’t worked. Part of the problem is that nobody really wants the alleged improvements to the iPad—Flash and extra hardware ports, for instance. The bigger problem is that, as a technical matter, rivals are having a very hard time beating Apple’s most important features. The iPad’s custom-made processors and battery technology mean that it keeps getting more powerful without sacrificing any battery life. None of Apple’s rivals has managed to even match the iPad’s battery life.
Preview of the new iPad.（图片暂未归档）
Well, if you can’t beat the iPad with better hardware, can’t you do it with better software? As I wrote last week, I’m eager to see tablets running Microsoft’s fine new version of Windows later this year. But even if Windows 8 tablets prove to be amazing—a big if, considering that we still haven’t seen great tablets to run the new OS—they would still lack all of the tablet-optimized apps that are now clogging Apple’s App Store. I suspect that when people choose a tablet, the number of apps will prove more important than when people choose a phone; you can still get a lot of use out of a phone without extra apps, but what’s the point of a tablet if it doesn’t have great apps?
Microsoft may thus find itself on the wrong end of a network-effects loop, the same position it once pushed Apple into in the PC market: Customers will choose an iPad over a Microsoft tablet because there are 200,000 apps for the iPad, and only a fraction of that for Windows. This will push app developers to favor the iPad over Windows as their primary platform—that’s where the customers are—which will, in turn, fuel more iPad sales. At some point, customer lock-in will become extremely important: If your last tablet was an iPad, your next one will be too, because that’s where all your apps are.
There’s one potential escape for Apple’s competitors, but it’s so unlikely that it seems almost crazy to mention it: What if the tablet business proves to be something of a fad? I’ve heard this theory often from readers who are puzzled by predictions that tablets and phones will grow to replace PCs as the central computing devices of our lives. There’s a vocal contingent who believe that the iPad will never be good for anything other than lazy consumption of media; sure, people are snapping them up now, but once we realize their limitations, we’ll still keep buying and using regular old computers.
I doubt that’s true—every trend in the industry says that many people want smaller, easier, and more manageable computers for home and for work, and that means tablets. But I wonder if the tablet-as-fad scenario is something that Apple’s rivals are secretly banking on.
Because if they really believed that tablets will come to eclipse PCs, and if they saw how thoroughly unbeatable the iPad is becoming, wouldn’t they be running around with their hair on fire? If the iPad becomes the future of computing, the fortunes of Microsoft, Intel, Dell, and to some extent Hewlett-Packard will begin to plummet. Meanwhile Google, which makes all its money through ads, will find itself reaching its customers through a device made by a hostile rival. As I said: Be very afraid.
第 1 层 andyge51545804 · 2012-03-11 09:11
苹果天马行空的想象力付出实践，变为产品。每一步的积累，每一步的创新，成就了苹果。每个公司都需要一支具有想象力创新团队很重要，而变为操作简单一件精美艺术品，我想那是每个人都需要的，这也是无法想象的，我希望我国也有那么也有一支公司队伍，哎 感叹
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第 1 层 稀土老农 · 2012-03-11 10:43
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第 1 层 朗朗乾坤 · 2012-03-11 13:18
昨天Ipad1 WI-FI突然不能用了
，找到发票一看是去年4月2日从京东商城购买的，距离一年保修期满还有20多天
，遂与京东返修客服联系，态度挺好，当即帮助提交返修申请，并回复3天内上门收PAD，30日左右可维修好。考虑到仅有20天就过保修期了，就问客服能不能帮忙快点维修，客服将苹果售后客服号码发给我，让我联系看看。致电苹果客服，服务态度很好，先指导我操作一遍PAD，排除软件问题，确认是WI-FI模块硬件有问题，让送售后维修。经询问，我所在的小城没有售后维修点，距离最近的维修点是南京。考虑到我的质保期快满，苹果客服建议我：1、直接把PAD送到南京维修点（并将南京两个售后点地址、联系电话通过EMAIL发给了我）；2、花500多块钱续保。想想准备年底买部新的PAD3，就不想再花500多块钱续保了。再致电苹果南京售后点询问，答复一周左右时间可以修好。又考虑到咱所在小城距离南京3小时车程，往返两次车油费、过路费就不止500块了，遂放弃去南京。于是乎，再联系京东，并决定自行将PAD送到京东自提点（省了京东上门收货的3天时间），顺便看看京东全国呼叫中心咋样
抵达后，自提点人员服务态度很好，查验好货物后，打印返修单据，并告知30天左右维修好后由京东派送员直接帮我送上门，不需要我再跑自提点了
感受：1、苹果的一代PAD质量没想象的好（可能是个案，但上次买IPHONE 4S时也经历过因质量问题换货的，为什么受伤的总是我
）；
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第 1 层 王夕刚 · 2012-03-11 14:28
祝段大哥及您的女儿生日快乐！
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第 2 层 段永平 · 2012-03-11 15:28 · 回复 王夕刚
谢谢！
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第 3 层 snoopy10126 · 2012-03-11 20:52 · 回复 段永平
祝段大哥生日快乐，天天开心！
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第 1 层 mikeforvip · 2012-03-11 16:52
同祝段大哥生日快乐！
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第 1 层 伍兴 · 2012-03-11 18:25
happy birthday!
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第 1 层 筑道 · 2012-03-11 19:47
同祝段总生日快乐！
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第 1 层 wzh · 2012-03-11 20:24
生日快乐！
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第 1 层 润政 · 2012-03-11 20:37
祝段大哥及您的女儿生日快乐
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第 1 层 陈展 · 2012-03-11 21:14
祝段先生生日快乐、开心平安。
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第 1 层 施志强 · 2012-03-11 21:17
祝段大哥和您的女儿生日快乐！两人一天真好
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第 1 层 王一飞 · 2012-03-11 21:19
段大哥你烟戒没？真希望你已戒掉啦！
祝你生日快乐，平平安安！！
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第 1 层 千里牛 · 2012-03-11 21:20
祝段总生日快乐，祝您的女儿生日快乐！
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第 1 层 耐心最重要 · 2012-03-11 21:39
祝段老师和女儿生日快乐！
，
，两份
！！！
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第 1 层 高山流水 · 2012-03-11 21:40
祝段总和小女生日快乐！健健康康！平平安安！开开心心！
也刚好是我来到段总博客满两周年的日子。感谢段总帮我解决了一直困扰的我问题：
如何解决随着资金量的越来越大，一点亏损可能就会将前几年的收益吃掉（那怕是百分之百），那就是价值投资：卡片打洞原则（少出手，出手则准狠），安全边际（在能力圈内才能知道究竟安不安全）。
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第 1 层 wln258 · 2012-03-11 21:48
祝段总及您的女儿生日快乐！
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