So many people forget so fast, this is how the iPhone started out.. where are they now? About half the market share of Android. This has been going on for ages too. Windows Phone 7 might not be a real competitor, but Win8 in the tablet space WILL be. Keep in mind, I don't like what I've seen of Win8 at ALL.
Phone model is different. People NEED phones. Phones are also subsidized.
There is a great correlation that no one has mentioned. Why does iOS have a greater mobile browsing, app store purchases. 60% of all of Google's mobile ad revenues come from iOS. This is based off their testimony to Congress earlier this year. Maybe the correlation is a large number of those who buy BOGO (Buy One Get One Free) or $0.99 Android phones are using them as dumb-phones without ever touching the eco-system. Never surfing the web. Never downloading the apps. Hence, why does iPhones have over 60% of the mobile web traffic?
Tablets, well, people buy out of want more than need.
Samsung themselves have admitted their tablet strategy/sales are not doing to well.
Point is the Phone model is not the same as the tablet model. One analysts said the iPad model is more like the iPod model. The iPod Model is all about want. 10 years of market dominance and you don't hear anything about Sansa or Zune. iPod is still 70% share.
"Retina" still makes me giggle. The way people fall for marketing terms... sad..really.
Well, $500 ipad is the cheapest high res 2048 display on the market. The next monitor with that resolution or greater is $900. That would be the Dell U2711 Ultrasharp. As I mentioned before, you can buy 1080p screens for $100 all day long but to get higher than that, you need dual-link dvi, the appropriate GFX card and a $900 monitor.
I watched the keynote today. The take-away I got was the key reason why iPads dominate is due to the software.
The "Flash" trump-card on Android hasn't made a dent to sway consumers.
When they demoed the GarageBand "Jam Session", the iMovie's trailer app and iPhoto, I realize that 2 years AFTER the fact of iPad's release, there are no Android equivalent apps comparable.
Jam Session is pretty cool. You get 4-5 of your friends and they can all play musical instrument cohesively and everything is paired. That is the type of software superiority that apple has.
A lot of people bitch that the A5X does not have quad core or SD card like the Tranformer Prime. OK, what app on Android allows you to open up Nikon D300 RAW 12 megapixel files and edit them? None. Android Photoshop touch has a 2.56 megapixel limit and does not even do raw. 2.56 megapixel limit. iPhoto on iPad's is 19 megapixel. Medium format res.
My point. All the horsepower in the world on the Asus is not relevant if there is no app to take advantage of it.