Android Who? The iPad Is Poised to Rule the Universe

Android Who? The iPad Is Poised to Rule the Universe

FARHAD MANJOO

Oct. 23, 2013 8:17 p.m. ET

There are two potential paths for Apple Inc. AAPL +0.98% ‘s tablet business: Call it the Amazing Scenario and the Super-Extra-Amazing-With-Whip Scenario. In the first, Apple’s iPad line continues to earn far more money than rival tablets, and likely remains the top seller in the category. But with increasingly intense competition from low-price devices, the iPad will slowly give up its dominance, eventually slipping to perhaps a quarter or less of the tablet market. This wouldn’t be disastrous for Apple. In this scenario, the iPad would be in the same place as its older brother the iPhone—spectacular earnings from middling marketshare. In other words, pretty amazing.In the second scenario, the iPad runs the table. Like it did in the iPod business, Apple’s tablets will maintain a long-term, indomitable lead in both earnings and market share. Sure, you’ll see a handful of rivals vie for second place, but they’ll be a sideshow. For the PC industry, this is the nightmare scenario.

If you believe that tablets are becoming the primary computing device of our age both at home and work, then Apple’s market share dominance would establish a self-perpetuating, super-profitable juggernaut. The iPad would make Apple the combined equivalent ofMicrosoft Inc., MSFT -2.37% Intel Inc. and Dell Inc. DELL -0.04% of tomorrow’s computer business.

On Tuesday, Apple unveiled a slate of new iPads. Which of the two paths is more likely, considering the new models?

I’m going to violate every lesson I learned at Pundit University by issuing a firm prediction: I think Apple’s new iPads will help push it toward realizing the second, super-extra-with-whip scenario. With the iPad, Apple is going for the whole game—and it is likely to win.

I know you’re skeptical. The iPad’s market share has been sinking lately, and in the third quarter, Apple reported its first ever year-over-year decline in iPad sales. And earlier this week, I argued that Google Inc. GOOG +2.42% ‘s Motorola MSI +3.26% division was a long-term effort to wipe out Apple’s smartphone profits.

Now, after years of putting out ill-considered junk, Google and other competitors are making great, cheap tablets, too—so doesn’t the iPad look just as vulnerable as theiPhone?

But at Apple’s press event on Tuesday, CEO Tim Cook put out two numbers that should give rivals a headache.

The first number is $299. That’s the new price of the iPad Mini, $40 lower than the same model sold for last year, and the lowest price that Apple has ever sold the iPad. Just like in the music player business, Apple isn’t aiming to become the cheapest product on the market. But by offering enough pricing diversity in its lineup, and adding in enough new features every year, it keeps expanding its accessibility while still minting a profit.

Note that in music players, that strategy worked perfectly: A decade after its release, the iPod still commanded 78% of the market. I’m betting that history will repeat itself in tablets. When you consider the free productivity software that Apple is now throwing in with all iPads, its prices are just low enough to give the iPad an edge over cheaper rivals.

Tim Cook’s second number: 64%. That’s the share of Apple devices that are running iOS 7—the most radical change in its mobile operating system since the iPhone was launched in 2007—just a few weeks after its release. The quick uptake underscores one of the iPad’s main advantages: It is a unified platform, while other tablets stand alone.

It’s true that some rival tablets offer better specs and lower prices—Google’s $229 Nexus 7 is thin, light, fast, and has a fantastically crisp display—but they all suffer a fatal flaw that will limit their appeal. Apple’s rivals lack many apps that are optimized for tablets. Meanwhile, the iPad has managed to attract more than 400,000 apps that are designed for its screen size.

There is a simple reason: When developers write apps for the iPad, the apps work on every model, from the iPad that goes for $299 to the ones that sell for more than $800.

Apple’s rivals can’t claim anything close to that kind of uniformity across models. Google’s Android’s operating system is perilously fragmented. Tablets by different manufacturers and in different sizes run different versions of Android, including Amazon.com Inc.AMZN -1.74% ‘s completely reworked version on the Kindle Fire. This bumps up the time and cost of developing apps for the system, which makes Android a nuisance in large-scale business deployments.

Skeptics might note that Android’s fragmentation plagues smartphones, too, and yet Google’s operating system has managed to outstrip the iPhone’s market share there. But tablets are different. People think of tablets as more like PCs than like phones—they are meant for light computing tasks, and as a result they are far more dependent on a large library of apps.

A phone with no apps is still kind of useful. You can still make phone calls and send texts. But a tablet without enough decent apps? It’s decidedly second-rate: You’ll be shut out of the latest games, the latest social apps, the latest everything. Note that Twitter Inc. only released an app designed for Android tablets this month, yet it has had one for the iPad forever.

And here’s the catch that illustrates the whole problem with Android’s marketplace: For now, Twitter’s app is available only on Samsung Electronics Inc. 005930.SE -0.55% ‘s tablets. If you have the Nexus 7 or any other Android tab, you’ll have to slum it with Twitter’s stretched-out smartphone app.

The iPad’s uniformity is especially important in business applications. Apple is positioning the tablet as a replacement for computers in a variety of commercial tasks—at customer service counters, restaurant hostess tables, at banks, schools, airline cockpits, pretty much everywhere someone would need a computer but doesn’t want to lug in a PC. In those large-scale deployments, the iPad’s single, reliable development platform is key to keeping down an organization’s maintenance and development costs.

This advantage is self-reinforcing: The more people who buy the iPad, the more developers it attracts, strengthening the platform and thus attracting more users. In economics, this dynamic—in which increased sales improve a product, driving more sales—is known as a network effect.

You might also call it the secret of Windows’ success, now powering Apple’s post-PC hegemony.