The Apple and Steve Jobs Are Still Afraid of Android, And They Should Be resonates with me. It echoes some of the points I made yesterday.

What I saw at the iPad 2 launch press conference is the old-school Steve Jobs. Doing his best to shape the message, magical & copycats. The exact same technique employed in the early days of the Mac.

It worked too…

Within minutes of making the announcement, the tech journalists were oohing and ahhing. Branding the iPad 2 the device to beat. Never mind that nobody got to fondle a device for more than 5 or 10 minutes, or knew anything about the A5 processor, on-board memory, etc. It did not matter; the tech closet-fanboys media had been wowed, drinking Jobs' kool-aid by the pitcher.

Mission accomplished.

Fortunately for us, people have a mind of their own. Tech pundits are a lot like movie reviewers, pretty much incapable of predicting what the popular choice will be in the end. Doesn't stop them from keeping on trying.

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I wholeheartedly agree with Steven Sande's Six reasons iPad 2 will be a huge success for Apple, but I think he misses the point on the competition aspect.

He claims the Android Tablet market fragmentation will keep sales down. That's not supported by anything we've seen in the Smartphone market. The Android Smartphone market is very fragmented which is not stopping it from overtaking the iPhone market.

The iPad 2 is not going to enjoy the lack of competition the iPhone had for a few years. There are valid competitors right now, and more coming. There is no doubt that the iPad 2 is perceived as much sexier than the Motorola XOOM, but features and specs-wise both devices are very similar. As we've seen with computers and smartphones, the sexiest devices don't always win in the end.

As far as GarageBand and iMovie, those are niche market products. Yes, they do a great job at showcasing the full capabilities of the device, but Google Maps for Mobile 5.x is no slouch either.

I'm personally rooting for HP's webOS. I truly believe that next to Apple, they've done the best job with the user interface, ease of use, etc. In some aspect I even find webOS (1.x) to be superior to anything out there. Unfortunately the lack of developers, apps, etc. is going to make it really hard for HP to gain momentum.

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