Steve Jobs Unloads on iPad Competitors

From PC World: Android tablets, BlackBerry's PlayBook and Samsung's Galaxy Tab? Forget them! Apple CEO Steve Jobs had an unusual lashing at the company's competitors in the smartphone and tablet markets during Apple's post-earning conference calls with analysts. Jobs explained why, in his view, "7-inch tablets are tweeners," why Google's Android OS is unfit for current tablets, and why the iPad is still the king of the hill.

Apple said it has sold more than 4.2 million iPads (a figure under some analysts' predictions). Since January, when Jobs previewed the iPad, and later in April, when it went on sale, competitors have been scraping to put together their response to Apple tablet. Among others, there are some serious competitors. Samsung came up with the Galaxy Tab, which is yet to go on sale, and Research In Motion came up with the BlackBerry Playbook, which won't arrive until sometime next year, giving the iPad a huge head start.

Jobs debated why the 7-inch screen size on tablets is not the ideal one. He was presumably referring to the Galaxy Tab and the PlayBook, both with 7-inch displays (and iPad-like designs). He argues the 7-inch screen size is only 45 percent as large as the iPad's 10-inch display, which is not sufficient to create great tablet apps, even if the resolution is increased.

"It is meaningless unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one-quarter of their present size," Jobs said.

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