Take That, Cupertino! Toshiba Flashes Insults at Apple in Teaser Site for Its Android Tablet.
Toshiba is taking it straight to the iPad in a new Web site that teases the coming arrival of its Android tablet. — On the site, Toshiba touts the features its tablet has that the iPad lacks …
Context & Ripple Effects
The tablet market Apple opened has been drawing challengers since long before any shipped: Silicon Alley Insider was asking for an Apple tablet back in December 2008, and by October 2010 CNET was dissecting how badly Intel and Microsoft had misread the iPad's disruption of the PC model. What neither piece anticipated was how the response would be framed — not on specs sheets or store shelves, but in pre-launch marketing.
Toshiba's teaser site is exactly that: a confirmed, direct jab that lists what its upcoming Android tablet offers that the iPad lacks, arriving while Digitimes reports — unconfirmed — that Apple's iPad 2 may slip to April mass shipments, later than earlier February-or-March rumors.
First-order effects
- Toshiba gets a pre-launch narrative built on Apple's omissions rather than its own brand, giving buyers an explicit feature checklist against the iPad months before the product ships.
- Apple faces the attack at a sensitive moment: with the iPad 2's timing still only rumored for spring, the incumbent must answer feature gaps without confirming its own roadmap.
Second-order effects
- Every other Android entrant inherits the template — competing on 'what the iPad doesn't have' shifts tablet marketing from price and availability to feature-by-feature contrast with Apple.
- If the rumored April iPad 2 slip holds, rivals gain an extra quarter to establish their Honeycomb devices against first-generation iPad inventory.
Third-order effects
- If spec-contrast marketing becomes the standard challenger playbook, tablet competition settles into a two-track structure: Apple defining categories, Android vendors defining deltas — a dynamic the PC industry never managed against the Wintel duopoly that CNET's October analysis described as under siege from the iPad.
- Sustained multi-vendor pressure could push Apple toward faster refresh cycles than its traditional annual cadence, making launch-timing leaks like the current Digitimes report a permanent fixture of the news cycle.
The trend: Android hardware makers are learning to attack the iPad through its omissions rather than their own strengths, turning every tablet launch into a public feature audit of Apple's roadmap.