At the end of last year, Amazon tried to "break the tablet market" by launching a product with a 7-inch screen and an extremely low price for such a device. At that time Amazon Kindle Fire was selling very well in the US, it was not very successful internationally, but it set a precedent that would give courage to others to follow their example. Amazon released the first interesting tablet that costs only $200 and half a year later Google released the first $200 quad-core tablet, but for now we don't know how good this product is, although Google's marketing machine promotes it as the extremely good device for anyone.
It will matter a lot how good the tablet will be Google Nexus 7, because Google did something very important, it greatly lowered user expectations, but this is not enough to win the war with Apple and promote the rest of the Android tablets. Google entered a market of tablets whose prices were at least 50% higher than those of the Nexus 7, and here we are considering tablets that are really usable and do not have the problems of the Kindle Fire. Google attacked this market with an apparently very good product that has a very low price, and customers will either buy it or wait for alternatives to it. The problem for the other manufacturers is that Google has established a "psychological threshold" for prices, and some consumers will not be able to cross it and will not buy another similar, much more expensive product, no matter how good it is. In practice, Google imposed itself on this market with very low prices because it does not care to obtain profit from sales, but its partners: Samsung, Motorola, HTC, etc., could be extremely affected by this strategy. Even if Android tablets will reach the world's attention again, those from Google have no interest in becoming important manufacturers and the task of developing and seizing the market remains with their partners. Of course, Google took an important step with the Nexus 7, but the tablet must offer a much better experience than the Amazon Kindle Fire, otherwise it will have the fate of that tablet and in 2 months it will only be good for establishing market share statistics.
Apple has not yet announced the launch of any similar product, but it is speculated that iPad Mini to appear soon, but don't think that it will only cost $200. Apple cannot afford to sell a tablet at production price (generally known as dumping price considering that the manufacturer does not earn anything from the sale) because its ecosystem cannot support such a thing and the company will have a big problem in fight in this market. I'm convinced that Apple will find a winning strategy for its tablet, but don't expect to see it at the price of $200 because something like that won't happen, unless Apple doesn't care about the tablet and launch just to prove that it can, as Google has done now.
Based on the same strategy, I hope Amazon's plans to be fulfilled because a new product is needed to "break the market" of smartphones. When I say this, of course, I'm only referring to the price, because from the point of view of the specifications, Amazon cannot produce something with better specifications than any other Android terminal currently available on the market, and there would be no point. Amazon can still substantially reduce consumer expectations by launching a smartphone with a quad-core processor, decent screen, etc., but at a price of about $250-$350, a price at which you cannot find any other smartphone unless you buy it with a subscription, or with a TV.
I wish that in the near future some real competitors for Apple will appear on the market, but when I say this I am not referring to manufacturers who will only put large screens and quad-core processors in terminals, but to manufacturers who have the courage to sell good, powerful, popular smartphones at low prices. In the end, to continue the idea started in the title, I would like Apple to have brave competitors in all the markets in which it conducts its business, otherwise we will see iPhone 4S and iPad 2 tablets many years from now .
