Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iOS platform showed big market share gains in the first quarter of 2012 as Symbian and BlackBerry shipments plummeted. Market research firm IDC on Thursday published its global smartphone market share report for the first quarter of this year, and Google’s Android was far and away the biggest winner in terms of year-on-year shipment gains.

According to IDC’s study, Android shipments during the quarter totalled 89.9 million units, up a staggering 145% from 36.7 million in the first quarter of 2011. iPhone shipments were up 88.7% over the first quarter last year to 35.1 million units, giving Apple 23% of the smartphone market in the first quarter compared to Google’s 59% share.

“The popularity of Android and iOS stems from a combination of factors that the competition has struggled to keep up with,” IDC analyst Ramon Llamas said in a statement. “Neither Android nor iOS were the first to market with some of these features, but the way they made the smartphone experience intuitive and seamless has quickly earned a massive following.”

Shipments of smartphones powered by Nokia’s forsaken Symbian OS dropped 60.6% to 10.4 million units, and BlackBerry shipments slid 29.7% to 9.7 million units in the first quarter. IDC’s figures place Symbian’s market share at an all-time low of 6.8%, and BlackBerry trailed narrowly with 6.4%.

Nokia’s Lumia devices helped Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform achieve narrow gains in the first quarter, though the market outgrew it once again. IDC shows that combined shipments of Windows Phone and Windows Mobile handsets grew from 2.6 million units in the first quarter last year to 3.3 million units in the first quarter of 2012, but Microsoft’s share of the global market fell from 2.6% to 2.2% year-on-year.

IDC’s full press release follows below.

Nokia continues to struggle as the once dominant cell phone maker continues to lose share in both the smartphone and broader mobile market. The Finnish vendor’s Lumia handsets have yet to take off and Nokia’s stock has tumbled 90% over the past five years. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop may look toward his former employer, Microsoft, to step in and help the troubled handset maker, Reuters suggests. The company’s partnership with the software giant is seen as a last chance to turn its business around. Microsoft is already paying Nokia $1 billion a year to use the Windows Phone platform, and many analysts believe the company may be willing to help out further if Nokia’s problems were to intensify.

“If Nokia ends up in financial difficulties I believe the helping hand would be there,” said Sami Sarkamies, an analyst at Nordea. Another technology banker agreed, saying “I don’t see Microsoft owning Nokia, but it would definitely provide financing to the tune of a couple of billion dollars.”

If Microsoft were to support Nokia, it would most likely be in the form of an inter-company loan or an equity stake, rather than a full takeover, the report suggests. Despite having nearly $60 billion of cash, the the Redmond-based company has traditionally steered clear of the hardware business where mobile is concerned.

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Adding insult to injury is never a concern for the litigious among us, and one man has filed a class action suit against Nokia in New York because its comeback, thus far, has been anything but. Complaint Robert Chmielinski, represented by Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, alleges that Nokia’s shift to the Windows Phone platform has not halted its sliding position in the global smartphone market, as the company promised it would. Nokia reported last month that it lost a staggering $1.7 billion in the first quarter of 2012 after losing nearly $1.3 billion in the fourth quarter last year. According to Chmielinski and the class he claims to represent, Nokia violated federal securities laws by telling investors that the switch to Windows Phone would stop the bleeding.

“The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, defendants told investors that Nokia’s conversion to a Windows platform would halt its deteriorating position in the smartphone market. It did not,” the lawsuit states. “This became apparent on April 11, 2012, when Nokia disclosed that its first quarter performance would be worse than expected. Nokia expected its first quarter 2012 non-IFRS Devices & Services operating margin to fall by 3%, and projected first quarter 2012 Devices & Services net sales of €4.2 billion.”

“It also disclosed a glitch in its newest Windows offering – the Lumia 900. Nokia had to immediately offer customers an automatic $100, making the phone essentially free,” the complaint continued. ”As a result of this disclosure, the price of Nokia’s American Depositary Shares (‘ADRs’) dropped over 16% in a single day.”

Chmielinski and his layers seek unspecified damages for themselves as well as all individuals and institutions that owned publicly traded shares of Nokia stock during the class period. The complaint was filed with the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on May 3rd.

Following the publication of this article, Nokia issued the following statement: “Nokia has become aware of the filing of a securities class action complaint naming Nokia Corporation as a defendant, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on May 3, 2012. Nokia is reviewing the allegations contained in the complaint and believes that they are without merit. Nokia will defend itself against the complaint.”

Updated with Nokia’s statement in final paragraph.

After posting the most profitable quarter in technology company history to close 2011 — and the second most profitable quarter among all companies, ever — Apple came back again in the first calendar quarter of 2012 and managed another monster quarter. The Cupertino, California-based technology giant earned $11.6 billion on $39.2 billion in sales during the second fiscal quarter of 2012, and its iPhone was responsible for an estimated 80% of all smartphone profits during the quarter. According to Apple watcher Horace Dediu, Apple’s share of all cell phone profits was nearly as overwhelming.

Market research firm IDC states that Apple’s share of the global cell phone market was flat at 8.8% last quarter. Despite accounting for such a small portion of global cell phone shipments, Apple’s share of all mobile phone profits reached 73% in the quarter.

“The new market disruption is the migration of a large number of demanding customers away from phones-as-voice-products to phones-as-computing-products,” Dediu notes as one of the driving factors behind Apple’s performance. The analyst also states that Samsung accounted for 26% of all major handset vendor profits last quarter, while Sony, Nokia, Motorola, LG and RIM all lost money and HTC was roughly even.

[Via CNNMoney]

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The global smartphone market grew by 42.5% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2012, as the worldwide mobile phone market declined 1.5%. According to market research firm IDC, vendors shipped a total of 398.4 million mobile phones in the first quarter compared to 404.3 million units in the same quarter last year. Samsung ousted longtime leader Nokia to become the world’s largest mobile phone vendor, and it topped Apple to become the world’s largest smartphone vendor. The South Korea-based vendor increased its profits by 82% to a record 5.05 trillion won in the first quarter, and shipped 42.2 million smartphones to capture 29.1% of the market according to IDC. Apple’s smartphone share grew around 6%, as the Cupertino-based company shipped 35.1 units to capture 24.2% of market.

“The race between Apple and Samsung remained tight during the quarter, even as both companies posted growth in key areas,” said IDC senior research analyst Ramon Llamas. “Apple launched its popular iPhone 4S in additional key markets, most notably in China, and Samsung experienced continued success from its Galaxy Note smartphone/tablet and other Galaxy smartphones. With other companies in the midst of major strategic transitions, the contest between Apple and Samsung will bear close observation as hotly-anticipated new models are launched.”

Samsung and Apple’s gains have come at the expense of Nokia, Research in Motion and HTC. Nokia shipped a mere 11.9 million smartphones, down from 24.2 million, falling roughly 15% to capture only 8.2% of the global smartphone market. RIM’s share fell from 13.6% in the first quarter of 2011 to 6.7% last quarter, and HTC’s market share dropped from 8.9% to 4.8%.

Samsung’s smartphone growth also helped propel the company into the No.1 spot among all mobile phone vendors. The South Korean company saw year-over-year growth of 35.4%, shipping 93.8 million units, up from 69.3 in the same quarter of 2011, to capture 23.5% of the mobile market. Nokia shipped 82.7 million units, down from 100.5 in the first quarter of 2011, and saw its market share fall to 20.8% from 26.8%.

“The halcyon days of rapid growth in the smartphone market have been good to Samsung,” said IDC senior research analyst Kevin Restivo. “Samsung has used its established relationships with carriers in a mix of economically diverse markets to gain share organically and at the expense of former high fliers such as Nokia.”

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Samsung reported a blow-out first quarter on Friday as strong mobile phone sales helped the consumer electronics giant increase profits by 82% to a record 5.05 trillion won. The numbers were undoubtedly impressive as they stood, but market research firm Strategy Analytics helps us paint a broader picture of just how dominant Samsung’s mobile business was in the first quarter. On the smartphone side, Strategy Analytics estimates that Samsung sold a staggering 44.5 million smartphones into channels last quarter, overtaking Apple’s 35.1 million iPhones by a landslide and making Samsung the top-selling smartphone vendor in the world.

“Global smartphone shipments grew 41 percent annually to reach 145.3 million units in Q1 2012,” Strategy Analytics analyst Alex Spektor said in a statement. “Samsung overtook Apple to become the world’s largest smartphone vendor by volume with a record 31 percent market share. Samsung’s global smartphone shipments rose 253 percent annually to 44.5 million units, as demand surged for its popular Galaxy models such as the Note, S2 and Y.”

According to the firm’s estimates, Samsung’s total mobile phone shipments reached 93.5 million units in the first quarter, giving the vendor a record 25% share of the global cell phone market. Nokia’s handset shipments declined 24% to 82.7 million units in the quarter, making Samsung the No.1 mobile phone vendor in the world and ending Nokia’s 14-year run as top handset vendor.

“Nokia’s global handset shipments declined a huge 24 percent annually to 82.7 million units in Q1 2012,” Strategy Analytics’s Neil Mawston said. ”Volumes were squeezed at both ends, as low-end feature phone shipments in emerging markets stalled and high-end Microsoft Lumia smartphones were unable to offset the rapid decline of Nokia’s legacy Symbian business. Nokia was the world’s largest handset vendor between 1998 and 2011, for 14 years, before finally yielding top position to rival Samsung this quarter.”

Amazon’s Kindle Fire has seen rapid adoption among tablet buyers since its release last November. The device had an explosive debut quarter, giving it a 14% share of the tablet market. According to the latest numbers from comScore, the Kindle Fire has almost doubled its share of the U.S. Android tablet market over the past two months from 29.4% in December to 54.4% in February. In other words, more tablets running Amazon’s version of Android were sold in the U.S. than tablets running Google’s version of Android. Amazon’s tablet is followed by the Samsung Galaxy Tab family, which had a combined 15.4% share in February, and the Motorola Xoom with a 7.0% share. The ASUS Transformer and Toshiba AT100 rounded out the top five with 6.3% and 5.7% of the market, respectively. The research firm also found, when analyzing page view consumption, that 10-inch tablets had a 39% higher consumption rate than 7-inch tablets and a 58% higher rate than 5-inch tablets. Read on for comScore’s press release.

Tablet Competition Heats Up: Kindle Fire Captures more than Half of Android Tablet Market

10″ Tablets Have 39 Percent Higher Content Consumption Rate than 7″ Tablets

comScore Device Essentials™ Introduces Unique Device and Local Market Reporting to Cross-Device Digital Traffic Measurement

RESTON, VA, April 26, 2012 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today announced the next generation of its Device Essentials™ service, offering new insight into global digital device usage. Based on comScore’s global Unified Digital Measurement (UDM) data, which utilizes census-level information from tagged web page content, Device Essentials includes reporting of brand and operating system for digital device and Internet traffic patterns (i.e. page views) from computers, smartphones, tablets, music, players, e-readers and gaming devices.

“comScore is excited to introduce our next generation Device Essentials product, which provides new insight into digital device usage and detailed reporting of traffic patterns within local markets,” said Serge Matta, comScore president of mobile & operator solutions. “These new insights are invaluable to all stakeholders in the mobile ecosystem as they seek to provide valuable services and optimize the mobile media experience for their customers.”

comScore Device Essentials includes previously available reporting capabilities across all of comScore’s global reporting geographies, plus detailed reporting for local U.S. markets including states and DMAs as well as the addition of unique device measurement. Current reporting capabilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Share of smartphone and feature phone usage by OS
• Carrier share of smartphone traffic
• OS share of carrier traffic
• Traffic to site content categories by carrier, OS and device type
• Wifi vs. Non-Wifi traffic

Amazon Kindle Fire Doubles its Share of Android Tablet Market in Two Months

The Kindle Fire, introduced to the market in November 2011, has seen rapid adoption among buyers of tablets. Within the Android tablet market, Kindle Fire has almost doubled its share in the past two months from 29.4 percent share in December 2011 to 54.4 percent share in February 2012, already establishing itself as the leading Android tablet by a wide margin. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab family followed with a market share of 15.4 percent in February, followed by the Motorola Xoom with 7.0 percent share. The Asus Transformer and Toshiba AT100 rounded out the top five with 6.3 percent and 5.7 percent market share, respectively.

Larger Screen Tablets See Higher Level of Content Consumption

Tablet adoption among U.S. consumers continues to climb as more devices appealing to various price and feature preferences are introduced to the market. Screen size is perhaps the most outwardly apparent differentiator between devices, with the market offering consumers a wide variety of options such as the 10″ Apple iPad, 9″ Sony S1, 7″ Amazon Kindle Fire and 5″ Dell Streak. Analysis of page view consumption by screen size found a strong positive association between screen size and content consumption. Specifically, 10″ tablets have a 39-percent higher consumption rate than 7″ tablets and a 58-percent higher rate than 5″ tablets.

Although many factors – such as demographics, content availability, connection speed and ease of portability – may influence consumption levels, the results of this analysis highlight important questions for the industry as the tablet space develops. With the emergence of a growing number of smaller-sized tablet devices, advertisers and publishers will need to understand whether these devices limit the opportunity for advertising compared to their larger-screen counterparts, or if they are able to build incremental reach and engagement by presenting different use cases.

Smartphone Carrier Market Share Shows Variation Across Key States

Among the new capabilities introduced in Device Essentials is the ability to segment data into custom geographies to provide more granular insights into local market device usage. comScore analyzed the share of unique smartphone devices among the top four carriers in the most populous U.S. states and found significant variation between markets. Looking exclusively at the top four carriers, AT&T accounted for the largest share of unique smartphones in Texas (46.2 percent), California (42.9 percent) and Illinois (42.1 percent), while Verizon claimed the top spot in New York (43.6 percent) and Florida (36.5 percent). The greatest disparity in carrier share between AT&T and Verizon occurred in Texas, where AT&T’s smartphone share was more than double that of Verizon’s share.

Sprint PCS ranked as the third largest smartphone carrier in each of the top five markets, with the carrier owning its highest market share in Illinois at 22.8 percent. T-Mobile USA captured its highest market share in Texas, where the carrier accounted for 11.9 percent of smartphone devices.

According to a recent report from Forrester Research, Apple’s iPad tablet PC will continue to lead the tablet market through 2016 despite increased competition. The Cupertino-based company’s iPad is expected to account for 53% of the global tablet market in 2016, at which time emerging markets may account for nearly 40% of all tablet sales, The Financial Post reported on Monday. Over the next five years, the global tablet market is estimated to increase to 375 million devices, up from 56 million sold in 2011, for a total global base of more than 760 million tablet owners. The report identifies Amazon’s Kindle Fire as the only viable alternative to the iPad, while devices from Google and Research In Motion are said to be failing to keep pace with Apple’s tablet. Forrester also indicated that by 2016, about one-third of all tablet sales will be for businesses, accounting for roughly 122 million units.

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Apple’s upcoming entry into the high-definition television space is set to blow the high end of the TV market wide open while current market players continue their struggles to compete on price. Market research firm KAE along with online polling company Toluna recently conducted a survey and determined that 25% of consumers in the United States would purchase a physical Apple television set if the Cupertino-based company launches one. Beyond early consumer interest, however, current TV industry players may have left a gaping hole that will bring Apple billions when it fills the void.

“The TV set industry is in crisis mode,” said Michael Lantz, CEO of Accedo, in a statement emailed to BGR. ”The manufacturers are scrambling to cut costs but still add features to roll out ever higher volumes of TV sets through struggling retailers. Even though design is an important feature for high end TV sets, this is a much smaller share of the market than it should be. It is my firm belief that there is a wide open market slot for a high-end design-led Apple TV set in this market. Apple should be able to market and succesfully [sic] sell $2000-3000 TV sets with unprecedented margins.” Accedo is a leading smart TV applications provider that has built apps for HBO (HBO Go), NBA (NBA Gametime) and other companies.

There are no confirmed details surrounding Apple’s “iTV,” however recurring rumors point to a Siri-powered hands-free remote system and an a la carte subscription model that positions channels like apps in the App Store. But whether or not Apple has plans to innovate on the technology side, Lantz believes Apple’s design will be a main focus for consumers.

“Of course, these TV sets will have the Apple TV built in and seamlessly integrate with other Apple products, but fundamentally I think Apple will sell on superior design and quality of the actual TV set,” the executive said. ”By using their Apple stores as the main outlets for these TV sets, they have a natural sales channel and can use the current market momentum to sell the TVs. The recent appointment of Dixon’s John Browett as head of Apple’s retail operations ensures that the more complex distribution chains for TV sets can be dealt with cost-efficiently.”

“Selling TV sets might never be as important for Apple as selling mobile devices, but they should easily be able to create a $5-10BN business area out of it,” Lantz concluded. The latest round of rumors suggests that Apple will launch its debut HDTV in the fourth quarter this year.

Not long ago, HTC posted six consecutive months of record revenue thanks to strong demand for its Android-powered smartphones. The company’s record run came to a screeching halt in October last year with the release of Apple’s iPhone 4S. HTC’s fourth quarter earnings fell, missing Wall Street’s expectations, and the rough patch continued in the first quarter of 2012. To compound matters, the latest study conducted by ad network Chitika shows that the troubled handset maker’s usage share has declined by more than 60% in the past five months from 18.22% to 7.28% based on traffic across its network. At the same time, Apple’s share has increased by 64% from 46.84% to 76.88% and other Android vendors such as Samsung and Huawei have recorded continued modest growth. HTC is betting big on its flagship One X smartphone, and it hopes the handset, along with the rest of its One-series phones, will help the company rebound.

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Microsoft and its partners have seemingly set some very lofty goals for Windows 8. Citing multiple anonymous sources at various unnamed Taiwan-based original device manufacturers, DigiTimes on Wednesday reported that Windows and Intel want top-tier vendor partners to launch an all-out assault on Apple’s iPad. The iPad’s share of the tablet market currently sits at 70% according to the report, but Microsoft and Intel want to push that figure down to 50% by the middle of next year. If earlier reports pan out, devices powered by the Windows 8 platform will begin rolling out early in the fourth quarter this year, and that gives Microsoft and its partners roughly three quarters to steal 20% of Apple’s market share. DigiTimes states that there will be 32 Windows 8 tablets available from various vendors by the end of the year.

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Apple released its third-generation iPad on March 16th and I purchased mine one day later on the 17th. There were no lines at my local Best Buy when I went to buy the new model. In fact, there were still more than 100 new iPads in stock when I picked up my iPad more than 36 hours after it was released. The store was eerily quiet. It felt nothing like an Apple launch.

Of course we learned just a few days later that a lack of demand was certainly not to blame for the surplus of inventory; after five years, Apple had finally managed to meet demand with a mobile product at launch. The Cupertino, California-based company sold more than 3 million third-generation iPads during the tablet’s first four days of availability, making the new iPad Apple’s second biggest product launch of all time behind the iPhone 4S, which sold more than 4 million units during its debut weekend.

I have never been an iPad user. I took possession of a first-generation iPad out of necessity — I had to know what I would be reporting on for the year to follow — but I rarely touched the tablet unless I had to test a new app or cover something else having to do with Apple’s slate. Light-duty media tablets simply did not appeal to me, and I maintained my indifference toward the category for the two years that followed. I have a drawer full of smartphones with screens that vary in size from 3.5 inches to 5.3 inches, an eReader, a lightweight MacBook Air laptop and a Dell desktop PC. I’m covered.

Even the BlackBerry PlayBook, my one-eyed man in the country of the blind, has sat untouched for several months since I purchased a Nook Touch from Barnes & Noble. While PlayBook OS 2.0 has brought a number of much-needed improvements to the device, reading eBooks was really the only function I could find that I continued to enjoy more on a tablet than on a laptop or smartphone. That experience is infinitely better on the Nook though, and my BlackBerry tablet has been boxed as a result.

So I bought a new iPad, and these are my thoughts after having spent the past month with it.

As was the case when Apple released its first- and second-generation iPads, reviews of the third Apple tablet were overwhelmingly positive. Despite conspiracy theories that run rampant on enthusiast forums and in the comments sections of news sites, this is not because of some elaborate scheme among the media and technology blogs to give Apple positive coverage. No, the truth is far less scintillating and scandalous: Apple makes products people like.

BGR reviewed the iPad in March and Editor-in-chief Jonathan Geller said the only real competition the new iPad has comes from its predecessor, the iPad 2, which is currently available for just $399. While low-end slates like the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet have been well received, I agree that these are not iPad competitors and I conveyed as much in my review of Amazon’s tablet last year. Apple CEO Tim Cook then confirmed the notion this past January, stating on an earnings call that the Kindle Fire had no impact whatsoever on iPad sales.

I am on record numerous times stating that media tablets have no place in my life. My opinion was that tablets, and the iPad specifically, do many things well but nothing as well as as one of several other devices I already own. You can watch videos on an iPad, but I would rather watch on a TV. You can work on an iPad, but I would rather use a notebook or desktop computer. You can quickly maneuver through dozens of gorgeous apps on an iPad, but I have smartphones packed to the brim with great apps. You can read books on the iPad, but I have a Nook Touch that lasts for more than a month on a charge, and is much lighter and more comfortable to hold than the iPad. For everything the iPad does, I already own something that does it better.

This is no longer the case.

Apple’s new tablet isn’t magical, but it certainly is amazing. The hardware is a feat of design and engineering that has no equal in the tablet space. Sleek and smooth, the case on the new iPad is very similar to the previous model, though it is slightly thicker to make room for a massive 11,560 mAh battery and a few other new components. The new dual-core A5X processor with quad-core graphics offers significant performance improvements compared to the iPad 2, which was already impressive, and iOS is as smooth as a modern mobile operating system can be.

But the new iPad won me over due to what essentially boils down to two things: the Retina display and the talent of third-party iOS developers.

Countless adjectives have been used to describe the Retina display on the new iPad. Amazing. Fantastic. Brilliant. Gorgeous. Vivid. Beautiful. Stunning. They’re all accurate.

The 9.7-inch, 2,048 x 1,536-pixel panel on the iPad offers better-than-Blu-ray resolution at a class-leading 264 pixels per inch. The pixel density on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 is 149 pixels per inch, and while such comparisons are meaningless due to the user’s position relative to a television, a 42-inch HDTV with 1080p resolution offers 52 pixels per inch.

More than pixel counts, brightness measurements or any other specs on paper, the iPad’s Retina display is an experience. Nothing on a widely available consumer electronics device even comes close to offering the experience afforded by this amazing screen, and it may be some time before anything does. The color reproduction and clarity make staring at the Retina display like looking through a window, but the user has the ability to touch and manipulate the items that exist on the other side.

The iPad’s Retina display creates a new reality that the user holds in the palm of his or her hand — which brings me to apps.

Our world would be a very different place if Steve Jobs and Apple’s top executives had stuck to their original plan and confined third-party developers who wanted to address iOS to the Web. Apple’s mobile devices, and all mobile devices, would be infinitely less useful and a $20 billion industry responsible for creating more than 466,000 jobs to date would not exist.

The things these talented people have created for iOS are simply breathtaking. While fantastic apps exist for Android, Windows Phone, webOS and other platforms, the cream of the crop on these operating systems does not measure up to the look, feel or performance of top iOS apps. And on the third-generation iPad, the gap is significantly greater than it has ever been before.

Even apps from top developers that exist on multiple platforms offer far more attractive and often more enjoyable experiences on iOS, and especially on the iPad. Look at Netflix, Evernote, Hulu Plus, ESPN ScoreCenter, TED, Kobo, Pulse, Adobe Photoshop Touch or any one of a hundred other popular apps. These applications exist for the iPad and for Android tablets, but the difference between performance — and often, the look and feel — on the iPad and on Android devices is painful. There are several root causes of this disparity, but none of them matter even a little bit to the end user. All that matters is the experience.

These differences grow even more vast with the new iPad. Things aren’t just better on the iPad than they are on other tablets, they’re completely different. The impact of this next-level visual element cannot be overstated.

And the best apps the iPad has to offer aren’t just a cut above the rest now, they are jaw-dropping. There is nothing else in the world that lets people take in news and other content like Flipboard. There is nothing widely available to the mass market that lets people sketch and translate ideas onto “paper” like Paper by FiftyThree. Nothing even approaches these experiences. Not on a tablet, not on a smartphone and not on a PC.

This brings me back to the competition. On top of everything else, the third-generation iPad shows us exactly why Apple’s rivals are floundering and will continue to flounder unless they readdress the market from a smarter angle.

Apple’s competition has effectively gotten nowhere with their efforts to profit from the media tablet market Apple created. The first round of Android tablets was a bust because the user experiences these devices afforded were awful. Vendors scrambled to launch tablets similar to the iPad and the smartphone platform on which they based their efforts did not translate well at all to larger devices.

The second round of Android tablets offered a much better user experience, however these devices bring nothing new and desirable to the table where mass-market consumers are concerned. There is no valuable differentiation for average users, only a more complex and sometimes confusing interface, a weaker assortment of applications and a user experience that cannot match the iPad.

We’ve seen a few success stories, but to call them moderate is kind. With just a pair of niche devices as the exception — the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet — Apple sold more iPads during the new model’s debut weekend than most competing tablets will sell in a quarter, half or even a year.

Tablet makers are doing it wrong.

Now, the situation stands to get even worse. Vendors have been unable to create a tablet experience that consumers are willing to get behind en masse, so they now plan to compete not with products but with pricing. Companies have seen the success enjoyed by Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire, a specialized device, and they now hope to bolster sales by launching cheaper tablets. Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab models are about to hit the market with trimmed price points, and Google itself is said to be readying an own-brand tablet that could cost as little as $149. These devices may or may not perform well in terms of sales, but my concern lies elsewhere.

This path leads only to compromise, certainly not to innovation.

Why am I being so hard on Android tablets and the companies that build them? Is it because I do not believe top vendors like HTC and Samsung can compete with Apple in the tablet space? Is it because I enjoy seeing them fail? Quite the contrary, it’s because I want to see Apple’s competition succeed.

Apple’s new tablet is amazing, and it has proven to me that a tablet can indeed offer real value and utility where smartphones and traditional computers cannot. But the iPad is only one vision of a tablet.

I don’t want to see companies like Samsung and HTC try and fail to replicate Apple’s vision, and I certainly don’t want to see them do it repeatedly. I want to see them create their own unique visions of what a media tablet might be, and I want to see them launch products that are worthy of our attention — not because these new devices are like a cheaper iPad or like an open-source iPad, but because they are well-designed, well-made, useful and unique.

I want a tablet market, not an iPad market.

Google’s Android platform was the most popular mobile operating system in the world’s largest market for mobile phones last year. The platform’s market share grew nearly 35%, capturing 68.4% of the mobile market in China, Reuters reported on Tuesday citing research from Analysys International. Chinese Android manufacturers ZTE and Huawei helped propel the platform to new heights by offering low-cost devices via local wireless carriers. Google’s success came at the expense of Nokia, whose Symbian operating system share was cut in half to 18.7%. Apple’s iOS market share rose from 4.1% in the first quarter of 2011 to 5.7% in the fourth quarter, but the Cupertino-based company is expected to fare far better in 2012 due to high demand and new partnerships.

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Apple released its third-generation iPad just over three weeks ago, and the company managed to sell more than 3 million units in less than four days of availability. The sleek slate has since launched in a number of additional markets and according to ad network Chitika’s real-time iPad tracker, it took Apple’s new iPad just three weeks to account for 10% of all iPad traffic across its network. The new iPad’s share of iPad traffic peaked at 16.2% on the morning of April 8th, and the full-day average for the new iPad’s traffic share reached 10% for the first time that day. “The 10% threshold is much more than an indicator of adoption; symbolic meaning cannot be dismissed,” Chitika’s Gabe Donnini wrote in a post on the company’s blog. ”Simply put, The new iPad stands as a prime example of what any company could hope for. IDC reports that Apple holds the place of the most dominant tablet manufacturer in the world, and with consumers on the verge of viewing the idea of a tablet as synonymous with an iPad, the odds are looking pretty good. This optimism is also mirrored in Apple’s stock price, which has risen over 100% in the last twelve months.”

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Google updated its Android version tracker on Monday, revealing that the latest version of its mobile operating system — Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich — has more than doubled its installed base over the past month. Unfortunately, that only carries Google’s current Android build to a 2.9% share of all devices. Combined with Honeycomb, this means that as of March 2nd, just 6.2% of Android devices are now running a modern version of Android. Meanwhile, the bulk of Android devices run the 15-month-old Gingerbread operating system (63.7%) and the second most popular version of the platform is the 23-month-old Froyo OS (23.1%). First unveiled in October 2009 and currently at 6%, Android 2.1 Eclair is still found on nearly as many devices as Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich combined. Read on for more.

Whether or not fragmentation is a serious issue in the Android ecosystem remains a topic of debate. While many industry watchers continue to argue over how much fragmentation impacts developers, the direct impact on end users is clear. Despite being unveiled more than five months ago, just 2.9% of Android devices currently offer the numerous enhancements and new features introduced with Ice Cream Sandwich, such as improved speed and performance, a redesigned user interface, a simplified application switcher, hardware acceleration, Android Beam and much more.

To compound matters, Google may unveil its next major Android build some time this summer or in the third quarter, just as Ice Cream Sandwich finally begins to proliferate. Vendors are currently working feverishly to prepare Android 4.0 updates for their recent smartphones, and a new crop of flagship devices from HTC and Samsung is about to hit the market. While these new Ice Cream Sandwich-powered smartphones gain momentum, a new version of Android will hit the market with exciting new features.

If history repeats itself, owners of the HTC One X, the HTC One S and the Samsung Galaxy S III likely won’t be able to enjoy the new features introduced alongside Android 5.0 Jelly Bean until some time in the first or second quarter of 2013.