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Apple flinches on tablets?

Never let them see you sweat. For years I thought that was Yogi Berra's quote, but it turns out the expression was invented and trademarked by Gillette to sell Dry Idea antiperspirant to women with high pressure jobs.

Never let them see you sweat.

For years I thought that was Yogi Berra's quote, but it turns out the expression was invented and trademarked by Gillette to sell Dry Idea antiperspirant to women with high pressure jobs.

And speaking of high pressure Jobs, did you see Apple's conference last week?

Steve Jobs announced the iPad 2 as expected, and I can confirm that it's significantly iPadier than the first edition with a faster processor, front and rear facing cameras, thinner form factor, etc. People were hoping for the Retina display that's on the iPhone 4, but the rumour is that it will be added to the iPad next year - giving people another reason to wait.

The unveiling attracted a lot of media attention, like everything Apple does, but what was interesting was Jobs' choice of words throughout the presentation. Apple has every reason to be confident, but the presentation made Apple seem a little desperate, uncertain and suspiciously critical of the competition. In other words, it looked like Steve Jobs was sweating.

Fortune Magazine 's review of the event was somewhat astonishing. While generally supportive of Apple, the business watchdog noted with some disappointment that Mr. Jobs distorted the facts several times during his presentation.

For example, one bullet point in the presentation proclaimed the iPad 2 to be the "First dual core tablet to ship in volume" - the "in volume" part being the only qualifying statement that prevents this from being an outright lie, given that the Dell Steak 7 has a dual core, as does the Motorola Xoom and you could argue that both have been shipping in respectable volumes. As well, you could argue that the statement was wrong based on the fact that the iPad 2 isn't even available yet, although millions of the devices are no doubt on ships from China as I write this.

One of the tech industry's famous sleight-of-hands is to brag about the number of units shipped rather than actual sales, which are two completely different statistics. It was disappointing to see Apple go that route.

Jobs also misquoted Samsung Vice-President Lee Young-hee as saying, "As you heard, our sell-in was quite aggressive... around 2 million. In terms of sell-out, we believe it was quite small." The actual quote should have finished with the words "quite smooth." You could argue that it was an honest mistake on Jobs' part, but it's a mistake that has been made in the media before and corrected each and every time.

Another slide proclaimed "90 per cent market share," which isn't even kind of true. Apple did sell an astonishing 15 million iPads in the first three quarters of this fiscal year, but Samsung has sold 2 million Galaxy S tabs in this quarter alone - that's around 13 per cent market share so far, and that figure doesn't include Dell, HP, Wacom, the Barnes & Noble Nook and countless others.

Apple's choice of words aside, the iPad is a revolutionary device and arguably continues to lead the way on both sides of the equation, hardware and software. However, I think that Apple had to go a little further with iPad 2 to stay on top of the next generation because the competition is catching up quickly.

Years ago, I predicted that Apple would meet its match in the tablet market because all the advance rumours gave the competition over a year to develop their own products to match the iPad. Plus, it was a whole new market and everybody would be getting in on the ground floor.

I was very wrong about that - none of Apple's competitors were remotely close when the iPad launched, and the first generation of copycats was disappointing to say the least. However, there are finally some credible competitors out there in the marketplace, and that number is only going to grow in the next six months or so.

Some of the tablets that could take a bite out of Apple include the RIM Playbook, Galaxy S Tab 2, the ViewSonice ViewPad, the INQ, etc.

Lifehacker put together a chart last week that compares four dual core tablets that are available for order; the iPad 2, the Xoom, the LG G-Slate and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. On paper, Apple has a slight lead in price, but is falling behind on screen resolution, camera resolution, video recording and playback capability, support for Flash, extra ports, networking (no 4G available), speakers (iPad is mono while competitors offer stereo). Apple still has a huge lead in Apps, in battery life (probably) and arguably in the iOS operating system environment - although the Android 3.0 Honeycomb system should go a long way towards equalizing the user experience. RIM's operating system is getting a lot of attention, HP is releasing a new version of WebOS and Microsoft appears ready to upscale their Windows Phone 7 environment for tablets.

The comparisons are a mixed bag, and it doesn't seem like there's any one device that sticks out by having everything. For example, only the Xoom has expandable memory, and only the LG G-Slate can do 3D. All four tablets have gyroscopes and accelerometers, while the iPad 2 has an ambient light sensor, the Xoom has a barometer (for some reason), the G-Slate has adaptive lighting and the Galaxy has a digital compass.

My advice as always is to make a list of the features you want and then to shop around. Test-drive a few tablets at the tech stores. Don't make a final decision based on Apps - if an App is any good it will be available everywhere in a matter of time.