Amazon is laying the foundation to own content distribution on Android

Amazon just launched the duo of Cloud Drive and Cloud Player on to an unsuspecting world, and it is just the latest volley as they are looking to unify digital content buying under their banner. They now have all the functionality that Apple provides with iTunes and are unlikely to stop here. Lets do a quick rundown:

• Books, newspapers, and magazines through Kindle
• Android Apps through the Amazon App Store
• Videos through video downloads or streaming
• Music purchasing through the MP3 Store
• Music playing and streaming through Cloud Player

Amazon needs to offer better organization and unification between these services, especially on the mobile front. But they have beaten both Google and Apple to the music streaming game and are even rumored to be working on hardware running Android. Personally, I think they could be the first company to offer a real competitor to the iPod Touch rather than entering the smartphone or tablet market. [Amazon] 

How Samsung can beat Apple at their own game in the tablet market

Samsung dropped quite the little megaton on attendees of their press conference at CTIA today - the redesigned Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9. Taken together, they personify Android's core philosophy that openness drives down cost and drives up quality due to competition. Samsung knew back in the early part of this month that anything over $499 wasn't going to cut it for their entry-level device, and boy have they delivered. 

Rather than going over the specs, which can be read in full here straight from Samsung, let me compare the Galaxy Tab 10.1's specs to the iPad 2's-

• Same price
• Comparable processor (as Samsung makes the iPad 2's and iPhone 4's chips)
• Same memory (16GB for $499 model)
• microSD slot lets you add more memory for cheaper (16GB micoSD card costs ~$25)
• Thinner
• Lighter
• Higher-resolution screen. (Apparently screen resolution only matters to Apple when its the iPhone 4)
• Better front and rear cameras
• Full Flash support allows experiencing the full web as currently constructed (HTML 5 is the future, not the present)

Samsung is acutally one of the largest chip and memory manufacturers on the planet. And that isn't all, they also make the screens used in tons of mobile products. They can compete (and perhaps best) Apple on component price thanks to their vertically-integrated supply chain. Apple, for all of their engineering and design wizardry, still largely has to buy their components from 3rd parties (as do other competitors like RIM, HP, and Motorola). So, in a sense, Samsung wins no matter if you by an iPad 2 or Galaxy Tab or even an iPhone or a Nexus S. 

So, hardware is on the side of Samsung. But what about software? Well, for now the iPad 2 is the unquestioned winner in number of tablet-centric apps, but that will even out in time as more and more Android tablets hit the market and they start making a dent in Apple's marketshare. By this time next year I would expect Android tablets to be ahead in overall marketshare. Just look how far Android on phones has come since the launch of the OG DROID back in November 2009 and it doesn't sound so crazy. 

I've said how I was interested in the Xoom but for the mass consumer market, the iPad 2 was simply a much better value considering its $499 price point. But the Galaxy Tab 10.1, upon launch, will be the best tablet on the market in terms of specs and pricing. You simply get more for the same amount of money on the hardware side. Software is still in Apple's favor, but that lead will erode quickly. It is no longer a matter of "if" Android will become the dominant tablet OS, it is a question of "when." 

Oh, and if you do the math a 48GB Galaxy Tab 10.1 (16GB model plus 32GB microSD card) ends up being less than a 32GB iPad 2. So, so much win. 

The best feature of the iPad 2 is the most obvious - price

Apple today reviled the upcoming iPad 2, and it manages to improve in all the areas the average consumer cares about while ignoring the areas they don't. Front and rear cameras are both in, along with a dual-core processor all packed into a device 33% thinner than its predecessor. But the most impressive feature is that they managed all of these while keeping the $499 price point on the low end. Sure, you can drop $800 on a fully tricked out iPad 2 with 3G and tons of memory. but most people are just fine with the 16GB WiFi model. 

While thought by many at the original iPad's launch to be too high, $499 is a price point no competitor has been able to match in the 10-inch tablet space. And the fact that the device will be shipping to stores around the world on March 11th (just over a week away!) again shows that Apple is the best in the business with regards to their supply chain. So, what are their competitors left to do?