Apple iPad Ruins Best-Laid Plans of Competitors

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There's a new trope emerging around Apple's wildly popular iPad tablet computers: They are so good, they force rivals to go back to the drawing board or lower their prices... sometimes before they've even released their competing product.

Most recently, Samsung execs are wringing their hands over their new 10.1-inch Galaxy tablet, which has been left looking "inadequate" by Apple's release of the new iPad 2, in the words of mobile division vice president Lee Don-Joo, whose interview with Yonhap News Agency was translated by Mashable.

Concerns included Apple's ability to deliver superior functionality in an even smaller object, according to Lee, who remarked: "Apple made it very thin... We will have to improve the parts that are inadequate."

Although Samsung isn't expected to pull the Galaxy tablet computer off the market, Samsung seems likely to lower the price, judging by Lee's statements: "The 10-inch [tablet] was to be priced higher than the 7-inch, but we will have to think that over."

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Samsung will also send designers back to R&D labs to respond to the even greater challenge posed by iPad 2 for future Galaxy models -- although there's no guarantee thst a hypothetical iPad 3 might not render these noncompetitive as well.

This isn't the first time Apple has forced competitors into a preemptive retreat. In August 2010, Plastic Logic announced it was canceling the Que e-reader, which was scheduled to debut that summer. Instead, it said it will develop a new and more up-to-date device, the ProReader, which is able to compete with the iPad.

Plastic Logic CEO Richard Archuleta blamed a "dramatically changed" market for production delays, but said the company would "take the necessary time needed to re-enter the market as we refocus, redesign and retool for our next-generation ProReader product." In retrospect it seems clear that the pricey Que (ranging from $649-$799) was going to be the odd man out, costing more than the iPad, but offering fewer eye-catching features.

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