Nvidia co-founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has declared that Android tablets will overtake Apple’s iPad in 30 months. Speaking at the Reuters Technology Summit in New York on Monday, the outspoken CEO noted that it took Android smartphones less than three years to outpace the iPhone.
“The Android phone took only two and a half years to achieve the momentum that we’re talking about” he explained. “I would expect the same thing on Honeycomb tablets.” Kal-El will, Huang believes, help lead that drive. NVIDIA’s next chip has apparently found a space “at least ten” devices; “we have five major phone companies and we have five major PC [manufacturers]” he revealed. Kal-El was announced back in February, promising 5x the performance of Tegra 2 as found in current Honeycomb tablets like the Motorola XOOM and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
Nvidia has a vested interest in Android gaining market share. The maker of graphics chips for PCs launched its Tegra 2 processors this year, establishing itself as a major player in high-end smartphones and tablets by manufacturers like Samsung and Motorola. This is only the beginning.
Although first-impressions of Android 3.0 Honeycomb have been mixed, with feedback regarding the tablet-centric OS being reminiscent of criticisms leveled at early Android smartphone builds, Huang is confident those teething pains will soon be forgotten. “As a result of so many different parties working together, the first versions tend to be a bit clumsy to roll out” he conceded, going on to point out that “as is the nature of these organic industries with very, very large players, you have continuous improvement at a very rapid pace.”
While it’s not clear if further Android 3.x versions are in the works, Google has already announced that the next version of Android is codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich, slated for Q4 2011. While we don’t know what version number it will have, rumors have previously suggested Android 4.0. Ice Cream Sandwich will work on all devices: smartphones, tablets, TVs, and so on.
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