Forrester published a new report today making the call that the iPad challengers that have been announced so far—Android Honeycomb tablets from Motorola, Toshiba, and others, as well as the BlackBerry PlayBook and HP TouchPad—are solid products with fatally flawed product strategies.

In short, competing tablets are too expensive, and can’t match the Apple Store as a channel. These two claims are related: Forrester’s research has shown that consumers attribute more value to Apple products because of the in-store service. Consumers are not only comparing feeds and speeds; there’s also a human factor. The humans working in the Apple Store will have a huge impact teaching consumers about the iPad and how to use it. Compare the experience of walking into an Apple Store, where the iPad is front and center, to walking into a Verizon store where the Samsung Galaxy Tab is collecting dust at the back of the store and the sales reps don’t quite know what to make of it. Or walking into a Best Buy store, whose shelves will soon be lined with similar-looking tablets with similar functionality.

Competing tablets to the iPad are poised to fail, which is why we’re forecasting that Apple will have at least 80% share of the US consumer tablet market in 2011.

My colleague John McCarthy just published an excellent report sizing the "App Internet," a phenomenon Forrester defines as "specialized local apps running in conjunction with cloud-based services" across smartphones, tablets, and other devices. Tablet devices alone will generate $8.1 billion in global app sales in 2015, up from $300 million in 2010. This is a huge number, but as the report explains, it's only a fraction of the total spend on apps when you factor in the cost to develop the apps and reinvent the processes behind the apps. This is no surprise to companies like News Corp., which will have spent $30 million through June 30 on "The Daily" iPad app. That $30 million included major process reinvention such as building an entirely new content management system to handle the all-digital production of The Daily's newsroom.

I recommend that product strategists developing experiences for tablets read John's report. Some key takeaways:

• Apps are a source of dynamism and innovation for tablets. What we've seen with tablets is that even on the iPad, consumers report spending more time using browsers than using apps, but apps are an important part of the experience. iPad owners in Forrester's January 2011 consumer survey report downloading, on average, 20 apps for their iPads since getting the device, and spending an average of $34 on tablet apps. 

The most important outcome of this week’s emerging tussle between Apple and Google is that we are about to have an intense and financially difficult conversation about what a fair price is for delivering customers to developers, publishers, and producers. Economically, this is one of the most critical issues that has to be resolved for the future of electronic content. Very soon, a majority of consumer experiences (that which we used to refer to as the media) will be digital. But not until the people who will develop those experiences have unambiguous, market-clearing rules for how they can expect to profit from those experiences.

The question comes down to this: Is 30% a fair price for Apple to charge? I must be clear about my intentions here. I do not employ the word “fair” the way my children often do. I am not whining about Apple’s right to charge whatever it wants. Apple may do whatever is best for shareholders in the short- and long-run. I argued yesterday that Apple’s recent decision does not serve its shareholders in the long run. Google announced One Pass yesterday – hastily, I might add – in order to signal to Apple and its shareholders that monopoly power rarely lasts forever. But none of that questions the ultimate morality of Apple’s decision or its rights.

I use the word “fair” to refer to a state of economic efficiency. A fair price is one that maximizes not just individual revenue, but total revenue across all players. Such revenue maximization cannot be achieved without simultaneously satisfying the largest possible number of consumers with the greatest possible amount of innovation.

Today HP unveiled its new line of webOS phones and the HP TouchPad, the first of a family of tablets HP is planning to launch. Here's our take on the TouchPad product strategy:

• Product: The TouchPad marries the best of HP and Palm with features like Beats audio, printer compatibility, and nifty applications of Palm's Touchstone technology. Just as important, they've chosen a 9.7-inch screen size to make it as easy as possible for developers to port over their apps from the iPad, which will help them build their app ecosystem quickly. The device is thicker than the iPad and lacks the cool aluminum casing, but it has features the iPad doesn't (yet) have, like a front camera and multiple ports. There's still room for future improvement, like jazzing up the black hardware with a Vivienne Tam design as HP has done with its netbooks and notebooks to give the TouchPad more personality--and of course, launching 3G and 4G, which they plan to do later this year.  
• Place: In a Forrester survey in January of 4,000 US online consumers, the No. 1 place consumers said they'd prefer to buy a tablet was electronic stores like Best Buy--40% of consumers considering buying a tablet said they'd prefer this channel, compared with only 11% that said they'd prefer to buy from a mobile service provider like Verizon. Here, HP has a huge advantage over Android tablet-makers like Samsung who are primarily relying on carriers to make the sale. HP has a strong relationship with Best Buy and the Touchstone technology will play well on retail shelves; however, Apple still has a stronger play on distribution since it's not only in Best Buy, Target, etc. but also owns its own channel--the Apple Store is a laboratory for teaching consumers about the iPad (and how to buy content on it).
• Price: An unknown. HP is not announcing price at this time.