Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple iPad rival HP Slate sees demand fizzle at 9,000 units

appleinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 23 posts

Re: Apple iPad rival HP Slate sees demand fizzle at 9,000 units

#11

Post by sudont »

glhaynes wrote: post #6
mattmaroon wrote: post #3

It's pretty clear HP tried to distance themselves from the Slate starting the day they bought Palm. They showed it at CES and then sat on it for months, then released apparently the same thing they had shown at CES. I think that's a big mistake. While I love WebOS, I have even less desire to buy it on a Slate than I do iOS. I don't want my phone but bigger, I want my computer but smaller. My guess is the first real c…

lets you run actual Windows and somehow programmatically makes everything touch-friendly That sounds... difficult. :)

More like cognitive dissonance. Windows is built for a mouse, same with Mac.

If it coulda worked, Steve would have done an OEM and slapped Axiotron with a lawsuit.

Re: Apple iPad rival HP Slate sees demand fizzle at 9,000 units

#12

Post by daskrachen »

scrrr wrote: post #9
megaman821 wrote: post #5

I know these devices have a similar form factor but I think most comparisons should stop there. The HP slate is something that could be moderately successful being sold to businesses with few consumer purchases. The iPad is wildly successful being sold to consumers with few business purchases. It will be more interesting to see if there will be consumer demand for HP's real iPad rival, the Palmpad.

Fun-fact: 1/3rd of german parliament members use the ipad every day. The number is increasing, since they found out its paid for by taxpayers because its a device useful for work. They also changed a law that previously forbid using electronic devices in the assembly hall. Im not making this up. Steve Jobs is a genius and the ipad has business users alright.

Do you have a source for this? I am German myself and I would love to spread this among my friends! This is awesome!

Re: Apple iPad rival HP Slate sees demand fizzle at 9,000 units

#13

Post by kenjackson »

sudont wrote: post #11
glhaynes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lets you run actual Windows and somehow programmatically makes everything touch-friendly That sounds... difficult. :)

More like cognitive dissonance. Windows is built for a mouse, same with Mac. If it coulda worked, Steve would have done an OEM and slapped Axiotron with a lawsuit.

Would it be that hard? Here's what I would do:

1) Rewrite explorer.exe to work on a slate. A big effort, but probably just on the scale of WP7 or iOS. This gives you a good high-level shell experience for doing things like finding files, launching apps, etc....

2) Make a great touch screen keyboard. Probably make a handful of them, so the user can try various kinds and make the default the one they like the most. Note, Windows handwriting recognition is already quite good.

3) Add a touch-friendly shell on IE9. The shell is already minimalist -- this is pretty incremental work.

4) Make touch-friendly versions of all the built-in Windows apps (notepad, wmp, control panel, etc...). This maybe a large work item, so use telemetry data to hit the 20 most popular apps first.

5) Make Office touch friendly. It's actually surprisingly touch friendly now.

6) Get the top 100 apps and work with vendors on making them finger-friendly. Entice with money where necessary. Targets here would be Chrome, Firefox, Photoshop, iTunes, Zune, VLC, WinZip, Quicktime, TurboTax, Adobe Reader, Mathematica, etc... I suspect the conversion ratio won't be super high, but you'll move what you can.

7) Create a touch app store.

Now this won't be perfect, but I suspect it will be a pretty tremendous start, coupled with OakTrail. This probably would seriously cannibalize the netbook market. I'd probably even get one.

Re: Apple iPad rival HP Slate sees demand fizzle at 9,000 units

#14

Post by newgame »

daskrachen wrote: post #12
scrrr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun-fact: 1/3rd of german parliament members use the ipad every day. The number is increasing, since they found out its paid for by taxpayers because its a device useful for work. They also changed a law that previously forbid using electronic devices in the assembly hall. Im not making this up. Steve Jobs is a genius and the ipad has business users alright.

Do you have a source for this? I am German myself and I would love to spread this among my friends! This is awesome!

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6095867,00.html

Re: Apple iPad rival HP Slate sees demand fizzle at 9,000 units

#15

Post by bryanwaite »

scrrr wrote: post #9
megaman821 wrote: post #5

I know these devices have a similar form factor but I think most comparisons should stop there. The HP slate is something that could be moderately successful being sold to businesses with few consumer purchases. The iPad is wildly successful being sold to consumers with few business purchases. It will be more interesting to see if there will be consumer demand for HP's real iPad rival, the Palmpad.

Fun-fact: 1/3rd of german parliament members use the ipad every day. The number is increasing, since they found out its paid for by taxpayers because its a device useful for work. They also changed a law that previously forbid using electronic devices in the assembly hall. Im not making this up. Steve Jobs is a genius and the ipad has business users alright.

Is anyone else worried they'll use them like most people use their smart phones: i.e. Playing Angry Birds and wasting time on the internet?

Re: Apple iPad rival HP Slate sees demand fizzle at 9,000 units

#16

Post by mattmaroon »

glhaynes wrote: post #6
mattmaroon wrote: post #3

It's pretty clear HP tried to distance themselves from the Slate starting the day they bought Palm. They showed it at CES and then sat on it for months, then released apparently the same thing they had shown at CES. I think that's a big mistake. While I love WebOS, I have even less desire to buy it on a Slate than I do iOS. I don't want my phone but bigger, I want my computer but smaller. My guess is the first real c…

lets you run actual Windows and somehow programmatically makes everything touch-friendly That sounds... difficult. :)

Yeah it does. I think it was their original goal though, otherwise they could have launched that thing many months earlier.

Re: Apple iPad rival HP Slate sees demand fizzle at 9,000 units

#19

Post by sudont »

kenjackson wrote: post #13
sudont wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like cognitive dissonance. Windows is built for a mouse, same with Mac. If it coulda worked, Steve would have done an OEM and slapped Axiotron with a lawsuit.

Would it be that hard? Here's what I would do: 1) Rewrite explorer.exe to work on a slate. A big effort, but probably just on the scale of WP7 or iOS. This gives you a good high-level shell experience for doing things like finding files, launching apps, etc.... 2) Make a great touch screen keyboard. Probably make a handful of them, so the user can try various kinds and make the default the one they like the most. Not…

That's a good plan. I doubt Microsoft would ever implement it.

And most of what you wrote is what Apple did with iOS, it's actually just Mac OS X with the GUI torn off completely.

Really, a touch API for .NET would go a long way for promoting it in tech circles. The problem is that the bosses are in love with iPads.

Mono for Android, maybe.

Re: Apple iPad rival HP Slate sees demand fizzle at 9,000 units

#20

Post by kenjackson »

sudont wrote: post #19
kenjackson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be that hard? Here's what I would do: 1) Rewrite explorer.exe to work on a slate. A big effort, but probably just on the scale of WP7 or iOS. This gives you a good high-level shell experience for doing things like finding files, launching apps, etc.... 2) Make a great touch screen keyboard. Probably make a handful of them, so the user can try various kinds and make the default the one they like the most. Not…

That's a good plan. I doubt Microsoft would ever implement it. And most of what you wrote is what Apple did with iOS, it's actually just Mac OS X with the GUI torn off completely. Really, a touch API for .NET would go a long way for promoting it in tech circles. The problem is that the bosses are in love with iPads. Mono for Android, maybe.

Really, a touch API for .NET would go a long way for promoting it in tech circles.

WPF 4.0 has touch support, and seems pretty full-featured as far as I can tell. The problem I have building .NET apps is that I don't know anyone with a Windows touch device. It's hard for me to want to add touch support, given I have no customers for it. Although if MS paid me for my time... :-)

Which reminds me of one more thing for the list... Win8Touch needs to be able to run WP7 Silverlight apps. The market needs to be seeded with touch apps in order for the tablet to take off. This was THE most important thing Apple did for the iPad (followed very closely by incredible battery life).

Post reply on HN