There isn't really much of a tablet market • Hacker News Board

Re: There isn't really much of a tablet market

#31

Post by jawee » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 12:50 AM UTC

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #29

zephyrfalcon wrote: post #22

Well, no, there isn't really much of a tablet market. It's an emerging market; a year ago it didn't even exist until the iPad single-handedly created it. Everybody else is still trying to catch up. Right now your choices are basically, an iPad, or something else that probably isn't nowhere near as good (unless you count Kindles and Nooks which are much more specialized devices). However, in a few years or so, I can t…

The iPad popularized the Tablet market, it didn't create it. Tablets have existed since 2000.

Although not a tablet in the current sense, I´ve been happily using my Maemo-powered ¨Internet Tablet¨ since before Apple made touchscreens.

Re: There isn't really much of a tablet market

#32

Post by axod » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 12:50 AM UTC

Xuzz wrote: post #28

axod wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80-90% of websites use keyboard as an input mechanism. I'm not seeing why a tablet is so massively better than a netbook/laptop.

How much input do you actually do on these websites? Facebook, for a major example, is just a sentence or two for each status update, and a word or two for the chat messages.

a laptop isn't the way it is just to house a keyboard. It's that way so you can sit it on your lap with the screen positioned to view it.

I'm not gonna hold a tablet in my hands while I try and use it.

(I spend the vast majority of my time sat on a sofa with a laptop).

Re: There isn't really much of a tablet market

#33

Post by blinkingled » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 12:55 AM UTC

Marco Arment, John Gruber and company are so obnoxiously biased against anything that is not Apple that it isn't worth clicking on any links pointing to their sites. It's deja vu all the times if you do - no one can compete with Apple, everyone other than Apple is doomed. Ad-nauseum. With implausible or otherwise manufactured/subjective beliefs sometimes sprinkled in there to make them feel like logical reasons. There isn't anything insightful there - just bigotry.

"Neither Google nor Microsoft will ever be able to tailor their software to other manufacturers’ specific (and varied) hardware devices as well as Apple can (and does) with theirs."

Really? Marco Arment can predict the future? Do we lose all hope that people will do anything better than Apple? Even in Marco's little part of the world it sounds outrageously short sighted. You can say what you want against everything non-Apple and that would of course be your opinion (as opposed to universally accepted truth) - but this is going too far, even for Marco Arment class of people.

He goes preaching about Apple's integrated experience, "superior everything" and ponies - but you know what the whole world is not buying the iPad universally - Samsung sold a million Galaxy Tabs, Androids are already outselling Apple worldwide and reason for that is not that the people buying them are stupid - people just have different needs and tastes. Banging on the "teh superior AAPL drum" with a sad tune of everyone else's suckiness for ever is not going to change that.

Re: There isn't really much of a tablet market

#34

Post by Xuzz » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 12:55 AM UTC

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #20

joeguilmette wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that while popular, Android on the whole is 'bad software' the same way Windows is. Doesn't mean it wont dominate the market.

No reasons why? No examples? No comparisons between it and what you would consider "good software"? You might be getting upvoted because the HackerNews hivemind has a giant hard-on for all things Apple, but don't think for a second that you're actually making a valid point. If you want to start an intelligent discussion then go right ahead, but keep the obvious fanboy flamebait out of this.

To avoid reposting the exact same message: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2056896

Re: There isn't really much of a tablet market

#35

Post by samstokes » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 12:55 AM UTC

joeguilmette wrote: post #5

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #2

the main argument against tablets (bad software that actively interferes with usability) is going away. The market for tablets that are basically just laptops with a different form factor remains what it was before the ipad: small. the market for a tablet that is easy to hop on the couch with and surf for casual content is huge.

80-90% of computer users never leave the browser. The tablet will take over. Everything except power users will be using tablets in 5 years.

I assume you (reasonably) count webmail as "not leaving the browser". Typing emails (or Facebook messages or whatever) is much more pleasant on a real keyboard than on a virtual touch-screen keyboard. Seems unlikely people are going to give up typing in droves.

What does seem quite plausible is tablet + peripherals - the tablet basically assuming the role of the old mini-tower computer, angled upright on a stand for desktop use, with keyboard and mouse hanging off it. (In fact if you also hung a monitor off it there's no reason you couldn't do that with a regular phone.) I think tablet + dock + keyboard may well become a popular home computer setup in the next few years.

Re: There isn't really much of a tablet market

#36

Post by rlmw » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 1:00 AM UTC

Allegedly Samsung have sold 1 million Tabs within 2 months of putting it on sale. [0] This isn't as fast as the ipad, but it does demonstrate that there's a market for non-ipad tablets. One of the things thats quite important in this market is that Android 3 is meant to be rather tablet oriented, and I think that will address his concerns. There certainly are a lot of cheap, poor quality, android tablets on the market at the moment but if you look at the Android phone market it also went this way. Initially people thought it would be loads of cheap asian cloners and it turned out that the best selling android phones were actually the high quality devices.

Now I don't want to start some 'Android vs iOS' discussion, buy whatever product suits your taste - thats your choice, but I do think its a little bit hasty to write off tablets from other manufacturers at this moment in time. Perhaps I've misunderstood and he is only talking about the present - but it seems like the author thinks there will never be a serious competitor.

[0] http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9199678/Update_Galaxy...

Re: There isn't really much of a tablet market

#37

Post by joeguilmette » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 1:04 AM UTC

guywithabike wrote: post #24

axod wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80-90% of websites use keyboard as an input mechanism. I'm not seeing why a tablet is so massively better than a netbook/laptop.

What's your source for that statistic? Or did you just make it up?

96% of statistics are made up.

Re: There isn't really much of a tablet market

#38

Post by Pewpewarrows » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 1:04 AM UTC

Apple sold a bit more than 4 million iPads the most recent quarter that they released sales reports for.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab has sold well over 1 million this past quarter thus far. The Android OS also does not officially support Tablets until the upcoming Honeycomb release.

By that comparison there isn't a PC market either. Macs certainly aren't even close to selling at a rate of one-third of the Windows machines right now.

Re: There isn't really much of a tablet market

#39

Post by rlmw » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 1:08 AM UTC

Bud wrote: post #17

proee wrote: post #3

The nook from B&N is recently reported as their new best-selling product. So I'd say that the non-iPad tablets are quickly gaining momentum. Would like to see some data backing up the author's claims.

The Nook is a reader, not a full-featured tablet. Apples and oranges.

I don't know which nook he is referring to, but the Nook Color is an Android tablet basically with their e-reader software installed. Its not quite as clear cut as all that.

Re: There isn't really much of a tablet market

#40

Post by Pewpewarrows » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 1:11 AM UTC

Xuzz wrote: post #34

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No reasons why? No examples? No comparisons between it and what you would consider "good software"? You might be getting upvoted because the HackerNews hivemind has a giant hard-on for all things Apple, but don't think for a second that you're actually making a valid point. If you want to start an intelligent discussion then go right ahead, but keep the obvious fanboy flamebait out of this.

To avoid reposting the exact same message: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2056896

Certainly valid points, but that isn't even a fraction of what it would take for me to blanket label something as "bad software."

Apple definitely took more time polishing the edges of iOS than Google did with Android. Game creation is also a bit lacking with regards to features that developers have access to. That's really the only criticism I can make towards Android having used and developed for both extensively. My list towards iOS on the other hand is much lengthier.