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

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

#61

Post by jsz0 » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 1:42 AM UTC

axod wrote: post #19

joeguilmette wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Removing the abstraction of a pointing device and interacting directly with the GUI is a big deal. If you watch most people use a computer they spend the vast majority of their time tracking a pointing device and occasionally typing some text. Laptops are designed around the idea that most users are going to spend the vast majority of their time entering text and occasionally using a pointing device to track on-screen. Of course for some people this is perfectly appropriate because they do spend the vast majority of their time entering text.

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

#62

Post by seabee » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 2:02 AM UTC

jawee wrote: post #31

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is tablet PCs, Nokia Internet Tablets and iPads are all different concepts of a 'tablet', confusingly called the same thing. Compare to Macs and PCs which are both clearly 'personal computers'.

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

#63

Post by _delirium » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 2:52 AM UTC

foljs wrote: post #53

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Creating a market equals popularizing it. A market of 10 people is not much of a market at all.

It wasn't a huge market, but it wasn't trivial either. The numbers I can find are around $1.5 billion/year sales in the mid-2000s.

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

#64

Post by darshan » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 9:20 AM UTC

joeguilmette wrote: post #45

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not just a huge iPod touch. Yes, it is. The only difference you're seeing is that developers for iOS apps have accommodated for the additional screen real estate after its release. Developers of Android apps haven't yet because the OS isn't officially ready for tablets until Honeycomb. Once an official Android tablet is released post-Honeycomb can you actually start to make comparisons.

I would agree that the iPad is essentially a giant iPod touch. Owning both an iPhone and an iPad, i see this as a massive compliment. I disagree that you can't compare an iPad to a Galaxy Tab. Of course you can. They are both tablets. If Android 'isn't ready' ready for tablets then they shouldn't be selling them. But they are. Which means you can make comparisons and draw conclusions about iOS vs Android in regards t…

"Android" isn't selling tablets.

Android is an open-source operating system for smartphones. Some manufacturers have taken this smartphone OS and released tablets using it, and you're certainly free to compare them with the iPad. Any such comparison is likely to demonstrate that Apple did well in getting a usable tablet to market well before the competition, but it's fairly pointless to a discussion of the future of the tablet market, however.

Within the next 2-3 months, Android 2.4 (or maybe 3.0; codenamed Honeycomb, in any case) will be released, and at that point it will be an OS designed for both smartphones AND tablets. We're expecting to find out more about this version of Android (and the Motorola tablet Google engineers are designing it for, possibly called the XOOM) at CES in a few days. What little we know so far makes it look that high-end Android tablets will be very competitive with the iPad once a version of Android exists that is designed for tablets.

In summary: kudos to Apple for getting to market first, but things are about to get interesting once we can compare Android-for-tablets with iOS-for-tablets.

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

#65

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 10:15 AM UTC

blinkingled wrote: post #33

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. Ther…

I've been surprised by the number of times I've seen the Galaxy Tab listed on best tech of 2010 lists. Often by people who also own iPads.

I've not had a chance to play with one myself (though I've held one in my hand, turned off) but since some (but not all) of the early reviews were particularly scathing, this seems a bit odd to me.

I think the possibilities are a) Android fanboys lying about the Tab and how good it is b) Apple fanboys lying about the Tab and how bad it is, c) that, for some people, with certain needs the Galaxy Tab is already better than Apple's iPad, due to size, weight, hotspot capabilities, built in cameras, network availability or whatever and that the things that Arment and Gruber value aren't universal values.

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

#66

Post by axod » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 10:27 AM UTC

Xuzz wrote: post #51

axod wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Funny, I spend the majority of my time on the couch using an iPad (and happily tapping away on my lap, if I have to use the keyboard, which I usually don't).

That sounds like a really bad position for your neck - staring down at your lap.

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

#67

Post by axod » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 10:29 AM UTC

spa942 wrote: post #25

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.

A lot of people were not seeing that, which is probably why Apple was able to launch a 10" $500 tablet without any competitors in the market.

It's still a rich persons toy though, or bought as an additional computer rather than to replace something else.

I don't see it going mainstream, or replacing laptops.

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

#68

Post by axod » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 10:32 AM UTC

jsz0 wrote: post #61

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.

Removing the abstraction of a pointing device and interacting directly with the GUI is a big deal. If you watch most people use a computer they spend the vast majority of their time tracking a pointing device and occasionally typing some text. Laptops are designed around the idea that most users are going to spend the vast majority of their time entering text and occasionally using a pointing device to track on-scree…

So just make more touchscreen laptops.

A tablet is just irritating because it cant stand up on its own.

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

#69

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 12:01 PM UTC

axod wrote: post #68

jsz0 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Removing the abstraction of a pointing device and interacting directly with the GUI is a big deal. If you watch most people use a computer they spend the vast majority of their time tracking a pointing device and occasionally typing some text. Laptops are designed around the idea that most users are going to spend the vast majority of their time entering text and occasionally using a pointing device to track on-scree…

So just make more touchscreen laptops. A tablet is just irritating because it cant stand up on its own.

I've got a touchscreen laptop. It lets my 3-year old muck around with Tux Paint and educational Flash games but it's not much more useful than that. You'd really need both a transformable hardware setup, and two entirely different UI paradigms for it to make sense. And it would still be hard to compete with a netbook plus a tablet for most folks.

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

#70

Post by blinkingled » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 2:29 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #65

blinkingled wrote: post #33

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. Ther…

I've been surprised by the number of times I've seen the Galaxy Tab listed on best tech of 2010 lists. Often by people who also own iPads. I've not had a chance to play with one myself (though I've held one in my hand, turned off) but since some (but not all) of the early reviews were particularly scathing, this seems a bit odd to me. I think the possibilities are a) Android fanboys lying about the Tab and how good i…

I actually wondered about the mixed Tab reviews too. Andy Ihnatko's review gave me a clue - the Apple fan reviewers who compared the Tab against iPad almost invariably did not like it. But those who looked at it independent of the iPad, like Ihnatko does in this review - http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/2680861-452/tab-i... - liked it ( a lot in Andy's case).

Bottom line my take is that it is a good device in its own right and the price over iPad is at least somewhat justified given the additions of 2 cameras, more RAM, SD Card, better GPU etc. and the 7" size is definitely a good one.