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The Next Six Months

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Re: The Next Six Months

#201

Post by scott_s »

sofuture wrote: post #119
kenjackson wrote: post #19

Microsoft AND Intel being effectively missing from the tablet race is staggering. And there are a few reasons why its staggering: 1) Both have known it was coming, maybe longer than anyone else. But got the core requirements all wrong. 2) No one really seems to care. 3) Related to (2), there is no belief that they have anything up their sleeve. 4) Their existing ecosystem, probably a billion units strong, doesn't see…

I'm going to -4 on this, but: it absolutely still remains to be seen whether or not tablets are worth a damn . Seriously, people play shitty games on them, and I guess read ebooks (though I see vastly more Kindles on the subway, than iPads). I do not, at all see a compelling product yet, I see a trendy gadget that early adopters and trend followers have purchased. Sure there's great lip service to how revolutionary t…

Both of my parents recently retired. Now they're traveling a lot, and they wanted a portable device so they could send pictures, do email, and do basic web browsing. They didn't want a full laptop, and they didn't like the netbooks. So they bought an iPad.

Two weeks later, they bought another one so they wouldn't have to share.

My parents are early-adopters on nothing. They didn't get a car with air-conditioning until the late '90s. They didn't get a microwave until the mid '90s. That they jumped on the iPad when it came out, and then it won them over so immensely that they purchased another tells me something.

Re: The Next Six Months

#202

Post by rahoulb »

thristian wrote: post #82
fleitz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft actually jumped the shark on tablets with the whole XP Tablet edition years ago. The hardware just wasn't ready and interacting with Windows XP and it's app via a stylus is just not compelling. XP Tablet is Microsoft's Newton, an idea ahead of it's time. I think there is an anti-tablet culture at MS stemming from the failure of the early laptop-based tablets. Once MS has a solid hold with Win Phone 7 you'll…

XP? Really? What about Windows for Pen Computing? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_for_Pen_Computing

I'm glad someone remembers Windows for Pen Computing. It's also the first instance I can think of of Microsoft using vapourware to obliterate a potential competitor (Go in this case).

Re: The Next Six Months

#203

Post by code_duck »

sofuture wrote: post #119
kenjackson wrote: post #19

Microsoft AND Intel being effectively missing from the tablet race is staggering. And there are a few reasons why its staggering: 1) Both have known it was coming, maybe longer than anyone else. But got the core requirements all wrong. 2) No one really seems to care. 3) Related to (2), there is no belief that they have anything up their sleeve. 4) Their existing ecosystem, probably a billion units strong, doesn't see…

I'm going to -4 on this, but: it absolutely still remains to be seen whether or not tablets are worth a damn . Seriously, people play shitty games on them, and I guess read ebooks (though I see vastly more Kindles on the subway, than iPads). I do not, at all see a compelling product yet, I see a trendy gadget that early adopters and trend followers have purchased. Sure there's great lip service to how revolutionary t…

Apple, Amazon, etc. are selling these in numbers that rival game consoles. Based on the market's reaction, tablets are neither a fad nor unproven. They're the next major form factor, and I don't see them going away. This format is on the rise as traditional desktop hardware declines.

Desks are not going out of style, so whether the PC is dead isn't necessarily the right question. People will continue to sit at desks and use computers. Microsoft's style of a desktop OS, though, could be on its way out. The hardware will be changing. Gamers, high performance computing (science, 3d, graphic design) and corporate networks will be the only ones who really need the 'tower' style computers. People who just want to read mail, browse the web, listen to music and use office software could basically take a tablet and plug in a monitor, mouse and keyboard for desktop use. Which OS they are going to use, how much flexibility it has and what sort of interface is the big question.

The real contest will be between notebooks, tablets and mini-tablets (previously known as phones). To break it down even more, the issue is whether you have a keyboard, monitor and display ports built in.

I'd love to have a tiny slab the size of a 13" Macbook with no monitor or keyboard (so, even smaller!) that I could use as a desktop. Oh, oops... I just described a Mac Mini. Looks like someone is ahead of me here.

Re: The Next Six Months

#204

Post by alabut »

Tichy wrote: post #200
naner wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I might like to own something similar with a good browser like you mentioned but I can't see consumers buying a lot of Android or Web OS tablets.

Why not? They are buying a lot of Android phones, too.

Only in the U.S., the last country with single carrier exclusivity. Android isn't doing as well internationally.

Re: The Next Six Months

#206

Post by Samuel_Michon »

jasonkester wrote: post #184
bruceboughton wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You take it into the Apple store. You know, the stores with great tech support that don't exist for PCs (yet).

Did you actually read the comment you're replying to? In this particular anecdote, the nearest Apple store would have been in San Diego, 3200 miles away. The nearest internet connected computer capable of downloading iTunes was a mere 150 miles away in Buenaventura, a 2 hour motor launch, followed by a (weekly) night boat from the village I was in. It was meant to illustrate that sometimes you take your mobile device…

Not to detract from your point, but the nearest Apple Store to Buenaventura, Colombia is in Miami, Florida. That's only a 1,520 mile journey :)

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=distance+miami%2C+fl+to...

Re: The Next Six Months

#207

Post by lukifer »

toadi wrote: post #194

The end of the PC era is always announced. But don't see how I can do my daily work on a Ipad. I need a laptop or PC.

The hyperbole of the language belies the underlying truth: not the death of the PC, but a widening of the spectrum in which PCs are a minority among numerous types of computing devices.

Re: The Next Six Months

#208

Post by allwein »

cletus wrote: post #132

I mostly agree with Gruber but disagree on a couple of major points: 1. Releasing the iPad in September makes no sense simply because it was such a massive hit in the holiday season. Generally speaking, you want to spread out your demand as much as possible. It took 2 months to get the previous iPad from the US to the first round of international markets and another 3-4 months to do the full round. You can only produ…

>I also fully agree with Gruber on a rear-facing camera making very little sense on a device that large.

A rear-facing camera makes little sense if you imagine the use is for people to walk around taking pictures like they would with a phone. However, when you start imagining uses like Augmented Reality or other situations where you're interacting with real world artifacts, then it makes a little more sense.

Re: The Next Six Months

#209

Post by dstein »

eftpotrm wrote: post #192
dstein wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be no desktop market. That's the disruption.

You really see offices full of workers staring at tablet PCs, trains & planes full of road warriors bashing out long reports on touchscreens? The home market may primarily shift to tablets; I'm not convinced by that and I think there's still a problem with the use case for content creators on tablets which includes an awful lot of school children. But the market I absolutely can't see abandoning PCs as we see them no…

Watch it happen.

Tablets cost considerably less than desktop computers. There is nothing preventing you from being able to plug a second monitor and a mouse into a tablet and use it exactly the same way that you use a laptop and a desktop today.

Re: The Next Six Months

#210

Post by dgabriel »

unp3rs0n wrote: post #152
mjfern wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft AND Intel being effectively missing from the tablet race is staggering. The real staggering fact is that it's just not the tablet market. Both Microsoft and Intel are also absent or significantly behind in smart phones, eBook readers, portable media players, connected TVs, and almost every market that represents computing (devices) beyond the PC for consumers.

you are missing the xbox.

The xbox/zune/netflix combo is really amazing. And the kinect is poised to create a different revolution in a different space. Tablets are not the whole future of computing, not by a long shot.
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