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The Chair

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Re: The Chair

#2
The tech press needs to play up the competition to the iPad as much as possible, because drama drives clicks. But the reality is that Apple's iPad is so far ahead of everything else that it's almost out of sight. Have you used one of the 'iPad killers'? That is not competition. It's a joke. You can't even buy any of them, except for Samsung's Galaxy Tab. [And the Motorola Xoom, but only at retail Best Buy in America, from what I can tell.]

I applaud Samsung [and Motorola] for giving it a real try, but I think they fall short of the iPad. Few people are buying those things. I wouldn't, myself. I have some Android phones, but I probably won't get an Android tablet, if Honeycomb indicates where the platform is heading.

The lack of competition is allowing Apple to, rightfully, do whatever it wants to with the App Store. And I don't see the situation changing anytime soon. Apple is making the rest of the consumer tech industry look incompetent.

edit: Updated with Xoom.

Re: The Chair

#3
post #2

The tech press needs to play up the competition to the iPad as much as possible, because drama drives clicks. But the reality is that Apple's iPad is so far ahead of everything else that it's almost out of sight. Have you used one of the 'iPad killers'? That is not competition. It's a joke. You can't even buy any of them, except for Samsung's Galaxy Tab. [And the Motorola Xoom, but only at retail Best Buy in America,…

Well the Xoom has now been released as well, so in theory it's competition as well.

But you are right, in reality there is no competition. There are a lot of people out there who think competition is on specs alone - #slots, ports, ram, memory, etc. Because that's how it was in the PC era. They are wrong.

Re: The Chair

#4
post #3
post #2

The tech press needs to play up the competition to the iPad as much as possible, because drama drives clicks. But the reality is that Apple's iPad is so far ahead of everything else that it's almost out of sight. Have you used one of the 'iPad killers'? That is not competition. It's a joke. You can't even buy any of them, except for Samsung's Galaxy Tab. [And the Motorola Xoom, but only at retail Best Buy in America,…

Well the Xoom has now been released as well, so in theory it's competition as well. But you are right, in reality there is no competition. There are a lot of people out there who think competition is on specs alone - #slots, ports, ram, memory, etc. Because that's how it was in the PC era. They are wrong.

[deleted]

Re: The Chair

#5
post #2

The tech press needs to play up the competition to the iPad as much as possible, because drama drives clicks. But the reality is that Apple's iPad is so far ahead of everything else that it's almost out of sight. Have you used one of the 'iPad killers'? That is not competition. It's a joke. You can't even buy any of them, except for Samsung's Galaxy Tab. [And the Motorola Xoom, but only at retail Best Buy in America,…

You can't even buy any of them, except for Samsung's Galaxy Tab.

The Xoom is available now.

Re: The Chair

#6
post #2

The tech press needs to play up the competition to the iPad as much as possible, because drama drives clicks. But the reality is that Apple's iPad is so far ahead of everything else that it's almost out of sight. Have you used one of the 'iPad killers'? That is not competition. It's a joke. You can't even buy any of them, except for Samsung's Galaxy Tab. [And the Motorola Xoom, but only at retail Best Buy in America,…

Many of the companies in the consumer electronics spent the last decade wasting energy trying to screw each other over interoperability and standards issues - failing to agree because none of them wanted one of the others to gain an advantage.

Meanwhile Apple just ignored the silly games and built their own end-to-end ecosystem.

It's not lack of competition that's killing the rest of the industry - it's lack of cooperation.

Re: The Chair

#7
post #2

The tech press needs to play up the competition to the iPad as much as possible, because drama drives clicks. But the reality is that Apple's iPad is so far ahead of everything else that it's almost out of sight. Have you used one of the 'iPad killers'? That is not competition. It's a joke. You can't even buy any of them, except for Samsung's Galaxy Tab. [And the Motorola Xoom, but only at retail Best Buy in America,…

You can't even buy any of them, except for Samsung's Galaxy Tab. The Xoom is available now.

Unfortunately I found it to be, well, shit compared to the iPad. I bought one for the lure of speed and returned it the next day when I realized that speed was very low on the list of properties that actually mattered. The total user experience is just far worse.

The Xoom feels like a PC that has better specs than a Mac. Yes, the frame rate is higher but the game sucks.

I seriously wish that webOS is going to show Apple some real competition. It's not healthy for one company to be so far ahead. Power corrupts.

Re: The Chair

#8
post #2

The tech press needs to play up the competition to the iPad as much as possible, because drama drives clicks. But the reality is that Apple's iPad is so far ahead of everything else that it's almost out of sight. Have you used one of the 'iPad killers'? That is not competition. It's a joke. You can't even buy any of them, except for Samsung's Galaxy Tab. [And the Motorola Xoom, but only at retail Best Buy in America,…

Precisely. I don't think people understand just how huge of a deal the iPad really is. They're well on their way into a defining a huge product category in a bigger way than Microsoft defined PCs to be Windows. I don't think their competition can compete effectively; price is cheaper, software is better, hardware is better, UX is easier, even the store is a more pleasant experience, which is important, because that is when the largest transaction actually takes place. It's scary thinking how far ahead of the competition they are.

Re: The Chair

#9
Wow, that was as good an iPad ad as Apple could come up with on their own. Apple would be stupid to hire Gruber on internally as he manages to stay on message on his own.

Re: The Chair

#10
post #2

The tech press needs to play up the competition to the iPad as much as possible, because drama drives clicks. But the reality is that Apple's iPad is so far ahead of everything else that it's almost out of sight. Have you used one of the 'iPad killers'? That is not competition. It's a joke. You can't even buy any of them, except for Samsung's Galaxy Tab. [And the Motorola Xoom, but only at retail Best Buy in America,…

Serious competition with the iPhone took time to emerge, but it did. It's a temporary advantage, not a permanent one, as are all such advantages. Just as in the iPhone arena, Apple won't stand still but eventually it will not be able to singlehandedly defeat everybody on all fronts.

But while they lead, they will rake in the bucks, and more power to them. I don't want them to be the only viable company out there and I'm not personally a fan of their products per se (don't "hate" them but they do not sing to me) but I'm glad they're out there pushing the envelope in a way few other companies are. Smartphones and tablets would still have happened eventually but I'm sure they moved the timeline up a good two or three years. (I wouldn't go much further though; the major factor driving the iPad is that the tech is finally ready. You simply couldn't build an iPad as recently as 2007 and have anything like the same experience at any price.)

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