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iPad killed the netbook market.

The iPad was the final nail in the coffin. The netbook (inspired by the original OLPC), of which the original EEE PC was an exemplar, ran Linux, cost $300, had a small cheap (but fast enough) SSD and made a great email, web and IM terminal... this scared the shit out of both Intel and Microsoft... who consequently conspired to kill or cripple it [1] [2]. So Intel flooded the low-end market with the gfx-gimped Atom and Microsoft twisted the arms of companies like Asus, Acer and the like to drop Linux. Then they pushed 160GB HDs (sounds a lot better value than a 16GB SSD, right?), and saddled it down with Vista/Win7 Starter.

This was around 2008/2009, long before the iPad arrived. When iPad did hit the market, it fully capitalized on this strategy of "lets keep netbooks crappy" by offering their take: lighter, app-store, and dead sexy.

[1] http://gizmodo.com/5270094/the-netbook-conspiracy-intel-and-microsoft-collude-to-keep-netbooks-crappy
[2] http://samj.net/2009/02/conspiracy-theories-about-intels-role.html

Seriously, is that him? Or some troll? It seems bizarre that he would make public comments like that.

Well, yes. He's usually hiding under his Skyline Cowboy moniker. To come forward under his real name is something new. But then - this isn't quite the same ammunition he uses normally; there's no personal attack or bounty associated with this "proof".

As I've explained in detail here and here, while the underlying concept is sound, the implementation has many problems:
  - "rev" is deprecated in HTML 5, so essentially a non-starter
  - "rev" and "rel" are easily confused - use the wrong one and you may well drop off the Internet
  - messing with the canonical URLs is dangerous
  - taking rather than giving canonical-ness is dangerous
  - the solution can only work for one URL (the canonical URL itself), when there can be an infinite number

A *much* better solution is to use rel="shortcut" to specify a short (but not necessarily shortest or even shorter) URL. Other alternatives like "short" are ambiguous as to whether it is the URL or its target which is "short", and "alternate shorter" are just plain wrong.

Sam

As I've explained in detail here and here, while the underlying concept is sound, the implementation has many problems:
  - "rev" is deprecated in HTML 5, so essentially a non-starter
  - "rev" and "rel" are easily confused - use the wrong one and you may well drop off the Internet
  - messing with the canonical URLs is dangerous
  - taking rather than giving canonical-ness is dangerous
  - the solution can only work for one URL (the canonical URL itself), when there can be an infinite number

A *much* better solution is to use rel="shortcut" to specify a short (but not necessarily shortest or even shorter) URL. Other alternatives like "short" are ambiguous as to whether it is the URL or its target which is "short", and "alternate shorter" are just plain wrong.

Sam

Yeah I expect the "iPad" (for want of a better name) to be more like an iPhone than a MacBook.

See Crystal Ball: Apple's $599 "iPad" Netbook (with pictures) for more.

Sam