Slashdot Mirror
Why Everyone Has High Hopes For Apple Tablet
waderoush writes "The deafening roar of anticipation around Apple's expected 'iSlate' announcement on January 27 is strange, to say the least, given the public's utter apathy about tablet computers to date. What's going on? Xconomy's analysis makes three points. 1) Previous tablet makers have shown little imagination around UIs and how a touchscreen changes things. 2) With the iPhone, Apple has shown what's possible in this regard. 3) There's latent demand for a mobile computing device that's smaller and lighter than a laptop but has more screen real estate than a smartphone — something reminiscent of a Star Trek tricorder or PADD. Hence the hopes for the iSlate — which are so high that it may be difficult for even Apple to meet them."
You were modded 'Flamebait"?!?!
WTF, there are Google fanbois now?!?
Jesus Titty Fucking Christ, people! It's an operating system. It's a product of a giant corporation. Apple, MS, Google, IBM etc... are businesses!
It never ceases to amaze me how folks can base their identity on the stupidest shit and get insulted because of a comment about a PRODUCT!
Some of you are just as stupid as the "sheepeople" you like to disparage.
i suspect apple may indeed have a better chance here then previous, and upcoming, windows based products, because what microsoft did was basically bolt on stylus/finger input on top of the existing windows ui.
sure, that allows them to leverage the existing software ecosystem, but its a ecosystem thats been focused on a mouse pointer that can hover over a area of the screen without there being a interaction unless a physical button is pushed.
so if apple comes up with a "islate" it will be based on the iphone ui, not the osx ui, and as such will have limited software at first (tho i suspect they will have a quick route to port iphone apps using the new screen size and some new api).
what i find interesting right now is not the win7 based products showed of at ces, but the android based smartbooks and other related products. See the HP demo for instance, where they have reworked the keyboard and trackpad to fit android use. The problem for android is the same as for iphone, where a larger screen may require a reworking of the UI of a app. This unless it was made using vector graphics in the first place (or where its mostly text, so it can be reflowed to fit). Still, android is the newcomer, and have less inertia built up (altho apple have a history of giving the third party developers the proverbial middle finger if needed, unlike for example microsoft, whos old dos bugs still exist in some form to attempt to keep old software still working) and so can get interested parties to adapt to new screen sizes quickly (they introduced support for variable screen sizes in 1.6, iirc).
and so far i would say that the fragmentation of android have been minimal, as the interfaces shown are more or less reskins of the android interface, with some extra widgets and similar added. And android was built for this level of modification. The one place where one may notice a issue is with apps using the NDK to get extra speed, rather then working thru the java vm.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
You are an idiot and a moron. You are stupid beyond the simple understanding of the term. You simply demonstrate a level never before seen.
Apple has not turned computing back at all, much less 30 years. The idea doesn't even make sense. The iPhone represents the latest techniques in hardware manufacture. The software is written using a complete object-oriented framework that simplifies the use of many technologies that didn't even exist 30 years ago.
You can start by not being a pompous blowhard. No. Seriously. Give it a shot.
I thought you had to be a pompous blowhard to buy an Apple product. If that isn't true, why are all the people I know who own Apple products pompous blowhards?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
They will buy anything that man spraypaints silver.
You, the article submitter, and Apple fans may be waiting for the next Apple product. But, contrary to TFS's claim, the rest of the world is not.
This is just the first part of the Apple product cycle - it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The media whips up unsourced weasel worded claims about how "everyone" is interested in what is still nothing more than vaporware, and then as a result of the media awareness, Apple fans go "Look how interested 'everyone' is in it!".
There are plenty of tablets already on the market. Let's have some articles on them, rather than vaporware. If Apple bring a product to market, sure, maybe that might be worth a single article. What's the betting that we'll end up with a single article every day of the bloody year, just like happened with their less than 5% market share phone that they once produced?
If Apple can pull off a successful hardware release
If, If, If...
I find it interesting that so much Apple praise isn't just about vaporware, but is about mere hopes of some imaginary product that they should release.
Yeah, and I think it'd be really cool if Amiga release a super new computer that has the latest 3D graphics and costs only $100, that's just the size of a keyboard. Just because I can imagine it doesn't mean that it'll happen, nor does it mean that there's anything good about Amiga or Apple. The products that you or I describe could just as well be released by any company - by all mean describe your dream product, but that's not a reason to say that one company is any better than any other. Let's judge companies on actual released products and actual market share, right?
And the irony is, it's the PC which is what actually people use now for fun (and work), whilst the main use of the Mac has always been as a (niche) work computer.
Apple is a lifestyle brand now. The view that their growth is driven by the hard core of designers and fan boys is outdated.
That doesn't make sense - you're arguing they don't sell to fans, but saying they're a lifestyle brand? I want a computer that just works, and not something that's a "lifestyle brand".
They don't need it anymore. They're front-page news in major newspapers
Apple have always been front page news. They've always been given undeserved amounts of hype, independent of how much market share they actually have - just look at the Iphone. But it's been this way for decades. I imagine it stems for the Mac being traditionally more popular in DTP, so the journalists who write the news are more likely to be Apple fans, and then assume that everyone else must be too.
have product placements in all the most popular shows, movies, and magazines
You do realise that product placement is a form of advertising? Yes, Apple, like most companies, advertise. And obviously they prefer to advertise in popular shows etc. Your point?
Likewise, most Macs sold today will never run Photoshop.
Most Macs today aren't Macs. They're Apple PCs with a "Mac" trademark. Apple may still be around, but the PC won, and custom technologies like Mac hardware and classic MacOS were ditched long ago.