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."
Expectations were high for the iPhone and yet Apple surpassed all the wildest predictions.
Expectations are even higher with the slate. but competition is trying hard to diminish any possible announcement (like the no-show of Balmer at CES) pointing to the competition not being ready whatsoever.
As for Android catching up, read up on developer's issues with the Android platform. Google's failure to properly guide the platform has created a slew of inoperable devices having their own software layers on top, and hardware specs that are so far off to each other that developers are having a hard time coping with hardware difference.
Their new phone might help, but Google managed to screw up their own platform to day, further delaying any viable competition for Apple.
So, instead of conjecturing, let's just see what Apple has to announce at the end of the month. It could very well be the next iPhone success story.
Sit it on your lap at an angle. It's a self contained unit like a phone so there
is no need to have a bulky monitor mounted vertically that's attached to some big
box on the floor. You don't use this sort of device like a PC. It's not a PC.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
iphone only became usable with the 3G and 3GS added business features
the original iphone only had a real browser while packing less features than cheaper cell phones
Apple knew they'd be releasing after CES, so they had to play the expectation game to depress sales of competing products. Would you buy a tablet now if you knew that a company that has a track record of being a game changer is going to release a tablet? We know the design will be elegant, and we know through patent searches their tablet could have some interesting features. What will it do? Think of what market they haven't disrupted? That is a clue to the possible functions of the tablet. Will they even release a tablet? We won't know until the Steve says "one more thing."
photosMy Photostream
A problem that utterly destroyed the work of amateurs like DaVinci, Michaelangelo, and Raphael, right?
Well, yes, it can, and more -- by zooming in. And also by utilizing technologies such as bezier and spline curves. Methinks thou protests a bit too much. Also, even if you are stuck with the type of drawing you describe, it doesn't mean that others will be.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
"Expectations are even higher with the slate."
They are? I remember people talking about the iPhone and how they were planning to get one...why can I not find anyone talking about the Apple tablet now?
"competition is trying hard to diminish any possible announcement (like the no-show of Balmer at CES) pointing to the competition not being ready whatsoever."
Actually, Apple's competition already makes tablets, and they have been making them for years now. People were excited about an Apple tablet years ago, with a bit of a bump in that excitement when the iPhone was released, but at this point it is just an overdue entry to an already crowded market.
"As for Android catching up, read up on developer's issues with the Android platform."
Right, let's just ignore how many people are actually using Android, and focus on unhappy developers. This is kind of like saying, "Mac OS X catching up to Windows?! Nonsense! Look at how many developers are pissed off about Objective C!"
Palm trees and 8
>Apple enters the market with their own device, which has a bunch of features that may or may not have been seen in other devices, but on the whole is a very well integrated package. Somehow, they saw a way to make the product work.
This really shows a lack of knowledge of Apple's history.
1. The Newton. Palm made this work. Not Apple. Later on Apple copied the Treo format (phone + PDA) Palm made popular and merged it with a virtual keyboard.
2. Apple Pippin. Failed game/multimedia console. Nintendo64 and PS2 got it right.
3. Power Mac G4 Cube. Failed on the market. Infamous for cracking case. Now, there's no shortage of small cube PCs. The PC world got this right.
4. Apple QuickTake. Failed digital camera. Everyone gets this right.
5. Macintosh TV. Failed TV/PC combo. Now TV is just a PCI card away or done with steaming/downloading.
6. Apple's "Hockey Puck" USB Mouse. No one gets this right because its such a bad idea.
7. eMate. Low cost Newton based PC. OLPC and others get this right.
Apple tries a lot of things and they fail more often than they succeed. The idea that theyre the ones who can fix the tablet market is a bit of stretch. Heck, I like tablets, but I understand their limitations, especially in regards to keyboards/inputs. Perhaps it will have something like the iwheel.
>Who writes anything anymore?
Mathematicians, Engineers, Physicists, and basically anyone in a technical field of work or study have to resort to writing because inserting mathematical or engineering symbology on-the-fly while typing is very tedious at best.
I love typing, and I am very fast at it, and it worked great for all of my liberal arts studies.
But for the real work, I have to use pencil and paper.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
This was always a sticking point for me in the Mac vs Windows debate. Windows users complain about the one button mouse as if it's a crippling feature, when in fact, the MacOS UI was designed with a one button mouse. Granted, once you go to third party apps like, say, photoshop or UT2004, you're longing for the right click, I suppose, but it does make it a less cumbersome interface for MacOS itself, as well as apps designed for the environment to have only the one button.
I work tech support for a windows heavy environment, and the bottom end users are so mind bogglingly confused about the two buttons that it's laughable.
"Click on the icon"
"Right click or left click?"
"If I say click, I just mean left click"
"Ok, it brought up a menu.."
"No, you right clicked on it, use the left button"
"Oh.. Now i have a properties window"
"No, you left clicked the menu.. not the icon.. close that and start over"
"Ok, I have the menu up again, now what? I right click on properties?"
"... bring it in, I'll do it"