Slashdot Mirror
MSI Will Launch iPad Alternative
itwbennett writes "Underwhelmed by the iPad? Don't give up on tablets just yet, says blogger Peter Smith. MSI has a tablet coming in the second half of 2010 that measures up on price and size and addresses a lot of the iPad's most noted shortcomings. 'The iPad runs iPhone OS while the MSI runs Android,' writes Smith. 'That means the MSI will multitask of course, and Flash support in Android should be a given by launch time (though that isn't certain). It has a camera. It's running on an Nvidia Tegra2 chip which Ars Technica suggests puts it on par with the iPad's A4 as far as computing horsepower. And of course Android doesn't live in a walled garden.'" The post notes that the MSI device does not support multitouch in its built-in apps. Still, would an Android-powered iPad-alike tempt you?
Update: 01/29 17:58 GMT by KD : Dave Altavilla suggests Hot Hardware's coverage of Asus's recently announced tablet, also based on the Tegra2 chip.
Update: 01/29 17:58 GMT by KD : Dave Altavilla suggests Hot Hardware's coverage of Asus's recently announced tablet, also based on the Tegra2 chip.
While Apple may prove that it is indeed possible to put a better-than-TN LCD panel in a small (laptop-like) form factor, MSI would do well to follow the lead on quality.
That might provoke Lenovo to bring something back to their laptops that has been missing for a while.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I've yet to see a compelling reason to pay more for a tablet. My Acer Aspire cost less than any tablet I've seen yet but does quite a bit more. The only thing it is missing is the touch component but I have yet to find an app that makes me care.
If someone comes out with a tablet that is prices competitively with notebooks and has the same level of features, I'd think about it more seriously.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Highly doubt the Tegra 2 is on par with the A4, unless the A4 has a dual-core Cortex A9... Info suggests the A4 is only a single core Cortex A9 which would make the Tegra2 at least 2x more powerful. Not to mention Nvidia vs ARM based graphics core.
I think it has more promise than the iWidgets do.
It's a more open platform which IMHO gives it more potential.
It's not about "do more things," it's about "do very few things better."
That's why Apple wins.
My wife asked about the iPad last night (she owns a netbook right now) and now she's drooling over one. Why? It doesn't have "files." It doesn't have "windows." She won't have to worry about "flash drives." And so on. She was so excited about all the things it didn't have (and that she therefore didn't have to worry about) that she was disappointed when I told her they weren't in the Apple Store in Manhattan yet.
Meanwhile, the geeks are running around blasting Apple products for all the things they "don't have" and recommending complex alternatives.
That's why Apple is making $$$ these days. Because they're removing 60 percent of the features and making the remaining 40 percent configuration free and so polished they make your eyes hurt.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
http://bonkel.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/windows-7-and-kde4-multitouch/ So, wait NOT.
Touch interfaces are nice. And multi touch is nicer.
I had to go back from a touchscreen TomTom satnav to a non-touchscreen Garmin -- it just felt unwieldy.
Once I'd used an iPod Touch for a while, I kept wanting to pinch-zoom the map on the TomTom.
There are certain things that just feel nice with mult-touch, and it also saves space by doing away with a trackpad.
As a frivolous example - a game like Crayon Physics will be tremendously more satisfying on a touch tablet, than when played with a mouse. But things like photo browsers, drawing apps, etc. will also benefit.
They need to solve the problem of so many things needing text entry, though. Decent handwriting recognition is surely the answer.
Check out 1:12.
He is scrolling through the pics, he exits out, then tries to open the photos again. Instead of seeing the picture, he sees an error box stating
"There is not enough memory to load the photo".
Seems a bit... sad.
If you don't know the meaning of a common semi-technical phrase, it's probably better to just look it up, than to loudly proclaim what you don't know.
Or, actually, the post asks the right question in the wrong place.
The question is not what'd be popular on Slashdot - we're not representative of the wider population by almost any stretch of the imagination. Of course Slashdotters want multitasking, want to be able to install ssh, want the option to run their own web server on the thing. Slashdotters will want the darn tablet to support FLAC and Ogg Vorbis/Theora.
But the things that'd make this really popular with Slashdotters are not the same things that'll make a tablet a commercial success. It's pretty obvious the majority of people don't care about multitasking (as long as they can listen to their tunes while they do other things - which is true of the iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, and most any other device), nor about Apple's "walled garden". What they do care about is the availability of the apps they want and that the features the tablet offers are easy to use and work well.
#DeleteChrome
people.
"I can either outfit you with Gentoo on an 64-way 128GB NUMA server with a 16TB ZFS RAID that you access via ssh over gigabit ethernet... or with your basic hunk of steel... if the 64-way Linux box is too complicated for you. No, you don't want that iPad. All it does it access the web, your email, Facebook, YouTube, and iTunes with the touch of a finger, but only over a wireless network so unspecial you'll find it anywhere in the world, and it doesn't do anything beyond that, really. Oh, and it won't force you to learn anything while you're at it. Naw, either stick to the Gentoo server or the hunk of steel, those are your two best bets, depending on what sort of person you are."
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
You make a valid point - Slashdot is not the market segment Apple is aiming at with the iPad. Rather, it's the woman in my class whom I overhead saying "I was thinking about getting a Kindle, but now I might get the iPad - it looks cooler and can do more stuff" or my buddy whom I saw last night saying "The iPad looks so cool, and it's CHEAP! [for an Apple product]"
Problem is, I pointed out to my friend that since the iPad lacks flash, he won't be able to watch Hulu on it. He was very disappointed to hear this. Unless, of course, Hulu releases an iPhone/iPad app. There was a rumor about that last year, but nothing solid so far. ATT complains that the iPhone is already killing their network, think they will really want to let Hulu on the iPhone? How will Apple feel about Hulu as a potential competitor to iTunes? Yeah, there are other streaming apps, but still.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
with my wife hating multitasking. She never closes a thing (tab, application, etc.) and invariably runs out of memory. Often, there are dozens of background processes. Her hard drive starts to thrash. Things grind to a halt. I get called.
I've tried to explain about things taking up memory, the problem of lots of background applications, the problem of never closing applications. She doesn't want to know what memory even IS. "Why is the computer so stupid," she wants to know, "that it can't figure out that I only care about what I'm working on RIGHT NOW?"
Say what you want, but a) she's my wife, b) she's rather beautiful, c) it's absolutely impossible to even try to say "okay, let me explain to you why..." and d) Apple's gonna continue to make bank selling devices to people just like her.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
How would you like it if this hypothetical tablet of yours came standard with a magnet that would let you stick it to your fridge while you cook?
The Always Innovating Touchbook does just that. The problem? They are hand assembled in batches after enough orders are in to cover the cost of materials. So you would be looking at a 3+ month wait to receive one at the moment.
If you want a real word processor or spreadsheet, then just bite the bullet and get N900 - it can actually run OpenOffice (UI not optimized for small screen, though... but still usable). So far as I know, this is unmatched by any competitor today, and none of them have plans to get anywhere even close in near future.
Or maybe Apple decided that the interface with tablets wasn't up to snuff for being a general purpose computer but it could work as a device with specific uses in mind. Apple seems to care about the user experience and they probably figured out that by pissing off the small percentage of people like you they could provide a sellable experience to everyone else.
Trying to be all things to all people generally doesn't work out well. Doing a limited selection of things but doing them well tends to be the better choice. (Do you complain that your chef's knife doesn't have a saw and screwdriver and awl and flashlight?)
1.0 Ghz processor versus 1.66 Ghz processor
128 MB of RAM (assumed like iPhone, not explicitly stated in specs) versus 1024 MB of RAM
16 GB of storage versus 160 GB of storage
No webcam versus a webcam
No keyboard versus a keyboard
No Flash veruss Flash
No multi-tasking versus multi-tasking
No Windows or Linux apps versus install whatever you want
$500 versus $300.
The iPad does have a touchscreen. Does that offset the $200 and all other disadvantages?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Sure, it's "her own fucking problem" and it looks like iPad is how she's going to solve it, judging by her excitement at watching the YouTube videos and my answers to her questions about it last night. I'm sure you don't care.
Maybe you think she's an idiot. Maybe I'm really bad at explaining. Both of those things have little to do with my suggestion that geeks will likely continue to wonder until the end of time why not everyone wants a bare/caseless single board computer that fits inside a coffee cup, runs embedded Linux, and is hackable for umpteen million projects.
I'm just ruminating on all the Slashdot anti-Apple posting and the apparent geek frustration at the success of Apple.
A: "Apple sucks!"
B: "Regular people like Apple!"
A: "But Apple isn't a hackable Linux embedded device with hooks for 23 language APIs!"
B: "Regular people don't want that!"
A: "Then regular people are really stupid and deserve to be dominated and reamed!"
B: "?!!?"
A: "By the way, why don't people like us, and why can't I get a girlfriend?"
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
[...] they probably figured out that by pissing off the small percentage of people like you they could provide a sellable experience to everyone else.
I agree with you except for this part, because it seems that by playing on the massive hype, Apple have disappointed more than a small percentage of people, meanwhile the "everyone else" that this will appeal to is likely to be a much smaller niche market. You can't afford to disappoint a massive section of your potential/existing market even if it does gain you the undying adoration of a very small majority of said market. At least the previous devices (iPod, Air, iPhone, et al) had more than niche market appeal.
Of course I would not expect you tell your wife that.
Really, your wife is really really ignorant or just really good at selling you on her buying a new toy.
I know lots of people who are bad with computers, I certainly do my best to make sure they don't touch one
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Every iPhone app I have (yes, that's the iPhone famous for "not multitasking") stores complete state information when it exits.
Safari comes back with all the same tabs and windows open. It doesn't have to reload them. It is scrolled to exactly the same place I was at. Partially filled out forms are still partially filled out.
The document I was working on in DocsToGo is exactly the way it looked (with the cursor in exactly the same place).
It's COMPLETELY state-stable and FAST, there's no "saving state" when you switch applications, because they store their state continuously as it evolves.
I am a power Linux user. I HAVE a home-built hardware RAID sitting here on my desktop, along with a triple-head display.
I run from the updates-testing repos on Fedora. I have patched my own radeon_drv.so Xorg module to fix the infamous compositing corruption bug (for those who care, when doing copy-from-screen, first do a test to see if the bitmap being copied is smaller than 32 pixels; if it is, don't copy-from, because the bitmap hasn't made it into the buffer yet to be copied back from).
I'm the sort you'd think would be bugged as hell with "no multitasking."
Only I'm totally not. As far as I'm concerned, for an interface on a tiny screen (where you're unlikely to have multiple windows onscreen at once), perfect stateful information is damn close to multitasking.
The only thing that can't be approximated is background processes (i.e. start it and let it compute while I work on something else), but it's not like I'm going to do a 20-day render on my iPhone, is it? Nor on my iPad.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
rather than a better Kindle?
In fact, you're imposing your own arbitrary perspectives.
The Kindle is also your basic good old fashioned Von Neumann architecture computer with inputs and outputs. Even a keyboard and a display, in fact.
So why is the iPad a "poor computer" and not an "insanely great Kindle?"
In fact, why is it either?
I have a Kindle. I love it. I use it to read books.
I have a computer. I love it. I use it to manage data, code, and do research.
I have an iPhone. I love it. I use it to web browse, email, Facebook, and watch YouTube videos.
I don't walk around musing about how the computer is the "real" computer and the other two are just pale imitations of it, or how the Kindle is the "real" Kindle and the other two are just pale imitations of it, etc.
iPad is a device with specific properties and limitations that will serve some users well and other users not at all. The latter should not buy it. But I suspect that members of the latter group who have been marching around on /. for two days making fun of iPad and suggesting either that (1) nobody will buy it or (2) that nobody should buy it are a little myopic, to say the least.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
"For a Mac user it is obvious and when they switch to Windows they wonder why when they try to close one window every other window with that app closes too."
The "shutdown" button isn't used to close the current window.
One thing that geeks here on slashdot don't seem to understand is the concept of "target market". Often times they assume that just because a product doesn't have some geek feature that they would like, they think the product cannot possibly succeed in the larger population in general. Geeks here on slashdot want certain features. Some of them want more control and configurability. These are not bad things; but geeks here have to understand that they are not everyone. General consumers want different things.
Where Apple has succeeded in the past, contrary to the dire predictions of geeks, is that Apple does not design their products for geeks. They design their products for a target audience. Most of their products are designed for average consumers.
MP3 players existed before Apple. When Apple entered the market, there were two distinct categories: large HD players with GB capacities that were the size of portable CD players and smaller pocket-sized flash RAM players that could hold at most 128MB. While the iPod didn't have all the technical features that geeks here wanted (some of which were not included in other players for years), Apple focused on other aspects which appealed to average consumers. First it was only slightly larger than the flash RAM players but could nearly as much as the larger players. Second, to get music onto a player back then was a pain which required the patience and know-how of a geek. You had to find a ripper and then an encoder which was separate of the program that managed loading the music onto the player. Apple worked on making the music transfer as simple as possible. iTunes did all three.
Years ago, Apple released the MacBook Air. This product was different from other Apple products as it was designed for a different target audience than the average consumer. The MacBook is designed for average consumers; the Air is designed for road warriors who need a lighter computer and some computing needs. But for most slashdot geeks, since it wasn't powerful to decode the human genome instanteously and at the same time, weighed more than a feather, they deemed it a failure.
In 2007, Apple released the iPhone. It was a smartphone designed for average consumers. Unlike the Blackberry, the iPhone was not intended for business or corporate users. Again, the exlusion of a long list of technical features slashdot geeks wanted meant it was doomed to fail.
Some of the same criticisms are being repeated again with the iPad:
Here's where I see this product's market: Those who want more capabilities than a Kindle but not as much as a laptop. Some examples that come of the top of my head: School lessons, digital magazines, personal media players. Basically, the iPad is an appliance not a computer.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Because some times people with disposable income are willing to pay extra for a product that does particular things well. I could cook my dinner every night on piece of plate steel over a firepit, but I still thought it made sense to buy some nice pots and pans, and a slow cooker, and a microwave, etc.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.