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5 Reasons Tablets Suck, and You Won't Buy One
Crazzaper writes "When the iPad was announced, a lot of people who didn't care about tablets came out to bash Apple's new device. These same people said 'I would have bought it if it had a full OS,' but in reality full OS tablets existed before the iPad rumors even started. This article gives an interesting perspective on why this happened, and argues that there's five big reasons why more powerful tablets exists but no one cares."
I like my Q1 Ultra Premium, which is tabletesq.
The thing is, it's not about the widget. It's about the opportunities it enables, the possibilities it creates. A tablet that plays 10 hours of hi-def video and audio on one battery charge definitely has its niche. One that does so on a screen that you can actually use with Citrix or RDP over wireless or cellular wireless? Another niche. Ebooks too? You can use it to carry your reference materials? And you can keep up with your social media at the same time? What about navi? Will it find me the closest theatre that's playing the movie I want to see, even if I'm in a strange town, give me showtimes and navigate me to it?
Yeah, a full OS on a tablet platform isn't going to fly - until the tablet is powerful enough and the OS light enough to do enough niche things that it has broad utility. That would be right about... now.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
More powerful = lower battery life. Yes, tablets are niche devices, but if you think about it there are a LOT of niches a tablet with some flexibility and a good amount of battery life can fill. Book reader, obviously. Notepad replacement, somewhat. Inventory control, yup. It's all been a matter of expense, durability, communications and operating life.
That's a heck of a lot of Microsoft pushing for one little article.
That said, I agree fully. Tablets have always sucked, and the iPad is just another iteration of the same game. Maybe it'll bring some fresh ideas to usability, and maybe not. For the few folks who actually have a use for a tablet, it's an exciting time.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I think the pepper pad would have taken off with better marketing.
...full OS tablets existed before the iPad rumors even started.
But they weren't/aren't tablet OSs. They're desktop OSs with touchscreen "support" crowbarred in. The OS may talk to the hardware properly, but the interface for both the OS and the applications weren't adapted to it.
Breaking news!
I own a tablet PC.
It kicks ass.
And runs Windows 7.
Which kicks ass too.
Now continue with the program.
"Blah blah blah." - [citation needed]
Apple fanboy knocks M$ and apologizes for the iPad. "It really is great, it's not Apple fault you don't understand the wonder of Jobs' vision."
Yawn.
1. Tablets Are Niche Devices
2. Full OSes Were Always There, Yet Those Who Complained That The iPad Doesn't Have One Still Never Bought One
3. High-End Hardware Specs Sometimes Don't Matter
4. Interface, Interface, Interface
5. Lack Of Tablet Apps
If you want a little computer that is extremely mobile and can follow you to the meeting table or the bed then a slate device is where it's at. The technology simply wasn't there before. Most of the old tablets only worked with a stylus, the ones that had touch screens only had single-touch and were very poor at detecting them. Now we have multi-touch capacitive and much smarter software and more powerful hardware. The iPad still sucks because it is an overgrown iPhone, a novelty that keeps you locked into the app store. Windows slates will be useful. And before the mac fanboys start flaming me over "But windowz isnt design for touch", Windows 7 works very well for touch. Also, since it can run any windows software there will be more software specifically designed to help touch screen users.
Personally, I will be getting a new generation slate PC, probably the HP Slate or the Hanvon BC10C.
I agree with the article. Their reasons are pretty good.
I've owned a couple of tablets (bought from friends who grew tired of them), and worked on a few more. Generally, they do suck. Like it or not, you'll get to a point where you need to type something out, and voila, you wish you had a laptop. Most of the tablets could switch to laptop mode, but who wants to keep flipping their computer around just to be able to type. Eventually, the stylus is stuck in it's holder, and you now have a very expensive, and usually slower, laptop.
I'm working on a piece of embedded equipment right now, with a touch screen. The interface is absolutely perfect, as long as you're giving a selection of large buttons to push. We even have provisions in our interface for a full QWERTY keyboard for the portions that require that kind of input.
800x600 on a 8" screen is cute, and wonderful for a 10-key (0-9), but those fun and games go away if I switch away from the specific application. We have a keyboard and mouse attached too. The touch screen is all fun and games, unless you want to do something serious.
I tried out the PDA fad once upon a time too. You don't realize how much typing is required until you try to send a real email, or ssh to a server. No number of aliased commands made up it. Even from my crackberry, I may send a few paragraphs, since it has a qwerty keyboard, but writing something like this, I wait until I'm at a real computer.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Windows is not and never has been a tablet OS. a Tablet isn't a desktop, you can't use the two in the same fashion. the pointers are different(fingers/stylus, vs a mouse pointer) You can't just graph touch inputs into a desktop GUI, and expect everything to work right. MSFT has made one decent touch based app, That is why tablets have thus failed. Everyone tries to treat them as notebooks with touch screens, not as tablets with their own gui designs.
Apple with their sometimes annoying closed systems, are breaking MSFT out of their bad habits. It took 3-4 years but MSFT fianlly realized that putting a desktop Interface on their phones was a bad idea that limited usability. With the Ipad maybe in 5 years MSFT will make a real windows tablet OS, that ditches a wide bar that eats up valuable real estate and come up with a new way to work with tablets. I would say linux might get their first, but Linux devs while innovative seem to have no luck in advertising to manufacturers.
typing this on my mac, with my Iphone nearby i will say i won't get an ipad, my purpose of a small tablet will be primarily for browsing and unfortunately that will require flash. though someone finally taking a stand against flash is refreshing.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I didn't get one though for one reason only: small monitors/screens. My eyesight is getting worse as I get older, and I really need a monitor larger than 12.1". I love the 17" monitor on my current laptop. It's easy to read and doesn't strain my eyes even at 1440x900.
If tablets were made with 16"+ monitors I would have bought a tablet rather than my current laptop. I really like the capabilities of a tablet, but until/unless they are made with larger monitors I'll never buy one.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
There's a class of devices which are mostly-output. Game machines, e-readers, and smartphones without keyboards fall into this category. Their primary function is to display content created elsewhere. Input requirements are minimal.
Think of Apple's "iPad" as a big e-reader, with color and video, and it makes more sense.
Telling me what do you, are you?
"Within five years, I predict it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America. It will come with a full 640 KB of RAM which should be enough for anybody. We will continue to out-innovate Apple. Then we're going to fscking kill Google."
I have no intention of getting an iPad, but all the reasons the article points out why tablets suck actually point to the possibility that the iPad might actually succeed.
Unlike the other tablets, the iPad is designed with an interface done correctly for a tablet. It's not trying to be a full OS because the interface wouldn't work correctly. It's going with the iPhone OS which is a touch-centric OS.
The biggest reason tablets have never succeeded more is because they've always been expensive. I've seen some tablets I'd love to own, but they're in the $2,000 - $2,500 range, which is way more than I'll spend on a tablet. Now that we're reaching the point where costs are low enough that they can make decently powered tablets in the $500-$700 range, which is where the typical laptop is (I said laptop, not netbook), I think that they'll sell a lot more.
Go throughout history and you see plenty of innovations that never catch on until a decade or so later when the prices drop significantly to where people don't view buying one as a major investment.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Is that it's not an open platform. It doesn't matter that much to me that it isn't the sake as a desktop OS X install, I am OK with that.
My issues are:
From the article:
Windows is a "full operating system" in the sense a cheapass laundry machine is a "full cleaning solution". It's a cobbled-together appliance with rusty parts you're lucky doesn't burn down your house.
The reason people don't want a tablet, especially the iPad, is because it doesn't do anything special. It's pretty much the same "throw existing apps on something without a keyboard and call it a tablet" that everyone else has tried. That's not how the iPod and iPhone were successful. It's not how smartphones became successful in general, or even how netbooks became successful. If you want to make a real tablet, you've got to have a focused, tablet-oriented system, and a pervasive tablet UI. Unfortunately, the one possibly valid point in the article starts to hint at this and then veers back into clueless land.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Just got a Hp Tm2. Capacitive multitouch screen + Wacom pressure-sensitive digitiser screen + huge multitouch trackpad. I added a 3-button scrolling trackball for my own UI preference. 10 watt CULV dual-core CPU. Dual boot Ubuntu and Win7, with each virtualising the physical partition of the other on-demand, and virtual XP and OSx86 just for kicks. Yes, the basic screen UIs such as Gnome and Win7 File Explorer are less than optimal for finger manipulation. But there are so many replacement apps and shells that this is not really an issue. And the ability to avoid the mouse/trackball unless absolutely necessary and directly interact with the objects on screen is both amazing and liberating. I suspect that many of the people who diss on TabletPCs simply haven't really used one, or have not yet found a compelling reason to use one or haven't really looked very much. Personally, I use wanted a tablet for the immediacy of interacting directly on the screen, and the amazingly convenient comic book/ebook/media viewer it enables. I'm no stranger to mechanically disintermediated UIs -- was using a light pen in the early 1980s and a mouse since the Mac came out in the mid-80s -- but after a few years of a touchscreen phone/PDA I simply knew my next PC had to have touch. The irony is that with some deep discounting and some coupons, my TabletPC cost less than the higher-end iPad will cost, *and* it can easily run 1080p from both MKV/AVC and Flash with ease.
Da Blog
A tablet or slate running OS X would suck (for most uses) as badly as a slate running Windows Tablet Edition does. That's why Apple refused to make one: Jobs doesn't like to repeat the colossal, obvious mistakes of others, because that'd make him look mortal. ;) Tablets do have some things they're good for – I have an "hpad" (HP TC1100 slate) that I run Photoshop on, and it's a great drawing tablet; I work for a nursing facility that makes some decent use of TabletPC Thinkpads – but it's true: they simply aren't very good as general-purpose laptop replacements.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Okay, we get it. Windows tablets never took off the way Microsoft thought they would. The iPad is a failure, even though it hasn't been released yet and we have no idea how well or poorly it will sell. Anyone who is excited about the iPad is a Mac Fanboi. Everyone who trashes the iPad is a Windows Zealot. Your opinion is silly and unsupportable because it differs from mine.
There, I saved you some reading.
#DeleteChrome
tablet pc's already failed like 10 years ago... that's why they are trying to sell them as tables now...
Those "five reasons" are somewhat stupid. Let's see:
they're unable to do everything you can do on a laptop - sure, and the laptop is unable to do everything that you can do on a quantum computer. So what? The only requirement here is for the tablet to do what you need it to do.
They've shipped with stylus-pointing devices that were frankly not that easy to use - does this mean that a greasy finger that covers what you press is any better?
Because full desktop/laptop operating systems don't work on a tablet device - that's certainly news (or another, deeper level of cluelessness on part of the author.) As matter of fact, they work just fine.
All user-interface mechanics on a full-blown OS are designed to work with a mouse, not your finger/stylus - leaving dirty fingers alone, the stylus and the mouse are the same to the tablet.
This is why phones have interfaces designed specifically for usage on their screen sizes and device sizes - and what does this have to do with tablets?
Can you imagine pecking around with your finger on ultra-thin scroll bars and tiny buttons? - the author clearly has a finger mania.
Very few people have one, let alone know of or even care about the device - I have a tablet, and other people have theirs, because they have a specific need for a tablet. A tablet is not a solution to all world's ills, it is a niche product - but if you have a niche application then it fits nicely.
The point isn't to cram as much technology into a tablet as physically possible. It's far better to make the tablet really intuitive to use in a way that makes sense for that kind of form factor. - No, it's far more important to preserve compatibility with existing software. You can learn how to use a tablet in minutes, and you need to do it only once. However you can't write software that fast, and you need to do it every time you need a new application.
Tablet makers: please, don't try to pump insane hardware specs into your tablets and bloat up prices. - the author is obviously unaware that most of PC functions are nowadays built into the same chip that has the CPU and memory interface and Ethernet and USB... it will cost more to have less.
Then when you need to type, you have to put the stylus down and use your fingers or peck at the virtual keys with the thing - why do you need to "put the stylus down", I wonder? Besides, typing on any tablet, beyond a few words, is ill-advised. Typing requires a keyboard. However it is interesting that the author ignores existence of pretty good handwriting recognition systems for tablets. Perhaps because they require a stylus, and not fingers? :-)
The fact that most tablets run on Windows or another non-tablet friendly OS means that pretty much most applications are not going to be tablet and finger friendly - it means just the opposite. A Windows or Linux tablet has access to all the apps that exist for those platforms, and all of those apps run just fine when controlled with a stylus. Granted, you'd have to have a frag wish if you control a FPS game with a stylus or your finger. But a USB mouse is what, $10 these days?
Which form factor will it be?
I said pretty much the same things, but much better:
http://lumma.org/microwave/#2010.02.25
-Carl
1) Count on signed up developers to pre-order in hopes that they can cash in - after a few "Look at me I got Rich from an app" PR stunts
2) Induce sheep like mental state in average Apple fan via Jobsian induced reality distortion field
3) ????
4) Profit
If ploy fails - claim you are way ahead of the market.
There's niches and there's niches. It would be possible to create a device that's useful for only one task, and if only a few million people in the world are interested in that task, then you've got a really limited market.
Tablet devices have long been billed as fully functional computes with a new form-factor, but in some ways, they've been the worst of both worlds. As others have pointed out, the form-factor is typically tacked onto the OS, rather than both being designed to work flawlessly together. And they've historically been underpowered systems which would never replace a desktop.
What's interesting about the iPad is that it answers a different question than other tablets have. Rather than asking, "what sort of device would computer users want to buy?", it seems to me that Apple has asked, "What sort of device would appeal to people who hate computers?"
That question leads to others, like, "What tasks do people want to do without having to boot up a computer?" Reading, watching movies, web browsing, playing games. Sure, there are more things you can do with an iPad--they wouldn't have migrated iWork to the platform if they didn't think some people would want to use it for work--but I think the main thing they've done is build something that is indeed a computer, but that a lot of people who don't like computers don't have to see as one.
Like Apple or not, they've done a great job with interface design on the iPhone, and the lessons learned there transfer well to the iPad. Will it succeed or fail? I don't know; it depends on your definition, I guess. I doubt iPad sales will ever quite catch up with the iPhone's, but of course, that's a pretty high bar to shoot for. They've set their target at 10 million this year. Again, like Apple or not, it's been a while since they fell short of sales estimates, even on completely new products.
In fact, they've made some big wins on products which everyone thought would fail. The original iPod was going to be just another MP3 player. They killed the iPod Mini, their most successful model, at its sales peak and replaced it with the Nano, a complete redesign, and got a huge sales bump. They made the screen-less shuffle, providing fewer features than the competitors that Jobs referred to as crap, and outselling those competitors by a mile. They released the iPhone for $599, no SDK, no MMS, no cut and paste, and all sorts of other things wrong with it according to the chatter on the Internet, and yet, here we are.
I'm sure there are going to be a lot of new tablets released in short order, some of which might be even better than Apple's in some ways or others. But I'm not sure it's time to bet against Apple in terms of long term success for the product.
The CB App. What's your 20?
While the abstract tries to bash the iPad, the article leaves all avenues open for the iPad to be a success. For example, the article touts the failure of the stylus and lack of tablet apps, when the iPad doesn't use a stylus, has a finger-based UI, and will have over a hundred thousand (iPhone) apps available at launch, with many specialized just for the iPad.
Earlier tablet products were user interface disasters. Fiddly pen-based inputs. Bad handwriting recognition. Tiny, mouse-oriented buttons.
iPhone changed the set of expectations for a touch UI. iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7, and other new-generation touch UIs will leave the old tablet UIs behind. iPad will pioneer a new generation of office productivity software specifically designed for touch interaction.
So, while there is no guarantee this is all enough to make tablets a success, it sure is not a rehash of previous failed products. Tablet prices are also low enough to encourage experimentation rather than to require a business case for a more expensive device.
I wrote parts of this stuff
they're not ergonomic. not for reading. not for writing. that is why they (hopefully) will fail. i have one right now to read/write stuff on. i can't lay it onto my legs on a chair to read nicely, like i could with a laptop. the angle is bad, i want to hold it to see directly onto it. but holding for more than some minutes is annoying. it weights (no matter if it's not much weight). writing on it sucks, too. gladly, i have a windows option, where i have the option to use the pen input instead of the multitouch keyboard (which i will hate on the ipad). and while you type with your hands, you can nearly not see on the screen anymore anyways, filling it wiht your hands. so when sitting, you want to write with one hand, hold it with the other. the keyboard doesn't fit your setup, then.. no, they really suck. i, too, have a convertible. next version will have slate mode, notebook mode, multitouch, pen input (capazitive) etc. it will allow me to use the best of normal laptop, tablet, pen, fingers etc. that will be awesome. normal tablets, no thanks. they completely fail at ergonomics. MASSIVELY. and when they do that, they should provide some good counterargument. phones do have that: you can take them always with you. doesn't matter then, that they're quite small, quite slow. the portability is a huge gain. what PLUS do tablets actually have? what do i GAIN from having one? i still wait for the one simple answer showing me a reason i should get one.. (i know some specific cases where i most likely will get one.. in the car, and for home-automation. maybe for djing, too.. other than that, no idea.. for the ordinary user, no idea)
Don't buy an iPad!
There are rumors that limited third-party multi-tasking support is coming, but if Apple's level of dick-i-tude is over your threshold of acceptability, that's not likely to change in the near future.
I'm not saying I agree that they're dicks, nor that I disagree. I understand and respect that this metric is pretty subjective. If you had published an app that was accepted, for instance, and sold a million copies, I'm sure you'd feel somewhat different. But love them or hate them, there's not going to be a fundamental shift in their corporate "personality", so based on what you said, don't buy their shit.
Problem solved. Next?
The CB App. What's your 20?
Actually, I will buy not one, not two, but probably three or maybe even more. The iPad is exactly what I've been needing for 20 years. Great device specs and I'm sure Apple will live up to the hype. I'm also sure that the OS issue will be resolved in time. MacOSX will be on the iPad and Apps will run on the MacOSX (e.g., my laptop). Life just gets better.
I use the tablet to take down mathematical lectures on it. It's very nice for lectures which use tons of math symbols and diagrams, especially because it doesn't clutter up my desk as much. I find it nicer to have tons of files that I almost never look at, than when I had tons of papers I almost never look at, then lost and couldn't find when I did need one.
However, I can't invent any other use for a tablet PC. If math lectures didn't have diagrams, I'd use Word or LaTeX. Typing is faster than writing on a tablet. Maybe art students have a use for it? Anybody know other uses?
Why don't they follow the trend with phones and have a smaller slide out keyboard. It doesn't have to be a full one, just one like cell phones have, Qwerty only with an Alt key for numbers and special characters. If three rows of full size keys are too much, even a cell phone sized keyboard would help, I've kinda gotten used to typing with my thumbs now. It beats a touch screen keyboard.
This sentence no verb.
...unfortunately apple is one of the only companies that is willing to invest in creating new interfaces for new devices instead of slapping windows on there and expecting that it will be useful.
Hence the iPhone for 2 years was one of the only devices with an interface allowing the best use of the hardware. Tons of other phones had great hardware features but crappy interfaces that made the overall device cumbersome.
Apple's tablet is different from other tablets so far:
1. it does not have a user interface that follows the desktop metaphor, which is not appropriate for a tablet.
2. it has a multitouch interface, unlike other tablets.
3. it has quite a low price.
4. it boots way faster than other devices.
5. it is lighter than other devices.
For me, the only reason not considering an iPad is lack of Flash support and lack of openness. I think it's on the right path, and if these two are solved, I'll consider buying one.
The personal computer is a stereo
Unlike even a $200 stereo, a PC isn't necessarily sold with decent speakers.
a TV
True, a PC is more skilled at video on demand. But what's the PC's counterpart to an over-the-air broadcast? Those are available even out in Bufftuck Nowhere where the only remotely high-speed Internet access option is satellite, which places severe limits on monthly viewing. Besides, most PC monitors aren't big enough for four people in a living room to sit comfortably around. If you want a big monitor for a PC, you have to buy (yes) a TV.
First of all, who said that the iPad is a "convergence" device? It's not meant to replace desktops and laptops (in fact, it requires one!) it's meant to supplement them.
Secondly, broad generalizations rarely make accurate predictions. This argument makes no sense because it makes no real consideration of the merits and potential uses for the device. As long as it fills an unfilled niche, or works better than existing alternatives it will find success.
For example, I currently have a laptop, but is it not convenient enough for me to use it as such (It basically sits at home and waits for me to use it there). I do most of my computing on my iPhone. With the iPad, I will be able to access the internet anywhere, and produce documents on the go. So it may be a good fit for me, and I may be able to sell my macbook and buy a mac mini instead. Of course, I'm going to have to hold one in my hands and play with it for a while before I will be willing to shell out $$$ for one.
People will buy anything if the price is right. Offhand I'd say iPad needs to be a tiny bit cheaper to succeed widely but the crowd who thinks iPhones are affordable will buy them up regardless and the rest of us will wait for less extravagant alternatives (the Android looks like a no-brainer possible future competitor, in cheaper hardware).
Tablets are not niche, they were just unaffordable and without a good UI - at least the second problem will be solved by porting apps made for mobile phone touch interfaces. Time will solve the first one.
-- Sig down
I have to agree that "tablets," as most people are used to them do suck. I had one and it was just too cumbersome to use. However, touch screens as business machines have been HUGELY successful when the **interface** is good. Think of all the restaurants, from fast food to fine dining, hospitals, retails stores, dry cleaners, and the thousands of other places where touch interfaces are the only method of interacting with their computers. I've never been to a McDonald's and heard the cashier say "man, if only I had a real keyboard for this thing". It's not the "tablet;" it's the software that's always been the biggest problem because it was never designed to be interacted with through touch. Only time will tell if the iPad has made this transformation successfully, but since it's comes from an O/S designed from the beginning for touch, it's already way ahead of every other "tablet" device. And this isn't just for Apple: Google's Android on larger devices shows similar promise.
Let me start by saying that the only Apple device I own right now is an Ipod touch. I'm typing this on a Windows notebook and my big machine is a Windows desktop. I don't have any love for Apple or their policies - they do some things right and some things very, very wrong.
That said, there's some changes in "books" coming. We've had Kindle and Sony reader for a while and now others are jumping on the bandwagon. As limited as those devices are, they're selling in very large numbers. Kindle is Amazon's number one selling product - that says something, right? As the number of e-readers becomes larger and larger there's more incentive for the publishing houses to make their books available electronically. Between that and the large public domain book libraries available online there's a strong case for electronic books.
But sitting in a chair at a desktop computer to read books online is awkward - and trying to do it on a notebook is even worse. The Ipod touch is a little better but the screen is too darned small. We like to be able to hold the book and sit / slouch / lay wherever so a tablet-like e-reader is probably the best solution. Unfortunately, the attempts at tablet machines up to this point have been ill-conceived botches. Windows isn't made to be a tablet operating system - its touchscreen support is primitive and incomplete. This and the need of designers to add just one more feature has resulted in fragile yet heavy machines with short battery life - not worth their price.
Some say that the Ipad is limited - but if what I do is read email, browse the web and play an occasional game or two then it does 99.9% of what I need. Add in music and videos and that slick multi-touch interface and it meets my needs very well. Yes, I know - and when I need to do some serious typing, write some code, etc. I'll sit down at that Windows desktop and go to work. Apple did one more very nice thing - they made a case for the Ipad that opens like a book. This allows you to hold it like a book; same approximate size and weight, just like you're used to.
I've been watching this electronic book stuff for a while now - and I feel it's time for me to jump. I'll give away / donate my home library (thousands of dusty books) and replace them with an Ipad. Even if it did nothing else it'd be worth the price for just this one function.
All these articles that say tablets are doomed because they're not laptops or desktops are completely missing the point. I don't want another laptop or desktop, I want a niche filled that nobody's filled yet.
I just want:
- Good ebook and comic book reader. Which means something like Pixel Qi's transflective screen at 9.7 inches. Must be low power and color. eInk color could be good enough.
- Open formats - having a kindle store would be fine as long as I could still read pdfs, epubs, and just directories full of jpgs/pngs loaded via usb or sd card.
- Web browsing. Wifi is good enough, I can use my phone as an access point. But I wouldn't spit at 3g/4g/wimax.
- Non crappy OS. Nothing designed for mouse and keyboard and just repurposed.
- Note taking. Nothing complex, but I need to be able to scribble down notes. They don't need to be OCRed or complex.
That's about it. I don't need to run all my desktop apps. Give me that and I'll buy it. Kindle is not it. iPad is not it. MS's foldout tablet looks interesting but I have no confidence on their ability to deliver. Luckily there's a lot of other stuff in the pipeline.
Jesse Schell, known mostly to his friends and colleagues as a game designer, spoke at "DICE", where maybe a few hundred people heard him, and said the iPad, which has not yet been released, will not succeed. He then went on to explain his theories regarding what makes a successful product, based on his experience in designing things that have unit sales measured in millions.
Then, some guy on Slashdot quoted him, which sent Apple's stock into a nose dive as everyone who read it decided not to buy an iPad because *the* Jesse Schell said they won't want to.
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
That is exactly the reason why I ordered an iPad. The iPod is great to read nontechnical books, write quick emails or have a glance at news while away from the office. It does not replace the desktop, where I can program, develop, write comfortably, where things are backed up and synced with other computers, where I have reliability and openness of the operating system and complete control, what process is running.
But I do not like to read technical books on the PC, nor on the iPod. I want to have my library with me, on a different device. I imagine having the iPod in my pocket, write on my laptop and have a tablet as a reference.
Yes, the interface will be key. The article very well describes why tablet PCs have failed so far: they had crappy, sucking interfaces so far. It does not have to be Apple: also "Courier" from Microsoft looks as if it is going to be a winner: because the interface looks nice. Whether Apple or Microsoft will succeed is not yet clear. It is no question for me that there will be something between a smart phone and a laptop, which will stay to read journals, newspapers, books or articles.
Divergence will occur also naturally because smart phones and tablets will be locked down pretty heavily. Nobody who minds the future will bet entirely on a platform which is closed. As for a book reader, I do not care as long as it displays PDFs and Djvu files nicely, and in high quality.
i, too, have a TabletPC. it's an old HP TC1100 that shall be replaced with a new HP tm2 sometime this year. when working on it, i only need to switch to laptop mode if i'm coding HMTL or C#. for any other task, i use one of the 2 following features (built-in WinXP Tablet Edition):
- hand-writing recognition (it works very well).
- dictation (works ok coz i'm not a native English speaker).
1) s/Slashdot/Digg/g
The title is wrong - the article tells us why tablets have failed in the past but also how the iPad has corrected those mistakes. The upshot is that this tablet WON'T suck, and a lot of people WILL buy one.
I have a 10" Eee PC that I drag around the house for surfing websites when I don't want to be in front of a normal computer. I love its size but the one thing about it that drives me nuts is the sound from the fan. Its high pitched whine just grates on my ears. an iPad without a fan would litterally be music to my ears.
Of course I am interested in any suggestions for 10" screen sized netbooks that don't have fans. Any one know of any?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
He is not trying to use tablets as tablets, but trying to using them as desktop PCs or notebooks. They are different kind of devices, better or more comfortable than PCs for some tasks, worse for others. Better than say why they suck as desktop computers, would be better to list for which tasks something like a tablet is good, for which ones regular, and for which will suck. And then see if what is or was offered fit into that (regarding price, features, form factor, etc)
I agree with this article 100%. This is exactly what people will be using for most computing needs. I think while the world may not be quite ready for the iPad right now.. it soon will be. I believe Apples philosophy here is spot on. Build something people can actually use.. the vast majority will be using a device like this on a daily basis and will opt for an iPad instead of a computer because it takes even more hassle out of the tool.. You can do 99 percent of the things on it that people want, which is to simply communicate, gather information, consume and buy without any distractions. They dont care about having a million different options or nobs to make it happen.. Like any other device a washing machine, a car, most people do not care how it works they want to push a button to make it happen to get a result. The iPad philosophy does this.. a couple taps and you have checked movies and bought tickets, checked weather, read the paper. It is a device that actually allows technology to make things easier for once. It was not until recently that traditional computers have even become reliable, easy enough to use for most people. Now is there a case to have a little more complexity in the picture? Yes, but that I believe is reserved mostly for the contributors and in that case get a computer.
These same people said 'I would have bought it if it had a full OS,' but in reality full OS tablets existed before the iPad rumors even started.
Full *nix tablets (with slick UIs and lots of software designed for tablet-use)? Full MacOSX? Oh, no, they were *doze and Linux with tablet as an afterthought. I'm not paying $99 extra to use a sub-laptop tablet with the software I want (not to mention the pain of having to compile it all the time for updates which is what I'd have to do with iPhone OS). iPhone OS is okay for an iPhone, but not for a bigger computer (which is what the iPad is).
By now you'd think people would stop repeating the same old errors with regard to the iPhone OS as used by the iPad/iPhone/Touch.
No multitasking in the iPhone OS. Even cell phone OSes can do that.
Plenty of multitasking. Just limited forms for third party apps. But apps can be multi-threaded.
No way to easily develop complex applications for it
This is, to put it simply, bullshit. The iPhone tools and libraries are very mature and feature rich. Between CoreData, and Interface Builder you can develop complex applications very quickly. And with a little more effort, you can make them less complex again while supporting the same features which should be your goal. I've worked on quite a few applications that had a large range of scope, with multiple internal databases and a ton of server calls to fetch data.
The platform is closed: executables have to be signed, can't share or download software from third parties.
Unless you jailbreak.
The folks at Apple are total dicks about what applications they accept/refuse.
Actually they have very clear guidelines. I've never had any app denied store access after fixing any bugs the Apple testers found.
The folks at Apple can deactivate or tamper apps you have already purchaed, and tamper with your device's settings/experience at any time they feel like it.
(a) They can but they don't, (b) as a user of the device I say - thank god they can do that!
App approval process It's not a simple "Is this program safe?", or has the developer tested it for stability check. They demand apps meet a long list of criteria that are difficult to meet...
Back to bullshit. The criteria in fact are super simple to meet, since all you have to do is not use undocumented API's (that are inherently harder to find anyway) or make an application that falls into a category they will not approve. This is not rocket science.
All the whiners like you that lay down so many reasons it's so hard to get into the app store always ignore the fact there are far north of 100k applications at this point. If anything was as difficult as people like you claimed it was, there wouldn't be 150 applications, much less 150,000.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
1- you probably already have one: what's a smartphone if not a small tablet on which you can browse the web, read books, view video, type emails... on top of placing calls ? There's not that much difference between a 4"3 HD2 and a 5" Archos. It's very telling that Dell is marketing the upcoming mini 5 as a tablet, not a phone, though it is.. well... both.
2- At last, content. The success of smaller and bigger content-consumption devices (smartphones and PCs) has enabled the creation of plenty of downloadable content. Tablets are the perfect medium to consume that, with fast downloads, portability, comfortable viewing... This is a relatively recent development, basically impulsed by the iTunes Store, especially for video.
3- The right devices. Upcoming ARM-based tablets have the power to handle any media including video, at a very reasonable price ($150-$500). Form factor is essentially a marketing choice, from 3" to 11", with extra features at will (wifi, 3g, bluetooth, cameras, built-in or detached or wireless keyboard, battery life...). Compare that to the clunky, over-expensive, fragile rotating touchscreen $2000 laptops masquerading as tablets of yore, and watch them getting "netbooked".
4- The right UI and ecosystem. Apple, Android, even Windows Mobile have evolved interfaces and content distribution systems as well as dev toolchains that make using, populating, and developing for tablets very easy and convenient. Tablets are no longer notebooks with a touchscreen no OS nor Apps know what to do with, but oversized smartphones with more breathing space for UI and content.
5- Apple is hyping one. Watch them presell in 2 months more than MS managed to sell in 5 years, and shake up the tablet market like they shook up the smartphone one. Only this time the competitors are reacting faster and better, mostly because they're no longer in thrall to MS "let's copy iPhone OS 1.0, warts and all, 5 years late" thanks to Android, and because the changes from smartphone to tablet are mainly cosmetic ones. Competition from below (smaller screen/specs), above (bigger screen//specs) and sideways (more features, same size) will help build a complete range of products ato fit every niche, almost overnight.
I'm getting one.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Best post on this article. You should get a prize.
I own a tablet PC.
It kicks ass.
The problem is the ass it traditionally has kicked has been the people making the device.
You may like it but most people do not, or tablet sales would be stronger. The article attempts to explain why some that actually has happened, has happened. The hypothetical part is not the failure of tablets to sell, for that is evident and well-documented - again, no matter how much you or any other individual likes theirs.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't want a tablet that's also a laptop. I want a pure tablet like the iPad or the... JooJoo (wtf!?), that has a full OS.
There's really only one thing I want a tablet for: reading. For that, I want something that is extremely responsive and no hassle to use.
Those requirements mean that anything e-ink based is not suitable; the refresh rate on e-ink makes any attempt at a decent UI fail. Neither is any Windows-based tablet; Windows is too sluggish even on high-end desktop hardware, let alone on a power-sipping tablet; Windows is also far too complex.
That leaves the iPad and maybe Android and Chrome-based tablets.
All of them are going to fail until you can put them in your pocket. Honestly if I have to have a bag to carry it around why would I want something that doesn't do everything a netbook/notebook would do? Once they perfect fold out screens we will see more tablet like applications on phones, not on stand alone tablets at all. They are going to just make the screen bigger, the CPU more powerful, and add storage to your phone. Eventually that phone with it's fold out keyboard and fold out screen will eat the netbook/notebook market as well. I think the 'PC' will have better long legs after that, but eventually the PC market will be eaten up by phone as well.
Jesse Schell, known mostly to his friends and colleagues as a game designer, spoke at "DICE"
Wow, known mostly to his friends and colleagues as a game designer! Such credentials!
Listen you bunch of tech zealots: the iPad is not for you. It's for the computer illiterate, and for people that hate computers. And there are a far lot more of them, then there are of you. It will be a big succes.
content consumption (web, video, books, social networks...)
plus netbook-light with a bluetooth keyboard. You can add a BT keyboard to a tablet (except if it's an Apple one); you can't take the keyboard away from a netbbok.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
I shall look back on this sometime in the future and laugh, the same as I'm doing now to those who said that the iPod and iPhone would fail.
I totally disagree tablets are in any way inherently mostly-output devices. It's just we have not found optimal input methods for tablets yet - except for drawing.
A Pen & Pencil excelled for generations for input so I don't see what makes a tablet have to suck for input having close to the same form factor.
Tablets have a ton of potential.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have an old HP TC1100 with a detachable keyboard that I installed windows 7 on. I know its not a full blown laptop and I don't try to use it as one. For me, it's nice to have the keyboard attached and use it as a netbook for surfing the web or other general tasks. Then I can also detach the keyboard and use the tablet as a slate. I use it for white boarding new ideas, taking notes and drawing. I also have a full blown laptop for programming or other tasks that require a bigger screen and keyboard. It's just nice to have what's essentially a netbook that I can also scribble on with a pen when I want to.
Windows tablet editions are simply windows. You use your finger as a mouse, and you use an on screen keyboard in place of a real keyboard. This is the root reason excepting expense. Why is there not a lot of tablet software? Because the tablet OS is just windows, so everything that runs on windows will run on a tablet, but the experience isn't that good. The standard mouse / keyboard interactions don't translate well. I had a Compaq tablet and it was a fun, novel experience, but after playing with it I chose a think pad t-series and gave the tablet back to IT because the track stick and the keyboard were much more conducive to a good Windows experience.
I think that people that are clamoring to have a full OS are completely missing the point; the iPad will be successful precisely because it isn't a full OS. It will be successful because it will offer the user the ability do do all the things they'd want to do on a tablet: browse the web, read their email, read a book, watch a movie, maybe play a game. Generally speaking, you're not going to write a paper, do your taxes, play Crysis, code, do serious graphic design, etc. on a tablet, unless that tablet has a full keyboard and a external or convertible monitor.
Personally speaking, based on everything I've read the iPad is almost exactly the secondary device I want. e-Book reader (yes, not eInk, I don't care), browser, movies, music, some games, and that's it. This is the device I'll take on day trips instead of my laptop, unless I need to write a document or do coding on the road. This is the device I'll use sitting on the couch or the patio to browse the web. This is the device I'll read a book on while on a plane or at a coffee shop waiting for a friend. The three things that I don't like are lack of multi-tasking (I'd like to leave skype running in the background, for instance), a front facing camera (for skype) and the lack of a USB port. By all accounts iPhone OS version 4 adds multi-tasking, and I can hook up my camera to review photos using an adapter (yuck), so essentially, no camera is my only real issue (and a small one at that) assuming the iPhone 4.0 OS info is true.
Really, I can see the iPad as the only computer needed for a large group of people. My parents for example do little on the computer other than browse the internet and do e-mail. With the 3g account they could get rid of their monthly ISP bill, and with the keyboard dock they can answer lengthy e-mails.
I predict that even in this economy the iPad will be a success for Apple.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Just read Wired...
Yet another prediction that tablets will rule the computing world.
Well...I think they may eventually be good for some things, but I can't imagine doing any of the things that I use a computer for on a tiny screen with a crappy interface.
I might carry one when I am out and about, but it will always be a crippled, second or third best alternative.
BTW, my home computer screen is 30"...it's still too small
Although I agree with most of what you say, we have good examples in the market of an OS that's "full enough," like the iPhone OS on this iPad and Android on the others, and yet has the UI goodies you want. It's here, now. It's good enough. And at least the Androids will be flashable to a proper Linux and I'm sure somebody will gen up some multitouch widgets to go with it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
At half the price and half the weight this would be kick-ass.
Light, cheap or thin: pick any one. You can spend 2x-3x as much as I paid and get a Lenovo or Fujitsu that is close to your weight requirements. Too rich for my blood.
I do not see anything about Wacom active digitizer, without which this thing is useless for drawing or taking notes. The word stylus is not even on the linked
page.
Haven't you heard? After Iphone fetish gadget sites like engadget and gizmodo and all the Apple Polishers have gone gaga for multitouch, it's become fashionable for clueless newbies to touch to get their hate on for the humble-but-useful stylus. Stylii are now basically marketing poison.
However, I can tell you mie came with a stylus and if you look at the HP sales page, there are replacement stylii for sale... Google: tm2 wacom. For more confirmation, look at the drivers on this page - Wacom confirmed there and via PC Magic and lspci. There's even an extensive new bug/patch workup for the Wacom on Lucid.
Da Blog
I disagree, tablets don't suck. Tablets have had a problem of short battery life, screens are not good in sunlight and the interface is that of a laptop/desktop rather than tablet, where a user would have access to a keyboard and mouse. I think since multi-touch has become available, this market has been changing for the better. I also think that once the multi-touch colour e-ink type displays become more prevalent and battery life creeps over 12 hours (which is already starting to happen) these devices will become more popular. The only problem left is to make it possible to view video on an e-ink type display, although the Pixel Qi display has provided a solution to this it would be better if you didn't have to swap between display types. To me, a tablet is something I want to use for reading, browsing the internet and annotating documents. So I am after a version that opens like a book and has 2 hi-res (min 1366 x 786) multi-touch screens and a battery life of over 12 hours and enough grunt to browse and watch video. The device must be capable of running multiple apps simulatenously. The screen should also be readable in sunlight. With the Pixel Qi screen and other technologies currently available I think this is achievable. So where is it?
I'm with you there. The Android slates look to come in at about this number, or less depending on what you get. The Always Innovating slate in the above reply comes in at $300 without the keyboard so that looks about right, though at 600MHz the CPU looks a little light for what I want. It might do, though. I may give it a go.
$500 isn't that much in the US, but the world is not the US. A $300 price point will go a good distance in a lot of places in the world where that's Serious Money. And in schools.
Certainly the low-wattage and long battery life thing is a boon in places where power is unavailable, unreliable or intermittent - which it is for about half of the people on the planet.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
My problem with iPad. Is that it's not an open platform.
Which is precisely why it might be a successful appliance.
I won't address your many incorrect bullet points, (mainly variations on Apple approves apps) as Kendall already did that well (someone mod him up), but I will point out that this isn't meant to replace your desktop environment.
Apples touch devices are more meant to be an Appliance platform. Each application can expect to take over the device and turn it into a new type of appliance. Maintaining a high level of quality control for applications instead of a free for all, improves the user experience by eliminating a large among of buggy junk they won't have to wade through. There is next to nothing useful actually missing, but it does give complainers something to complain about.
Likewise having controlled multi-tasking also allows much better use of resources. I suspect the will have new back-grounding API in 4.0 but only for applications that get approved for that usage, like Pandora (just about the only thing I ever see when people try to make the case that they need multi-tasking).
My only gripe with the iPad is I don't have a Mac and coding my own apps more or less require it (yeah, I know there are kludgy alternatives...).
The first time someone buys a brand new iPad (or any other tablet) and sits down in front of his TV with it, and surfs the web, he will be happy.
The first time he trys to reply to an email, reply to a MSN or iChat message, he will curse and swear at the thing, and will probably shelve it within a week.
See, people keep going on about how the tablet is ideal for the web. They conveniently forget that today, the web is *everything you do on the PC* - and the tablet is *not* ideal for everything, namely, it is very sub-par for anything that involves any amount of typing whatsoever.
The iPad will succeed or fail based on its merits. The features that some people cite as missing will keep those people from buying one and being unhappy with it. The features it has will make some people very happy. Past tablet PCs may have failed because the OS was not committed to one interface, it tried to be more than just Windows. Trying to be more than an iPod seems like a lot lower bar to hurdle. My guess is that the iPad is just a means for Apple to learn how to do the interface right before they put it on a MacBook.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Isn't it too soon to slam ipads (and tablets in general) as a flop? There were mp3 players before the ipod, and they weren't must have. People had CD players and radios just like now they have smartphones and laptops. Were ipods an immediate must have? Let's wait for the market to mature a little.
Except it's not an e-reader - it doesn't have the e-ink display, or the long battery life (i.e., only using power to change the display).
If you're okay reading books on it, then any tablet, phone or netbook will count as an e-reader. And they're already available, and costing far less than an Islate or whatever the rumourmongers are calling it this week.
Juts because current "REAL" os's as they stand can not run on a tablet does not mean that I want a gimped halfassed os on a tablet.
Plesase design me a useable input mechanisam for a full proepr os for mny tablet thanks.
(Yes I know I am in the sane minoroty there)
+----------------- | What is the question!
They forgot reason #0, or "the reason *I* haven't bought one".
Price. "Real"-OS tablets aren't capable enough to serve as my main system (nor should they be) but they're still too expensive for me to afford as an ancillary system.
TFA seems to be specifically crafted as a weak (I'm sure "cost" is more of an issue to adoption than "lack of tablet apps") attempt to discredit those who are uninspired by the iPad's limitations.
i'm a designer and illustrator and i own a toshiba satellite tablet PC - i love it; it's got a big screen (14 inches) and it runs photoshop and all the other art/drawing tools i want, and drawing directly on the screen is so much nicer to me than using a wacom pad or something.
but it's getting old, and it's starting to show its age, and full-OS tablet PCs nowadays are just getting smaller (hard to find one with more than a 12-inch screen anymore) and more expensive ( i paid about $1100 for mine), while the cheaper ones are less useful. i was excited by the rumors of a mac tablet, because i thought maybe given apple's traditional position with designers and artists that the mac tablet might be something i could actually use.
it's true that tablets are a niche product, but it's MY niche, and it bums me out that it's not being better served.
>though someone finally taking a stand against flash is refreshing.
Of course its refreshing for the fruit crowd, you would never see it as not giving the people access to the most popular sites but rather as a feature.
I wouldnt be surprised if some of you were convinced to pay extra to not have Flash.
Apple's stands have only to do with their pocketbook and the great part about it is they have millions of sheep willing to repeat the company mantra.
I remember during the horrible OS 8 and 9 all the fanbois were talking about how the PowerPC architecture was taken from the deity's testicles and had magical powera and that Intel sucked. Same group did a full 180 a few years later.
Then while most of the planet was using USB, the sheeple bleated how Firewire was the bestest evers and that visual professionals (because everyone who has a mac is an artist. Or likes to see themselves as one) needed FW.
As soon as Firewire was on its way out, the tune changed.
I can guarantee that when Apple finally gets their way and add Flash, the same people will forget the refreshing stand and join the rest of the planet. Heck, you might even visit this site called Youtube.
But for now, you are proud of the refreshing stand and of having a diminished OS.
But... Wacoms are the awesomes! And you can draw! And then you don't really need to use a scanner!
*Awkward silence from slashdot*
Oh wait, you're not talking about those are ya?
*Reception of blank and/or annoyed stares from slashdot crowd*
Boy, do I feel dumb now. I guess I should have RTFA, huh? Nevermind!
The iPad is an e-magazine reader. Same size as a physical glossy magazine, nice screen. They will get tossed on the coffee table just like magazines, too. That's really all it's designed to be, but leaving iPod functionality in there doesn't hurt anything. Magazine publishers could give these things away with a 2-year subscription, and probably come out nearly even compared to print production and distribution. I'm not saying the iPad will be a hit. I see shades of the Apple Cube here. But there is a business model behind it, and it's not the smartphone or the netbook business model.
They were right - the revolution did not get televised. It was posted on YouTube instead. All in 120 characters. SLOOSH!
Common misconception. The iPhone does multitask, otherwise, you wouldn't be able to read your email while listening to music. What the current iPhone OS doesn't do right now is allow 3rd party applications to run in the background.
Apple will eventually allow multitasking for 3rd party applications. They will have to do so to remain competitive. But they would be nuts to do it at the same time as they release the iPad, because 3rd party multitasking introduces the potential for performance and security problems--not the sort of thing Apple wants to worry about when they're trying to get a new product to catch on. Remember, the iPhone didn't allow 3rd party applications at all when first release. Only once the iPhone was launched did Apple open the door to 3rd party developers, and now there are a huge number. We'll probably see 3rd party multitasking on the next major OS revision after the iPad is released. There's really no rush at the moment, since as the article makes clear, Apple has no real competition in this arena, and lack of 3rd party multitasking (or the other restrictions Apple has placed on app development) has not prevented the iPhone and Touch from accumulating a huge app library. Even then, I doubt if Apple will throw the multitasking door wide open. Most likely, there will be an additional approval step for apps that want to multitask apps. Remember, people who buy Apple products expect them to "just work." They will not put up with having to keep track of how many and which apps they can have running in the background before the phone's interface starts to bog down. So there will doubtless be additional hoops that developers will have to jump through to demonstrate that multitasking provides major additional functionality for their app, with minimal drain on the tablet's resources.
I'm sick of constantly seeing articles defending criticisms of Apple products. If everyone is telling you they don't like something then they don't like it, accept that and either fix it or just market it to those who do like it.
Also as it's been pointed out in a variety of situations tablets running full OS's work very well. WHAT REALLY BUGGED ME was the "That looks fun to use with a stylus/finger. Not." caption. I have a Sharp Z1, which has a small screen and runs basically an unmodified gnome. It's tiny and I use a stylus/finger to operate it and have not had ANY difficulty doing so. If you can write within the lines on notebook paper you can use a stylus just fine. If you can play a game on the Nintendo DS you are OK. Perhaps the people with muscle control disorders will have no choice but to use the big bright buttons on the iPad, but even my 2 year old daughter can play childrens DS games fine with a stylus so unless you have an actual medical reason normal OS's on tablets are in fact just fine.
As a smart and sophisticated Linux user, let me be the first to congratulate you on your very insightful and extremely interesting commentary about those sad deluded mac fanbois and those crazy boring windows addicts...
It's really simple, they were/are more expensive then an ordinary laptop with less performance than it's laptop equivalent. If that wasn't the case I'd buy one, but when the tablet costs $2000-$3000 more than the equivalent laptop just because it's a tablet you don't buy it.
If the iPad came with an HDMI port to use an extra monitor, then I'd get one... Then I'd have another toy to play with, and if it sucked, at least it would add some screen space to my desktop.
for about $400 you can get an used Thinkpad X41 tablet (which undoubtedly also has its bad sides) with the battery replaced. I installoed ubuntu 9.10 and am using xournal, cellwriter and inkscape to take notes and gesture recognition to start programs and thats enough to take notes during seminars in a flexible way without making keyboard noise. Yes, its not enough for a 8 hours of note-taking, but for the typical situation that there is a 2h meeting and then you are back to you workplace its fine. However, i will ask my employer to buy an modern tablet soon (no, not an ipad).
I love my tablet PC. Currently running windows 7, I got it (Lenovo x61) as a replacement for my laptop nearly two years ago. I have a 12 inch screen, and my battery life is about 8 hrs. I added the max of 4 gigs of ram, it has core2duo, and threw in a half terabyte hard drive. Total cost: 1200.
I work at a university, and love correcting things with digital red pen. Also, I can sign .pdfs without mouse-penmanship. It's also great for D&D.
OneNote is awesome.
It has an accelerometer (like iphone) but that is currently only utilized to orient the screen when it tablet mode, or to turn off the hdd if it thinks it's being bumped or falling.
Recently my desktop died, and I bought the docking station. Now my tablet is also my desktop. (I use 360 for gaming and no longer need a gaming pc).
Now why would I spend half that on an underpowered thing that does maybe 1/20th of what I can?
It's not really ironic that with deep discounts in addition to coupons you can get this cheaply, but it's hardly relevant to the average customer, who gets neither.
Google: HP coupon tm2. Yeah you're right - this kid of stuff is far too complicated for the merely "average" customer.
Da Blog
Why is that? I don't know but I don't think it's the functionality; heck, anyone who's seen mine (tablet!) liked it instantly.
And how many who said they "really liked it" proceeded to buy one?
That's the problem. Loads of people think the idea is cool but in fact do NOT like the device really, in that they are pretty sure it would not work for them.
Cost is not usually that much of a factor if people really like something a lot.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You see, one of the forms of background processing that people like you forget about is the fact that a server can be operating on your behalf, and then alert you when it's done via push. Since you can have custom sounds set something like a background alarm is easy.
You gotta be kidding me. Running on a remote server is not multi-tasking.
> Can you imagine pecking around with your finger on ultra-thin scroll bars and tiny buttons? ------ You mean like on my Windows Mobile Phone?
You gotta be kidding me. Running on a remote server is not multi-tasking.
Actually it goes back to the root of the term. After all - you were browsing, and then an alarm sounded. These are exactly the set of overlapping tasks you requested, only now red-faced at your inability to understand what forms multi-tasking can take (as evidenced by the exact request you gave) you seek to claim it "doesn't count".
Here's a rather more fleshed out alarm clock that also features push alarms. It's quite a popular feature in alarm clock apps.
http://www.fishbonedevelopment.com/alarmclock/
Come to think of it, the really amusing thing is you could also use the built in iPhone alarm clock app as well to present an alarm - while you were browsing, all on the phone, with no push. So even if you don't accept push as "real" for some reason (even though as I noted via that you can perform one task while you do another) your request is still easily performed for that reason alone!
No multi-tasking, indeed.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Your phone probably has more compute power than the cluster of computers that saw men to the moon. Display now really is the problem because processor watts have been beaten by ARM, and storage watts have been beaten by SSD. All that's left is the watts that drive the display. Roughly a billion people need a platform that's online and delivers the ability to participate in the digital economy. The iPad delivers it, at admittedly too high a price for them - but it's a start. We're on our way to welcoming the slumdogs into the online discourse. I, for one, can't wait to hear what they have to say.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
5 Reasons Tech Reporter Suck, and You Shouldn't Listen to Them:
1. If they had any skill or talent, they'd be making big bucks advising a company that actually designs and sells products.
2. They're wrong almost constantly.
3. They're rewarded for provocative stories that bring in readers, no matter how factually flawed they are.
4. There's hundreds of them, and no two that agree on anything, so who do you believe?
5. Random chance, and the utterly unpredictable dominate the market more than reasoning, so even if they were geniuses, they'd still just be guessing.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I am an illustrator and I love the tablet I'm using. It has revolutionized everything about my job. I can't say enough good things about this tool. Imagine having a universal paintbrush and an unlimited pallet? It's spectacular!
But it's not for everybody. It's like any art store. tons of people buy art supplies they're never going to really use just to play with them, and that's fine, but only a professional is really going to see true value in some of the more expensive tools and paints. It'd be the same if people got a set of art markers and complained when they found them inconvenient to use when writing a letter.
Stick to a ballpoint pen, but don't trash a tool just because it wasn't built for your needs. The trouble I see is tablets were sold to the world as the next big revolution when they are only amazing for a small number of professionals who need to make digital artwork and do cad design jobs and other niche market things.
So you're saying you know the direction that the reality distortion field is pointing and it's not oriented on us?
This entire subject is bollox... if tablets weren't twice the price as equivalently spec'd laptops, they would have taken over the market as expected. It's got nothing to do with the os or any special software support or any of that shit. As it happens, no one is prepared to pay extortionate prices just to be rid of their meeces, which up until now have done perfectly well fulfilling the role of providing a tactile interface to the computer. What is so unbelievably ironic about this is that there isn''t any more sensible way to be able to manipulate a computer screen than to use your fingers or a stylus, and if there was any sense in the world, then there wouldn't be a computer WITHOUT touch screen support. After all, what is the mouse other than a poor placeholder for being able to directly manipulate the GUI? This article is just trying to dig for a reason why the mass market wont buy tablet pcs, when the obvious reason is they are still sold as if they are an exclusive, niche item only for people with money to throw away.
This article has no business being covered by Slashdot. There are two kinds of tablet owners - those that have one, or those that will.
People that don't have one frankly don't get it. And none of the Mac users get it at all. Microsoft has been making tablets happen for years. They're slick and they work well They're not oversized iPhones, they're full machines that can run a full Eclipse environment one minute and excel at Art Rage the next. Once you get used to being able to swing that screen around anytime you need something more portable, say when pulling your engine codes while under someone's car dash, and then being able to swing it back to a full laptop to write up a report, you'll never look back. Sometimes I type, sometimes I hand write. I use mine with the mouse, the stylus, my finger - whatever I feel like, not what some pompous twit who thinks putting 'designer' on his business card means he gets to decide what I need. Some days it's an e-reader, some days it compiles firmware, some days it plays movies. It does it all, and it fits like a champ in an airplane seat!
Tablets came years ago, and stayed. There is no one "ideal form factor", and they get packaged many ways. But the convertible class is nothing but a superset of the laptop. If the price is there, there's no reason not to get one and hasn't been for a long time.
They haven't shipped the thing yet, and already they've sold a million of them.
What matters to Apple and their shareholders: they turned a profit on every one. Like they always do. The damned company makes margin like there's no competition. It's not even remotely fair. And that's the way (ah, ha!) they like it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
One thing I've learned in life is that different people like different things because their eyes, fingers, and brains take different approaches and skills to things. Some prefer smart phones, some laptops, some desktops, and so forth. If a sufficient support and product ecosystem exists for tablets and they reach a "usable" state, then a sufficient chunk of the population will dig them.
Table-ized A.I.
it's not about the widget. It's about the opportunities it enables, the possibilities it creates.
That quote from my original post is a key to an article I wrote for the house rag of a Fortune 500 company I worked for five years ago - in a Star Trek article believe it or not. It's my way of telling them they screwed the pooch. I placed it carefully on slashdot so they'd be sure to read it, because they do come here - and no, I'm not going to get more specific.
As for your post, let me recommend the Xanax. It's great stuff.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Apple is going from the iPhone up and all the other tablet vendors are have gone from the desktop down. They are not trying to win over people that need a real computer. I am surprised how many people I know that own an iPhone and have never owned a Mac. The same holds true for the iPod and will probably be true with the iPad. People like the simplicity and the vast majority of computer users today only use a few apps most of the time, a browser, email and maybe games.
Neither push notifications nor the built in iPhone clock allow alarms to be set to buzz mode regardless of the setting of the silent mode switch.
Come on. You said you were browsing so a silent alarm (no sound or vibration) would work just fine. You started by talking about multi-tasking but now you are down to scraping for details about if a sound plays or if it vibrates instead. What does that have to do with multitasking? Zero, it's more of an SDK ability since obviously the device itself can play sounds OR vibrate.
But the way the iPhone works with notifications that have sound is that the phone plays the sound - or if the silence switch is on, it vibrates!!!! So a notification based alarm could vibrate, if you wished...
But thanks for playing.
My pleasure, since like the house in Vegas I always win. If you would refrain from your sarcasm I would cease taunting you so.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I used tablets in a job at a hospital where all the doctors got flipping screen lenovo laptops and I have one thing to say about tablets after that experience. It comes down to the simple fact that they're only for flashy show off sprees and have no real use. They don't provide anything at all that's better than a laptop. I don't buy the portability thing because the slight weight difference and way you carry it are insignificant. Also, NOTHING can even come close to touching the speed of me with a wired, optical mouse in my hand. After this many years, I don't care what you put in my hand, I'm going to be at most half the speed with it. And the handwriting recognition is a cute trick but too slow and inaccurate and stupid to be used in any real environment where you need to actually do real things. Picking up and holding a computer in your arm like a clipboard to use it is a stupid idea and that's all it really boils down to.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
There were only 1 million TabletPC sold, and only 3 million Kindles. Apple has apparently ordered 5 million iPads for the first quarter of sales, and has sold half a million already, even though they have a 2-per-customer limit, no bulk sales yet, and no devices in stores yet. So they are fairly easily going to outsell all previous tablets within a very short time.
The key thing is that iPad can morph into any tablet-sized device. It's thousands of tablets, not just one tablet. Whatever you used a tablet for previously, or wished you could use one for, iPad can do that. It can even remote control any PC if you want a full PC on there. It even has a Kindle app to run those proprietary books, as well as many open book readers. It can be a photo album or a TV. And the Apple touch interface is like butter, it's smooth and responsive and doesn't misfire. It's accurate enough for professional artwork, same as iPhone. The software stack is incredibly deep: OS X, HTML5, Cocoa, iPod. Any 10 iPad buyers may buy for 10 different reasons. I can already see this in my friends who are planning to buy an iPad, they are from all walks of life, and only a few could be described as gadgety. Everyone has a really good uses for iPad. One friend wants it solely for presentations, another for photos. I probably want it most for the Web browser.
Another important thing is Apple did not try to make a PC-replacement. You're not supposed to ditch your PC for this, which was always a feature of TabletPC. Bill Gates used to say everyone will be using a stylus soon. Apple has clearly made iPad a secondary computer to your PC. If you have a PC and a tech book on your desk right now, iPad replaces the tech book, not the PC. I think they found exactly the right balance between ambition and humility in attempting to replace all the tablets but not attempting to replace a single PC.
They are too expensive. If i could get one for around 100$ which did all that i wanted (including not having censored programs) - I wouldn't care if anybody else on the planet had one.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Forget Microsoft or Apple trying to get get a full OS to work. The Big Company that really could make a killing on these would be Paramount. Get Mike Okuda to design a touch interface similar to the Star Trek PADD -- pannel based, not multiple overlapping windows, customisable layout with generic controls. Voice would be a bonus but shouldn't be necessary. Audio Icons (a la Emacspeak / LCARS) would be a bonus for visually impared (or fully visual enabled but distracted people). Then make it support Apple / Java app store applications and I'd buy one. Oh, and all that the iPad really misses at the moment is a built-in SD card reader -(yes I know the doc has one, but it's not portable, is it?) - that alone would make it much more useful.
“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with nuclear bombs. We have a protractor.” — Neal Stepnenso
I had a Lenovo ThinkPad tablet with Vista at my last job and I loved it. The tablet interface was perfect for playing Microsoft's Sudoko app while I was waiting for them to dump me.
I'm sorry, the Apple guys took the trouble of building those devices properly.
Everyone else built them either for:
1. fun, and evidently you cannot ask for quality on those products, but I do treat them in the spirit they have been built: I salute you, pioneers, you have my greatest admiration.
2. money, and they were so greedy or short sighted that they figured, hey, let's make it the cheapest piece of junk ever, we need moar ca$h! Wonder why no one looks at them?
You guys need to train your brain filters. That Article wasn't pro microsoft... it only pointed out Bill Gates' famous proclamation that tablets would take over, and contrasted it with the horrible execution of it all. it also pointed out how badly MS missed the mark with newer WinCE devices. So.... where is it pro MS?
Just because he says what he thinks MS needs to do to be competitive, doesn't mean he's pro MS.
If a new reporter came out and said " The republicans need to win 10 key votes to take the election next year", is he/she a Republican?
Well, all the comments (I haven't read them all in this thread, but have read comments regarding tablets and iTablets - later iPads for several months now), are most likely skewed in a direction - mostly indicating that tablets won't succeed. They won't succeed because they don't implement the OS of my choice on them (but even when they do have my OS of choice, I won't buy one because of ).
I believe the iPad will be successful - and with a crowd of people who don't read/care/post comments to /. When the iPad was announced, I had many mixed reactions to it - mostly about the things it didn't have that all the pundits & hopefuls said it should have to be "complete" or "successful". Then an interesting thing started occurring - even here on /. Several said they weren't going to buy an iPad - BUT they were going to get one for their parents or grandparents. Those groups of people who sometimes have a computer, but we all wind up supporting them and eradicating the virii on their computers. (My mother-in-law has one that I've been down to fix 3-4 times a year, and winds up getting sick again within 2 weeks after I leave).
This group of people who mostly want nothing more than to do some light web surfing, email, get pictures of the grandkids and family, maybe take a few notes down, etc - they are the ones who will make the iPad successful. While everyone lambasts the iPad as being "too expensive", most of the others that have had price announcements and point to products that will actually last more than 6 months, are at least as expensive, if not more so. (Get real - how long do you think that $99 tablet that some Chinese firm is making and will be available "real soon now" will actually last? Or will actually be $99? Or will actually be useable for that price point? Maybe in 4-5 more years, but not this year).
So - my prediction - the iPad will sell well, and will sell mostly to a crowd that does not inhabit the tech forums and areas of the 'net that are now predicting the demise of the iPad. It will sell to them because it does what they want. I don't know what's occurred over the last many years, but at least when I started out programming, you first asked yourself what you really needed in software - you found that software, THEN you worried about what hardware it ran on - and you used the OS that came with that hardware (if you had a choice, great, but most often you didn't). Somewhere along the line, a generation has come up worrying about what hardware or OS is first - then making their software selections later.
5 reasons not to click on a link to an enumerative article:
1 - Most of the time you get 1 of those items per page, exposing you to more banners and stuff.
2 - They tell you nothing new.
3 - Sometimes, reasons are invented just because they have to have 3, 5, or 10 reasons, never 6.
4 - They are poorly written. The "N reasons [to|not to]" are the best cost/benefit for the site owner, they get the article up in minutes and the title gets zillions of wondering surfers to their site. They don't want to inform you, they want you to see the banners or they want to promote their blog/site.
5 - Just because you probably have something better to do with your time, like reading this post.
How can someone with such a low ID make such a statement? Did you sign up for Slashdot and then come back a decade later?
Anyway, I don't see how questioning an obviously false statement qualifies as pedantic or nit-picking. What if I said that IBM, Intel, and MS single-handedly created the desktop computer market? Would you consider any criticism of that claim to be "pedantic nit-picking"?
I'm curious. Did this Schell person say this before, after or during the iPad release in the US where they took preorders for a couple hundred thousand of the things?
So far I've gotten along fine with my handspring prizm. For all the normal things I want something portable it does or has applications that will do the functions I want. The only time I really need more I want my full function laptop.
The Article starts by stating that all Tablets suck. And that YOU won't buy one.
Then, it goes on to explain what Microsoft has to do to take a winning place in the Market.
It says "Microsoft needs to ... " at least 10 times.
Implying the Market is dead and only microsoft can save it is obviously pro-m$.
You have to reed between the lines. Any article saying the market is dead, and then talking about m$ (who happens to be just about to release a tablet), is just trying to create hype.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Timing.
And sacrificing chickens.
Da Blog
You went after the phrasing rather than the intent in the statement. That was the pedantic part.
For all practical purposes there was not a significant market for "mobile" music before the iPod; Walkman does not count because that "re-used" music stored on media originally intended for stationary enjoyment; and portable record players existed back in the 1960s if you want to insist on your mis-application of the Walkman as an example.
PC around $500 (some less some more) affordable to all
laptop $800 (some less some more) affordable to all, netbooks cheaper
tablet $1500 (few less, most more)
Ok if my number are slightly off, the point is that tablets that have full os would cost more than laptop and offer only a little in way of portability. But this is changing now, so we will see if tablets take off and if the ipad ( I still think of mad tv skit) rules that world or not.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
If you are looking for a tablet to do everything, ask your desktop to walk your dog.
Either your paraphrasing skills are poor, or the "famous" Jesse Schell is blowing smoke out his ass, or both.
Whether technologies diverge is irrelevant to the question of whether devices and use-cases diverge. The latter question is too large in scope to answer definitively. You and Jesse are indulging in a cherry-picking exercise to make a fatuous point. In your view we must also make a "laptop exception", because modern laptops are a convergence of a textbook, a microphone, a magazine, a typewriter, and a scrabble board. And a "car exception" because they're a convergence of the oxcart, the record player, the horse, the bicycle, and the cigarette lighter. In countless lives, laptops and automobiles have supplanted those technologies for their use-cases, often entirely.
I fully expect the same to occur for the tablet. The average joe considers the computer keyboard to be a nuisance. It's got 109 damn buttons on it. You use it grudgingly, when you need to string letters together. For ALL OTHER PURPOSES it is a GODDAMN HACK.
The keyboard has been around for almost two hundred years. The broader tech and software world has not had a chance to play with portable, responsive, accurate, low-power, full-color touch hardware for even five years so far. Drop another ten years into this tech on larger screens - of which the iPad is the opening round - and you will find yourself surrounded by people who consider the physical keyboard to be an exasperating relic, like the rotary-dial telephone.
In the smaller scope, wait about six months and ask yourself again if "everyone hates the iPad". I find it untrue now and I'm sure you'll find it even more untrue then.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Because I already have a tablet PC.
I've had it since about 2003. It still works, and is still a pretty neat toy.
You have to accept an update, download it, and then tell it it's OK to install.
I was just confused as to what a user loses by pressing Cancel.
They can do anything with the phone, apps, music, video - except for run third party apps that require a certain level of OS revision.
Fair enough. I just extrapolated from Nintendo's policy, which requires the latest Wii Menu version before the user can access Wii Shop Channel to buy more apps, even apps first released within two months after the Wii's launch.
Anyone can become a developer if they wish
To become an iPhone developer, you first need the iPhone developer hardware (cheapest is $600 Mac mini + $200 iPod Touch). Then you have to sign up for an ADC account. The form for this has a required "company" field. Filing a form with the state to establish a sole proprietorship isn't nearly as much of a burden as Nintendo's process, but I just wonder about Apple's reason behind this requirement in order to obtain an ADC account.
Furthermore, ANYONE could have done the same thing since looking at a list of SSID's around you is as simple as going to Settings-WiFi and looking at the list it presents, while you drive around watching the names change and taking screenshots as you go.
When you drive, you're supposed to look at the road, not a phone.