Slashdot Mirror
iPad Is Destroying Netbook Sales
Hugh Pickens writes "Fortune magazine reports that sales growth of low-cost, low-powered netbooks peaked last summer at an astonishing 641% year-over-year growth rate but netbook sales fell off a cliff in January and shrank again in April — collateral damage, according to Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty, from the January introduction and April launch of the iPad. In support of Huberty's theory, she offers a Morgan Stanley/Alphawise survey conducted in March which found that 44% of US consumers who were planning to buy an iPad said they were buying it instead of a netbook or notebook computer. In related news, Apple announced that it sold its one millionth iPad last week, just 28 days after its introduction on April 3. 'One million iPads in 28 days — that's less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,' says Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. 'Demand continues to exceed supply and we're working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers.'"
I think the /. crowd said something more along the lines of, "It's a piece of crap, but every yuppie retard will still buy one."
Seems a little more in-line with reality.
Or maybe netbook sales are cratering because instead of delivering quality models with high performance and low power packed into a lightweight enclosure, companies like Dell have axed all but the most profitable models, and replaced SSDs with magnetic disks and raised prices to the maximum they can squeeze out of customers. Netbook selection is terrible now compared to what it was a year ago. Last year there were many models and there was a price war, now there are a few models and they're just crappy low-end notebooks.
Indeed, at least one study in late 2009 predicted that Netbooks would fall off of their own accord
http://www.internetnews.com/stats/article.php/3855261/Netbook-Sales-to-Cool-Off-in-2010.htm
That was a month before the iPad was announced.
Not only is it incredibly biased, but it offers nothing in the way of actual evidence that would persuade someone who'd advanced past third grade.
Think about it for a second: Only 44% of the people who bought iPads who were surveyed said that they did so instead of buying a netbook. How many people bought iPads, as compared to those who bought netbooks?
The other thing that's astonishing to me is that someone who writes a market research report could be so piss-poor at reading a graph. Sales of netbooks actually went down most in October/November 2009, well before the January announcement of the iPad. I'm kind of astonished that the author of the Fortune article could be that stupid.
RealVNC, and Mocha both are easy to setup and work well. Although RealVNC wants you to use their server on your computer, I believe that both will work just fine with OS X built in Remote Desktop. I've used Mocha with both 10.4 and 10.6.
Beyond that there are a number of handy remote control/trackpad keyboard apps as well. I've tried both Hippo Remote, and Mobile Air Mouse. Hippo is functional but is very basic. Mobile Air Mouse does all the basics, plus right click functionality. It also displays the shortcuts in the dock of the host machine allowing them to be launched with a tap on the iPad touchscreen.
Apples Remote Control app is out there too. But all it does is provide and interface with Front Row.
I want to shoot the messenger!
The actual worth of an iPad aside, your friend has a new piece of tech which people are lining up to buy at full retail and is still in limited supply? And he is letting it sit idle? He is either imaginary or an idiot or has never heard of eBay.
He's a app developer. He bought it to make his stuff work on it.
According to him, it's just too heavy to be comfortable and he always grabs his iPhone instead.