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Why Windows 7 "Slate" Tablets Won't Happen
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Galen Gruman questions the viability of Windows 7 on tablets in the wake of the news that HP will use Palm's WebOS as the foundation for iPad rivals, rather than follow through with the previously hyped Windows 7-based Slate. 'The iPad proved a tablet shouldn't be a portable computer that happened to have its screen always exposed. Even though technical components are shared between the Mac OS and the iPhone OS, the irrelevant Mac OS functions aren't gumming up the iPhone OS, and Apple's development environment doesn't let you pull through desktop approaches into your mobile applications. You're forced to go touch-native,' Gruman writes, adding that, when it comes to touch capabilities, Windows 7 leaves much to be desired. 'Sure, a few Windows 7 slate-style tablets will ship — Asus and MSI are said to have models shipping later this year. But those products will go nowhere, because Windows 7 is simply not the right operating system for a slate.'"
Their vulnerable blind spot is called WINDOWS.
Everything in Windows was designed for mouse/keyboard combination, and there is no touch UI to behold.
Apple's approach is much better, different products, different approaches, and a different UI for Desktop and touch based items.
The reason why touch screens suck so much, is not because they suck, but the application/OS is always bolted on afterthought, rather than separate approach.
This is why I see Apple and Android being the dominant players in these types of devices. And if HP can pull off a miracle and get Palm functioning, it might prove to be a viable third tier option.
I'm afraid the people running Microsoft can't think outside of the whole "Windows" paradigm long enough to figure out that Windows is NOT a touch screen OS, no matter what they try to bolt on.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
They're working too hard for Windows lockin. If they would just let that go, and let all their smart people develop a *good OS* for *just* *mobile*, with no ball & chain to Windows, it'd be competitive.
Sadly, I think that such an activity is against their DNA at this point.
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You basically repeated the summary. Yes, it has a tablet mode. Yes, some manufacturers are going to ship with it. Yes, it's going to suck.
As much as I loathe Apple's restrictions, they have the right idea with the iPad. As a device, the entire desktop UI metaphor needs to be rethought.
Microsoft is the type that's always going to throw a stylus and a full keyboard into the mix "just in case", and developers will enevitably end up writing with those in mind because it's closer to what they already know how to work with on the desktop. In short, Microsoft's products in new markets suck because they just don't have the balls to try something REALLY different. They take baby steps when they should be taking leaps.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Mainly because general end users don't want a desktop OS in a slate form factor.
There are some domains where a desktop OS tablet is very desirable.
There are some domains where a Barium Enema is very desirable. That doesn't mean the general population wants one.
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Microsoft's first answer to every problem has been to protect/promote Windows, even when that wasn't a viable strategy. At first they tried to ignore the internet because it conflicted with their idea of Windows, and then when that didn't work, they came up with IE and tried to use that to tie the internet to Windows. Windows is their biggest cash cow, it's their marketshare dominance, it's the heart of their company. (One big exception to this is the Xbox, which despite not making any money, has at least been successful in terms of marketshare. If the Xbox dropped you into a windows desktop when you powered it up, it probably would've failed pretty hard).
They're finally starting to get it, but at this point, they're years behind.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
You make it sound as if WebOS is slow and bloated, which it clearly isn't. WebOS is built on top of Linux kernel and is specifically designed for use on devices with touchscreens. Android and WebOS are a much better alternative than windows7 for slate devices and OEMs seem to be realizing that now
Not gonna happen. MS would never let .Net run anywhere else and the same will be true for silverlight soon enough. Note no play ready DRM for moonlight and the fact that the windows version is gaining features the mac one will never get. Microsoft would never do anything that does not serve to prop up their windows desktop monopoly.
Sort of.
Actually, Microsoft doesn't have a "vulnerable blind spot". What they have is an applications stack lever. They've never managed to reach into the mobile platforms because their whole business is built on application/data incompatibility with other platforms. The cost of moving from Microsoft is not the loss of Windows. It's the loss of the millions of Windows apps.
That's wonderful for them when they "compete" in the Wintel market, but elsewhere, without the support of that weight of backwards compatible applications, their OS efforts are exposed as bland, clunky and unreliable.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Don't worry bro, now that Microsoft's entertainment and electronic executives have been fired, Ballmer is back in charge.
Smooth sailing from here bro.
Microsoft needed moar Ballmer and it's getting it.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
The input method for an OS or its applications is very basic stuff; what works well for input from a keyboard doesn't work well with a mouse. Try operating programs in a Windows CMD window with your mouse and see how far that gets you. Operating Windows from a keyboard is possible but you wouldn't want to try to do serious work this way - and even today there's important menu functions that don't have keyboard equivalents. Neither of those designs is wrong, they're just designed for a particular input method. You can attempt to patch things so that the support for a wrong input device is a different kind of wrong but the only way to do it right is to start from scratch and design from the ground up for the input method.
A touch screen interface - especially multi-touch - is also a different input method. Your finger isn't a mouse and while you can try to emulate a mouse with a finger you'll quickly find that there's information a mouse supplies that a finger can only do awkwardly if at all. You'd think that Microsoft - who was right there in the thick of the battle to change input methods from text to mouse - would know these things. I suspect their engineers do but their marketing people apparently don't.
Anyone that has a digitizer tablet connected to a Windows box can easily verify that attempting to operate Windows with nothing more than "point" and "click" is a frustrating experience. Everything is much more difficult to do until you reach a critical point where you won't be able to proceed any further. Their tablet add-ons try to address these fundamental problems but they can only do it imperfectly - Windows is designed from the ground up to be operated with a mouse / keyboard. The companies making tablet PCs have known this for years and you might note that they include a detachable keyboard and a PS/2 mouse port in their designs. Their hope was that your in-house programs would be good enough to work from the touch screen and that this would make their product truly useful. Trying to use Office apps on a touch screen just doesn't work well enough to be usable.
Apple's success with their touch screen devices is largely due to the simple fact that the OS that runs them was built to use a touch screen as its primary input device. And much of their app approval process is there to insure that quickie ports of mouse operated apps aren't inflicted on their users. Touch is another different input method and like the others, only works well when the system is built from the ground up to be operated in that way.
If Microsoft wants to play in this market they're going to have to break away from tradition and build a lightweight touch operated OS - they've got the talent to do it but I'm not sure if they have the willingness to do it. I suspect they'll just keep on pushing their desktop OS on tablets and watching them fail in the market.
Linux on tablets is going to face the same challenges. To operate not just the kernel but the applications using an interface that reports nothing more than a "click" at a screen address and do it well will require some very serious effort - and a willingness of the various programmers to support not only the keyboard / mouse version but the touch version as well. If we want to see successful Linux tablets this will need to be done - or else Linux can follow the Windows model and suffer the same fate.
They're working too hard for Windows lockin.
And Apple isn't working just as feverishly for their own lockin?
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
For those of us running Linux or that choose not to install the bloatware that is iTunes on our PCs, yes...it is an arduous process. Simple documents such as music and pictures should have the capability to be dragged and dropped as if the iWhatever were just another removable drive.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Apple's marketing magic has managed to create a market for cheap-ass crap slates, by not marketing them as computers, but rather as toys for grownups. They've lowered the functionality expectations, so people won't be disapointed with something barely more than a big cell-phone. I wouldn't even want to try Photoshop on an iPad if it were available. I'd give OneNote a shot if it existed for the iPad, but I wouldn't expect much from it.
Windows 7's issue here isn't anything based on capabilies, design, or limitations. Its that "It wasn't approved by Apple fanboys" and nothing else.
Funny how not so long ago, Apple and its users were insignificant and doomed to obscurity, irrelevant in the face of the Windows behemoth, but now somehow "Apple fanboys" wield immense power to control entire industries.
Alternatively, it might be that your analysis is way off and not really based on reality. I wonder which is more likely?
... and then they built the supercollider.
Microsoft's the Xerox of our days. There's some great ideas coming out of Microsoft Research but the rest of the company's pathologically unable to see anything through to the end.
Tablet PCs. Great idea, it failed because all the devices were half-assed notebooks with a touchscreen tucked on. It failed because MS went all the way to create the best handwriting recognition on the planet and then didn't make it usable in Office (with the exception of one specialized app). It failed because they really needed something like the Courier user interface but instead they built the back-end then scrapped it and instead they're just gonna copy Apple like usual.
P.S.: Oh and they failed because Intel's been unable or unwilling to really improve the Atom in over two years. It's their Tick....Quack model of development. The Quack is them moving the GPU on the CPU die which is less about better performance or lower power and more about killing Nvidia without being quite so obvious about it.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I concur. Microsoft already tried the tablet route with the MIDs not 3 years ago, and it sucked, because desktop OS's are too deeply invested in keyboards, mice, and power outlets. I bought a Samsung MID and it was a terrible user experience.
I've thought for a long time now that stylus' are crutches that allow you to use the wrong kind of UI on a portable device. The iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad only serve to reinforce that belief.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Well, it proved it in the sense that tablets with full desktop OSes have been on sale for many, many years and when the iPad went on sale it sold at twice the rate of the iPhone and continues at that pace even after the reviews are in.
There are already many tablets that are portable computers; they just don't sell well.
iPad/Android/WebOS tablet, however, looks like it has some promise.
This is what I love about iPhoners.
"We don't want to be able to choose or not Flash video"
Seriously.
throw new NoSignatureException();
It's a little different - the ecosystem, yes - vertical integration is their game, but for your data they are opposed to lock-in.
Office apps: documented, open XML format (making it very easy and supported to write converters if you don;t want to use the format itself). .mbox
Audio: AAC
Video: H.264
Email:
Calendars/contacts: vcard/icalendar
They want you using Apple hardware and software, but they make it easy to move your data in and out of the ecosystem as you choose.
Yes, and no. Microsoft wants Windows to be everywhere, and lots of people want Windows to be everywhere. So far, that hasn't worked for a variety of reasons.
Again, yes and no. Windows 7 has a terrific touch UI. but the legacy apps aren't written to support it.
An affordable windows slate is wanted and needed and has a market, if it has the performance characteristics necessary (cpu, battery, etc..). Nobody wants another overpriced tablet pc.
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The only thing the ipad proved is that the tablet market has been sorely neglected; the pent up market demand is palpable. There are still some very basic tasks that are well suited to a portable touchscreen device.
Printing is a big one, its not that hard to detect and download a printer driver automatically, every desktop OS does it and it's great.
The USB functionality, at the very least for (you guessed it, printers) and flash drives would make this the primary tool for a great many college students. Why tether a device to a desktop when the device is perfectly capable by itself of handling all kinds of file manipulation.
That last point is the singular reason i have no interest in owning an ipad, the network device and file support is in the dark ages. Even apple supported apps like the vaunted keynote remote are horribly buggy, slow, and unintelligent, often requiring router configuration without the help of man pages. Is it really that hard to believe that offices WANT a slick, intuitive interface for accessing and manipulating documents on a local network, a flash drive?
There's still alot of untapped market demand, the ipad only scratched the surface.
Only Apple could convince the industry that limiting features is a good idea.
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 16 years before Steve Jobs was born. Apple may have good taste, but they didn't invent it.
Agreed; there seems to be a false assumption here, i.e. the is iPad is marketable/sells/works therefore Windows 7 cannot be good on a tablet. This does not follow at all. Unless the iPad has Win7 on it, it CANNOT demonstrate that Win7 is bad for tablets, only that it's OS does work on tablets (or that Apple products sell regardless of functionality).
Do you own one?
I do, and I haven't hooked it up to iTunes since I bought it. Everything I need on it is synced through mobileme. The iTunes store, app store and book store are all on the iPad and respond very nicely. I dunno about other people, but that's my usage pattern.
I mainly use the iPad for movie watching, browsing the web on the toilet, and book reading. Basically what I use my iPhone for, but with a bigger screen and more access to other apps.
I wouldn't say it's a killer app but it's definitely a nice luxury item
Where the iPad really shines is travel. It's much better than bringing a laptop if all you want to do is watch movies, read books, and use Pages to jot down story ideas (something I do).
It's actually pretty handy if you have an awesome dream that gives you a really good idea for a story. I actually used it for that. I picked it up right when I was still groggy from sleeping and the dream was fresh in my mind and started plugging away at the onscreen keyboard. Sure, I made some typos but the general gist of the idea was there.
I wouldn't say that it's really worth the price ( I got the lowest end wifi version and really don't miss 3g at all). But it is a nice product to own.
Let me rephrase it then: the iPad shows with crystal clarity the difference between a traditional GUI and a designed-for-touch GUI when using a tablet.
I'm not aware of any existing full-scale OS--including Linux--where existing applications can be cleanly ported to 'designed for touch' GUI. Therefore, if you want a designed-for-touch GUI, you need a designed-for-touch OS.
Now maybe Android will be exactly what you're looking for, with the right hardware--a full OS/GUI stack designed for touch with the power of a full computer. But so far, nobody else has really done it. I mean, hell, it is a good idea. I like to think that eventually a portable OS with an intuitive interface will merge with the full power of linux scripting, development, etc, on a processor strong enough to really carry the whole setup. However, I don't think that the iPad shows that restricted OS+Touch GUI is a bad combination.
And Tablet PCs failed because I've never, *ever* seen one priced below the level of a high-end notebook. I've heard there's some in the US, if you're willing to spend two days finding one online and then masquerading as a small business to buy it, but in the rest of the world your options are between "sell one kidney" and "sell both".
When an Apple product is the *cheap* alternative, you know you're doing something very, very wrong.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Apple didn't just package it better. They packaged it so it works on the device. Features don't get used when they are too clumsy. Try to sell me a hand power drill that requires two hands to operate and I'll tell you to suck it. Sure if it was the only drill available I'd try to make it work but I'd drop it instantly the minute I saw a one handed version.
The interface is the tool. Without a good interface it's just a bunch of technology being under used.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I guess I'm still surprised that here on Slashdot that there are people who form their preferences for technologies based on how well "they're doing in the market". Maybe it would be different if I ran an electronics store or an advertising agency. The fact that a lot of people are buying iPads might persuade me to buy Apple stock, but it's not going to persuade me to buy an iPad.
Honestly, the fact that people are lining up to buy something has never been a strong recommendation for me, any more than having a lot of advertisements for a particular technology indicates superiority. If it was, I'd be getting my technology news from Wired Magazine.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Saying a tablet isn't a full blown computer is not forward thinking. That's like saying 10yrs ago, you're crazy for wanting to use email on your phone, a cell phone has a niche and this is what it does - accept it. Apple loves this kind of thinking.
Realistically though - who wants to carry around multiple portable devices? Should I use my netbook for somethings, my laptop for others, and my full-blown computer for yet other things? Marketing departments everywhere are screaming YES! but really, a lightweight portable device that runs a similar platform to whatever I sit in front of at work and that has as few limitations as possible will clearly dominate the market at some point. The demand for performance and user interface will always be highest on portable devices - if you are bothering to lug something around with you in a world saturated with computer terminals - the thing you are carrying around better make itself snappy and easy to use or it gets left behind. I'll wait until I get home to check my email rather than lug some piece of junk on the bus that takes one minute to boot, 3min to connect to some sort of network and another 3min to get into my email. Apple has recognized this and windows has not. As soon as someone makes something that incorporates Apple's understanding of the UI but makes a tablet style computer instead of a toy, the idea that your tablet has to be a specialty niche device evaporates - it becomes just another portal to your digital world.
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More likely the mods smelled an anti-Apple viewpoint that is regurgitated regularly and without any thought or originality. He or she immediately starts the usual "they only buy it because it's Apple" rant, spewing more 'Apple Disciple' nonsense, throws in the required 'fanatical', and 'brainwashed' buzzwords. About the only phrase that's missing is the 'Alter of Steve' bit. Was there really anything insightful in the parent post that we haven't read thousands of times in countless Apple threads for the last 3 years? It's gotten far worse since the Droid came out, never mind the fact that Apple gave droid the basis for it's design. Sure there were smart phones out before iPhone, but none of them were really usable for the average joe. The UI's sucked, the OS's were to be detested, and the ease of use simply didn't exist.
Droid didn't happen in a vacuum and if you think it was 'all new' (ala Billy Mays), you're deluding yourself. I agree with the summary. Windows in it's current implementation doesn't work for a tablet. It hasn't worked for a tablet for the last decade, and unless they change their way of thinking to better adapt to touch interfaces, they will continue to be irrelevant.
So you have a tablet with a different OS selling well, how does that not demonstrate that Windows does not in fact work well on tablets?
A tablet running one OS that sells well does not mean that a different OS is bad. Lets use a good old car analogy...in America automatic transmissions seem to be more popular therefore manual transmissions don't work well on cars. That is patently false (I live in the UK and manual is much more popular here than automatic), but is equivalent to what you are saying. Saying one thing is good does not mean an alternative is bad. On top if that, sales do not equal performance, so you fail on two levels.
The only way your argument would hold up is if Apple released (at the same time and for a comparable price) an iPad with Win7 on it rather than iPhone OS, but it sold poorly. Even then it would only be an indication, not proof (the full OS version would likely be more expensive - I did say comparable price - and wouldn't be as pretty, so no "I want it!" impulse buyers).
I am not saying that Win7 has a better tablet interface than the iPhone OS on the iPad. What I am saying is that your argument is fundamentally flawed on several levels. There are many factors here that would effect sales, such as brand loyalty, aesthetics of both hardware and software, price, marketing, novelty factor, target demographic, size (windows tablets I have seen in the past have been quite a bit larger than the iPad) and so on, therefore you cannot draw the conclusion Windows doesn't work on tablets from multi-vendor sales comparisons. As a side note, do you know how many Windows tablets have been sold? It wouldn't surprise me at all if all the Windows tablets on the market well outstripped the iPad in sales...you just wouldn't notice it as it would be spread across multiple vendors and models. Incidentally, I think Apple is leading computer manufacturer, or at least up there but they still have a minuscule amount of the OS share since so many companies (and individuals) make Windows machines.
Oh fuck off. Yes, Apple only sells stuff because of the RDF or advertising. What a load of shit.
Windows 7 tablets have been out already, just as Vista and XP tablets have also been out. What we do know, is that so far, these devices have not taken off.
Now, there will be a second wave of tablets, where everyone runs out and copies the iPad, and that might change things. They will be cheaper, and not as powerful, and have longer lasting batteries. It remains to be seen how well W7 does on this, andoid might be a better fit, and might actually take off.
Is the only possible reason for this that the iPad OS (i.e. iPhone OS) is good and Windows is bad?
Yes, it is. Because it can be done, Windows has not done it through multiple iterations, that is exactly what it means.
Note that the fully qualified statement is really "Windows is Bad - for tablets".
There are other reasons that are also possibly true, but through each failed iteration they all became exceedingly unlikely. Now the essence of the thing has been boiled down, and even HP is fleeing Windows on tablets. If that doesn't complete the picture for you, you are staring too hard at the lines between the pieces and not looking at the image they make...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Saying a tablet isn't a full blown computer is not forward thinking. That's like saying 10yrs ago, you're crazy for wanting to use email on your phone, a cell phone has a niche and this is what it does - accept it. Apple loves this kind of thinking.
What's 10 years from now got to do with anything? If 10 years from now tablets will be running a full-blown desktop OS (they won't), that doesn't mean they should be doing so now.
but really, a lightweight portable device that runs a similar platform to whatever I sit in front of at work and that has as few limitations as possible will clearly dominate the market at some point.
That's not clear at all. An OS designed for a large screen with a mouse and keyboard doesn't make sense for use on a small multitouch device. Additionally, what you mean by "as few limitations as possible" is not relevant to most people. I assume you mean the type of limitations that the iPad has (primarily, the app store). Those "limitations" to you are not limitations for most people. On the contrary, the App Store is more enabling for most people than the Android-style solution.
What matters much more than if your portable unit runs the same OS and the same exact apps as your desktop is if your portable device has apps available to do the things people want to do away from home. With the iPhone and iPad, the answer is clearly "yes" for the vast majority of consumers so far.
As soon as someone makes something that incorporates Apple's understanding of the UI but makes a tablet style computer instead of a toy, the idea that your tablet has to be a specialty niche device evaporates - it becomes just another portal to your digital world.
The thing that makes you call the iPad a toy is the exact reason you are wrong here. People just aren't bothered by the limitations that irk you. In the '80s, the Mac was a "toy" because the mouse was "too limiting" and people "wanted the same text-mode apps they used at work", etc.
No the fuck it didn't. The iPad proved that people will buy anything if it's had enough Apple hype ladled onto it.
That's why everyone has an AppleTV.
Oh wait. They don't. People don't buy Apple products because they have an Apple logo, they buy them because they work extremely well. The fact that the products that tend to work the best tend to have an Apple logo says more about Apple and its competition than it does about those that buy Apple products.
I think the new wave of Windows 7 and Android tablets will show that in short order.
Nonsense. Windows 7 tablets are a dead end. Android and WebOS are the only real competition for the iPad going forward. This year, there's no chance Android or WebOS tablets will outsell the iPad, and further down the road, I don't see people buying either over the iPad, as there's pretty much no compelling reason to.
Sadly, breathless hype is a speciality of Apple disciples, and so we'll be hearing about how revolutionary the iPad is long after everyone who actually wanted a real tablet computer has bought one and is happily at home using it.
Only 3-4 million tablet PCs are sold per year. The iPad will outsell the tablet PC this year. Windows 7 won't have any significant impact on this.
Apple's marketing strategy could be best described as "less is more, more is more than that".
No, Apple's marketing strategy is to make sure their products are appealing without marketing, and use marketing as a way of getting people to get into an Apple Store. Once there, their products sell themselves. You can't polish a turd. Apple could not have had the success they have had to date if their products are successful primarily due to marketing, and not for the inherent quality of the products themselves.
They're not selling to Apple fanboys, they're selling to the general public. You and I notice when it shuts down the current process to fire up the web-browser but the average person doesn't notice and doesn't care. They care more about it being easy to use. That's Apple's focus and they only add features when they can nail the ease-of-use as well. That's why they are so successful.
It's not for you. It's probably not for me. But it is for most people.
What proprietary formats? I gave you specific examples. What proprietary and "lock in" data formats do they use?
What exactly do they "do in software" that restricts users more than Microsoft?
The provide *optional* software registration for OS X and several of their products - the pro apps are all optional registrations, it has nothing to do with activating or validating the installs.
The last bit of DRM on the data formats they use is on movies and TV shows from the iTunes store, which they are working on removing (like they did with music), but cannot do so unless the content providers (namely the movie and TV studios) agree.
They "take advantage" (you try to make it sound like adding commercial weight to an OSS project is a bad thing) of free software and yet still favour data transparency - there is nothing stopping them using a proprietary blob for their formats on the other side (for example, the mailbox format in Mail - they didn't have to use .mbox, or they could have used .mbox but wrapped it up inside an app bundle with Mac-only extensions, or their office formats (iWork etc) could have used a non-documented and difficult to reverse engineer XML format, instead it is well specced and open for anyone to write a full converter.
All you are doing is spreading FUD of your own. Apple are no angels, but your post is nothing more than accusations with no citation. I gave you examples, I expect them in return in a counter argument. Oh right, you don;t have any, you're just making it up.
Perhaps, but there are enough exceptions. Was the first netbook by Asus hyped to extreme proportions? Is the Macbook Air selling wildly or is it eventually going to be quietly discontinued? Hyping isn't everything, but it helps. Now please, read my reasoning below.
Let's look at this from an interestingly different other angle. Here on slashdot people blame Apple for advertising they have a tablet whose main feature is that it is more of a flexible appliance than a computer. If you go to a video game website, when a good game doesn't sell well, all the gamers start blame the company for not advertising enough. (Particularly on the Wii.) Both Dell and Microsoft are much larger than Apple. They regarded tablets as niche for all these years and done their best to avoid advertising them all together. Apple did too considering a third party company started making the ridiculously expensive "Modbooks".
Why are people not blaming Microsoft and the computer makers for sitting around doing nothing for 10 years? Apple hypes their new products much like a console maker, but come on guys. You don't take the initiative, you don't get the cookie. If it wasn't Apple with the iPad, it was going to be Amazon with a future revision of the ereader. PC industry have their heads so far up their asses with the status quo they didn't have a chance in hell of making a breakout product with the public in this segment.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.