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Asus Joins Tablet PC Race
WrongSizeGlass writes "Reuters is reporting that netbook pioneer Asustek Computer Inc. has become the latest technology company to jump on the tablet PC bandwagon. The device will be called the Eee Pad, will run on Intel or ARM chips, and use Microsoft's Windows operating system. 'The Eee Pad can display Adobe Flash for the full web experience, has a USB port and a camera,' Asus Chairman Jonney Shih said. Asus did not release pricing details or a potential release date, and did not provide further details on the format or a launch date for the new app store."
Is it just me or does it seem ridiculous that "our device X supports flash" is becoming a major selling point??
I made an app! Shoutium
And then whimper when they find out Asus has been making Apple products for years.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1042363/asus-apple-building-tablet-pc
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
So, Intel or ARM is still not decided, but that it will run Windows is? Guess that must be WinCE? But why not put Android on it? To make a real alternative to those cheap/underpowered chinese android pads floating around, and give the WePad a run for it's money?
Neither model is expected to hit the market until Q1 2011, with prices tipped at between $399 and $499.
At which point the iPad will have been out for an entire year. Every one else that can will have jumped on the bandwagon. If I *wanted* a *Pad, I'd go and get an iPad. I'm not waiting until Q1 of next year for something.
Reminds me of what PCWorld said about the Windows 7 Phone:
"If this were two years ago, Windows Phone 7 might even be a cutting edge innovation that could set the smartphone world on fire."
By announce a simi-vapor product with no concrete release date or price..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
A Windows 7 tablet and a Windows CE tablet, both lousy software platforms for tablets. They should be shipping Android, ChromeOS, and MeeGo.
It's a tablet, not a desktop.
But I suspect people will still want to run applications on it.
The only reason to run Windows is to run Windows applications, so if Windows applications don't run, why would anyone choose it over Linux or iWhatever?
You got it wrong. This time Linux runs circles around Windows. Though Windows losses it's selling point, as existing x86 binary applications don't run on this thing (if it is ARM), existing Linux apps can just be recompiled and run just fine on ARM.
You basically have the inverse situation here.
All these companies seem to be saying to themselves "Wow, Apple sold 2M units and their product doesn't even have a camera or a USB port, and can't play Flash. If we make sure our product has those, we'll be rich!"
Meanwhile, these vendors seem totally oblivious to the all the things Apple got exactly right with the iPad (form factor, battery life, consistent touch-optimized UI, integration with the existing iTunes ecosystem, revenue generation features for third-party developers built into the system, ability to draw on existing iPhone/Mac developer pool obsessed with user experience, etc.). The companies doing this are going to end up with buggy, slow, awkward devices that consumers won't touch, and they'll be scratching their head saying "But we have more features! It makes no sense!"
HP is pretty much the only company that seems to have a coherent response to the iPad. It's rather obvious what happened to their Windows 7 based Slate device. They were planning to ship that as their response to Apple, but then someone at HP actually used an iPad, and said, basically "Holy $h!t, we're not going to match this by taking a Windows 7 netbook and ripping the keyboard off". And fortunately for them, WebOS -- which has the potential to be a very credible tablet platform with a bit of reworking -- happened to be for sale.
Disregard any tablet running a desktop OS; they've been on the market for years and nobody wants them. And disregard attempts by companies that know nothing about platform-building to adapt current smartphone versions of Android (or desktop Linux distros) to tablet use. They'll do it badly, and hardly anyone will write apps with such monstrosities in mind.
Watch HP with WebOS. Watch Google, when they get around to doing a real tablet version of Android. Watch Apple (obviously). And watch Microsoft, when it eventually occurs to them that they need to do a tablet version of Windows Phone 7 rather than pushing desktop Windows 7 on tablets.
Everything else will prove to be an irrelevant sideshow.
This space unintentionally left unblank.
Meanwhile, these vendors seem totally oblivious to the all the things Apple got exactly right with the iPad (form factor, battery life, consistent touch-optimized UI, integration with the existing iTunes ecosystem, revenue generation features for third-party developers built into the system, ability to draw on existing iPhone/Mac developer pool obsessed with user experience, etc.). The companies doing this are going to end up with buggy, slow, awkward devices that consumers won't touch, and they'll be scratching their head saying "But we have more features! It makes no sense!"
You mean like it happened with Android?
To paraphrase the words of the Apple loyalists... maybe it's just you're not in the target market for these tablets.
Disregard any tablet running a desktop OS; they've been on the market for years and nobody wants them.
Nobody wants them for $1500, this one is gonna be $500. If you ask people around on whether they'd like a Tablet PC or not, the most common response you'd have gotten was "no, they're too expensive", not "no, they're running the same OS as my computer". This one addresses that issue, it remains to be seen whether it'll be enough or not, but I don't think you're justified in dismissing it outright.
Now, I'm not in the market for this product either as I find the idea of Windows on a tablet to be dumb as bricks, but I hate this idea circulating around, that unless you don't copy Apple's designs 100% you can't succeed in today's market when reality has proven that wrong again and again for the last quarter of a century.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.