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The Coming Onslaught of iPad Competitors

Posted by timothy on from the let's-back-off-from-the-k-word dept.

harrymcc writes "The iPad is selling as well as it is in part because no large manufacturer has had a direct rival out yet. But boy, is that going to change in the next few months. Over at Technologizer, I rounded up known information on 32 current and future tablet computing devices, from potentially worthy iPad competitors to wannabees to interesting specialty devices. By early 2011 these things are going to be everywhere, and it'll be fascinating to see how they fare." Related: the tablet-type device I've been watching most eagerly, Notion Ink's Adam, seems to finally have a realistic manufacturing prediction and price range (by November; up to $498 for the version with 3G and Pixel Qi screen).

2 of 497 comments (clear)

  1. Re:No, what Apple's products are is fashionable by DarkEmpath · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Pardon? That's not a question.

    I don't pay for DRM, so I don't have any crippled, encrypted, or closed formats. My audio collection is about 70% vorbis, 25% MP3, and the rest a mixture of wav, unencrypted wma, au, asf, etc.

    My iRiver plays them all except asf.

  2. Re:No, what Apple's products are is fashionable by DarkEmpath · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    The iTunes lockin was necessary to keep the record labels from suing the living crap out of Apple

    I hear this from Apple apologists a lot. And no matter how often you repeat it, it doesn't make it true

    Apple loves lock-in. It had nothing to do with the labels. Apple could have licenced Fairplay to anybody, but they didn't, because they love lock-in. The labels wanted Apple to licence Fairplay to thirds parties, because it would have increased their revenue and increased marketshare, but apple loves lock-in, so they didn't.

    Apple is a walled garden. They've never claimed otherwise (well, their fans do).