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Can NetBooks & Tablets Co-Exist?
bsk_cw writes "According to Computerworld's Serdar Yegulalp, there has been a lot of talk about whether the iPad will take the place of the netbook — or, in fact, whether it will eat into the market share for more mainstream desktop and laptop computers. But, he continues, the iPad has a long way to go before it becomes a netbook killer — if only because it has created a space all its own."
Can Cars and Motorcycles co-exist? How about motorbikes and bicycles?
How about Laptop and Desktop computers?
This is just silly.
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
They occupy different niches (even though there's some overlap) and can coexist. Next question!
Gah. These summaries are getting worse and worse. Tablets have been around for awhile. Apple didn't invent the market with the iPad. They didn't invent the portable MP3 player with the ipod, nor did they invent the smart phone with the iphone. Those markets were established, and Apple developed a highly polished version that did well in that market. Tablets have been around, and they serve a slightly different niche from the netbook. They existed side by side before the iPad, and will continue to do so.
No.
I mistakenly left my Acer netbook on my bedside table and my old Fujitsu stylistic on my bed when I left for work yesterday. When I got home, all I found on my bed was some half-melted plastic and blown capacitors.
There can be only one...
Last summer I bought an EeePC because I was sick of lugging my full-size laptop to and from work to give myself additional screen space to watch Nagios in addition to other work I had going on. That was possibly one of the worst purchases I ever made. The keyboard was too small to type on, and the screen was barely big enough for passive activities, let alone if I required anything "real" to happen on it. I ended up just giving it away to a female friend who's only around 5ft tall (where as I'm 6'4") and thus better proportioned to using such a device.
They only thing they really have going for them is that they're cheap, and it shows in the construction of the things. I haven't yet handled an iPad, but don't expect it to suffer from a feeling of flimsiness, like the scene in Jurassic Park where the lawyer tells the kid if the goggles are heavy, then that means they're expensive and so to put them down. But I think I could find more situations where I would benefit from having a pair of night vision goggles than an iPad. But maybe I'm not really in the target market for either of these things.
iPads (& similar) can be THE computer for the rest of society who didn't want a laptop or other computer.
Why?
Because it doesn't have to be treated and coddled like a "computer", at least if it is an iPad.
I've seen both the very young and very old become adept in doing things they like in minutes.
You obviously don't ride public transport then. A HUGE advantage of tablets over netbooks for people that do is that you can actually use the tablet standing up. You aren't going to be typing a novel on it, but it is in fact usable. Just try to use a netbook while standing up, my guess is that you won't be making very many friends.
Monstar L
Gah. These summaries are getting worse and worse. Tablets have been around for awhile. Apple didn't invent the market with the iPad.
No, they didn't invent the market.
They just figured out how to make a product that would sell into the market.
Tablets simply never sold before the way the iPad is selling.
Apple developed a highly polished version that did well in that market.
Normally I would agree, as that is what Apple does with most things.
But there was nothing in the market to polish. There was nothing in the tablet space like the iPad. It was all PC/Stylus based, kind of the opposite to what the iPad is and why it works.
Was there even a single touch-capible system in there? I don't remember any.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yeah... BASIC: I have SIMH running an HP2000F emulation and guess what? You programmed those machines in BASIC sonny.
I also program occasionally in COBOL...wanna make fun of me some more?
I also program in BrainFuck...can I be cool now?
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
If someone took my netbook and gave me an iPad to replace it, I would use the iPad to beat them until they agreed to give my netbook back.
I bought my netbook before the iPad's release, but I bought it because I needed a *Computer*, not an appliance. I use it for work, and I'm essentially on-call tech support 24-7. I needed a laptop that was small enough I can take it anywhere, and cheap enough that I don't mind taking it everywhere. I need to be able to run the software I need to run. I need to be able to connect to a Windows Terminal Server. I also need something with an actual USB port, so I'm not limited in the hardware I can connect it to.
Many of the things I use my netbook for, I could use an iPad instead. But not everything. I could probably replace my Acer netbook with a hypothetical Apple netbook - call it a MacBook Mini - but Apple has made it pretty clear that they don't want to get into that market.
Actually, Apple has made it clear that they aren't interested in me as a customer. I want an inexpensive desktop machine that I can play a few games on, and can upgrade the video card every few years so I can keep playing games on. I also want the laptop I described above - small enough I can take it everywhere, and cheap enough that I'm willing to do so. I know people who use Apple's stuff generally love it, but they just aren't selling to me.
Redundancy is good And also good.
Maybe it's just me - but the Slashdot crowd seems like entirely the wrong demographic for this question. Or, at least, for you to get an answer that'd translate to the world at large. Anyway...
Given the size and weight (my daughter has an iPad, and I have borrowed it several times) - I'd take neither. The netbook makes too many compromises, and the iPad is too heavy for what it is. I know it's a pound and a half lighter than my MacBook Air, but (due to the ways they're held and used) I couldn't possibly use an iPad for a long period of time while the weight of the Air is generally unnoticeable. I think for the iPad to truly own the "small and light" market, it needs to shed more weight - get down reasonably close to the Kindle.
Of course my daughter is probably much closer to the target demographic than I am, and she loves the iPad to death. So my opinion should be taken with an appropriately-sized grain of salt.
#DeleteChrome
The thing about a tablet is you have to hold the thing. You can't just set it on your lap, or on a table unless you prop it up somehow. A netbook has a built in kickstand that doubles as a keyboard and screen protector. Add a touch screen and you've pretty much eliminated any advantage a tablet has.
WTF? Do you spend any time outside of slashdot? People definitely do not hate Microsoft. Heck, I've had people complaining to me upon giving them an XP laptop that it didn't have (back then) Vista on it. (Yes, this really happened) Try selling Linux to one of those so called people that "carry hatred towards Windows". You'll see how quickly they'll flee back to their "hated" operating system. You and I know that 95% of normal users needs are covered by Linux.
I hope you realise that people do not blame Microsoft for their computer woes. As a matter of fact, people who understand that Windows is the source of their problems are the low-end power users and Apple Fanbois (Linux Fanbois too, lately). The high-end power users, know how to secure their machines and won't have problems. (I'm one of these weird people who has been running Windows XP for years as a limited user, and it fucking works. You just have to know how.) The non-power users will just point at the computer and say "my computer is acting up again". To them their is no separation of OS and hardware.
Can tablets and netbooks coexist? Can science and religion coexist? Can dogs and cats coexist?
Tablets and netbooks are different products for different purposes. How are they even competing? And no, the iPad won't kill netbooks. It costs thee times as much as a netbook.
sudo eat my shorts
Very true. I bought an iPad not fully aware of all the little limitations it has. I was aware there is no flash and no third party apps, but after using the thing for 4 months I've built a long list of shortcomings they just don't tell you about.
At the top of the list is one so frustratingly counterintuitive. I'm studying for a Ph.D., and part of that job includes reading paper after paper. Reading the papers is just great on the iPad, but you can't actually download and save papers from the iPad itself.
To get a paper on my iPad for offline viewing, I actually have to open up my netbook and e-mail the pdf to myself, then save it to iBooks from the mail app. E-mailing is actually the easiest file transfer method between iPad and computer, the alternative being digging out a cable, launching iTunes (kill me now) and syncing (and just sync the PDF if you want to get on with things, instead of waiting for EVERYTHING to sync). There is no wireless file transfer option.
Of course there are other options and apps out there which can hack together this functionality, but the main point is there are hundreds of examples of things like this, where you expect the functionality and it isn't there, necessitating a netbook or other companion PC.
The net effect is, I'm constantly switching between my iPad and netbook, and I'm increasingly wondering why I have an iPad at all. If it weren't for how great it is to read on, I'd probably sell it.
From what you're saying this is probably an iOS 4 feature (and so will probably appear on the iPad in the next couple of months), but on my iPhone when I open a PDF in the web browser, an 'Open in iBooks' button appears at the top. Hopefully this means that your biggest issue with the iPad will be fixed soon.
The iPad won't replace anything while you need to attach it to a real computer running iTunes before you can even use the bloody thing, and to do updates.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
BASIC?
Perhaps you should get an iPad...
Nope. The iOS developer agreement explicitly bans interpreters into which the user can load a program. Anything with a REPL is right out. In fact, Apple pulled a C64 game from the App Store precisely because the player could touch some keys and reset the emulated C64 into the REPL of its ROM BASIC.
The difference is, people from all over have iPods. That's an Apple device. So Apple's plan is working, make devices people really like and they will buy more. Who'd have thought?
Many iPod users are also PC users BTW....
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
..except you can't save anything
All applications save. And all offer some means to transfer content off the iPad.
print anything
You can print from some apps now and it's a system supported feature in November.
access any random website
Now you really lost me since I can reach any website from the iPad, there are zero browsing restrictions.
or access any random bit of data.
99.9999999% is enough, it turns out.
It's all dependent on this idea that a computer, even an Apple computer is "too much for the masses to deal with".
Critical refinement of your statement - normal computers are too much for most people to MAINTAIN. Come on, having helped friends and family with computers, you honestly have any doubt that is the case?
The Mac used to be the proposed solution to all of normal consumer's PC difficulties.
The Mac was the hardest computer to use - except for all the others. I guess it makes sense they figured out something even less hard, since they were always at the forefront of computers that were easier to maintain and use.
There's no market inertia or vendor lock associated with it that Apple can exploit.
100% correct which is what makes the dominance they enjoy purely a result of building a good product people enjoy and not market control.
The iPad doesn't need to be castrated despite the protestations of fanboys.
The iPad is not that constrained despite the assertions of the Haters.
You got your first four facts totally wrong, I guess it follows you wouldn't understand platform constraints either.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hahaha, that's funny, reminds me of when I used to use a Treo 180.
My last two PDAs have been used as standalone computers for the most part. I'd occasionally sync my Treo 650 to perform a remote backup or move lots of memos, but I probably didn't sync it for about 3 years...before I retired it. My N900 has never been synced with anything. It's a standalone PC, just like a netbook. I can freely move files over USB mass storage, Bluetooth OBEX, FTP, SCP, Samba, you name it. If I want to download anything I can always use wget in a worse-case scenario, and if the mobile browser ever gets in my way, I can just launch Firefox. Not Fennec or whatever it's called, but Iceweasel, the real-deal full desktop browser. Likewise there's evince for when the default PDF reader won't do the job. Video transcoding isn't a major issue. I have mplayer and VLC installed, and can play anything the hardware can handle - which is about 95% of my videos, 99% when overclocked. Oh and I can play them straight from my file server's samba shares.
Eventually I plan to transition to VoIP only. I can already use SIP, Skype and Google Voice on any network technically capable of allowing me to connect to them (and I can use OpenVPN to get around artificial network restrictions). Some day the cell provider will just be a dumb pipe to carry my data.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel