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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?
I'm going to agree and disagree with your statement. Openness by itself won't do anything. However, openness leads to two things that will help tablets.
First, it opens up the market to competition. While this may not help a company like Apple, Google's Android platform allows new companies to enter the market without having to write the entire software stack. This in turn should drive prices down.
Secondly, an "open" platform allows more things to be done with it. Say some company is willing to sell me a netbook with a detachable keyboard (or a tablet with a clip-on keyboard that swivels), I would be more inclined to purchase that over a traditional netbook. Maybe not everyone, especially if it commands a hefty premium.
The one advantage that netbooks currently have is that they can run Windows and hence all the software that is developed for Windows. Until someone makes a good office suite for Android, I don't see people flocking to tablets over netbooks any time soon.
The open-ness of a PC or a netbook is what makes it so useful.
It can do anything that a normal desktop PC can do INCLUDING RUNNING THAT STUPID TETHERING APP for the iPad.
How funny is that? That $300 dirtcheap ultraportable netbook from Walmart can be the thing that I use to "manage" my iPad/iPod/iPhone/iWhatever.
This isn't about running Free Software. This is about doing anything you damn well please with your own property and having thousands of hardware and software vendors waiting to cater to you.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.