Apple doesn't make money on the App Store. Instead of using it as a profit source, they put that money back into the App Store to make it better. A better App Store adds value to iOS devices by being a useful service/feature which spurs more iOS device sales.
It's better for Apple to run the App Store at near break-even to sell more iPads than to try to squeeze a profit out of the App Store itself.
Memory and ports mean very little outside of the geek realm? Tell that to the iPad owner whose jaw dropped when I plugged a memory stick, and an SD card directly into my tablet and all she could do with her iPad was plug her iJack in. Yeah, only geeks would care about little things like not needing iTunes to be able easily add and remove music, videos, and other files.
If this actually happened, it's not because they wish their iPad had a USB or SD slot (it does, btw, it's called the dock connector). Their jaw dropped at your extreme geekery. Probably in awe, like, "damn, the things some people can do, amazing", or possibly in... well, awe, but not the good kind. But in neither case was it in the line of, "wow, if *I* had that tablet, I'd totally be able to use all my flash cards, it'll be so awesome!"
The fact of the matter the Xoom, the usual example given as an iPad competitor as though nothing else exists, is over priced. Everyone who has been paying attention says so. The fact that you haven't heard of the tablets out there that do make the iPad look like a toy doesn't mean they don't exist. It does mean that they haven't penetrated the US market yet.
Notable that you didn't actually mention any by name. Understandable, since they don't actually exist. Any that do exist don't fit the bill "make the iPad look like a toy". Such supposed "power tablets" already exist, they are called TabletPCs, and Apple has sold more iPads in nine months than the TabletPC has sold since its inception over a decade ago.
I also find it amusing that in general a lot of people have been speaking as if Android tablets have been trying and failing to compete for years. The fact of the matter is the entire market is a little over a year and a half old and some of these things do take time to spin up.
No, people have been speaking as if Android fanboys have been claiming that no one will buy an iPad because Android tablets are coming Real Soon Now that will totally make the iPad look like the toy that it supposedly is. It's a year later and this prediction has failed miserably. But *THIS* time it's totally going to happen. Uh, yeah...
Last thing.. simply because Lord Jobs says that a tablet must be 9.7" and everything else is "not a good size for a tablet" doesn't make it so. I've used 7" and 10" tablets and found them both to be perfectly fine for their task.
You know, just calling him "Lord Jobs" doesn't make it wrong. 7" tablets feel like large iPods. Too small for a real tablet UI, but too large to slip into your pocket. 10" tablets feel like a distinct product.
But Jobs must be wrong, after all people have been buying 7" tablets by the millions and are outselling the iPad like crazy, right? No? How can that make any sense? Oh, I see, *this* is the year people will want 7" tablets. My bad...
B&N quite likely subsidizes them in expectation of book sales. And, as you pointed out, the Nook is nowhere near as capable as even an iPad 1. So it's a piss-poor example. IPS is nice, but it's a 7" display. If you think they can simply beef it up to an iPad *1* class device for just a few bucks, you're mad.
I'm skeptical of a full-featured tablet (with dual core) hitting $250 by end of the year, but $350 I think is almost a certainty.
Not with the feature set of an iPad 2. It's pretty much impossible. Right now, the best Android tablets are sub-par to the iPad 1, and they cost hundreds of dollars more, and that's even those with dual core CPUs and 1GB RAM! Expecting the Android OS and the hardware to advance enough to both match the iPad 2 *and* drop in price by more than half is quite a tall order.
The sad thing is, when this fails to materialize, this time next year you or someone else will just make the same claim about 2012. Android on the tablet is starting to sound a lot like Linux on the desktop.
You just copy-and-pasted every argument about why the iPad would fail *last* year, only changing a few details. It's completely irrational to predict markets more than a year out. Things change so fast that any but the most generic of predictions are of low confidence.
One thing that can be stated with high confidence, however, is that Android is not going to make much headway on the tablet any time soon. Just due simply to the iPad's extreme lead, it's possible Android, by simply actually *existing* in a somewhat proper tablet form will take some market share, but it's not going to be much. The iPad 2 has Apple in a very strong position.
The features you've listed are all entirely irrelevant, save potentially one. A stylus can possibly be a compelling addition for note taking (and there are styluses available for iPads, so...). But the rest? Nobody cares. USB 3.0? (iPad has both HDMI and USB, as well as SD and VGA) Replaceable batteries? Higher MP still camera? Walk up to someone on the street and list those features and watch their eyes glaze over in boredom.
Nobody cares. Really. What they care about is what it's like to use it and what they can do *with* it, not what they can do *to* it. Only geeks care about what you can do *to* it, and that's the one major thing Android does better than iOS.
As things stand now, Android is destined to failure as a consumer tablet OS, but will do well (though probably not take a majority share) in the geek market. Unlike on the phone, Android has to stand on its own merits. There's no carrier lock-in, subsidies, and simple consumer ambivalence like there is with cell phones. When someone buys a tablet, they buy a *specific* tablet. There are no roadblocks or external incentives to affect the decision. Absent external or artificial motivations, people are going to choose iPads. Right now it's a no-brainer, and putting your trust in the Android tablet makers (or Microsoft Windows lol) finally getting around to pulling their heads out of their asses and out-iPadding the iPad takes a rather gigantic leap of faith.
But don't worry, they will finally release an Android tablet that only a geek could love, so this year you'll be able to tout your geek-superiority over all those iPad sheep, while marveling that your tablet of choice isn't even remotely popular. And I do admire your optimism.
Maybe some day in the distant future, but right now the iTunes stores all run at just above break-even. This is why the stores are always so responsive and well designed and managed. Apple doesn't look at the stores as a source of revenue, but as a valuable add-on to the iOS system that makes it compelling to the end user and something that none of their competitors can match.
Hard drives themselves won't go away any time soon, but as a standard consumer product they are definitely on the way out. SSD is the way forward. Most people don't use even close to 500GB, and the MacBook Air currently has up to 256GB SSD, which is halfway to covering the needs of most people, and that's in a very, very small enclosure. Once they can fit 512GB at a reasonable price, all that is left is for SSD capacities to keep ahead of consumer needs, and that seems quite doable.
Hell, even if you are shooting Avatar 2, how many TB do you need? I can easily imagine a studio dropping a few tens of grand on a 10+TB SSD array. In fact, the more I think about it, the less convinced I am HDs are going to really be common all that much longer (5+ years). You can fit a TB of SSD in a 2.5", 9.5mm enclosure right now (you can't even do that with a proper hard drive). That basically leaves cost as the main drawback, which will inevitably come down.
SSD lifetimes are also a potential issue in some cases, but even then it'll eventually make more sense to have an SSD RAID, and just swap out failed drives.
You are completely ignoring the context in which you are replying. Replacing a keyboard and trackpad with smaller and lighter chips (gyros and GPS, etc.) does not mean the iPad is cheaper to make (which is the claim I was responding to). Nothing you've said refutes this. That's because mass and volume do not necessarily relate to cost. It *can*, and just because you can point out an example where it does does not contradict this.
Similarly, more parts does not necessarily mean more expensive to build (I never made a claim one way or the other about this). Chips, for example, can usually be installed by robot, drives and keyboards generally need to be installed by people.
Apple's competitors have been up-speccing their machines quite a lot compared to the iPad. The original iPad has a paltry 256MB of memory compared to the GB most of the Android tablets are packing. They also include faster processors, fancier screens, tons of ports, etc...
I've not heard of any with better screens than the iPad. Usually they have smaller screens or widescreens (both of which are worse for a tablet). Maybe that's 'fancy'?
The memory and ports mean very little outside of the geek realm.
But mostly they've been trying to keep profit margins healthy.
At the cost of market share? No. They are so expensive because they can't beat or even match the iPad's price. Do you really think they can build their tablets cheaper than Apple does theirs, but are marking the products significantly more than Apple? Isn't the mantra here that it's Apple who is overpriced? So when Apple's prices are cheaper, instead of rethinking that assumption, you just assume Android tablets are so fantastic that they can mark their prices even higher? Really?
> The $499 16GB iPad, by all estimations, costs under $250 to manufacture.
I'd be shocked to find Apple paying more than $175 for em off the docks in China and I'd put my money on $150. That is for the basic WiFi version.
Listen up folks, there ain't nothing in a tablet. Compare a typical low end netbook that retails for $300 to a typical tablet.
Tablet has a touchscreen, and motion sensor over a netbook.
The iPad has an IPS display, which you most certainly *don't* find on a typical $300 low end notebook. Also, it's much more/much different inside, not much less (unless you are talking simply mass and volume which is not relevant to the price of the parts and assembly). You have all sorts of additional sensors and IO. The iPad is also made of aluminum and glass, not plastic and plastic.
This story is a sign that market forces are likely to start working more normally. $250-$350 tablets by Xmas that have capacitive touchscreens, motion sensors and robust ARM chips is my prediction.
And if you really think they cost $175, fully packaged and ready to ship, then Apple will still be able to undercut these tablets. Tablets which are somehow magically going to cost 1/3 of what they cost now. Tablets which have sold extremely poorly and if they actually *could* undercut the iPad by half, they should have done so long ago.
No, we won't see proper tablets, Android or otherwise, for $250-$350 by the end of the year. There might be some laughable attempts, but nothing that really competes with an iPad or a compelling Android tablet.
No one who knows anything about electronics manufacturing thinks this. The $499 16GB iPad, by all estimations, costs under $250 to manufacture.
No one who knows anything about products thinks this. The tear-down component price estimations are deliberately lowballed, and it costs a lot more than just the sum of the components to take those components and combine them into boxed and shelved iPad, ready for purchase.
Android is going to change that by doing the same thing it did in the smartphone market. Expect to see 10" Android tablets for $300 or less by the end of the year.
Not going to happen, except possibly for some humorously bulky, crappy-screened, and overall completely inadequate caricatures of a proper tablet.
You Android folks were saying this was going to happen by Summer of 2010, then it was Fall 2010, then it became "sometime in 2011" (skipping over the Winter, which was clearly lost by the time Fall came around). If you think there will be iPad-quality Android tablets for under $300, you are going to be quite disappointed when 2012 rolls around. It's not even a sure thing that there will be proper Android tablets for the same price as an iPad by then, let alone $200 cheaper.
Apple is not losing money on the iPad. In fact, they are probably prepared to drop the price by $100 if necessary (and in spite of predictions last year to the contrary, it has not been necessary). They are so cheap because of volume and their highly efficient manufacturing and shipment processes.
Take the unibody enclosure of the iPad (and MacBooks) for example. It's *very* expensive to figure out how to do it and you have to build dedicated factories, but once you've done that, you can make a superior case more efficiently than you could make the standard, more bulky, less sturdy, heavier cases.
The other companies had to use their traditional plastic cases for their tablets, which had to be thicker, meaning that in order to make their tablets even close to as thin as the original iPad, they had to spend a lot more money trying to fit the rest of the tablet into less space. They were all aiming at the iPad 1 and missing the mark, they have no chance catching up to the iPad 2 anytime soon.
That's pretty impressive, but not a good example of the whole "post-pc" thing. Photoshop isn't a paint program and MS Paint isn't an image manipulation program (in other words, the one cannot replace the other in any reasonable way). And if something came along that replaced Photoshop as the premier photo-faking and professional image enhancing program, it would almost certainly follow the same basic idea. It wouldn't be post-Photoshop (the idea), just post-Photoshop (the product). The idea is that the iPad is post-pc (the idea). Time will tell, but it's definitely heading the direction a true post-pc device would
For something to be truly post-Photoshop, it would have to be quite distinct, perhaps something like you see in movies, where you command the computer "enhance sector 27-G, select face, duplicate", things like that. That would be a whole new way of doing it instead of just another slightly different way of doing the same thing (like how using GIMP or Pixelmator instead of Photoshop is still basically the same thing).
All the above still applies. There are spectacular examples of using the completely wrong tool for the job by people in the world. Just like I could use an iPad to hammer a nail into the ground.
In other words, "I'm right. Reality is stupid and wrong."
Why is the iPad the "completely wrong tool for the job"? Because you say so? Does the iPad have a screen? Check. Keyboard? Check. Word processing software? Check.
The problem is that it's not the right tool *for you*. But geeks are always right, so what's the right tool for them is the Right Tool for everyone, and anyone who disagrees is stupid.
How many typos were made during writing? How long did it take to write? What's the maximum typing speed? How were the ergonomics? Does the typer's wrists or back hurt?
iPads can use physical keyboards, and some cases even have bluetooth keyboard integrated. But what does any of this matter? What matters is if those statistics were too high for *him*, not for *you*. There are other factors to take into consideration as well. The iPad is instant-on, is always with him, far more portable than even a netbook, and doesn't need to rest on a surface. Clearly, some people (15 million in 2010, a few million so far this year, and in the tens of millions throughout the year) disagree with you.
But that's the rub. They disagree with you. Therefore, they are stupid. Any example contrary to your opinion is stupidity, and thus you needn't rethink the list I first put out, which you laughably claimed "all the above still applies." None of the above applies. Some of them may still apply *to you*. You may think it's a toy, or you may prefer a netbook, TabletPC (oh, btw, Apple has sold more iPads in nine months than the TabletPC has sold since its inception), or wished that Apple released a touchscreen Mac, but, like I'm trying to get you to understand, a lot of people disagree with you.
And that's why I jokingly say this must be the biggest news story of the year here, it contradicts so many deeply held opinions that are treated as universal fact.
"iPad is just a toy." "It's for consumption, not creation." "No one is going to buy an iPad when a netbook can do 10x for 1/3 the price." "Apple controls everything you can do on an iPad." "All the Android tablets coming out this Summer (2010) will be cheaper and more powerful, no one is going to buy an iPad." "Who's going to buy a small, underpowered iPad with a capacitive screen when they can buy a full-powered Windows TabletPC and run all their desktop software?" "Meh, they should have released a touchscreen Mac OS X computer."
You'd think this would be the most shocking news story to hit Slashdot in 2011, it completely contradicts everything the commenters have been saying for just short of 1 year now.
For the rest of us, it would have actually been news had it been an Android tablet.
Don't worry though, geeks are exceptionally good at compartmentalization to avoid having to actually resolve their cognitive dissonance. They are always right, so when reality contradicts them, they simply call reality "stupid" and just keep on pretending they are right, problem solved!
"You didn't address one single point, yet use the label absurd."
Give up Mr. Hankey. You would have better luck arguing climate change with a republican or evolution with a christian. Addressing the point never comes into it, their convictions are purely faith based.
What's "faith" got to do with anything I wrote? The idea that Apple is "evil" *is* absurd. Mr. Hankey continued this idiotic bullshit, so I called him out on his absurdity.
This whole hyperbolic rhetoric (Apple is "Evil", anyone who says anything nice about them is a "fanboy", etc.) is far more reminiscent of climate "skeptics" and Republicans. An irony which seems entirely lost on you (another trait often suffered by Republicans and the like).
It never ceases to amaze me what ridiculous pro-Apple nonsense will get modded up on this site. Neither I nor the GP used the word "evil". You didn't address one single point, yet use the label absurd. You should stick it somewhere else, fanboy.
Look up. See that subject line? "They already were?" What do you think "were" means here? The OP made the claim that they already were the "Evil Empire" (his first sentence started with "They have been for a long time" in answer to the question in his headline). And this is in response to this story. The title is there in your browser's title right now.
And your reply started with "Is the correct answer," to a post that, to reiterate, started with "They have been [an Evil Empire] for a long time."
Yep, 100 million customers that no longer can use a computer like a computer, that's why this is evil. Apple controls all large-scale distribution of software and gets to earn money from every piece of software sold despite also selling the computer. Apple designs their devices without any reasonable possibility to do common maintenance tasks, like not being able to switch out a battery - which by choice of technology will decay rapidly over time.
You're basically saying that Apple is evil for creating more reliable and hassle-free hardware and software. That's evil? Really??? Most people see this as a benefit, and Apple's recent success has shown this to be the case.
They didn't simply remove the ability to replace the battery (to use you example), they removed the *need* to replace the battery. This is fantastic, and has greater implications than simply making the hardware more hassle-free. People no longer feel the need to buy a second battery, and the space an weight savings in the hardware, as well as structural durability and visual aesthetics, are all significantly improved. Again, this is "evil"?
Apple doesn't stop producing with contractors that had series of suicides due to poor working conditions. And more... so they are evil.
They have forced Foxconn to change certain practices. As for the "and more...", that implies they've done something even worse than dealt with a company that has had suicides (fewer than the average population, in fact). Don't keep us in suspense. Please elaborate.
It's not idiotic, just look at all the damage that Apple has done to the electronics market. Now, people no longer expect to own their devices, and look who is prominently pushing for increased control of the customer's products, well if it isn't Steve Jobs.
What the fuck? Everyone owns their iPhones, iPods, Macs, etc. (barring those that bought them on credits or on loan, naturally). It's absurdly ironic that you claim Steve Jobs is taking control of people's devices, when it's actually Google, and not Apple, that has made use of their remote kill switch (not something I disagree with, it's very important if you end up letting malware through your system, but it's a level of control that not even the "evil and controlling" Apple has ever utilized).
They've been getting more and more into undermining consumer rights for years, that alone justifies being called evil.
If this was an actual problem, people wouldn't be choosing Apple products. Users are not having their "rights" undermined. They are buying products which serve their needs better than anything else. What you see as "evil", most people see as empowering. How is an honest, fully disclosed, non-coerced and fully voluntary consumer goods purchase "evil"? That's an absurd claim, and requires significant evidence to justify calling it evil.
And yes, I know what evil means, somebody posted a definition earlier in the thread and this definitely qualifies.
But then again, I doubt very much that you're capable of acknowledging that Steve Jobs isn't God and that Apple isn't perfect.
"Only a Sith deals in absolutes." Why is it that Apple detractors always seem to see everything as Good and Evil? I've never claimed Jobs is God or that Apple is perfect. In fact, Jobs is not God, or a god, or even a saint or a prophet or any other stupid thing. He's a genius, specifically in terms of directing the design of products that merge technology and the liberal arts (his term) or the way I've been putting in, in creating devices around the people using them, and not requiring people to conform to the devices like everyone else seems to do. And Apple isn't perfect. Another absurd claim.
The only reason I can see that you (and most every other Apple-hater here) tends to deal in absolutes like this is that reality is far too subtle, and doesn't justify your dislike, or even hatred, of Apple and/or their products. So therefore, Apple is evil and anyone who defends Apple must be insane and think that Apple and Jobs are infallible superbeings. It's childish hyperbole like this that makes geeks look like loons to average people.
"Don't use Apple products, they are EVIL!" "Why is that?" "They restrict your rights and take control over your devices!" "Really?" "Yeah, you can't get Flash on the iPhone!" "Well, that kinda sucks, but 'evil'?" "And they control what apps are in their App Store." "But, 'evil'? Do they kill puppies or enslave people or something?" "You must think Steve Jobs is a God! And Apple incapable of imperfection. Fanboy!" "Dude, you're insane."
Do you know that Google has remote-killed Android apps? And that *everything* you type into the address bar in Chrome is sent to them? Neither thing is evil, but both are far more invasive than anything Apple does.
Nah, I type fast. Also, there is a cadre of Apple-haters here, so even if I just said something like "the new iPad 2 is nice", I'd have to defend it on this site.
You may be right, ultimately, that I'm doing something wrong. In that posting something favorable about Apple here is like posting something nice about the government on a teabagger site, but I don't take it too seriously. The only thing I get continually disappointed on is the overall lack of any reasonable responses from the anti-Apple crowd. It's usually the same drivel (every now and then I get a reasonable response, and I think they are great).
But, seriously, this is a story about whether or not Apple is "evil". The fact that such a notion is even being taken seriously is absurd, so I expect a lot of additional absurd in the comments section. And, as always, Slashdot delivers.
I think you need to settle down and think about this. If you can see how Monsanto and Halliburton can be considered evil then it's not outrageous to suggest that other companies, Apple included, are capable of immoral conduct.
Monsanto and Halliburton both have a hand in the deaths of thousands of people, which is why I say it's at least reasonable to call them "evil". And you switched terms when you said "immoral". On the whole, I think Apple tends to be very moral, but I can understand people have different subjective morals, especially amongst those here with regards to technology (there are people here who think it's immoral to license software in a non-Free way). But evil is a pretty extreme term, and it's silly to call Apple evil.
Anyway, it's not "idiotic bullshit" to call Apple evil. At worst it's just too soon to tell.
By definition, if it's too soon to tell, it's too soon to start applying the term. What makes it idiotic bullshit is that Apple isn't even *suspected* of doing *any single thing* that can reasonably be called "evil".
The one thing that is even remotely close is the Foxconn suicides. The question becomes, did Apple encourage policies which brought these about? And how did Apple respond to them?
You can read Apple's report on their web site. This is not something they are required to do, and they didn't hype it up, so it's not like it was a marketing/media campaign. It shows that they actually care, and that they have taken measures to ensure that they specifically *aren't* engaging in evil, even including cutting contracts with companies which have been found to engage in child labor.
So not ALLOWING Flash, even when Adobe does all the work is being good? How about FORCING publishers to sell their content at a 30 percent loss on the App Store, that is being good?
For the user, yes. And Apple is not "FORCING" publishers to do shit. They are offering them a service, and every publisher is free to accept or decline. Creating an iOS app is not a requirement.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll simplify:
Apple doesn't make money on the App Store. Instead of using it as a profit source, they put that money back into the App Store to make it better. A better App Store adds value to iOS devices by being a useful service/feature which spurs more iOS device sales.
It's better for Apple to run the App Store at near break-even to sell more iPads than to try to squeeze a profit out of the App Store itself.
Memory and ports mean very little outside of the geek realm? Tell that to the iPad owner whose jaw dropped when I plugged a memory stick, and an SD card directly into my tablet and all she could do with her iPad was plug her iJack in. Yeah, only geeks would care about little things like not needing iTunes to be able easily add and remove music, videos, and other files.
If this actually happened, it's not because they wish their iPad had a USB or SD slot (it does, btw, it's called the dock connector). Their jaw dropped at your extreme geekery. Probably in awe, like, "damn, the things some people can do, amazing", or possibly in... well, awe, but not the good kind. But in neither case was it in the line of, "wow, if *I* had that tablet, I'd totally be able to use all my flash cards, it'll be so awesome!"
The fact of the matter the Xoom, the usual example given as an iPad competitor as though nothing else exists, is over priced. Everyone who has been paying attention says so. The fact that you haven't heard of the tablets out there that do make the iPad look like a toy doesn't mean they don't exist. It does mean that they haven't penetrated the US market yet.
Notable that you didn't actually mention any by name. Understandable, since they don't actually exist. Any that do exist don't fit the bill "make the iPad look like a toy". Such supposed "power tablets" already exist, they are called TabletPCs, and Apple has sold more iPads in nine months than the TabletPC has sold since its inception over a decade ago.
I also find it amusing that in general a lot of people have been speaking as if Android tablets have been trying and failing to compete for years. The fact of the matter is the entire market is a little over a year and a half old and some of these things do take time to spin up.
No, people have been speaking as if Android fanboys have been claiming that no one will buy an iPad because Android tablets are coming Real Soon Now that will totally make the iPad look like the toy that it supposedly is. It's a year later and this prediction has failed miserably. But *THIS* time it's totally going to happen. Uh, yeah...
Last thing.. simply because Lord Jobs says that a tablet must be 9.7" and everything else is "not a good size for a tablet" doesn't make it so. I've used 7" and 10" tablets and found them both to be perfectly fine for their task.
You know, just calling him "Lord Jobs" doesn't make it wrong. 7" tablets feel like large iPods. Too small for a real tablet UI, but too large to slip into your pocket. 10" tablets feel like a distinct product.
But Jobs must be wrong, after all people have been buying 7" tablets by the millions and are outselling the iPad like crazy, right? No? How can that make any sense? Oh, I see, *this* is the year people will want 7" tablets. My bad...
B&N quite likely subsidizes them in expectation of book sales. And, as you pointed out, the Nook is nowhere near as capable as even an iPad 1. So it's a piss-poor example. IPS is nice, but it's a 7" display. If you think they can simply beef it up to an iPad *1* class device for just a few bucks, you're mad.
I'm skeptical of a full-featured tablet (with dual core) hitting $250 by end of the year, but $350 I think is almost a certainty.
Not with the feature set of an iPad 2. It's pretty much impossible. Right now, the best Android tablets are sub-par to the iPad 1, and they cost hundreds of dollars more, and that's even those with dual core CPUs and 1GB RAM! Expecting the Android OS and the hardware to advance enough to both match the iPad 2 *and* drop in price by more than half is quite a tall order.
The sad thing is, when this fails to materialize, this time next year you or someone else will just make the same claim about 2012. Android on the tablet is starting to sound a lot like Linux on the desktop.
You just copy-and-pasted every argument about why the iPad would fail *last* year, only changing a few details. It's completely irrational to predict markets more than a year out. Things change so fast that any but the most generic of predictions are of low confidence.
One thing that can be stated with high confidence, however, is that Android is not going to make much headway on the tablet any time soon. Just due simply to the iPad's extreme lead, it's possible Android, by simply actually *existing* in a somewhat proper tablet form will take some market share, but it's not going to be much. The iPad 2 has Apple in a very strong position.
The features you've listed are all entirely irrelevant, save potentially one. A stylus can possibly be a compelling addition for note taking (and there are styluses available for iPads, so...). But the rest? Nobody cares. USB 3.0? (iPad has both HDMI and USB, as well as SD and VGA) Replaceable batteries? Higher MP still camera? Walk up to someone on the street and list those features and watch their eyes glaze over in boredom.
Nobody cares. Really. What they care about is what it's like to use it and what they can do *with* it, not what they can do *to* it. Only geeks care about what you can do *to* it, and that's the one major thing Android does better than iOS.
As things stand now, Android is destined to failure as a consumer tablet OS, but will do well (though probably not take a majority share) in the geek market. Unlike on the phone, Android has to stand on its own merits. There's no carrier lock-in, subsidies, and simple consumer ambivalence like there is with cell phones. When someone buys a tablet, they buy a *specific* tablet. There are no roadblocks or external incentives to affect the decision. Absent external or artificial motivations, people are going to choose iPads. Right now it's a no-brainer, and putting your trust in the Android tablet makers (or Microsoft Windows lol) finally getting around to pulling their heads out of their asses and out-iPadding the iPad takes a rather gigantic leap of faith.
But don't worry, they will finally release an Android tablet that only a geek could love, so this year you'll be able to tout your geek-superiority over all those iPad sheep, while marveling that your tablet of choice isn't even remotely popular. And I do admire your optimism.
Maybe some day in the distant future, but right now the iTunes stores all run at just above break-even. This is why the stores are always so responsive and well designed and managed. Apple doesn't look at the stores as a source of revenue, but as a valuable add-on to the iOS system that makes it compelling to the end user and something that none of their competitors can match.
Hard drives themselves won't go away any time soon, but as a standard consumer product they are definitely on the way out. SSD is the way forward. Most people don't use even close to 500GB, and the MacBook Air currently has up to 256GB SSD, which is halfway to covering the needs of most people, and that's in a very, very small enclosure. Once they can fit 512GB at a reasonable price, all that is left is for SSD capacities to keep ahead of consumer needs, and that seems quite doable.
Hell, even if you are shooting Avatar 2, how many TB do you need? I can easily imagine a studio dropping a few tens of grand on a 10+TB SSD array. In fact, the more I think about it, the less convinced I am HDs are going to really be common all that much longer (5+ years). You can fit a TB of SSD in a 2.5", 9.5mm enclosure right now (you can't even do that with a proper hard drive). That basically leaves cost as the main drawback, which will inevitably come down.
SSD lifetimes are also a potential issue in some cases, but even then it'll eventually make more sense to have an SSD RAID, and just swap out failed drives.
You are completely ignoring the context in which you are replying. Replacing a keyboard and trackpad with smaller and lighter chips (gyros and GPS, etc.) does not mean the iPad is cheaper to make (which is the claim I was responding to). Nothing you've said refutes this. That's because mass and volume do not necessarily relate to cost. It *can*, and just because you can point out an example where it does does not contradict this.
Similarly, more parts does not necessarily mean more expensive to build (I never made a claim one way or the other about this). Chips, for example, can usually be installed by robot, drives and keyboards generally need to be installed by people.
Apple's competitors have been up-speccing their machines quite a lot compared to the iPad. The original iPad has a paltry 256MB of memory compared to the GB most of the Android tablets are packing. They also include faster processors, fancier screens, tons of ports, etc...
I've not heard of any with better screens than the iPad. Usually they have smaller screens or widescreens (both of which are worse for a tablet). Maybe that's 'fancy'?
The memory and ports mean very little outside of the geek realm.
But mostly they've been trying to keep profit margins healthy.
At the cost of market share? No. They are so expensive because they can't beat or even match the iPad's price. Do you really think they can build their tablets cheaper than Apple does theirs, but are marking the products significantly more than Apple? Isn't the mantra here that it's Apple who is overpriced? So when Apple's prices are cheaper, instead of rethinking that assumption, you just assume Android tablets are so fantastic that they can mark their prices even higher? Really?
Samsung is only buying 2-3 million at a time. he who buys 5 times the parts you are is going to get a better price.
The funny thing is, Samsung makes some of these parts. Flash memory and displays (although maybe not tablet-sized displays).
> The $499 16GB iPad, by all estimations, costs under $250 to manufacture.
I'd be shocked to find Apple paying more than $175 for em off the docks in China and I'd put my money on $150. That is for the basic WiFi version.
Listen up folks, there ain't nothing in a tablet. Compare a typical low end netbook that retails for $300 to a typical tablet.
Tablet has a touchscreen, and motion sensor over a netbook.
The iPad has an IPS display, which you most certainly *don't* find on a typical $300 low end notebook. Also, it's much more/much different inside, not much less (unless you are talking simply mass and volume which is not relevant to the price of the parts and assembly). You have all sorts of additional sensors and IO. The iPad is also made of aluminum and glass, not plastic and plastic.
This story is a sign that market forces are likely to start working more normally. $250-$350 tablets by Xmas that have capacitive touchscreens, motion sensors and robust ARM chips is my prediction.
And if you really think they cost $175, fully packaged and ready to ship, then Apple will still be able to undercut these tablets. Tablets which are somehow magically going to cost 1/3 of what they cost now. Tablets which have sold extremely poorly and if they actually *could* undercut the iPad by half, they should have done so long ago.
No, we won't see proper tablets, Android or otherwise, for $250-$350 by the end of the year. There might be some laughable attempts, but nothing that really competes with an iPad or a compelling Android tablet.
No one who knows anything about electronics manufacturing thinks this. The $499 16GB iPad, by all estimations, costs under $250 to manufacture.
No one who knows anything about products thinks this. The tear-down component price estimations are deliberately lowballed, and it costs a lot more than just the sum of the components to take those components and combine them into boxed and shelved iPad, ready for purchase.
Android is going to change that by doing the same thing it did in the smartphone market. Expect to see 10" Android tablets for $300 or less by the end of the year.
Not going to happen, except possibly for some humorously bulky, crappy-screened, and overall completely inadequate caricatures of a proper tablet.
You Android folks were saying this was going to happen by Summer of 2010, then it was Fall 2010, then it became "sometime in 2011" (skipping over the Winter, which was clearly lost by the time Fall came around). If you think there will be iPad-quality Android tablets for under $300, you are going to be quite disappointed when 2012 rolls around. It's not even a sure thing that there will be proper Android tablets for the same price as an iPad by then, let alone $200 cheaper.
Apple is not losing money on the iPad. In fact, they are probably prepared to drop the price by $100 if necessary (and in spite of predictions last year to the contrary, it has not been necessary). They are so cheap because of volume and their highly efficient manufacturing and shipment processes.
Take the unibody enclosure of the iPad (and MacBooks) for example. It's *very* expensive to figure out how to do it and you have to build dedicated factories, but once you've done that, you can make a superior case more efficiently than you could make the standard, more bulky, less sturdy, heavier cases.
The other companies had to use their traditional plastic cases for their tablets, which had to be thicker, meaning that in order to make their tablets even close to as thin as the original iPad, they had to spend a lot more money trying to fit the rest of the tablet into less space. They were all aiming at the iPad 1 and missing the mark, they have no chance catching up to the iPad 2 anytime soon.
That's pretty impressive, but not a good example of the whole "post-pc" thing. Photoshop isn't a paint program and MS Paint isn't an image manipulation program (in other words, the one cannot replace the other in any reasonable way). And if something came along that replaced Photoshop as the premier photo-faking and professional image enhancing program, it would almost certainly follow the same basic idea. It wouldn't be post-Photoshop (the idea), just post-Photoshop (the product). The idea is that the iPad is post-pc (the idea). Time will tell, but it's definitely heading the direction a true post-pc device would
For something to be truly post-Photoshop, it would have to be quite distinct, perhaps something like you see in movies, where you command the computer "enhance sector 27-G, select face, duplicate", things like that. That would be a whole new way of doing it instead of just another slightly different way of doing the same thing (like how using GIMP or Pixelmator instead of Photoshop is still basically the same thing).
All the above still applies. There are spectacular examples of using the completely wrong tool for the job by people in the world. Just like I could use an iPad to hammer a nail into the ground.
In other words, "I'm right. Reality is stupid and wrong."
Why is the iPad the "completely wrong tool for the job"? Because you say so? Does the iPad have a screen? Check. Keyboard? Check. Word processing software? Check.
The problem is that it's not the right tool *for you*. But geeks are always right, so what's the right tool for them is the Right Tool for everyone, and anyone who disagrees is stupid.
How many typos were made during writing?
How long did it take to write?
What's the maximum typing speed?
How were the ergonomics? Does the typer's wrists or back hurt?
iPads can use physical keyboards, and some cases even have bluetooth keyboard integrated. But what does any of this matter? What matters is if those statistics were too high for *him*, not for *you*. There are other factors to take into consideration as well. The iPad is instant-on, is always with him, far more portable than even a netbook, and doesn't need to rest on a surface. Clearly, some people (15 million in 2010, a few million so far this year, and in the tens of millions throughout the year) disagree with you.
But that's the rub. They disagree with you. Therefore, they are stupid. Any example contrary to your opinion is stupidity, and thus you needn't rethink the list I first put out, which you laughably claimed "all the above still applies." None of the above applies. Some of them may still apply *to you*. You may think it's a toy, or you may prefer a netbook, TabletPC (oh, btw, Apple has sold more iPads in nine months than the TabletPC has sold since its inception), or wished that Apple released a touchscreen Mac, but, like I'm trying to get you to understand, a lot of people disagree with you.
And that's why I jokingly say this must be the biggest news story of the year here, it contradicts so many deeply held opinions that are treated as universal fact.
"iPad is just a toy."
"It's for consumption, not creation."
"No one is going to buy an iPad when a netbook can do 10x for 1/3 the price."
"Apple controls everything you can do on an iPad."
"All the Android tablets coming out this Summer (2010) will be cheaper and more powerful, no one is going to buy an iPad."
"Who's going to buy a small, underpowered iPad with a capacitive screen when they can buy a full-powered Windows TabletPC and run all their desktop software?"
"Meh, they should have released a touchscreen Mac OS X computer."
You'd think this would be the most shocking news story to hit Slashdot in 2011, it completely contradicts everything the commenters have been saying for just short of 1 year now.
For the rest of us, it would have actually been news had it been an Android tablet.
Don't worry though, geeks are exceptionally good at compartmentalization to avoid having to actually resolve their cognitive dissonance. They are always right, so when reality contradicts them, they simply call reality "stupid" and just keep on pretending they are right, problem solved!
Did you even read my post? I specifically mentioned Foxconn. Jackass.
"You didn't address one single point, yet use the label absurd."
Give up Mr. Hankey. You would have better luck arguing climate change with a republican or evolution with a christian. Addressing the point never comes into it, their convictions are purely faith based.
What's "faith" got to do with anything I wrote? The idea that Apple is "evil" *is* absurd. Mr. Hankey continued this idiotic bullshit, so I called him out on his absurdity.
This whole hyperbolic rhetoric (Apple is "Evil", anyone who says anything nice about them is a "fanboy", etc.) is far more reminiscent of climate "skeptics" and Republicans. An irony which seems entirely lost on you (another trait often suffered by Republicans and the like).
It never ceases to amaze me what ridiculous pro-Apple nonsense will get modded up on this site. Neither I nor the GP used the word "evil". You didn't address one single point, yet use the label absurd. You should stick it somewhere else, fanboy.
Look up. See that subject line? "They already were?" What do you think "were" means here? The OP made the claim that they already were the "Evil Empire" (his first sentence started with "They have been for a long time" in answer to the question in his headline). And this is in response to this story. The title is there in your browser's title right now.
And your reply started with "Is the correct answer," to a post that, to reiterate, started with "They have been [an Evil Empire] for a long time."
So what was that you were saying again?
Yep, 100 million customers that no longer can use a computer like a computer, that's why this is evil. Apple controls all large-scale distribution of software and gets to earn money from every piece of software sold despite also selling the computer. Apple designs their devices without any reasonable possibility to do common maintenance tasks, like not being able to switch out a battery - which by choice of technology will decay rapidly over time.
You're basically saying that Apple is evil for creating more reliable and hassle-free hardware and software. That's evil? Really??? Most people see this as a benefit, and Apple's recent success has shown this to be the case.
They didn't simply remove the ability to replace the battery (to use you example), they removed the *need* to replace the battery. This is fantastic, and has greater implications than simply making the hardware more hassle-free. People no longer feel the need to buy a second battery, and the space an weight savings in the hardware, as well as structural durability and visual aesthetics, are all significantly improved. Again, this is "evil"?
Apple doesn't stop producing with contractors that had series of suicides due to poor working conditions. And more... so they are evil.
They have forced Foxconn to change certain practices. As for the "and more...", that implies they've done something even worse than dealt with a company that has had suicides (fewer than the average population, in fact). Don't keep us in suspense. Please elaborate.
It's not idiotic, just look at all the damage that Apple has done to the electronics market. Now, people no longer expect to own their devices, and look who is prominently pushing for increased control of the customer's products, well if it isn't Steve Jobs.
What the fuck? Everyone owns their iPhones, iPods, Macs, etc. (barring those that bought them on credits or on loan, naturally). It's absurdly ironic that you claim Steve Jobs is taking control of people's devices, when it's actually Google, and not Apple, that has made use of their remote kill switch (not something I disagree with, it's very important if you end up letting malware through your system, but it's a level of control that not even the "evil and controlling" Apple has ever utilized).
They've been getting more and more into undermining consumer rights for years, that alone justifies being called evil.
If this was an actual problem, people wouldn't be choosing Apple products. Users are not having their "rights" undermined. They are buying products which serve their needs better than anything else. What you see as "evil", most people see as empowering. How is an honest, fully disclosed, non-coerced and fully voluntary consumer goods purchase "evil"? That's an absurd claim, and requires significant evidence to justify calling it evil.
And yes, I know what evil means, somebody posted a definition earlier in the thread and this definitely qualifies.
But then again, I doubt very much that you're capable of acknowledging that Steve Jobs isn't God and that Apple isn't perfect.
"Only a Sith deals in absolutes." Why is it that Apple detractors always seem to see everything as Good and Evil? I've never claimed Jobs is God or that Apple is perfect. In fact, Jobs is not God, or a god, or even a saint or a prophet or any other stupid thing. He's a genius, specifically in terms of directing the design of products that merge technology and the liberal arts (his term) or the way I've been putting in, in creating devices around the people using them, and not requiring people to conform to the devices like everyone else seems to do. And Apple isn't perfect. Another absurd claim.
The only reason I can see that you (and most every other Apple-hater here) tends to deal in absolutes like this is that reality is far too subtle, and doesn't justify your dislike, or even hatred, of Apple and/or their products. So therefore, Apple is evil and anyone who defends Apple must be insane and think that Apple and Jobs are infallible superbeings. It's childish hyperbole like this that makes geeks look like loons to average people.
"Don't use Apple products, they are EVIL!"
"Why is that?"
"They restrict your rights and take control over your devices!"
"Really?"
"Yeah, you can't get Flash on the iPhone!"
"Well, that kinda sucks, but 'evil'?"
"And they control what apps are in their App Store."
"But, 'evil'? Do they kill puppies or enslave people or something?"
"You must think Steve Jobs is a God! And Apple incapable of imperfection. Fanboy!"
"Dude, you're insane."
Do you know that Google has remote-killed Android apps? And that *everything* you type into the address bar in Chrome is sent to them? Neither thing is evil, but both are far more invasive than anything Apple does.
Nah, I type fast. Also, there is a cadre of Apple-haters here, so even if I just said something like "the new iPad 2 is nice", I'd have to defend it on this site.
You may be right, ultimately, that I'm doing something wrong. In that posting something favorable about Apple here is like posting something nice about the government on a teabagger site, but I don't take it too seriously. The only thing I get continually disappointed on is the overall lack of any reasonable responses from the anti-Apple crowd. It's usually the same drivel (every now and then I get a reasonable response, and I think they are great).
But, seriously, this is a story about whether or not Apple is "evil". The fact that such a notion is even being taken seriously is absurd, so I expect a lot of additional absurd in the comments section. And, as always, Slashdot delivers.
I can't tell if you are being facetious or not, but if so, bravo. If not... wow.
I think you need to settle down and think about this. If you can see how Monsanto and Halliburton can be considered evil then it's not outrageous to suggest that other companies, Apple included, are capable of immoral conduct.
Monsanto and Halliburton both have a hand in the deaths of thousands of people, which is why I say it's at least reasonable to call them "evil". And you switched terms when you said "immoral". On the whole, I think Apple tends to be very moral, but I can understand people have different subjective morals, especially amongst those here with regards to technology (there are people here who think it's immoral to license software in a non-Free way). But evil is a pretty extreme term, and it's silly to call Apple evil.
Anyway, it's not "idiotic bullshit" to call Apple evil. At worst it's just too soon to tell.
By definition, if it's too soon to tell, it's too soon to start applying the term. What makes it idiotic bullshit is that Apple isn't even *suspected* of doing *any single thing* that can reasonably be called "evil".
The one thing that is even remotely close is the Foxconn suicides. The question becomes, did Apple encourage policies which brought these about? And how did Apple respond to them?
You can read Apple's report on their web site. This is not something they are required to do, and they didn't hype it up, so it's not like it was a marketing/media campaign. It shows that they actually care, and that they have taken measures to ensure that they specifically *aren't* engaging in evil, even including cutting contracts with companies which have been found to engage in child labor.
So not ALLOWING Flash, even when Adobe does all the work is being good? How about FORCING publishers to sell their content at a 30 percent loss on the App Store, that is being good?
For the user, yes. And Apple is not "FORCING" publishers to do shit. They are offering them a service, and every publisher is free to accept or decline. Creating an iOS app is not a requirement.
You are factually incorrect about iOS outselling Android too. Android passed it a while back, there was even a story on Slashdot. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/may/10/google-android-outsells-apple-iphone [guardian.co.uk]
Do Slashdotters run a plugin on Chrome that changes "iOS" to "iPhone" (or the other way around)?