You've taken my statement out of context by just chopping at one tiny part of what I was actually saying. Considering I never said anything about a 'four function calculator' or anything similar
That's was just an example of the folly of playing loose with words. Phones and tablets are not PCs. You can call them PCs, but then you're just changing terminology, not reality.
Let's say for now we call smart phones and tablets "PCs". Then the story about the "PC ending, to be replaced by PCs" sounds silly, right? But you just reword it to "desktop and notebook computers to be replaced by smart phones and tablets". Nothing has changed, just the wording.
Simply put, the phone is catching up in utility and is becoming just another 'PC' essentially.
Except it's not, because the term "PC" doesn't apply to phones. That's why you had to add the word "essentially". That's also the point of the article, that the phone is becoming a PC alternative, which is what you are calling "just another 'PC' essentially".
"Personal computer" the term and "personal computer" the two words next to each other don't mean the same thing. By simply going with the meanings of the two words, a basic four function calculator is a PC.
Smart phones and tablets are distinct from PCs, just as game consoles and PDAs are, even though all of them could be described by the words "personal computer", just not the term.
Yes, because your garage is indicative of everyone's. Also, children have bikes and no cars.
And unlike your example, this is a changing tend and not just a snapshot of a mostly static relationship. The smart phone and tablet are rising and seems poised to eclipse the PC. This isn't terribly surprising to most people, but I fully expect Slashdot to completely miss the significance of this. Even once the PC is dethroned, the stereotypical slashdotter will still live and die by theirs.
It's also important to note that this doesn't mean that the PC is dying. PCs will be around for quite some time. Just that it's being supplanted as the most numerous general computing appliance.
I don't understand. They make their old hardware "obsolete" by rapidly advancing the state of the art, and this is a bad thing? The alternative would be to keep the iPhone 4 roughly similar to the original iPhone, which makes absolutely zero sense.
People need to stop thinking that older people are all morons with computers.
I don't recall anyone making this claim.
As for your specific example, I don't see how some reasonably competent grandparents refutes the notion that Linux isn't a good choice for "granny". Some grannies, sure. But "granny" in general? Hell no.
Have they probably fixed the close / minimize / restore position f*up? I mean I could not have marketed a OS to my granny if such a fundamentals keep changing, I know that one can set them back to top right, but this requires knowhow to do that.
Ubuntu isn't marketed at your granny. I doubt anyone who is bitching about this is really concerned about that. More likely they just don't like such a minimal-but-noticable change and don't want to admit (either publicly or to themselves) that they are just as prone to an ingrained, but entirely subjective, sense of feel in a UI, especially over something so trivial. It also belies the credo of "Linux is completely configurable", because like you said, it is easy to alter, but it's just the default that offends some people.
The idea that the average person (or even "average granny") is going to see the buttons missing on the right, but then see the exact same buttons on the left and somehow not make the connection is laughable. Millions of people go from Windows to Macs every year and haven't become nearly as confused by this as a handful of vocal Linux geeks seem to be, and on Macs the buttons actually do look different, are in a different order, and one of them even acts notably different!
After suffering X for years, then using a Unix that uses another windowing system while still allowing for X compatibility, all I can say is that this is a very good move on Canonical's part. At least in terms of their motivations. Execution is very important and remains to be seen.
X11 is the single worst thing about Linux systems. They've got a great kernel, great filesystems, great command line shells, great non-GUI scripting tools, great non-GUI libraries all hobbled by an ancient windowing system and sometimes not completely awful window managers.
When you keep things simple, X can be alright. It's kind of like DOS. If you don't get too fancy, it's simple and solid. It's great for some tasks, but not something that belongs on the desktop. If the term "this is the year of Linux on the desktop" is going to ever be said out of anything other than irony/sarcasm or delusion, some distro is going to have to replace X with something better.
Not directly related. But the point is: the government wants to mandate an expensive, error-prone device to eliminate a tiny percentage of accidents, and at the same time they're not allowing a cheap and simple device that could have a much bigger impact.
They aren't specifically "not allowing" the mirror AC linked to, they are not allowing non-flat mirrors due to distortion. This mirror didn't exist at the time the laws were being written and may very well be worthy of updating the law for.
I don't buy the "distortion" argument. If that was such a problem, why do they have convex mirrors on the passenger side?
Passenger side mirrors aren't even mandatory. The driver can generally get by just fine without them due to the ease of seeing out the windows on that side. The driver's side is much more difficult and error-prone. It's completely rational and consistent with the goals of safety to disallow non-flat mirrors on the driver's side, while allowing them on the passenger's side.
Consider the phrase "objects in mirror may be closer than they appear" for a moment. Now apply that to the driver's side mirror which is used to determine whether or not it's safe to change lanes to the left. Having objects appear further than they really are is clearly something that should be at the top of the list of things such mirrors must not do.
That's not true. Even Firefox doesn't ignore it. Firefox still shows the URL, but hides the rest of the address bar. Safari hides the address bar, but you can show it with CMD-L. I don't have Chrome handy, so I can't test that.
Half the time you can't see the full url on a widescreen monitor. But at least you can always see what domain you are on (barring Unicode homograms), I would like it if there was a popup in the bottom of my phone browser showing just the domain--maybe even with Unicode spoofs highlighted. They could really innovate with that feature. Or they could leave their "shiny" interface the way it is and not worry about people being stupid.
This isn't about obfuscating the URL, it's about hiding the address bar (on the iPhone, what it does is push the address bar above the screen, kind of like how an anchor tag takes you to a specific spot in a page). Then it puts an image at the top that looks like the address bar and that image can have any URL it wants.
I'm assuming it's possible to turn on the address bar, right? Because if they actually prevent people from trying to be smart about it, THEN they are being unreasonable.
At least in the example given, it doesn't turn off the address bar, it just loads the page with it pushed off the page.
I just tried the test in the story, and it's rather clever, but all you have to do is scroll up to verify the site. I can definitely see how it's going to be something Apple isn't going to have an easy time figuring out how to fix because it's not a technological issue, it's a social engineering issue.
The A4 is designed by Apple, even though Samsung manufactures them..
That’s like saying I design computers because I built my desktop pc and I chose all the parts. The a4 is a hummingbird cpu unless you have drunk far too much cool aid; and the next ios apple cpu will be a Samsung Orion.
Um, no. It's like saying you design computers if you designed a new CPU and hired another company to fab them. The A4 is a custom Apple CPU.
I will admit their products do make for a nice package but the fact it’s a unibody design or they have a glass trackpad is hardly being hardware experts it’s more of a design asset. This is apples strong point they have good design in thier product and the software. Personally I see it as too much form not enough function but some people like a simplistic approach.
Do you think glass trackpads and unibody cases are simply a matter of design? Do you think custom CPUs and custom motherboards and other custom chips are simply a matter of design? Do you think they just autocaded their new batteries and somehow they just magically gained in lifetime charge cycle count?
As for lack of function, what exactly do you have in mind?
NVIDIA; asus; Samsung (flexible oled phone screen coming soon); arm; synaptics; ti; are all more interesting hardware wise.
They all just make various singular components. Apple makes a whole computer. How can a new trackpad be more interesting than a whole computer? Even a "coming soon" flexible OLED screen? OLED is far worse than LCD in terms of image quality and lifetime and even power usage unless your display is mostly black. But flexible is definitely cool (and has been "coming soon" for a while now), but even an extraordinarily amazing display isn't more interesting than the tech behind something like a MacBook Pro.
Its just their products aren't wrapped in glass and alloy so you properly don't ever read about them. When apple comes out with something as advanced as NVIDIA’s tegra 2, and ahead of its time then consider me converted; till then they are just a design company rehashing age old concepts with newish tech (and its working like a dream).
You just see the glass and alloy and don't read about what goes on inside. That Apple doesn't have an SoC as fast as the Tegra 2 means they aren't as interesting technology-wise as Nvidia? Nvidia's scope is quite narrow. In fact, Apple worked directly with them to come up with custom chipsets for their Core2Duo Macs (and for their Core i5/i7 Macs until Intel sued to block Nvidia's chipsets). Nvidia is interesting in a very small section of the entire arena in which Apple is interesting. That's why I said "a single company" being more interesting than Apple is hard to come up with. Sure, if you take a handful and add them together, they can match the depth and breadth of Apple's hardware design.
Apparently you meant just "feature", specifically, having internal expandability.
No, I meant features. That those features result from a non-integrated form factor is an incidental consequence.
Except you don't elaborate on them. When I ask what features other than internal upgradability, you state that that is the feature, now you say it's coincidental?
Who cares about "the vast majority of PC buyers" ? We're talking about a specific demographic.
Um... The whole idea of there being some sort of glaring hole in the Mac lineup implies some sort of reasonably sized bloc of users, yet the best you can come up with is that some pro users might have preferred an xMac. Yet they still have Mac Pros, so what exactly should Apple's motivation be here?
How is there a hole is 95+% of Mac users wouldn't even benefit from it, and the <5% that might want it already buy Mac Pros?
Besides, your argument has been that Apple has been missing out by not offering an xMac.
No, it hasn't. My argument is that a clear example of how Apple will not cannibalise its own product lines as TFA suggests they do all the time, is the lack of a mid-range tower.
Fine, then you're saying that Apple isn't missing out? They why in the hell should they make this product? By saying there's a hole in the product line, you imply there's a reasonable level of demand that isn't being met.
Well, if there's not enough demand that Apple is missing out, then how exactly is this something Apple should do?
Some pro users ? In my experience it's most
I've never heard a single Mac Pro user say they wish there was a lesser model. Pro users make their livelihood on their machines and what you're seeing as a $1,000+ waste, they see as a $1,000+ investment. Most will make that back and then some in productivity. The last thing a professional should ever do is skimp on their tools. Tools are cheap, even at $2.5k-$4k+.
Those that want lesser models buy iMacs. Problem solved. They need more disk space? FW800. They need more RAM? If 16GB isn't enough, then you really should have a Mac Pro (and an xMac isn't likely to go beyond 16GB anyway).
This hole, it doesn't really exist, no more than a million other little holes, like a gamer Mac, or a small-screened iMac or some other niche market segment.
Using an iPod and/or iTunes does not require an Apple ID.
You install iTunes and it takes care of everything for you. After you install iTunes (it only has to happen once, or never if you have a Mac), there is no step three, you just plug in the iPod.
How can a player that you have to drag and drop music into (keeping track of folders and drive letters) possibly be easier? And if that's too hard, you can take your iPod and computer into an Apple Store and they will set it up for you.
How do you set up playlists on your RCA player? Edit tags? Remove songs? Add new songs without dealing with "Replace existing files" dialogs? Hell, how do you expect most people to know what drive letter their player is, and where all their music is?
Sure, you're a computer nerd, this stuff is second nature to you. Not just second nature, but you prefer doing things by hand. It gives you complete control over every little thing. But to think that most non-nerds are like you? Really?
They aren't. They want "plug in, wait until it says you can unplug then unplug". Trust me on this. In fact, they'd prefer to not even have the "wait until it says you can unplug" part, and with the iPod, that part is actually optional.
With the simple $50 players, you really don't need assistance. They're so easy to use...
You're mad if you think this is true. Easier for you, but you vastly overestimate the level of knowledge and desire to fuck around with their devices of the average consumer.
Her friend ended up selling her iPod and picked up the same mp3 player my wife had.
Yeah, I'm sure this is a typical anecdote...
Three hours to download and install iTunes? Even on dial up that's dubious. Surely you can't expect anyone to believe this story, right? What you're trying to say is that iPods are so difficult to use that a normal experience is that after three hours a person won't be up and running, but with another brand, drag-and-drop and bam, music! Do you realize how absurd that is when you consider how many people have iPods and how many buy them again when they need a new one?
Your story is the typical, "I'm a computer nerd, we don't need no fancy bells and whistles, just show me the filesystem and I'll take care of the rest" view. Good for you and your wife (and I really mean that, I'm not being sarcastic. It's great that you have a product you like, there's no need to put down another product with an absurd example to justify your purchase). You hear the same thing about how "on Linux it found my wireless card right away and my Windows friend spent three hours on hold with Dell trying to get theirs working when they upgraded to Windows 7". It takes a special kind of wishfulness to believe such a scenario is representative of the average experience.
It really is strange. My guess is that people just aren't aware of the alternatives. Either that, or they may think Apple products are "the best" and assume that no matter what trouble they have, the alternatives must surely be worse.
Actually it's not strange at all. iPods are easiest to use, easiest to get up and running, easiest to get repaired, easiest to get assistance with.
Do you know that if you have any problem with your iPod whatsoever, you can bring it into an Apple Store and they will help you with it for free? You can even bring in your PC and they will get iTunes installed, your music imported and your iPod synced? For free.
Aside from internal expandability, what features are you talking about?
What do you mean "aside from internal expandability" ? That's the raison d'être for the machine, enabling the features that differentiate it from the Mini or iMac. You can't handwave it away.
I was replying to:
"You mean despite having none of the features of a mid-range tower ?"
Apparently you meant just "feature", specifically, having internal expandability. Something which the vast majority of PC buyers never take advantage of aside from sometimes RAM upgrades, which the Mac mini and iMac handle just fine.
Plus RAM and misc expansion cards. Don't forget, also, that "GPU and HD expandability" cover a multitude of options, from RAID1 to four monitors.
I already covered RAM. What percentage of PC buyers do you think have three or more monitors, or RAID arrays?
The issue is not one of power, but capabilities and price. The entry-level Mac Pro costs about $1000 more than it needs to for the functionality a large proportion of its customers are interested in (multiple video cards and/or expansion cards, multiple hard disks, larger amounts of RAM).
The thought that a "large proportion" of Mac and potential Mac buyers want these things is laughable. The primary markets for these things are:
* Pros * Gamers * Hobbyists
The Mac Pro covers the pros. High end gamers and hobbyists aren't well served by Apple, but they are also relatively niche markets.
I'm confused. Are you arguing against the existence of an "xMac" or the Mac Pro ?
You're right, you're confused. But not about this. I made it abundantly clear that pro users can be expected to deal with these issues.
No, I meant a lot of Apple customers. Based on my experience with some hundreds of Mac Pro users, about 90% of them would have been equally well served by an "xMac", and a thousand dollars better off to boot.
Which is a very small number of overall Mac users. The Mac Pro does not make for a large percentage of Mac sales, and of those that would be well served by an xMac, many of them would be equally served by an iMac.
Besides, your argument has been that Apple has been missing out by not offering an xMac. Now you're saying that these very same people are buying Mac Pros. Doesn't seem like Apple has a problem here.
Imagine polling people walking out of an Apple store and asking if they wish Apple sold a standard "PC Desktop" style Mac. The vast majority of consumers have no desire whatsoever to muck around inside their computer. Those that do are a small minority, although on various online forums they can make up a much larger and more vocal minority (such as here on Slashdot).
When you beg the question to get the answer you want - as you have with pretty much every statement in your reply - that's not a valid argument.
Evaluating reality is not begging the question. If you think even a large minority of PC owners ever even open their cases, you're delusional. And of those that do, most only ever upgrade their RAM, which every Mac supports just fine.
The honest question would be to ask purchasers of the quad-core Mac Pro if they would have been equally happy with a machine costing $1000 less that had a quad-core CPU, 3 expansion slots, two internal drives and supported up to 24GB of RAM. My expectation is they would, based on my experience that the vast majority of Mac Pro purchasers bought machines at or below that specification.
That's a far cry from your initial claim that there's a "gaping hole in their computer lineup". At best, there's a very small hole that some niche markets like high end gamers (who need to run Windows anyway), hobbyists (who would balk at Apple's controlled systems anyway) and some pro users who want a lower-end Mac Pro, but still
Oh, please elaborate on this! Even the least powerful Apple products have parts that are not even close to substandard. The two that come to mind are the Core2Duos and Nvidia 320Ms in the lower end Macs. Even those parts are above average in the PC world, and those are the worst Apple offers!
Er, no. An average PC today would come with a Core i-series processor and, if the purchaser had any interest in gaming, a discrete GPU.
Those parts were average in the PC world a year or more ago, not today.
No, those parts aren't average. You need to spend some time at Best Buy or Fry's. There are still far too many PC's these days sold with Celerons and Pentiums!
And don't forget, this is Apple's low end.
Even discrete GPUs aren't average (which you are well aware of, since you had to qualify that with "if the purchaser had any interest in gaming", which you know is a very small minority of PC buyers). The vast majority of PCs sold today have integrated graphics, and the Nvidia 320M is the top of the line. It's even sufficient for mid-range gaming, including recent games like SC2.
There is no gaping hole from a consumer perspective. For desktops, the Mac mini is the mid-range tower.
You mean despite having none of the features of a mid-range tower ?
Aside from internal expandability, what features are you talking about?
Really, the only two markets that the iMac misses by not being a tower are high-end gamers and hobbyists, and both are fairly niche.
You forgot the majority of professional users, who are far more interested in a small amount of internal expandability/upgradeability/flexibility than they are in multi-CPU Xeon workstations. The problem with the Mac Pro is its baseline price is too high.
Read the first line of mine you quoted: "There is no gaping hole from a consumer perspective.
However, even for professional users, the only internal expandability that is lacking on the iMac or Mac mini is GPU and HD (well, the HD is expandable, but not nearly as easily as on a tower). I suppose there would be a small amount of demand for a lower end Mac Pro, but it's hard to see how there would be a very large market of people for whom the iMac is too limited but the Mac Pro is too powerful.
Like I said, the only groups that really have any demand for an xMac would be high-end gamers and hobbyists. For everyone else, Apple has a Mac that serves them well.
There is no conceivable way a mid-range tower would "frustrate or otherwise be worse for the average consumer".
A big bulky case, and slots for hardware that they can't use? If you have a Mac Pro, you know you have to choose specifically Mac compatible hardware. If you are a former PC user (or current low-end Mac user) getting an xMac, you'll be annoyed by the process of finding compatible cards, which is the major reason to make it a tower in the first place.
Apple customers have been *begging* for such a machine
You mean, "an exceptionally small number of Apple customers". Imagine polling people walking out of an Apple store and asking if they wish Apple sold a standard "PC Desktop" style Mac. The vast majority of consumers have no desire whatsoever to muck around inside their computer. Those that do are a small minority, although on various online forums they can make up a much larger and more vocal minority (such as here on Slashdot).
The hardware isn't special because it’s made by other people.
Non sequitur. Just because someone else makes the hardware doesn't mean it's not special. The 320M was made specially for Apple. The A4 is designed by Apple, even though Samsung manufactures them. I don't know who makes the retina display, the glass trackpad, their new notebook batteries or the unibody aluminum cases, but these are all unique to Apple.
Even if Apple didn't have unique individual components (but they do), and even if all the parts were simply standard off-the-shelf components (they aren't), even then, the unique combination counts as special.
Not only is Apple more technologically involved in their products' development than most Slashdot types seem to think, it's difficult to think of a single company that is more technologically interesting than Apple. Dell? HP? Cisco? Sun/Oracle? Intel? AMD? Nvidia? WD? Acer? Asus? None of these companies come close.
Although of the lot, Asus does tend to make a lot of interesting prototypes which, ironically, tend to be the "neat, but doomed to failure" duds that Slashdotters claimed products like the iPod and iPad would be.
Hint? How much did it take them to release Core-i based machines? While HP and the rest of the big guys already had even i7 laptops out there, Apple was still lagging behind with their Core 2 Duo line.
Your "hint" is an anomaly caused by the lawsuit between Intel and Nvidia which stopped Nvidia from making chipsets for the Core iX CPUs. Apple is at the leading edge of technology more often than not. Citing an example of "not" does not change this. In fact, the existence of some number of exceptions is not only implied, but explicitly stated.
Why am I making this point? Well, I have a good memory, and I remember 1997 commercials. They always claimed to have the fastest prettiest bestest machine ever, but the truth is, they're not into that anymore.
The integrated graphics (see above) in their lowest end consumer products are the fastest on the market. Even the CPUs are generally high-end in their lowest end consumer products. They lead the way to the Intel CoreDuo and later Core2Duo line. They lead with the Core i5 and i7 on the iMacs (you'll notice they don't sell any Core i3s). On the Mac Pros they quite often sell CPUs that are faster than any publicly available from Intel.
Anomalies don't make for a solid argument.
So why don't they just give up their computer line and start selling OS X for PCs? Plenty of people like it but not a lot are interested in buying overpriced Macs.
Fortunately they don't sell "overpriced Macs". They just don't sell low end computers, so their lowest prices start higher than the competition, but their specs also start higher as well. In many ways, their hardware has no equal in the PC world. The reason they don't sell Mac OS X for PCs is because there are no computers out there better suited for it than Macs. Peruse the Hackintosh sites if you don't believe me.
They managed to get gullible fools to pay a grand for a netbook. Business-wise that's a success.
Aluminum unibody case, exceptionally thin, Core2Duo processor, reasonably fast flash storage, high quality display, glass trackpad, very long lasting battery (coupled with the relatively fast hardware), high end integrated graphics, full sized keyboard, 11" & 13" screens...
It seems if there are gullible fools, it would be those that think the MacBook Air is a netbook. Can you cite any similar "netbooks" available for cheaper? You can ignore the aluminum case and glass trackpad (although something similarly sturdy, and a reasonably sized trackpad would be nice, if you can find something like that at all), since no one else has them, but you do need to match the CPU, graphics, keyboard, size, display, battery and storage.
so the sub-standard parts inside an apple computer are a good thing to some people?
Oh, please elaborate on this! Even the least powerful Apple products have parts that are not even close to substandard. The two that come to mind are the Core2Duos and Nvidia 320Ms in the lower end Macs. Even those parts are above average in the PC world, and those are the worst Apple offers!
despite the fact that jobs has said on at least one occasion that his products are about marketing more than anything else.
Since he's said this so many times, surely you can dig up a link? There's absolutely no way possible he said anything like that.
I would say this is a more likely explanation, and that apple customers have that rare combination of technical ineptitude, elitism borne out of insecurity
Elitism borne out of insecurity describes more Apple-haters than Apple fanboys. Using a term like "technical ineptitude" is a perfect example of that.
it would be true to say that when you buy apple kit you're paying a tax on stupidity. a stupid tax, if you will.
No, it wouldn't. As has been shown over and over, Apple products are no more expensive, and are often cheaper, than equivalent PCs, and that's even after having to make concessions for the PC in aspects in which there are no equivalents (like the unibody cases and glass screens, mag safe power connectors, the new innovative batteries in Apple's notebooks, etc.).
Ironically, if there is a "stupid tax", it would more aptly describe non-Apple customers. Look at the prices, specs and quality of most iPad "competitors". However, I wouldn't use a term like that since it's exceptionally arrogant to call people who have different values than me "stupid". Stupid means less intelligent, not "likes different things". If someone buys a less capable but more expensive Android phone because they want to hack the OS, that doesn't make them stupid, it just means they have different preferences than I do.
Useful, perhaps, but broadly appealing? No. The number of people for whom something like a Tablet PC is useful for is minute.
into a $400 toy.
You mean into a $500 product that people actually want and find useful. Calling it a "toy" is just sour grapes. It's quite possible that the iPad has already been responsible for far more net productivity worldwide than all the Tablet PCs combined. And even if that hasn't happened yet, it surely will.
They "innovated", you know, by making a new version of an iPod (with a broken antenna this time), by making a little bit better net-book, and by remaking the HP tablet PC from 2001, except without all those bothersome functional ports and things, but with less memory and computing power. Yup, real innovation. They did put the prices up a lot though. But just now they put them "down" about 8%.
How quaint. Somehow these "inferior" products are outselling by orders of magnitude those things you seem to think are better...
One possible explanation is that people are just really stupid. Not just really stupid once, but repeatedly so. They buy an iPod, see some superior product (I'm not sure what though. Zune?) but then go out an buy a new iPod when their old one breaks down. And not just a few people, but millions upon millions do this? It's strange that Apple somehow happens to be the only company that manages to do this.
Another explanation is that those aspects which you see as negatives which make Apple's products inferior in your eyes actually make the products superior in most other people's eyes. You mention the memory computing power of the iPad vs old HP Tablet PCs. Do you think the average consumer knows or even cares specifically how much memory or what CPU their devices have? All they care about is how well it works. And an iPad with 256MB RAM and a ~1GHz A4 CPU running iOS 4.2 runs better for them than any Tablet PC with any CPU or RAM running Windows 7. That's because the problem with Tablet PCs isn't the computing power or capacity, it's the form factor and the software.
Why do you think HP's Windows 7 Slate (the current top of the line Windows tablet) only sold a few thousand units? Do you think people are really so stupid that over 10 million have bought an iPad but only an embarrassingly miniscule fraction of that bought an HP Slate?
Since clearly there's no way people can actually prefer the iPad over other products like the Slate, we must all be incredibly stupid on a ratio of about 1000:1. It must be excruciatingly painful for you to have to live amongst such inferior minds.
The electric car *is* old technology; the first electric cars were built 2-3 years before the first internal-combustion cars!
And how powerful were they and how far could they run on a single charge? The ability to make a car run on electricity is old technology, but the current electric car (which is clearly what bondsbw was referring to, cars like the Leaf and the Volt) is only feasible due to modern technology.
And you're really making his point. Are you saying the Leaf and Volt aren't new technology simply because electric cars existed over 100 years ago? That's like saying the Saturn V rocket wasn't new technology because the Chinese had rockets over a thousand years ago!
Slashdot Mirror
You've taken my statement out of context by just chopping at one tiny part of what I was actually saying. Considering I never said anything about a 'four function calculator' or anything similar
That's was just an example of the folly of playing loose with words. Phones and tablets are not PCs. You can call them PCs, but then you're just changing terminology, not reality.
Let's say for now we call smart phones and tablets "PCs". Then the story about the "PC ending, to be replaced by PCs" sounds silly, right? But you just reword it to "desktop and notebook computers to be replaced by smart phones and tablets". Nothing has changed, just the wording.
Simply put, the phone is catching up in utility and is becoming just another 'PC' essentially.
Except it's not, because the term "PC" doesn't apply to phones. That's why you had to add the word "essentially". That's also the point of the article, that the phone is becoming a PC alternative, which is what you are calling "just another 'PC' essentially".
Not to mention PC just means Personal Computer
"Personal computer" the term and "personal computer" the two words next to each other don't mean the same thing. By simply going with the meanings of the two words, a basic four function calculator is a PC.
Smart phones and tablets are distinct from PCs, just as game consoles and PDAs are, even though all of them could be described by the words "personal computer", just not the term.
Yes, because your garage is indicative of everyone's. Also, children have bikes and no cars.
And unlike your example, this is a changing tend and not just a snapshot of a mostly static relationship. The smart phone and tablet are rising and seems poised to eclipse the PC. This isn't terribly surprising to most people, but I fully expect Slashdot to completely miss the significance of this. Even once the PC is dethroned, the stereotypical slashdotter will still live and die by theirs.
It's also important to note that this doesn't mean that the PC is dying. PCs will be around for quite some time. Just that it's being supplanted as the most numerous general computing appliance.
I don't understand. They make their old hardware "obsolete" by rapidly advancing the state of the art, and this is a bad thing? The alternative would be to keep the iPhone 4 roughly similar to the original iPhone, which makes absolutely zero sense.
People need to stop thinking that older people are all morons with computers.
I don't recall anyone making this claim.
As for your specific example, I don't see how some reasonably competent grandparents refutes the notion that Linux isn't a good choice for "granny". Some grannies, sure. But "granny" in general? Hell no.
"From my experiance, granny's and grandpa's like linux in general (my in-laws) since I'm..." managing the computer for them.
Have they probably fixed the close / minimize / restore position f*up? I mean I could not have marketed a OS to my granny if such a fundamentals keep changing, I know that one can set them back to top right, but this requires knowhow to do that.
Ubuntu isn't marketed at your granny. I doubt anyone who is bitching about this is really concerned about that. More likely they just don't like such a minimal-but-noticable change and don't want to admit (either publicly or to themselves) that they are just as prone to an ingrained, but entirely subjective, sense of feel in a UI, especially over something so trivial. It also belies the credo of "Linux is completely configurable", because like you said, it is easy to alter, but it's just the default that offends some people.
The idea that the average person (or even "average granny") is going to see the buttons missing on the right, but then see the exact same buttons on the left and somehow not make the connection is laughable. Millions of people go from Windows to Macs every year and haven't become nearly as confused by this as a handful of vocal Linux geeks seem to be, and on Macs the buttons actually do look different, are in a different order, and one of them even acts notably different!
After suffering X for years, then using a Unix that uses another windowing system while still allowing for X compatibility, all I can say is that this is a very good move on Canonical's part. At least in terms of their motivations. Execution is very important and remains to be seen.
X11 is the single worst thing about Linux systems. They've got a great kernel, great filesystems, great command line shells, great non-GUI scripting tools, great non-GUI libraries all hobbled by an ancient windowing system and sometimes not completely awful window managers.
When you keep things simple, X can be alright. It's kind of like DOS. If you don't get too fancy, it's simple and solid. It's great for some tasks, but not something that belongs on the desktop. If the term "this is the year of Linux on the desktop" is going to ever be said out of anything other than irony/sarcasm or delusion, some distro is going to have to replace X with something better.
Not directly related. But the point is: the government wants to mandate an expensive, error-prone device to eliminate a tiny percentage of accidents, and at the same time they're not allowing a cheap and simple device that could have a much bigger impact.
They aren't specifically "not allowing" the mirror AC linked to, they are not allowing non-flat mirrors due to distortion. This mirror didn't exist at the time the laws were being written and may very well be worthy of updating the law for.
I don't buy the "distortion" argument. If that was such a problem, why do they have convex mirrors on the passenger side?
Passenger side mirrors aren't even mandatory. The driver can generally get by just fine without them due to the ease of seeing out the windows on that side. The driver's side is much more difficult and error-prone. It's completely rational and consistent with the goals of safety to disallow non-flat mirrors on the driver's side, while allowing them on the passenger's side.
Consider the phrase "objects in mirror may be closer than they appear" for a moment. Now apply that to the driver's side mirror which is used to determine whether or not it's safe to change lanes to the left. Having objects appear further than they really are is clearly something that should be at the top of the list of things such mirrors must not do.
That's not true. Even Firefox doesn't ignore it. Firefox still shows the URL, but hides the rest of the address bar. Safari hides the address bar, but you can show it with CMD-L. I don't have Chrome handy, so I can't test that.
Half the time you can't see the full url on a widescreen monitor. But at least you can always see what domain you are on (barring Unicode homograms), I would like it if there was a popup in the bottom of my phone browser showing just the domain--maybe even with Unicode spoofs highlighted. They could really innovate with that feature. Or they could leave their "shiny" interface the way it is and not worry about people being stupid.
This isn't about obfuscating the URL, it's about hiding the address bar (on the iPhone, what it does is push the address bar above the screen, kind of like how an anchor tag takes you to a specific spot in a page). Then it puts an image at the top that looks like the address bar and that image can have any URL it wants.
I'm assuming it's possible to turn on the address bar, right? Because if they actually prevent people from trying to be smart about it, THEN they are being unreasonable.
At least in the example given, it doesn't turn off the address bar, it just loads the page with it pushed off the page.
I just tried the test in the story, and it's rather clever, but all you have to do is scroll up to verify the site. I can definitely see how it's going to be something Apple isn't going to have an easy time figuring out how to fix because it's not a technological issue, it's a social engineering issue.
The A4 is designed by Apple, even though Samsung manufactures them..
That’s like saying I design computers because I built my desktop pc and I chose all the parts. The a4 is a hummingbird cpu unless you have drunk far too much cool aid; and the next ios apple cpu will be a Samsung Orion.
Um, no. It's like saying you design computers if you designed a new CPU and hired another company to fab them. The A4 is a custom Apple CPU.
I will admit their products do make for a nice package but the fact it’s a unibody design or they have a glass trackpad is hardly being hardware experts it’s more of a design asset. This is apples strong point they have good design in thier product and the software. Personally I see it as too much form not enough function but some people like a simplistic approach.
Do you think glass trackpads and unibody cases are simply a matter of design? Do you think custom CPUs and custom motherboards and other custom chips are simply a matter of design? Do you think they just autocaded their new batteries and somehow they just magically gained in lifetime charge cycle count?
As for lack of function, what exactly do you have in mind?
NVIDIA; asus; Samsung (flexible oled phone screen coming soon); arm; synaptics; ti; are all more interesting hardware wise.
They all just make various singular components. Apple makes a whole computer. How can a new trackpad be more interesting than a whole computer? Even a "coming soon" flexible OLED screen? OLED is far worse than LCD in terms of image quality and lifetime and even power usage unless your display is mostly black. But flexible is definitely cool (and has been "coming soon" for a while now), but even an extraordinarily amazing display isn't more interesting than the tech behind something like a MacBook Pro.
Its just their products aren't wrapped in glass and alloy so you properly don't ever read about them. When apple comes out with something as advanced as NVIDIA’s tegra 2, and ahead of its time then consider me converted; till then they are just a design company rehashing age old concepts with newish tech (and its working like a dream).
You just see the glass and alloy and don't read about what goes on inside. That Apple doesn't have an SoC as fast as the Tegra 2 means they aren't as interesting technology-wise as Nvidia? Nvidia's scope is quite narrow. In fact, Apple worked directly with them to come up with custom chipsets for their Core2Duo Macs (and for their Core i5/i7 Macs until Intel sued to block Nvidia's chipsets). Nvidia is interesting in a very small section of the entire arena in which Apple is interesting. That's why I said "a single company" being more interesting than Apple is hard to come up with. Sure, if you take a handful and add them together, they can match the depth and breadth of Apple's hardware design.
Apparently you meant just "feature", specifically, having internal expandability.
No, I meant features. That those features result from a non-integrated form factor is an incidental consequence.
Except you don't elaborate on them. When I ask what features other than internal upgradability, you state that that is the feature, now you say it's coincidental?
Who cares about "the vast majority of PC buyers" ? We're talking about a specific demographic.
Um... The whole idea of there being some sort of glaring hole in the Mac lineup implies some sort of reasonably sized bloc of users, yet the best you can come up with is that some pro users might have preferred an xMac. Yet they still have Mac Pros, so what exactly should Apple's motivation be here?
How is there a hole is 95+% of Mac users wouldn't even benefit from it, and the <5% that might want it already buy Mac Pros?
Besides, your argument has been that Apple has been missing out by not offering an xMac.
No, it hasn't. My argument is that a clear example of how Apple will not cannibalise its own product lines as TFA suggests they do all the time, is the lack of a mid-range tower.
Fine, then you're saying that Apple isn't missing out? They why in the hell should they make this product? By saying there's a hole in the product line, you imply there's a reasonable level of demand that isn't being met.
Well, if there's not enough demand that Apple is missing out, then how exactly is this something Apple should do?
Some pro users ? In my experience it's most
I've never heard a single Mac Pro user say they wish there was a lesser model. Pro users make their livelihood on their machines and what you're seeing as a $1,000+ waste, they see as a $1,000+ investment. Most will make that back and then some in productivity. The last thing a professional should ever do is skimp on their tools. Tools are cheap, even at $2.5k-$4k+.
Those that want lesser models buy iMacs. Problem solved. They need more disk space? FW800. They need more RAM? If 16GB isn't enough, then you really should have a Mac Pro (and an xMac isn't likely to go beyond 16GB anyway).
This hole, it doesn't really exist, no more than a million other little holes, like a gamer Mac, or a small-screened iMac or some other niche market segment.
Using an iPod and/or iTunes does not require an Apple ID.
You install iTunes and it takes care of everything for you. After you install iTunes (it only has to happen once, or never if you have a Mac), there is no step three, you just plug in the iPod.
How can a player that you have to drag and drop music into (keeping track of folders and drive letters) possibly be easier? And if that's too hard, you can take your iPod and computer into an Apple Store and they will set it up for you.
How do you set up playlists on your RCA player? Edit tags? Remove songs? Add new songs without dealing with "Replace existing files" dialogs? Hell, how do you expect most people to know what drive letter their player is, and where all their music is?
Sure, you're a computer nerd, this stuff is second nature to you. Not just second nature, but you prefer doing things by hand. It gives you complete control over every little thing. But to think that most non-nerds are like you? Really?
They aren't. They want "plug in, wait until it says you can unplug then unplug". Trust me on this. In fact, they'd prefer to not even have the "wait until it says you can unplug" part, and with the iPod, that part is actually optional.
With the simple $50 players, you really don't need assistance. They're so easy to use...
You're mad if you think this is true. Easier for you, but you vastly overestimate the level of knowledge and desire to fuck around with their devices of the average consumer.
Her friend ended up selling her iPod and picked up the same mp3 player my wife had.
Yeah, I'm sure this is a typical anecdote...
Three hours to download and install iTunes? Even on dial up that's dubious. Surely you can't expect anyone to believe this story, right? What you're trying to say is that iPods are so difficult to use that a normal experience is that after three hours a person won't be up and running, but with another brand, drag-and-drop and bam, music! Do you realize how absurd that is when you consider how many people have iPods and how many buy them again when they need a new one?
Your story is the typical, "I'm a computer nerd, we don't need no fancy bells and whistles, just show me the filesystem and I'll take care of the rest" view. Good for you and your wife (and I really mean that, I'm not being sarcastic. It's great that you have a product you like, there's no need to put down another product with an absurd example to justify your purchase). You hear the same thing about how "on Linux it found my wireless card right away and my Windows friend spent three hours on hold with Dell trying to get theirs working when they upgraded to Windows 7". It takes a special kind of wishfulness to believe such a scenario is representative of the average experience.
It really is strange. My guess is that people just aren't aware of the alternatives. Either that, or they may think Apple products are "the best" and assume that no matter what trouble they have, the alternatives must surely be worse.
Actually it's not strange at all. iPods are easiest to use, easiest to get up and running, easiest to get repaired, easiest to get assistance with.
Do you know that if you have any problem with your iPod whatsoever, you can bring it into an Apple Store and they will help you with it for free? You can even bring in your PC and they will get iTunes installed, your music imported and your iPod synced? For free.
Aside from internal expandability, what features are you talking about?
What do you mean "aside from internal expandability" ? That's the raison d'être for the machine, enabling the features that differentiate it from the Mini or iMac. You can't handwave it away.
I was replying to:
"You mean despite having none of the features of a mid-range tower ?"
Apparently you meant just "feature", specifically, having internal expandability. Something which the vast majority of PC buyers never take advantage of aside from sometimes RAM upgrades, which the Mac mini and iMac handle just fine.
Plus RAM and misc expansion cards. Don't forget, also, that "GPU and HD expandability" cover a multitude of options, from RAID1 to four monitors.
I already covered RAM. What percentage of PC buyers do you think have three or more monitors, or RAID arrays?
The issue is not one of power, but capabilities and price. The entry-level Mac Pro costs about $1000 more than it needs to for the functionality a large proportion of its customers are interested in (multiple video cards and/or expansion cards, multiple hard disks, larger amounts of RAM).
The thought that a "large proportion" of Mac and potential Mac buyers want these things is laughable. The primary markets for these things are:
* Pros
* Gamers
* Hobbyists
The Mac Pro covers the pros. High end gamers and hobbyists aren't well served by Apple, but they are also relatively niche markets.
I'm confused. Are you arguing against the existence of an "xMac" or the Mac Pro ?
You're right, you're confused. But not about this. I made it abundantly clear that pro users can be expected to deal with these issues.
No, I meant a lot of Apple customers. Based on my experience with some hundreds of Mac Pro users, about 90% of them would have been equally well served by an "xMac", and a thousand dollars better off to boot.
Which is a very small number of overall Mac users. The Mac Pro does not make for a large percentage of Mac sales, and of those that would be well served by an xMac, many of them would be equally served by an iMac.
Besides, your argument has been that Apple has been missing out by not offering an xMac. Now you're saying that these very same people are buying Mac Pros. Doesn't seem like Apple has a problem here.
Imagine polling people walking out of an Apple store and asking if they wish Apple sold a standard "PC Desktop" style Mac. The vast majority of consumers have no desire whatsoever to muck around inside their computer. Those that do are a small minority, although on various online forums they can make up a much larger and more vocal minority (such as here on Slashdot).
When you beg the question to get the answer you want - as you have with pretty much every statement in your reply - that's not a valid argument.
Evaluating reality is not begging the question. If you think even a large minority of PC owners ever even open their cases, you're delusional. And of those that do, most only ever upgrade their RAM, which every Mac supports just fine.
The honest question would be to ask purchasers of the quad-core Mac Pro if they would have been equally happy with a machine costing $1000 less that had a quad-core CPU, 3 expansion slots, two internal drives and supported up to 24GB of RAM. My expectation is they would, based on my experience that the vast majority of Mac Pro purchasers bought machines at or below that specification.
That's a far cry from your initial claim that there's a "gaping hole in their computer lineup". At best, there's a very small hole that some niche markets like high end gamers (who need to run Windows anyway), hobbyists (who would balk at Apple's controlled systems anyway) and some pro users who want a lower-end Mac Pro, but still
Oh, please elaborate on this! Even the least powerful Apple products have parts that are not even close to substandard. The two that come to mind are the Core2Duos and Nvidia 320Ms in the lower end Macs. Even those parts are above average in the PC world, and those are the worst Apple offers!
Er, no. An average PC today would come with a Core i-series processor and, if the purchaser had any interest in gaming, a discrete GPU.
Those parts were average in the PC world a year or more ago, not today.
No, those parts aren't average. You need to spend some time at Best Buy or Fry's. There are still far too many PC's these days sold with Celerons and Pentiums!
And don't forget, this is Apple's low end.
Even discrete GPUs aren't average (which you are well aware of, since you had to qualify that with "if the purchaser had any interest in gaming", which you know is a very small minority of PC buyers). The vast majority of PCs sold today have integrated graphics, and the Nvidia 320M is the top of the line. It's even sufficient for mid-range gaming, including recent games like SC2.
There is no gaping hole from a consumer perspective. For desktops, the Mac mini is the mid-range tower.
You mean despite having none of the features of a mid-range tower ?
Aside from internal expandability, what features are you talking about?
Really, the only two markets that the iMac misses by not being a tower are high-end gamers and hobbyists, and both are fairly niche.
You forgot the majority of professional users, who are far more interested in a small amount of internal expandability/upgradeability/flexibility than they are in multi-CPU Xeon workstations. The problem with the Mac Pro is its baseline price is too high.
Read the first line of mine you quoted: "There is no gaping hole from a consumer perspective.
However, even for professional users, the only internal expandability that is lacking on the iMac or Mac mini is GPU and HD (well, the HD is expandable, but not nearly as easily as on a tower). I suppose there would be a small amount of demand for a lower end Mac Pro, but it's hard to see how there would be a very large market of people for whom the iMac is too limited but the Mac Pro is too powerful.
Like I said, the only groups that really have any demand for an xMac would be high-end gamers and hobbyists. For everyone else, Apple has a Mac that serves them well.
There is no conceivable way a mid-range tower would "frustrate or otherwise be worse for the average consumer".
A big bulky case, and slots for hardware that they can't use? If you have a Mac Pro, you know you have to choose specifically Mac compatible hardware. If you are a former PC user (or current low-end Mac user) getting an xMac, you'll be annoyed by the process of finding compatible cards, which is the major reason to make it a tower in the first place.
Apple customers have been *begging* for such a machine
You mean, "an exceptionally small number of Apple customers". Imagine polling people walking out of an Apple store and asking if they wish Apple sold a standard "PC Desktop" style Mac. The vast majority of consumers have no desire whatsoever to muck around inside their computer. Those that do are a small minority, although on various online forums they can make up a much larger and more vocal minority (such as here on Slashdot).
The hardware isn't special because it’s made by other people.
Non sequitur. Just because someone else makes the hardware doesn't mean it's not special. The 320M was made specially for Apple. The A4 is designed by Apple, even though Samsung manufactures them. I don't know who makes the retina display, the glass trackpad, their new notebook batteries or the unibody aluminum cases, but these are all unique to Apple.
Even if Apple didn't have unique individual components (but they do), and even if all the parts were simply standard off-the-shelf components (they aren't), even then, the unique combination counts as special.
Not only is Apple more technologically involved in their products' development than most Slashdot types seem to think, it's difficult to think of a single company that is more technologically interesting than Apple. Dell? HP? Cisco? Sun/Oracle? Intel? AMD? Nvidia? WD? Acer? Asus? None of these companies come close.
Although of the lot, Asus does tend to make a lot of interesting prototypes which, ironically, tend to be the "neat, but doomed to failure" duds that Slashdotters claimed products like the iPod and iPad would be.
Hint? How much did it take them to release Core-i based machines? While HP and the rest of the big guys already had even i7 laptops out there, Apple was still lagging behind with their Core 2 Duo line.
Your "hint" is an anomaly caused by the lawsuit between Intel and Nvidia which stopped Nvidia from making chipsets for the Core iX CPUs. Apple is at the leading edge of technology more often than not. Citing an example of "not" does not change this. In fact, the existence of some number of exceptions is not only implied, but explicitly stated.
Why am I making this point? Well, I have a good memory, and I remember 1997 commercials. They always claimed to have the fastest prettiest bestest machine ever, but the truth is, they're not into that anymore.
The integrated graphics (see above) in their lowest end consumer products are the fastest on the market. Even the CPUs are generally high-end in their lowest end consumer products. They lead the way to the Intel CoreDuo and later Core2Duo line. They lead with the Core i5 and i7 on the iMacs (you'll notice they don't sell any Core i3s). On the Mac Pros they quite often sell CPUs that are faster than any publicly available from Intel.
Anomalies don't make for a solid argument.
So why don't they just give up their computer line and start selling OS X for PCs? Plenty of people like it but not a lot are interested in buying overpriced Macs.
Fortunately they don't sell "overpriced Macs". They just don't sell low end computers, so their lowest prices start higher than the competition, but their specs also start higher as well. In many ways, their hardware has no equal in the PC world. The reason they don't sell Mac OS X for PCs is because there are no computers out there better suited for it than Macs. Peruse the Hackintosh sites if you don't believe me.
They managed to get gullible fools to pay a grand for a netbook. Business-wise that's a success.
Aluminum unibody case, exceptionally thin, Core2Duo processor, reasonably fast flash storage, high quality display, glass trackpad, very long lasting battery (coupled with the relatively fast hardware), high end integrated graphics, full sized keyboard, 11" & 13" screens...
It seems if there are gullible fools, it would be those that think the MacBook Air is a netbook. Can you cite any similar "netbooks" available for cheaper? You can ignore the aluminum case and glass trackpad (although something similarly sturdy, and a reasonably sized trackpad would be nice, if you can find something like that at all), since no one else has them, but you do need to match the CPU, graphics, keyboard, size, display, battery and storage.
so the sub-standard parts inside an apple computer are a good thing to some people?
Oh, please elaborate on this! Even the least powerful Apple products have parts that are not even close to substandard. The two that come to mind are the Core2Duos and Nvidia 320Ms in the lower end Macs. Even those parts are above average in the PC world, and those are the worst Apple offers!
despite the fact that jobs has said on at least one occasion that his products are about marketing more than anything else.
Since he's said this so many times, surely you can dig up a link? There's absolutely no way possible he said anything like that.
I would say this is a more likely explanation, and that apple customers have that rare combination of technical ineptitude, elitism borne out of insecurity
Elitism borne out of insecurity describes more Apple-haters than Apple fanboys. Using a term like "technical ineptitude" is a perfect example of that.
it would be true to say that when you buy apple kit you're paying a tax on stupidity. a stupid tax, if you will.
No, it wouldn't. As has been shown over and over, Apple products are no more expensive, and are often cheaper, than equivalent PCs, and that's even after having to make concessions for the PC in aspects in which there are no equivalents (like the unibody cases and glass screens, mag safe power connectors, the new innovative batteries in Apple's notebooks, etc.).
Ironically, if there is a "stupid tax", it would more aptly describe non-Apple customers. Look at the prices, specs and quality of most iPad "competitors". However, I wouldn't use a term like that since it's exceptionally arrogant to call people who have different values than me "stupid". Stupid means less intelligent, not "likes different things". If someone buys a less capable but more expensive Android phone because they want to hack the OS, that doesn't make them stupid, it just means they have different preferences than I do.
They transformed it from a useful $2000 product
Useful, perhaps, but broadly appealing? No. The number of people for whom something like a Tablet PC is useful for is minute.
into a $400 toy.
You mean into a $500 product that people actually want and find useful. Calling it a "toy" is just sour grapes. It's quite possible that the iPad has already been responsible for far more net productivity worldwide than all the Tablet PCs combined. And even if that hasn't happened yet, it surely will.
From that perspective, which is the toy again?
They "innovated", you know, by making a new version of an iPod (with a broken antenna this time), by making a little bit better net-book, and by remaking the HP tablet PC from 2001, except without all those bothersome functional ports and things, but with less memory and computing power. Yup, real innovation. They did put the prices up a lot though. But just now they put them "down" about 8%.
How quaint. Somehow these "inferior" products are outselling by orders of magnitude those things you seem to think are better...
One possible explanation is that people are just really stupid. Not just really stupid once, but repeatedly so. They buy an iPod, see some superior product (I'm not sure what though. Zune?) but then go out an buy a new iPod when their old one breaks down. And not just a few people, but millions upon millions do this? It's strange that Apple somehow happens to be the only company that manages to do this.
Another explanation is that those aspects which you see as negatives which make Apple's products inferior in your eyes actually make the products superior in most other people's eyes. You mention the memory computing power of the iPad vs old HP Tablet PCs. Do you think the average consumer knows or even cares specifically how much memory or what CPU their devices have? All they care about is how well it works. And an iPad with 256MB RAM and a ~1GHz A4 CPU running iOS 4.2 runs better for them than any Tablet PC with any CPU or RAM running Windows 7. That's because the problem with Tablet PCs isn't the computing power or capacity, it's the form factor and the software.
Why do you think HP's Windows 7 Slate (the current top of the line Windows tablet) only sold a few thousand units? Do you think people are really so stupid that over 10 million have bought an iPad but only an embarrassingly miniscule fraction of that bought an HP Slate?
Since clearly there's no way people can actually prefer the iPad over other products like the Slate, we must all be incredibly stupid on a ratio of about 1000:1. It must be excruciatingly painful for you to have to live amongst such inferior minds.
The electric car *is* old technology; the first electric cars were built 2-3 years before the first internal-combustion cars!
And how powerful were they and how far could they run on a single charge? The ability to make a car run on electricity is old technology, but the current electric car (which is clearly what bondsbw was referring to, cars like the Leaf and the Volt) is only feasible due to modern technology.
And you're really making his point. Are you saying the Leaf and Volt aren't new technology simply because electric cars existed over 100 years ago? That's like saying the Saturn V rocket wasn't new technology because the Chinese had rockets over a thousand years ago!