Chance Furlong
2011-03-08 20:06:16 UTC
From Tech Night Owl:
http://tinyurl.com/4ldc6gc
Cuss and discuss.
The Real Victims of the iPad Revolution
March 8th, 2011
So in recent days, I’ve read one or two favorable reviews of the $799
Motorola Xoom tablet computer, a highly-touted iPad competitor. The TV
ads seem flashy enough, and, based on specs alone, I’ve little doubt it
is one powerhouse of a gadget. But are specs everything?
Certainly the arrival of the iPad last year upended the PC industry in a
totally expected way. Apple reported over 15 million units sold in the
first three quarters, but the impact has been far greater than that. The
growing move towards cheap notebooks, as exemplified by netbooks, was
thrown for a loop. Overall PC sales estimates from industry analysts
kept getting lower and lower, and Apple was one of the few companies to
report rapid sales growth, for both notebook and desktop Macs.
If there is any cannibalization wrought by the iPad, it appears to be
mostly at the expense of Windows-based PCs of one sort or another. Maybe
Macs have been impacted to some degree, but not enough to prevent sales
from improving at a pretty good clip.
The tablet revolution does make sense. You can get many of the functions
of a traditional PC in an extremely compact form factor with great
performance and extremely good battery life. Many people who might have
formerly invested in a notebook computer, as the second or third PC in
their homes or offices, find the iPad a superior alternative for most
purposes.
Certainly, the iPad’s limitations are obvious. If you want to do lots of
typing, get a keyboard. Doing it on a touch pad with no physical
feedback is not a way to make lots and lots of words flow. Yet the
iPad’s 9.7 inch screen is actually larger than some of the early Mac
notebooks. There are loads of cases that let you stand the unit up
vertically, so you can conveniently work on an accessory keyboard if
that’s what you prefer. I wonder if a future iteration of the iPad, with
slide out keyboard, is a potential solution, unless most of us decide to
use dictation software instead of letting our fingers do the walking.
Even ahead of the announcement of the iPad 2, the first version became a
cultural icon. You’d see it regularly in movies and TV shows, and more
and more businesses have found ways to deploy them. Certainly the iPad
is a huge plus in the educational world, but textbook publishers have
not yet been lining up to make deals with Apple. But I do expect that
the iPad (whether the 2, 3, or later) will ultimately replace most
physical textbooks in a student’s backpack. The Kindle may make a few
strides right now, because it’s cheaper and lighter. But you give up far
too many functions, such as the ability to write homework assignments on
the same computer. Perhaps Amazon will add more tablet-like
functionality in future versions, but the iPad is expected to remain
far, far more flexible.
Now if you believe some of the media pundits, the avalanche of tablets,
iPad competitors, is just beginning. Over the next year, loads of them
will appear at your favorite consumer electronics outlets or online. But
to get a leg up on Apple, these latecomers are going to have to devise
the correct combination of good design, favorable pricing, and build an
app ecosystem that will make these gadgets indispensable.
It’s curious, of course, that nobody figured out how to build a
successful tablet until Apple led the way with the first iPad. Sure, the
critics pronounced it little more than a swollen iPod touch, but
customers knew better. But it also explains why the new generation of
tablets are fundamentally iPad knockoffs. Sure, some have a few extra
features, because consumer electronics companies use bullet point
presentations rather than innovation. So if the iPad or iPad 2 lacks
something, they need to find a way to add it, even if it’s poorly
implemented.
Certainly, Samsung and Motorola could boast of having cameras ahead of
the iPad 2. But that advantage ends on March 11. Besides, consumers
don’t buy these things based on raw specs. They want a gadget that
works, and seamlessly performs the functions they require. That means
having enough apps available to actually do something beyond checking
email, or surfing the Internet.
Apple’s home-grown advantage has to be extremely difficult to beat. Yes,
I gather some developers prefer the more open environment at Google, and
certainly customers might also prefer the fewest restrictions possible.
But the real issue is whether there’s a rich selection of apps
customized for tablets. For now, nobody else can match the 65,000 titles
in the App Store. But to attract and keep developers, a company’s
storefront has to provide a means to make good profits. If developers
can’t make a living from the retail products they create, they’ll simply
go elsewhere.
Is the Android Marketplace a profit center? That’s yet to be determined,
but when you hear about instant millionaires as the result of App Store
and Mac App Store sales, you know more and more developers will be
attracted. The customers will benefit from a smooth, relatively seamless
environment, and few are apt to fret about the fact that there’s a
gatekeeper lurking in the background.
Some day, the iPad, or a better product if one comes from Apple or
elsewhere, will be the mainstream personal computer. Apple knows that,
and Steve Jobs has said so. The rest of the PC industry desperately
hopes and prays for a piece of the action, but you wonder whether, for
them at least, it’s too little and too late.
http://tinyurl.com/4ldc6gc
Cuss and discuss.
The Real Victims of the iPad Revolution
March 8th, 2011
So in recent days, I’ve read one or two favorable reviews of the $799
Motorola Xoom tablet computer, a highly-touted iPad competitor. The TV
ads seem flashy enough, and, based on specs alone, I’ve little doubt it
is one powerhouse of a gadget. But are specs everything?
Certainly the arrival of the iPad last year upended the PC industry in a
totally expected way. Apple reported over 15 million units sold in the
first three quarters, but the impact has been far greater than that. The
growing move towards cheap notebooks, as exemplified by netbooks, was
thrown for a loop. Overall PC sales estimates from industry analysts
kept getting lower and lower, and Apple was one of the few companies to
report rapid sales growth, for both notebook and desktop Macs.
If there is any cannibalization wrought by the iPad, it appears to be
mostly at the expense of Windows-based PCs of one sort or another. Maybe
Macs have been impacted to some degree, but not enough to prevent sales
from improving at a pretty good clip.
The tablet revolution does make sense. You can get many of the functions
of a traditional PC in an extremely compact form factor with great
performance and extremely good battery life. Many people who might have
formerly invested in a notebook computer, as the second or third PC in
their homes or offices, find the iPad a superior alternative for most
purposes.
Certainly, the iPad’s limitations are obvious. If you want to do lots of
typing, get a keyboard. Doing it on a touch pad with no physical
feedback is not a way to make lots and lots of words flow. Yet the
iPad’s 9.7 inch screen is actually larger than some of the early Mac
notebooks. There are loads of cases that let you stand the unit up
vertically, so you can conveniently work on an accessory keyboard if
that’s what you prefer. I wonder if a future iteration of the iPad, with
slide out keyboard, is a potential solution, unless most of us decide to
use dictation software instead of letting our fingers do the walking.
Even ahead of the announcement of the iPad 2, the first version became a
cultural icon. You’d see it regularly in movies and TV shows, and more
and more businesses have found ways to deploy them. Certainly the iPad
is a huge plus in the educational world, but textbook publishers have
not yet been lining up to make deals with Apple. But I do expect that
the iPad (whether the 2, 3, or later) will ultimately replace most
physical textbooks in a student’s backpack. The Kindle may make a few
strides right now, because it’s cheaper and lighter. But you give up far
too many functions, such as the ability to write homework assignments on
the same computer. Perhaps Amazon will add more tablet-like
functionality in future versions, but the iPad is expected to remain
far, far more flexible.
Now if you believe some of the media pundits, the avalanche of tablets,
iPad competitors, is just beginning. Over the next year, loads of them
will appear at your favorite consumer electronics outlets or online. But
to get a leg up on Apple, these latecomers are going to have to devise
the correct combination of good design, favorable pricing, and build an
app ecosystem that will make these gadgets indispensable.
It’s curious, of course, that nobody figured out how to build a
successful tablet until Apple led the way with the first iPad. Sure, the
critics pronounced it little more than a swollen iPod touch, but
customers knew better. But it also explains why the new generation of
tablets are fundamentally iPad knockoffs. Sure, some have a few extra
features, because consumer electronics companies use bullet point
presentations rather than innovation. So if the iPad or iPad 2 lacks
something, they need to find a way to add it, even if it’s poorly
implemented.
Certainly, Samsung and Motorola could boast of having cameras ahead of
the iPad 2. But that advantage ends on March 11. Besides, consumers
don’t buy these things based on raw specs. They want a gadget that
works, and seamlessly performs the functions they require. That means
having enough apps available to actually do something beyond checking
email, or surfing the Internet.
Apple’s home-grown advantage has to be extremely difficult to beat. Yes,
I gather some developers prefer the more open environment at Google, and
certainly customers might also prefer the fewest restrictions possible.
But the real issue is whether there’s a rich selection of apps
customized for tablets. For now, nobody else can match the 65,000 titles
in the App Store. But to attract and keep developers, a company’s
storefront has to provide a means to make good profits. If developers
can’t make a living from the retail products they create, they’ll simply
go elsewhere.
Is the Android Marketplace a profit center? That’s yet to be determined,
but when you hear about instant millionaires as the result of App Store
and Mac App Store sales, you know more and more developers will be
attracted. The customers will benefit from a smooth, relatively seamless
environment, and few are apt to fret about the fact that there’s a
gatekeeper lurking in the background.
Some day, the iPad, or a better product if one comes from Apple or
elsewhere, will be the mainstream personal computer. Apple knows that,
and Steve Jobs has said so. The rest of the PC industry desperately
hopes and prays for a piece of the action, but you wonder whether, for
them at least, it’s too little and too late.