5 ms·

Maybe it'd be better phrased as "there's not much that most PC users actually do with their PC that they couldn't do with an iPad".

kenjackson 16y ago
Things like run Flash, play WoW, or swap between a handful of tabs (including streaming Pandora) and few running apps (like Word, Excel, and IM client) are all pretty common things for most users I know. These aren't the geeks, but just people who actually use their computers.
- lotusleaf1987 16y ago
  You can download iWork: Pages for Word, Numbers for Excel, Keynote for PowerPoint. It does the exact same stuff, easier, and for far cheaper ($30 vs $150 or more). I'll give you WoW and Flash but I don't think "most" people play WoW or even care about Flash. There are plenty of IM clients.
  - derefr 16y ago
    Plus, if we were living in a world where "most people" did play WoW, Blizzard would be ignoring a market opportunity not to make an iPad client.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      "Most people" in the world isn't the right metric. Most people in the world probably don't use the web once a week. The real question is what is the market opportunity. After the Sims, WoW is the best selling PC game of all time. It's pretty popular.
      - masklinn 16y ago
        > After the Sims, WoW is the best selling PC game of all time. It's pretty popular. Not by a long shot. WoW sold 12 million copies. Myst sold 14. Starcraft sold 17 millions if you combine SC1 and SC2 sales (SC1 sold 11 million). And The Sims sold about 30 millions, excluding expansions (16 millions for The Sims, 13 for The Sims 2 and 4.6 millions for The Sims 3). At best WoW ranks fourth, whether by franchises (Sims, StarCraft, Myst) or by individual game (Sims 1, Myst, Sims 2)
        kenjackson 16y ago
        Here's the source I was using: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#Top_PC_sellers_by_genre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_game... Note, that Wikipedia has another list where WoW is behind it. With that said, the source dates for Myst and WoW are pretty old. I wouldn't be surprised if WoW surpassed Myst today by any count. So by game I think its not unreasonable to say that after the Sims it is 2/3. Possibly 3/4 depening on Myst vs WoW sales the past few years. In any case, I think my argument that it's popular doesn't change.
      - cstross 16y ago
        Correct: and "The Sims 3" was the best-selling iPhone game of 2009 (according to Electronic Arts). I'd call this one "case proven" -- either Blizzard have a skunk works team working on an iPad client right now (maybe for release when the second-gen iPad shows up) or they're not trying, and the MMO-on-iPad niche will be occupied by someone else. (We're heading towards 20 million iPads sold within the next six months; to me, that suggests an 0.5-1M player MMO based on the iPad alone is feasible, and if there's an Android/ChromeOS client in the works, it's going to have a huge impact on gaming in the 1-5 year out time frame.)
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    I've used both Pages and Numbers (but not Keynote) on iPad, and those are poor excuses for productivity apps. They remind me of circa 2002 web apps (or worse, circa 2010 versions of Google Apps). My point wasn't that none of these (in my last bunch) was unavailable, but using them all at once, is not reasonable in my use with the iPad (hence the use of the term "swap between"). For example I'm using GoTo Meeting right now, on this web browser, have Word, and VS open right now, with 18 open tabs. Most people probably don't have 18 tabs open nor VS, but what I described in my original post is pretty common. On the iPad it is just completely unreasonable to work this way, and you're left with a much less productive environment. The end result isn't a bad product, but one different than a laptop.
    - rimantas 16y ago
      You are not reading all 18 tabs at once. Not to mention writing something in Word and coding in VS at the same time. Some interesting definition of "productive" you must have…
      - kenjackson 16y ago
        Clearly you can't read all at once (people can only read one thing at a time), but in my tabs I have one tab for HN, several on some MSDN class refs, one on Grooveshark, one on a tutorial I'm reading during thinking breaks (when I'm not on HN), one for gmail, and for Yahoo mail, one for TechMeme, one for Memeorandum, and one on Sharepoint. I've dropped to 13 tabs from the previous 18 (I had opened up a bunch on BluRay ripping for a weekend project). In Word, I have my spec. In VS I'm coding a prototype to build my spec out. And yes, I'm extremely productive.
    - roc 16y ago
      The article quote is simply a refutation of the meme that the iPad is a toy or consumption-only machine. Whether it can do everything someone might want a desk machine for is irrelevant. You're arguing against a claim no-one made.
      - kenjackson 16y ago
- irons 16y ago
  Pandora's had an iOS client going back to when it was called an iPhone client, and credits it with the major uptick in their usage rate. Since the 4.0 OS came out, it streams happily in the background. There have been IM clients since the first days of the SDK, when AIM made do with push notifications for background support. Update your talking points.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Read my post again. I CLEARLY was not saying that these don't exist, but that it's not easy to swap amongst them. Sheesh. Update your critical reading skills.
    - irons 16y ago
      Sorry, that wasn't clear to me, partly because I've been using the 4.2 beta and it's hard to remember life without it. iOS 4's omnipresent list of running applications (sorted by most recent use, just like command-Tab on the Mac) is now my most-used interface to launching apps. I noticed last month that the list even survives a reboot of the device, which is the kind of detail I love.

kenjackson 16y ago

Things like run Flash, play WoW, or swap between a handful of tabs (including streaming Pandora) and few running apps (like Word, Excel, and IM client) are all pretty common things for most users I know. These aren't the geeks, but just people who actually use their computers.

lotusleaf1987 16y ago
You can download iWork: Pages for Word, Numbers for Excel, Keynote for PowerPoint. It does the exact same stuff, easier, and for far cheaper ($30 vs $150 or more). I'll give you WoW and Flash but I don't think "most" people play WoW or even care about Flash. There are plenty of IM clients.
- derefr 16y ago
  Plus, if we were living in a world where "most people" did play WoW, Blizzard would be ignoring a market opportunity not to make an iPad client.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    "Most people" in the world isn't the right metric. Most people in the world probably don't use the web once a week. The real question is what is the market opportunity. After the Sims, WoW is the best selling PC game of all time. It's pretty popular.
    - masklinn 16y ago
      > After the Sims, WoW is the best selling PC game of all time. It's pretty popular. Not by a long shot. WoW sold 12 million copies. Myst sold 14. Starcraft sold 17 millions if you combine SC1 and SC2 sales (SC1 sold 11 million). And The Sims sold about 30 millions, excluding expansions (16 millions for The Sims, 13 for The Sims 2 and 4.6 millions for The Sims 3). At best WoW ranks fourth, whether by franchises (Sims, StarCraft, Myst) or by individual game (Sims 1, Myst, Sims 2)
      - kenjackson 16y ago
        Here's the source I was using: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#Top_PC_sellers_by_genre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_game... Note, that Wikipedia has another list where WoW is behind it. With that said, the source dates for Myst and WoW are pretty old. I wouldn't be surprised if WoW surpassed Myst today by any count. So by game I think its not unreasonable to say that after the Sims it is 2/3. Possibly 3/4 depening on Myst vs WoW sales the past few years. In any case, I think my argument that it's popular doesn't change.
    - cstross 16y ago
      Correct: and "The Sims 3" was the best-selling iPhone game of 2009 (according to Electronic Arts). I'd call this one "case proven" -- either Blizzard have a skunk works team working on an iPad client right now (maybe for release when the second-gen iPad shows up) or they're not trying, and the MMO-on-iPad niche will be occupied by someone else. (We're heading towards 20 million iPads sold within the next six months; to me, that suggests an 0.5-1M player MMO based on the iPad alone is feasible, and if there's an Android/ChromeOS client in the works, it's going to have a huge impact on gaming in the 1-5 year out time frame.)
- kenjackson 16y ago
  I've used both Pages and Numbers (but not Keynote) on iPad, and those are poor excuses for productivity apps. They remind me of circa 2002 web apps (or worse, circa 2010 versions of Google Apps). My point wasn't that none of these (in my last bunch) was unavailable, but using them all at once, is not reasonable in my use with the iPad (hence the use of the term "swap between"). For example I'm using GoTo Meeting right now, on this web browser, have Word, and VS open right now, with 18 open tabs. Most people probably don't have 18 tabs open nor VS, but what I described in my original post is pretty common. On the iPad it is just completely unreasonable to work this way, and you're left with a much less productive environment. The end result isn't a bad product, but one different than a laptop.
  - rimantas 16y ago
    You are not reading all 18 tabs at once. Not to mention writing something in Word and coding in VS at the same time. Some interesting definition of "productive" you must have…
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      Clearly you can't read all at once (people can only read one thing at a time), but in my tabs I have one tab for HN, several on some MSDN class refs, one on Grooveshark, one on a tutorial I'm reading during thinking breaks (when I'm not on HN), one for gmail, and for Yahoo mail, one for TechMeme, one for Memeorandum, and one on Sharepoint. I've dropped to 13 tabs from the previous 18 (I had opened up a bunch on BluRay ripping for a weekend project). In Word, I have my spec. In VS I'm coding a prototype to build my spec out. And yes, I'm extremely productive.
  - roc 16y ago
    The article quote is simply a refutation of the meme that the iPad is a toy or consumption-only machine. Whether it can do everything someone might want a desk machine for is irrelevant. You're arguing against a claim no-one made.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
irons 16y ago
Pandora's had an iOS client going back to when it was called an iPhone client, and credits it with the major uptick in their usage rate. Since the 4.0 OS came out, it streams happily in the background. There have been IM clients since the first days of the SDK, when AIM made do with push notifications for background support. Update your talking points.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Read my post again. I CLEARLY was not saying that these don't exist, but that it's not easy to swap amongst them. Sheesh. Update your critical reading skills.
  - irons 16y ago
    Sorry, that wasn't clear to me, partly because I've been using the 4.2 beta and it's hard to remember life without it. iOS 4's omnipresent list of running applications (sorted by most recent use, just like command-Tab on the Mac) is now my most-used interface to launching apps. I noticed last month that the list even survives a reboot of the device, which is the kind of detail I love.