11 ms·

The Next Six Months

239 points by thushan 16y ago

alanfalcon 16y ago
If Apple does have two separate iPad releases in 2011, I definitely think the first announcement will replace the current iPad and the next announcement will be a product that augments the iPad line, an HD or Pro model, as Gruber predicts. But I sincerely doubt there will be two different iPad announcements this calendar year. Ever since Gruber's initial review of the iPad, I've been intrigued by the possibility of a Pro model with more RAM and possibly some extra horsepower. Again, it doesn't seem like Apple's plan though.
- loire280 16y ago
  While better specs certainly never hurt, I've never heard any iPad users complain processing power or RAM. iOS does memory management seamlessly (if I didn't understand how it worked, I probably wouldn't even notice it) and the interface is notably responsive. I'm sure the new version will have a spec bump. Whatever that ends up meaning (dual core, faster, more RAM), it will continue to be plenty.
  - jonhohle 16y ago
    The current iteration could stand some more RAM (and/or Safari could be smarter about how it purges its page cache). With the latest version of iOS, I can only keep a single page in memory at a time and reloading pages when hopping between two is less than desirable.
    - roc 16y ago
      Sometimes, even one page is enough to illustrate the problem. e.g. The Boston Globe's Big Picture blog
  - cpr 16y ago
    As all the rumor sites (e.g., WSJ ;-) are predicting, it'll definitely have at least 512MB of RAM (can't imagine it having less than the iPhone 4). But that's still pretty anemic, as jonhohle noted: that's not enough to keep a lot of pages in Safari's cache. (Though, from my experiments, Safari/WebKit is REALLY aggressive about minimizing memory usage, perhaps even stupidly.)
    - rexf 16y ago
      According to this Engadget comparison (http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/09/hp-touchpad-vs-ipad-vs-xoom-vs-playbook-the-tale-of-the-tape/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/09/hp-touchpad-vs-ipad-vs-xo...), competing tablets (TouchPad, Xoom, PlayBook) all have 1GB of RAM. It wouldn't be surprising for the 2nd iPad to have 1GB or more RAM.
      - moe 16y ago
        Anyone know why they're skimping on the RAM? Does the ipad need some super-special expensive DIMMs? Is it about power consumption? A 4GB DDR3 SO-DIMM costs a measly $40 bucks. I don't think the ipad target audience would care if apple added that to the MSRP.
        msbarnett 16y ago
        It's almost certainly about power consumption; Apple absolutely loves being able to tout huge battery life compared to the competition, and one way they do that i s by being tighter on things like RAM usage. It's also worth pointing out that the RAM lives in a Package-on-Package configuration right on the CPU die. They're not exactly buying mass market SO-DIMMs and sticking them in a bog-standard bus, so the cost per MB is probably higher.
        wiredfool 16y ago
        The processor and the ram are stacked on the same chip. So they're kinda limited as to what they can put in there. I doubt that you could fit a SO-DIMM of any stripe inside an ipad case, nor would you want the power problems. There was a teardown of the chip assembly done back when the ipad came out that has some good details: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple-A4-Teardown/2204/1 http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple-A4-Teardown/2204/1
  - wiredfool 16y ago
    I'll complain. The ipad is a second class browsing experience not because of the lack of flash, but the lack of cache. It's just not anywhere near as snappy reading as a Real Computer(tm) because it's constantly reloading stuff that's been purged. My usual style of reading (on the desktop) is to pop open a pile of stuff in tabs, then batch read through. Can't do that on the iPad. Safari could also use a few more cycles to make it seem that much snappier. While it feels like magic, and I would have killed for its browsing performance a few years back, it just doesn't feel quite there yet. Also, just in the last month or so, I've noticed some sort of background task that causes stuttering in some places. (mainly in angry birds). For the first time, I've noticed that I needed to restart it. Its' a small thing, but it's also the first time I've had to resort to computer troubleshooting on it.
    - schultzor 16y ago
      FWIW, iCab/Terra help with this style of browsing a little bit. They don't seem to cache as much and do a better job of handling more background tabs with things waiting to be read.
      - maguay 16y ago
        I'm trying Terra right now ... Hadn't heard of it yet, so thanks! I just posted a question to see what everyone's favorite iPad browser is and why - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2200302 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2200302, hopefully we'll get some good discussion there about alternate browsers. I've considered buying iCab; what are your thoughts on it versus Terra?
    - ryanpetrich 16y ago
      By default iOS only uses an in-memory cache for HTTP (including in Safari). Developers have the option of augmenting it with a disk cache if they so choose, but few do.
  - zyb09 16y ago
    Maybe no users complain, but as a developer I often think, god damn, why is there so few RAM in there. And no iOS doesn't do memory managment seamlessy, the responsiveness comes from developers working hard to constantly cache/unchache everything that might take up a few megs.
    - guywithabike 16y ago
      My guess is that it's related to supply constraints. They sold 14 million of them last year. That's a lot of chips. Is their RAM special in some way that might make it a supply constraint big enough to warrant limiting the memory in the iPad so much?
      - aperiodic 16y ago
        I doubt supply constraints are an issue. They're the single largest purchaser of flash memory in the world[1]. I imagine manufacturers would be bending over backwards for them, since their orders must all be quite large. [1]:http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/gaming.gadgets/10/21/macbook.future.cnet/ http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/gaming.gadgets/10/21/macboo...
      - silvestrov 16y ago
        I think they did everything to get the price down to $499 - including removing camera and reducing RAM. I'm guessing they thought that the $499 price point was required to make iPad a hit. $499 is a very symbolic price.
pclark 16y ago
I wrote an entire comment about how great it is for Apple to work in secret and release and "blitzkrieg" the competition. But it turns out Apple announced their iPhone ~Jan 2007 and it shipped ~June 2007. So why did HP announce their entire 2011/2012 line up and direction of products without a price and or release date? I think that this means HP has stake holders breathing down their neck, and they had to publicly show their hand asap. Thoughts?
- ReadyNSet 16y ago
  only reason Apple announced six months in advance was the the FCC approval process, being public the iPhone would've been out in any case whether Apple announced or not.
  - jbrennan 16y ago
    I don't think that's true. It might have been what they said, but it's February now and we haven't seen any glimpses of iPhone 5 (or whatever) from the FCC, and I'd be willing to bet it launches less than six months from now.
    - allenbrunson 16y ago
      "Jobs unveiled the iPhone to the public on January 9, 2007 at Macworld 2007. Apple was required to file for operating permits with the FCC, but since such filings are made available to the public, the announcement came months before the iPhone had received approval." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone I remember hearing this story at the time, as well. For all we know, the rules could be different for iPhone 5, since it is an update of an existing product, rather than a new one.
      - seabee 16y ago
        Given we've already had a few different iPhones, if the rules are different shouldn't we know already?
  - 16y ago
scottyallen 16y ago
If you're an iPad/iPhone developer: How does the prospect of a new iPad being on the horizon affect your development/product strategy?
- ReadyNSet 16y ago
  compatibility has been pretty good, so unless you were to target an app with specific new features it wouldn't affect much.
- megablast 16y ago
  It will undoubtably have a camera, so now start making all those camera apps use the bigger screen. Same with skype, etc... I will add the ability for users of my iPad apps to use photos, take photos, etc... This was limited to the iPhone version. More memory means will be able to do more things, load up bigger files into mem.
  - Bud 16y ago
    I need a poor-quality, low-sensitivity camera attached to the back of a foot-long iPad about as much as I need cameras built into my jeans, belt buckle, toothbrush, and turkey baster. Just because you can build a camera (or two cameras) into everything doesn't mean you should. Cameras are a certain size and shape for a reason. I see no reason to build a rear-facing cam into the iPad. Ever tried to hold a slippery, 7.5" x 9.5", 1.6 pound slab at arm's length before, and hold it steady? Not compelling.
    - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
      Cameras aren't cameras anymore, they're just another sensor input. Do you want to scan a barcode or QR code? Do you want to scan a document? And then translate it? Do you want Augmented Reality games that let you fly a little spaceship around the room and shoot your friends? The plunging cost of camera chips means they'll be increasingly ubiquitous. I wouldn't rule out one on your toothbrush.
- spaghetti 16y ago
pkulak 16y ago
"Apple was willing to announce it months in advance because they had no competition..." What? They announce the first version of a product early because, being the first, it can't stop people from buying the previous version. If they announced the new iPad now, iPad 1 sales would tank.
- barredo 16y ago
  * If they announced the new iPad now [and not release it for a few months] iPad 1 sales would tank. * If they announced the new iPad now [and release it in a "handful of weeks"] iPad 1 sales would tank. [and iPad2 sales will skyrocket]
- rookie 16y ago
  unless they drop the price of the iPad 1, similar to what they do with the iPhone.
- endlessvoid94 16y ago
  It also gave developers a ton of time to adapt their apps to the new form factor. And obviously provided time for new apps. That's huge.
- jbrennan 16y ago
  An existing product of their own would constitute competition. So it's not inaccurate what he's said. But I agree, it could have been explained more clearly.
- jleyank 16y ago
  The Osborne effect. I would think Apple and all other current/successful tech companies have this in mind re: their products - especially given the rapid turnover.
  - eftpotrm 16y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect#The_Osborne_Myth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect#The_Osborne_Myth
- deleted 16y ago
access_denied 16y ago
I wish HP and RIM get their act together. Four competing platforms plus the Web, will make this new era much more interesting than the times of the Wintel monoculture. In each application space we will see many contenders. The 'standard' solution for each platform and then ports. But I think there will not be a 'standard' solution, because the common denominator the Web will enforce open operability of data. Vendor lock-in from app producers will be weak. Same with OS: only marginal vendor lock-in. This will be a blast. And then we still have the web as a bonus.
barista 16y ago
"One startling omission from that list: Microsoft. Their former hardware partners are heading off into the touch-computing future without them. We could have four competing tablet platforms six months from now — iOS, Android, WebOS, and Playbook — and not one of them is from Microsoft" Microsoft clearly seems to have taken their own sweet time to make an entry but they clearly have an intent and when they do, the biggest thing that they will have going for them is the knowhow of the platform and a plethora of apps that are already existing there that will be easy to port. Just like mobile this will end up being a 3 horse race in a few years. Apple, Google and Microsoft. The rest of them are just wasting their time and money in competing. None of them have existing ecosystems or platforms that they can leverage to fight with the three big players.
- jleyank 16y ago
  What would have changed if the Microsoft Courier was real? I thought this a pretty good start, but then it disappeared.
- alanh 16y ago
  “A plethora of apps that are easy to port”? Windows compatibility implies a terribly inadequate offering, just like every previous Windows Tablet PC to date. How is that competing? Metro/Win Phone 7 doesn’t have a “plethora of apps” ready to be tweaked for tablet size, so I’m baffled by your reasoning.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - barista 16y ago
    You are assuming that interface is all that it takes to develop an app. A user interface is only but a small component of any native application. I am not saying that a current windows apps can be used as it is but with a bulk of the logic in place, changing just an interface to make it touch aware should not be a big deal.
- tomkarlo 16y ago
  One of the biggest problem with Microsoft's tablet strategy to date has been the assumption that porting apps from a mouse-based window environment to a tablet works. Rather than reworking the UI to be suitable to touch interaction, they wanted to force you to use a stylus and pretend you're using a mouse.
lshepstone 16y ago
It's going to be pretty interesting watching this play out. But Apple and Android have an unfair advantage right now...apps, and lots of them. If you've got an iOS or Android phone and already own some apps the other guys are going to have to ship something amazing or dirt cheap to get your attention. As great as the new HP stuff looks, I wouldn't like to be HP, RIM (or Nokia and their potential Meego tablet) right now...tough road ahead building app ecosystem momentum. Who cares if the tablet is slightly better when I can't get my favourite apps. I find it greatly amusing the roles are reversed from back when Apple struggled on the desktop due to lack of apps while microsoft dominated. My how times change in 10 years. At least this time we might have more than one platform that dominated 90% which is good for everyone.
- megablast 16y ago
  The first step is to build a great device, and it looks like HP might be there. It seems to be the best iPad contender yet, stealing that crown from Motorola's zoom from just a few days ago.
  - tomkarlo 16y ago
    No credit until it ships. Everything looks great in a demo.
    - apress 16y ago
      And gets priced!
roc 16y ago
The logic doesn't hold up for me. Are holiday buyers really the same kind of people who will have even heard gadget rumors, let alone coordinate their purchases accordingly? Do we have any reason to think many of them held off this year? Furthermore, I thought the speed of iOS updates has been a good thing. Why are three iOS targets undesirable or problematic? It just sounds... flimsy; like someone shopping for justification after they'd latched onto a conclusion.
- alanh 16y ago
  You can’t imagine everyday people hearing advice not to drop hundreds of bucks on Christmas presents that will be obsolete in a month? Because if iPads & iPods were expected in Jan/Feb I can guaranteed a ton of nerds will be looking out for Mom and Dad.
  - roc 16y ago
    I can't imagine everyday people caring enough about specs to actually make decisions based on said rumors. The default expectation is that iPads will hit in late March. So we're talking about rumors relating to devices that may exist three to four months after the decision of "what are we getting Sally for Christmas" gets made. And Gruber thinks average people will hear those rumors and then be willing to disappoint a loved one on Christmas over a spec bump they have no context for? And, again, I wonder aloud if we have any indication that this happened this year. Because we all heard rumors and those things flew off the shelves anyway. So if it didn't happen this year, why would anyone expect it to happen next year?
gojomo 16y ago
Two iPads in one year is possible, and Gruber has better Apple-watching-skills than most. But I also think Apple is long overdue for a true "AppleTV", an all-in-one product with big screen, deeply integrated with everything else iOS/iTunes. That would also fit well with a late-in-year but in-time-for-Christmas release.
- tomkarlo 16y ago
  It's the wrong time in the upgrade cycle for home TVs to do that - everyone just bought a new flatscreen LCD HDTV during the past two years and sales are flat in that sector. Introducing an AppleTV with screen would be an uphill battle to convince people to replace a device they're still pretty happy with (and still paying off.)
  - mgkimsal 16y ago
    "everyone" didn't. I know a number of holdouts (myself included) who are still waiting. When the next big thing comes along, another portion of us will take the plunge.
    - jerf 16y ago
      Sure, but an increasingly small portion. And quite a few of you won't until the next big thing, and so on for quite a while; there will be people without a flatscreen in their residence in 2020 but I wouldn't recommend building a business on convincing them to change their mind. No, the situation in 2011 isn't like that, obviously; this is a rhetorical point made for seeing the situation I'm describing in a time when it is perfectly clear. Today isn't to that extreme, the point is that already that market has peaked. Besides, an Apple TV that doesn't require HD, which would not be that much more effort, would also work for anyone with a TV, so it really doesn't make sense to me to only make this an integrated product.
- Raphael 16y ago
  No need to waste working televisions and monitors.
kenjackson 16y ago
Microsoft AND Intel being effectively missing from the tablet race is staggering. And there are a few reasons why its staggering: 1) Both have known it was coming, maybe longer than anyone else. But got the core requirements all wrong. 2) No one really seems to care. 3) Related to (2), there is no belief that they have anything up their sleeve. 4) Their existing ecosystem, probably a billion units strong, doesn't seem to help their situation at all. 5) Both CEOs seem firmly in place still. While Intel and MS will make money hand over first for years to come, it does appear to be the end of the consumer market for these two companies. Their focus will be business class computers, workstations, and servers.
- pchristensen 16y ago
  1 + 4 + 5 = classic disruption theory. The margins, cost structure, and organizations that have made them so successful so far are what's preventing them from seizing the tablet space. The CEO's are in place because they have made so much money from the old business.
  - InclinedPlane 16y ago
    Ding ding ding. MS and Intel are still aware of the disruptiveness of "Tablets" (a poor description for the phenomenon, but descriptive enough), but they are chained to their existing org-charts, ship schedules, and revenue streams. Whether or not they'll be able to pivot fast enough is still up in the air. The really interesting aspect is that the important part in market growth isn't when the disruptive technology takes the lead in marketshare, or when it starts eating into the marketshare of the old guard significantly. Rather, it's the inflection points of growth that are important. When a big company is past its knee (still growing but growing at a smaller and smaller pace over time) while the little guy is growing at a faster and faster pace, that's when to pay attention, because lots of things happen quickly and by the time the marketshare starts shifting it's already too late, the die has been cast.
    - angstrom 16y ago
      Chained, but not oblivious. Windows 8 will borrow heavily from Surface. Registry will be gone. It will be good, but it may be too late.
naner 16y ago
I don't think the market for these things is huge as he suggests. Why would anyone buy a non-Apple touch or tablet device? I can see the argument for smart phones from different vendors, but not for these causal computing touch devices. And this is coming from someone who has never paid a cent to Apple. I haven't drank the kool-aid but none of these touch devices appear to really be competing with Apple. They look like they are struggling to catch-up. These devices always have some combination of a bigger price tag, buggy interfaces, crappier specs, and/or way less software available. I'd rather see these other vendors go a completely different direction. Microsoft releasing an iPad clone this late in the game would just be embarrassing. The Kinect was a good response to the Wii. The Playstation Move was not. (I'm making assumptions here since I'm not a gamer. I have no idea whether the Move/Kinect are successful or not.)
- pchristensen 16y ago
  There's little doubt that in a few years, Android-based tablets will be competitive (and I'm saying this as an iPad lover). Google will make the software work because they want the ad-viewing-and-clicking ecosystem to grow and there will be diminishing growth in hardware expectations so other vendors will catch up. I predict Android tablets with beefier hardware and horsepower and iPads with better screen tech and more polish.
- YuriNiyazov 16y ago
  I am curious what kind of tech stuff you do spend money on. Not into apple, and yet not a gamer, which is one of the few holdouts
  - usaar333 16y ago
    Is he that unusual? I don't game much these days but I also own no Apple products. There's plenty of non-Apple desktops, laptops, phones, mp3 players, etc. to go around.
    - YuriNiyazov 16y ago
      "Is he that unusual?" - well, either he is or I am. Almost all of my roommates and coworkers have apple products, most more than 1. Those that do not are still hardcore gamers.
thushan 16y ago
Though I think Apple is the only one that can pull it off. I'm a bit surprised that they'll be able to keep to a one year product cycle with things like the iPhone/iPad when the rest of the market is hitting a new product every couple weeks. Not that they've been one to match the rest of the market, but a lot happens in a year. Then again, maybe the biggest lesson out of the touch screen revolution is that its not the hardware - it's the software, and Apple has been certainly setting the pace on that front.
- rimantas 16y ago
  It should work OK for them, as long as the new release leapfrogs whatever came out during that time. I think handsets makers had pretty aggressive schedule while Apple was making iPhone. It took Apple two and a half years to get the first gen iPhone ready—eternity in mobile phone makers timeframe–but look at the result. Apple somehow can predict the future (or are they just making it?) well in Advance and prepare accordingly.
- r00fus 16y ago
  The iPhone makes complete sense. The standard 2-year phone contract keeps the (non-fanatic) customers happier... their 2 year contract would only mean skipping one product release without paying the $200 premium. The iPad... might see faster than 1-year cycles because there is no contract, per-se (of course the competitors keep screwing that part up, so maybe not).
- tzs 16y ago
  The phone market is doing a new product every couple of weeks, but how about the individual companies? Most buyers are on contract, and can't change phones more frequently than once a year with a reduced subsidy or once every two years with full subsidy. If a phone company introduces a new phone, and then a few weeks later introduces a better phone, they've to some extent limited the market for the first one to the people who happened to hit the end of their contracts in that few weeks. Given the two year contract cycle, a phone a year makes a lot of sense (assuming your phones are good enough that it takes the competition several months to match or best them--as has been the case for Apple so far).
endlessvoid94 16y ago
Apple's touch strategy is definitely awesome, but the only reason it's spectacular is because of the app store. HP's new TouchPad won't have that. It will probably do well, but it won't even touch the success of the iPad. Nobody writes apps for WebOS.
- megablast 16y ago
  That is true, but it could change. It is very easy to write for webos, since it is based on HTML/CSS/Javascript. So a lot of web developers can get into this.
  - endlessvoid94 16y ago
    You're right. But HP doesn't seem to be hyping or publicizing this at all. No shout-outs to developers. No "here's our SDK, here are some screencasts and tutorials". They exist, but they aren't being advertised at all. Apple has conferences where they get developers excited about working on apps.
- r00fus 16y ago
  HP should court Amazon to run a WebOS app-store.
gsaines 16y ago
I actually clicked this expecting the article to be parodying the Friedman Unit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_%28unit%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_%28unit%29) only to find utter sincerity!
spaghetti 16y ago
I'd really like to see a laptop with two touch screens: one replacing the regular screen and another replacing the keyboard and trackpad. This tablet/laptop hybrid would have some awesome benefits. For example one could comfortably use the device while seated at a table (display and input area can be at about 90 deg relative to each other... something that's not possible w/ the iPad). Another awesome benefit would be replacing the on-screen keyboard with far-out stuff like a painter's palette, Scrabble tiles, dominoes or even two turn-tables like a DJ uses. Imagine mixing digital paint with your fingers (on the touch screen that replaces the physical keyboard on current laptops) then actually painting on the other touch screen (the touch screen replacing the non-touch screens on current laptops).
- imsky 16y ago
  We almost had it. http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/microsofts-courier-digital-journal-exclusive-pictures-and-de/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/microsofts-courier-digita... Why Microsoft killed Courier, I'll never know.
  - spaghetti 16y ago
    That looks cool! However it's rotated from what I was hoping for. I literally want just a laptop w/ two touch screens. Too bad it was cancelled.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  The Kyocera Echo... while a phone, has what you describe: http://www.tabletpcreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1970&news=kyocera+sprint+echo+dual+display+touchscreens+tablet+mode+smartphone+google+android+OS+froyo http://www.tabletpcreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1970&ne...
- yakto 16y ago
  Sounds like a giant Gameboy.
onteria 16y ago
This is of course a subjective opinion, but something doesn't quite feel right about HP making a tablet PC. They seem to put out quite a lot of things without much of an overall guiding principle. HP PCs, laptops, printers, servers, now tablets. I ask myself "Why HP?" and can't seem to come up with a very reasonable answer. Nothing jumps out at me as seeing this as the best thing ever. With Apple they have the whole underlying principle of "Think Different" or something along the lines of changing the status quo. Apple didn't really do anything new with the iPhone and iPad in essence. Smartphones and tablet PCs were already out there. However because it went with their overall message, it made sense. People wanted to include it in their "Apple Lifestyle" so to speak. Just my .00002 cents.
roadnottaken 16y ago
"...[tablets] are the future of the entire computing industry..." That's more than a little hard to swallow...
- jarek 16y ago
  Today's fad is the future of the entire industry. No questions allowed.
Roritharr 16y ago
I dont get why everybody is falling for the "end of pc era" hype that is surrounding tablets and smartphones. Can someone explain to me why the ability to browse the web from the couch without sufficient text-entry possibilities is going to challenge the amount of pc's in a world where textentry is our main method of searching, sorting and creating data. Honestly, this is not a rhetorical question, i feel i'm missing some part of the picture here.
- imsky 16y ago
  It's the "end of PCs" for the mainstream market, which was overrun with them for the last 10 years. Now the mobile technology is good enough that bulky desktops are going to be used primarily by professionals. You're not going to edit video/render 3D on the iPad 2, but for 90% of the population that just needs to check their email, it's good enough.
  - Roritharr 16y ago
    I think that idea is overblown, simply because "Check their E-Mails" means someone has to write e-mails worth checking...
    - ugh 16y ago
      Input really is not that terrible. It’s disingenuous to act as though tablets don’t allow you to enter text.
- wiredfool 16y ago
  We're getting closer. Years ago, must have been 7 or 8 by now, I was talking with a friend @ Microsoft, and he was going on and on about how the phone was going to be the computer. "This Phone" and he'd hold up a generic GSM flip phone. My objection then was UI, both on the input and output side. In a way, wifi and bluetooth have solved a lot of that, as they can offload the heavy duty stuff to wireless sometimes connected displays and keyboards. At some point, we're likely to have enough power in a cellphone to run most of what you'd want to do for day to day stuff. And do it all day on a charge. Couple that with always on networking and the availability of machines in the cloud for bigger jobs, you start to be able to have the phone/tablet be most of what you need.
maguay 16y ago
One interesting thing to see will be whether newer tablets with webOS, Android, or anything else will get advanced, full-sized tablet apps like Apple's iWork apps. The iWork apps definitely are some of the very best on iPad, and it wouldn't be nearly as useful of a device without them. Docs to Go and QuickOffice are a joke in comparison (except each of them are much better at file sync and orginization...). It's the more advanced apps like these, though, that will really enable tablets to take over traditional PCs.
sigzero 16y ago
I am hoping for some strange reason that WebOS wins out over them all.
sinkercat 16y ago
Is it possible that the new product announced during the Fall event is actually a 7-inch retina display iPad? Apple might find it expensive to build a 9.7-inch retina display and that could explain the $3billion+ investment that Apple has put in (possibly for the 7-inch retina display screens). Yes, Steve Jobs did say that 7-inch tablets are DOA but it was the same Steve who said Apple doesn't see e-books as a big market.
stcredzero 16y ago
Re: Rear Facing Camera. This would be most useful on a device with a daylight readable transflective screen. Then you could use it outdoors with augmented reality apps.
- yakto 16y ago
  While riding your Segway? Just don't see it happening (average folks holding a tablet-size device in front of their face, running AR apps).
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    Sure, when stationary for a moment, looking up information. You see average folks looking dead tree/ink information device in public all the time. They're called tourists. They're called museum-goers. They're called audience. Those things they're holding are called guidebooks and programs. I think this would make for an awesome museum AR experience.
    - Helianthus16 16y ago
      neat idea, long way away.
      - stcredzero 16y ago
        There are already such apps on the App Store.
cletus 16y ago
I mostly agree with Gruber but disagree on a couple of major points: 1. Releasing the iPad in September makes no sense simply because it was such a massive hit in the holiday season. Generally speaking, you want to spread out your demand as much as possible. It took 2 months to get the previous iPad from the US to the first round of international markets and another 3-4 months to do the full round. You can only produce so many. Actually not being able to buy one because demand is so high is not Apple's style; 2. I don't see Apple releasing a new version 6 months after the previous, particularly when, in all likelihood, the iPad 2 won't have been in some markets for more than a month or two. As far as conflicting reports on parts and specs, that's nothing new. Just like there were reports of a CDMA iPhone YEARS before there was one. There are two reasons for this: 1. Apple produces far more prototypes than they release (eg the CDMA iPhone was tested for about a year before release); and 2. People just make stuff up for page views. I also fully agree with Gruber on a rear-facing camera making very little sense on a device that large.
- krolley 16y ago
  I think you make a very good point. The iPhone 4 was released in June, but in Europe we didn't see any real availability for many months afterwards, even into October. If Apple had released an iPhone 4GS in September, it would have delayed many peoples plans to buy an iPhone, I would think.
- masklinn 16y ago
  > It took 2 months to get the previous iPad from the US to the first round of international markets and another 3-4 months to do the full round. It took about 5 months for the initial iPhone to get out of the US. By the 3G's release, iPhone was in 6 countries (USA, France, Germany, UK, Ireland and Austria). The iPhone 3G was released simultaneously in 22 countries (though the 3GS backed out a bit, release day for only 8 countries and the rest staggered over 2 months)
- allwein 16y ago
  >I also fully agree with Gruber on a rear-facing camera making very little sense on a device that large. A rear-facing camera makes little sense if you imagine the use is for people to walk around taking pictures like they would with a phone. However, when you start imagining uses like Augmented Reality or other situations where you're interacting with real world artifacts, then it makes a little more sense.
dschobel 16y ago
"The next six months are going to set the foundation for the future of personal computing." Gruber needs to make the leap and become a political talking-head on cable news already. Unleashing lines like that without a hint of sarcasm or irony? You can't teach that, folks, that's god given.
- ugh 16y ago
  I’m confident in predicting that tablets will be more than one third of unit sales to consumers of all PCs in Europe and North America within five years. 346 million PCs were sold worldwide in 2010, Apple sold 15 million iPads so far. That’s still a long way off but it is not impossible, especially with other manufacturers bringing their devices to the market. This is a reasonable prediction. It might well be wrong but it is reasonable. Calling tablets “the future of personal computing” with such a prediction in mind seems perfectly justifiable to me. Don’t ridicule other reasonable opinions just because you disagree with them!
  - dschobel 16y ago
    All of that? perfectly reasonable; the original claim? still slightly absurd. If you want to look at it by comparison to the iphone led smartphone revolution, the timeframe there was: first iphone release: 1/2007 first android phone: 10/2008 first touchscreen BB: 11/2008 first webos phone: 6/2009 (all dates courtesy of the wikipedia articles for the specific phones or OSes) and then you didn't really get a phone which competed well with the iphone until, arguably, the nexus one which was in 2010 (or even the Pre which was middle of '09) making it a full 2.5 - 3 years later. The point is that this stuff progresses in fits and spurts over a long period of time and that the next six months are going to be no more significant than the six which follow it, contrary to what HP's and Motorola's marketing people tell you today (or Apple's will in a few weeks time).
    - ugh 16y ago
      “The next six months are going to set the foundation for the future of personal computing.” That’s the claim. Still seems reasonable to me. What’s wrong with it? I don’t understand what you are getting at. If you think that tablets will be important in the future there is nothing wrong with thinking that a lot of groundwork will be done in the next few months: Honeycomb is coming, HP and RIM get started. That sounds to me like a solid foundation.
gaiusparx 16y ago
My prediction: * Apple will keep April as the refresh month for iPad. Putting iPad in the same iPod event will steal thunder and is no good. And component supplies is tighter for iPad thus it takes few months to meet the demand and September is too tight to the holidays season. When iPad 2 is launched in April, the rest of the world will get it by Jun-Aug which ensure Apple can manufacture enough to meet year end holiday demand. * There will be no iOS 5 this year. At June WWDC, Lion will be the focus and Apple will give sneak peak of iOS 5 at the event, with beta available in early 2012, ship in June 2012. Aple needs to get its developers ready and it takes time. iOS 5 will share the code base of Lion and will ship after Lion. iOS 5 will include user interface elements changes. I think Apple is keeping two years release cycle for major OS release. * There will be iOS 4.4/4.5 this year for: iPhone 5, NFC capability, AppleTV 3, App Store for AppleTV and App/Games on AppleTV.
c00p3r 16y ago
Still the same javascript-based BS? ^_^
toadi 16y ago
The end of the PC era is always announced. But don't see how I can do my daily work on a Ipad. I need a laptop or PC.
- lukifer 16y ago
  The hyperbole of the language belies the underlying truth: not the death of the PC, but a widening of the spectrum in which PCs are a minority among numerous types of computing devices.
  - ugh 16y ago
    This is very much besides the point but I think that calling what you just described the end of the PC era is not hyperbole. When PCs stop to dominate personal computing – like they have ever since personal computing existed – that would be very much the end of an era. No hyperbole involved. That doesn’t mean that PCs will suddenly stop existing or even stop being made.
code_duck 16y ago
I don't think Apple will release two significantly different versions of the iPad within 6 months.

239 points by thushan 16y ago

If Apple does have two separate iPad releases in 2011, I definitely think the first announcement will replace the current iPad and the next announcement will be a product that augments the iPad line, an HD or Pro model, as Gruber predicts. But I sincerely doubt there will be two different iPad announcements this calendar year. Ever since Gruber's initial review of the iPad, I've been intrigued by the possibility of a Pro model with more RAM and possibly some extra horsepower. Again, it doesn't seem like Apple's plan though.

loire280 16y ago
While better specs certainly never hurt, I've never heard any iPad users complain processing power or RAM. iOS does memory management seamlessly (if I didn't understand how it worked, I probably wouldn't even notice it) and the interface is notably responsive. I'm sure the new version will have a spec bump. Whatever that ends up meaning (dual core, faster, more RAM), it will continue to be plenty.
- jonhohle 16y ago
  The current iteration could stand some more RAM (and/or Safari could be smarter about how it purges its page cache). With the latest version of iOS, I can only keep a single page in memory at a time and reloading pages when hopping between two is less than desirable.
  - roc 16y ago
    Sometimes, even one page is enough to illustrate the problem. e.g. The Boston Globe's Big Picture blog
- cpr 16y ago
  As all the rumor sites (e.g., WSJ ;-) are predicting, it'll definitely have at least 512MB of RAM (can't imagine it having less than the iPhone 4). But that's still pretty anemic, as jonhohle noted: that's not enough to keep a lot of pages in Safari's cache. (Though, from my experiments, Safari/WebKit is REALLY aggressive about minimizing memory usage, perhaps even stupidly.)
  - rexf 16y ago
    According to this Engadget comparison (http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/09/hp-touchpad-vs-ipad-vs-xoom-vs-playbook-the-tale-of-the-tape/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/09/hp-touchpad-vs-ipad-vs-xo...), competing tablets (TouchPad, Xoom, PlayBook) all have 1GB of RAM. It wouldn't be surprising for the 2nd iPad to have 1GB or more RAM.
    - moe 16y ago
      Anyone know why they're skimping on the RAM? Does the ipad need some super-special expensive DIMMs? Is it about power consumption? A 4GB DDR3 SO-DIMM costs a measly $40 bucks. I don't think the ipad target audience would care if apple added that to the MSRP.
      - msbarnett 16y ago
        It's almost certainly about power consumption; Apple absolutely loves being able to tout huge battery life compared to the competition, and one way they do that i s by being tighter on things like RAM usage. It's also worth pointing out that the RAM lives in a Package-on-Package configuration right on the CPU die. They're not exactly buying mass market SO-DIMMs and sticking them in a bog-standard bus, so the cost per MB is probably higher.
      - wiredfool 16y ago
        The processor and the ram are stacked on the same chip. So they're kinda limited as to what they can put in there. I doubt that you could fit a SO-DIMM of any stripe inside an ipad case, nor would you want the power problems. There was a teardown of the chip assembly done back when the ipad came out that has some good details: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple-A4-Teardown/2204/1 http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple-A4-Teardown/2204/1
- wiredfool 16y ago
  I'll complain. The ipad is a second class browsing experience not because of the lack of flash, but the lack of cache. It's just not anywhere near as snappy reading as a Real Computer(tm) because it's constantly reloading stuff that's been purged. My usual style of reading (on the desktop) is to pop open a pile of stuff in tabs, then batch read through. Can't do that on the iPad. Safari could also use a few more cycles to make it seem that much snappier. While it feels like magic, and I would have killed for its browsing performance a few years back, it just doesn't feel quite there yet. Also, just in the last month or so, I've noticed some sort of background task that causes stuttering in some places. (mainly in angry birds). For the first time, I've noticed that I needed to restart it. Its' a small thing, but it's also the first time I've had to resort to computer troubleshooting on it.
  - schultzor 16y ago
    FWIW, iCab/Terra help with this style of browsing a little bit. They don't seem to cache as much and do a better job of handling more background tabs with things waiting to be read.
    - maguay 16y ago
      I'm trying Terra right now ... Hadn't heard of it yet, so thanks! I just posted a question to see what everyone's favorite iPad browser is and why - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2200302 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2200302, hopefully we'll get some good discussion there about alternate browsers. I've considered buying iCab; what are your thoughts on it versus Terra?
  - ryanpetrich 16y ago
    By default iOS only uses an in-memory cache for HTTP (including in Safari). Developers have the option of augmenting it with a disk cache if they so choose, but few do.
- zyb09 16y ago
  Maybe no users complain, but as a developer I often think, god damn, why is there so few RAM in there. And no iOS doesn't do memory managment seamlessy, the responsiveness comes from developers working hard to constantly cache/unchache everything that might take up a few megs.
  - guywithabike 16y ago
    My guess is that it's related to supply constraints. They sold 14 million of them last year. That's a lot of chips. Is their RAM special in some way that might make it a supply constraint big enough to warrant limiting the memory in the iPad so much?
    - aperiodic 16y ago
      I doubt supply constraints are an issue. They're the single largest purchaser of flash memory in the world[1]. I imagine manufacturers would be bending over backwards for them, since their orders must all be quite large. [1]:http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/gaming.gadgets/10/21/macbook.future.cnet/ http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/gaming.gadgets/10/21/macboo...
    - silvestrov 16y ago
      I think they did everything to get the price down to $499 - including removing camera and reducing RAM. I'm guessing they thought that the $499 price point was required to make iPad a hit. $499 is a very symbolic price.

pclark 16y ago

I wrote an entire comment about how great it is for Apple to work in secret and release and "blitzkrieg" the competition. But it turns out Apple announced their iPhone ~Jan 2007 and it shipped ~June 2007. So why did HP announce their entire 2011/2012 line up and direction of products without a price and or release date? I think that this means HP has stake holders breathing down their neck, and they had to publicly show their hand asap. Thoughts?

ReadyNSet 16y ago
only reason Apple announced six months in advance was the the FCC approval process, being public the iPhone would've been out in any case whether Apple announced or not.
- jbrennan 16y ago
  I don't think that's true. It might have been what they said, but it's February now and we haven't seen any glimpses of iPhone 5 (or whatever) from the FCC, and I'd be willing to bet it launches less than six months from now.
  - allenbrunson 16y ago
    "Jobs unveiled the iPhone to the public on January 9, 2007 at Macworld 2007. Apple was required to file for operating permits with the FCC, but since such filings are made available to the public, the announcement came months before the iPhone had received approval." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone I remember hearing this story at the time, as well. For all we know, the rules could be different for iPhone 5, since it is an update of an existing product, rather than a new one.
    - seabee 16y ago
      Given we've already had a few different iPhones, if the rules are different shouldn't we know already?
- 16y ago

scottyallen 16y ago

If you're an iPad/iPhone developer: How does the prospect of a new iPad being on the horizon affect your development/product strategy?

ReadyNSet 16y ago
compatibility has been pretty good, so unless you were to target an app with specific new features it wouldn't affect much.
megablast 16y ago
It will undoubtably have a camera, so now start making all those camera apps use the bigger screen. Same with skype, etc... I will add the ability for users of my iPad apps to use photos, take photos, etc... This was limited to the iPhone version. More memory means will be able to do more things, load up bigger files into mem.
- Bud 16y ago
  I need a poor-quality, low-sensitivity camera attached to the back of a foot-long iPad about as much as I need cameras built into my jeans, belt buckle, toothbrush, and turkey baster. Just because you can build a camera (or two cameras) into everything doesn't mean you should. Cameras are a certain size and shape for a reason. I see no reason to build a rear-facing cam into the iPad. Ever tried to hold a slippery, 7.5" x 9.5", 1.6 pound slab at arm's length before, and hold it steady? Not compelling.
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    Cameras aren't cameras anymore, they're just another sensor input. Do you want to scan a barcode or QR code? Do you want to scan a document? And then translate it? Do you want Augmented Reality games that let you fly a little spaceship around the room and shoot your friends? The plunging cost of camera chips means they'll be increasingly ubiquitous. I wouldn't rule out one on your toothbrush.
spaghetti 16y ago

pkulak 16y ago

"Apple was willing to announce it months in advance because they had no competition..." What? They announce the first version of a product early because, being the first, it can't stop people from buying the previous version. If they announced the new iPad now, iPad 1 sales would tank.

barredo 16y ago
* If they announced the new iPad now [and not release it for a few months] iPad 1 sales would tank. * If they announced the new iPad now [and release it in a "handful of weeks"] iPad 1 sales would tank. [and iPad2 sales will skyrocket]
rookie 16y ago
unless they drop the price of the iPad 1, similar to what they do with the iPhone.
endlessvoid94 16y ago
It also gave developers a ton of time to adapt their apps to the new form factor. And obviously provided time for new apps. That's huge.
jbrennan 16y ago
An existing product of their own would constitute competition. So it's not inaccurate what he's said. But I agree, it could have been explained more clearly.
jleyank 16y ago
The Osborne effect. I would think Apple and all other current/successful tech companies have this in mind re: their products - especially given the rapid turnover.
- eftpotrm 16y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect#The_Osborne_Myth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect#The_Osborne_Myth
deleted 16y ago

access_denied 16y ago

I wish HP and RIM get their act together. Four competing platforms plus the Web, will make this new era much more interesting than the times of the Wintel monoculture. In each application space we will see many contenders. The 'standard' solution for each platform and then ports. But I think there will not be a 'standard' solution, because the common denominator the Web will enforce open operability of data. Vendor lock-in from app producers will be weak. Same with OS: only marginal vendor lock-in. This will be a blast. And then we still have the web as a bonus.

barista 16y ago

"One startling omission from that list: Microsoft. Their former hardware partners are heading off into the touch-computing future without them. We could have four competing tablet platforms six months from now — iOS, Android, WebOS, and Playbook — and not one of them is from Microsoft" Microsoft clearly seems to have taken their own sweet time to make an entry but they clearly have an intent and when they do, the biggest thing that they will have going for them is the knowhow of the platform and a plethora of apps that are already existing there that will be easy to port. Just like mobile this will end up being a 3 horse race in a few years. Apple, Google and Microsoft. The rest of them are just wasting their time and money in competing. None of them have existing ecosystems or platforms that they can leverage to fight with the three big players.

jleyank 16y ago
What would have changed if the Microsoft Courier was real? I thought this a pretty good start, but then it disappeared.
alanh 16y ago
“A plethora of apps that are easy to port”? Windows compatibility implies a terribly inadequate offering, just like every previous Windows Tablet PC to date. How is that competing? Metro/Win Phone 7 doesn’t have a “plethora of apps” ready to be tweaked for tablet size, so I’m baffled by your reasoning.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- barista 16y ago
  You are assuming that interface is all that it takes to develop an app. A user interface is only but a small component of any native application. I am not saying that a current windows apps can be used as it is but with a bulk of the logic in place, changing just an interface to make it touch aware should not be a big deal.
tomkarlo 16y ago
One of the biggest problem with Microsoft's tablet strategy to date has been the assumption that porting apps from a mouse-based window environment to a tablet works. Rather than reworking the UI to be suitable to touch interaction, they wanted to force you to use a stylus and pretend you're using a mouse.

lshepstone 16y ago

It's going to be pretty interesting watching this play out. But Apple and Android have an unfair advantage right now...apps, and lots of them. If you've got an iOS or Android phone and already own some apps the other guys are going to have to ship something amazing or dirt cheap to get your attention. As great as the new HP stuff looks, I wouldn't like to be HP, RIM (or Nokia and their potential Meego tablet) right now...tough road ahead building app ecosystem momentum. Who cares if the tablet is slightly better when I can't get my favourite apps. I find it greatly amusing the roles are reversed from back when Apple struggled on the desktop due to lack of apps while microsoft dominated. My how times change in 10 years. At least this time we might have more than one platform that dominated 90% which is good for everyone.

megablast 16y ago
The first step is to build a great device, and it looks like HP might be there. It seems to be the best iPad contender yet, stealing that crown from Motorola's zoom from just a few days ago.
- tomkarlo 16y ago
  No credit until it ships. Everything looks great in a demo.
  - apress 16y ago
    And gets priced!

roc 16y ago

The logic doesn't hold up for me. Are holiday buyers really the same kind of people who will have even heard gadget rumors, let alone coordinate their purchases accordingly? Do we have any reason to think many of them held off this year? Furthermore, I thought the speed of iOS updates has been a good thing. Why are three iOS targets undesirable or problematic? It just sounds... flimsy; like someone shopping for justification after they'd latched onto a conclusion.

alanh 16y ago
You can’t imagine everyday people hearing advice not to drop hundreds of bucks on Christmas presents that will be obsolete in a month? Because if iPads & iPods were expected in Jan/Feb I can guaranteed a ton of nerds will be looking out for Mom and Dad.
- roc 16y ago
  I can't imagine everyday people caring enough about specs to actually make decisions based on said rumors. The default expectation is that iPads will hit in late March. So we're talking about rumors relating to devices that may exist three to four months after the decision of "what are we getting Sally for Christmas" gets made. And Gruber thinks average people will hear those rumors and then be willing to disappoint a loved one on Christmas over a spec bump they have no context for? And, again, I wonder aloud if we have any indication that this happened this year. Because we all heard rumors and those things flew off the shelves anyway. So if it didn't happen this year, why would anyone expect it to happen next year?

gojomo 16y ago

Two iPads in one year is possible, and Gruber has better Apple-watching-skills than most. But I also think Apple is long overdue for a true "AppleTV", an all-in-one product with big screen, deeply integrated with everything else iOS/iTunes. That would also fit well with a late-in-year but in-time-for-Christmas release.

tomkarlo 16y ago
It's the wrong time in the upgrade cycle for home TVs to do that - everyone just bought a new flatscreen LCD HDTV during the past two years and sales are flat in that sector. Introducing an AppleTV with screen would be an uphill battle to convince people to replace a device they're still pretty happy with (and still paying off.)
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  "everyone" didn't. I know a number of holdouts (myself included) who are still waiting. When the next big thing comes along, another portion of us will take the plunge.
  - jerf 16y ago
    Sure, but an increasingly small portion. And quite a few of you won't until the next big thing, and so on for quite a while; there will be people without a flatscreen in their residence in 2020 but I wouldn't recommend building a business on convincing them to change their mind. No, the situation in 2011 isn't like that, obviously; this is a rhetorical point made for seeing the situation I'm describing in a time when it is perfectly clear. Today isn't to that extreme, the point is that already that market has peaked. Besides, an Apple TV that doesn't require HD, which would not be that much more effort, would also work for anyone with a TV, so it really doesn't make sense to me to only make this an integrated product.
Raphael 16y ago
No need to waste working televisions and monitors.

kenjackson 16y ago

Microsoft AND Intel being effectively missing from the tablet race is staggering. And there are a few reasons why its staggering: 1) Both have known it was coming, maybe longer than anyone else. But got the core requirements all wrong. 2) No one really seems to care. 3) Related to (2), there is no belief that they have anything up their sleeve. 4) Their existing ecosystem, probably a billion units strong, doesn't seem to help their situation at all. 5) Both CEOs seem firmly in place still. While Intel and MS will make money hand over first for years to come, it does appear to be the end of the consumer market for these two companies. Their focus will be business class computers, workstations, and servers.

pchristensen 16y ago
1 + 4 + 5 = classic disruption theory. The margins, cost structure, and organizations that have made them so successful so far are what's preventing them from seizing the tablet space. The CEO's are in place because they have made so much money from the old business.
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  Ding ding ding. MS and Intel are still aware of the disruptiveness of "Tablets" (a poor description for the phenomenon, but descriptive enough), but they are chained to their existing org-charts, ship schedules, and revenue streams. Whether or not they'll be able to pivot fast enough is still up in the air. The really interesting aspect is that the important part in market growth isn't when the disruptive technology takes the lead in marketshare, or when it starts eating into the marketshare of the old guard significantly. Rather, it's the inflection points of growth that are important. When a big company is past its knee (still growing but growing at a smaller and smaller pace over time) while the little guy is growing at a faster and faster pace, that's when to pay attention, because lots of things happen quickly and by the time the marketshare starts shifting it's already too late, the die has been cast.
  - angstrom 16y ago
    Chained, but not oblivious. Windows 8 will borrow heavily from Surface. Registry will be gone. It will be good, but it may be too late.

naner 16y ago

I don't think the market for these things is huge as he suggests. Why would anyone buy a non-Apple touch or tablet device? I can see the argument for smart phones from different vendors, but not for these causal computing touch devices. And this is coming from someone who has never paid a cent to Apple. I haven't drank the kool-aid but none of these touch devices appear to really be competing with Apple. They look like they are struggling to catch-up. These devices always have some combination of a bigger price tag, buggy interfaces, crappier specs, and/or way less software available. I'd rather see these other vendors go a completely different direction. Microsoft releasing an iPad clone this late in the game would just be embarrassing. The Kinect was a good response to the Wii. The Playstation Move was not. (I'm making assumptions here since I'm not a gamer. I have no idea whether the Move/Kinect are successful or not.)

pchristensen 16y ago
There's little doubt that in a few years, Android-based tablets will be competitive (and I'm saying this as an iPad lover). Google will make the software work because they want the ad-viewing-and-clicking ecosystem to grow and there will be diminishing growth in hardware expectations so other vendors will catch up. I predict Android tablets with beefier hardware and horsepower and iPads with better screen tech and more polish.
YuriNiyazov 16y ago
I am curious what kind of tech stuff you do spend money on. Not into apple, and yet not a gamer, which is one of the few holdouts
- usaar333 16y ago
  Is he that unusual? I don't game much these days but I also own no Apple products. There's plenty of non-Apple desktops, laptops, phones, mp3 players, etc. to go around.
  - YuriNiyazov 16y ago
    "Is he that unusual?" - well, either he is or I am. Almost all of my roommates and coworkers have apple products, most more than 1. Those that do not are still hardcore gamers.

thushan 16y ago

Though I think Apple is the only one that can pull it off. I'm a bit surprised that they'll be able to keep to a one year product cycle with things like the iPhone/iPad when the rest of the market is hitting a new product every couple weeks. Not that they've been one to match the rest of the market, but a lot happens in a year. Then again, maybe the biggest lesson out of the touch screen revolution is that its not the hardware - it's the software, and Apple has been certainly setting the pace on that front.

rimantas 16y ago
It should work OK for them, as long as the new release leapfrogs whatever came out during that time. I think handsets makers had pretty aggressive schedule while Apple was making iPhone. It took Apple two and a half years to get the first gen iPhone ready—eternity in mobile phone makers timeframe–but look at the result. Apple somehow can predict the future (or are they just making it?) well in Advance and prepare accordingly.
r00fus 16y ago
The iPhone makes complete sense. The standard 2-year phone contract keeps the (non-fanatic) customers happier... their 2 year contract would only mean skipping one product release without paying the $200 premium. The iPad... might see faster than 1-year cycles because there is no contract, per-se (of course the competitors keep screwing that part up, so maybe not).
tzs 16y ago
The phone market is doing a new product every couple of weeks, but how about the individual companies? Most buyers are on contract, and can't change phones more frequently than once a year with a reduced subsidy or once every two years with full subsidy. If a phone company introduces a new phone, and then a few weeks later introduces a better phone, they've to some extent limited the market for the first one to the people who happened to hit the end of their contracts in that few weeks. Given the two year contract cycle, a phone a year makes a lot of sense (assuming your phones are good enough that it takes the competition several months to match or best them--as has been the case for Apple so far).

endlessvoid94 16y ago

Apple's touch strategy is definitely awesome, but the only reason it's spectacular is because of the app store. HP's new TouchPad won't have that. It will probably do well, but it won't even touch the success of the iPad. Nobody writes apps for WebOS.

megablast 16y ago
That is true, but it could change. It is very easy to write for webos, since it is based on HTML/CSS/Javascript. So a lot of web developers can get into this.
- endlessvoid94 16y ago
  You're right. But HP doesn't seem to be hyping or publicizing this at all. No shout-outs to developers. No "here's our SDK, here are some screencasts and tutorials". They exist, but they aren't being advertised at all. Apple has conferences where they get developers excited about working on apps.
r00fus 16y ago
HP should court Amazon to run a WebOS app-store.

gsaines 16y ago

I actually clicked this expecting the article to be parodying the Friedman Unit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_%28unit%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_%28unit%29) only to find utter sincerity!

spaghetti 16y ago

I'd really like to see a laptop with two touch screens: one replacing the regular screen and another replacing the keyboard and trackpad. This tablet/laptop hybrid would have some awesome benefits. For example one could comfortably use the device while seated at a table (display and input area can be at about 90 deg relative to each other... something that's not possible w/ the iPad). Another awesome benefit would be replacing the on-screen keyboard with far-out stuff like a painter's palette, Scrabble tiles, dominoes or even two turn-tables like a DJ uses. Imagine mixing digital paint with your fingers (on the touch screen that replaces the physical keyboard on current laptops) then actually painting on the other touch screen (the touch screen replacing the non-touch screens on current laptops).

imsky 16y ago
We almost had it. http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/microsofts-courier-digital-journal-exclusive-pictures-and-de/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/microsofts-courier-digita... Why Microsoft killed Courier, I'll never know.
- spaghetti 16y ago
  That looks cool! However it's rotated from what I was hoping for. I literally want just a laptop w/ two touch screens. Too bad it was cancelled.
kenjackson 16y ago
The Kyocera Echo... while a phone, has what you describe: http://www.tabletpcreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1970&news=kyocera+sprint+echo+dual+display+touchscreens+tablet+mode+smartphone+google+android+OS+froyo http://www.tabletpcreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1970&ne...
yakto 16y ago
Sounds like a giant Gameboy.

onteria 16y ago

This is of course a subjective opinion, but something doesn't quite feel right about HP making a tablet PC. They seem to put out quite a lot of things without much of an overall guiding principle. HP PCs, laptops, printers, servers, now tablets. I ask myself "Why HP?" and can't seem to come up with a very reasonable answer. Nothing jumps out at me as seeing this as the best thing ever. With Apple they have the whole underlying principle of "Think Different" or something along the lines of changing the status quo. Apple didn't really do anything new with the iPhone and iPad in essence. Smartphones and tablet PCs were already out there. However because it went with their overall message, it made sense. People wanted to include it in their "Apple Lifestyle" so to speak. Just my .00002 cents.

roadnottaken 16y ago

"...[tablets] are the future of the entire computing industry..." That's more than a little hard to swallow...

jarek 16y ago
Today's fad is the future of the entire industry. No questions allowed.

Roritharr 16y ago

I dont get why everybody is falling for the "end of pc era" hype that is surrounding tablets and smartphones. Can someone explain to me why the ability to browse the web from the couch without sufficient text-entry possibilities is going to challenge the amount of pc's in a world where textentry is our main method of searching, sorting and creating data. Honestly, this is not a rhetorical question, i feel i'm missing some part of the picture here.

imsky 16y ago
It's the "end of PCs" for the mainstream market, which was overrun with them for the last 10 years. Now the mobile technology is good enough that bulky desktops are going to be used primarily by professionals. You're not going to edit video/render 3D on the iPad 2, but for 90% of the population that just needs to check their email, it's good enough.
- Roritharr 16y ago
  I think that idea is overblown, simply because "Check their E-Mails" means someone has to write e-mails worth checking...
  - ugh 16y ago
    Input really is not that terrible. It’s disingenuous to act as though tablets don’t allow you to enter text.
wiredfool 16y ago
We're getting closer. Years ago, must have been 7 or 8 by now, I was talking with a friend @ Microsoft, and he was going on and on about how the phone was going to be the computer. "This Phone" and he'd hold up a generic GSM flip phone. My objection then was UI, both on the input and output side. In a way, wifi and bluetooth have solved a lot of that, as they can offload the heavy duty stuff to wireless sometimes connected displays and keyboards. At some point, we're likely to have enough power in a cellphone to run most of what you'd want to do for day to day stuff. And do it all day on a charge. Couple that with always on networking and the availability of machines in the cloud for bigger jobs, you start to be able to have the phone/tablet be most of what you need.

maguay 16y ago

One interesting thing to see will be whether newer tablets with webOS, Android, or anything else will get advanced, full-sized tablet apps like Apple's iWork apps. The iWork apps definitely are some of the very best on iPad, and it wouldn't be nearly as useful of a device without them. Docs to Go and QuickOffice are a joke in comparison (except each of them are much better at file sync and orginization...). It's the more advanced apps like these, though, that will really enable tablets to take over traditional PCs.

sigzero 16y ago

I am hoping for some strange reason that WebOS wins out over them all.

sinkercat 16y ago

Is it possible that the new product announced during the Fall event is actually a 7-inch retina display iPad? Apple might find it expensive to build a 9.7-inch retina display and that could explain the $3billion+ investment that Apple has put in (possibly for the 7-inch retina display screens). Yes, Steve Jobs did say that 7-inch tablets are DOA but it was the same Steve who said Apple doesn't see e-books as a big market.

stcredzero 16y ago

Re: Rear Facing Camera. This would be most useful on a device with a daylight readable transflective screen. Then you could use it outdoors with augmented reality apps.

yakto 16y ago
While riding your Segway? Just don't see it happening (average folks holding a tablet-size device in front of their face, running AR apps).
- stcredzero 16y ago
  Sure, when stationary for a moment, looking up information. You see average folks looking dead tree/ink information device in public all the time. They're called tourists. They're called museum-goers. They're called audience. Those things they're holding are called guidebooks and programs. I think this would make for an awesome museum AR experience.
  - Helianthus16 16y ago
    neat idea, long way away.
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      There are already such apps on the App Store.

cletus 16y ago

I mostly agree with Gruber but disagree on a couple of major points: 1. Releasing the iPad in September makes no sense simply because it was such a massive hit in the holiday season. Generally speaking, you want to spread out your demand as much as possible. It took 2 months to get the previous iPad from the US to the first round of international markets and another 3-4 months to do the full round. You can only produce so many. Actually not being able to buy one because demand is so high is not Apple's style; 2. I don't see Apple releasing a new version 6 months after the previous, particularly when, in all likelihood, the iPad 2 won't have been in some markets for more than a month or two. As far as conflicting reports on parts and specs, that's nothing new. Just like there were reports of a CDMA iPhone YEARS before there was one. There are two reasons for this: 1. Apple produces far more prototypes than they release (eg the CDMA iPhone was tested for about a year before release); and 2. People just make stuff up for page views. I also fully agree with Gruber on a rear-facing camera making very little sense on a device that large.

krolley 16y ago
I think you make a very good point. The iPhone 4 was released in June, but in Europe we didn't see any real availability for many months afterwards, even into October. If Apple had released an iPhone 4GS in September, it would have delayed many peoples plans to buy an iPhone, I would think.
masklinn 16y ago
> It took 2 months to get the previous iPad from the US to the first round of international markets and another 3-4 months to do the full round. It took about 5 months for the initial iPhone to get out of the US. By the 3G's release, iPhone was in 6 countries (USA, France, Germany, UK, Ireland and Austria). The iPhone 3G was released simultaneously in 22 countries (though the 3GS backed out a bit, release day for only 8 countries and the rest staggered over 2 months)
allwein 16y ago
>I also fully agree with Gruber on a rear-facing camera making very little sense on a device that large. A rear-facing camera makes little sense if you imagine the use is for people to walk around taking pictures like they would with a phone. However, when you start imagining uses like Augmented Reality or other situations where you're interacting with real world artifacts, then it makes a little more sense.

dschobel 16y ago

"The next six months are going to set the foundation for the future of personal computing." Gruber needs to make the leap and become a political talking-head on cable news already. Unleashing lines like that without a hint of sarcasm or irony? You can't teach that, folks, that's god given.

ugh 16y ago
I’m confident in predicting that tablets will be more than one third of unit sales to consumers of all PCs in Europe and North America within five years. 346 million PCs were sold worldwide in 2010, Apple sold 15 million iPads so far. That’s still a long way off but it is not impossible, especially with other manufacturers bringing their devices to the market. This is a reasonable prediction. It might well be wrong but it is reasonable. Calling tablets “the future of personal computing” with such a prediction in mind seems perfectly justifiable to me. Don’t ridicule other reasonable opinions just because you disagree with them!
- dschobel 16y ago
  All of that? perfectly reasonable; the original claim? still slightly absurd. If you want to look at it by comparison to the iphone led smartphone revolution, the timeframe there was: first iphone release: 1/2007 first android phone: 10/2008 first touchscreen BB: 11/2008 first webos phone: 6/2009 (all dates courtesy of the wikipedia articles for the specific phones or OSes) and then you didn't really get a phone which competed well with the iphone until, arguably, the nexus one which was in 2010 (or even the Pre which was middle of '09) making it a full 2.5 - 3 years later. The point is that this stuff progresses in fits and spurts over a long period of time and that the next six months are going to be no more significant than the six which follow it, contrary to what HP's and Motorola's marketing people tell you today (or Apple's will in a few weeks time).
  - ugh 16y ago
    “The next six months are going to set the foundation for the future of personal computing.” That’s the claim. Still seems reasonable to me. What’s wrong with it? I don’t understand what you are getting at. If you think that tablets will be important in the future there is nothing wrong with thinking that a lot of groundwork will be done in the next few months: Honeycomb is coming, HP and RIM get started. That sounds to me like a solid foundation.

gaiusparx 16y ago

My prediction: * Apple will keep April as the refresh month for iPad. Putting iPad in the same iPod event will steal thunder and is no good. And component supplies is tighter for iPad thus it takes few months to meet the demand and September is too tight to the holidays season. When iPad 2 is launched in April, the rest of the world will get it by Jun-Aug which ensure Apple can manufacture enough to meet year end holiday demand. * There will be no iOS 5 this year. At June WWDC, Lion will be the focus and Apple will give sneak peak of iOS 5 at the event, with beta available in early 2012, ship in June 2012. Aple needs to get its developers ready and it takes time. iOS 5 will share the code base of Lion and will ship after Lion. iOS 5 will include user interface elements changes. I think Apple is keeping two years release cycle for major OS release. * There will be iOS 4.4/4.5 this year for: iPhone 5, NFC capability, AppleTV 3, App Store for AppleTV and App/Games on AppleTV.

c00p3r 16y ago

Still the same javascript-based BS? ^_^

toadi 16y ago

The end of the PC era is always announced. But don't see how I can do my daily work on a Ipad. I need a laptop or PC.

lukifer 16y ago
The hyperbole of the language belies the underlying truth: not the death of the PC, but a widening of the spectrum in which PCs are a minority among numerous types of computing devices.
- ugh 16y ago
  This is very much besides the point but I think that calling what you just described the end of the PC era is not hyperbole. When PCs stop to dominate personal computing – like they have ever since personal computing existed – that would be very much the end of an era. No hyperbole involved. That doesn’t mean that PCs will suddenly stop existing or even stop being made.

code_duck 16y ago

I don't think Apple will release two significantly different versions of the iPad within 6 months.