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> Don't get me wrong: I'll always have a tablet in my life... And how is this not a game changer? Would the author have said the before the iPad? The iPad has

by cletus 16y ago

> Don't get me wrong: I'll always have a tablet in my life... And how is this not a game changer? Would the author have said the before the iPad? The iPad has replaced a laptop or desktop for all casual browsing (I typed this comment on mine) and a lot of media consumption. It's great for technical books. And I play games on it. It is easily the most cost effective tech purchase I have ever made in terms of how much I use it. Buying the new version--pretty much whatever it is--is almost a no-brainer. Apple has sold 16M since launch with 40M+ expected this year. For a new product segment. Sounds like a game changer to me. What I am over is all the hype over Android tablets. Basically I'll believe it when I see it.

angstrom 16y ago
I think for certain use cases it will still be a game changer. It fills the role of a 'more mobile' laptop. The form is not offensive. If someone handed you a tablet to: Fill out a form in a waiting room. Select your order at a restaurant. Go over your vitals in a hospital. Track incoming/outgoing inventory in a warehouse or somewhere else in the field where a desk may not be at hand. Businesses can see how this leads to improvements in productivity by reducing the data entry step that would usually be done by another person copying what was already entered. The functional potential goes beyond consumer web browsing and game playing.
- EnderMB 16y ago
  For the vast majority of those uses I would say that an iPad is overkill, although in a warehouse where a friend of mind works they use Android phones for inventory tracking. Don't get me wrong, I think that given time tablet computers will be the future. My problem is that the iPad doesn't offer even half of the experience I was expecting; the hardware is "okay" but at the moment it feels like a large iPhone and the apps available on the market don't utilise the unique experience that tablet computing should be for it to establish itself. As in the past, I cannot help but feel that the iPad will eventually lose out, as many others have.
  - barista 16y ago
    The author is not a general representation of people for whom tablet is appealing. Whenever there is large amount of user created content a tablet will run intoi its limitations. But that's by design. A tablet is a consumption device as against to a production/consumption device like a laptop or a desktop. And many people are fine with it. My parent for example hate typing. The just forwad me emails or read stuff on the internet. Tablet is perfectly fine for people like them. As for android tablets, GOOG really needs to do something with their inconsistent UI. It somehow feels cheap. Be it the tablet or the phones. Both AAPL and MSFT offferings look much classier compared to theirs.
EnderMB 16y ago
> The iPad has replaced a laptop or desktop for all casual browsing (I typed this comment on mine) and a lot of media consumption. It's great for technical books. And I play games on it. I live in a large city in the UK, and throughout the past year I've only seen two iPad's. I wouldn't even remotely say that the iPad has "replaced the laptop" in any way, shape or form. When the iPhone was released it was near impossible to not see it outside, whereas the average iPad user will keep theirs at home. Even if the figures are good I really cannot see the casual user deciding to ditch their laptop for the iPad, and I'd go as far as to say that the iPad has been a huge disappointment.
- IsaacL 16y ago
  I live in a large city in Asia, and I've seen a ton of ipads (and some knockoff chinese tablets).
- loire280 16y ago
  I think the grandparent was talking about home use. Most of the time, anyone you see with a laptop in public is writing, coding, or some other type of "work" -- text-entry heavy activities that a device with a real keyboard will always be better for. When I'm out, my phone is good enough for casual browsing, reading a few pages of my Kindle book while I'm waiting for something, or watching a YouTube video someone linked from Twitter. At home, picking up the tablet for a few minutes is much less hassle than going to my desk or opening up my laptop. Instead of buying a laptop for casual leisure computing, I imagine a lot of people opting for a tablet, with a cheap desktop relegated to the study for paying bills and catching up on work.
- niels_olson 16y ago
  I just got back from the year's largest conference of orthopedic surgeons, and the number of iPads was mind-numbing. And they were all for casual use.
- danudey 16y ago
  I live in Vancouver, BC and I've seen tons of people using them. If you hit a few Starbucks in a day (as I tend to do) chances are that you'll see at least one or two people using them there. Saw one girl yesterday that seemed to be reading a book; another one today was writing something. They're not ubiquitous, but I get the sense that a lot of people buy them and use them at home instead of dragging them around town. I've bought one for my mother, and I know several other people who have as well. My landlord bought one for her boyfriend, other friends have them for using around the house. They're selling very well, but unlike iPhones, it's rare that their owners take them everywhere, so seeing them on the street just isn't a good measure of their popularity. (Also, they're ridiculously expensive in the UK compared to the US or Canada.)
CWuestefeld 16y ago
Buying the new version--pretty much whatever it is--is almost a no-brainer. You had a good reply going up until this point, but here you make me question your judgment. Even if it's true that a tablet -- a 1st generation iPad -- was an important innovation for you, it in no way follows that an upgrade from the 1st generation to the 2nd generation will justify laying out that much money again. One imagines that it's something along the lines of 80/20. You probably captured 80% of the possible utility with the 1G product (I suspect even more than that). If the 2G product has improvements bringing that to, say, 90% (adding 10 additional points), then it's only delivering 1/8 as much utility, and is thus far more expensive per unit of utility. It almost certainly does not make sense to buy the new one, precisely because you derive so much utility from the original.
- cletus 16y ago
  > you make me question your judgment Let me explain where I'm coming from: 1. The iPad was and is a discretionary purchase, a luxury. It is not something I personally need. YMMV; 2. It is something I use because I find it useful but, more to the point, I enjoy using it; and 3. With a certain nebulous budget for tech purchases the iPad has more than justified it's cost in terms of my own criteria; and 4. Apple being Apple, the upgrade is highly unlikely to be purely cosmetic. Sure if it's the same processor/RAM with the a slightly thinner design, there's no need for me to buy but I see the tablet market as being like PCs in the 90s: the pace of technology change is still huge. Compare the iPhone 4 to the 3GS in terms of display, CPU, etc. So I don't mean "no brainer" as "I (will) need the upgrade". Rather I'm fairly certain it'll be something I will want and can easily justifying buying, even considering the switching cost (cost of a new one - cost of selling my old one).

by cletus 16y ago

angstrom 16y ago

I think for certain use cases it will still be a game changer. It fills the role of a 'more mobile' laptop. The form is not offensive. If someone handed you a tablet to: Fill out a form in a waiting room. Select your order at a restaurant. Go over your vitals in a hospital. Track incoming/outgoing inventory in a warehouse or somewhere else in the field where a desk may not be at hand. Businesses can see how this leads to improvements in productivity by reducing the data entry step that would usually be done by another person copying what was already entered. The functional potential goes beyond consumer web browsing and game playing.

EnderMB 16y ago
For the vast majority of those uses I would say that an iPad is overkill, although in a warehouse where a friend of mind works they use Android phones for inventory tracking. Don't get me wrong, I think that given time tablet computers will be the future. My problem is that the iPad doesn't offer even half of the experience I was expecting; the hardware is "okay" but at the moment it feels like a large iPhone and the apps available on the market don't utilise the unique experience that tablet computing should be for it to establish itself. As in the past, I cannot help but feel that the iPad will eventually lose out, as many others have.
- barista 16y ago
  The author is not a general representation of people for whom tablet is appealing. Whenever there is large amount of user created content a tablet will run intoi its limitations. But that's by design. A tablet is a consumption device as against to a production/consumption device like a laptop or a desktop. And many people are fine with it. My parent for example hate typing. The just forwad me emails or read stuff on the internet. Tablet is perfectly fine for people like them. As for android tablets, GOOG really needs to do something with their inconsistent UI. It somehow feels cheap. Be it the tablet or the phones. Both AAPL and MSFT offferings look much classier compared to theirs.

EnderMB 16y ago

> The iPad has replaced a laptop or desktop for all casual browsing (I typed this comment on mine) and a lot of media consumption. It's great for technical books. And I play games on it. I live in a large city in the UK, and throughout the past year I've only seen two iPad's. I wouldn't even remotely say that the iPad has "replaced the laptop" in any way, shape or form. When the iPhone was released it was near impossible to not see it outside, whereas the average iPad user will keep theirs at home. Even if the figures are good I really cannot see the casual user deciding to ditch their laptop for the iPad, and I'd go as far as to say that the iPad has been a huge disappointment.

IsaacL 16y ago
I live in a large city in Asia, and I've seen a ton of ipads (and some knockoff chinese tablets).
loire280 16y ago
I think the grandparent was talking about home use. Most of the time, anyone you see with a laptop in public is writing, coding, or some other type of "work" -- text-entry heavy activities that a device with a real keyboard will always be better for. When I'm out, my phone is good enough for casual browsing, reading a few pages of my Kindle book while I'm waiting for something, or watching a YouTube video someone linked from Twitter. At home, picking up the tablet for a few minutes is much less hassle than going to my desk or opening up my laptop. Instead of buying a laptop for casual leisure computing, I imagine a lot of people opting for a tablet, with a cheap desktop relegated to the study for paying bills and catching up on work.
niels_olson 16y ago
I just got back from the year's largest conference of orthopedic surgeons, and the number of iPads was mind-numbing. And they were all for casual use.
danudey 16y ago
I live in Vancouver, BC and I've seen tons of people using them. If you hit a few Starbucks in a day (as I tend to do) chances are that you'll see at least one or two people using them there. Saw one girl yesterday that seemed to be reading a book; another one today was writing something. They're not ubiquitous, but I get the sense that a lot of people buy them and use them at home instead of dragging them around town. I've bought one for my mother, and I know several other people who have as well. My landlord bought one for her boyfriend, other friends have them for using around the house. They're selling very well, but unlike iPhones, it's rare that their owners take them everywhere, so seeing them on the street just isn't a good measure of their popularity. (Also, they're ridiculously expensive in the UK compared to the US or Canada.)

CWuestefeld 16y ago

Buying the new version--pretty much whatever it is--is almost a no-brainer. You had a good reply going up until this point, but here you make me question your judgment. Even if it's true that a tablet -- a 1st generation iPad -- was an important innovation for you, it in no way follows that an upgrade from the 1st generation to the 2nd generation will justify laying out that much money again. One imagines that it's something along the lines of 80/20. You probably captured 80% of the possible utility with the 1G product (I suspect even more than that). If the 2G product has improvements bringing that to, say, 90% (adding 10 additional points), then it's only delivering 1/8 as much utility, and is thus far more expensive per unit of utility. It almost certainly does not make sense to buy the new one, precisely because you derive so much utility from the original.

cletus 16y ago
> you make me question your judgment Let me explain where I'm coming from: 1. The iPad was and is a discretionary purchase, a luxury. It is not something I personally need. YMMV; 2. It is something I use because I find it useful but, more to the point, I enjoy using it; and 3. With a certain nebulous budget for tech purchases the iPad has more than justified it's cost in terms of my own criteria; and 4. Apple being Apple, the upgrade is highly unlikely to be purely cosmetic. Sure if it's the same processor/RAM with the a slightly thinner design, there's no need for me to buy but I see the tablet market as being like PCs in the 90s: the pace of technology change is still huge. Compare the iPhone 4 to the 3GS in terms of display, CPU, etc. So I don't mean "no brainer" as "I (will) need the upgrade". Rather I'm fairly certain it'll be something I will want and can easily justifying buying, even considering the switching cost (cost of a new one - cost of selling my old one).