2 ms·

All great ideas are just that until the technology is ripe. A successful tablet required, amongst other things: (1) a high quality screen; (2) a chipset that

by Steko 13y ago

All great ideas are just that until the technology is ripe. A successful tablet required, amongst other things: (1) a high quality screen; (2) a chipset that could run a full browser and playback high quality fullscreen videos seamlessly, including over wifi; (3) some combination of advantages vs laptops (generally mobility, battery life, price) as a tradeoff for the lack of being a full powered machine. For #3 you can see something like the phone/touch having laptop like battery life but pocketability. The ipad, while more mobile than a laptop, was not dramatically so, and basically had to last through an entire work/school day. Had to. This is why, more or less, all earlier tablets failed. Because when the iPad came out, it was already all batteries, and if you had tried to do that at 60 nm that many batteries would give out at 5-6 hours. Adding 30% more batteries starts to lose your form factor advantages and costs more. In fact, Apple - with it's vertical design scale from chip to OS - was probably able to squeeze a viable tablet out a generation earlier than anyone else could have simply from a battery life standpoint. Here's video playback over a year after the iPad was released: http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4445/38761.png http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4445/38761.png The real technology requirements of a new mass consumer device seems like something we should keep in mind when we think about things like wearables and when we should expect things like Glass to really be viable.

marknutter 13y ago
I disagree that the iPad succeeded because of the 3 reasons you stated above. Tablets had been around for years and had all of those things. I believe the focus on usability and the lack of a stylus were what made the iPad (and the iPhone, for that matter) successful. Microsoft's approach to the tablet was to bolt on a few tablet specific features to the standard Windows operating system and focus on a stylus driven experience. Apple decided to use iOS rather than standard OSX for their tablet which was built primarily to be a mobile operating system based on multi-touch, not a stylus. I remember an interview with Steve Balmer laughing about the lack of a stylus, but it was a genius move on Apple's part. Often with new technology it's not the hardware capabilities of a device that makes or breaks it but that crucial moment when the average user picks it up and the experience either "clicks" with them or not. The iPad experience clicked with people immediately and that's why it succeeded.
- Steko 13y ago
  "Tablets had been around for years and could do all of those things." You're mistaken. Those were just laptops that had a $200 feature where you could hide the keyboard underneath and poke at the screen with a stylus. They offered nothing over a laptop to 99% of users.
  - marknutter 13y ago
    You are mistaken. There were countless tablet pcs on the market that didn't have physical keyboards. They called them "slate" tablet pcs.
    - Steko 13y ago
      And none of them lasted all day or offered the average user much over a laptop. And they failed miserably at market. The main selling point of the ipad is certainly not the lack of a keyboard. I'm not sure what your point is re: windows slates/tablets. They certainly did not meet the criteria above.
      - marknutter 13y ago
        The battery life wasn't great on those slate tablet PCs, I'll admit, but I also don't think battery life was the main reason the iPad took off. I really think it was the emphasis on multi-touch interaction over a stylus and the dedicated OS.

by Steko 13y ago

marknutter 13y ago

I disagree that the iPad succeeded because of the 3 reasons you stated above. Tablets had been around for years and had all of those things. I believe the focus on usability and the lack of a stylus were what made the iPad (and the iPhone, for that matter) successful. Microsoft's approach to the tablet was to bolt on a few tablet specific features to the standard Windows operating system and focus on a stylus driven experience. Apple decided to use iOS rather than standard OSX for their tablet which was built primarily to be a mobile operating system based on multi-touch, not a stylus. I remember an interview with Steve Balmer laughing about the lack of a stylus, but it was a genius move on Apple's part. Often with new technology it's not the hardware capabilities of a device that makes or breaks it but that crucial moment when the average user picks it up and the experience either "clicks" with them or not. The iPad experience clicked with people immediately and that's why it succeeded.

Steko 13y ago
"Tablets had been around for years and could do all of those things." You're mistaken. Those were just laptops that had a $200 feature where you could hide the keyboard underneath and poke at the screen with a stylus. They offered nothing over a laptop to 99% of users.
- marknutter 13y ago
  You are mistaken. There were countless tablet pcs on the market that didn't have physical keyboards. They called them "slate" tablet pcs.
  - Steko 13y ago
    And none of them lasted all day or offered the average user much over a laptop. And they failed miserably at market. The main selling point of the ipad is certainly not the lack of a keyboard. I'm not sure what your point is re: windows slates/tablets. They certainly did not meet the criteria above.
    - marknutter 13y ago
      The battery life wasn't great on those slate tablet PCs, I'll admit, but I also don't think battery life was the main reason the iPad took off. I really think it was the emphasis on multi-touch interaction over a stylus and the dedicated OS.