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Apple Executives Optimistic About Future of iOS, Expect Tablet Market to Surpass PCs
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Send me your resume and you have a job then since you seem to be able to do things a lot of developers haven't. We have a solution already. mobilEcho will do everything we need and more plus it will have support behind. Not all companies can put that type of support into developers us included especially with iOS. It's hard to invest in someone that has NO ROADMAP.
"Although PCs (and their definitely great future) will become very common if the price is right, PCs are still not (and likely never will be) a replacement for a traditional mainframe or minicomputer... PCs will always lag in performance, storage, i/o channels, and their lack of a card readers and line printers (it would take a bank 1000 times longer to print the bank statements of all their customers on a PC... imagine how this would affect a business in actually running a stock exchange or airline reservation system or predicting global weather)."
How correct was the above prediction?
Think of it more like cars versus bikes.
The average home has 1 or 2 cars, which get shared between the drivers (usually the parents). But probably 3, 4, 5 bikes -- one for each member of the family (including the parents who already own cars). You're never going to replace a car with a bike, but for short trips or just for fun, it's sure easier to pull out a bike and go for a quick ride.
The differences in thinking . . .
This is what Jobs said a year ago.
http://www.viddler.com/simple/30fe0cca/
Note that Ballmer says something soft, conservative, and status-quo. Typical MS drone-talk.
Then Jobs takes a risk and says something completely radical . . . and absolutely nails it. Again.
This is what Jobs said a year ago.
http://www.viddler.com/simple/30fe0cca/
Note that Ballmer says something soft, conservative, and status-quo. Typical MS drone-talk.
Then Jobs takes a risk and says something completely radical . . . and absolutely nails it. Again.
I didn't address his example because I wasn't refuting it. I was simply stating that I find the current integration of devices to be very enticing. Not every post here is an argument.
Like always dragging in the dirty laundry to muck up a conversation. Business as usual.
What has he nailed? Has the iPad taken over the computing market yet How about some statistics to prove this? What are you going to do when Uncle Steve retires? Who will you cheerlead then?
It's actually 100% germane to the conversation. I'm sorry if what he said makes you and others uneasy.
I've noticed that for some time one of the first ten posts will contain a comment similar to the above by some Luddite.
I'm old enough to remember how many people were loath to accept changing from a manual typewriter to an electric. I also remember how common IBM Selectric typewriters were in offices up until the mid 1970s, and all the excuses people made to still have one in their work space as companies converted to dumb terminals. I remember how hard MIS managers fought to keep data centralized and not allow hard disks in desktop PCs. Later people fought to retain floppy disks in their PCs, and now it's all about the "need" for a CD/DVD drive/burner in laptops.
"No way will this replace my old that," has been the rallying cry of the heel-draggers over the last 50 years I've watched change come to the office.
I won't be so bold as to say that the iPad will replace laptop computers as both will become more portable, but I will say that high portability will be a strong driving force. I also believe easy syncing will also dominate buying decisions, so a well thought-out ecosystem will important going forward.
I agree that tablets will soon take over traditional computers.. Power users, programmers, designers and hardcore gamers will still always want a "real" computer, and they'll be on our desks at work for a long time to come, but the vast majority of new computer buyers from general public will soon be just considering tablets and not computers.
Between tablets, smart TVs, handhelds, etc... it's all gonna be changing. I bought my first computer 20 years ago.. feels like 20 years from now (if we don't all die in 2012) I'll be looking back fondly on the days when I had a keyboard instead of just plugging my iExternalbrain into a socket in the back of my head.
I just wish they'd hurry up and make those flying cars the Jetsons promised us.
Between tablets, smart TVs, handhelds, etc... it's all gonna be changing. I bought my first computer 20 years ago.. feels like 20 years from now (if we don't all die in 2012) I'll be looking back fondly on the days when I had a keyboard instead of just plugging my iExternalbrain into a socket in the back of my head.
I just wish they'd hurry up and make those flying cars the Jetsons promised us.
I've heard the wind blow (several times) before...
Regardless of their lack of qualifications, there's never a shortage of people willing to assume the role of a futurist...
From 1987: Laptops to Supersede Desktops, Analysts Say
Regardless of their lack of qualifications, there's never a shortage of people willing to assume the role of a futurist...
From 1987: Laptops to Supersede Desktops, Analysts Say
Think what you will. If thats what makes you feel better chief. Bottom line is constantly throwing muck around about anyone not Apple does nothing but makes Apple users look like elitists. Its so hard being the Mac guy because everyone think you are like *LTD*. Not true at all some Mac users aren't mindless followers.
Well, although laptops didn't replace desktops, they certainly became just as powerful, popular, and ubiquitous as desktop PCs. And a lot of the other predictions in the article certainly came true: laptops became thin, light, have high-resolution displays, and have (had) standard card architectures for expansion. They also dropped to the predicted $1,000 price point (and then some, of course) making them useful in all the markets listed in the article (e.g. students, professionals, vertical markets).
Laptops were a fledgling technology back then much like tablets are today. Who knows what will happen? Look at the picture of the laptop of 1987. We laugh at that now. Will we look back at the likes of the iPad in another 25 years and laugh at how crude and clunky it was?
The difference though is that laptops are affordable now. Laptops back in the days were astronomically priced. Go back even to the early 2000's and a decent laptop was still in the upper $2000 range and couldn't compete with a desktop. Now laptops are just as fast as desktops and just as expensive making it very easy to own. Tablets just don't offer enough yet and still price wise are pretty expensive for what you get.
Unsurprisingly, the articles published over the last 30+ years, that have predicted "product X will replace product Y", have been penned by a "futurist" that just so happens to be employed by a business that manufactures product X.
Just because people said things that in hindsight, or in some cases even right then, were stupid doesn't mean that people objecting to the tablet surpassing the PC will be wrong. I bet you could find someone arguing that the laptop would surpass the desktop, or that the netbook would surpass the PC, and there will be lots of claims of technology Y surpassing technology X.
For every comment that turned out wrong, there's also a lot of comments that turned out to be right.
Also, the tablet isn't the height of evolution, it can be surpassed just as as the tablet surpassed the netbook.
"Nuclear powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years." —Alex Lewyt, president of the Lewyt Vacuum Cleaner Company, quoted in the New York Times, June 10, 1955
"Before man reaches the moon, your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to Australia by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold of rocket mail." —Arthur Summerfield, U.S. Postmaster General under Eisenhower, 1959
Not to mention the Tablet has been around for a while now in many forms. Toshiba's early Tablet PC (the swiveling laptop) proved that the market isn't ready. The iPad fits a niche and is very popular for what it does however, its far from being a replacement.
Don't forget that the laptop of today will be the tablet of tomorrow.
Most MacRumors posters forget that computers advance very quickly. I remember the spiffy, orange iBook in 1999. An absolute charm of a machine. Today, the iPad2 is 8x faster and far more capable (aside from the castrated OS) when paired with a bluetooth keyboard.
By 2014, 95% of the current laptop market will no doubt switch to tablets/iPads because they are easier to carry, will be good enough to do almost all the work that large percentage do, and with the right accessories offer a better ergonomic experience. Not to mention that tablets are truly portable while laptops are clumsy without a table.
Sure, you love your laptops now, and the reasons are sound. Of course, the laptop market will probably not vanish for another decade, because they are powerful and desperately needed by a niche. The majority of computer users will find the tablets becoming portable PCs capable of doing everything the need and want. And the tablet comes at an agreeable price.
The next couple decades will see the same shapes of computers continuing on, but the laptops and desktops and towers will become high-end affairs for the few who absolutely need the wild power. Unless applications cause a need for such unbridled, leading-edge, computing, the tablets will nearly completely conquer the mainstream market within a decade.
Most MacRumors posters forget that computers advance very quickly. I remember the spiffy, orange iBook in 1999. An absolute charm of a machine. Today, the iPad2 is 8x faster and far more capable (aside from the castrated OS) when paired with a bluetooth keyboard.
By 2014, 95% of the current laptop market will no doubt switch to tablets/iPads because they are easier to carry, will be good enough to do almost all the work that large percentage do, and with the right accessories offer a better ergonomic experience. Not to mention that tablets are truly portable while laptops are clumsy without a table.
Sure, you love your laptops now, and the reasons are sound. Of course, the laptop market will probably not vanish for another decade, because they are powerful and desperately needed by a niche. The majority of computer users will find the tablets becoming portable PCs capable of doing everything the need and want. And the tablet comes at an agreeable price.
The next couple decades will see the same shapes of computers continuing on, but the laptops and desktops and towers will become high-end affairs for the few who absolutely need the wild power. Unless applications cause a need for such unbridled, leading-edge, computing, the tablets will nearly completely conquer the mainstream market within a decade.
Everything that can be invented has been invented.
--Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899 (attributed)
--Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899 (attributed)
That issue also has an article on page 5 that states many users prefer the keyboard to that new fangled mouse.
Code:
Screen: 15" 3.5"
Keyboard: full 105 keys none, simulated by overwriting half the screen with soft keys
Mouse: USB not really