iPad Competitors Begin to Disappear Even Before Being Released

[ChrisA]

For more than 10 years people have been saying that "one day" Linux will go mainstream. I guess that day is when HP uses Android on the tablet. How much more mainstream can you get than HP.?

Funny how all the new stuff is using technology that dates from 1969. Or maybe even older. UNIX began in '69 but the name "UNIX" was a play on (or comment on) the name "MULTEX". The idea was the unix could be better be being smaller and simpler then multex. So in a way the ideas inside our new Macs, tablets and phones go back to the 60's

Yes the 60's, that lonf gone eara when humans had the means to fly to the moon.

 

[HiRez]

Pink: vaporware ideas to distract from NeXT; never shipped.

Taligent: vaporous, but did ship a product, just not what was intended.

Copland: unfinished, aborted features; shipped and revoked a developer preview that was later salvaged.

Gershwin: absolute vaporware.

True, but those were all before Jobs came back in 1997, in the "dark days" of Apple. I think it's fair to say Apple has completely reinvented itself since then and bears little resemblance to that Apple. If it weren't for all those failed attempts, Jobs would never even have had the opportunity to come back, since they needed NeXT to replace those failures.

 

[Eidorian]

You are not making any sense, the arguments on what you pretend to not understand are crystal clear, yet post after post you purposefully ignore them and answer win short cryptical posts that make very little sense. I don't think anyone should humour you any more, when you turn black to white...

Don't worry, he knows it, he just constantly underplays it's importance to close to none, to lessen the effect of the fiasco, or the dishonesty of promoting vapourware.

because according to his own admission he despises the ipad...

I do see a lot of users with what I believe is a strange fixation with Microsoft, Steve Balmer, and a mob mentality.

I honestly don't see a reason in going over to AppleInsider to see the guffawing at yet another "Microsoft failure". I see that enough here as it is.

Financial income is also becoming becoming a bizarre metric for authority as well. I don't believe any of us here make even close to what the lowly Balmer does.

I don't see anything wrong with my opinion of the iPad. Yet, I'm told that the opinions of millions of others are more important than what I believe is best for my needs and desires. Perhaps materialism and instant gratification is getting to be a bit much.

If I may, I will respectfully add a few points. This is perfect for a grad student. More so a Ph.D student (yes I am one). But I can take this with me check email, perform research produce a slideshow, make calls through Skype, and not have to worry about an extra 4 pounds and a place to plug in.

I didn't like Keynote on the iPad beyond giving a presentation. I found that the keyboard was much to intrusive and I felt the same way in Safari as well. If you feel fine working around those limitations, in my opinion, it does make a good "world viewer". Even the supposedly paltry 1024 x 768 is quite effective, just not so much with the keyboard up.

 

[Lesser Evets]

I'm going to be laughing about this for years.

It's amazing how all these companies were trying to muscle in and assure people they would get their 3rd rate junk versions of Apple's product by the summer or fall of 2010.

And they just wrinkled up and blew away.

It's funny that Apple's product is meanwhile doing quite well and will be alone in this market for a good long time.

 

[DMann]

Those desperate for Apple's demise have been crowing about their Courier salvation for months.

"Just wait until Courier gets here. That will put Apple in its place!"

Of course, I kept hearing the same thing about the Slate too.

Reality bites.

Well, they can always rejoice in watching re-runs of the concept videos.

The introduction of the 'Slate' seems to have been an attempt at creating a place holder - "don't buy anything until you see what we're putting out there."

It turns out that playing catch-up ain't as easy as one would imagine it to be, in this arena.

I'm going to be laughing about this for years.

It's amazing how all these companies were trying to muscle in and assure people they would get their 3rd rate junk versions of Apple's product by the summer or fall of 2010.

And they just wrinkled up and blew away.

It's funny that Apple's product is meanwhile doing quite well and will be alone in this market for a good long time.

And to think, this is only the beginning.

 

[applesupergeek]

Perhaps materialism and instant gratification is getting to be a bit much.

Yeah, whatever...

 

[wakeborder556]

Don't you mean announced instead of released? Mac journalism bias shining through.

 

[gunraidan]

Did people even read the article?

It says that HP canceled it to replace it with their future (and mostly likely far superior) Palm OS tablet. If anything this is news for more competition for the iPad.

 

[LagunaSol]

If anything this is news for more competition for the iPad.

Eventually.

 

[cmaier]

Funny how all the new stuff is using technology that dates from 1969. Or maybe even older. UNIX began in '69 but the name "UNIX" was a play on (or comment on) the name "MULTEX".

Not so much. You're thinking of MULTICS.

 

[DMann]

Don't you mean announced instead of released? Mac journalism bias shining through.

Only to be completely out-shined by this very blatant 'announcement' and presentation in January:

Eventually.

In the distant future, at that.

The lag in responsiveness of WebOS will need to be addressed before they even contemplate designing one.

 

[gunraidan]

Eventually.

The fact that they're dropping it proves that competition for the iPad is underway. The original slate was just suppose to be a computer with a touch screen, however after the iPad's success HP saw that they needed an UI designed for touch interface like the iPhone OS. Thus they brought Palm for WebOS, in which is why they're dropping the slate to create a tablet that directly competes with the iPad.

Seriously this thread title is laughable.

 

[DMann]

The fact that they're dropping it proves that competition for the iPad is underway. The original slate was just suppose to be a computer with a touch screen, however after the iPad's success HP saw that they needed an UI designed for touch interface like the iPhone OS. Thus they brought Palm for WebOS, in which is why they're dropping the slate to create a tablet that directly competes with the iPad.

Seriously this thread title is laughable.

Quite insightful - W7 'Touch' would have fared miserably in this sector.

Do keep in mind, another likely reason the project was scrapped has to do with the inability of the current form factor to compete with a $499 starting price.

 

[cheesymogul]

Someone should put these "iPad killers" on suicide watch.
Seriously!

 

[thecartoonguy]

I do see a lot of users with what I believe is a strange fixation with Microsoft, Steve Balmer, and a mob mentality.

I honestly don't see a reason in going over to AppleInsider to see the guffawing at yet another "Microsoft failure". I see that enough here as it is.

Financial income is also becoming becoming a bizarre metric for authority as well. I don't believe any of us here make even close to what the lowly Balmer does.

I don't see anything wrong with my opinion of the iPad. Yet, I'm told that the opinions of millions of others are more important than what I believe is best for my needs and desires. Perhaps materialism and instant gratification is getting to be a bit much.

I didn't like Keynote on the iPad beyond giving a presentation. I found that the keyboard was much to intrusive and I felt the same way in Safari as well. If you feel fine working around those limitations, in my opinion, it does make a good "world viewer". Even the supposedly paltry 1024 x 768 is quite effective, just not so much with the keyboard up.

I could see how the keyboard would cause some undesired results

 

[Pigumon]

I don't know how anyone can say this is a good thing (although I know the fanboys have already corked the champagne). Less competition is bad for consumers.

Usually I'd agree that competition is good, but Apple seems to really not care about the competition. I mean, they constantly leave out features that other competitive products have.. blu-ray drives come to mind.

The only reason I'd say this is good is to shut the PC Fanboys up who kept saying the iPad sucked compared to the "courier"...


OOOOPS iPad sucks compared to what? vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaporwaaaaaaaaaaaare

Apple delivers even if they cripple things slightly.

 

[TMay]

Usually I'd agree that competition is good, but Apple seems to really not care about the competition. I mean, they constantly leave out features that other competitive products have.. blu-ray drives come to mind.

The only reason I'd say this is good is to shut the PC Fanboys up who kept saying the iPad sucked compared to the "courier"...


OOOOPS iPad sucks compared to what? vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaporwaaaaaaaaaaaare

Apple delivers even if they cripple things slightly.

BD is only really important for content creators, and I'm sympathetic to the FC folks who have to figure out workarounds. At this time, Premier Pro looks like a better solution and supports Authoring.

Fortunately, there are third party solutions to both readers and burners. For short clips, under 20 minutes, there is already an AVC standard for DVD, and Toast 10 Pro among others works.

Watching BD on a laptop on an Airplane? Doesn't hit my list of priorities, and with the cost of excellent BD players, not much point in direct connections to home theater either.

Not suggestion that Apple shouldn't provide BD drives, just saying that it isn't going to be a deal breaker for most folks.

I don't think that S. Jobs has any big problems with BD excepting the "bag of hurt licensing" and rights management through the connection to displays.

 

[Eidorian]

BD is only really important for content creators, and I'm sympathetic to the FC folks who have to figure out workarounds. At this time, Premier Pro looks like a better solution and supports Authoring.

Fortunately, there are third party solutions to both readers and burners. For short clips, under 20 minutes, there is already an AVC standard for DVD, and Toast 10 Pro among others works.

Watching BD on a laptop on an Airplane? Doesn't hit my list of priorities, and with the cost of excellent BD players, not much point in direct connections to home theater either.

Not suggestion that Apple shouldn't provide BD drives, just saying that it isn't going to be a deal breaker for most folks.

I don't think that S. Jobs has any big problems with BD excepting the "bag of hurt licensing" and rights management through the connection to displays.

We already have HDCP.

 

[TMay]

I honestly think HP using WebOS as a tablet platform is a very good idea, and could very well be a serious competitor to Apple's iPad. I think I'd probably buy a WebOS powered tablet over the Apple one, simply because the WebOS tablet is more likely to support Flash. Whilst I agree with the fact Flash is currently a system resource hog, for Steve Jobs to make a blanket statement on behalf of all Apple users is an incredibly bad move. It just goes to ballast the view (one that I of course do not agree with) that Apple is an arrogant company for arrogant users.

I think for the WebOS tablet to take the iPad on and win would be a very good lesson for Steve to learn - he DOES NOT and WILL NOT know what's best for everyone else.

Here's the thing. You can get an excellent device today (U.S. anyway) and be using it for many, many months before a decent competitor arrives.

I'm a very patient mac owner since the 128, and I'm very cool with waiting, so I respect your decision, but that doesn't mean that I don't think that you opinion is invalid.

Question: How much arrogance does a company have to display, in this case HP, in its foisting of a POS on the market at CES? Oh, but they didn't know it was a POS until the iPad arrived.

That's arrogance.

 

[TMay]

We already have HDCP.

That's very true today, but at the time of Steve's statement (Oct 2008) some of the products that Apple was selling still didn't support HDCP.

 

[ctakim]

Well, it you can try and spin this news anyway you like, but what it really means is that the competition for the iPad is seriously in tatters. They have to regroup completely and rethink how they are going to attack the iPad in the marketplace. It underscores what has been said (and ignored by many) that this is a new class of device, it is not just a big iPhone or a shrunken laptop. It is a mobile touch screen media/internet consumption device (with the potential to be a targeted work device) that needs its own OS.

Will the competition get it? We will see in about 2 years (or longer). But my guess is that it will not come from HP or MS, but from Google!

 

[DMann]

Well, it you can try and spin this news anyway you like, but what it really means is that the competition for the iPad is seriously in tatters. They have to regroup completely and rethink how they are going to attack the iPad in the marketplace.

This challenge will be even further compounded by the iPad's unexpectedly low price point.

 

[wovel]

This challenge will be even further compounded by the iPad's unexpectedly low price point.

I think the price point sent everyone back to the drawing board. Combine that with the fact that the iPad has likely already outsold every other tablet sized device ever produced this year (combined).

The Courier was interesting, but probably too big. The Slate was just more of the same failed tablet they have tried for years.

 

[pierrerobignon]

I had the opportunity to do a usability study on a courier prototype in early 2010, and I'm certainly disappointed that it won't reach the market. It was nowhere near completion, and there's no way to know what battery life, cost, and other aspects would have looked like. That being said, there were a lot of features that were really useful, and the experience with it was really graceful (especially considering it was microsoft). It had a much different function that an iPad - I couldn't see anyone consuming entertainment on a courier, but it seemed like a fantastic tool for notetaking, creative work, and project planning. The ability to easily grab and pull media and text from websites to your notes in another panel, to integrate drawings, doodles, and sketches, and to use it as a tool for creative and personal exploration was cool. The form factor was nice - it was about the same size as my journal.

I'm no microsoft fan, but my opinion on this one is that there wasn't a market for the courier. I think it was a pretty brilliant take on what an electronic journal could potentially be, but at the end of the day, how many people really want to shell out for an electronic journal? Also, the things about it that would be the most fun are the least legal. Easily grabbing video, drawings, and text from anywhere and everywhere, mixing them up into really useful entries, and then sharing them across work environments, in presentations, and wherever else has got to bring up some copyright issues.

In short, it seems to me that microsoft actually put a lot of time and research into courier, but that at the end of the day, it was a small niche of people who would actually utilize it.

 

[DMann]

I'm no microsoft fan, but my opinion on this one is that there wasn't a market for the courier. I think it was a pretty brilliant take on what an electronic journal could potentially be, but at the end of the day, how many people really want to shell out for an electronic journal? Also, the things about it that would be the most fun are the least legal. Easily grabbing video, drawings, and text from anywhere and everywhere, mixing them up into really useful entries, and then sharing them across work environments, in presentations, and wherever else has got to bring up some copyright issues.

In short, it seems to me that microsoft actually put a lot of time and research into courier, but that at the end of the day, it was a small niche of people who would actually utilize it.

Agreed.

Furthermore, I was puzzled, while watching the concept video, by the regressive and cumbersome act of manually entering internet addresses with a stylus.

High caliber clipboard apps can conceivably be developed for the iPad, such as Pastebot, for grabbing, clipping, and integratng photos, drawings, text, video, etc. to fulfill most needs and functions expected of an electronic journal.

Although the iPad is not limited to media consumption, its fluent capabilities, ease in accessibility, form factor, and battery life seem to make it a more optimal choice for many, let alone its diverse potential as a newly defined platform.