So what does it mean? Like Renzatic said, I'm guessing/hoping they don't use this power, but really they make it apparent that they could do whatever they want with the data you upload. Or am I missing some part where it says that it only applies to a few things like Youtube?
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U.S. Tablet Sales Led by iPad in 2013 as Chromebooks Overtake MacBooks
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So what does it mean? Like Renzatic said, I'm guessing/hoping they don't use this power, but really they make it apparent that they could do whatever they want with the data you upload. Or am I missing some part where it says that it only applies to a few things like Youtube?
They're not the same thing. Sales (minus throwaways) is the derivative of number of people with the device. If someone isn't seeing any Chromebooks anywhere, it could be because it's selling well but still has a tiny market share.
Youtube is actually a good example of this in action in a somewhat beneficial way. Like Google wants to do an advertisement for the platform, and they take a bunch of couple second snips from a bunch of their currently popular videos and throw them into a montage. This would allow them to legally do that.
Think of it as Fair Use for Google. They're not stealing from you exactly, it's only a couple seconds of a much larger work. But because it's in the EULA, you can't turn around and sue the hell out of them for taking a snippet of your stuff.
Dubious methodologies from the first post aside, I think most people who haven't used a Chromebook might come away pleasantly surprised from the experience.
I picked up my Chromebook a few days ago. My beloved late 2009 Macbook has over 1000 battery cycles, and hardly functions as a portable device anymore. Rather than plunk $120 or so on a new battery from Apple, I decided to do a little research on the alternatives. For $199, I picked up the Chromebook to ultimately supplement the Macbook (which is now relegated to 'desktop' type of status.)
I have found that I had not really needed to change my behaviors at all; I had already migrated my data to Google Drive, and uploaded my music library to Google Play. The one thing I was worried about was finding a decent torrent app, but lo and behold, a pretty excellent app was to be found in the chrome store.
As Chrome OS picks up traction, I foresee more apps moving away from 'web based' to non web based. My torrent program is like this, as are a few of the other apps as well.
But, as others have said - this is by no means a full blown replacement for more serious users. If I run in to a roadblock (which I haven't - yet.) I still have my '09 Macbook, and my wife has her '12 Macbook Air.
As for the quality of my Chromebook - anyone who buys at this price point has to understand that they'll be getting some bargain basement components. While the screen's resolution is decent for the size, the fact that it's a matte TFT panel is pretty underwhelming. Also, the keyboard and track-pad are nothing to write home about. The build quality is nowhere near as nice as my (4 year old!) poly-carbonate Macbook, and light years from my wife's Macbook Air. As others have pointed out, an 11" MBA is $999, while the Chromebook is $199. At 5X the price difference, they shouldn't ever be in comparison.
Whew! Sorry for the long winded post, but I'm seeing some major flaws in logic within this thread.
I picked up my Chromebook a few days ago. My beloved late 2009 Macbook has over 1000 battery cycles, and hardly functions as a portable device anymore. Rather than plunk $120 or so on a new battery from Apple, I decided to do a little research on the alternatives. For $199, I picked up the Chromebook to ultimately supplement the Macbook (which is now relegated to 'desktop' type of status.)
I have found that I had not really needed to change my behaviors at all; I had already migrated my data to Google Drive, and uploaded my music library to Google Play. The one thing I was worried about was finding a decent torrent app, but lo and behold, a pretty excellent app was to be found in the chrome store.
As Chrome OS picks up traction, I foresee more apps moving away from 'web based' to non web based. My torrent program is like this, as are a few of the other apps as well.
But, as others have said - this is by no means a full blown replacement for more serious users. If I run in to a roadblock (which I haven't - yet.) I still have my '09 Macbook, and my wife has her '12 Macbook Air.
As for the quality of my Chromebook - anyone who buys at this price point has to understand that they'll be getting some bargain basement components. While the screen's resolution is decent for the size, the fact that it's a matte TFT panel is pretty underwhelming. Also, the keyboard and track-pad are nothing to write home about. The build quality is nowhere near as nice as my (4 year old!) poly-carbonate Macbook, and light years from my wife's Macbook Air. As others have pointed out, an 11" MBA is $999, while the Chromebook is $199. At 5X the price difference, they shouldn't ever be in comparison.
Whew! Sorry for the long winded post, but I'm seeing some major flaws in logic within this thread.
I've always thought companies put nebulous statements like this in their Terms of Service as a CYA in the event of an unintended data breach. For example if something screws-up at Google and suddenly my "private" documents are circulated to millions of users around the world, Google can say "Sorry about your luck, but you agreed to our Privacy Policy which allows us to do whatever we want with your documents. Today we wanted to share them with Pakistan and Finland. Just try to sue us, you said it was okay."
Maybe I am missing something, but I thought Apple had 10-15% market share in the US not including tablets. With Apple laptops only having 1-3% marketshare, that puts Apple's laptop marketshare around 5-6%. The iMac and Mac Pro must be doing amazing relative to windows desktops to boost that marketshare in the 10-15% range... While the iMac is insanely popular, I just do not see it making a big enough dent.
Now, I think a bigger iPad makes a lot of sense. I think tablets are finally getting to where they are starting to truly compete with lower cost laptops in terms of functinality. If tablets are to completely take over the laptop market, they need bigger screens. But, I also think timing is key to their success. As you can see, the iPad mini was a huge success mainly because of how people perceive tablets. For the majority of people, tablets are fun little computers that can be used for simple computing tasks: surfing the web, checking email, playing angry birds... If a 13 inch iPad was released today, I think it would fall into a niche market and slowly gain marketshare as people start seeing tablets as laptop replacements. If its released at the right moment, however, I feel Apple could really create a splash and sell tons of them. The 13-inch notebook market would simply become obsolete overnight! Apple has to release it at that perfect time when people start to shift their perception of tablets from a fun toy to a real workhorse, but not too late so it still has that "new and exciting" factor. I think late next year would be prime. Apple used to be really good with timing so we will see if they get this one right.
Now, I think a bigger iPad makes a lot of sense. I think tablets are finally getting to where they are starting to truly compete with lower cost laptops in terms of functinality. If tablets are to completely take over the laptop market, they need bigger screens. But, I also think timing is key to their success. As you can see, the iPad mini was a huge success mainly because of how people perceive tablets. For the majority of people, tablets are fun little computers that can be used for simple computing tasks: surfing the web, checking email, playing angry birds... If a 13 inch iPad was released today, I think it would fall into a niche market and slowly gain marketshare as people start seeing tablets as laptop replacements. If its released at the right moment, however, I feel Apple could really create a splash and sell tons of them. The 13-inch notebook market would simply become obsolete overnight! Apple has to release it at that perfect time when people start to shift their perception of tablets from a fun toy to a real workhorse, but not too late so it still has that "new and exciting" factor. I think late next year would be prime. Apple used to be really good with timing so we will see if they get this one right.
I wouldn't call your sample a good representation of the population. Mac laptops are an extremely common gift for parents to give their college-bound students, and that makes perfect sense. Little Jenny completed high school and is off to better herself at a university, so let's reward her hard work with something she'll use for entertainment and work: A really fancy, beautiful laptop, which of course would be a Mac.
Marketshare is literally a share of the market, and the market are the people buying the stuff. Sales and marketshare go hand in hand. Like since Chromebooks currently hold 9% of the market, then you can automatically determine that Chromebooks are selling fairly decently.
Though the one monkey in the wrench is that there are a bunch of markets, and some are larger than the others. Like if it's the overall computer market, 9% is a HUGE deal. But if it's the low cost internet connected PC-like device market, well...that's much smaller, and that 9% might not mean that much in the grand scheme of things. Just that it's selling to someone.
Well - to further and clarify.
Google would only be using clips that were made publicly available on the youtube site. They would not be taking clips from videos that have been made private or unpublished on their site.
Again - it would be against their best interest to breach privacy like that.
Yeah, exactly. It's that place where the Mac is king. Outside of college, it's not like that. Also most of the programmers I know use them.
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The public display of information that users would consider private is very much against their interest, but I'm more worried about the other parts of the agreement. They can give it to someone else behind closed doors.
The place I see this happening is Facebook. They give your account to Bing. Go to Bing, do a search, and boom, you're signed in with Facebook on Bing. I never connected my accounts or even used Bing until that day I went there for some reason and saw it.
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The article said sales, not market share. I read it wrong the first two times also.
I agree that long term sustainability will depend a lot on durability. We picked up an Acer 720...which is considered one of the more popular/better built Chromebooks. But I have a hard time seeing it lasting more than a couple of years. It feels pretty cheap.
But it absolutely meets the needs of my 6th grader for homework, playing games, simple apps. etc. If there was a slightly higher quality device, I'd pay another $100 for it. I'd also buy one for my 73 year old mother. She is always fighting with her windows computer. This would be a solution she could use to compliment her Mini.
I guess the numbers don't reflect holiday returns from people who are gonna try loading MS Office on it... 
There's no difference in risk. They wouldn't do it. If your video is unpublished or private - it's just that. They would have no way of determining if who they are presenting to might be somehow connected to the person whose data it is. Further - that company could then search youtube themselves and if they couldn't find that content, they could easily exploit that info against Google.
This is why I started my input here with the fact that the discussion point is FUD. Can it ever happen - I wouldn't say never. But it's mostly a way for someone who wants to go on a tirade to do so.
Indeed. There are flakes of rust falling off my school days as I type this but as I understood it your sample not only has to be of a significant size but also must come from a random sampling of the overall population in question. A single person's daily observations can never approximate that, the population sampling is biased towards the people that individual encounters.
Similarly, 100% of Mac Rumors forum users could post they agree on a particular issue, but that would still be insignificant because the population sampling is a self-selecting one of people motivated to come here and post.
This makes a lot of sense. A Chromebook is a lot like a tablet, or at least what most people use tablets for today. It surfs the web, connects to Netflix and Facebook and Twitter, play a browser-based game or two, display the content on a USB flash drive or SD card, and maybe even write an essay.
And best of all, it comes in the tried and true laptop form factor. So you'll never have to worry about the screen getting scratched up when it's not in use and you get to use a real keyboard instead of a touch screen or one of those "keyboard in the cover" things that flop all over the place in your lap... and there's no need for a kickstand!
For $200-300, I think that's a great value for many consumers. I'll definitely never get one, but it's nice to see some good competition... especially if it hurts Microsoft!
And best of all, it comes in the tried and true laptop form factor. So you'll never have to worry about the screen getting scratched up when it's not in use and you get to use a real keyboard instead of a touch screen or one of those "keyboard in the cover" things that flop all over the place in your lap... and there's no need for a kickstand!
For $200-300, I think that's a great value for many consumers. I'll definitely never get one, but it's nice to see some good competition... especially if it hurts Microsoft!
Time will tell. If people purchase a second Chromebook to replace their first one, then that will be a positive sign. If manufacturers can make a profit off of building and selling these cheap devices, then that will help as well. I am not so sure either of these two things will happen, though.
Exactly. EULAs are a grey area in general. They're not enforceable at all in Europe, and only within reason here in the US. While they could do it in theory, and they're on record stating as much, the chances of them actually doing it are so nil, it's nearly nonexistent.
Why would anyone want to use Google Drive if Google regularly took people's stuff off their servers to monetize it for their benefit without compensating the creators? That'd achieve nothing but irreparably harming their reputation.
Well, if you say so
Seriously though, all that has to happen is they enter some secret agreement with some other company, probably through one division of Google or one employee (so they can say that it wasn't their decision if they're caught), and leak some information. None of us would know about it.
Me: Siri where do I buy a Chromebook?
Siri: appl...Oh dear. Would you like me to search the web?
Me: Siri, search the web for "Chromebook"
Siri: Unfortunately I cannot take requests at the moment.
Me: Siri, Search the web for iPhone 5S
Siri: Here you go!
Damn Apple... I see what you did there.
Siri: appl...Oh dear. Would you like me to search the web?
Me: Siri, search the web for "Chromebook"
Siri: Unfortunately I cannot take requests at the moment.
Me: Siri, Search the web for iPhone 5S
Siri: Here you go!
Damn Apple... I see what you did there.
Exactly! You also missed one point: your family has to be somewhat wealthy for you to go to college. I think you half-way mentioned it, but I just figured I would flat out say it. I just graduated from undergrad a couple of years ago from a public college and the notion of the poor college student is complete BS. The average college student is nowhere near poor. Like you said, parents want to give their children nice laptops as a reward for their hard work. If you look at Apple's marketshare of the $1,000+ laptops, its like 80%. And I would say 50% of college students have a laptop that cost over $1,000.
Tablets are perfectly fine for people who just check their email and surf the Web. Working on essays and such is a bit harder, but definitely possible (with perhaps a Bluetooth keyboard). Heck, I would say that for some people, Chromebooks are perfectly fine for that as well, assuming they have access to the Internet. And for the people who really do need a full laptop and/or have no Internet, Windows laptops can do almost everything that Macs can.
Look, I'm not saying Macs suck. Far from it. But they are a pretty damn hard sell for a lot of people, even if you can install Windows on it.
At least today's cheap Windows machines are big enough to be able to type on somewhat okay. Netbooks were incredibly uncomfortable to use at the time.
20x = ~30%, which is almost the same as the "Windows Notebooks" category. Chromebooks are selling at 9.6/1.8 = ~5.3x the rate of Macs.
If a $200 or $250 Chromebook has to be replaced every two years, then it will cost between $600 to $750 in a six year period. A MacBook or a decent Windows laptop can easily last six years, so the value of the Chromebook goes down tremendously. If a cheap Chromebook lasts three or four years, then that's a different story. We will just have to wait and see happens, I guess.