iPad: 50,000 sales in 2 hours, Apple TV bumped, mysterious app icon - Page 7

i was originally dismissive when i first read the reports. now, im seriously considering it. there's one thing im missing, which is the ability to transfer files from my handycam while im away. everything else wouldnt be that bad. now we have to wait for an announcement in the australian shores, and how much extra they're going to cost as well :P

Australian pricing is weird a US99c App is $A1.19, a US99c song is $A1.69...

...go figure.

If it's related to the value of the $US on the date of release then it shouldn't be too much difference as $US1 = $A1.09 at todays rates.

the price of apple hardware is always that little bit more. some are saying on sites the average price of the entry model will be around 650 australian... wouldnt surprise me..

If apple was going after the netbook market, they'd be making a netbook. But they're not. They specifically chose not to make a netbook. They chose to not enter the netbook market.

Netbooks and tablets have nothing in common besides perhaps price. It is baffling how the two concepts are perceived as being linked. It is a meme that simply makes no sense, none at all.

If you ask yourself what the purpose of a netbook is, I think you'll find that the answer is exactly the same as for the iPad. Ergo, they are linked.

Nope, read the rest of my posts to understand what the "netbook" market consists of and what Apple thinks about it.

Consider this: In 1984, Apple went after the supposed "personal computer" market by making a Mac. You may look back and think it was obvious, but if you were alive then, you would have heard all the PC (and even Apple II) fans who derided the Mac for not having: a larger display, a hard disk drive slots, and a full keyboard (with function and numeric keys). The Mac had no spreadsheet app, and MacWrite had 1/4 of the functionality of a good PC word processor. The Mac was a toy they said.

And in 2007, Apple went after the supposed "smartphone" market by making an iPhone. You may think it was obvious, but you should consider the many Nokia N-series smartphone fans who derided the iPhone for not having 3G, GPS, downloadable apps, removable battery, keyboard, 5MP camera, videocamera - all of which were present on the N95 circa 2007.

Without a doubt, Apple changed both those "markets" (though they haven't dominated them but that's another story).

Just like before, Apple is going after the "netbook" market without making what one normally considers a netbook to be.

Not at all. In fact, iPads are only similar to netbooks in regard to price. That is where the similarity ends. The purpose of a netbook is to provide a cheap computer, or in some cases, more specifically, a cheap laptop. It would be one hell of a stretch to call "cheap" the goal of the iPad.


That seems like a whole bunch of mumbo-jumbo and double-speak to avoid having to admit a minor error in communicating a point about iPads. You're busy defending tangential points that aren't even related, let alone in dispute.

Put simply, Apple is not getting into the "netbook market". They are not making a netbook. Nor are they making anything remotely resembling a netbook. Apple has been quick to stress this point. They purposefully chose to stay out of the netbook market and instead decided to address a different computing category. Steve has mentioned it on a few occasions. And if I recall correctly, so has Cook during the quarterly conference calls.

An analogy:

Laptops, desktops, and pocket computers (smart phones) aren't the same thing. Similarly, the iPad is also in a separate category. It is a tablet computer.

Granted, there will be competition between netbooks and tablets. But fixating on the two, as if they are somehow linked, is counter productive. They are no more linked than any of the other computer categories. If netbooks are to be compared to anything, they should be compared to laptops.

[Deleted] Replaced with two posts below.

In the Apple universe, the iPad is "cheap."

I don't see any minor error. Apple is going after the people who were previously interested in netbooks. I'm not sure what you call that other than the "netbook" market.

And in doing so, they came up with something that doesn't look like netbooks. Just like when they went after personal computer consumers, and came up with something that didn't look like a PC of that era. And when they went after smartphone consumers, and came up with something that didn't look like a smartphone of that era. No mumbo-jumbo but a direct response.


Did I say that Apple is making a netbook? Nope, I didn't. I did say that Apple said they don't make junk.


So why did Jobs and Cook talk about having "ideas" (that we know today is the iPad) every time in response to netbook questions? Maybe, because they are linked.


I'm not fixated on the two. But when people say that Apple is not going after the netbook market, I think they are very wrong. They are. They are going after most (not all) of the same people who would be interested in a netbook, and going after them with a product that looks very different but meets the same use cases (that is, surf the web (facebook, twitter, RSS), exchange emails, watch videos, maybe read books, play games).

And I already said there is a small percentage of the netbook market that really wants a full Windows notebook in a smaller and cheaper package because they need to do everything on it that they could do on a notebook (content creation, manipulate files, etc). Those are the only people in the "netbook" market that Apple is not directly going after, because Apple doesn't know how to build such a thing that isn't junk for less than $500. Apple's only answer for those people is the MacBook Air, and it costs way more.

Yes, I read your other posts.

But to answer your question, yes netbooks are laptops. That is precisely what they are in both form and function.

There will be overlap between tablet usage scenarios and laptop usage scenarios. But that is true to a degree for all of the computing form factors. Fixating on how netbooks relate to tablets will lead to rather spurious conclusions.

It is my belief that people are mistakenly conflating netbooks with the iPad simply because they are both new computing form factors that happen to be about the same size and price. "New" in a mass-appeal sense that is. The form factors have both been around for many years already. But size and price don't alone dictate who will use devices and for what purposes. In the case of the iPad, the touch interface, lack of a keyboard, and requirement to be held while in use... are what will define the use scenarios and market for the device.

The iPad is intended as an auxiliary device to supplement a user's existing computing eco-system, a device that will be used for just a subset of a user's computing needs. On the other hand, netbooks are laptops that happen to be inexpensive but offer a full computing experience.

Comparisons between the two can be useful. But fixation on the two as if they are more related than the other form factors, would seem to be counter productive and lead one to derive incorrect conclusions.

Quite true. But also pertinent is that it can't be used as a stand-alone device (yet). As an auxiliary computer, it won't appeal to people who are looking for a cheap way to fulfill their computing needs.

Looks like we'll just have to disagree about if Apple is going after the "netbook market". My last comment on that is that the netbook market hasn't proven terribly profitable. It is precisely the type of commodity market that Apple has never gone after. That is why Apple redirects netbook questions to the type of new computing hardware they have chosen to pursue, not because the two are related.

As for usage scenarios. Upon using a tablet computer, the first thing one discovers is that usage scenarios are completely different than with laptops or desktops.

Another lovely car analogy. Mid priced motorcycles and cheap compact cars are roughly the same size and price but have drastically different uses. They're both smaller and less expensive than a typical sedan, truck or SUV. Yeah, I know that's a stretch. But it does help to convey just how different tablets are from laptops.

Size and price are not what define the iPad. The form factor and GUI do. They define what will be considered an equivalent product and netbooks don't fall into that category.

Being cheap is not the purpose of a Netbook, but rather a byproduct of it's form. Half a computer costs half as much. The Netbook exists because people fell in love with the idea of an ultra-compact, lightweight computer they can carry with them without feeling like they're carrying a computer. It's slow, lacking in hardware, but can perform basic computing tasks like web browsing, email, and instant chat without issue. Sound familiar? Yeah, the iPad is Apple's solution to the netbook market.

What some folks seem to forget is that there are two netbook markets. One for cheap notebooks and one for auxiliary computing devices. Apple IS going after the netbook maket but like the notebook and desktop markets, only the most profitable segment.

Some netbooks are insanely profitable. Like those $700-$800 ones. With Atoms? Wha?


No, the high level usage scenarios are largely the same since they typically do not describe implementation. A usage scenario is like "Manually visiting a new web page (no hyperlink)" is derived from the overarching Use Case (web surfing). As such the steps are along the lines of

"The user initiates web surfing by opening the web browser"
"The system opens the web browser and presents saved links (aka bookmarks) and the ability to enter a new URL"
"The user selects a new web address by manually entering a URL"
...

The scenario is identical for both tablets and netbooks. The implementation differs...


Tablet netbooks certainly could given the UI metaphors could be identical with the exception of having a physical keyboard vs a virtual one. There are several on the market in the same price range.

Are you saying that the Blackberry and iPhone are not in the same category because the blackberry has a keyboard (form factor) and different UI metaphors (key/scroll vs touch) than the iPhone? Because that's about the same level of difference between a high end netbook and an iPad.

Certainly Apple isn't going up against bottom end free phone market with the iPhone. But they sure do target the high end smart phone market.

Certainly Apple isn't going up against the bottom end netbook market with the iPad. But they sure do target the high end secondary computing/executive netbook market.

Anyone that considered the Viao P is going to seriously consider the iPad as an alternative. Same use cases, same demographic, same market and market category.

Have you ever actually owned or used a tablet for an extended period of time? Not trying to be antagonistic, just wondering. The reason why I ask will hopefully be apparent in the next paragraph.

It has been my experience (and observation of others) that tablet usage is indeed quite different than desktop or laptop usage. The example given above misses the defining characteristics of usage scenarios. The scenario should not begin with "the user initiates web surfing by opening the web browser". Instead, it begins with "user sits down on couch and picks up tablet while waiting for family to join him for a movie.". Or, "user spoons cereal into mouth while using other hand to interact with tablet resting on breakfast table."

The tablet form dictates to a great degree, when and how people use tablet computers. The GUI helps define typical usage scenarios, but the form (screen size, input hardware, etc) also has a massive impact on actual usage.

It is the form, that defines the iPad and appropriate comparison devices. There is a massive difference in usage between tablets and traditional computers. Tablets and netbooks are so different that fixating on comparisons between the two is just baffling. It has been my observation that nearly everyone who has actually used tablets for an appreciable period of time has come to the same conclusion. They are no more a substitue for netbooks (laptops) than are pocket computers. Sure, iPhone users may use email less on their home computer. But iphones rightfully weren't defined as "going after the laptop or desktop market." The same will be true of the iPad. Or at least not in it's first incarnation.

You've expanded the use case a bit to include more info about the scenario, which is fine.

Comparatively then, from my observations, the usage scenario for most people who own netbooks is sit down on a chair/floor/bed/couch at various places (airport, restaurant, convention center, park, living room, bedroom, airplane, etc); place netbook on lap (or table if available); flip open netbook, ...

This portion of the netbook scenario is also included in the tablet usage scenarios, so I would conclude that the tablet usage scenarios are broader than that for the netbook, since the tablet could also be used standing up, and potentially could be more social (not totally sold on this one). [Note, however, the netbook use case can also include more significant content creation, though most netbook owners don't actually use it for that.]

So, tablet and netbook products have overlapping usage scenarios.

Yes, I have used tablets quite a bit since 2002. I have a motion tablet (slate), a ruggedized slate, a Panasonic Toughbook tablet (convertible), a handful of UMPC, kneeboards, PDAs that run a variety of linux, winCE, and other mobile/semi-mobile OSs.

I also have a variety of pen based machines (IBM TransNote, Seiko Smartpad, etc) and a couple touch input devices (DiamondTouch, etc) that are prior to 2002.


You can include user context such as sitting on a couch or using the device one handed (heh) but not the "pick up tablet" part without artificially constraining your implementation possibilities. This is typically not desireable during design phase where use scenarios are employed.

If you have a defining characteristic of usage scenarios then perhaps you should state:

1) The context of your use of the term (RUP, Agile, something else)
2) The actual defining characteristics.

Simply saying that netbooks don't meet the usage scenario because you used the term TABLET in the usage scenario isn't useful in trying to persuade that the two cannot meet the same use cases and compete in the same market space.

Tablet interaction CAN be different from traditional computing. Certainly OneNote isn't very usable with a mouse. On the other hand it is hard to argue that WinXP or Win7 Tablet PC Edition is very well optimized for either pen or multitouch UI interaction given they are WIMP based. In fact, the cynical would point out they aren't much more than normal windows with a couple extra apps and some UI support stuck in there.


No, the tablet form dictates some of the limitations for the OS and UI designer. The UI itself constrains how users interact with tablet computers. A Win7 or Linux iPad is going to be significantly different in interaction paradigm than with the Apple OSX iPad.


Yes. But that doesn't say that two different products that meets the same need aren't in the same category.


Then simply descibe how the Blackberry does not differ in the same way from the iPhone that the netbook differs from the iPad.

Blackberry, Netbook = physical keyboard, no touchscreen, traditional UI
iPhone, iPad = virtual keyboard, touchscreen, touch based UI

Blackberry and iPhone = about the same size, cost and general capabilities
Netbook and iPad = about the same size, cost and general capabilities


You mean that they are suboptimal except as convertibles? More or less. Pray tell how many tablets you have used and for how long?


Other than the tablet netbooks and a few UMPCs few are considered netbook substitutes as much as notebook substitutes.

This is ignoring the scads of tablets that appeared at CES this year which only really recently appeared and still remains to be seen how they pan out. I'm thinking not so great for things like the HP Slate based on my slate experiences.


Which is why I was very clear in pointing out that the netbook market has two segments and that Apple was targetting the higher end segment that buys netbooks as secondary computing devices. A point you clearly avoided...

I find the back and forth above interesting because it gets at a, if not the, central point about a device like the iPad-- there's a point at which changing the physical interaction changes the nature of the experience.

A lot of the discussions about "what the iPad is for" assume a difference in degree: easier, lighter, possibly faster-- then go on to argue that these differences are insufficient to differentiate the iPad from cheaper, more ubiquitous netbooks, which have various other advantages (real keyboard, full desktop OS, Flash, etc.).

I would argue that the iPad represents a difference in kind-- that a well integrated touch device of appropriate ergonomics can't be causally dismissed just because it "does computing stuff just like a netbook."

It was easy to argue that the iPhone didn't do anything more than existing smartphones, it just did it with fancy animations and "slickness" (as if that were a cheat, somehow). As we know, the particulars of the iPhone's UI, ecosystem and hardware in fact ushered in a new era of ubiquitous mobile computing, and these changes are still accelerating. I believe that happened because the iPhone presented consumers with a new kind of experience, and that such experiences are not well described by "open browser type URL" checklists.

IMO the iPad will present another, new, user experience, and any talk of "does the same stuff as this machine I have here" just misses the point. Human beings aren't about use scenarios, they're about pleasure and reward and emotional responses to stuff they do. If the experience feels different, it is different. If it feels entirely different, like "something I've never done before", then for the purposes of a discussion about people and the devices they use, then it is in fact an entirely different thing --no matter how many dry points of congruity with previous devices one might point out.

I think that it is more accurate to say that the iPad is far more likely to meet some of the uses that folks intended to be filled by a netbook than a netbook because of the ease of use of the platform.

Worded differently, it doesn't mean that the iPad IS A netbook but it does mean it IS targetted squarely at those users that have purchased netbooks but have been, thus far, poorly served. Meaning it isn't a new market but yet another one that Apple has seen a way to profitably address in a new fashion.

Yeah, certainly there's a semantic thicket here that would be easy to debate endlessly, but it seems to me that, again to use the example of the iPhone, that there are now millions of people routinely doing things in ways that they never did before (indeed, in ways that they never imagined were even possible to do) because the iPhone made those things accessible.

For those people, the iPhone and follow on devices from other manufacturers represent an entirely new kind of device, even though strictly speaking you have done most of what you use the iPhone for before it existed. The newness resides in how, exactly, the device integrates with one's life, not if the stock categories of what it does.

So I would argue that the iPad potentially represents a "new" kind of thing, not because it can surf the web a little more conveniently and such, but because that particular combination of hardware and software and form factor and ecosystem will afford people opportunities to relate to it differently and discover new ways of doing things.

Obviously we may disagree on the significance of "new ways" which is admittedly a bit amorphous, but IMO it always gets back to one's emotional response to how that thing fits in with how one goes about living.

That was one monster of a post Vinea! You definitely win the total tablet experience category, but perhaps not any awards in congeniality. Not that i've been nominated for any of those myself.

There are so many line-by-line rebutals in there that I'd rather not address them individually. It would likely take us down a minutia tit for tat road. Instead, backing off and reiterating general points would likely be more productive. Addabox has done that nicely in his last two posts. Couldn't have said it better myself!

The form factor and functionality of the iPad differ so drastically from a laptops (netbooks), that the two aren't any more related than are any of the other common computing forms, desktops and pocket computers. Because the usage is so different with tablet computers, the market really is distinct in the same way that the pocket computing market is distinct from laptops and desktops.

Perhaps it boils down to a difference of opinion on the primary motivation for purchasing a netbook. It is my opinion that netbooks are not being bought for ease-of-use, or because they provide a different/preferable user experience. Instead, they are being bought because they are basically full-blown but cheap laptops.

On the other hand, the iPad is not a full-blown computer. It is an auxiliary device meant to capitalize on a entirely separate market, the market for tablet computing. Tablet computers are not as flexible as laptops but are still desirable because they provide an totally different computing experience. Now that hardware is cheap enough, and apple has designed an elegant GUI, people will start adopting these auxiliary computing devices into their everyday computing life. This represents a new usage pattern and an entirely new market. Or at least as new as the pocket computing market was in comparison to laptops and desktops.

It is my prediction that once the iPad has been released and is in our grubby little hands, it will quickly become apparent that they are being used in a completely different fashion than are laptops (or netbooks). The biggest similarity will be web browsing, and it certainly is a biggie. But other than both being "computers", that is where the similarity ends. Usage will be so drastically different that the bafflingly frequent comparisons to netbooks will slowly dwindle away.

Only time will tell. Thanks for the engaging discussion. I can't wait to see how this all unfolds!



[Edit: All-in-one, rack mount, blade, and headless computers are also relatively common computing form factors. Hopefully leaving them out of the above discussion seems reasonable. For our purposes, laptops, desktops (including towers etc), pocket computers, and tablets seem like the appropriate categories to compare.]

No, that's fine. You asked, I answered. Of course, I could just be making all that up but I've suffered enough with slates that...meh...another slate wasn't all that interesting to me until the iPad. My motion tablet is now 3ish years old. The convertibles younger.


Yes, this is where we differ.

SOME folks do buy netbooks as cheap computers. And you are correct that Apple has zero interest in this market.

But some folks buy netbooks as something to do light web surfing, email and watch the occasional video or play a flash game. This is something (other than flash games) that the iPad will excel at and is a market that Apple is targetting.


I believe that all Apple laptops will become (convertible) tablets within 5 years as OS X will begin to incorporate multitouch direct manipulation into the core UI.

Thus I would not say that the iPad is targetted toward the tablet computing market as much as the auxilary computing market.


Slates are not as flexible but convertibles are. Arguably, with a good enough dock, even a slate is as flexible as laptops.


I agree that Apple has developed an elegant GUI and that the iPad will be successful at capturing this market. I just disagree that the market didn't already exist as a segment of the netbook market.


I dunno why you find it bafflling that some of us bought netbooks entirely to fill the role that the iPad is intended to fill. Netbooks just sucked at it...so other than as cheap laptops I think it will be netbooks that dwindle away rather than the comparisons.

Apple doesn't so much create a need for something as addresses a need so much better than everyone else. It didn't create the need for portable music. It just met that need better than any other device of the time with the iPod. It didn't create the need for smartphone functionality. It just met that need so much better than anyone else at the time.

Nicely and succinctly put!

And in so doing, everyone forgot what music players were like before iPod and what smartphones were like before iPhone. And going further back, everyone has forgotten what computers were like before the Mac-inspired WIMP-based GUI.

I hope people are beginning to understand what Apple's secret sauce is all about - no matter what the products in the market were before, Apple comes in and prunes away non-essential functionalities, adds in (converging) some new functionalities, and wraps it all in an altered user interface and product form (size, shape) that fits exactly with what the user should (and possibly wanted to) do with it (just where the puck was going).

They did it with Macintosh, Powerbook, iMac, iPod, iPhone, and now iPad.

I'm excited for launch day. Reserved mine for pickup at Apple, thinking it's going to be a smooth process... No activation means no unboxing, no bogged down iTunes servers, credit checks, etc.. And no one in line that hasn't reserved. Should be a fast line.

And this concludes my 6th grade book report on the iPad. Wait, what, it was due 6 months ago? Crap.