I love how people still take Microsoft's CGI doodles as proof of a potential product.
The Courier doesn't exist.
If MS can't steal the spotlight with an actual product, might as well try with fake ones.
Aside from the jab at MS, in all seriousness, Apple will release a tablet, it'll be like nothing else out there, the tablet market will be reinvented, and MS will release a poor copy two years later when the rest of the market has already moved way beyond it.
There is going to be a lot of new, very nice looking tablets showing up on the market, but the biggest advantage that Apple has and everyone already knows about, is Itunes. Itunes is what has made the Ipod and Iphone so successful. I'm sure that Itunes is going to be redesigned to accommodate the new device. All of the apps that are available to the Iphone will probably be available to the new device plus there will probably be new sectors in Itunes to accommodate the new increased demands for the former print media. The way magazines, blogs, newspapers, and books have been available is going to change drastically.
Itunes is going to be a "one source" place for people to get all of their digital media.
I just find it very drab and boring. Like, the "reference design" photos. What is up with that?
Thank God Apple makes the personal computing industry fun and exciting.
Agreed!
That Freescale photo, if a true mock-up makes the tablet look like it belongs in the toy section at the Dollar Store! Too Fisher-Price looking... apologies to Fisher-Price!
Apple caters to the home consumers, that's their market and they fight hard against any competition in that area. Their products are designed with a high lust factor and invoke impulsive purchases and even theft. Some people even buy Apple's hardware with no real need for the device itself, rather just to buy a new toy.
The iPods in their various forms and price points are high on the list of impulsive purchases. Many people bought them not even knowing it required a computer to use them. (reports are this holiday season iPods sold extremely well)
Apple cares less about the drab market, businesses like drab because it's serious and employees don't steal the hardware.
Businesses look at computer and software purchases with a critical eye for the bottom line, getting the most value for their money, looks are not really important, except in their creative departments. Businesses are in business to make money, not spend it on a whim if a device changes color or gets a new feature like emotional appealing consumer would.
One of the top ten lamest Apple critiques of the last decade (assuming of course you weren't being sarcastic.
Looking at your argument objectively: if businesses we're truly looking at getting the most value for their money as you say, then ALL businesses would be using Apple products, since they've been shown for years now to have the best TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) by far, saving many Mac-based companies hundreds of hours in productivity and thousands -if not millions- of dollars in IT costs. There are plenty of stories in the business world of companies who have switched to Apple technology and in the process saving boatloads of money in IT costs because of it.
Point is there are several REAL reasons many companies continue to use MS products, but that's slowly but surely starting to change.
There is going to be a lot of new, very nice looking tablets showing up on the market, but the biggest advantage that Apple has and everyone already knows about, is Itunes. Itunes is what has made the Ipod and Iphone so successful. I'm sure that Itunes is going to be redesigned to accommodate the new device. All of the apps that are available to the Iphone will probably be available to the new device plus there will probably be new sectors in Itunes to accommodate the new increased demands for the former print media. The way magazines, blogs, newspapers, and books have been available is going to change drastically.
Itunes is going to be a "one source" place for people to get all of their digital media.
Exactly, even if the competition makes a better tablet, the combination of iTunes/App Store with Apple's closed UI will make the iSlate/iTablet experience superior to the competition.
Of course the drawback will be that one has to "jailbreak" their iTablet to run software that Apple won't sell, like ad blockers or privacy and security features.
You either take what Apple gives you or your off on your own and fighting Apple and losing features like access to iTunes and approved apps.
This is the new world of DRM, not by software, but by exclusion and product design. This is another reason why I say BlueRay isn't coming to Mac's at all. Once one gets the hardware out on a massive scale, someone will find a way to bypass the DRM in software.
Its a fact that apple has a leg up on these other competitor markets, they have osx, and we all know how much Apple cares about aesthetics and functionality, unlike its competitors. We will see the obvious things, multiple slate devices hit the streets, but only Apple will walk away with the successful product done the right way. Besides, it took apple over 5 years to make this product, what did apples competitors do? they heard apple was putting out a slate mobile device, so they whipped something up in an R & D lab in 6 months to rush it out ahead of apple, good game.
I thought menus were gone for good when we went to touchscreens. Guess not, thanks to these photos of these competing tablets from those same PC makers? I have a feeling that the Apple tablet WON'T contain menus. indeed, Apple will be smart enough not to market it as a full computer like the Macbook, but rather a great computer for these who like to do basic things (email, web, photos) easily, and then some. Just don't expect it'll rival the Macbook in performance
Looking at your argument objectively: if businesses we're truly looking at getting the most value for their money as you say, then ALL businesses would be using Apple products, since they've been shown for years now to have the best TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) by far, saving many Mac-based companies hundreds of hours in productivity and thousands -if not millions- of dollars in IT costs. There are plenty of stories in the business world of companies who have switched to Apple technology and in the process saving boatloads of money in IT costs because of it.
Point is there are several REAL reasons many companies continue to use MS products, but that's slowly but surely starting to change.
Like your optimism but here are the facts.
Businesses who need to hire IT personal usually to fix other things besides Windows.
Even a company filled with just Mac's needs IT personnel, to maintain servers, data, backups, hardware maintenance, upgrades and hand holding/teaching.
It only takes a few minutes of actual labor to reinstall Windows if it's hosed. Take the machine into the shop and "ghost" the drive from a master and go do something else while that's working. Return the machine in a hour, it's that simple.
Another fact is that most people know and businesses use Windows and Office, schools teach it, the business world uses it. It's done, no possible penetration possible, even free OpenOffice hasn't made any real headway.
Another fact is OS X is tied to hardware, if your business needs matte screen laptops for the road warriors, Apple doesn't sell them except in a very few models. So choice of hardware is another problem, Toughbook with OS X? Dream on!
Apple doesn't give a rats ass, they want to sell flashy devices to home consumers and be absolutely no threat to Microsoft and the PC industry at all.
Forget all about OS X taking over the world, it's not going to happen. Apple is already introducing a new closed UI on consumer devices and that's going to be their market.
You want a real computer 10 years from now? It will be a Windows machine.
Sure a few companies can save money by going all Mac, but Apple is flaky and so is their hardware choices. Try getting video card upgrades for your Apple towers over the years and you'll see what I mean.
Also most Mac's are closed boxes, this makes it difficult to remove drive and service the device in house. The whole machine (and your companies private data) goes off to lala land to be fixed.
Since it's so easy to clone a Windows machine from a master, the benefits of going all Mac in business doesn't offset the drawbacks and limited hardware choices Apple provides.
Steve got that money from Gates to breath life into Apple and not to be a threat to his empire by going off into another direction. Apple Computer>Apple etc.
Sorry that's the truth and that comes from a 20 year Mac veteran.
If Freescale does indeed convince manufacturers to produce $200 tablets, I predict it might very well be Newton vs. Palm all over again.
The Newton (handwriting recognition problems aside) was *far* better than the Palm. But at $700, it just couldn't compete with the $200 Palm units.
BTW, I still own a Newton Message Pad 2100 and love the device. I was willing to pay nearly $1,000 for it and considered it a bargain. Granted, Apple has added a lot of people like me to its stable over the past 15 years, but it will be interesting to see if Apple's "Cool Factor" can overcome a $500 price difference in the tablet space. A lot of it may have to do with how atrocious the new tablets are and how quickly the other manufacturers can match Apple (and the smart phone copies suggest that Apple may have an advantage here).
BTW, to whomever claimed that Apple's sales pale in comparison to the alternatives, this is true if you compare Apple against everyone else, but when you compare Apple against any other single company (which is the more fair comparison), they're not doing too bad.
Sadly I know one of these people. I was all I could do not to laugh in the poor dudes face when he said: "I bought this iPod, where is all the music?"
He freaked out when I told him he had to install iTunes on his PC, buy the music and then put it on the iPod.
I wish I were joking.
I'm curious... why would you lie to a friend?
He didn't have to buy anything (which you know), and all devices come with enabling software. (If iTunes is so evil, why did Palm essentially destroy their reputation as 'capable' by leeching off of it until recently?)
Wow, you sound like you're complaining that, in the process, Apple may have let down the consumer! Surely that's not what you mean?
Why not? Their first obligation is to the stockholders. And in that regard, they have been doing very well lately. "Very well" means high margins. High margins, all other things being equal, means charging more for the same product. Charging more for the same product is not a pro-consumer activity.
Do you imagine that they are different from any other mega-corporation in this regard? Their goal is NOT to selflessly aid consumer well-being. Their goal is to extract as much profit from the consumer as possible, given their available capital, and to and distribute that profit to shareholders. While the two are not orthogonal, one is a means while the other is the end.
For example, Apple "let down the consumer" when they discontinued Firewire. In the process, they increased profits via new sales of USB peripherals. They had a choice, and they made it. And given any future similar choices, they will always decide to maximize total profits.
Indeed, Apple is ruthless in this regard, calculating that they have a fixed audience of folks who will accept this sort of tactic, and buy their products regardless of excess price and the occasional ass-fucking. Their strategy has been brilliantly successful, making lots of folks rich due to even more folks supplying them with high-margin sales. Apple is not a not-for-profit organization like say, the ISO.
Businesses who need to hire IT personal usually to fix other things besides Windows.
Even a company filled with just Mac's needs IT personnel, to maintain servers, data, backups, hardware maintenance, upgrades and hand holding/teaching.
It only takes a few minutes of actual labor to reinstall Windows if it's hosed. Take the machine into the shop and "ghost" the drive from a master and go do something else while that's working. Return the machine in a hour, it's that simple.
Another fact is that most people know and businesses use Windows and Office, schools teach it, the business world uses it. It's done, no possible penetration possible, even free OpenOffice hasn't made any real headway.
Another fact is OS X is tied to hardware, if your business needs matte screen laptops for the road warriors, Apple doesn't sell them except in a very few models. So choice of hardware is another problem, Toughbook with OS X? Dream on!
Apple doesn't give a rats ass, they want to sell flashy devices to home consumers and be absolutely no threat to Microsoft and the PC industry at all.
Forget all about OS X taking over the world, it's not going to happen. Apple is already introducing a new closed UI on consumer devices and that's going to be their market.
You want a real computer 10 years from now? It will be a Windows machine.
Comments
I love how people still take Microsoft's CGI doodles as proof of a potential product.
The Courier doesn't exist.
If MS can't steal the spotlight with an actual product, might as well try with fake ones.
Aside from the jab at MS, in all seriousness, Apple will release a tablet, it'll be like nothing else out there, the tablet market will be reinvented, and MS will release a poor copy two years later when the rest of the market has already moved way beyond it.
MS' strategy:
Itunes is going to be a "one source" place for people to get all of their digital media.
I just find it very drab and boring. Like, the "reference design" photos. What is up with that?
Thank God Apple makes the personal computing industry fun and exciting.
Agreed!
That Freescale photo, if a true mock-up makes the tablet look like it belongs in the toy section at the Dollar Store! Too Fisher-Price looking... apologies to Fisher-Price!
Different markets.
Apple caters to the home consumers, that's their market and they fight hard against any competition in that area. Their products are designed with a high lust factor and invoke impulsive purchases and even theft. Some people even buy Apple's hardware with no real need for the device itself, rather just to buy a new toy.
The iPods in their various forms and price points are high on the list of impulsive purchases. Many people bought them not even knowing it required a computer to use them. (reports are this holiday season iPods sold extremely well)
Apple cares less about the drab market, businesses like drab because it's serious and employees don't steal the hardware.
Businesses look at computer and software purchases with a critical eye for the bottom line, getting the most value for their money, looks are not really important, except in their creative departments. Businesses are in business to make money, not spend it on a whim if a device changes color or gets a new feature like emotional appealing consumer would.
One of the top ten lamest Apple critiques of the last decade (assuming of course you weren't being sarcastic.
Looking at your argument objectively: if businesses we're truly looking at getting the most value for their money as you say, then ALL businesses would be using Apple products, since they've been shown for years now to have the best TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) by far, saving many Mac-based companies hundreds of hours in productivity and thousands -if not millions- of dollars in IT costs. There are plenty of stories in the business world of companies who have switched to Apple technology and in the process saving boatloads of money in IT costs because of it.
Point is there are several REAL reasons many companies continue to use MS products, but that's slowly but surely starting to change.
There is going to be a lot of new, very nice looking tablets showing up on the market, but the biggest advantage that Apple has and everyone already knows about, is Itunes. Itunes is what has made the Ipod and Iphone so successful. I'm sure that Itunes is going to be redesigned to accommodate the new device. All of the apps that are available to the Iphone will probably be available to the new device plus there will probably be new sectors in Itunes to accommodate the new increased demands for the former print media. The way magazines, blogs, newspapers, and books have been available is going to change drastically.
Itunes is going to be a "one source" place for people to get all of their digital media.
Exactly, even if the competition makes a better tablet, the combination of iTunes/App Store with Apple's closed UI will make the iSlate/iTablet experience superior to the competition.
Of course the drawback will be that one has to "jailbreak" their iTablet to run software that Apple won't sell, like ad blockers or privacy and security features.
You either take what Apple gives you or your off on your own and fighting Apple and losing features like access to iTunes and approved apps.
This is the new world of DRM, not by software, but by exclusion and product design. This is another reason why I say BlueRay isn't coming to Mac's at all. Once one gets the hardware out on a massive scale, someone will find a way to bypass the DRM in software.
How do you compete against something that does not exist
By clapping with one hand, I suppose.......
Going out on a limb - It will not be called iSlate. In fact it won't be called "i" anything.
"iBook" would be ace though. It would fit right in between the iPod touch/iPhone and the macbook.
If not, "Newton" would be a very brave statement. A historic reference to what used to be a pioneering product.
iSlate doesn't turn me on. I can already hear the "I slate" jokes or the headlines "iSlate slated ?" in the printed media.
... If the competition can come in well under Apple on price, I will forgo a few bells and whistles to save a few hundred bucks..
That's exactly the point that the competition misses every time.
They think its all about 'bells and whistles' and pack in features instead of usability.
Its not Apple that mistakes a features list for design.
Looking at your argument objectively: if businesses we're truly looking at getting the most value for their money as you say, then ALL businesses would be using Apple products, since they've been shown for years now to have the best TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) by far, saving many Mac-based companies hundreds of hours in productivity and thousands -if not millions- of dollars in IT costs. There are plenty of stories in the business world of companies who have switched to Apple technology and in the process saving boatloads of money in IT costs because of it.
Point is there are several REAL reasons many companies continue to use MS products, but that's slowly but surely starting to change.
Like your optimism but here are the facts.
Businesses who need to hire IT personal usually to fix other things besides Windows.
Even a company filled with just Mac's needs IT personnel, to maintain servers, data, backups, hardware maintenance, upgrades and hand holding/teaching.
It only takes a few minutes of actual labor to reinstall Windows if it's hosed. Take the machine into the shop and "ghost" the drive from a master and go do something else while that's working. Return the machine in a hour, it's that simple.
Another fact is that most people know and businesses use Windows and Office, schools teach it, the business world uses it. It's done, no possible penetration possible, even free OpenOffice hasn't made any real headway.
Another fact is OS X is tied to hardware, if your business needs matte screen laptops for the road warriors, Apple doesn't sell them except in a very few models. So choice of hardware is another problem, Toughbook with OS X? Dream on!
Apple doesn't give a rats ass, they want to sell flashy devices to home consumers and be absolutely no threat to Microsoft and the PC industry at all.
Forget all about OS X taking over the world, it's not going to happen. Apple is already introducing a new closed UI on consumer devices and that's going to be their market.
You want a real computer 10 years from now? It will be a Windows machine.
Sure a few companies can save money by going all Mac, but Apple is flaky and so is their hardware choices. Try getting video card upgrades for your Apple towers over the years and you'll see what I mean.
Also most Mac's are closed boxes, this makes it difficult to remove drive and service the device in house. The whole machine (and your companies private data) goes off to lala land to be fixed.
Since it's so easy to clone a Windows machine from a master, the benefits of going all Mac in business doesn't offset the drawbacks and limited hardware choices Apple provides.
Steve got that money from Gates to breath life into Apple and not to be a threat to his empire by going off into another direction. Apple Computer>Apple etc.
Sorry that's the truth and that comes from a 20 year Mac veteran.
The Newton (handwriting recognition problems aside) was *far* better than the Palm. But at $700, it just couldn't compete with the $200 Palm units.
BTW, I still own a Newton Message Pad 2100 and love the device. I was willing to pay nearly $1,000 for it and considered it a bargain. Granted, Apple has added a lot of people like me to its stable over the past 15 years, but it will be interesting to see if Apple's "Cool Factor" can overcome a $500 price difference in the tablet space. A lot of it may have to do with how atrocious the new tablets are and how quickly the other manufacturers can match Apple (and the smart phone copies suggest that Apple may have an advantage here).
BTW, to whomever claimed that Apple's sales pale in comparison to the alternatives, this is true if you compare Apple against everyone else, but when you compare Apple against any other single company (which is the more fair comparison), they're not doing too bad.
Sadly I know one of these people. I was all I could do not to laugh in the poor dudes face when he said: "I bought this iPod, where is all the music?"
He freaked out when I told him he had to install iTunes on his PC, buy the music and then put it on the iPod.
I wish I were joking.
I'm curious... why would you lie to a friend?
He didn't have to buy anything (which you know), and all devices come with enabling software. (If iTunes is so evil, why did Palm essentially destroy their reputation as 'capable' by leeching off of it until recently?)
the tMac..
The "T"mernator!
No?! How about "Macntouch" instead of Macintosh!
Wow, you sound like you're complaining that, in the process, Apple may have let down the consumer! Surely that's not what you mean?
Why not? Their first obligation is to the stockholders. And in that regard, they have been doing very well lately. "Very well" means high margins. High margins, all other things being equal, means charging more for the same product. Charging more for the same product is not a pro-consumer activity.
Do you imagine that they are different from any other mega-corporation in this regard? Their goal is NOT to selflessly aid consumer well-being. Their goal is to extract as much profit from the consumer as possible, given their available capital, and to and distribute that profit to shareholders. While the two are not orthogonal, one is a means while the other is the end.
For example, Apple "let down the consumer" when they discontinued Firewire. In the process, they increased profits via new sales of USB peripherals. They had a choice, and they made it. And given any future similar choices, they will always decide to maximize total profits.
Indeed, Apple is ruthless in this regard, calculating that they have a fixed audience of folks who will accept this sort of tactic, and buy their products regardless of excess price and the occasional ass-fucking. Their strategy has been brilliantly successful, making lots of folks rich due to even more folks supplying them with high-margin sales. Apple is not a not-for-profit organization like say, the ISO.
Going out on a limb - It will not be called iSlate. In fact it won't be called "i" anything.
Well, I've said it before, but I'l say it again... I dunno whats wrong with the iBook name they already have. Seems the most sensible name to me.
Like your optimism but here are the facts.
Businesses who need to hire IT personal usually to fix other things besides Windows.
Even a company filled with just Mac's needs IT personnel, to maintain servers, data, backups, hardware maintenance, upgrades and hand holding/teaching.
It only takes a few minutes of actual labor to reinstall Windows if it's hosed. Take the machine into the shop and "ghost" the drive from a master and go do something else while that's working. Return the machine in a hour, it's that simple.
Another fact is that most people know and businesses use Windows and Office, schools teach it, the business world uses it. It's done, no possible penetration possible, even free OpenOffice hasn't made any real headway.
Another fact is OS X is tied to hardware, if your business needs matte screen laptops for the road warriors, Apple doesn't sell them except in a very few models. So choice of hardware is another problem, Toughbook with OS X? Dream on!
Apple doesn't give a rats ass, they want to sell flashy devices to home consumers and be absolutely no threat to Microsoft and the PC industry at all.
Forget all about OS X taking over the world, it's not going to happen. Apple is already introducing a new closed UI on consumer devices and that's going to be their market.
You want a real computer 10 years from now? It will be a Windows machine.
Utter crap, as per usual...
I love how people still take Microsoft's CGI doodles as proof of a potential product.
The Courier doesn't exist.
I know...
Can't count the times I've seen the tech 'press' refer to the "recently 'announced' MS Courier."
Classic MS FUD, and the press falls for it every time. all the way back to the Dr DOS assassination.