Best Buy Tells HP to Take Back Its TouchPads
Linked by David Adams on Wed 17th Aug 2011 17:46 UTC
PDAs, Cellphones, Wireless Ars Technica is reporting that US Retailer Best Buy has been able to sell less than 10% of the TouchPad tablets that it ordered from HP, and now wants HP to take them back. Similarly, deal-a-day site Woot offered TouchPads at a very aggressive price, and only managed to sell 612 of them. This is for a site that often sells out goofy tech widgets in hours. When the TouchPad was gearing up for release, there seemed to be a fair amount of interest among geeks. Is it just that it hasn't resonated the same way with the general public, or have people just been disappointed once they've put their hands on one?
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RE[7]: Comment by kovacm
by leos on Thu 18th Aug 2011 01:20 UTC in reply to "RE[6]: Comment by kovacm"
leos
Member since:
2005-09-21

The iPad is nothing more than a large-screen iPod Touch. All the same limitations are in place, making it really nothing more than a glorified portable-DVD player. Perhaps iOS 5 will change things, but we'll see.

Until Apple makes it easy to get files onto/off the damned thing, they'll remain mostly consumption devices.


Bingo. You think this is a disadvantage. It isn't. In fact I would say it is precisely why the iPad has been so incredibly successful. We do a staggering amount of content consumption, especially in our free time. We do so much that it really does deserve a dedicated device tuned just for this purpose.

Firstly, we already have plenty of devices that create content. Our desktops and laptops in all their forms are optimized for creating content. And we pay the price for that.

To create content efficiently we need high resolution screens, we need full keyboards, we need mice, we need hundreds of buttons and controls on screen, we need large hard drives, we need blazingly fast processors.
You can try to fit all those things into a tablet, and many companies have tried, but you will fail miserably (and they have). The resulting device might be capable of creating content (like the old Microsoft tablet PCs) but it will be so hopeless at consuming content that no one will want it.

Sure, there's over 100,000 "apps" for iOS, how many of those are actual applications for creating and modifying files? Compared to how many are games and just links to websites?


Again, a focus on content consumption is not a bad thing when that is the majority of what people do.

Android tablets don't have these limitations. Linux tablets don't have these limitations.


Of course they do! Can you run a full office suite on your Android tablet? Can you edit HD videos? Can you do CAD? Can you program, design, paint, hook up all your peripherals?
No. Android tablets don't do even a fraction of what you can do on a regular laptop.

Windows tables don't even have these limitations (although they have plenty of others).


Windows tablets have a full OS, so in theory they can at least run full featured applications, but at the expense of usable touch interaction.

The point is not to make a laptop replacement, the point is to focus on one thing, and do it well. Apple is good at that. Android is getting better, but the focus needs to be sharper (which will alienate some of the very users it first attracted).

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