Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 28th Jan 2010 18:09 UTC
Yes, yes, I apologise. After Kroc's story earlier today, and together with this one, we now have three stories in a row on the 
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Member since:2006-12-28
You have a very good point there. For us techies, such a device seems almost anathema considering how fast hardware and operating systems have advanced but for the average home user, a device like this is perfect.
My girlfriend has a user account on my custom built PC and I can tell you, the PC is a screamer. The only thing she uses her account for is web browsing (including email and watching TV shows), the odd text document or spread sheet and the odd bit of either skype or IM. While watching her computer usage habits, she would never use more than about 10% of systems resources and the biggest slice of that %10 is taken up by flash.
A device like the iPad (how I hate that name!) would be exceptionally practical for her. Almost all of her data is stored on the net (I refuse to say cloud ;-) so local storage needs are kept to a minimum. She uses one application at a time and doesn't require four gigs of ram or an SLi rig as the only games she ever plays are card games like solitaire.
I do think there is a market for low powered tablets and if anybody can market the concept, surely it's Apple.
Member since:2006-02-05
Its not only power though, its what the machine is capable of, and all the things that are available on the internet.
At home, I use my computer to
- read industry news
- play games
- program
- record and edit music
- watch tv/movies
- manage my various devices (iphone/ipod/e-reader)
- play around with virtualized operating systems
- experiment with apps and platforms I am not familiar with
My wife uses her computer to
- facebook
- youtube
- look at cute animal pictures
- IM
- watch tv/movies
Thats it. Thats what the iPad does (yeah, the name sucks), it does it well, it does it easily, and it does it with style. Not only that, but throw in 3g, and you don't even have to worry about ISPs or routers or anything like that. And finally, it is at a price comparable to a laptop.
I don't see how this cannot be huge. about 90% of tech bloggers seem to completely miss the point, but that shows more how out of touch they are then anything else (remember this? http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=500) What people here need to realize is that they are a niche audience, things that are popular with them will probably never be mainstream in any significant way.
Edited 2010-01-29 15:31 UTC
Member since:2006-12-15
slates are the future. 99.9% of people barely use their general purpose computer for all the things it can do. This is a product specifically aimed at internet / media consumption, social networking, and casual games. Guess what most of the home PC users do?
I completely disagree that the market doesn't exist, it just isn't tapped yet. OSNews readers are not the intended audience, anyone who would be interested in this would be the fringe of what they are targeting.
I completely disagree that the market doesn't exist, it just isn't tapped yet. OSNews readers are not the intended audience, anyone who would be interested in this would be the fringe of what they are targeting.
This device is either going to make complete sense to you or you're going to scratch your head and wonder why it could possibly be so endearing to people.
People got a paradigm changer in the iPad and are so stuck on it not being a super multi-task render farm in their hand they don't even realize it.
Your computer is for work. The iPad is for life.
Member since:2007-03-26
slates are the future. 99.9% of people barely use their general purpose computer for all the things it can do.
So the future is less capable devices at inflated prices?!?
This is a product specifically aimed at internet / media consumption, social networking, and casual games. Guess what most of the home PC users do?
At a guess: they Buy cheap systems to do this because they don't want to spend a lot of money on something they only casually use?
Price matters to the average home PC user. Price matters a lot.
I completely disagree that the market doesn't exist, it just isn't tapped yet.
It has been tapped. Why do you think netbooks are so popular?
OSNews readers are not the intended audience, anyone who would be interested in this would be the fringe of what they are targeting.
I think Google have the right idea with ChromeOS
Asus had the right idea with netbook hardware.
But Apple have completely lost sight of reality with the Ipad.
Thus I think the Ipad's biggest market is really just gadget junkies with cash to burn.
Member since:2006-02-05
So the future is less capable devices at inflated prices?!?
I was pretty shocked actually. Conductive screens are not cheap, and 500$ comes way under what I would expect something like this to cost.
At a guess: they Buy cheap systems to do this because they don't want to spend a lot of money on something they only casually use?
Price matters to the average home PC user. Price matters a lot.
Price matters to the average home PC user. Price matters a lot.
Another 100$ for a machine with a great OS that "just works" and a really great touch screen isn't exactly the end of the world.
It has been tapped. Why do you think netbooks are so popular?
Netbooks are still using inappropriate operating systems for an "appliance" machine. Things are getting better (http://www.jolicloud.com/), but that is basically a cheap copy of the iPhone OS anyways.
I think Google have the right idea with ChromeOS
Asus had the right idea with netbook hardware.
But Apple have completely lost sight of reality with the Ipad.
Asus had the right idea with netbook hardware.
But Apple have completely lost sight of reality with the Ipad.
Chrome OS does not cover things like watching movies or listening to / downloading music, because it is designed deliberately with no persistant storage in mind.
Thus I think the Ipad's biggest market is really just gadget junkies with cash to burn.
We'll see. Like I quoted before, http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=500. We have been through all this before; apple releases a consumer product, techies dont get it and think it is over priced and gimmicky, and it completely dominates the market, cause the market is not made up of techies.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Google added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 13:17 UTC
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 12:06 UTC
"According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/15/13 23:03 UTC
"During its Keynote today, Google announced new features coming to its flagship search function - you know, that thing we all started using Google for. VP Amit Singhal spent some time discussing what Google's search functionality will eventually morph into. Google's strategy is summarized by three words: answer, converse, and anticipate. Singhal explained that many of the pieces of these upcoming changes can already be seen in products that Google has recently introduced - namely, Google Knowledge Graph and Google Now, with perhaps a splash of Google Glass, too." I hold on to my hat every time Google changes Search. It's such a vital product in my daily life.More News »
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Member since:
2006-02-05
slates are the future. 99.9% of people barely use their general purpose computer for all the things it can do. This is a product specifically aimed at internet / media consumption, social networking, and casual games. Guess what most of the home PC users do?
I completely disagree that the market doesn't exist, it just isn't tapped yet. OSNews readers are not the intended audience, anyone who would be interested in this would be the fringe of what they are targeting.