Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 22nd Aug 2011 21:19 UTC
Last week, HP killed its webOS devices unit. Over the weekend, the company slashed the prices on the TouchPad. The result? The TouchPad sold out completely in a matter of hours. This confirms what I've been hearing from friends and family: "I'd love a tablet, but I'm not paying laptop money for one."
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Member since:2005-09-21
"The future of the tablet market is companies rushing to sell top notch hardware at a huge loss.
No, the future of the tablet market is cheaper tablets. "
Nope. You can already get tablets for close to $100, and the realities of hardware costs means they are total crap. Resistive touch screens, completely out of date processors, insufficient ram, and a hastily slapped on Android that's likely out of date and buggy.
You're dreaming if you think we're ever going to get a tablet that can compete with iPad/Xoom/Galaxy class products for $100.
Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2006-05-09
Why not?
Think on a company promoting its new ecosystem; the company gives away high-end devices for free (or almost free) and profits by the whole ecosystem (apps, ad-based free apps, accesories, etc.).
In fact, because of what happened this weekend with webOS, the platform will be alive for a long long time and a lot of developers (someones enthusiastic, other ones wishing earn money) will continue writing apps for it.
Edited 2011-08-22 23:21 UTC
Member since:2010-03-08
Well, I say yes. Early PCs costed thousands of $, modern ones cost a few hundreds. Price has dropped by an order of magnitude before stabilizing. Same drop for cellphones and DAPs. And there's nothing special about tablet hardware (save for being magical, of course). So in 10 or 20 years, $100 or less capacitive tablets that do *much* more than the current ones should be commonplace.
If tablets follow the competitive evolution of other digital hardware, that is. They could also fall under the control of a monopoly and keep their high price as any price drop is turned into profit. Just like everyone enjoys Windows' pricing today.
Edited 2011-08-23 03:59 UTC
RE[2]: No, it isn't.
by Joy_Division_Lives! on Tue 23rd Aug 2011 14:33
in reply to "RE: No, it isn't."
Member since:2011-07-29
The future of the tablet market is companies rushing to sell top notch hardware at a huge loss....
No, the future of the tablet market is cheaper tablets.
No, the future of the tablet market is cheaper tablets.
The only reason that people are buying the Touchpad is that they are getting a tablet that cost $324.00 to manufacture at $99.00.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal-tech/tablets/231001092
Would these same people buy a tablet whose parts and quality were around $99.00? And...I doubt manufacturers are willing to take a $225.00 + loss per unit on their tablets.
If I was Samsung, RIM or any other tablet manufacturer (Apple excluded, of course), this would depress the hell out of me. It's the "champagne tastes, beer wallet" syndrome at play. In addition, HP just impacted their sales for this Q, at the very least.
There is no tablet market...just an iPad market.
Edited 2011-08-23 14:37 UTC
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 13:38 UTC
"The Verge has learned that HTC's Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, left the company last week. Kodera was responsible for HTC's overall product strategy, which makes the departure especially notable on the heels of the global launch of the make-or-break One. It's not just Kodera. In the past three-odd months, HTC has lost a number of employees in rapid succession." I really hope HTC pulls it together.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 13:30 UTC, submitted by JRepin
"It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian 'sid' at the time of the Debian 'wheezy' release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release." Important note: 75% of Debian packages are supported bu Debian GNU/Hurd. Impressive.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 22:06 UTC
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:45 UTC
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 15:53 UTC
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.More News »
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Member since:
2005-06-29
No, the future of the tablet market is cheaper tablets.