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Who said anything about 100?

I said cheaper. I'm thinking 200-300.

So your argument doesn't hold up. You said:

But it hasn't. The HP Touchpad has demonstrated that there's a huge market for a $500 tablet sold for $100. Just like there's a huge market for anything sold way below market value. There is absolutely zero indication that there is a huge market for cheap tablets that are built to that cheap price. Big difference.

Edited 2011-08-22 23:15 UTC

I see advertising for a $200 tabled on OSNews. Buy one and try it.

I have a g-Slate here for development. I don't actually know what it costs (because I got it for free at Google event) but it's really not in the same class as an iPad 2.

The hardware is reasonable if a bit cheap feeling (also I don't like the form factor but that could be me) and the stereoscopic cameras are cool (and take much better stills then my iPad 2) but the software is really immature.

I mean even YouTube, which is a Google app, is very unstable, and there are no apps to speak of that look even half decent on the thing.

Possibly, when the OS and the apps mature and there are more apps in the Market then Android on a tablet will be competitive but we're not there yet and pricing is not the issue.

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

Possible, but highly unlikely. To create this kind of stir (a $400-$500 device for $100) a company would be losing quite a lot of money on every device. So first they need deep pockets. Then they need to make that money back, in an environment of $1 apps.. After having my iPhone for a year I've spent maybe $100-$150 on apps for it and I have quite a lot compared to most people. Then consider that this kind of hardware you will likely want to get a newer model in 2-3 years... I don't think it would be profitable.



I doubt there will be many new apps. The platform is still dead. Hard to justify starting development now for a dead platform. That's a very short time window to make back your development costs, when you know all the users of the platform you will ever have are already out there. Not sure how many touchpads there are in total now but it's not huge.

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

10-20 years? More like 2-3 years.

You can get a $100 tablet today. In 10 or 20 years time you'll still be able to buy a $100 tablet, and a $500 tablet which will be better (and more magical).

Anyway this means nothing.

The iPhone is the most popular smart phone in the US ( actually it holds both the #1 and #2 spots, it's that magical ;-) but it only has 20% of the US market after 4 years on the market.

The iPod has been around for 10 years, it still commands 65% of the music player market.

Both are subject to the same economic impact on technology.

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