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."
Thread beginning with comment 486399
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE[6]: Interesting experiment - "pleasent"
by henrikmk on Tue 23rd Aug 2011 09:54
in reply to "RE[5]: Interesting experiment - "pleasent""
Member since:2005-07-10
I appreciate the point you're making there, the iPad is certainly a more pleasant experience for casual browsing and what not, but while a $450 laptop is bound to struggle with large applications, how does your iPad 2 handle Microsoft Office? Or any PC game from a few years ago? A $450 laptop will be clunky for many tasks, but at least it can *do* them, and that makes it a more useful device in many situations.
I find it interesting how the tablet is continually compared to a laptop. Why would you run MS Office on an iPad? Why would you run apps or games that require touch and accelerometer on a laptop? You might as well compare the laptop to a similarly priced game console. Do people complain that MS Office doesn't run on an XBox and that you can't typeset large documents with a gamepad?
With regards to games, the iPad is exactly in the same situation as any game console in that the hardware doesn't change very often. This brings a certain guarantee to the experience for anyone using the device and I don't have to be bothered with "my laptop is too slow for my expensively purchased app/game" complaints.
You know that you will get a much more consistent experience with an iPad than a similarly priced laptop in the same way that games for an XBox are very likely to run on your XBox. Whether you find that experience too restrictive or can be happy with it is another matter.
RE[7]: Interesting experiment - comparisons
by jabbotts on Tue 23rd Aug 2011 11:58
in reply to "RE[6]: Interesting experiment - "pleasent""
Member since:2007-09-06
I'd agree that the different form factors are better suited to different use cases. Personally, I'd still like to explore the true potential in the hardware rather than have it limited by some manufacturer's vision of what I want to run and what interface I want to control it.
In this specific thread, the comparisons are in reponse to the original claim that anything done on a tablet chassis (specifically; ipad) will be a more pleasent experience than a clamshell chassis. The original claimant sais; "they do the same and this one is better always." The respondents; "a tablet is good for this type of use, a clamshell is good for this type of use."
RE[7]: Interesting experiment - "pleasent"
by Soulbender on Tue 23rd Aug 2011 16:56
in reply to "RE[6]: Interesting experiment - "pleasent""
Member since:2005-08-18
News
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.
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
Appfour 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.More News »
Sponsored Links
Member since:
2011-01-14
I appreciate the point you're making there, the iPad is certainly a more pleasant experience for casual browsing and what not, but while a $450 laptop is bound to struggle with large applications, how does your iPad 2 handle Microsoft Office? Or any PC game from a few years ago? A $450 laptop will be clunky for many tasks, but at least it can *do* them, and that makes it a more useful device in many situations.