
The Next Six Months - thushan
http://daringfireball.net/2011/02/the_next_six_months
======
kenjackson
Microsoft AND Intel being effectively missing from the tablet race is
staggering. And there are a few reasons why its staggering:

1) Both have known it was coming, maybe longer than anyone else. But got the
core requirements all wrong.

2) No one really seems to care.

3) Related to (2), there is no belief that they have anything up their sleeve.

4) Their existing ecosystem, probably a billion units strong, doesn't seem to
help their situation at all.

5) Both CEOs seem firmly in place still.

While Intel and MS will make money hand over first for years to come, it does
appear to be the end of the consumer market for these two companies. Their
focus will be business class computers, workstations, and servers.

~~~
sofuture
I'm going to -4 on this, but: it _absolutely still remains to be seen whether
or not tablets are worth a damn_.

Seriously, people play shitty games on them, and I guess read ebooks (though I
see vastly more Kindles on the subway, than iPads). I do not, at all see a
compelling product yet, I see a trendy gadget that early adopters and trend
followers have purchased. Sure there's great lip service to how revolutionary
this concept is, but _that's just talk_.

I'm not saying that the iPad isn't the second coming of Christ. I am saying
that it's not proven itself to be that just quite yet. I don't think the PC is
(even close) to dead.

~~~
arohner
I use my iPad nearly every day. It's a better experience than my laptop (which
I do use literally every day) in several areas:

* reading in bed

* reading long PDFs. This is my primary "work purpose". I read a lot of machine learning books and journal articles in PDF form.

* quick checking of email, when you don't want to sit down for a while

* looking up recipes while cooking

* social media sharing: when friends are over, showing them a new video on youtube, etc

~~~
zzleeper
Would you prefer reading the articles in paper or in the ipad? (I'm
considering switching from paper to ipad)

Thanks!

~~~
joeyo
I'm watching this space very, very closely (i.e. tablets specifically for
reading PDFs of articles). There are a lot of options but none are quite
perfect:

    
    
      * iPad
        Pros:
        - Color screen
        - Can zoom to exact size desired
        - Multi-touch
        - Papers.app (easy sync/organization for PDFs)
        Cons: 
        - Not e-ink
        - Battery life
        - Not as light/thin as Kindle
    
      * Kindle 3
        Pros:
        - E-ink
        - Amazing battery life
        Cons: 
        - Zoom is limited to a couple sizes
        - No touch screen
        - No expansion card & limited to ~3GB internal
        - No real way to organize large number of PDFs
    
      * Kindle DX
        Pros: 
        - Larger screen means PDFs are sized just about right without zoom
        - Same pros as K3
        Cons: 
        - Larger screen means it's a bit too awkward to hold with one hand
        - A bit on the heavy side
        - Same cons as K3
    

In my opinion the perfect PDF reader tablet would have a (color) e-ink display
with multi-touch for scrolling and an arbitrary zoom. Kindle 4 maybe?

~~~
gamble
I'm not sure e-ink is an asset in a PDF reader. I use my iPad for a lot of
technical papers and books. It's much faster than an e-ink display would be,
and the page turning lag is still annoying. E-ink would be insufferable.

~~~
thomas11
My Kindle 3 turns PDF pages about as fast as I could turn a page in a book or
a stapled article printout. Not lightning fast, but good enough for me.

~~~
ghshephard
I have a k1, k2, k3 and iPad. In fact, I brought the k2 and k3 and iPad on a
vacation with me to Kauai. Don't try and read complex PDFs on a kindle. I have
several dozen downloaded onto my iPad (dropbox+goodreader make this trivial) -
the kindle is not the right tool for flipping through PDFs. I have logged
about 40 hours reading on the kindles in five days - (mostly on the beach, a
little at coffeeshops) - but linear text reading (novels) is really their
strong suit. I don't think I've ever run into anybody that tried to use them
for technical/reference/diagrams and was happy with the results. Too slow, no
easy way to hop around in the doc.

The iPad, on the other hand, is almost perfect for this. The screen needs to
be higher resolution, easier to read in sun (though a matte screen protector
helps a lot) and I'll be perfectly content.

As it is, I have not printed a single 8 1/2x11" printout in six+ months - the
iPad has let me go almost 100% paperless. (11x17 printouts of network diagrams
still useful in meetings)

~~~
bigfudge
What's the consensus on the best PDF reader for iPad? Is goodreader 'it'?

~~~
evgen
Yes, it is really all you need. Recent updates have enabled annotation and
other nice features and it was one of the first apps to jump on the dropbox
bandwagon so it is easy to keep papers in sync on the device and across
platforms.

------
pkulak
"Apple was willing to announce it months in advance because they had no
competition..."

What? They announce the first version of a product early because, being the
first, it can't stop people from buying the previous version. If they
announced the new iPad now, iPad 1 sales would tank.

~~~
jleyank
The Osborne effect. I would think Apple and all other current/successful tech
companies have this in mind re: their products - especially given the rapid
turnover.

~~~
eftpotrm
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect#The_Osborne_Myth>

------
naner
I don't think the market for these things is huge as he suggests. Why would
anyone buy a non-Apple touch or tablet device? I can see the argument for
smart phones from different vendors, but not for these causal computing touch
devices.

And this is coming from someone who has never paid a cent to Apple. I haven't
drank the kool-aid but none of these touch devices appear to really be
competing with Apple. They look like they are struggling to catch-up. These
devices always have some combination of a bigger price tag, buggy interfaces,
crappier specs, and/or way less software available.

I'd rather see these other vendors go a completely different direction.
Microsoft releasing an iPad clone this late in the game would just be
embarrassing. The Kinect was a good response to the Wii. The Playstation Move
was not. (I'm making assumptions here since I'm not a gamer. I have no idea
whether the Move/Kinect are successful or not.)

~~~
YuriNiyazov
I am curious what kind of tech stuff you do spend money on. Not into apple,
and yet not a gamer, which is one of the few holdouts

~~~
sofuture
Are you serious? You think the choice is between Apple or gamer?

Hi my name is Tux.... I don't make Steve Jobs rich(er) and I'm the greatest
developer operating system ever made.

~~~
YuriNiyazov
Yes, I am aware of Tux. I said "spend money on".

------
pclark
I wrote an entire comment about how great it is for Apple to work in secret
and release and "blitzkrieg" the competition. But it turns out Apple announced
their iPhone ~Jan 2007 and it shipped ~June 2007.

So why did HP announce their entire 2011/2012 line up and direction of
products without a price and or release date?

I think that this means HP has stake holders breathing down their neck, and
they had to publicly show their hand asap. Thoughts?

~~~
ReadyNSet
only reason Apple announced six months in advance was the the FCC approval
process, being public the iPhone would've been out in any case whether Apple
announced or not.

~~~
jbrennan
I don't think that's true. It might have been what they _said_ , but it's
February now and we haven't seen any glimpses of iPhone 5 (or whatever) from
the FCC, and I'd be willing to bet it launches less than six months from now.

~~~
allenbrunson
"Jobs unveiled the iPhone to the public on January 9, 2007 at Macworld 2007.
Apple was required to file for operating permits with the FCC, but since such
filings are made available to the public, the announcement came months before
the iPhone had received approval."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone>

I remember hearing this story at the time, as well.

For all we know, the rules could be different for iPhone 5, since it is an
update of an existing product, rather than a new one.

~~~
seabee
Given we've already had a few different iPhones, if the rules are different
shouldn't we know already?

------
alanfalcon
If Apple does have two separate iPad releases in 2011, I definitely think the
first announcement will replace the current iPad and the next announcement
will be a product that augments the iPad line, an HD or Pro model, as Gruber
predicts. But I sincerely doubt there will be two different iPad announcements
this calendar year.

Ever since Gruber's initial review of the iPad, I've been intrigued by the
possibility of a Pro model with more RAM and possibly some extra horsepower.
Again, it doesn't seem like Apple's plan though.

~~~
loire280
While better specs certainly never hurt, I've never heard any iPad users
complain processing power or RAM. iOS does memory management seamlessly (if I
didn't understand how it worked, I probably wouldn't even notice it) and the
interface is notably responsive.

I'm sure the new version will have a spec bump. Whatever that ends up meaning
(dual core, faster, more RAM), it will continue to be plenty.

~~~
wiredfool
I'll complain.

The ipad is a second class browsing experience not because of the lack of
flash, but the lack of cache. It's just not anywhere near as snappy reading as
a Real Computer(tm) because it's constantly reloading stuff that's been
purged.

My usual style of reading (on the desktop) is to pop open a pile of stuff in
tabs, then batch read through. Can't do that on the iPad.

Safari could also use a few more cycles to make it seem that much snappier.
While it feels like magic, and I would have killed for its browsing
performance a few years back, it just doesn't feel quite there yet.

Also, just in the last month or so, I've noticed some sort of background task
that causes stuttering in some places. (mainly in angry birds). For the first
time, I've noticed that I needed to restart it. Its' a small thing, but it's
also the first time I've had to resort to computer troubleshooting on it.

~~~
schultzor
FWIW, iCab/Terra help with this style of browsing a little bit. They don't
seem to cache as much and do a better job of handling more background tabs
with things waiting to be read.

~~~
maguay
I'm trying Terra right now ... Hadn't heard of it yet, so thanks! I just
posted a question to see what everyone's favorite iPad browser is and why -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2200302>, hopefully we'll get some good
discussion there about alternate browsers. I've considered buying iCab; what
are your thoughts on it versus Terra?

------
cletus
I _mostly_ agree with Gruber but disagree on a couple of major points:

1\. Releasing the iPad in September makes no sense simply because it was such
a massive hit in the holiday season. Generally speaking, you want to spread
out your demand as much as possible. It took 2 months to get the previous iPad
from the US to the first round of international markets and another 3-4 months
to do the full round. You can only produce so many. Actually not being able to
buy one because demand is so high is not Apple's style;

2\. I don't see Apple releasing a new version 6 months after the previous,
particularly when, in all likelihood, the iPad 2 won't have been in some
markets for more than a month or two.

As far as conflicting reports on parts and specs, that's nothing new. Just
like there were reports of a CDMA iPhone YEARS before there was one. There are
two reasons for this:

1\. Apple produces far more prototypes than they release (eg the CDMA iPhone
was tested for about a year before release); and

2\. People just make stuff up for page views.

I also fully agree with Gruber on a rear-facing camera making very little
sense on a device that large.

~~~
allwein
>I also fully agree with Gruber on a rear-facing camera making very little
sense on a device that large.

A rear-facing camera makes little sense if you imagine the use is for people
to walk around taking pictures like they would with a phone. However, when you
start imagining uses like Augmented Reality or other situations where you're
interacting with real world artifacts, then it makes a little more sense.

------
gojomo
Two iPads in one year is possible, and Gruber has better Apple-watching-skills
than most. But I also think Apple is long overdue for a true "AppleTV", an
all-in-one product _with big screen_ , deeply integrated with everything else
iOS/iTunes. That would also fit well with a late-in-year but in-time-for-
Christmas release.

~~~
tomkarlo
It's the wrong time in the upgrade cycle for home TVs to do that - everyone
just bought a new flatscreen LCD HDTV during the past two years and sales are
flat in that sector. Introducing an AppleTV with screen would be an uphill
battle to convince people to replace a device they're still pretty happy with
(and still paying off.)

~~~
mgkimsal
"everyone" didn't. I know a number of holdouts (myself included) who are still
waiting. When the next big thing comes along, another portion of us will take
the plunge.

~~~
jerf
Sure, but an increasingly small portion. And quite a few of you won't until
the next big thing, and so on for quite a while; there will be people without
a flatscreen in their residence in 2020 but I wouldn't recommend building a
business on convincing them to change their mind. No, the situation in 2011
isn't like that, obviously; this is a rhetorical point made for seeing the
situation I'm describing in a time when it is perfectly clear. Today isn't to
that extreme, the point is that already that market has peaked.

Besides, an Apple TV that doesn't require HD, which would not be that much
more effort, would also work for anyone with a TV, so it really doesn't make
sense to me to only make this an integrated product.

------
Roritharr
I dont get why everybody is falling for the "end of pc era" hype that is
surrounding tablets and smartphones.

Can someone explain to me why the ability to browse the web from the couch
without sufficient text-entry possibilities is going to challenge the amount
of pc's in a world where textentry is our main method of searching, sorting
and creating data. Honestly, this is not a rhetorical question, i feel i'm
missing some part of the picture here.

~~~
imsky
It's the "end of PCs" for the mainstream market, which was overrun with them
for the last 10 years. Now the mobile technology is good enough that bulky
desktops are going to be used primarily by professionals. You're not going to
edit video/render 3D on the iPad 2, but for 90% of the population that just
needs to check their email, it's good enough.

~~~
Roritharr
I think that idea is overblown, simply because "Check their E-Mails" means
someone has to write e-mails worth checking...

~~~
ugh
Input really is not that terrible. It’s disingenuous to act as though tablets
don’t allow you to enter text.

------
maguay
One interesting thing to see will be whether newer tablets with webOS,
Android, or anything else will get advanced, full-sized tablet apps like
Apple's iWork apps. The iWork apps definitely are some of the very best on
iPad, and it wouldn't be nearly as useful of a device without them. Docs to Go
and QuickOffice are a joke in comparison (except each of them are much better
at file sync and orginization...). It's the more advanced apps like these,
though, that will really enable tablets to take over traditional PCs.

------
lshepstone
It's going to be pretty interesting watching this play out. But Apple and
Android have an unfair advantage right now...apps, and lots of them. If you've
got an iOS or Android phone and already own some apps the other guys are going
to have to ship something amazing or dirt cheap to get your attention.

As great as the new HP stuff looks, I wouldn't like to be HP, RIM (or Nokia
and their potential Meego tablet) right now...tough road ahead building app
ecosystem momentum. Who cares if the tablet is slightly better when I can't
get my favourite apps.

I find it greatly amusing the roles are reversed from back when Apple
struggled on the desktop due to lack of apps while microsoft dominated. My how
times change in 10 years. At least this time we might have more than one
platform that dominated 90% which is good for everyone.

~~~
megablast
The first step is to build a great device, and it looks like HP might be
there. It seems to be the best iPad contender yet, stealing that crown from
Motorola's zoom from just a few days ago.

~~~
tomkarlo
No credit until it ships. Everything looks great in a demo.

~~~
apress
And gets priced!

------
spaghetti
I'd really like to see a laptop with two touch screens: one replacing the
regular screen and another replacing the keyboard and trackpad. This
tablet/laptop hybrid would have some awesome benefits. For example one could
comfortably use the device while seated at a table (display and input area can
be at about 90 deg relative to each other... something that's not possible w/
the iPad). Another awesome benefit would be replacing the on-screen keyboard
with far-out stuff like a painter's palette, Scrabble tiles, dominoes or even
two turn-tables like a DJ uses.

Imagine mixing digital paint with your fingers (on the touch screen that
replaces the physical keyboard on current laptops) then actually painting on
the other touch screen (the touch screen replacing the non-touch screens on
current laptops).

~~~
imsky
We almost had it. [http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/microsofts-courier-
digita...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/microsofts-courier-digital-
journal-exclusive-pictures-and-de/)

Why Microsoft killed Courier, I'll never know.

~~~
spaghetti
That looks cool! However it's rotated from what I was hoping for. I literally
want just a laptop w/ two touch screens. Too bad it was cancelled.

------
roc
The logic doesn't hold up for me.

Are _holiday_ buyers really the same kind of people who will have even _heard_
gadget rumors, let alone coordinate their purchases accordingly? Do we have
any reason to think many of them held off _this year_?

Furthermore, I thought the speed of iOS updates has been a good thing. Why are
three iOS targets undesirable or problematic?

It just sounds... flimsy; like someone shopping for justification after they'd
latched onto a conclusion.

~~~
alanh
You can’t imagine everyday people hearing advice not to drop hundreds of bucks
on Christmas presents that will be obsolete in a month? Because if iPads &
iPods were expected in Jan/Feb I can guaranteed a ton of nerds will be looking
out for Mom and Dad.

~~~
roc
I can't imagine everyday people caring enough about specs to actually make
decisions based on said rumors.

The default expectation is that iPads will hit in late March. So we're talking
about rumors relating to devices that may exist three to four months after the
decision of "what are we getting Sally for Christmas" gets made.

And Gruber thinks average people will hear those rumors and then be willing to
disappoint a loved one on Christmas over a spec bump they have no context for?

And, again, I wonder aloud if we have any indication that this happened _this
year_. Because we all heard rumors and those things flew off the shelves
anyway. So if it didn't happen this year, why would anyone expect it to happen
_next_ year?

------
gsaines
I actually clicked this expecting the article to be parodying the Friedman
Unit (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_%28unit%29>) only to find utter
sincerity!

------
scottyallen
If you're an iPad/iPhone developer: How does the prospect of a new iPad being
on the horizon affect your development/product strategy?

~~~
megablast
It will undoubtably have a camera, so now start making all those camera apps
use the bigger screen. Same with skype, etc... I will add the ability for
users of my iPad apps to use photos, take photos, etc... This was limited to
the iPhone version.

More memory means will be able to do more things, load up bigger files into
mem.

~~~
Bud
I need a poor-quality, low-sensitivity camera attached to the back of a foot-
long iPad about as much as I need cameras built into my jeans, belt buckle,
toothbrush, and turkey baster.

Just because you _can_ build a camera (or two cameras) into everything doesn't
mean you should. Cameras are a certain size and shape for a reason.

I see no reason to build a rear-facing cam into the iPad. Ever tried to hold a
slippery, 7.5" x 9.5", 1.6 pound slab at arm's length before, and hold it
steady? Not compelling.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Cameras aren't cameras anymore, they're just another sensor input. Do you want
to scan a barcode or QR code? Do you want to scan a document? And then
translate it? Do you want Augmented Reality games that let you fly a little
spaceship around the room and shoot your friends? The plunging cost of camera
chips means they'll be increasingly ubiquitous. I wouldn't rule out one on
your toothbrush.

------
thushan
Though I think Apple is the only one that can pull it off. I'm a bit surprised
that they'll be able to keep to a one year product cycle with things like the
iPhone/iPad when the rest of the market is hitting a new product every couple
weeks. Not that they've been one to match the rest of the market, but a lot
happens in a year.

Then again, maybe the biggest lesson out of the touch screen revolution is
that its not the hardware - it's the software, and Apple has been certainly
setting the pace on that front.

~~~
tzs
The phone _market_ is doing a new product every couple of weeks, but how about
the individual companies? Most buyers are on contract, and can't change phones
more frequently than once a year with a reduced subsidy or once every two
years with full subsidy.

If a phone company introduces a new phone, and then a few weeks later
introduces a better phone, they've to some extent limited the market for the
first one to the people who happened to hit the end of their contracts in that
few weeks. Given the two year contract cycle, a phone a year makes a lot of
sense (assuming your phones are good enough that it takes the competition
several months to match or best them--as has been the case for Apple so far).

~~~
thushan
That's a damn good point.

------
dschobel
_"The next six months are going to set the foundation for the future of
personal computing."_

Gruber needs to make the leap and become a political talking-head on cable
news already.

Unleashing lines like that without a hint of sarcasm or irony? You can't teach
that, folks, that's god given.

~~~
ugh
I’m confident in predicting that tablets will be more than one third of unit
sales to consumers of all PCs in Europe and North America within five years.

346 million PCs were sold worldwide in 2010, Apple sold 15 million iPads so
far. That’s still a long way off but it is not impossible, especially with
other manufacturers bringing their devices to the market.

This is a reasonable prediction. It might well be wrong but it is reasonable.
Calling tablets “the future of personal computing” with such a prediction in
mind seems perfectly justifiable to me. Don’t ridicule other reasonable
opinions just because you disagree with them!

~~~
dschobel
All of that? perfectly reasonable; the original claim? still slightly absurd.

If you want to look at it by comparison to the iphone led smartphone
revolution, the timeframe there was:

first iphone release: 1/2007

first android phone: 10/2008

first touchscreen BB: 11/2008

first webos phone: 6/2009

(all dates courtesy of the wikipedia articles for the specific phones or OSes)

and then you didn't really get a phone which competed well with the iphone
until, arguably, the nexus one which was in 2010 (or even the Pre which was
middle of '09) making it a full 2.5 - 3 years later.

The point is that this stuff progresses in fits and spurts over a long period
of time and that the next six months are going to be no more significant than
the six which follow it, contrary to what HP's and Motorola's marketing people
tell you today (or Apple's will in a few weeks time).

~~~
ugh
“The next six months are going to set the foundation for the future of
personal computing.”

That’s the claim. Still seems reasonable to me. What’s wrong with it? I don’t
understand what you are getting at.

If you think that tablets will be important in the future there is nothing
wrong with thinking that a lot of groundwork will be done in the next few
months: Honeycomb is coming, HP and RIM get started. That sounds to me like a
solid foundation.

------
roadnottaken
_"...[tablets] are the future of the entire computing industry..."_

That's more than a little hard to swallow...

~~~
jarek
Today's fad is the future of the entire industry. No questions allowed.

------
gaiusparx
My prediction:

* Apple will keep April as the refresh month for iPad. Putting iPad in the same iPod event will steal thunder and is no good. And component supplies is tighter for iPad thus it takes few months to meet the demand and September is too tight to the holidays season. When iPad 2 is launched in April, the rest of the world will get it by Jun-Aug which ensure Apple can manufacture enough to meet year end holiday demand.

* There will be no iOS 5 this year. At June WWDC, Lion will be the focus and Apple will give sneak peak of iOS 5 at the event, with beta available in early 2012, ship in June 2012. Aple needs to get its developers ready and it takes time. iOS 5 will share the code base of Lion and will ship after Lion. iOS 5 will include user interface elements changes. I think Apple is keeping two years release cycle for major OS release.

* There will be iOS 4.4/4.5 this year for: iPhone 5, NFC capability, AppleTV 3, App Store for AppleTV and App/Games on AppleTV.

------
onteria
This is of course a subjective opinion, but something doesn't quite feel right
about HP making a tablet PC. They seem to put out quite a lot of things
without much of an overall guiding principle. HP PCs, laptops, printers,
servers, now tablets. I ask myself "Why HP?" and can't seem to come up with a
very reasonable answer. Nothing jumps out at me as seeing this as the best
thing ever.

With Apple they have the whole underlying principle of "Think Different" or
something along the lines of changing the status quo. Apple didn't really do
anything new with the iPhone and iPad in essence. Smartphones and tablet PCs
were already out there. However because it went with their overall message, it
made sense. People wanted to include it in their "Apple Lifestyle" so to
speak.

Just my .00002 cents.

------
sigzero
I am hoping for some strange reason that WebOS wins out over them all.

------
sinkercat
Is it possible that the new product announced during the Fall event is
actually a 7-inch retina display iPad? Apple might find it expensive to build
a 9.7-inch retina display and that could explain the $3billion+ investment
that Apple has put in (possibly for the 7-inch retina display screens). Yes,
Steve Jobs did say that 7-inch tablets are DOA but it was the same Steve who
said Apple doesn't see e-books as a big market.

------
stcredzero
Re: Rear Facing Camera.

This would be most useful on a device with a daylight readable transflective
screen. Then you could use it outdoors with augmented reality apps.

~~~
yakto
While riding your Segway? Just don't see it happening (average folks holding a
tablet-size device in front of their face, running AR apps).

~~~
stcredzero
Sure, when stationary for a moment, looking up information. You see average
folks looking dead tree/ink information device in public all the time. They're
called tourists. They're called museum-goers. They're called audience. Those
things they're holding are called guidebooks and programs.

I think this would make for an awesome museum AR experience.

~~~
Helianthus16
neat idea, long way away.

~~~
stcredzero
There are already such apps on the App Store.

------
endlessvoid94
Apple's touch strategy is definitely awesome, but the only reason it's
spectacular is because of the app store.

HP's new TouchPad won't have that. It will probably do well, but it won't even
touch the success of the iPad. Nobody writes apps for WebOS.

~~~
megablast
That is true, but it could change. It is very easy to write for webos, since
it is based on HTML/CSS/Javascript. So a lot of web developers can get into
this.

~~~
endlessvoid94
You're right.

But HP doesn't seem to be hyping or publicizing this at all. No shout-outs to
developers. No "here's our SDK, here are some screencasts and tutorials". They
exist, but they aren't being advertised at all. Apple has conferences where
they get developers excited about working on apps.

------
toadi
The end of the PC era is always announced. But don't see how I can do my daily
work on a Ipad. I need a laptop or PC.

~~~
lukifer
The hyperbole of the language belies the underlying truth: not the death of
the PC, but a widening of the spectrum in which PCs are a minority among
numerous types of computing devices.

~~~
ugh
This is very much besides the point but I think that calling what you just
described the end of the PC era is not hyperbole. When PCs stop to dominate
personal computing – like they have ever since personal computing existed –
that would be very much the end of an era. No hyperbole involved. That doesn’t
mean that PCs will suddenly stop existing or even stop being made.

------
code_duck
I don't think Apple will release two significantly different versions of the
iPad within 6 months.

------
barista
"One startling omission from that list: Microsoft. Their former hardware
partners are heading off into the touch-computing future without them. We
could have four competing tablet platforms six months from now — iOS, Android,
WebOS, and Playbook — and not one of them is from Microsoft"

Microsoft clearly seems to have taken their own sweet time to make an entry
but they clearly have an intent and when they do, the biggest thing that they
will have going for them is the knowhow of the platform and a plethora of apps
that are already existing there that will be easy to port.

Just like mobile this will end up being a 3 horse race in a few years. Apple,
Google and Microsoft. The rest of them are just wasting their time and money
in competing. None of them have existing ecosystems or platforms that they can
leverage to fight with the three big players.

~~~
alanh
“A plethora of apps that are easy to port”? Windows compatibility implies a
terribly inadequate offering, just like every previous Windows Tablet PC to
date. How is that competing? Metro/Win Phone 7 doesn’t have a “plethora of
apps” ready to be tweaked for tablet size, so I’m baffled by your reasoning.

