Claim Chowder

The Guardian ran an article after the announcement of the iPad which looked at the market and claimed that while every manufacturer was aiming to undercut an Apple tablet at $800, none of them were prepared for an Apple tablet at $499.

Even at the keynote viewing event we attended, everyone was prepared for being asked to pay nearly $1000 for an iPad. When it came out at half that price, several folk said they’d buy two.

The best bit in the Guardian article, however, was the comments section especially a sequence of comments by a charming individual who identified himself as handedtheirarse:

Do you really think the Taiwanese “rivals” will be as underpowered and underfeatured as the iPad? They might be the same price, but they’ll probably run an iPad emulator faster than the original is…

It’s a largish touchscreen with nothing under the hood. I’d say in the far east they could put these together for $200. Hell, that’s probably what Apple do anyway.

Please don’t tell me you’re in on the Apple ad thing? I hope at least it’s for money and not for some free rubbish computers. 😉

I guess all those hard up PC using stockbrokers are selling their shares to buy an iPad? Hahaha.

What hardware? The iPad is shockingly underpowered and underfeatured. I’m sticking to my guess of $150-$200 per unit cost to Apple.

Pardon? PC slates will have a modified UI layer on top of Windows. How many “apps” do you reckon Windows can run? And not just iBeer and iFart either.

Well aware of Jack’s battles with the Macolytes. Just this article stinks of a conversion to the dark side… 🙂

Do you need to roadtest a Punto to know it’s not as powerful a Diablo? Really?
Slow processor, tiny hard drive, graphics card probably non-existent. There’s a reason it doesn’t run OSX I’d say. It can’t.

You might have the time to trial run an iPad for a week to find out if you want one, but out here in the real world customers need to know:
1: What it does
2: What the specs are

There’s few answers for number 1 and everything I’ve seen so far on number 2 has been distinctly lousy. My guess is the new chip is designed for one thing only: low power consumption, to combat Apples infamous crappy battery life. Ditto the lack of multitasking.
What do I do with 16GB? My phone can hold that much. And play it back. And make calls.

It is running OS X, just not Mac OS X.
If this is the extent of your argument you’re in trouble.

I don’t need to have read the source code to know they’re not compatible, which is the only thing that matters. What was your point about the exact nomenclature of the iPad and Mac OSes again? Oh, you didn’t have one. Sorry.

Inflation adjusted, Avatar is the 26th biggest seller of all time.
Do you think the 26th biggest selling piece of tech hardware will be enough to end the utter dominance of Wintel?

I think you’re overestimating Apple’s market share in personal computers. Mac v PC is a war that is well and truly over. Nokia/Symbian v iPhone could possibly be worth watching in a few years if Apple get any decent market outside the US/UK. While choice is great, the world is PC/Nokia and doesn’t look like changing for a long long time.

They sell, what, 1 in 10 of all smartphones. Maybe about a a 1/4 of what Nokia sell.
Facts please.

I see you’ll use any criteria except how many phones they sell to decide which company is most important in the smartphone world.
Facts? Apple didn’t have the first touchscreen or internet phones. You can have your intangibles like “kick-ass UI” (do you find other phones too complicated for you?) I guess as they’re pure opinion that can’t be proven or disproven.

The Windows tablets coming out will be powerful enough to run a full OS like W7 or the rock-solid XP, which I’ve had no virus or BSOD in 8 years with. No cut down, half-assed OS. And cheaper, yes. And Flash. And USB. And more “apps” than any store Jobs can think up of. And I doubt if there’ll be a pointless 16Gb version.

This is truly hilarious fanboy “reviewing”. Why would I consider running a single iPhone type app on a 1Ghz processor as as “mind-boggling”?

Market trend sounds awfully like a pissing contest too TBH, only one that doesn’t fairly reflect the current usage of tech.

As for being a usability consultant, you never answered: do you have difficulty using mobiles other than the iPhone? I’ve yet to find one I find complicated. And yes, it is still down to user preference, whether you market research individual preferences or not.

There are some times when the smugness about being right doesn’t quite cut it. I’d like to know what claims “handed their arse” is making these days about Nokia/PC superiority and how shifting units is the most important factor in market dominance.

And I’ve yet to see a tablet with a better battery life than the iPad. Two years on.