Which iPad
Out of context: Reply #14
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- detritus0
Problem with handset tech is - it's necessarily small. Therefore, a lot more expensive to create a well-developed, high spec product that functions well, looks great and sits in the pocket.
Tablets don't quite have that limitation - there's a lot more breathing room in development and production terms - hence, a number of smaller players in the game (JooJoo, for example) coming out with machines that are actually quite radical, if you step back and analyse them.
Apple does software bloody well, no doubt. That's their trump card in this game. But they've been caught up. They're not the only draw in town showing off natural gesturative interfaces and neat interaction.
So, what do they have left? Apps.
Now, Apple can get away with wringing Westerners dry for every last $5 app that jiggles tits or pretends to be a lightsabre.
Not so, the rest of the world.
They'll want something that allows them to access cheap, free software, and the option to make stuff for it easily.
Remember, tablets won't likely be a 2nd, 3rd or even 4th tier machine for your average global consumer - they'll be primary use. If I had an iPhone (aside from my three PCs and all the other tech), I wouldn't necessarily care that I couldn't do my own shit with it (well, i do - which is why I don't have one, but..) - but I would care if I felt I didn't have full access to my desktop.
The App store was actually filled quite quickly (18 months or so?) - it'd be naive to suggest Android/Linux competitors won't achieve the same level of coverage, quicker, better, broader.
Apple will probably always have a place, especially in middle-class heavy societies, and I admire them for striking out against Flash, but I really don't think they'll achieve quite the same critical mass with the 'pad as they did the 'phone, at least beyond the heavily edited front presented by Western Media.
- Well said, although it's yet to be seen the tablet model takes over the worldukit