[opendtv] Re: News: A Tablet to Rival the Leader
- From: "Albert Manfredi" <bert22306@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2012 17:06:00 -0400
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
Perhaps Bert will be as excited about the new Google Nexus tablet as is
David
Pogue at the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/technology/personaltech/nexus-7-googles-new-tablet-seriously-challenges-the-ipad-state-of-the-art.html?ref=technology
Naw. Here's what I think reality is. (Let me caveat up front that there are
some legitimate, useful roles for tablets, but hardly roles that would
either replace PCs or engender the sort of hype the iPad got.)
Some people, we have one in the office, just love gadgets. This new toy came
out, the iPad, and they flocked to it in droves. To the extent that the
clueless trade press coined the term "post-PC era," being totally into the
hype this toy created. And simultaneously making some sort of big deal out
of "apps" and "app stores," as if these "apps" were some new phenomenon that
didn't exist before. When in fact, apps are simply programs, or sometimes
nothing more than bookmarks for web sites, and they ONLY exist in this "app
store" environment to compensate for the egregious limitations of pads
compared with PCs. I mean honestly, what PC user would make a big deal about
downloading a software tool from any ole web site. or about setting up a
bookmark to get the local news and weather?
Here's and example. When that office person I mentioned raved about the
piano keyboard "app" she got, look how cool! this is, I said okay, I'll
write one for my PC in a couple of minutes. And I did. It might not have
shown the piano-like keys, but I simple programmed my PC to use the keyboard
keys as if they were piano keys, to play two octaves. And the screen showed
which keys played which notes. Big whoop.
Then the Kindle Fire came on the market, for way less money. So all those
people who thought the iPad cost way more than it was worth jumped on the
bandwagon, to see what all the fuss was about. But these people were
obviously not the wide-eyed gadget-addicted types who bought the iPad. Or
they would have been the ones standing in line overnight, waiting for those
store doors to open in the morning, to get their hands on this toy.
And not surprisingly, the Kindle didn't create the same gushing of
superlatives. And in my view, no other tablet, severely limited in
usefulness as the iPad is, would either.
On the other hand:
Tablet/laptop hybrid designs like the Microsoft Surface, assuming of course
all of those silly intangibles like rounded corners, shiny finish, no
visible screw heads, and well-tuned I/O features, have the potential for
really ushering in a "post-PC era." Those who complain that there aren't
enough "apps" for the Surface are just not thinking. How many "apps" have
you ever had to buy for a PC, and just what is it that your PC can't do than
the tablet can do? Take pictures? I can even do that. Make phone calls? I
can even do that. Either with a PC, or with a cell phone. So if the Surface
can do these things, then to me that WOULD be a significant innovation. One
which would make laptops extinct, possibly.
Bert
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