Google tablet to give Apple a touch of its own medicine

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by mgm1979

... Where was apple before the iPhone, and how has their Mac lineup grown since then as well (piggy-backing off that market share bump). Google will get there, just wait for it....

I am sure Google, or if not Google, someone else, will get there, indeed.

But, for now, the Apple products have by far the best UI and design out there, even if they are not perfect.

If the Google tablet goes the cloud computing way, it will not be for me, I think.

After Apple, Google has the mobile OS with the UI with the most potential, but even after all that time, they still basically suck compared to the iPhone.

HTC, which has shown it can make pretty good UI, has certainly helped a lot, but the moment one gets out from under the HTC's Sense, Android is pretty "buh."

[fugazied]

Originally Posted by guyanonymous

Sorry I wasn't more clear. I've heard figures from 2-5% representing the proprotion of new computer purchases that are Mac products.

In some sectors like the $1000+ computers sold Apple ownws 90% market share. It's the tool of choice for most professional music producers/photographers/film guys/artists. That's simply because the OS is fast and stable and there is barely any maintenance.

OS X is Darwin, a variant of UNIX which comes from BSD/NeXTSTEP and others. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_...ting_system%29

It's the advantage OS X has over windows machines, tried and tested permissions systems, huge open source community fixing bugs and creating tools which Apple can easily slot into OS X. Microsoft have to develop most things themselves (or 'borrow' them from other companies). That's why Windows 7 is pretty much the same OS as Windows XP, just with a much nicer interface. As much as I enjoy Windows 7 (200% better than vista), I wish they would get rid of the registry and move to a better disk system!

As for the google tablet, put simply I think it's the future of PCs. The internet will get so fast in 20 years we will be using small devices to interface with machines located in other locations. Using tools like Google apps is a small glimpse into that - the Apps are on the network, we just use an interface to interact. We won't need an 'OS' they will just be slightly different interfaces that log into remote computers.

I just want to know where Microsoft is in this - they have that $20'000 table device, but Google and Apple seem to be leaping ahead in this area.

[kilron]

Originally Posted by guyanonymous

Sorry I wasn't more clear. I've heard figures from 2-5% representing the proprotion of new computer purchases that are Mac products. I'm not sure if anyone is really sure, hence the range, but the Mac market is far from mainstream in my view.

aha. i think your numbers are off by quite a bit. apple is much much higher than 5%. its typically around 12% i believe (amongst consumers) and growing. the macbook has been the hottest selling laptop for a while now i believe.

i think you're confusing mainstream with majority. apple is certainly not the majority, but it is VERY mainstream. not everyone uses apple machines, but everyone knows about them and is very aware of them. apple machines are also used by people across all demographics. that's mainstream. majority is something entirely separate.

BUT...the Apple name is mainstream, without a doubt. Linux - definitely not so much, somewhere under 2% last I heard, and definitely not a household name.

linux is not only NOT mainstream, and NOT a majority, its also very little known and not used by people across many demos. linux is for tweekers. always has been and probably always will be. that doesn't make it bad, its just a very narrow niche thing. oh and servers too to some extent i suppose. but again, definitely not a mainstream consumer product.

As for problems - I'm sure every OS has issues. I agree that the internal/external memory thing is a doozy. But it was also the same issue on PDA's for a decade...as was total loss of memory when the battery ran out. They still sold.

sure they did, but times have changed. just because they sold back then doesn't mean they'll sell now. back then you had no other choice and the apps for them were also teeny tiny as well. times have changed....

I see the iPhone OS as horribly flawed because it locks you in to Apple and only Apple approved products.

and that's a very valid point, however its one that a very small minority of people care about. you have to ask yourself, "ok, so apple locks it down... what am i really missing out on because of this? and do the positives of a locked down system outweigh the negatives?"

first, i'd argue that the positives DO outweigh the negatives, but then again i do have a ton of experience with the iPhone so i know its insides and outs. other folks may have different priorities and come to a different conclusion.

secondly, everyone that i know that has an iPhone (and amongst close friends it probably amounts to 15 people), NONE of them care about that one bit. you know why? because their iPhone does some freakin' amazing things that no other phone can do and it does it so easily and hassle free. that's where apple shines.

that's also why the iPhone continues to sell like hotcakes. its extremely polished. there will always be a very small minority demographic that will assail it for what it doesn't do, but apple doesn't care about that demo. why? because they're so small. they may be very vocal (as they tend to be very technically inclined), but they're a very small percentage and have very very little impact on apple's sales and profitability. i personally believe the iPad will be another example of it.

Right now - I just got the cheapest phone I could because I want to use it as a phone, not a computer. I geek out with the best of them, but all the options, right now, leave me frustrated (windows based units)/waiting for a few more revisions (Android)/resenting their closed nature(iphone).

understandable. everyone has different preferences and requirements. its always a waiting game and it seems like there's always a newer and better android phone around the corner as they continue to polish the OS and hardware.

The NA phone market is different from most of the rest of the world, too, as I understand it. Outside NA, most phones are sold without contract and without being subsidized. Perhaps this affects google's decision, as Verizon doesn't necessarily represent that much of the world market.

ehh... i think it depends. i think in the rest of the world there are more options for you to buy it on contract or not whereas sometimes in the US the carriers don't give you an option to buy it contract-free. i know that in the UK and many european countries they can sell you the phones subsidized on a contract. i think it does vary a lot but i know there are many countries that do offer phone subsidies for 1-3 year contracts.

also the initial issue with verizon is that they operate on a different technology called CDMA (like sprint) that doesn't work anywhere else in the world but here because everyone else in the world is on GSM like at&t and t-mobile. but i'm guessing we'd probably see the nexus one on verizon before long anyway. but once verizon moves to LTE (4G) within the next few years, that incompatibility should fade away.

[guyanonymous]

Originally Posted by kilron

aha. i think your numbers are off by quite a bit. apple is much much higher than 5%. its typically around 12% i believe (amongst consumers) and growing. the macbook has been the hottest selling laptop for a while now i believe.

In my quick search yesterday, I had trouble finding numbers to support this...can you provide a reference? I grew up hearing "10%" for macs, only to later learn that those numbers were completely fabricated.

[kilron]

Originally Posted by guyanonymous

In my quick search yesterday, I had trouble finding numbers to support this...can you provide a reference? I grew up hearing "10%" for macs, only to later learn that those numbers were completely fabricated.

i can't at the moment. i know i've seen it in the last year, but it would take me a while to find it. sorry...

but you will find different figures from different websites. but the old adage of 10% is incorrect. times have changed. if you go to universities you'll see mac saturation usually between 25%-33% amongst students and growing.

[guyanonymous]

That's a very small subset of the population at large and NA centric, as I understand things.

I've come to realize, in life, that 97.3% of statistics are just made up .

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by guyanonymous

And you're right about packaging. Linux is mainstream, but only in one variant - OSX...and you have to believe that 2-5% of the market of new computers constitutes mainstream.

OSX is not Linux-based. It's a Mach-based UNIX.

And Linux has a vast market, just not in new desktop PC's. Servers, embedded devices, smartphones and other handheld devices, routers, game consoles, spaceships...

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by fugazied

As much as I enjoy Windows 7 (200% better than vista), I wish they would get rid of the registry and move to a better disk system!

I guess you missed the argument where Linux Kernel Dev Ted T'so argued for a registry then, because of Ext4 and the different ways it handles commits to Ext3.

As for the google tablet, put simply I think it's the future of PCs. The internet will get so fast in 20 years we will be using small devices to interface with machines located in other locations.

In the time it takes time CPU power to double, bandwidth becomes roughly 15% cheaper. If anything, things will move the other way - thin clients come up every few years, and fail again just as fast. There are possibilities with local meshes, but laws are rapidly becoming hostile to them because of the RIAA et al.


Oh and kilron? The iPhone's market share is falling. (It's selling well. But other phones are selling better.)

[kilron]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Oh and kilron? The iPhone's market share is falling. (It's selling well. But other phones are selling better.)

ha! ok. yeah, i read that too. you make it sound like you're trying to make a dig on me somehow. the iPhone is continuing to sell CRAZY well. and no, other phones aren't selling better, unless you say that its every other phone against the iPhone, then yes you would be correct. there are MORE phones out there now and they're all taking their cut, but the iPhone continues to sell better than probably any other handset out there.

and then you have the iPod touch too which still has no equal and i think they sell more of those than they do iPhones, so you have an enormous user base that already knows how to use an iPad.

[guyanonymous]

I believe that Nokia and Samsung both have far higher market shares than Apple in the cell world - Globally. The iPhone phenom is more of a regional issue than a global one.

[kilron]

you know, i was speaking more of smart phones. its true, when you consider all cell phones on the whole (be it smartphones or otherwise), then you have samsung, nokia, LG as the big ones.

as for smartphone marketshare though, its primarily apple and nokia, but nokia is not boding well.

how apple and nokia divvy up the world

[mores]

Originally Posted by kilron

well, see this isn't android, this is built on Chrome, which is both a good and a bad thing.

My bad, but you're right.

Never tried chrome, but a web-OS is not something I want to use.
Humans have the need to acquire things. If, at all, humans then upload images, videos, programs etc. to use on other platforms, on other devices. But first, things need to be owned.

[guyanonymous]

Under current copyright laws, a cloud-based setup is a personal-liability nightmare. Look at how many people on websites use copyrighted images for their avatars.

My major concerns involve privacy of personal information and documents. I don't want to store anything or have any of my personal material processed on or by anyone else's system. Hence my avoidance of gmail and related applications.

[kilron]

well.. i guess it is what it is. to me, i don't see a chrome tablet as being a direct iPad competitor because it can't do as much. an android based tablet would be much more of an iPad competitor because of how its UI is setup very similarly and how they both have apps you can install, etc...

both OS's have their places, i'm just not convinced yet that either of them are ready for primetime in the tablet arena. at least, not yet.

[guyanonymous]

I could agree with you on the cloud-based stuff in those terms as well...but that's because I don't trust a "cloud" to provide seamless 24/7 coverage everywhere I'd want to use my device. Without local storage and local apps, it's out for me - until we get our world-wide-net with suitable privacy policies enforced in a way I trust.

I think one thing you're missing about Android - the speed of development that is possible is much higher than Apple, simply because of it's more open nature. The incentives, too, for those wanting to sell apps for it are even larger, because, as we've discussed with authors - they can sell DIRECT and avoid agency fees.