“CES opens its doors officially tomorrow, and while Apple isn’t there the event is already expected to see over 100 tablets from many different firms take their first (and, in some cases, last) bow,” Jonny Evans reports for Computerworld. “Meanwhile, Apple prepares iPad 2.0.”
“While some hope CES will see the spark of a proper fight-back against the genre-defining Apple iPad tech titan, such optimisim is misplaced,” Evans writes. “For iPad haters, CES will be a tragic tryst, a dooomed affair.”
Evans writes, “This isn’t the year of the iPad killer. Don’t believe me? I’m not doing the talking here. Analyst Michael Gartenberg Tweets it thus, saying: ‘I have seen nothing so far at CES that I’d call an iPad killer. I’ve seen nothing so far that would give iPad a minor case of the sniffles.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: When Gartenberg tweets, people listen.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Rey” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
if he says it – well, then it’s obviously so.
Gotta love people who think they are the last word in anything.
What more does one need to know other than the fact that Ballmer is giving the keynote speech? the keynote then is, by definition, failure. He should be right at home.
Love the EF Hutton reference!
@cb
I don’t think that he’s claiming that he is the last word in anything.
If there is an existing product which is selling well, you need a truly remarkable product in order to challenge it. It’s not at all difficult to scrutinise new products and compare them with an existing and well known product. If they are unable to offer a more compelling solution than the existing market leader, who would buy them ?
It’s often hard to spot the winners ahead of time, but much easier to spot the losers.
iPad 1.0 already makes competition’s upcoming tablets mostly obsolete. The only ways they have found to differentiate from iPad is to go smaller (due to Android limitations) and include cameras. By the time those “over 100 tablets” are actually available (not just demos at CES), Apple will have iPad 2.0 (followed by a new version of iOS). My guess is that most of the tablet announcements at CES will be canceled before shipping product.
From the article…
“The mantra has to be “too little, too late”, with even the world’s biggest software manufacturer, Microsoft, playing catch-up this time around.”
‘with even’? Like it’s something new for microsoft? Besides DOS, what technology has MS not tried to catch up to?
Ballmer and his 100 iPad Killers perform on the Pepsi Stage at 6:30. Come early to get a good seat!
Noone was expecting a “killer”, though people were hoping for rivals.
@ Wings2Sky
> Besides DOS, what technology has MS not tried to catch up to?
Around the time Microsoft released Windows 2000 (when Apple had Mac OS 9), and then XP, I’d say Microsoft was no longer “playing catch-up.” But that’s a problem for Microsoft, because they did not have anything to copy. Hence, Windows XP remained the latest release for more than five years, until they did a frantic Mac OS X copy-effort on Vista (and then Windows 7). And while Microsoft was properly distracted, Apple worked secretly on iPhone and iOS (and then iPad).
Also, Microsoft was in a leadership position with smartphone software just a few years ago, with Palm even going Windows Mobile for a while. But, same eventual problem…
(I won’t use Microsoft’s early “tablet” efforts as an example, because no one ever took it very seriously, not even Microsoft itself).
Microsoft’s “comfort zone” is to get behind and THEN throw a huge pile of money at copying the leader. If they actually manage to “catch up,” stagnation follows.
I recall the hundreds of Apple slights heard across the years.
They leave an indelible warmth when I consider the huge lead Apple now enjoys.
He has not seen the PelosiPad. It tweets ‘Dont suck, dont swallow’.
Wings2Sky writes, “Besides DOS, what technology has MS not tried to catch up to?”
Uh, DOS was also a “catch up” as it was based on Seattle Software’s Q-DOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System). And when Digital Research later built a “better DOS”, Microsoft again had to play catch up (after trying to quash DR of course).
Man I hate the term ‘killer’. Over used and never achieved.
Ballmer and the iPad Killers. Great name for a indie/punk band.
@ X
Douche
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@MDN
Microsoft has just announced Big Ass Table 2.0
What is weird is that Google could have stayed aligned with Apple and RIM and been the mobile advertising monolith without its own mobile OS.
They pushed out Android, successfully in the marketplace for phones and probably eventually for tablets. But telecoms and third party Android apps have not all been using Google search, some are using Bing, so for all their work Google has opened up the mobile market to Microsoft (which RIM and Apple would otherwise seen as enemy number 1) and Apple (which would never have gone after advertising if Google were not a competitor).
Its odd. I think competition from someone, including Android, will keep Apple on its toes, but I don’t see how it has benefited Google. They don’t seem to think things through very well.
The one thing someone needs to do to knock apple off balance is to mimic a desktop or laptop ui experience in a tablet. Having multiple windows or widgets even, open at the same time. True real time multitasking as well as and not only one full screen app at a time.
I love my iPad but the lack of this was a letdown for me when I saw the iPad announced.
All of the “it’s just a big iPod/iPhone” crowd were probably hoping for something similar.
I wanted then and still do now, a more osx on a tablet like experience. More like osx and less like iOS as we now know it.
The best answer to this I have seen was today when I saw honeycomb, and I have no love for google/android.
It looks though that instead of like everyone and their dog copying apple like we saw with smartphones, that google just may be onto something new here.
If they can pull it off I have no idea.
An example of what I want to see in a tablet ui is the one Alan Bradley holds up in the boardroom meeting at the beginning of Tron Legacy.
The iPad is awesome, but no one who tries to copy it can beat Apple at it.
When someone figures out how to get a desktop experience on a tablet, as Microsoft failed at for over a decade, then the iPad ui will look like a toy for a toddler.
Now that Apple has shown the way, that touch is not slapping windows on a tablet, but building from scratch, I think someone smart enough can take the ball and run with it.
There are plenty of people who would enjoy everything great about the iPad minus the ui of iOS.
Something more like an osx or windows desktop and less like an iPhone would be refreshing to finally have.
Apple should put dashboard on iPad.
I think having multiple widgets open would do the trick by simulating multiple windows on a desktop.
Pinch and zoom to resize a widget, tap and hold to move them around, have an im or facetime chat running , with iTunes open, while surfing safari or using mail and adjusting a system preference etc. Seeing and doing it all at once.
Then like osx lion, a gesture pops you into a full screen app again, and a swipe to the next one, with a gesture back into dashboard or launchpad and so on.
I guess I want to see lion go “back to the iPad” for iPad 2.
Maybe that’s what Apple has up it’s sleeve? Maybe that’s what honeycomb is trying?
With everyone trying to copy Apple I think this is exactly what Apple needs to do to change up the game a little and evolve the iPad, leaving everyone in the dust again a few years behind.
My retired Microsoft millionaire friend thinks Google is becoming the next Microsoft only faster. I would have to agree. They have a highly profitable business but instead of focusing on growing that in new ways they ship half baked innovations in other markets while putting their biggest efforts into following the leaders in other markets.
Google Wave was a more honorable disaster than Microsoft Bob and Mr Paperclip, but the parallels are there. Microsoft bought its way into the game console market, which is a success in terms of product but not in terms of return on their investment, much the Google is putting effort into Android while having no control over getting profits from it.
@ Msavwah
However iOS continues to evolve, Apple started things off the right way for mobile devices. For any mobile device up to about 1024×768 resolution (the current iPad screen), the app taking over the whole screen is the right choice. Apple’s current iOS multi-tasking works in an intentionally limited (and efficient) way, to make maximum use of less powerful mobile processors and extend battery power.
If there were a bunch of “windows” on screen being partially obscured by others, the processor would need to work much harder to keep everything updated graphically so that you can switch back and forth smoothly by tapping between apps visible on the screen. As things work now in iOS, only processes that need to multi-task in the background are using the processor; no wasted effort.
The real advantage of having separate windows on a “desktop” is being able to show the content of multiple windows at the same time. On a smaller mobile screen, you can’t really do that, so why bother… If those “windows” are actually “widgets,” it makes even less sense to try to “layer” them on the screen; wasted CPU effort and battery power. You can’t interact with more than one at a time. You can just as easily switch between apps and let each one take over the whole screen in turn (while appropriate processes for all active apps keep running in the background).
Apple seems to be leaning in the opposite direction, giving some of their Mac applications an operating mode where they take over the entire screen. Less distraction for the user, when there is no need to constantly access multiple windows.
> Besides DOS, what technology has MS not tried to catch up to?
Kinect. Microsoft liked it so much they bought it.
@ X
Double Douche ;0
Except for anything that is running Android 3.0 Honeycomb with dual core processors!
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Say bye bye to Apple iPad lead by the end of the year along with it’s iPhone lead to the Android OS.
For ANY company to spew ipad killer, already shows that they have loat proves it won’t be. Rule 1 in marketing, never mention the competition.
steve as IOS has the lead now with single core processors I am not sure why it won’t retain it when iPad 2 comes out with its own multicore processor. You need to put meat on the bones of simplistic statements to make them plausible.