Last week, “the cavernous Las Vegas Convention Center positively bulged with the things, including newly-announced contenders from Dell, Motorola, Panasonic, Toshiba, and other tech behemoths, as well as smaller players such as HDTV manufacturer Vizio and bargain-basement dweller Coby,” McCracken writes. “Even Polaroid was showing one.”
McCracken writes, “Despite the flurry of activity, the rest of the industry is still scrambling to answer the iPad. It’ll be a few months before it’s possible to separate the winners from the also-rans: No major debutante was available for immediate purchase, most manufacturers were cagey about pricing, and some models don’t have names yet.”
“I also fret that the industry’s reliance on one software supplier may result in most models feeling like bland kissing cousins,” McCracken writes. “(It’s tough for companies to differentiate tablets through hardware design alone: In the end, they’re all just skinny slabs of various sizes.)”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Sometimes, as with Ballmer, we almost think that Schmidt is secretly working for Apple.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Lynn W.” for the heads up.]
MDN take of the year.
The best part is that few people are going to be talking about these tablets once iPad 2 is announced. Then they’re all going to be scrambling to meet those features while Apple invests time in iPad 3.
David Pogue’s article in the technology section of the New York Times best sums up the futile efforts of the iPad-like tablet copycats.
“These companies are like 6-year-olds on a soccer team,” one company representative told me. “The ball goes over here, and they all run after it in a blob. ‘Tablet!’ ‘Tablet!’ ‘Tablet!’ ”
There you have it – neatly summarized in a paragraph.
Love Harry McCracken’s writings, and those of his protegés, Ben Dover and Phillip McCrevice.
Kissing cousins, perhaps, but certainly not bland.
I heard that outside of a few minor accessories and pocket cameras, nothing announced at CES was available for release. The Vaporous Electronics Show.
This is how the PC vs Mac competition of the 90’s should have played out. And to think, if not for Microsoft’s $250m investment in Apple in the late 90’s, today’s competition might be quite different. O the irony!
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“some models don’t have names yet”
Yeah, we’re all breathless about the possibly upcoming “XY2011sx-TC2” from Acer, ain’t we…?
Pogue almost got it- it’s not a soccer ball, it’s a hockey puck.
@It’s About Time,
Every time I read that BS about Microsoft saving Apple and ignoring the fact that it was part of an Apple lawsuit settlement that Microsoft agreed to, I realize that you idiots will always have a low IQ and there is nothing I can do to fix your problem.
“I also fret that the industry’s reliance on one software supplier may result in most models feeling like bland kissing cousins,” McCracken writes. “(It’s tough for companies to differentiate tablets through hardware design alone: In the end, they’re all just skinny slabs of various sizes.)”
Ha!
Actually, the amount was $150 mil, it was part of an undisclosed settlement against MS, and it was non voting stock. The biggest positive that came from the 5 year commitment to continue development of MS Office for Mac.
@Al
Agreed. And it was $150m not $250 so they can’t even get the number right.
@Al, et al….
Those were the days when Microsoft could help or hinder a company with the slightest suggestion of “support”.
The Microsoft “investment” in Apple was more of a way for Microsoft to diffuse/defuse the DoJ anti-trust investigation by putting a smiley face on it.
And yes, continued support for MS Office on the Mac was a way of legitimizing the Mac in the eyes of many.
Some of us NEVER had a need or desire to run MS software and avoided it like the plague is always has been.
@Mr. Reeee
SO agree about never having the need or desire to have MS crapware on my Macs.
I doubt that MS would have stopped the development of orifice for Mac since it is a HUGE cash cow for them.
“It’ll be a few months before it’s possible to separate the winners from the also-rans.”
Also the non-starters, and the pure vaporware.
Yeah, the eight-hundred pound gorilla wasn’t even in the room, but no one could miss the smell of bananas on his breath.
Funny thing, . . . Macworld doesn’t seem to suffer from a lack of Apple’s presence.
@It’s About Time
Investment? How about cross licensing agreement with a settlement. Look it up, MS was caught with it’s hands in the QuickTime cooky jar.
“Yeah, the eight-hundred pound gorilla wasn’t even in the room, but no one could miss the smell of bananas on his breath.”
That’s damn funny.