iPad Is Destroying Netbook Sales 911
Hugh Pickens writes "Fortune magazine reports that sales growth of low-cost, low-powered netbooks peaked last summer at an astonishing 641% year-over-year growth rate but netbook sales fell off a cliff in January and shrank again in April — collateral damage, according to Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty, from the January introduction and April launch of the iPad. In support of Huberty's theory, she offers a Morgan Stanley/Alphawise survey conducted in March which found that 44% of US consumers who were planning to buy an iPad said they were buying it instead of a netbook or notebook computer. In related news, Apple announced that it sold its one millionth iPad last week, just 28 days after its introduction on April 3. 'One million iPads in 28 days — that's less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,' says Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. 'Demand continues to exceed supply and we're working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers.'"
Re:welp. (Score:4, Informative)
I think the /. crowd said something more along the lines of, "It's a piece of crap, but every yuppie retard will still buy one."
Seems a little more in-line with reality.
Predicted last year (Score:5, Informative)
Or maybe netbook sales are cratering because instead of delivering quality models with high performance and low power packed into a lightweight enclosure, companies like Dell have axed all but the most profitable models, and replaced SSDs with magnetic disks and raised prices to the maximum they can squeeze out of customers. Netbook selection is terrible now compared to what it was a year ago. Last year there were many models and there was a price war, now there are a few models and they're just crappy low-end notebooks.
Indeed, at least one study in late 2009 predicted that Netbooks would fall off of their own accord
http://www.internetnews.com/stats/article.php/3855261/Netbook-Sales-to-Cool-Off-in-2010.htm [internetnews.com]
That was a month before the iPad was announced.
Re:After a month of daily use... (Score:3, Informative)
Yes! [youtube.com]
But only after you break it in half.
Re:hyperbole much? (Score:5, Informative)
Think about it for a second: Only 44% of the people who bought iPads who were surveyed said that they did so instead of buying a netbook. How many people bought iPads, as compared to those who bought netbooks?
The other thing that's astonishing to me is that someone who writes a market research report could be so piss-poor at reading a graph. Sales of netbooks actually went down most in October/November 2009, well before the January announcement of the iPad. I'm kind of astonished that the author of the Fortune article could be that stupid.
Re:After a month of daily use... (Score:4, Informative)
RealVNC, and Mocha both are easy to setup and work well. Although RealVNC wants you to use their server on your computer, I believe that both will work just fine with OS X built in Remote Desktop. I've used Mocha with both 10.4 and 10.6.
Beyond that there are a number of handy remote control/trackpad keyboard apps as well. I've tried both Hippo Remote, and Mobile Air Mouse. Hippo is functional but is very basic. Mobile Air Mouse does all the basics, plus right click functionality. It also displays the shortcuts in the dock of the host machine allowing them to be launched with a tap on the iPad touchscreen.
Apples Remote Control app is out there too. But all it does is provide and interface with Front Row.
Re:hyperbole much? (Score:3, Informative)
We’re comparing growth in sales. Sales were 641% higher in July of ’09 than they were in July of ’08. Sales were still 5% higher in April of ’10 than they’d been in April of ’09.
If you’d just look at the DOW [google.com] it’s pretty easy to see why this isn’t really that spectacular. In July of ’08 the market was teetering at the brink of a precipitous fall. In April of ’09 things were just starting to recover.
Re:Whatever it taks! (Score:3, Informative)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961
"Any sufficiently rigorously defined magic is indistinguishable from technology."
Larry Niven
"Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
Gehm's Corollary to Clarke's Third Law
Re:After a month of daily use... (Score:4, Informative)
The actual worth of an iPad aside, your friend has a new piece of tech which people are lining up to buy at full retail and is still in limited supply? And he is letting it sit idle? He is either imaginary or an idiot or has never heard of eBay.
He's a app developer. He bought it to make his stuff work on it.
According to him, it's just too heavy to be comfortable and he always grabs his iPhone instead.
Re:Hype-Cycle (Score:3, Informative)
Netbooks came into existence BECAUSE they were inexpensive, there was no "AND". A "netbook" was an inexpensive, no-frills notebook and was not different in any other way.
Except that they ran Linux instead of Windows and had small SSDs instead of HDs. Which was the reason they were called "netbooks" -- not enough HD space to store much data and just a handful of apps mainly to access the net. Appliances instead of computers. *That* was the original netbook. If you really think the original EeePC was just a small laptop you've never used one.
I find it interesting that people have forgotten that already. Now the iPad comes along, does what netbooks tried to do and everyone is wondering why people buy such a thing... In fact the iPad is closer to the original netbook idea than any netbook you can buy today.
Re:After a month of daily use... (Score:3, Informative)
Do yourself a favor and buy Atomic Web browser for iPad. It's only $0.99 and it does all of the things you want to do. Tap and hold on a link and choose "open in a background tab". Supports ad-block, private browsing (porn mode), full screen browsing, user agent switching, etc.
The number one feature I like is that I can switch tabs without having to reload the entire page. In Safari, for some reason when you switch pages to a page you loaded even a few minutes ago, it has to reload. This is probably for memory reasons, but it makes tabbed browsing damn inconvenient. Atomic Web does this and somehow keeps the pages in memory.
Re:Not surprising (Score:2, Informative)
I have Ubuntu Netbook Remix installed on a 4G 701. The camera, wireless, sd card and all the rest work with current software and no "self-destructing inode" misfeature bugs. It was all autodetected so I didn't have to do any system administration to get the hardware lit up. I like the interface better than what came on the Xandros as well.
Of course not. (Score:2, Informative)
You have no point. (Score:3, Informative)
I want to be able to install whatever I want, whenever I want, from whoever I want without Jobs policing me.
Jailbreak it then.
Or become a developer, I can compile and run anything I like for the device.
Next lame argument please. Now serving number 348302389034859043850.
Re:Or is it 12 million iPads vs 20 million Netbook (Score:2, Informative)
Looks like total netbook sales for 2009 was 32 million units, not 20 million as had been predicted at the beginning of 2009. 10% is a fair chunk, but I'm sure HP, Asus and Acer each have in the ballpark of 10% of the netbook market.
Also stalled growth is largely due to both consumers and manufacturers waiting to see what Apple had in store. Preliminary data is one thing, but it's the back to school numbers leading up to August that seal the deal.
Re:Whatever it taks! (Score:3, Informative)
Lenovo tends to be slightly more popular then Dell, mainly due to the fact that the hardware is rock solid, easily cooled for long periods of time and the keyboard/touchpad is far more comfortable to use for long periods of time. That and every model of Dell looks different.
When I spend 6+ hours on a plane, I'm glad I have a Lenovo and a spare battery. The nipple mouse is far easier to use when in a confined seat and the vehicle is prone to shaking.