iPad Isn't "Killing" Netbook Sales, According To Paul Thurrott 457
mantis2009 writes "Paul Thurrott, the prolific technology analyst and Windows expert, reacts strongly to an article highlighted on Slashdot. Thurrott takes numbers from IDC and the Wall Street Journal, indicating that netbook sales have not in any meaningful way been affected by sales of Apple's tablet computer, the iPad. Money quote: '[N]etbooks and sub-12-inch machines will sell 45.6 million units in 2011 and 60.3 million in 2013. If I remember the numbers from 2009, they were 10 percent of all PCs, or about 30 million units. Explain again how the iPad will beat that. Please. Even the craziest iPad sales predictions are a small percentage of that.'"
Re:I hate this guy (Score:3, Informative)
Even if he's 100% correct in what he says about the figures, I wish /. would not give this guy a platform to rant on. I've written many a rebuttal to his posts simply because he says things simply to be controversial He's an 'expert' in nothing other than being a total asshat
Netbooks Vs. iPad? (Score:5, Informative)
I think if the iPad had a competitive price point it might be an interesting battle, one in which the iPad might win... But right now the iPad is priced like a laptop. If you look at the typical Netbook price and the cheapest iPad then we are talking above 100% price increase.
ePC - £199
iPad - £429
"Full" Laptop - £400
However what you might see happen is the iPad gets bundled with 3G mobile services and winds up costing a fair bit less in relative terms... Netbooks have tried to bundle with 3G but I think it is safe to say it has been fairly unsuccessful.
Re:Watch the messenger (Score:5, Informative)
So, as far as I'm concerned Netbooks are alive and well.
The Difference Between Affect And Effect (Score:2, Informative)
Generally speaking, affect is a verb and effect is a noun. When you affect something, you produce an effect on it. Even in the passive voice, something would be affected, not effected.
Re:Watch the messenger (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Its not a static market (Score:3, Informative)
iPad works fine for textual production, and others (Score:3, Informative)
- the iPad is mainly a device designed with a "consumer" mind set.
I totally disagree. It's a large flat touch screen with one button and a large number of input (touch, bluetooth, network) and output (video, network, display) options. It is anything software makes it.
For starter it lacks a real decent input device like a real practical keyboard.
I think you missed the part where I said "I can type very fast on it". Is it better than a physical keyboard? No. But I can type almost as fast due to the larger keys and built-in correction. The keyboard is far from awful, it works really well even for typing longer text.
I can type OK on an iPhone too (thumb typing) but on an iPad I can type almost as fast as a full size keyboard.
For very long typing sessions, someone who couldn't get used to the on-screen keyboard CAN use a very nice keyboard if they must - a bluetooth keyboard works just fine.
People were gushing over a netbook a moth or two back where you could detach the screen and convert a netbook into a touch screen tablet. Well why is it not just as good to have a similar thing where the screen starts out detached?
NetBooks are mainly designed around a "producer" mindset.
And here's the key - only of text, and even that marginally so. By the very nature of the things the screen is not great, the keyboard tiny. And what if you want to draw? There is more than one kind of input.
Netbooks are not designed around a mindset other than "small and cheap", they do not help producers or consumers by design - at least not any further than giving you a computing device that is somewhat compact with good battery life - the same as the iPad.
lots of users can have needs (typing text documents, e-mails, chats, etc.) which a device designed to have on your lap and consume media with just can't fulfil.
Except is can, and is. I know a number of people that use iPads in meetings to take notes, and when traveling to work on documents and presentations. If the device were no good at production, there would be no Keynote or Pages for it, and those work quite well - as does Numbers, the spreadsheet program.
If anything has to be afraid of iPad, that would be the e-Book readers
Being a dedicated, fixed device that can attempt to fill one role better - they have much less to worry about. I worry for the Kindle though because Amazon is trying to branch out what the device can do with the developer SDK, in the end I think it will water down the product and allow comparisons between applications you can run on a Kindle vs. an iPad (or iPod touch).
Re:Watch the messenger (Score:3, Informative)
There is a law against jailbreaking, it's called the DMCA. Moreover, you violate Apples TOS and invalidate your warranty.
How does jailbreaking violate copyright? You know, the 'C' in DMCA. And voiding your warranty is not illegal.
Re:Its not a static market (Score:3, Informative)
puny single-core ARM they have specs equivalent to a high end phone
The iPad has a "puny single-core ARM" that's not significantly faster than the 1GHz Snapdragon that is currently in many high end phones.
Re:Watch the messenger (Score:3, Informative)
So what you're saying is: iPads are no good for having access to the net and email while on the go? Uh, right.
I guess what you're also saying is that people who value mobility won't pay 30% more to get something that is half the size, half the weight, and has double the battery life? And doubles as a reader?
You can't knock the iPad keyboard in a context of a netbook because netbook keyboards SUCK. They are 89% scale. I have a friend who carried a Bluetooth keyboard with his netbook for the past year and replaced the netbook with an iPad and continued to use the same Bluetooth keyboard. You can also hook a USB keyboard to iPad, and there are many people saying they're getting 50 wpm on the onscreen keys.
The other use you missed is video. On an iPad, you have 10 hours of stutter-free video with no heat and no fan. And it's overflowing with video, with Netflix, YouTube, ABC, iTunes.
A netbook has a plastic screen (easy to scratch) and plastic body (easy to scratch). iPad is glass (you need a diamond to scratch it) and aluminum. There is a rubber case for $39 as well as hundreds of other options.
iPad is also about 1000 times more reliable than a netbook, which requires PC admin. And iPad is instant-on and can sleep a month without the battery draining.
And the 3G plan on iPad is so cheap that over 2 years, a high-end $829 iPad with totally unlimited built-in 3G is cheaper than a $300 netbook plus USB 3G modem and standard $55/month 5GB plan.
I don't find your defense of the netbook convincing at all.
Re:Watch the messenger (Score:3, Informative)
> Netbooks may not have a large keyboard, but it is physical, and it has keys.
I have an Apple Bluetooth keyboard I use with my iPad. It is physical, it has keys. The keys are 100% scale, not 89% as on a netbook. It is so small and light, that even when combined with iPad, the whole thing is half he weight and size of a netbook.
> Flash runs fine on every netbook I've tested it on. FUD.
No, Flash runs like shit. Unless you are using Windows, it can't access the GPU, which means it can't play full screen video on an Atom chip. Even on a Core 2 Duo, it will run the fan just to run an SD movie full screen.
Even under the best circumstances, Flash pegs the CPU, it reduces your battery life considerably. You can watch YouTube for 10 hours on a single charge on iPad. Next time you are using a netbook, go to youtube.com and see how many hours you get. That is Flash running like shit.
And Flash is the worst security risk of any software, and crashes more than any software. That is Flash running like shit.
Maybe you have the one fucking machine on the planet on which Flash actually runs well. I don't think so though. I think Flash has just trained you to have low expectations.
> Obviously every machine has limitations, but the iPad's are stupid limitations that don't serve much of a purpose other than vendor lockin or stupid pricing strategies.
I think that's ridiculous. There is no vendor lock-in on iPad, while there is on netbooks. The Web apps on iPad are W3C standard, not IE as on netbooks. The audio video is ISO standard on iPad, not Windows Media and Flash as on netbooks. Yes, the native apps only exist on iPhone OS, but Windows apps only exist on Windows, Linux apps only on Linux, we are pretty used to native apps being *native*. That's hardly vendor lock-in. Especially when you also have native-style HTML5 apps that run on all platforms.
> You can buy a $400 netbook and a $50 Sprint 4G card if you want to replace that $600 3G iPad
$400 netbook, plus $50 4G card, plus $60 per month for 5GB of data on contract for 2 years is $1890. $629 iPad 3G, plus $29.99 per month unlimited data with no contract is $1348.76.
So you save almost $550 with iPad compared to your netbook idea and you get unlimited data and no contract, not a contract for 5GB per month. That means you could buy the high-end $829 iPad and still save $350, enough to get a netbook as an iPad accessory for when you're in Wi-Fi.
> and you can do all sorts of cool things
Until you hit 5GB of bandwidth that month and the meter starts. With iPad, you can watch unlimited Netflix videos, unlimited YouTube, unlimited ABC or CBS TV shows, unlimited Skype, unlimited Pandora, all over 3G with no meter running. With your netbook you can only do a small amount of Web and email or you'll go over your 5GB and start being bled.
> such as type like a normal person
Any Bluetooth keyboard or USB keyboard works on iPad. Again, still smaller than a netbook even with an accessory keyboard.
> video chat
There will be a dock accessory for this for iPad soon, no doubt. Or USB webcams may be supported soon.
> do things in Flash
Like crash, or have your machine pwned, or burn out your battery in 2 hours. Flash only runs on Intel, which means 2x the size and weight and half the battery life for your Flash device. Flash is not worth that.
> listen to music in stereo
I have no idea why you think iPad can't play stereo music? It's an iPod. The headphone output has been described as having great sound, and same with the Bluetooth audio output, and both are stereo of course. It works with iPod accessories.
Are you talking about the built-in speaker? That has also been described as being great. Yes, it's mono, but it's 2 speakers, one for low, one for high. iPad is too small to have stereo separation from the speakers, same as a netbook. The idea that you would buy an iPad or netbook based on their built-in speakers, though
Re:Watch the messenger (Score:2, Informative)
No, Netbooks sales have continued to grow. They're just growing at a slower rate than they did before. There's a large difference.
See here for a more thorough explanation. [osnews.com]