Apple's Secret Weapon To Win the Tablet Wars 716
Hugh Pickens writes "International Business Times reports that when manufacturers trotted out their Android tablet prototypes during the CES show two months ago, pundits were happy to toll the death knell for the Apple's iPad, but now manufacturers are discovering that simply making a good tablet does not guarantee that it will sell — much to the chagrin of Motorola and its Xoom product. Now it is plain for all to see that Apple's secret weapon is their network of dedicated Apple stores worldwide where dedicated sales people are not only able to better explain its tablet to consumers but Apple also captures more margin than competitors who have to share margin with retail partners. Apparently, we are not going to see a repeat of the Android ambush of the smartphone market where the combined, price, savvy marketing, and modulated supply releases of the iPhone created so much aspirational demand in the market that buyers simply surged at the chance to buy what was perceived to be an equivalent product at lower prices. 'Motorola's Xoom is only the first to face these problems,' writes AA Defensor. 'Soon RIM's Playbook, and HP's TouchPad will hit the shelves and unless they can do something drastic over the short term, it might remain to be an iPad market. But not because they did not build a good product.'"
Re:Use cases? (Score:4, Informative)
But I don't understand the use cases for finger-only tablets. ... . Does anyone have experiences with these fingery tablets?
90% of my ipad time is clicking delete on almost all emails, scrolling and reading some emails. Its a really easy choice, wait five minutes for the PC to boot up and anti-virus to finish and log in, click thru todays firefox upgrade and windows "upgrade", etc etc, or five seconds on the ipad till I do what I want. Regardless of CPU speed, latency makes PCs incredibly slow compared to an ipad.
It makes a pretty good web-shopping platform on the couch. Peapod, Amazon, etc. Again, instant latency compared to a PC, and no virus/security issues.
Very star trek tablet web page viewing experience. Pick up, look at local weather radar, local weather forecast, stocks, bank account, whatever, then put down. No upgrading / virus scanning / latency drama, its just there and ready for me instantly.
Makes a great ebook reader. Some awesome fast and smooth pdf readers and CBZ/CBR comic book reading apps.
Generally speaking the experience on a tablet places the user in the drivers seat, whereas the experience on a non-linux desktop/laptop/netbook places the device in the drivers seat with the user as a passenger.
Re:Was Microsoft Riight? (Score:5, Informative)
Spoken like someone that's never actually used an iPad.
I'm not Apple fanboy. The iPad was the first piece of Apple hardware I've owned. I purchased one because I could immediately see places I would use it.
Many many people these days work with portable environments, making limited data entry into web browsers. An iPad with its light weight and long battery life is ideal for those folk.
Re:Use cases? (Score:4, Informative)