drmnez

June 07, 2010 at 10:20am

I dont understand why ppl think the ipad is revolutionary. Ive had my iphone for half a year and other than choice apps its the same thing with just a bigger screen. 

replace Windows PCs? yeah right! the fact that iphone os devices are so restrictive to app store software and that you have no rom drive, means of extra storage, or any of the good stuff. I cant stream stuff to an idevice unless i wanna pay good money in the app store for such an app.

 maybe it just me, but I am tired of ppl treating steve jobs like he is god for "remaking" last years technology in a pretty package and ppl fly to it like he found the holy grail.  

reutnes

June 06, 2010 at 11:11pm

What I'd love to see with laptops are some standards in formfactor.  If I want to build a tower, I just buy parts that fit ATX.  I want to build a laptop, I'll take a few minutes to find out that's hardly even possible.  Standards and expandability with on a mobile formfactor?  That'd practically kill desktops.

mkarias1

June 06, 2010 at 6:36pm

I agree that tablets and PC can coexist.  There is no way that the PC's end is near.  It will never be the end. 

I have 2 notebooks at home (technically 3 but one is barely working and using XP).  There are 4 of us that use a computer.

I can see using the tablet to go online, do basic word processing or spreadsheeting, downloading movies/shows to watch on my commute to work (take a bus), etc.  The tablet would need to have some type of data plan so I can access it on the bus.  Wifi is not on the buses yet.

 Coexist yes, replace no.

imagonex

June 06, 2010 at 1:47pm

Apple has a lot more to worry about than anyone else in this matter.

Why? Apple's desktop sales have been on a steady decline in the past 10 years.

Apple, will have to lean more towards becoming a media-electronics company rather than a PC hardware company if they want to survive. Their PC division is not what keeps them afloat. They don't even have a serious business division. And, no, minuscule worldwide markets sales of Mac Pro Xeon towers and servers don't count as a true business division.  

In the case of Apple, their "pads" are closed market appliances. Far from an open model. They want to trap the consumer and force them into their closed market with the iPad. Android & Windows OS based appliances will be the opposite of this which is something Fruit Inc should be fear. 

Clouds, clients and consolidation, virtualization were all touted as the replacement for the desktop. It still hasn't happened. Not even in the business world. Gamers won't disappear. Creative pros, programmers and engineers won't disappear any time soon either. Portable appliances won't be able to deliver the power and tools necessary for their line of work.

Again, Apple barks the loudest because their survival is on the line. They need to push and shove a pad down the consumer's throat or else it's another decline in the long run, not the short term.

The iPad's mission in life is to trap the consumer into buying anything and everything Apple. It's an electronic conduit or porthole to all that is Apple sold, made and owned. This explains why Flash was left out on the iPad. It's all about profits and monopolizing the market and has nothing to do with security, CPU cycles and other side excuses Apple magically hurls at their minions. Flash would've have allowed people to bypass Apple's closed market hence taking a chunk out of their profits.

End of the desktop PC? Uh...maybe the OSX PC, not the Linux or Windows OS based PC.

M-ManLA

June 05, 2010 at 10:20pm

I have a Few Devices. I have my LG Dare, a PSP, A PDA which I recently retired. I Love those devices, and my phone and my PSP is usually always on me. Now I am looking at a tablet/slate (non Apple. Just too many shortcommings), and I will most likely love it. But when I am at home, there is no replacement for my workstation with my dual screens and studio equipment all hooked up to it. Never a Replacement. 

 

Electronically charged

Caboose

June 05, 2010 at 6:15pm

 Tablet's and PC's should co-exist very nicely. Having a form of hot-docking for your tablet, to quickly download information to it, such as a spreadsheet, word document, powerpoint, schematics, inventory, internet based documentation, etc and have it interface with your PC and network.

Lets look at Star Trek for example. All of the primary and heavy duty computing is performed on a main terminal. Whether it's a desktop terminal, or one in a specific area of the ship, information is then downloaded to a PADD for ease of transfer, use. You always see crew members/staff handing someone a PADD which contains important information on it once that info is retrieved/compiled/whatever. Same thing could very well be done with a tablet and a PC.

I know in my job, I'd love to be able to have my full workstation, and then a tablet as an extension, allowing me to perform most functions away from my desk. Whether it's password resets and account unlocks, to pulling up documentation, updating existing projects, to performing maintenance on printers and the like (if you've ever had to do work on a networked MFD and your office is on the other side of the building, you know how annoying running back and forth is). Even presenting a proposal to my boss would be easy. Download a quick presentation in to the tablet, show it to the boss, update it during the meeting, gathering additional data and making calculations and adjustments on the fly, and then returning to my office to upload the new/modified info to my PC and continue working.

If used properly, the tablet will be an amazing addition to full computers, and at no point will it outright replace them. Steve 'The Almighty' Jobs is full of shit! Everyone rips on Microsoft, yet they seem to be the sane ones lately.

 

-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-

yardGNOME

June 05, 2010 at 4:29pm

That is what the pad is for, nothing more. if or when tablets can start playing Bioshock 2  or Crysis1 & 2, then I might be attracted to a non-apple tablet until then...desktop for me.

cc3d

June 05, 2010 at 4:09pm

Go to any enterprise director and suggest that you start phasing in iPads at $600 a pop and phasing out loaded PCs at $600 each and they'll laugh you out of the building.

 

Even if Apple sells 7 million iPads, whoopie?!  They've sold millions of ipods too and it hasn't changed our computer needs.

snapple00

June 05, 2010 at 3:06pm

I feel like I am the only one that has no clue what the iPad actually is.

You just use it to surf the web and get on facebook and what not? Or look at pictures and play music?

I have never heard anyone say what they actually do with it, all I hear is people arguing how its going to revolutionize something.  Or how it is going to be so awesome for business. 

It seems to me like all the new tech products are just repackaged ways to do the same boring things. Its a sad world.

shutout5591

June 05, 2010 at 1:51pm

Yes...but can the iPad run Crysis?

Modred189

June 05, 2010 at 1:30pm

I think that Steve is spot on regarding the iPad. Now, first and foremost, I think they are very cool, and as a Star Trek fan, it's the closest thing to a padd in existence, and therefore drool worthy. But I cannot ever see them replacing the capabilities of a full fledged desktop unless science makes a astronomical finding in terms of CPU scaling. Powerful CPUs just run too hot and require too much power to reach the performance levels that they do. 

I mean, if a tablet cannot even play HD flash reliably, who cares? And before anyone hates on flash, the discussion regarding it's 'inefficiency' never came up until netbooks came around with horsepower lagging by 2 generations or so.  

 

Until you can reliably edit video and photos, play games and connect to a myriad of peripherals, tablets will remain peripherals in their own right. MIDs with bigger screens and a focused, narrow application.