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Comment by hyperbovine | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting to see tablets being knighted as the Future of Computing by MSM and the tech industry when it's not at all clear that people actually want them. After controlling for the fanboy & factor, reviews for the iPad seem to be mixed. I don't think it's exaggerating to say that the form factor just might not be a good match for a lot of people.

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It's a very funny bubble to watch. I just can't see it going mainstream.

Apple's move seems to be based partly on the success of the iPhone but partly on the fact that they can't make a cheap, intel netbook without destroying their brand values, and can't make an ARM netbook without breaking compatability. (The latter applies to Microsoft too).

The fact that you can buy an external keyboard (a very un-Apple move) suggests they'd have shipped a conventional laptop form factor if they could get away with it.

I'm hoping the Apple ARM tablet leads to Android tablets which will then open the door for those ARM netbooks we've been promised for the last couple of years.

>...they'd have shipped a conventional laptop form factor if they could get away with it.

One can imagine some combination of Apple's old 12" Titanium PowerBook and the new MacBook Air into a MacBook Air Nano. Still, it's not clear how attractive that kind of form factor would be as a netbook offering.

> The fact that you can buy an external keyboard (a very un-Apple move)

So you buy a £50 Apple bluetooth keyboard to connect to your $500 iPad so you can use the $10 iWork suite to do less than you could on your $1x00 Apple laptop?

Sounds like a very Apple move.

ARM netbooks have an uphill battle. When most people see something that looks like a computer they expect it to run Windows.

I totally can. Lounging watching TV, pick up the tablet from your coffee table, check out facebook, see what's on at cinema, check latest score on the tablet, pop it back down again? Quick check of email, only need to write back a couple of lines, not at work after all.

Much easier to use than red button on tv. Much better than a notebook or laptop. Much less intrusive than them too.

I think they'll turn out to be totally handy, laptops and desktops will start gathering dust until people who don't need to write articles or code for a living wonder why bother buying a new one?

My iPod can do every one of those things you mentioned at a fraction of the weight, size, and cost. Why would I buy a tablet? This was exactly my point--tablets occupy a gray area between laptops and iPhones and the jury is still out on whether there is any value there.

>> " Lounging watching TV, pick up the tablet from your coffee table, check out facebook, see what's on at cinema, check latest score on the tablet, pop it back down again? Quick check of email, only need to write back a couple of lines, not at work after all."

This is how most people use a laptop/netbook.

I'm with you on TV. No one wants to use their TV for internet/computing.

This is how I use my g1. Check some sites, answer mail, make some notes to myself.

I feel that it is indeed going to be a revolution of sorts, and people who don't use computers professionally will start using tablets in their work. Tablets have the opportunity to become much more pervasive: laptops by design require folks to sit down, but tablets have a nicer form factor that could replace virtually anything people use while standing up/on the move: writing pads, file folders, electrical/electronic measurement equipment(with Apple approved connectors, of course), etc. Lots of professions could benefit from a usable tablet design --- doctors, field engineers, etc.

The show Stargate Atlantis shows an amusing example of one "future". Stuck in a dead spaceship on the bottom of the ocean with air running out and water leaking in? Not to worry, just hook up your tablet to the system and hack it. For Rodney Mckay, difficult takes a few seconds. Impossible -- a few minutes.

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