Dude, it's a laptop you want, not an iPad | Hacker News Reader

Dude, it's a laptop you want, not an iPad

andrewoneverything.com

250 pointssendos132 comments

I've got to say this article was fairly disappointing. So the author finds more value in a laptop than an iPad; that means that everyone else must also arrive at the same conclusion? That's a load of crap. Different people have different needs, and for some, an iPad may satisfy them better.

For me, I've realized that a laptop is sub-optimal, and a desktop and soon an iPad 3 makes much more sense. You see, I only do productivity work for extended periods in a single location. I don't need to haul a computer back and forth to work, and I don't need to do extended work out of coffee shops or hotel rooms. A proper ergonomic desktop workstation is therefore the most valuable and economical solution for productivity in my case.

For mobile use, I just want something to browse the web on the couch or in bed, control my entertainment center, maybe play the occasional game or watch the occasional movie or TV show, respond to an email once in a while, and have the batteries last all day doing it. I seriously couldn't care less about a built-in keyboard, and laptop keyboards are all terrible for productivity in any case. And though the Author thinks the iPad is a, "limited device... in terms of what websites [he] can watch", I think I've had problems with a website all of one time, when it rendered some form fields above a submit button and I couldn't complete a purchase on a small e-commerce site.

I've got a MacBook Pro that is currently being so under-used, that I will hardly notice its absence after I replace it with the upcoming iPad. This whole piece seems like a useless rant to me, certainly not up to my lofty standards for HN-worthiness.

Don't take this the wrong way, but a laptop can still suit your needs just like a desktop. For various reasons, I have an 27" iMac and a 15" MBP, and from work, a MBA, full loaded, with a 27" Monitor. Obviously, an iPad 2 as well. So, I've used numerous configurations. Having the portability of a laptop with the "ergonomics of a desktop". I use a normal keyboard and mouse. While you would work from the one on the laptop, it wouldn't make much sense, imo.

Not trying to say you are wrong, just something to consider. As someone who very much enjoys desktops, the laptop + external monitor setup is quite enjoyable.

The main advantages of a desktop over a laptop for me are that the desktop has far more storage and PCI expandability, is suitable for gaming, and since I don't need to work in multiple locations, I see no benefit in being able to disconnect my CPU and use it elsewhere. This frees up precious desktop surface space as the CPU is under the desk, and I don't have to deal with an extra monitor at a weird height and uselessly small size in relation to my main screen, or closing the clamshell to sleep, but then waking it up with external inputs and using it with the lid closed, which is very harmful due to improper ventilation, and I don't want to have to disconnect a bunch of cables when I want to go mobile, or reconnect them each time I want to use my workstation. There are a million small inconveniences to using a laptop as a component to a workstation, to the point that I'd simply rather not deal with it. Plus, desktops are cheaper; I can assemble a nice gaming rig/media workstation desktop plus buy an iPad for the same cost as a nice laptop.

Off topic, but I never thought I'd see someone on HN refer to the desktop tower as "the CPU". That's what Grandma does when she points to the LCD monitor and says "the computer".

How do you know I'm not your grandma?

Because she'd point at the tower and say "the hard drive".

I think he was suggesting that people who get a detachable keyboard are actually after a laptop, not all ipad users.

I think he misses the point as to the limited software. iPad software is cheap, and you do not need to worry about viruses, crashes, losing the hdd, etc...

I have an Asus Transformer Prime and it's great, but it has its limits, and I frequently pull out my Macbook Pro. The Transformer looks like a laptop, but since it's running Android, it's kind of half a laptop:

* Switching between apps is not as smooth as on a laptop running a normal operating system

* It looks and feels like a laptop, but I still get mobile web pages

* YouTube often tells me that the content isn't available on mobile

Other than that, I like it. In particular I find myself touching the screen even though the keyboard with the trackpad is connected. Once or twice I've even tried to touch the screen while using my Macbook.

The idea of having a laptop with a detachable screen is good, but for now it's probably still not possible to stick the capabilities of a normal laptop into something that would pass as a handy tablet.

One idea I've been toying with is to set up a server, and just use Splashtop on my Transformer whenever I need a proper desktop, but for now it's really just easier to pull out my Macbook.

Regarding your point 2, you can switch at least the stock browser to use a desktop User-agent in the settings menu.

Android has a very nice, native YouTube app with a smooth interface. It can view about 50% of videos, though, since many users lock mobile users out (why?!). So opening the browser, using a development debug setting, running Flash and having awkward touch controls is quite the pain point for just wanting to see a video.

I usually use Opera Mobile, and have set the UA string to desktop, but I didn't know you could do this with the stock browser as well. Thanks, I'll try that out.

In Opera Mobile with the UA set to desktop, the experience on YouTube is suboptimal compared to a normal laptop, unfortunately.

"The idea of having a laptop with a detachable screen is good, but for now it's probably still not possible to stick the capabilities of a normal laptop into something that would pass as a handy tablet."

This use case is clearly part of the reason behind Microsoft's Windows 8 ARM strategy.

Within a year I will almost certainly own an x86-64 laptop with a detachable screen that happens to be an ARM based tablet that can run independently of the main system, so long as you're just using the Metro apps.

Apple could do the same with OS X/iOS, of course, though if they don't have an announcement for this on March 7th I wouldn't hold my breath for a while after that.

Apple's key insight was that a touch screen demands a completely different UI than a mouse & keyboard. I predict that all these hybrid approaches are doomed to niche status. The impedance mismatch going back and forth between devices is a software problem that will be solved by deeper cloud integration.

Well - yes and no.

In many scenarios, there's no need for a completely different UI. Clicking links, buttons and input fields, for instance, doesn't require the UI to be that different. I don't disagree completely with you, of course. Things such as menus need to be very different.

Perhaps the problem isn't that they need to be different - obviously a touch based UI needs to be different from normal operating system UI as it is now, but perhaps UI on normal operating systems could be closer to what's needed by touch interfaces?

As a student, the compromises people are willing to make in order to own an iPad are amazing to witness. While this is anecdotal evidence, iPads are becoming notetaking devices, with such cases being pretty common. In other cases, people are struggling and bringing Apple Wireless keyboards, and pairing them with their iPad via bluetooth. In these situations, it doesn't matter how appropriate the device is. These users have an "iPad or nothing" attitude.

Are you sure it's not that they don't own laptops, and don't want to spend the money, rather than an attitude?

Well, for the price of an iPad, you can get a high-end netbook. So, at some point, people have made the choice to get the iPad over the netbook, and cope with the disagreements.

I got a refurb Lenovo for the same price as an iPad. It isn't the most powerful laptop in the world, but its a lot beefier than an iPad.

to be fair, I can't be sure 100% of the time. However, in some smaller classes, I've witnessed some mid-semester changes in devices, which does suggest this attitude.

Considering the iPad's cost vs. capability in an academic setting (incompatible software comes to mind), I would say an iPad suggests it's an attitude or predisposition as opposed to being financially determined.

It might also show how battery life is becoming the main feature of portable devices. And iPad is hard to beat on that (though my Transformer Prime is even better when the keyboard dock is connected)

How is 6+ hours from netbooks not enough?

It still means you'll run out of power on a typical workday (or a trans-Atlantic flight). With such battery life I still found myself having to decide whether to do something now on the device, or save battery for later.

On the days when I'm carrying only my Transformer Prime I charge the device at night and never take the charger with me to work.

"Ideally, what I would like (and I think most people would like) is something of the form factor of a MacBook Air (thin and light), that has a detachable touch-screen that can run apps written for iOS or Android, and when the screen is connected to the main body, acts like a fully-functioning laptop."

What's the difference in practice between "a laptop with a detachable screen" and "a tablet that fits into a case that holds up the screen and provides a keyboard"? In terms of form factor, those two strike me as identical. Of course, if iOS doesn't do it for you in the laptop form factor, then it doesn't do it for you, but that's more a software than a hardware problem (and I'm willing to bet is a software problem not everybody has).

That's the point. A laptop with a detachable screen implies a full OS with the ability to run in mobile mode. A dockable tablet implies only a mobile OS. The former can be your only pc while the latter is purely supplemental.

There is absolutely no reason why a dockable mobile device would not deliver a full desktop experience.

Have you seen the Android/Ubuntu demo? They ran Ubuntu on a cellphone in a dock. Very impressive.

Windows 8 has a similar experience built in whith the advantage that you have a full OS with you at all times if you need it.

The difference is that an iPad docked to a keyboard isn't a fully functioning laptop. It seems like the author is looking for (for instance) a device that runs OS X, with all the power of a MBA when in laptop mode, but once you detach the screen runs iOS and has limited functionality. So maybe the author really just has a problem with the limited capabilities of iOS and the performance difference between an iPad and a MBP.

Sounds like the "keyboard" would then have to have special hardware (pricey/not efficient) or the pad would have to have multicore/scalable hardware that draws more power when connected to the "keyboard" and the keyboard could have extra hardware like more storage and IO ports and a PSU/high capacity battery. It would be cool to merge this concept with something like padphone - sort of a Russian doll concept :) And the ARM manufacturers seem to be going that route for performance anyway - adding cores/disabling them for power saving. I assume the same concept could be applied to memory and GPU.

Ok, that might be what the author wants and needs, but why does he claim to be able to tell everyone else what they want? That seems kinda self-important to me. Your own experience is not necessarily that of everyone else.

Sounds like a Touchpad or an Android tablet in a case with a chroot to boot Ubuntu. This is what I do with my Touchpad, and it works just like an ultraportable laptop with 10 hours of battery life.

You can have both with an Asus Transformer - integrated keyboard that turns it into a laptop and with 15-18h battery life, and tablet for when you need it on the couch/whatever. Why compromise? Those accessories for the iPad are not integrated at all, and they look rather silly.

Asus Transformer

- Android - 10" screen at 1280x800 - 2.9 pounds (with the dock) - 16GB HD + 1GB ram - 15hr battery

11" Air

- OSX - 11.6" screen at 1344x756 - 2.3 pounds - 64GB HD + 2GB ram - 5hr battery

The only thing that Transformer has going for it is the battery life, everything else is a compromise.

Air also has a 1.6 GHz Core i5 processor.

Well, the fact that the Air can't be used as a tablet and does not have a touchscreen can be considered a compromise as well :).

Exactly. For the comparison to be valid (I'm typing this on a Transformer BTW) you'd have to compare to the Air plus an iPad. You'd also have to compare prices, and there the Air loses badly even without including the iPad.

I think the point of contention is the necessity of tablets. As ultrabooks get lighter and more power efficient they muscle their way into the 3rd device slot that tablets are meat to fill, all the while holding on to the 2nd and even 1st device slots.

I don't think that really works, though. It certainly doesn't for me. Much of the time, I like the lighter, smaller tablet form factor (even compared to the several netbooks I've owned). I definitely like being able to flip between horizontal and vertical screen aspects on a whim. Other times, I really need to have a keyboard, but I do have to increase weight and bulk for that. Therefore, my ideal would be a single device that does both without having to deal with syncing data between two devices. An "ultrabook" cannot do that, by definition; if it could, it would be a tablet with a dock. It's therefore not true that an ultrabook can fulfill the third-device role. Its far more likely that tablets will evolve to become adequate second (i.e. near-desktop) machines while retaining their third-machine attributes, but it's flatly impossible for ultrabooks to become adequate third machines. For many people it's not the tablet but the monolithic laptop that is likely to become superfluous in a two-machine instead of three-machine world.

I can identify with this. Our family got an iPad, and while the kids like using it, I much prefer my MBP for basically everything: reading HN, blogs, news, watching videos. The larger screen, better viewing angles, and keyboard just makes it superior. I'm not sad we got it, but I don't personally find it that useful. The biggest thing it made me realize is that it'd be really nice to have a laptop with a good touchscreen. I've been thinking about the Transformer, but I do wish that docked it'd behave more like a laptop-ish machine and less of a mobile-ish one.

I have never used a 11" Air, but they get quite warm; don't they?

In contrast, the iPad 2 has never in my experience got even noticeably warmer than its surroundings, and I tend to believe that the Transformer line will also have that (very welcome, IMO) property.

Only Flash and StarCraft II heat up my Air, otherwise the fan stays off and it's completely cool and quiet.

If you're playing an FPS or running a coupla VMs, it gets warm, but not too warm to sit on your leg.

MBA 11" is actually 1366x768, but I'd prefer the 16:10 screen of the Asus over the 16:9 MBA. Also, unless the panel has changed, the Transformer has a beautiful IPS screen. The colors and viewing angle on my MBA suck compared to an iPad or Transformer.

How about price?

If 'bigger screen' rather than 'desired screen' is the required spec, then surely a 17" laptop handily beats out the MBA? It'll have a bigger hard drive, and more RAM as well.

Before I moved internationally for school, I was concerned I would need a secondary computing device that would have a lot of functionality, a lot of portability, and be cheap enough not to worry about if it, say, dropped out of my backpack while riding my bike across town.

I looked at all kinds of tablets, but then I realized I could get more functionality, roughly equal portability and battery life, for a much cheaper price.

My ASUS netbook was the best money I've ever spent.

For $250, I got:

-A 10.1 inch screen

-9-10 honest hours of battery life if you're conservative

-A 1.5GHz dual core processor fast enough to watch 360p videos while running Visual Studio and Eclipse

-2GB of DDR3 RAM

-A 250GB HD

-3 USB 2.0 ports

-Ability to dual boot Win7 Pro and Linux

-A keyboard

-A webcam

-All in a device that weighs less than 3 pounds and fits easily in any small bag.

It blows my mind that people would want to spend $300+ on a device with slightly more portability and far, far less functionality.

Although I am not trying to argue against your overall position, my experience with a Core-Duo Macbook and an iPad 2 leads me to the firm conclusion that an iPad is going to feel a lot faster than the above set-up until you add an SDD.

I've used an iPad before and I am totally willing to admit that it is a sexy device. It felt fast and was able to do a lot of useful things.

What really convinced me to buy my netbook was the ability to not worry about my computing device.

Carrying around a $500 thin piece of hardware that is constantly in danger of breaking in half or getting stolen in an unfamiliar European city was just not appealing to me.

I've used an iPad 2 extensively and (like most people reading this) I've owned a clamshell-format device, and although I do not hold myself out as an expert on such things, I would have guessed that the iPad is the more durable device because there are fewer moving parts and no moving parts as complex or as prone to getting gummed up as the clamshell's hinge or a trackpad. Do not get me wrong: I am perfectly willing to believe that a netbook is better for you than a tablet; I am just finding it a little hard to believe that durability concerns tip the balance in favor of the netbook.

P.S. The iPad's back and sides are machined from a single piece of aluminum; do iPad's really break in half?

They might not actually break in half (I was exaggerating), but my point is, when something inevitably happens to any such computing device that sees so much travel tome, there goes at least $150 for a new screen, or worse, $500 + personal data when some dude in a pub sees that Apple logo and makes a grab for it when I'm concentrating on my beer.

I have an older Samsung netbook and haven't looked at the market lately. Does your netbook do 1024x768 natively?

The Samsung I have will do it, but it is weird ... like bitmapped, which makes it unusable.

If yours does, can you share the model you bought? Thanks!

It's an ASUS eeePC 1015PEM. Unfortunately I don't think they sell them anymore. They've since upgraded the processor to an 1.66GHz N550 which performs better on youtube, but I've heard it gets 25% less battery life.

Display is 1024 x 600 non-glossy.

I have a similarly pleased experience with my Asus 1215N (1366×768 screen), which I got for around $300 new (good bargain).

It has basically two drawbacks for me: battery life isn't amazing (roughly 4 hours of active use), and I'm sure a dedicated reader would be better for reading high-res PDFs.

Oh well, I can write code in vim on my eeePC, and you can't say that about an iPad.

Really? do you want mine? I got a netbook and it was the WORST money I ever spent. Looks like very similar specs, but my experience was that it was slow. Too slow to run more than a half dozen tabs in Chrome, too slow to play flash videos smoothly, and a dinky little keyboard that my fingers would be all cramped together and I'd fat-finger everything.

Maybe if I had Linux, things would have turned out better. On the upside, it's still kicking around. The odd time I need to use IE, it's got my back.

Did you do a clean install of windows? Mine ran like crap until I did that, plus I doubled the pre-installed RAM to 2GB.

Then you were doing something very, very wrong, because I have a positively ancient laptop with 1 GB of DDR RAM and over a dozen tabs or Flash video is no issue at all.

Specs don't capture everything. An iPad is way better for browsing/reading/watching movies. Instant on is awesome. And I have to charge my iPad once every two weeks or so. Laptops don't have much for standby time. The App store is way nicer for installing software.

Of course I spend much more time on my laptop. I'm sure not going to code on the iPad.

If you run Linux on your netbook and don't turn it off (e.g. only go to sleep) then you can both have "instant-on" and an even better way to install software.

The physical form factor here described is "convertible slate". However, as someone who has spent a lot of their computer time using convertible slates (starting with a Compaq Concerto and a pre-release Dauphin DTR-1 back in 1992: yes, I was using "Windows 3.1 for Pen"), I will point out that with all of the circuitry in the slate the keyboard has to end up irritatingly poorly/awkwardly weighted (as it is way too light to make holding up the screen make sense) and is also bothersome to bring you (its "yet another fidgety component").

So, I then look at my 11" MacBook Air, and frankly: the dimensions are almost the same as the original iPad. It is /slightly/ wider (due to the constraints of having a full-size physical keyboard with keys that recess and also various ports such as USB that require a certain amount of clearance inside of the device, which is already so thin that these ports barely can exist in the device at all), but if USB is supplanted by something like Apple's Thunderbolt (convenient, huh), they could make it slightly narrower and slightly thinner.

I then argue what you're really going to end up with is a device more like the NEC Versa (1995-ish) or ThinkPad X61 (more devices I've owned), where the screen rotates around and folds back down backwards. This way, you always have the keyboard with you, and it can "take the load off" the screen part by having real circuitry in it (thereby giving it enough heft to balance the screen easily), which in turn allows the combined size to be smaller (as otherwise you are having to artificially increase the heft of the keyboard).

Apple, in fact, has been looking at such designs. We see patents from them for various ways of building a convertible slate for a while now. The original design had the screen hinged along the edge of the keyboard, where it could kind of slide down the case towards the end, and then fold back (away from you, as opposed to towards you) onto the keyboard, turning into a slate (which has the property that the screen's orientation doesn't change during the operation), but in 2011 we see the more traditional "rotate".

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2008/07/apple-re...

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2011/11/apple-wi...

The 2011 design also makes it clear that this device could have a cellular modem in it, which means that were it to exist it would compete with a 3G iPad. That brings us to the listed constraint of "run apps written for iOS". Truly, however: much like you don't actually want a case that can house a keyboard and attach it to an iPad, you also don't want to be able to run iOS applications; the mistake in both is to take what you have now, assume "I can't have it both ways", and then come up with some kind of band-aid solution.

What you really want is to have a single set of applications that work well on either form factor due to a set of unified interface primitives. When you "convert" between a laptop and a slate, you don't want to be running a different web browser and a different word processor: you want there to be a seamless set of rather subtle changes to the apps you were just running (if any changes are required at all: in an ideal world you would want no changes, but there are practical concerns), allowing you to maintain mental state.

Again, this is the direction Apple is headed. In Lion they have started moving desktop Mac OS X to a world of full-screen applications, just like on iOS, and are borrowing many of the UI elements. They reversed the scrolling direction (to make the gestures common) and removed the scrollbars (which already aren't present on iOS for various reasons). Gestures are now permeating more of the applications, and with just another couple years of this, the difference is going to be quite slight; and yes: they have another patent on it.

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2010/11/apple-wi...

Really, the only thing left would be to figure out how to unify the App Store experience. Ideally (for Apple), the resulting ecosystem would be quite similar to the situation on iOS: a closed store that Apple controls, with careful "security" measures at all levels to keep the user from "messing up" their device with software that wasn't centrally vetted. This would be accomplished with a combination of protected firmware and sandboxing of all applications, each of which would be isolated to their own state.

Well, with the advent of the Mac App Store we see Apple offering the same unified experience, and with Lion we saw them adding sandboxes. These sandboxes eventually became a required part of the workflow, and with Mountain Lion they are getting tighter. Meanwhile, Mountain Lion has added the "only from App Store" switch: defaulted to off (for now), but with another half-way setting, "only from registered developer" defaulted to on; even I felt this was ahead of schedule ;P. Again: we only need to look forward another couple years.

tl;dr I believe Apple's behaviors (and patents) agree: their goal is to provide this.

Couldn't agree with you more.

Another form factor option would be a Macbook Air with a double-sided display. Rather than flipping a screen around, you just close the lid to enter iPad mode, and open it for laptop mode.

Seamless app switching from iOS to OSX mode basically requires writing two different views, based on the same model, using a MVC design. That'll be easier for some apps (Safari, Calendar), difficult for some (Numbers, OmniGraffle), and maybe impossible for others (Xcode). It wouldn't make sense to try and force OSX and iOS versions of "everything" as some apps work best in one environment and not the other.

Windows 8 is half-doing this (from what I've read), and sounds clunky, but the verdict is still out on that.

Some applications are going to feel stuck in one interface or the other, but it is already the case that some applications already are mostly mouse and others are mostly keyboard: the touch screen is just another interface that is available, and for many applications it is in fact totally doable to make the transition between the touch screen and the keyboard as seamless as moving your hands from the keyboard to the mouse: it would be awkward to expect to see two views of the app, one mouse-driven and the other keyboard-driven, being flipped between via an MVC paradigm.

it would be awkward to expect to see two views of the app, one mouse-driven and the other keyboard-driven, being flipped between via an MVC paradigm.

I'd expect that both views would be fairly similar, like the two different views on an iPad vs. iPhone app, or when rotating 90 degrees. The OSX view would be tailored just for it; larger screen size, multiple displays, different input, etc... Apple is already unifying the look-and-feel of OSX and iOS apps, getting ready for some sort of merge (iCal/Calendar, Pages, Reminders in 10.8).

We're probably going to see five major input devices in all computers a few years from now. Keyboard, mouse/touchpad, touchscreen, voice, and physical gesture (e.g. Kinect, eye tracking). No piece of software has to use all of them, just as many as necessary. So I wouldn't expect "every" app to have an OSX and iOS mode.

In the future, a sixth input device will probably read our thoughts directly. :)

> Again: we only need to look forward another couple years.

Two years is a very long time in tech. By then Windows 8 and a wide range of hardware it enables will be in full swing, not to mention Ubuntu on Android.

Also much of what you said is still speculation, since Apple seems to be the opinions that allowing OS X apps on the iDevices will made the experience and battery life worse. OS X applications expect to be running all the time and multitask unlike App Store apps.

They talked about how the post-PC world of iDevices will relegate PCs to be the trucks of computing. So their strategy seem set in stone for a while and they're selling boatloads of iPads, so I doubt they're going to pivot anytime soon.

Of course: anything said about the future is "speculation"; stating as much is pointless, as it is impossible to say otherwise. ;P We can only speak of the trajectory of things we can observe, such as market behaviors or patent filings.

To comment on "OS X apps on [] iDevices", that is still a notion that comes from the (I argue flawed) way of thinking that extrapolates a few isolated variables from today without taking into consideration how they will affect each other.

In this case, the performance and battery tradeoffs of multi-tasking are already changing in hardware: I do not feel like my 11" Air (again: nearly the same dimensions as the original iPad) is drastically worse for supporting multitasking.

Meanwhile, OS X /is/ moving in a direction of more restricted applications: it would not be surprising to see most normal software start being suspended when in the background, in exactly the same manner with the same exceptions as on iOS.

As for the "post-PC world", I fail to see how any of this is a "pivot": in fact, it seems to be exactly where they are going based on both their behavior (looking at the changes they are making to their product lines) and their patent filings.

Apple is explicitly bringing iOS features to OS X, where they are actively dropping Mac branding. Meanwhile, the performance of the iOS devices is increasing and they are bringing an ever more complete programming experience to it.

During all of this, they are actively evaluating hardware that combines the benefits of both of the platforms (specifically: keyboard and touch). Seriously: if I had a touchscreen on the MacBook Air, I'd question the entire point of having an iPad.

Given all of this, it would be shocking if they were not intending to unify the two platforms, and that is why this is relevant to this article: the author is stating that he doesn't want to have an iPad+keyboard, and it seems highly likely that Apple agrees.

(Finally, I fail to see why it is relevant to say that "two years is a long time in tech", and then bring up competition; it is certainly and obviously true that everyone is seeing this same vision, but the article was about people and their iPads.)

Or basically this: http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/14/asus-eee-pad-slider-shows...

I think the key to the OP's idea is that it runs iOS in "tablet mode" and MacOS when in its keyboard stand.

Where to run iOS, the "tablet" part would require a small processor, but the main CPU and circuitry could live with the keyboard. Someone was working on something like this with a stripped down Linux (or Android?) for the tablet, but I can't remember who (Lenovo?).

"but if USB is supplanted by something like Apple's Thunderbolt (convenient, huh)"

By which you mean "Intel's Thunderbolt, which Apple was the first vendor to license"...

(FWIW, both Apple and Intel's website use the term "technical collaboration" to describe the relationship between Apple and Intel with regards to Thunderbold, which certainly seems stronger than "was the first vendor to license".)

This is Windows 8's primary use case. We'll soon see how many people agree with OP

This makes a lot of sense. I played around with Windows 8 this week and thought this hybrid felt a bit awkward on my desktop pc. But installed on a laptop which converts to a tablet would be very practical and useful.

I only purchased an iPad after realizing one specific use case. Managing my new baby. General purpose computing or browsing is left to my laptop. Things specific to baby like FaceTime/skype, pandora music, one-handed browsing while holding the baby, work perfectly. But it never leaves this environment. Laptop for everything else.

Here, here. Kids are a great market for iPads. When we bought our first I thought it would be nothing more than a toy, but to see the interaction our 2 and now 3 year old has with it is amazing.

The gesture interface is an excellent method for kids to learn and feel comfortable.

I've been trying out a bit of a different setup and finding some interesting results so far.

I switched from an iPhone to a Samsung Galaxy Note to try and achieve a few things:

- I liked owning an iPad but didn't like carrying it with me in addition to my laptop.

- I liked consuming information on my iPad. I wanted to continue consuming information on a device.

- I liked trying to make my iPad my sole device for communication (Facebook, twitter, email, IM, Skype.) If I could do it on my iPad I could block out those distractions on my laptop. I live not running any notification stuff on my laptop when coding. I really like being able to come to my communication device and find that there.

- the iPhone seemed to small to use as an information consumption device, iPad too big to carry to do the same. If I wanted a physical keyboard on my iPad I could get a MacBook air (which I did and its working great for that purpose)

- my iPad became strangely redundant in my use case after getting an Air because I wanted a light device to carry around. Ended up selling it.

- The Note fits in my pocket. It's thinner and lighter than an iPhone from everyone who's compared the weight

- The Galaxy Note seems huge as a phone but small as a serviceable tablet. The high screen res makes it very usable. I've been varying just the note and my air and its almost starring to feel like I'm where I should be.

So, maybe you're looking for an Ultrabook and a 'Phablet'.

I'm going to ride this out until the iPhone 5 is available to re-evaluate then.

"It's thinner and lighter than an iPhone from everyone who's compared the weight"

Apparently these people didn't have a scale, as the iPhone 4S is 140g and the Note is 178g.

Apparently so, I guess the size of it makes it seem lighter, for its' size. :)

The author has a point: many iPad buyers spend a lot of money to work around the limitations of the device. Is not a minority, else there wouldn't be so many keyboard cases for it.

I think the problem are all those pundits talking about the "post-PC era". Some are even reinforcing that point with Windows 8, but guess what? That OS is Windows7 with a touch UI layer on top. The only real novelty is the ARM version, in which case we're entering the post-WinTel era (at last!).

The iPad beats the crap of any PDA or PMP, but PCs and Macs? Sorry, is just not that versatile. The limitations it has have more to do with battery life and engineering constrains than actual ease-of-use.

And APPL patents are rarely made into actual products. Ironically that one from 2008 has far more in common with that slider tablet from ASUS than anything APPL is actually working on.

I agree with the author, people at my old job would have this setup and I found it odd, I do have an Android tablet but I use it very differently from my laptop, I use it for browsing, watching movies, etc and video skyping, if I ever have an urge to do "real work", I always fire up the laptop, I think some people fell a little to hard for all the marketing of these tablets as they really convinced themselves they no longer need a real laptop, IMO the two complement one another.. after a long day of work, some days I just don't want to touch a regular computer again but if I need to look something up real quick, or just read articles, the tab is great for that, it gives a different user experience which is a nice change.

People need to stop telling other people what they want.

The funny thing is that we buy what comes in new, and don't really know the purpose or use of it. iPad to me makes sense if you are an avid browser, and a reader, or type in few short emails a day. First came iPhone, and then came various keyboards which can be blue toothed to the phone. Dude!! the iPhone has a touch keypad, and its not for typing in long emails. Use the gadget for what it is meant for.

When I started to study last year in October I thought about getting a tablet for day-to-day use. But then I realized everything and more can be done with a small Laptop aswell and reading papers is even better on a Kindle than on a tablet anyway. I am happy with my choice, there's such no usecase for a tablet where my laptop/smartphone/kindle can't do a better job overall.

Personally, the tablet form factor is great for consumption. For example, watching movies or casual web browsing.

For me, I don't have much use for a tablet on the creation side but suspect it might be of use for specific requirements, people DJ'ing etc.

But my mindset has always been: right tool for the job. Trying to use a tablet as a laptop probably will be very frustrating in short order.

Without having read all the 119 comments (sorry for that), it seems to me that this is exactly the kind of device Microsoft is envisioning with Windows 8, isn't it? Unfortunately, up to now you have to choose between an iPad (or something similar) and a full-fledged notebook since netbooks are basicly killed by the former and not powerfull enough for the later. So, as far as I see, there's a gap that can be exploited, why carry and buy in the first place, two devices when one is enough? The only point where I beg to differ with the author is if it's really Apple who debuts a gadget like that. Windows 8 seems, up to know, the most promising OS around that goes into this direction. On the other hand I simply cannot tell what Apple has in the works... Whoever is going to to be first with such a talet - notebook hybrid, it's an intressting development nontheless

I dont think we're discussing real solutions to the mobile computing problem here - just stop gaps.

The issue with doing real work on a tab or smartphone is that touch is not a fast or accurate input medium - mice and keyboards are much better suited for it.

However, it would be foolish to think this will always be the case. Some combination of our devices recognizing new gestures (grasp, cup, etc.), advances in interface design and voice recognition will eventually disrupt the keyboard and mouse. Since our data can basically be stored in a number of device agnostic ways already via cloud computing, user interfaces for interacting with that data are only going to iterate faster and faster.

I think the problem of creating content on the go is going to be solved in the software too soon to warrant a whole product line that merges keyboards and trackpads into our tabets.

I don't see how you can ever replace a laptop. iPads are cool and have appeal as being easier to grab & go- kind of like a larger version of our iPhones. Tablets as an accessory, yes. However, as a replacement for our laptops, no way! Those of use who daily use and rely upon our laptops know better.

>"Ideally, what I would like (and I think most people would like) is something of the form factor of a MacBook Air (thin and light), that has a detachable touch-screen that can run apps written for iOS or Android, and when the screen is connected to the main body, acts like a fully-functioning laptop."

To make the screen detachable you would need to have everything in the screen section which, as others already pointed out, makes for a awkward weight distribution. Years ago I've seen a laptop with a touch screen where you were able to pivot the screen and close it with the display pointing up. So the laptop was closed, but you were still able to use the touch screen. A MacBook Air with where you can do that and that can run iOS Apps would in my eyes be the perfect solution.

I was going to get an iPad a while back. Basically, unless you're doing basic Web browsing or just playing games, you need a keyboard to do any real work on a tablet. Also, they're light, but still not much different than a MacBook Air - and they're not much cheaper. Tablets still just seem like a novelty to me - toys for gaming and watching movies.

If you want a serious tablet though, check out the Modbooks. They're regular Mac notebooks hacked to use touchscreens. They're good if you do art on your notebook, since you can basically draw on the screen, you get all the features of a full-fledged notebook, and they were around long before the iPad.

I want both. It's more practical to make a tablet into a laptop than it is to make a laptop into a tablet. Eventually the iPad will run OSX when its docked into a MacBook Air or iMac style enclosure and run iOS when it's not. The two operating systems will work very well together. If you're working on a Pages document on iOS when you dock it will automatically open in Pages on OSX. All your open Safari windows on iOS will open on OSX. It's just a matter of time. Tablets need to get a little bit faster and integration between the mobile and desktop OS needs to improve so it's a seamless experience.

I've gone through the same experience and Microsoft has galp sold me Windows 8.

Having watched their keynote at MWC I am quiet impress at what has been done behind the scenes for Windows 8. Some influence from Plan 9/linux can be seen with the new hard drive space management. The new process management seems exciting if it works properly.

Microsoft seems to have put some serious engineers behind Windows 8. For that I tip them my hat.

I can't wait till I can get the Lenovo Yoga. I'm after a laptop with an IPS screen and I'm after a 13" tablet. I think my setup for next year will be desktop/server + Lenovo Yoga + 8" tablet + 4"+ phone.

One year before the first iPad was released, there was a small laptop with a detachable touch screen that I drooled over, the Touch Book: http://techcrunch.com/2009/03/02/touch-book-tablet-netbook-w...

The only thing I found lacking was the screen size, which was too small for me (8.9"). And it had an ARM CPU, which at the time (before iOS and Android) was a poor choice for most people, although I could probably manage just fine.

Surely tablets are for consumers, and laptops are for workers and creators. I mean, I can't imagine developing anything on a tablet, iPad or otherwise, but grazing the web should be a breeze on a tablet.

I've had the same reaction to tablets. They're kid of a "tweener" device for me. If I want to, I can surf the web on my phone (Android), but I'm certainly not going to develop anything on a tablet.

I take a 15-20 minute ride into the city every morning and I've built a few apps on the way. I really couldn't see myself trying to type on a smaller device, with a smaller screen and a condensed keyboard.

I have yet to find a really good use for a tablet yet. I have an older 14.5" laptop which runs Linux Mint 11, and with only 1GB of ram, it's a lot faster than you think. It accomplishes the tasks of simple browsing, hammering out some quick code and other remedial tasks - and oh yeah, it only cost $150.

"I take a 15-20 minute ride into the city every morning and I've built a few apps on the way."

For me its a netbook (Samsung NC10, 1024 by 600, 70 UK pounds off ebay) and I write worksheets and presentations and the occasional multiple choice quiz. That 2x 25minutes every day is really useful.

The iPads I see in the wild here are mainly management types with leather wallet cases (no keyboards).

Thats why I say tabs are for consumers. If you want to just sit down and look at things on the web, then they are ideal. The second you want to participate, say, reply to some one on a forum, then it begins, IMHO, to get difficult. If you want to type out something or work, then its near impossible.

OK, there is, or should be, more to it than browsing the web, but my point I think, is more about input. Maybe be its me, but I am yet to find anything better than a keyboard and mouse. Even track pads are a pain to me. What I think is a problem is that these tablets actually limit what one can efficiently do with a computer, which kinda goes against the whole point.

I also think that "we" techie types are very different users to the majority of people who buy these things. We expect a "computer" to be versatile and do everything. Where as the average punter only wants limited set of things to work well. And these tabs do that really well. And, of course, there is more of them than us!!!!!!

I have a Xoom with a wireless keyboard and I love the setup. It's important to push the hardware boundaries and blur the lines so you can see what users will want in the future. The iPad is too locked to allow for the developers to build real keyboard apps. But the Android tablet ecosystem is different, and it allows for more traditional-desktop-OS styled apps.

Development should be a smooth experience sometime soon, I hope. The author doesn't want an iPad but he might want some kind of Android device in two or three years.

While an ASUS Transformer Prime is still limited in certain ways like the iPad, surely that's already a step in the right direction (as far as this post is concerned)?

I think this all depends on the user. If you are a person who is largely a consumer of data (reading Twitter, checking email, etc.), the form factor and weight of a tablet is great. If you produce more data (constantly writing emails, code, working with spreadsheets, etc.), you definitely need a laptop.

This reminds me of when laptop screens went glossy. Firstly everyone thought that they liked it. Then they realized that these screens were actually less ergonomic to use due to the increased mirror reflection. Now it is often necessary to pay more for the option of a non-glossy ('anti-glare') screen.

What does my head in is that nowadays, it seems computer = internet, and that is almost the only use people know of.

You are rarely a complete consume. Like here: we are being tiny producers here writing comments.But even this part is not very convenient on a iPad. If you have tried the split/thumb keyboard on Windows 8, you'll know what I mean.

Tablets are for consumers, and laptops are for consumers, workers, and creators.

Ultrabooks are rushing in to fill this need. I just bought one and it has been everything I hoped.

Which one did you get and have there been any surprises with it?

Well.. amazing how long it took to realize for him.. There are certainly usecases for a tablet and for a laptop, it's not like you have to try hard to use a shiny new gadget for something it is not good at..

For the first 8 paragraphs I was thinking "What an idiot!" but then the last two might suggest a great idea: have the iPad switch to MacOS when it is inserted into a keyboard stand.

I don't want an iPad or a laptop. My ideal would be an all in one device: a smartphone that docks into a tablet that docks into a keyboard. Something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=R...

I know it will be awhile until the hardware in the phone can be powerful enough to compete with laptop performance, but I hope it comes soon. Also, while I like ASUS' concept, I think it really needs Apple's design thinking to take it from good to great.

While the author continues to scratch his head because he's attempting to fit a square into a circle, I'll continue to use my Macbook Air for actual work, my iPad for couch/bedside/casual consuming, and my iPhone for communicating on the go.

You know, what all of the devices are meant to do.

Can anyone here actually see Apple releasing a product that has a detachable part? That stands for everything Apple is against when they design products.

With an iPad and keyboard you can turn the iPad vertical for some uses, horizontal for others.

Because of distraction-free-single-tasking-writing.

Most sane thing ever said about the iPad.

>I think some devices like this are beginning to appear, but so far none of them are compelling. It might take Apple to show them how it's done, again.

Really? Not even a mention of Windows 8, if it is just to say why it doesn't suit his needs? Has the author taken a look at upcoming Windows 8 devices like the Samsung Slate ?

Or is the discussion artificially limited to Apple devices when Apple has specially noted that they don't envision a fusion device/OS (atleast in the short-medium term) because it won't be a good consumer experience.

The tradeoff of the Slate is lower battery life and things like a fan, but it has a Core i5 and can run all Windows apps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K1ZbY03nTQ

Or check out the IdeaPad Yoga, a 13" Macbook-Air like laptop that can double as a Windows 8 tablet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SHKFYngqOM

http://cnettv.cnet.com/hands-lenovo-ideapad-yoga/9742-1_53-5...

There will be Windows 8 ARM tablets that will be fanless and have great battery life, but they can run only Metro apps and touch optimized versions of Office.

These are just the tip of the iceberg and there will be lots of Transformer like devices in the coming months running Windows 8. These may or may not fit the author's needs, but excluding them from the discussion doesn't seem like a good move to me.

Why is this being downvoted? Because it allows for the possibility that a Microsoft product could satisfy the needs of someone when an Apple product doesn't?

If you disagree, say why. A downvote isn't a substitute for substantiating your opinion.

Its hacker news. What do you expect? Not many Windows users here.

So? I posted that from a brand new MacBook Pro. Doesn't mean I've lost my ability to reason objectively or that I need to trash the opinion (passive-aggressively, of course!) of those who like Microsoft or Lenovo or whatever. OP made a valid point about Windows 8 and (you're right, what do I expect; it's Hacker News) it got downvoted for that simple reason. I think it got downvoted because it was a cogent point. Bullshit.

The author seemed to be talking about devices of such a form factor, presumably after discarding options like the Asus Transformer (+Prime +Infinity). Windows 8 is only one small part of the equation, and there have been zero compelling examples of it on a device such as what the author described. Not to mention that as an OS it certainly hasn't proven itself yet.

There actually aren't any Windows 8 tablets (nor any Windows 8 devices of any kind) in the market now.

It's a valid point but it's at least a year early.

I'd imagine because at the moment there isn't a tablet market, there's an iPad market. Windows 8 isn't even out yet.

I'll answer for myself, as I have no idea about the author.

For me Windows is disqualified from the start because it's not Unix or Plan 9. The nature of my work requires a Unix environment, and even if it weren't the case, I'd still prefer a Unix/Plan 9 environment.

The various Unix emulation layers available in Windows like Cygwin, SFU/SUA/Interix, UWIN, MKS don't satisfy me the slightest, and even if they did, they'd restrict me to the Unix side of things while on Linux or Mac OS X I most often use plan9port.

Tried Virtualbox?

I was sure someone would mention virtualization.

I use virtualization all the time, I have to, I can't even chose not to. I am a kernel programmer, doing kernel work without virtual machines is very difficult, for one particular non-Unix operating system I develop for it's even impossible.

But my choice for Unix-based systems is not necessarily dictated by work. I use Unix tools all the time, for everything. Why would I run Windows as my host when my toolkit is available only in a virtual machine and I don't care at all about the tools Windows offers me? It doesn't make any sense, I'd have to run at least one more virtual machine and I'd have poor integration with applications running in the host.

By having Mac OS X or some Unix derivative, like Linux, as my host I have my toolkit where I need it most and I can still run my target VMs.

And your answer is thoroughly irrelevant. For the same reason, you can't use an iPad because it doesn't have classic unix environment tools.

Install Linux on the Samsung Slate then? Linux will be taking advantage of touch hardware built for Windows 8.

People have already got it running but with some missing pieces that will fall into place with newer versions of Linux/Ubuntu and with new hardware.

[Disclaimer: I used to work on the Windows team]

I use both a Windows 8 slate (Samsung series 7) and a Macbook Air on a daily basis. Windows 8 recently released their Consumer Preview [1] and I'm finding that I'm using it more and more as my primary device. There's something about growing accustomed to having touch as an interface option that makes it hard to go back to traditional laptops.

[1] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516.aspx

Yep. After using the Transformer Prime (mostly as a tablet, but with the keyboard dock if I need to write anything longer), I've started touching the screen on my MacBook Air as well. Doesn't do much, unfortunately.

A quad-core A5 might have the horsepower to function as both a Mac and an iPad.

Think iPad, but with some ports and an SSD in the 'base', and battery and screen and smarts in the touchscreen part.

I wonder how much compromise would be involved in such a device. It seems like it might be much less, now that we have two devices, MBA and iPad that seem to be converging together.

What if it's an MBA with all of the guts in the display part instead of the keyboard? Detach the keyboard et voilà, an iPad.

An iPad ... but thicker, heavier, with a fan and a docking port/hinge connecter on one edge. And an MBA with the USB/audio ports on the screen which is screen-heavy and keeps falling over backwards.

I'd love to see a detactable touchscreen product where tablet part is a standalone device, but the keyboard part contains additional battery and hard-drive and maybe even additional memory, GPU and CPU. That way the low powered tablet screen could be taken off when I want to only read or watch video, but the full power of the device is available when it's docked, with tablet or desktop interface available for each mode.

(Yeah, I get that plug-and-play chips & memory are unlikely to happen, so perhaps the keyboard part would contain a separate host OS and they'd communicate over a more hot-swappable interface...)

It sounds like the Asus Transformer[1] is most of what you want (and also a nice tablet).

[1]: http://eee.asus.com/en/eeepad/transformer/specification/

IMHO, tablety paddy things are all just expensive toys unless they let you use some form of accurate stylus as well as your fingers.

Fingers have some major usability issues if used as your only drawing instrument, when it comes to any form of detailed technical drawing, and in engineering environments are often covered in various interesting varieties of minging filth.

Also, we can see down to a much finer point than the tip of a finger and even if I have paid out serious money for something that calls itself a 'retina display' I would still like to be able to try and see which pixel it is I am selecting.

Very few people do any drawing/drafting, and for them there's Wacom.

Yep you are right. Almost no-one does any drawing or drafting. Apart from every moody teenager in the world as far as I can tell. Plus the whole creative industry.

Oh, and artists.

What you really want is a netbook hackintosh running OS X. All the benefits of a small form-factor -- but its a 'real' computer, can run a compiler and a webserver and doesn't put any artificial obstacles in your way. Program development at the command line, browser (any) with flash and install anything you like. It will sync with your office desktop and its cheap.

Not everyone has the nous or the patience but if you do its a doddle to do and works really well.

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