Tablets on the rise as laptops fall

Article first published as Tablets on the Rise as Laptops Fall on Technorati.

Here we go again. 

The San Jose Mercury news is reporting that IDC (Intl. Data Corp) predicts 2013 will bring more bad news for the PC.  The de facto barometer of consumer markets has revised its latest estimate for yearly PC sales downward.  What was expected to be a 1.3% decline has now been  projected to be more like 7.8%.

The blame is placed squarely on an increase in tablet sales.  With 229.3 million expected this year IDC has gone so far as to predict tablet sales to outpace the entirety of the PC market by 2015.

Unfortunately, the news is both obvious and misplaced. 

Comparing sales of the Galaxy Note to a laptop is akin to comparing a fine wine to a 44 ounce fountain drink.

Tablets are consumer devices more on par with their Smartphone cousins than any laptop.   In a market sense they are disposable.  Conversely, laptops and the PC market in general operate on a much longer replacement cycle.  It's not uncommon, for example,  for the average tech savvy consumer to purchase 2 tablets during the lifespan of one laptop.

These days nobody would seriously consider paying upwards of $1000 for a laptop just to browse the web and check their email when a $300 tablet will do.  It's a given that such mundane mobility tasks have been ceded to the smart device market.    

As such, the decline of PC market share is to be expected but isn't quite the death knell the tech punditry keeps drumming on about.  Rather it's a realignment of markets defined by their functionality instead of their volume and that's as it should be.

A Surface Pro is not a competitor to any IPAD even though both claim a tablet form factor.  Their purposes are distinct and so are their customers.

In a sense, the  cheap, underpowered laptop of yesterday is the progenitor of today's tablet which now occupies it's place in the market.  A classic case of technological evolution and natural selection if ever there was one.

The New Ipad Mini is coming!

My golden pin to poke the Apple hype balloon...

Enjoy!

Music credit:

Sneeuwland (Oskar Schuster) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

New Apple products but where's the revolution?

Article first published as New Apple Products But Where's the Revolution? on Technorati.

So today the buzz in Apple land was the announcementof the new smaller IPad, the completely redesigned IMac and Retina display on a 13 inch laptop.   Oh yeah, and your "New" Ipad is now old because the 4th Generation IPAD was announced.   The 4th gen IPad boasts a more powerful A6X processor and available LTE connectivity.  Hope you got your offer from Gazelle.com locked in before today!

Tim Cook was front and center hyping all the "innovations" of his new products.  At one point even comparing the new IPAD mini to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.  Cook even went so far as to drag out the "sold more IPad's than PC's" argument  from last year which still holds as much relevance as the number of paper clips consumed by the average office.

Undoubtedly there'll be hundreds of articles about the announcement and it's not my intent to rehash that information.  I'm sure there'll be 100 blog posts in the next 24 hours to take care of that.

What was striking was how little innovation there was to be had. 

Sure, ever since the introduction of Samsung's Galaxy note last year then the Nexus this year Apple fans have been hoping for a smaller version of the IPad,

Today they got it but it's hard to understand what's so great about it.  It amounts to little more than Apple late to a market already dominated by a competitor.

The new IMac  has a thinner profile and is available with the "new" fusion drive which is little more than an SSD accelerated hard disk.   That's technology that's been available since the introduction of the Intel Z77 chipset.   Unless you view your IMac as an objet d'art instead of a computer there's nothing revolutionary about it.

In short, today's Apple announcement boiled down to a refresh of the current Ipad, a smaller Ipad with a $329 entry level price point and a prettier IMac in 21.5 and 27" screen sizes. 

Where's the real innovation? Where's the world changing product that has set the standard for consumer electronics?  Instead of changing the way we interact with technology like the first Macintosh PC or the Iphone, Apple seems content to react to market trends instead of setting them.

One thing that hasn't changed is the price point.  Apple still demands a premium price for largely garden variety hardware in an attractive shell. 

IPAD Mania, Make it Stop!

I know, I shouldn't be annoyed by the hype.  I actually did a 2 part article predicting the hysteria but I can't help myself...

With Tim cook making ridiculous comparisons like how many more IPADS than PC's were sold in the same quarter I have to point out that the statistic is only valid if you also include things like  staples  and rolls of toilet paper.   Spoiler alert, way more rolls of TP flew off the shelves and it's a seriously more useful commodity.

Then we have respected technical pundits calling the new IPAD a "content creation device" and how we're now in the "post PC era" Here's a news flash, my 8 year old digital camera and my pen and legal pad are also content creation devices, that doesn't make them "resolutionary"  I also don't need an Internet connection for my PC to be useful and I don't have to worry about filling up my flash or blowing my Data cap because I downloaded too many movies.

I'm still mystified how people can enjoy a movie on anything smaller than a 30" screen.  I didn't even like it on a 22" LCD.  It's amazing how marketing can convince consumers that less is more with a few flashy applets and a pretty screen.

Ok, here's the thing.  The new IPAD is still a tablet.  Yes it's got the greatest 10" tablet screen in the world and can hook up to LTE (fake 4G) networks now.  Wonderful, and at only $600 to $800 I can join in the fun too.

I can't stand tech hype.  I can't stand the fact that a now obsolete predecessor to this current generation IPAD only drops $100 in price and I'm supposed to be thankful.

I love how tech shows geared toward mobile devices still rely on laptops for their content while they expouse the virtues of the IPAD's third coming.  If the day of the PC is over then toss the Macbook already!  No? Then accept the fact that a tablet, any tablet, is a complement not a replacement for a PC.
All those nifty apps on the IPAD?  They're toys, nothing more than recreational apps.  Do you think Tim Cook types up his speeches on an IPAD then sends it to his secretary to edit on an IPAD?  Do you think major Hollywood movies will be shot with an IPAD camera?  Not likely if they have a major studio behind them and want to display their work somewhere other than YouTube.

Yes, there's office for the IPAD but it's so stripped down that it might as well be a document viewer.  gotomypc on a tablet?  Yeah, that's what I need, to be scrolling around the screen because I can't see the whole desktop all the time hoping my swipe doesn't accidentally wipe out the RAID array because of a careless flick of the index finger.

If you have the kind of time to be playing games, taking pictures and watching movies on your tablet during the day then god bless you.  Most people I know get up, go to work and barely have time to get 1/2 hour for lunch let alone play with a tablet.  This kind of product is aimed at a shrinking market that can't really afford a $800 tablet that's going to sit on their shelf most of the time.

When you get right down to it the reality is that the promise of a device like this for the general public holds no more water than the middle aged man who buys the red corvette thinking he'll restore his  dwindling virility
...and Apple laughs at you all the way to the bank.

Apple revs up expectations for the latest IPAD.

Article first published as Apple Revs Up Expectations for the Latest iPad on Technorati.

I wrote an article last week in my Digital Dynamic Blog entitled, "It's Crazy".  I aimed it squarely at this week's IPAD launch and the media frenzy that accompanied it.  Seems I was right as we were treated to an avalanche of media attention and outlandish marketing sound bites.  Of course Apple's CEO Tim Cook wrung a bit more anticipation out of the crowd by first announcing the new 1080P Apple TV box before getting to the star of the show.   The new IPAD which is curiously just called, IPAD (not IPAD3 or IPAD HD) has the following specifications.

2048 x 1536 (3.1 million pixels) Retina display.

A5X processor, quad-core graphics

5 MP camera on the back

HD (1080p) video capture

Voice dictation (not SIRI by the way)

4G LTE capability For the IPAD LTE (73 mbps on LTE).

Wireless hotspot capability

10 hour battery life, 9 hours on 4G.

9.4mm thick, 1.4lbs.

Compatible  mobile carriers; Rogers, Telus and Bell in Canada, At&T and Verizon in the U.S.

Price Wi-Fi iPad: 16 GB ($499), 32 GB ($599), 64 GB ($699)

Price Wi-Fi + 4G: 16 GB ($629), 32 GB ($729), 64 GB ($829)

IPAD2 pricing will also drop by $100.

Availability: March 16th in the U.S. and Canada

During the event, Tim Cook boasted of more IPAD sales in the 4th quarter of 2011 than any makers PC sales.  That's a dubious statement considering most people don't use tablets the same way they use a pc especially when there's heavy lifting to be done.  While technically accurate, the statement holds no more distinction than asserting that more paperclips were sold in the same quarter than the total number of IPADS ever produced. 

The advent of the tablet is a welcome utility for many but just as your corner convenience store is not a threat to the supermarket the tablet is no threat to the pc.  Unfortunately, Ultrabook pc makers feel it is  leading at least one manufacturer, Acer to aim for a $499 price point.  This after admitting they currently make no profit at the current $799 price.   Considering a pc in any form factor will by its very nature will have more functionality than a tablet it seems a pointless goal.  More so when you consider that the top end of the IPAD food chain offers little more than a nice display and LTE connectivity at a $829 price point.  

Tablets have their place but limitations of storage, dependency on network connectivity for basic functionality and limited performance compared to even entry level PC's makes them more of a compliment than replacement for pc's.  That also calls into question the Apple price premium especially if you don't normally utilize their ecosystem.  Cooler heads suggest selecting devices based on your needs instead of marketing hype.