—Then he brought out the iPad. And even though it was really just a netbook without a keyboard, folks saw the result as magical and different—
I see it as a netbook without a keyboard. A friend, who is ALL APPLE bought one and he said it’s pretty much useless to him. It’s no more portable than his apple laptop and is not as user friendly (no keyboard), though one of our friends love his - mostly because he uses it for his young son to play games while dad’s trying to work.
Win8 is going to be another rushed-to-market bit of trash that the public won’t glom on to. Have you seen the requirements for the OS? They’re not really even marketing it to your standard desktop user. It’s completely a tablet/touchscreen OS, which I think is going to come back to haunt them much like Windows CE did.
Your average everyday user is comfortable with a MaK setup. Touchscreen monitors are too expensive for universal adoption.
Then came the return of Steve Jobs who, after five years, convinced people to look at Apple and its products differently.
Jobs didn't "convince people to look at Apple and its products differently", he revised and simplified the whole product line. Then he focused Apple on far fewer products.
I got an iPad 1 when the 2 came out and the 1’s price went down. I rarely use my netbook any more, even though the iPad is not a good platform for a writer like myself if you actually want to compose a piece on it - thanks to the virtual keyboard. I’ve tried a couple of Bluetooth keyboards and they help, but at the expense of portability.
But for sitting in a hotel, the living room, a bar (not that I’d ever do that!) or wherever and surfing the net and emailing, you can’t beat it - and that includes the other tablets I’ve tried; the iPad’s clearly the best.
One bonus I discovered is that airport security doesn’t insist on unpacking the thing; I can leave it right in my carry-on stuff. That’s a nice, though admittedly minor, convenience.
Others’ mileage may vary, of course!
Cheers,
Jim
“even though it was really just a netbook without a keyboard,”
And that’s the mistake the competition and naysayers keep making. Netbooks sans keyboards have been around a long time and went nowhere. It’s not about the hardware, it’s about the hardware and software and UI and OS and delivery and walled garden and price and etc all rolled into a single out-of-the-box package. AND that it is not a “computer” (if you need one, get one, iPad isn’t it).