from Hacker News

The Next Six Months

by thushan on 2/9/11, 10:30 PM with 218 comments

• by kenjackson on 2/9/11, 11:33 PM

  Microsoft AND Intel being effectively missing from the tablet race is staggering. And there are a few reasons why its staggering:

  1) Both have known it was coming, maybe longer than anyone else. But got the core requirements all wrong.

  2) No one really seems to care.

  3) Related to (2), there is no belief that they have anything up their sleeve.

  4) Their existing ecosystem, probably a billion units strong, doesn't seem to help their situation at all.

  5) Both CEOs seem firmly in place still.

  While Intel and MS will make money hand over first for years to come, it does appear to be the end of the consumer market for these two companies. Their focus will be business class computers, workstations, and servers.

• by pkulak on 2/9/11, 11:10 PM

  "Apple was willing to announce it months in advance because they had no competition..."

  What? They announce the first version of a product early because, being the first, it can't stop people from buying the previous version. If they announced the new iPad now, iPad 1 sales would tank.

• by naner on 2/9/11, 11:36 PM

  I don't think the market for these things is huge as he suggests. Why would anyone buy a non-Apple touch or tablet device? I can see the argument for smart phones from different vendors, but not for these causal computing touch devices.

  And this is coming from someone who has never paid a cent to Apple. I haven't drank the kool-aid but none of these touch devices appear to really be competing with Apple. They look like they are struggling to catch-up. These devices always have some combination of a bigger price tag, buggy interfaces, crappier specs, and/or way less software available.

  I'd rather see these other vendors go a completely different direction. Microsoft releasing an iPad clone this late in the game would just be embarrassing. The Kinect was a good response to the Wii. The Playstation Move was not. (I'm making assumptions here since I'm not a gamer. I have no idea whether the Move/Kinect are successful or not.)

• by pclark on 2/9/11, 11:07 PM

  I wrote an entire comment about how great it is for Apple to work in secret and release and "blitzkrieg" the competition. But it turns out Apple announced their iPhone ~Jan 2007 and it shipped ~June 2007.

  So why did HP announce their entire 2011/2012 line up and direction of products without a price and or release date?

  I think that this means HP has stake holders breathing down their neck, and they had to publicly show their hand asap. Thoughts?

• by alanfalcon on 2/9/11, 10:46 PM

  If Apple does have two separate iPad releases in 2011, I definitely think the first announcement will replace the current iPad and the next announcement will be a product that augments the iPad line, an HD or Pro model, as Gruber predicts. But I sincerely doubt there will be two different iPad announcements this calendar year.

  Ever since Gruber's initial review of the iPad, I've been intrigued by the possibility of a Pro model with more RAM and possibly some extra horsepower. Again, it doesn't seem like Apple's plan though.

• by cletus on 2/10/11, 3:25 AM

  I mostly agree with Gruber but disagree on a couple of major points:

  1. Releasing the iPad in September makes no sense simply because it was such a massive hit in the holiday season. Generally speaking, you want to spread out your demand as much as possible. It took 2 months to get the previous iPad from the US to the first round of international markets and another 3-4 months to do the full round. You can only produce so many. Actually not being able to buy one because demand is so high is not Apple's style;

  2. I don't see Apple releasing a new version 6 months after the previous, particularly when, in all likelihood, the iPad 2 won't have been in some markets for more than a month or two.

  As far as conflicting reports on parts and specs, that's nothing new. Just like there were reports of a CDMA iPhone YEARS before there was one. There are two reasons for this:

  1. Apple produces far more prototypes than they release (eg the CDMA iPhone was tested for about a year before release); and

  2. People just make stuff up for page views.

  I also fully agree with Gruber on a rear-facing camera making very little sense on a device that large.

• by gojomo on 2/9/11, 11:33 PM

  Two iPads in one year is possible, and Gruber has better Apple-watching-skills than most. But I also think Apple is long overdue for a true "AppleTV", an all-in-one product with big screen, deeply integrated with everything else iOS/iTunes. That would also fit well with a late-in-year but in-time-for-Christmas release.

• by Roritharr on 2/10/11, 12:52 AM

  I dont get why everybody is falling for the "end of pc era" hype that is surrounding tablets and smartphones.

  Can someone explain to me why the ability to browse the web from the couch without sufficient text-entry possibilities is going to challenge the amount of pc's in a world where textentry is our main method of searching, sorting and creating data. Honestly, this is not a rhetorical question, i feel i'm missing some part of the picture here.

• by maguay on 2/10/11, 1:52 AM

  One interesting thing to see will be whether newer tablets with webOS, Android, or anything else will get advanced, full-sized tablet apps like Apple's iWork apps. The iWork apps definitely are some of the very best on iPad, and it wouldn't be nearly as useful of a device without them. Docs to Go and QuickOffice are a joke in comparison (except each of them are much better at file sync and orginization...). It's the more advanced apps like these, though, that will really enable tablets to take over traditional PCs.

• by lshepstone on 2/9/11, 11:29 PM

  It's going to be pretty interesting watching this play out. But Apple and Android have an unfair advantage right now...apps, and lots of them. If you've got an iOS or Android phone and already own some apps the other guys are going to have to ship something amazing or dirt cheap to get your attention.

  As great as the new HP stuff looks, I wouldn't like to be HP, RIM (or Nokia and their potential Meego tablet) right now...tough road ahead building app ecosystem momentum. Who cares if the tablet is slightly better when I can't get my favourite apps.

  I find it greatly amusing the roles are reversed from back when Apple struggled on the desktop due to lack of apps while microsoft dominated. My how times change in 10 years. At least this time we might have more than one platform that dominated 90% which is good for everyone.

• by spaghetti on 2/10/11, 12:35 AM

  I'd really like to see a laptop with two touch screens: one replacing the regular screen and another replacing the keyboard and trackpad. This tablet/laptop hybrid would have some awesome benefits. For example one could comfortably use the device while seated at a table (display and input area can be at about 90 deg relative to each other... something that's not possible w/ the iPad). Another awesome benefit would be replacing the on-screen keyboard with far-out stuff like a painter's palette, Scrabble tiles, dominoes or even two turn-tables like a DJ uses.

  Imagine mixing digital paint with your fingers (on the touch screen that replaces the physical keyboard on current laptops) then actually painting on the other touch screen (the touch screen replacing the non-touch screens on current laptops).

• by roc on 2/9/11, 11:32 PM

  The logic doesn't hold up for me.

  Are holiday buyers really the same kind of people who will have even heard gadget rumors, let alone coordinate their purchases accordingly? Do we have any reason to think many of them held off this year?

  Furthermore, I thought the speed of iOS updates has been a good thing. Why are three iOS targets undesirable or problematic?

  It just sounds... flimsy; like someone shopping for justification after they'd latched onto a conclusion.

• by gsaines on 2/9/11, 11:59 PM

  I actually clicked this expecting the article to be parodying the Friedman Unit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_%28unit%29) only to find utter sincerity!

• by scottyallen on 2/9/11, 11:08 PM

  If you're an iPad/iPhone developer: How does the prospect of a new iPad being on the horizon affect your development/product strategy?

• by thushan on 2/9/11, 11:36 PM

  Though I think Apple is the only one that can pull it off. I'm a bit surprised that they'll be able to keep to a one year product cycle with things like the iPhone/iPad when the rest of the market is hitting a new product every couple weeks. Not that they've been one to match the rest of the market, but a lot happens in a year.

  Then again, maybe the biggest lesson out of the touch screen revolution is that its not the hardware - it's the software, and Apple has been certainly setting the pace on that front.

• by dschobel on 2/10/11, 4:27 AM

  "The next six months are going to set the foundation for the future of personal computing."

  Gruber needs to make the leap and become a political talking-head on cable news already.

  Unleashing lines like that without a hint of sarcasm or irony? You can't teach that, folks, that's god given.

• by roadnottaken on 2/10/11, 12:44 AM

  "...[tablets] are the future of the entire computing industry..."

  That's more than a little hard to swallow...

• by gaiusparx on 2/10/11, 5:06 AM

  My prediction:

  * Apple will keep April as the refresh month for iPad. Putting iPad in the same iPod event will steal thunder and is no good. And component supplies is tighter for iPad thus it takes few months to meet the demand and September is too tight to the holidays season. When iPad 2 is launched in April, the rest of the world will get it by Jun-Aug which ensure Apple can manufacture enough to meet year end holiday demand.

  * There will be no iOS 5 this year. At June WWDC, Lion will be the focus and Apple will give sneak peak of iOS 5 at the event, with beta available in early 2012, ship in June 2012. Aple needs to get its developers ready and it takes time. iOS 5 will share the code base of Lion and will ship after Lion. iOS 5 will include user interface elements changes. I think Apple is keeping two years release cycle for major OS release.

  * There will be iOS 4.4/4.5 this year for: iPhone 5, NFC capability, AppleTV 3, App Store for AppleTV and App/Games on AppleTV.

• by onteria on 2/10/11, 12:38 AM

  This is of course a subjective opinion, but something doesn't quite feel right about HP making a tablet PC. They seem to put out quite a lot of things without much of an overall guiding principle. HP PCs, laptops, printers, servers, now tablets. I ask myself "Why HP?" and can't seem to come up with a very reasonable answer. Nothing jumps out at me as seeing this as the best thing ever.

  With Apple they have the whole underlying principle of "Think Different" or something along the lines of changing the status quo. Apple didn't really do anything new with the iPhone and iPad in essence. Smartphones and tablet PCs were already out there. However because it went with their overall message, it made sense. People wanted to include it in their "Apple Lifestyle" so to speak.

  Just my .00002 cents.

• by sigzero on 2/10/11, 2:08 AM

  I am hoping for some strange reason that WebOS wins out over them all.

• by sinkercat on 2/10/11, 2:20 AM

  Is it possible that the new product announced during the Fall event is actually a 7-inch retina display iPad? Apple might find it expensive to build a 9.7-inch retina display and that could explain the $3billion+ investment that Apple has put in (possibly for the 7-inch retina display screens). Yes, Steve Jobs did say that 7-inch tablets are DOA but it was the same Steve who said Apple doesn't see e-books as a big market.

• by stcredzero on 2/10/11, 2:57 AM

  Re: Rear Facing Camera.

  This would be most useful on a device with a daylight readable transflective screen. Then you could use it outdoors with augmented reality apps.

• by endlessvoid94 on 2/9/11, 11:38 PM

  Apple's touch strategy is definitely awesome, but the only reason it's spectacular is because of the app store.

  HP's new TouchPad won't have that. It will probably do well, but it won't even touch the success of the iPad. Nobody writes apps for WebOS.

• by toadi on 2/10/11, 11:20 AM

  The end of the PC era is always announced. But don't see how I can do my daily work on a Ipad. I need a laptop or PC.

• by code_duck on 2/10/11, 2:54 PM

  I don't think Apple will release two significantly different versions of the iPad within 6 months.

• by barista on 2/9/11, 11:28 PM

  "One startling omission from that list: Microsoft. Their former hardware partners are heading off into the touch-computing future without them. We could have four competing tablet platforms six months from now — iOS, Android, WebOS, and Playbook — and not one of them is from Microsoft"

  Microsoft clearly seems to have taken their own sweet time to make an entry but they clearly have an intent and when they do, the biggest thing that they will have going for them is the knowhow of the platform and a plethora of apps that are already existing there that will be easy to port.

  Just like mobile this will end up being a 3 horse race in a few years. Apple, Google and Microsoft. The rest of them are just wasting their time and money in competing. None of them have existing ecosystems or platforms that they can leverage to fight with the three big players.