ASUS Says Wintel PC Era Is Over

[molo9000]

[citation][nom]sykozis[/nom]Exactly what market has Apple created???? Portable, digital music players existed before the ipod. The tablet market existed more than a decade before the ipad....the laptop market existed before the macbook.... So, what exactly what market has Apple ever created???[/citation]

Tablets with mobile-phone processors + purpose made touch-screen operating systems were non existent before the iPad. Now there are dozens of the things from dozens of companies.

Same is true for the iPhone. Smartphones with capacitive touchscreens basically didn't exist before the iPhone and smartphones were rarely seen in the hands of consumers. Now almost everybody either wants or has a touchscreen smartphone.

 

[ironmb]

[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]Tablets with mobile-phone processors + purpose made touch-screen operating systems were non existent before the iPad. Now there are dozens of the things from dozens of companies.Same is true for the iPhone. Smartphones with capacitive touchscreens basically didn't exist before the iPhone and smartphones were rarely seen in the hands of consumers. Now almost everybody either wants or has a touchscreen smartphone.[/citation]

Wrong. Go buy another apple product. While i sit here with double the amount of hardware for the same price of your "white" cool looking laptop.

 

[molo9000]

[citation][nom]ironmb[/nom]Wrong. Go buy another apple product. While i sit here with double the amount of hardware for the same price of your "white" cool looking laptop.[/citation]

Ok then: Name one phone with a capacitive touchscreen and a smartphone OS before the iPhone.
Also: Name one tablet before the iPad that didn't cost $1000, run out of battery after 3hours or use a desktop operating system.

 

[Camikazi]

[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]Name one tablet before the iPad that didn't cost $1000, run out of battery after 3hours or use a desktop operating system.[/citation]
All I saw when I read that is "our laptop is the thinnest in the world, if you exclude 90% of the competition"

 

[andy735]

I can think of the LG Prada for a smart phone with a touch screen before the iPhone because LG tried to sue Apple for stealing its design as the Prada launched over half a year earlier. I also had a friend that had a Archos 7 inch tablet in 2008 and it got like 12 hours of battery life. I think he paid like 500 dollars for it at the time so not a bad deal.

 

[someguynamedmatt]

[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]I don't get it why are people who use their computers only at home are buying laptops. Like these kids who play Crysis on $2000 gaming laptops that they never took out of the hose. Can someone explain the logic of this?[/citation]
Absolutely no clue. I was wondering the same thing, actually. I do all of my actual computer work and gaming at home, hence the reason I bought myself a massive full tower case and ten tons of hardware to stuff in it. This rig definitely isnt packing light, and I wont be lugging it around a whole lot. I keep a good old netbook for things like vacation when I need a map or to check store hours or something like that. That's all you really need. No, you dont need a gaming laptop to take on a trip with you. Get out and do something. 😀

 

[11796pcs]

[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]Well I can understand not wanting a huge tower in your study or bedroom or wherever (I'm currently putting together a MiniITX i5 gaming machine). What I don't get is how they can think a small screen is just as good as a big screen. They don't get excited about watching movies on 21" TVs or mobile phones with 2" screens, why is then there a market for an 11" gaming laptop like Alienware M11?That's why I'll never succeed in business, I can't get my head around the stupidity of the average consumer.[/citation]
I actually had a Mini-ITX mobo in a SG06 from Silverstone and thing ran really hot doing nothing- I think the onboard GPU (which I wasn't even using) failed and the thing just went downhill. I also had one of my RAM sticks die on me in the thing. All the heat which just wasn't dissipated very well I think just killed it. Yeah, I don't understand consumers going out and buying $600 tablets that do less than $300 netbooks.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]Tablets with mobile-phone processors + purpose made touch-screen operating systems were non existent before the iPad. Now there are dozens of the things from dozens of companies.Same is true for the iPhone. Smartphones with capacitive touchscreens basically didn't exist before the iPhone and smartphones were rarely seen in the hands of consumers. Now almost everybody either wants or has a touchscreen smartphone.[/citation]

This is BS! There was plenty of PDAs based on Windows Mobile 2003/2005, and there were ones that could call. And they were better than the iPhone 1, too. It's just that these were targeting a very specific market and didn't advertise themselves so much. So once iPhone and other touch-screens arrived, PDAs queitly vanished. And it's very sad, because I'd love to have a device in such a form-factor (NOT A BIG STUPID TABLET), which is not meant for communication other than Internet (i.e. no phone function necessary, though wouldn't mind). That's a good thing about new big touchphones like SGS II, they're slowly coming back to the good size =)

In other words, you're damn wrong. Once again, Apple is successful in convincing people that they were the first to do something.

 

[Blessedman]

The real problem I have with a fragmented computing sector is cross platform support for developers. Those nice shiny new toys are useless without software. Unless an easy api solution can be made, I can't see developers creating 5 different flavors of one app to support all the different OS's. This is not a good thing that Asus wants.

 

[redgarl]

All hail for open source and freeware...

Seriously, I own W7 only for playing games...

If I was having a workstation only, I would pass entirely to freeware.

 

[NuclearShadow]

When it comes to tablets and smartphones I believe he is right. But as far as the PC goes there isn't a OS that threatens Windows dominance. With OS X being the second and still far
extremely far behind when it comes to actual users. Also just look at how many Mac and Macbook users end up installing Windows.

As for Intel the fact is Intel is a powerhouse. There is a reason why they have so much pull and there is a reason why. There are no signs within the PC market that Intel will lose this grip
as Intel to this day grows stronger and has showed no real signs of decline.

[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]I don't get it why are people who use their computers only at home are buying laptops. Like these kids who play Crysis on $2000 gaming laptops that they never took out of the hose. Can someone explain the logic of this?[/citation]

I would say that they imagine themselves going out and playing new games on higher details
everywhere they go. But when they purchase it they likely end up only using it around the house for two reasons. Reason #1 being that they have become paranoid of something happening to it, and Reason #2 battery life is very short when gaming.

In the end their purchase is pretty much a waste and illogical but they likely didn't plan on confining it to their home.

 

[beayn]

There will always be a dominant PC company. What's the difference if Microsoft and Intel fall to the wayside and Apple / ARM take over? Then we just have a whole different monopoly, probably one that will be far far worse than the current one.

As Blessedman pointed out, a fragmented market means developers have to make cross platform apps for 2, 3, or 4 different OS's means they need more money and more time. Small developers are less likely to become popular if they can't make their shit for all OS's, then you eventually have yet another dominant software company. It's inevitable.

 

[molo9000]

[citation][nom]andy735[/nom]I can think of the LG Prada for a smart phone with a touch screen before the iPhone because LG tried to sue Apple for stealing its design as the Prada launched over half a year earlier. I also had a friend that had a Archos 7 inch tablet in 2008 and it got like 12 hours of battery life. I think he paid like 500 dollars for it at the time so not a bad deal.[/citation]
Both of these devices have the right sort of hardware, but fail in software.

The LG Prada did not have a smartphone OS. It didn't have any more capabilities than a regular phone costing a 10th of the price.

I think the Archos Internet tablets were also little more than big video/mp3 players with a browser. No native 3rd party apps.
An iPad or Android tablet can actually replace a netbook for many users. Those Archos tablets could not.

What made the iPhone and the iPad work was a combination of good hardware and good software.

 

[andy735]

[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]Both of these devices have the right sort of hardware, but fail in software.The LG Prada did not have a smartphone OS. It didn't have any more capabilities than a regular phone costing a 10th of the price.I think the Archos Internet tablets were also little more than big video/mp3 players with a browser. No native 3rd party apps.An iPad or Android tablet can actually replace a netbook for many users. Those Archos tablets could not.What made the iPhone and the iPad work was a combination of good hardware and good software.[/citation]

Eh but the Prada did include a lot of features that are now included in what is called a smartphone today. Its hard to argue software and capabilities from almost five years ago to today but it was sold as a smartphone hence it is. And as others had said before there were plenty of windows mobile and touchscreen based smartphones before such as the HTC touch.

I also am confused with the net book question. The net book name states "net" as in internet and that is what my friend mainly used his tablet to do as it was a smaller form factor than his laptop. And he eventually put a distro of Linux on it as well but that's not the typical consumer. I mean no one would ever mod or jail break an apple product to get better performance or make it better suit their needs correct?

 

[ronindaosohei]

[citation][nom]sykozis[/nom]Exactly what market has Apple created???? Portable, digital music players existed before the ipod. The tablet market existed more than a decade before the ipad....the laptop market existed before the macbook.... So, what exactly what market has Apple ever created???[/citation]

Apple didn't invent the tablet, but they certainly revolutionized it and brought it to the mainstream, there wasn't any tablet market to speak of prior to the iPad. Their moves in phones weren't as dramatic, but the iPhone certainly reinvented the smart phone market and changed it drastically (hence why it took 3 years for the rest of the industry to catch up). Same goes for iTunes, that was really a market they were instrumental in founding or at least pushing at the early stages.

The other thing you have to consider is a "market" is not the same as a product. Consider the Nintendo Wii. While consoles are old as products, the Wii had a different value curve that created a new "market", that being a non-gaming crowd. Apple has done the same thing with smart phones, people who hated and would never use blackberries suddenly came round to smart phones via the iPhone. It really created the mass market consumer smartphone market.

Apple isn't a great innovating company, they are great primarily at three things:

1. Marketing - every Apple product is "magical" and has people lining up to buy it days in advance, pure marketing

2. Clean design - their products almost universally have a very polished look and feel so someone could do something before them but when Apple does it it just feels cleaner and smoother

3. Business - they are highly underrated in terms of their smart business sense, for example bleeding the iPhone 4 market rather than releasing a new phone because they don't have to release a new phone, they are still the standard everyone compares phones to and it is still selling like crazy, same with the iPad, it was weak as a release because they didn't need to release better so they were able to take advantage of releasing the iPad 2 later. Apple has incredible market timing and business sense of what will maximize profits and it's reflected in their growth.

 

[Guest]

Can someone explain to me why I need a smartphone or tablet PC? Other than connecting to the internet, posting pictures on facebook, or watching videos, what do you use them for?

 

[AnUnusedUsername]

The market has been dominated primarily by intel and windows because it's not practical for there to be too many prominent system setups. It's a lot of trouble to port anything to another OS, so it's much better for developers overall to release things for a single system that reaches the whole market. Multiple OS in the same market segment, like Android and iOS, means that companies either have to do the needless work of making the exact same program twice or they only reach half the market. That's bad for everyone.

Competition is good in theory, but just like with telephone/power lines it just doesn't make sense to have more than one setup that serves the exact same purpose. The two would just get in each others way and drive up costs.

As for paying for a gaming laptop over a gaming desktop? It really is a lot more convienient to only have to pack up a single laptop rather than pack up a desktop, monitor, keyboard, speakers, etc, even if you only take it anywhere once or twice a month. On top of that, a single "gaming" laptop is generally cheaper than getting a desktop gaming pc and also a general-purpose laptop at the same time.

 

[jsc]

[citation][nom]someguynamedmatt[/nom] I do all of my actual computer work and gaming at home, ...[/citation]
Been saying this since I first bought my netbook. My netbook doesn't get used unless I am on vacation or traveling.

It is a great solution for one particular problem.

 

[eddieroolz]

It was over long ago, if the OEMs weren't coerced into buying Intel via use of threats and bribes.

AMD was there and offered better performance, both for the buck and absolutely. Had it not been for Intel's coercion AMD would've had more revenue and funds to perform R&D.

 

[Maximus_Delta]

I hope this whole tablet thing is just a passing fad. I see people now plugging keyboards into their iPads. Are they completely retarded, why didn't they just buy a laptop? And yes, the answer is they think they are cool thanks to marketing. That is the mentality of the masses I'm afraid.