iPad to reign unchallenged as KING of FONDLESLABS Global shipments of fondleslabs are predicted to nearly double to 119 million in 2012 but Apple's dominance is unlikely to be challenged, Gartner box counters claim. This represents a whopping 98 per cent leap on the 60 million tabs sold worldwide last year, the analyst revealed. But Google and its band of hardware partners …
"there are roughly 3.4 million Android tablets that have been sold to end users up to this point." - October 16, 2011
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2394752,00.asp
"Thanks to Amazon, Android Could Overtake iPad by 2016" - March 15, 2012
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/03/android-overtake-apple-2016/
That was after 2 minutes of Googling. Of course, no one has ever heard of PC Mag and Wired, have they...
Screen/Battery/Boot times are all far better with the Asus Transformer than any netbook I've used, and better than pretty much every laptop as well - maybe excluding a MacBook air, which competes on boot times/screen.
But besides that the simplicity of use and the fact that you can just grab the screen and flop onto the sofa to "consume", and slot it into the keyboard to do some real work makes it more valuable than a tablet and a laptop seperately.
People here are a somewhat refined breed - but for *most* home users I can't see anything that I would want a PC for - I have a wireless router from my ISP, a network printer (or plug it into some routers) and maybe a small NAS, or cloud storage, or plug a USB drive into the router.
The Transformer can take external storage - SD cards, USB devices etc - it can push data to various network devices.
It can do word processing, email, FB, skype, twitter, games, media, browsing etc...
NB - I actually recommended that my parents get one - and they have. I really like it, although admit that the keyboard would take a few hours to get used to for serious work.
Wrong competition noted. The iPad is the competition - we all know that pads are not as good value as laptops, but you get an ips screen etc.
The issue will be whether we get decent apps for quad-core. I'd like to see nvidia and AMD put arm/android/linux on desktop graphics cards which can power up just the 2d bits without fans or bringing up the main computer. Add a Nic and USB ports and off you go, direct to screen or windowed if another os running. The same technique could be used to get ip telephony going properly i.e. Not dependent on a main host OS being booted or functional.
I'm typing this on Windows 8 CP on a Samsung Series 7 Slate while watching a CBT Nugget for CCIE training on 1/4 of the screen in metro mode. I got this machine from my wife for Christmas this year. So far, I've played WoW, DC Universe (with wireless Xbox controllers), Leisure Suit Larry VGA remake in ScummVM, I've written 40 page essay on routing protocol design with graphics using a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I have studied for my CCNA, CCSI, CCNP and now for my CCIE on it. I have written an SSH client for Metro and Windows Phone using Visual Studio on it. I have watched movies on it. Taught classes using Intel WiDi with it. And most impressively, played AngryBirds Space on it.
The only thing that will make me give up this machine is a Windows Slate with Ivy Bridge as I'm experimenting with OpenCL development for highly parallelized GPU based video codecs written in WebCL and Ivy Bridge supports OpenCL much better.
I used to read books to my kids on my iPad and watch a film or two. This Slate replaced the iPad almost immediately and now I use my iPad as a coffee cup coaster. Why would I carry two devices when I can carry just this one.
> I don't think you're really anyone's target market. An edge case if ever there were one.
Agreed, and as someone else pointed out above, this will be true for many Reg readers.
I don't want an iPad - but then I wouldn't buy a Slate or a Transformer either. That's partly because I loathe touchscreens, but it's also because both of the laptops I use daily are high-spec machines and I keep them very busy. On this one I have a compute- and IO-expensive test suite running right now, a build just finished, several source files are sitting in editor sessions, I was on a video conference call a couple of minutes ago - you get the picture. I certainly can work on lower-spec systems (I've been developing software since the '80s), but I wouldn't pay money for the privilege. And I don't want a machine I can't develop software on.
But I *know* I'm an edge case. I don't expect the market to follow my whims.
Android is going to win - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/14/idc_forecasts_android_will_overtake_ios_by_2016/
Apple is going to win - http://www.reghardware.com/2012/04/11/apple_to_maintain_tablet_lead_over_android_through_2016_says_gartner/
Android is winning where it matters - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/11/china_android_market_leader/
Apple will win - http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2012/04/11/tablet_forecast/
Please make your mind up.
the answer, of course, is that no one has a clue. but everyone knows that you'll get plenty of click-through rates if you write articles about it and analysts will continue to get paid if they make predictions that are sufficiently far into the future (i.e. more than 6 months) that no one will remember what they said they the time arrives.
Who loses? Us poor mugs that read this gumpf in the misguided hope that we might glean some useful information from it.
Don't give them the wifi password. Whitelist devices, tell them "tough" and laugh at their tears and foot stamping.
Failing that, ensure that their device adheres to your "rigorous" (BOFH) PAT testing procedure, which involves how well the device copes when dropped from a 3rd floor window and being sliced in half with a buzz saw.
If it's needed for work, then it's up to the company to pay for it. And if it goes wrong, the company will replace or repair.
If it's wanted for personal use, then they can pay for it. If it goes wrong, I'm not fixing it, nor dealing with the guy who sold it to them. Nor will I be spending time on getting their devices to work with our setup.
If people start to forget where their personal life stops and work begins then either the company will get more work done than it is paying them for, or they will spend more of company time on their personal life. I don't want the company to get overtime for free, for people to forget to switch off work when they go home, or sit in an office playing whatever game they downloaded to their device.
As well as getting confused as to whether they are sending from a corporate email address or a personal one, accidentally taking work data out of the place on their own device, I'm sure people can see other problems that BYOD might cause.
@TangD: Take your head out of the sand?
You might want to try not latching onto the latest Gartner puff-piece. There is no way any enterprise will allow BYOD unless they can completely control the configuration, security, updates etc of that device. The user will not want that. The enterprise do not want to have to support a myriad of devices - internal costs go through the roof just to scratch some managerial muppet's gadget itch and productivity goes down. It just does not make sense on any level.
Control of the devices is the big issue with BYOD.
The company and the CEO and CIO have responsibilities under the law, to ensure that company data - especially peronally identifiable data, such as contacts, emails etc. are kept secure and cannot be accessed by non-authorised employees or people outside the company.
That means, technically, if an employee BYODs an iPad to the office, he will have to agree to the corporate security policy, have the device locked down (PIN number to unlock etc.) and they will have to agree not to let family members and friends access the device, once it has been loaded up with corporate data, such as EAS access to the mail system...
*cough, bollocks, cough*
Nah, you make a fair point but that issue has already been dealt with by running the corporate apps through a sandbox which is encrypted and accessible to the corporate network.
Personally I don't know why anyone would WANT to BYOD for work unless the stuff your enterprise were giving you was years out of date and running old OS's with crappy browsers like IE6! Oh, wait........ ;)
Did he have the gift receipt though.
" And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God"
Can't find any mention as to whether the tabernacle was supposed to have rounded corners.
How about people who want a way to browse YouTube and play crappy games but don't want to pay loads of money?
Personally I don't need or want a tablet but I can see the reasoning of those that do and a cheaper one would be more than enough for most users who don't use even half the power of an iPad.
Has anyone ever spared a thought what would happen if the iPad BYODing* penpushers upstairs push the complete Apple architecture through? As in: ' I, Mr. B.I.G. Cheese, have an iPad, why does the rest of the company have to use these awful Windows things? Make it all Apple at the next hardware change, BOFH! What do you mean, software incompatibility? I'm sure there's an App for that, go do the job I pay you for, or shall I hire someone competent? My nephew is very good with iPads, you know...'
* on company allowance, of course...
Brilliant! So the horror of the bloody Windows XP ThinkPad X200 can be swapped for an 11.5" Air and my Z600 workstation can be swapped for a Mac Pro... Practically most of my work is done either in an e-mail client (Notes! Gone!) or a web browser or Eclipse (works fine on MacOS) or a shell (bye bye Cygwin) or a word processor (to be honest even OpenOffice is OK these days)... About the only thing I can see me really getting upset about is the lack of Visio.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
