I’ve quickly skimmed through the latest wave of tablet review here, and a nice review round-up here. The single common trait to many of the reviews I’ve seen is that “Despite some nice features on the device…, H-P and other tablet makers have yet to introduce something that compares to Apple’s tablet.” (MarketWatch quoting Mozberg).
To me, perhaps the pundits should give more credit to Apple, as their achievement seemed to have left just about every one else in the dusts. Repeating myself, a strategy that bases itself on “me too” is often going to stutter if not simply fail. Maybe there’s just too much of that going on, more so than say acknowledge how hard it can be to deliver a solid tablet (mobile?) experience.
On an entirely different register, I can’t wait to see the reviews on Google+. It’s all nearly too predictable.
Well, let me ask something else – why is it so hard to give Microsoft credit for the whole tablet/slate thing? After all, they had tablets + OS for them long before Apple or anyone else.
I agree that Microsoft definitely doesn’t get enough credit for their efforts, lately in particular.
But the story of tablets goes quite far back, and Microsoft wasn’t actually the first. I think Apple Newton deserves a mention, it was the first one that had the look and aspirations of a tablet. When the Newton launched Microsoft wasn’t at all involved or interested in tablets. I’m writing here from memory, as I can clearly remember the news and events of that time. Perhaps a serious dig into the matter might reveal that other people started on this trail first.
The bigger point I wanted to raise here is that perhaps the pundits are expecting too much “instant success” from followers in this tablet race, and that may be unfair to those companies.
Newton, eh 🙂 I still like the logo. iPad was instant hit, so why not expecting the same from another company? Samsung almost did it with their Galaxy Tab devices. I think that one of the reasons for slates not being “instant hit” is price and quality. Motorola Xoom is an awesome device, but a bit pricey and initial version was a bit unfinished in software department.