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Comment by stinky613 | Hacker News Reader

Windows 10S on ARM w/ built-in LTE? Depending on where the price levels off with these things, I think they could realistically carve a solid chunk out of the Android tablet market and the (non-education) Chromebook market

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The Android tablet market is already dead. The only people buying Android tablets are people who want a real cheap device for watching videos. Apple has 80% of all tablets costing more than $200.

On the low end in the U.S., Amazon is making a killing with their bastardized not quite "Android" Fire Tablets. Chrome OS based 2-1s are doing pretty well though.

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-android-tablets-future...

Yes, tablet sales have declined while 2-in-1 sales have risen. That's why I qualified that the success of these devices is probably going to be determined by where the price levels off for them.

Not without Android apps supported. Or iOS apps.

It will have the Windows Store apps. Apps are commodities for the bulk of the market; users are attached to the functionality.

Or, I would suppose, x86 and x64 apps. That's the main reason I run Windows; the mile-wide app compatibility.

Looks like at least 32bit x86 apps will run. http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-on-arm-it-will-be-mo...

They say x86 apps will run under emulation. I've got no clue how well that will work in practice, though.

Edit: found this ARM compatibility chart in the zdnet article

https://zdnet3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2018/02/19/b2c823f6-76...

And I get that you use x64 Windows for the compatibility, but this isn't supposed to replace that Windows. This is a product for an entirely different market: the market for tablets and netbooks.

Understood. But for me at least I can enjoy the same functionality with my old Toughbook carrying a few extra batteries :-) (Yes I understand not everyone wants to do that.)

Oh, totally. I think these LTE ARM Windows devices are neat; I don't think they're for me, though.

One of Microsoft's big pushes is treating Progressive Web Apps like desktop apps, and listing them in the Store automatically. One of the Microsoft devs showed a screenshot with Google Maps on Twitter.

With Google itself pushing PWAs, Microsoft will finally get Google app support, whether Google likes it or not, and with any luck, this might start to finally erode the app gap that protects the two incumbents.

Haven't we seen this story before that you don't need native apps and all you need is the web? Apple said in 2007 and shortly thereafter Palm, RIM, and Microsoft.

I think we always roll back to that every couple years. The Internet does get more capable over time, so... eventually it may be true? Of course, the difference is UWP is a decent native app option, and Microsoft definitely isn't saying "all" you need is web. But PWAs will definitely fill in the gaps for people who are explicitly tied to specific products or services.

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