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Comment by idleloops | Hacker News Reader

They actually appeal to the older generation - judging from some of my family members (the over 60s.) My Aunt uses her iPad oddly enough as a camera more than anything - she loves the way she can easily show off what she has taken. Before than she owned a Dell laptop - which was occasionally used for Email now it just gathers dust.

My uncle has both an Android tablet and an iPad and an iMac! He seems to be quite fond of the droid. I don't know his reasons why. He's not tech savvy in anyway - he can barely install an App on his Mac.

And I think the appeal as a desktop replacement is that they are easier to use. But both could be far better.

Neither care for smart phones.

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>"They actually appeal to the older generation - judging from some of my family members (the over 60s.)"

Absolutely. Look, I think tablets - and the iPad specifically - are technological feats. But outside of that wonder, for most people, it's a completely superfluous device. I mean, look at the author's example:

>"Apple knew it had a large group of customers out there yearning for a device that let them watch their iTunes content on a larger display without having to lug around a laptop."

Are there really a bunch of people sitting around saying: Well, I'm idle for the next 2 hours, with cell reception. I'll watch a movie. But a 4" high def screen won't cut it, and an 11" or 13" screen is too much. The 9" screen of my iPad is just right.?

It's sort of ridiculous.

That is the author's interpretation of what he believed what Apple was thinking. I think it's far more likely that Apple was asking themselves "Do people really need a PC?"

The irony of your original comment is that the PC should actually be the niche product because most people never needed it. The PC should be meant for professionals in the fields of audio, video, math, science and programming.

>"The irony of your original comment is that the PC should actually be the niche product because most people never needed it."

I don't disagree. In fact, the desktop has already become unnecessary for 99% of the population. I still enjoy mine under certain circumstances, but after the tablet, it'd be the first device to go.

I think the ridiculous bit is that the author expects people to rely on legal content. Most young people I know either have an HDD full of ripped movies or a favorite illegal Flash streaming website. (In Europe - here in Taiwan, Apple doesn't even offer music or movies. Everyone uses PPS, which is available on the App Store and usually installed on Apple resellers' demo devices).

People with illegal content are sooo in the market for an Android tablet. The long-term problem will be to get them to upgrade to a second tablet. After you have this 10" screen that can be fed movies over USB, why ever buy another one?

Illegal media content works perfectly well on an (non-jail broken) iPad... or so I hear.

Right, but if all you care about is watching movies and reading Facebook and some PDF eBooks, then last-gen Android tablets are very competitive on price IMHO. And you don't have to deal with a 4:3 screen and iTunes.

I think the right question to ask is: What are most people's computing needs, and are tablets a better fit to those needs? I think the answer to that question is becoming pretty obvious.

Most people already have a PC, and it can do anything a tablet can do. But if a tablet is a better fit, in a few years these people will be asking themselves why they should buy a new PC instead of a new tablet.

>Are there really a bunch of people sitting around saying: Well, I'm idle for the next 2 hours, with cell reception. I'll watch a movie. But a 4" high def screen won't cut it, and an 11" or 13" screen is too much. The 9" screen of my iPad is just right.?

That's me every lunchtime (not a movie, but a 30 minute TV episode). Maybe nowadays you can get an ultrabook that would be light enough and have the battery life to carry around without thinking about it, but my laptop is more bulk than I want to lug back and forth to work in my bag every day, and I'd have to remember to charge it in the evenings. My Transformer goes everywhere with me, is comfortable to watch things on while holding it in my hands (something that's not true even for the same device with a keyboard attached, and certainly not on any laptop I've tried) and as long as I remember to charge it one day out of three I never run out.

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