On Thu, 10 May 2012, Yaron wrote: > On Thu, 10 May 2012, Mike Miller wrote: > >> What is the attraction of the iPad, anyway? > > Whoa, how did we get to THAT? (: I brought up iPad because you said that "the whole netbook thing died off" and I thought that was partly due to the popularity of the iPad. > Disclaimer: I don't have an iPad. I do, however, have an HP Touchpad and > an Amazon Kindle, both of which are running the latest version of > Android, both of which - put together - cost less than half of what an > iPad does. And I woudln't have got either of them without the huge > discounts I managed to get. You got an amazing deal. When you run Android on a Kindle, does it no longer work with Amazon? > I think tablets are good for... less-interactive computing than a, you > know, real computer. Yeah, you touchthem and move stuff around, but I > wouldn't want to type anything longer than a really short email on them. > Although considering how good voice recognition is getting on Android it > may well be an option soonish. That's why I don't have one, yet -- that and the money, and also inertia. I guess a netbook is a real computer. It has a lot more memory, disk and CPU speed than the $15,000 server I bought at work 14 years ago. My daughter's netbook is even more impressive and it cost only $250 last November. > However, I can't use a netbook for anything serious, either. Even if > it's "just" typing. First of all, the keyboard is just too small. It's > like a toy keyboard. Second, the screen is too small. It's like a toy > screen. Netbooks are like toy computers. So are tablets, really. I don't really have that problem with the keyboard. It is a little smaller, but I would say that my hands quickly adapt and it doesn't really bother me. I know what you mean, though, and the screen is annoyingly small, but I get by with it when I need to. > Now I'm not saying nobody should have a netbook, and I'm CERTAINLY not > saying people shouldn't put Ubuntu or whatever Linux they want on any > device they have! I've just heard the whole This Is The Year Of Linux On > The Desktop thing soooo many times... Sure, but going from 2.5% to 5% on new hardware, worldwide, isn't exact total domination. I also would guess (based partly on experience in Ecuador) that even if the machine ships with Ubuntu to an Asian country, when it gets to the user, he'll put a bootleg Windows on it and load up a bunch of bootleg Windows software. In Ecuador (which isn't Asia, of course, but I think the attitude about IP is similar), there are software stores where you can go buy a cracked version of any Windows program for about a dollar. That would be cheaper for them than to download the software (even if it were a free download) because most people don't have internet access and would have to go to an internet cafe to get online. Linux is pretty dependent on the internet for easy use. Mike