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Old 05-06-2010, 11:45 AM   #1 (permalink)
SecretMethod70
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iPad kills netbooks?

(Yes yes, I know, correlation != causation. Just go with the flow here, it'll make for a more interesting discussion.)

iPad Brings the Growth of Netbooks to a Halt [CHART]

Quote:
iPad Brings the Growth of Netbooks to a Halt

With more than one million iPads sold in the device’s first month of availability, it may not be too surprising that rival devices –- specifically netbooks –- are seeing a sales slump.

But when you look at the chart published by a Morgan Stanley analyst this morning, the drop-off in the netbook market both in April and in the months since the iPad was announced is rather dramatic.

Less than a year ago, the netbook market was growing at a whopping 641% percent year-over-year. But in April, that growth slowed to just 5%, following month-over-month growth rate declines dating back to November of last year.



Both iPads and netbooks play in the middle ground between smartphones and laptops. Adding credence to the theory that the former may be crushing the latter, Fortune cites research in the report that found “44% of U.S. consumers who were planning to buy an iPad said that they were buying it instead of a netbook or notebook computer.”

That doesn’t bode well for netbook makers, though many of them are currently hustling to bring their own tablet devices to market. HP’s recent acquisition of Palm will also be a story to watch in this space, as it seems likely the computer giant will bring a webOS-powered tablet to market (this possibility it also mentioned in the Morgan Stanley report).
As much as Apple's corporate attitude disturbs me, and as ridiculous as the hype surrounding Apple products like the "magical" iPad (their word, not mine) can get, I see this as a natural progression of computing technology.

Netbooks are an inelegant solution to the problem of convenient mobile computing, and tablets seem to be a more natural way of accomplishing the same goals. That said, the problem I see with the iPad specifically as a replacement is that it's far less powerful and more expensive than your average netbook, which is already far less powerful than a laptop. If the technology industry still advanced mostly based on quality rather than hype, that wouldn't be such a problem with webOS-based tablets apparently coming down the pipeline (not to mention Android, but I think webOS might be the better OS for tablet implementation). Instead, I have to wonder if Apple's penchant for saying "magical" and "the best" over and over again, and the media eating it up, already positions the iPad too far above other devices, no matter how superior they may be. (If there's one thing Apple clearly does better than anyone else, it's social psychology... and that's kind of scary.)

With the iPad and other tablets coming to market, do you see any reason to consider buying a netbook in the future? I don't. Do you have any immediate plans to buy a netbook or tablet?
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Last edited by SecretMethod70; 05-06-2010 at 11:49 AM..
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