Tablet watching is turning into a really fun hobby, because there’s just so much going on. As vendors gear up for the holiday shopping season, we’re seeing this particular market segment heat up even more.
Take the constantly-delayed Asus Slider, which will allegedly be here by the end of the month. The unique form factor and decent price has me interested in seeing just how popular it gets.
Speaking of popular, for a dead device, the HP TouchPad keeps stirring up a lot of interest. Technology store TigerDirect has been announcing “bundle deals” on Facebook and Twitter, and the store sells out of their remaining stock while fanning the flames of interest. Judging by rumors of how many inquiries HP has gotten about the device (5 to 6 million!), it seems like they’ve managed to achieve in failure the mind-share they never could before. Meanwhile, industry giants Samsung and Qualcomm have rebuffed rumors that they would purchase the embattled OS from HP (the former gruffly, the latter ever-so-sweetly). HTC continues to be coy, and there’s been no word from Lenovo or other companies. That said, I don’t know if I’m going to hold my breath just yet.
Still, I got mine, so who cares?
The TouchPad firesale has has the impact of showing what the general public will pay for a tablet device, and it has vendors listening. There have been a slew of sub-$300 tablets announced as of late. FusionGarage has even priced their own highly-self-touted Grid10 as starting at $299 (although reps say that this was always the planned price).
The Apple-Samsung legal ping-pong match continues, with Samsung heading to French Courts to sue over patents on the iPhone. This is a pretty clear shot at Apple for blocking Galaxy Tab sales in Germany, going so far as to get the 7.7″ model pulled from the show floor at IFA a few weeks ago. This one’s going to be long and bloody. I’m particularly interested in what might happen if someone at HP remembers that they now own, via the purchase of Palm, the patent on the very concept of a smartphone.
Maybe Samsung should rethink things a tad.
The biggest news for tablets this week though, has to be all the love they received at Microsoft’s developer conference. An impressive 5000 lucky attendees received a Samsung tablet running Windows 8 so they can get used to the new OS and start developing. Microsoft’s move of MetroUI from the phone to the desktop makes Apple’s minor iPad-esque tweaks to Lion seem like a joke. While traditional apps can and will run, the main focus is on “tiled” apps and interaction by Touch. A developer build was made available free on the net, and it over 500,000 people downloaded the desktop version in the first 24 hours (I was actually one of them and will have more news on that later).
Considering that Microsoft’s Steve Balmer straight-out admits they haven’t sold as many Windows Phone 7 devices as they planned, it really is interesting seeing them put so much effort into shifting the desktop and tablet OS to be more like their phone vision. Especially because traditionally, tablet versions of Microsoft Operating Systems have — to put it kindly — kind of sucked.
Great concepts, soul-killing execution.
Based on what little we’re seeing online of Windows 8, this looks like a winning tablet OS. We’ll have to see if that translates to actual sales. Speaking of desktops, there will be two “forks” of the OS with the tablet (ARM) version not running the same apps as the desktop (x86) version. One wonders if a savvy manufacturer can find a way to build a “dual” machine or if there would be any point. Presumably, the App Store Microsoft is building will keep you from mixing moose juice with goose juice and vice versa (and if you need that reference explained, shame on you).
There was also a very cool looking Kal-El tablet shown off, but it was kept under glass.
Photo copyright Shalshgear
Time Magazine got a chance to put the Samsung tablet side by side with the iPad2, and insist that the larger size is a good thing. Me, I’m more impressed by the insane specs.
Thanks for the picture, Time.
Hopefully, I’ll get my hands on one soon.
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