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by axod 6241 days ago
>> "Relatively cheap"

When was the last time Apple competed on price?

3 comments

Now, why would Apple need to compete on price to bring price down? It isn't their thing, yet they may still bring price down, and they can certainly bring demand up. Take the iPhone as an example. Before the iPhone I did not believe I could find any use for a smartphone, but now, if I had a little extra money, I would get one. And there are a lot of people less interested in me in gadgets and tech that have an iPhone already. Apple could create a market for tablets.

Their aren't any good user interfaces that I know of, yet, but if anyone can create new UI idea Apple can. And when they do others will begin to follow. Creating the demand that is needed for more hardware companies to compete with Wacom, hopefully bringing prices down.

Your scoff about how you use them is weak. You hold it like a clipboard or a notebook. You realize _all_ drug reps carry one around to get signatures verifying they've been to their clinics for the day. We will find uses for them, it's just chicken and egg for a while longer. It's just too bad MS got into it too early.

Well, I hear Windows 7 has great handwriting recognition.

iPhone springs to mind...perhaps not at first, but they've gradually lowered the price until it's pretty competitive compared to other smartphones.

That's really beside the point, though. Apple won't be competing with other tablets so much as creating a new category: the touch netbook.

They're not the only ones hovering around that space. The Crunchpad was aiming for $299 and I'd buy one in a heartbeat if it came out tomorrow. If a first product strikes a chord, there'll be multiple competitors under $500. $10 says these things will be all over the place in 18 months.
I'll bet you $1k they won't. You're an outlier.

Joe public will look at a tablet and see it as half a laptop that you have to hold, instead of sit on your lap. How can I hold and type :/

I'm poor, so $10 is the most I can throw away on a vanity bet - but I am confident that if tablets with about the functionality of an eee/ipod touch (don't care much about 3g modems etc) come on the market for under $500, they'll see a high rate of adoption. I'm at gmail if some third party wants to be referee and take $10 via paypal.