Ever since Apple announced the iPad, there have been countless stories in the press about the iPad's effect on the netbook market. I'm a big fan of netbooks and I agree that the netbook market is in trouble but it's not because of the iPad.
It's because of Windows.
Now, I don't mean this as a piece of simple-minded anti-MS snark (though I am fully capable ;-). I'm serious. Windows is the problem with netbooks. Installing Windows on a netbook changes the device from a small effective portable Internet interaction device into a tiny, underpowered, laptop computer.
In the beginning of the netbook revolution, hardware makers chose Linux. The first generation of netbooks featured small screens (7-9 inch) and solid-state disks. To make use of this platform, they pretty much had to use Linux because of its small footprint and easy customization allowing manufacturers the freedom to create user interfaces appropriate to the device. The fact that the OS license was free didn't hurt either given the price points that netbooks originally held.
So what went wrong?
First, Microsoft was able to respond to the threat to its consumer OS monopoly by releasing a version of Windows XP with ultra-cheap licensing provided that the computer was suitably underpowered. Asus, for example, sold both Linux and Windows versions of it's netbooks for a time. Both models cost the same but the Linux model had a larger drive. Why? Because the Windows license placed a cap on size of the drive that would qualify the computer for the low-cost license.
Second, the Linux distributions supplied by the netbook makers were not very good. I can personally attest to that. My editor's eeePC 901 (pictured above with my own HP Mini 1116NR) came with the Asus version of Xandros and frankly, it sucked. After struggling with it for several months, I replaced the Xandros with Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix and now the machine is a delight.
Finally, in response to the inappropriate user interface Windows provides for small screen devices, netbook makers made netbooks larger with 10-12 inch screens and they gave up on solid-state drives. Almost all netbooks today come with slow 160 GB hard disks. So now you have a slow 12 inch laptop that costs about the same as a "real" laptop and isn't really that portable anymore. No wonder nearly one-third of netbook shoppers are buying IPads instead.
Interface, Interface, Interface.
But the iPad should not be directly competitive with netbooks at the conceptual level. In many ways the iPad is a remarkable device for content consumption. Unlike a Windows computer, it requires virtually no system administration. This makes the device a perfect "television of the future" where one just uses it to passively consume content. However, its lack of a real keyboard and limited connectivity options makes it a poor choice as a portable Internet interaction device; a role that the netbook hardware platform excels in.
Clearly, Apple devised a near perfect user interface for a tablet, something Microsoft was never able to do. It is possible that the next generation of netbooks will do better. There have been a number of announcements of upcoming models that will be based on ARM chips using operating systems, such as Android, better suited to mobile devices. Even as much as I like Ubuntu's netbook remix, it's still a crude hack to shoehorn a desktop OS onto a small screen computer.
Thanks for listening! See you again soon.
Speak of the devil. Ars Technica has a review of MeeGo 1.0, a Linux based environment for netbooks. You can read the review here: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2010/05/hands-on-meego-for-netbooks-picks-up-where-moblin-left-off.ars
ReplyDeleteI think the other reason the iPad is successful is the toaster mentality: there are no user serviceable parts on an iPad, whereas in a netbook - especially a Linux based one - users think of the device as a full operating system, expect to load drivers, think of file systems, or how to do operating system functions.
ReplyDeleteWith the single point of entry being the iTunes store, they have simplified user expectations and purchase experience.
Jailbroken iPads are more closely what someone expects from even mature Linux based netbooks - something that the user (and possibly hacking community) is responsible for, not a single, strongly controlled (with the benefits and issues that go along with that) vendor.
Where we do have work to do is to get the single user experience up to the level of consistency of Apple's approach. I don't think we have to do it their way, but we don't have excellence in consistent user experience or meeting the masses expectation (which is honestly based on user interactions most frequently learned from MS Windows) for consistent user design.
in my opinion,though netbook users are getting lesser because of Apple's ipad arrival yet netbook is more suitable as it is offering much broader range of features like multi tasking, video chat, huge storage capacity and many more. not only this, but netbooks can also upgrade and swap the battery plus RAM
ReplyDelete.its the best suitable choice of people running large organizations and for businessmen in particular :)there are still a lot of things a netbook is going for than its counterpart ipad....so apparently netbooks sales go down but it will regain it in near future-i think so because ipads though all in rage presently and more handy but not much good on heavy tasks....hopefully netbooks will continue for sure