Tablet products based around this could bury the iPad as they further expand Linux in the consumer space. This LCD can be built with existing LCD foundries/technology, display full-color backlit video, and can also run with the display power off in a monochrome ‘e-paper’ mode — at full video speeds.

There seem to be several tablet-class products popping up now. And all but the iPad seem to have two things in common: Small start-ups are developing them… and they’re based on Linux.

First it was smartphones, then netbooks, now tablets, and next it will be …??

(There are other problems but as Microsoft and Apple can demonstrate, marketing can go a very long way.)

Also it would be nice for people if the LSB would add some optional standard UI-design set that every distribution can build. This way Linux can get a familiar interface. Way to many companies try to make their own ui without realizing the defaults can sometimes be better than their own ui-cooking/cut-pasting.

you wrote that as if Apple has a significant market share over Microsoft? and as if Shuttleworth’s Canonical produces hardware and software?

http://thejoojoo.com/

(Check out the specs…)

I don’t get that they developed this product with a lot of input from their target market, especially as the design was maturing. If they had, then details of the iPad would have been everywhere on the Internet. But that obviously didn’t happen. Ergo, if we didn’t know anything about it before, then it’s likely that not many *did* know about it or were able to provide input when its concepts were being developed and its feature set chosen. (I, too, would have picked a different feature set.)

I.e., I get the impression that Apple had to “guess” at what was wanted/needed, build it in secrecy, and then debut it as a “suprise”. That’s their style. Well, the surprise is now on Apple: They may not have guessed very well with this product…

(This didn’t happen with the iPhone because cell phones, PDAs, et al were an established “device class”, and Apple joined the party ‘stylishly late’ — knowing the shortcomings and having heard what the public wants in a smartphone. Then making just that & marketing it well.)

Perhaps now that Apple is just now getting their market’s input on this new class of electro-product, it will (eventually) be improved with Flash, a USB port, a front-facing camera, multi-tasking, etc. (Okay, maybe not Flash..) But they’re going to take egg on their face getting there due to this culture of tight secrecy prior to launch. I think it back-fired in this case…

And, as one wag put it, “Too bad the iPad doesn’t come with some kind of lid you could close to protect it from abrasion and shock. Come to think of it, you could put the keyboard on the bottom half and the screen could actually be incorporated into the lid. You could call it a .. netbook maybe.” :^)

People decide on things like this mainly because of the reasons you listed: glitzy, eye-catching implementation; good, steady marketing; attractive pricing; consumer inertia; and vendor lock-in — “lock-in” being in terms of ‘practical’ (I already bought apps that work on *this* OS), ‘mental’ (it’s the devil I know), and ‘associative’ (it’s what I use at work, and what my friends use).

There’s also a somewhat ironic tendency regarding pricing that influences this. People tend to place a mental value on something that they themselves have to *pay* for. Something that’s given to them or is available free tends to garner a certain ‘contempt’, as though “it’s not worth as much as this one that you have to pay so much for”.

I’ve seen this happen a lot, and in different forms. There’s a mental block to overcome in convincing people that something that’s free can actually be not just “good”, but “better” than for-pay alternatives.

I tend to think that at this point it’s a good idea for one Linux user to introduce a person to Linux, rather than depend on a new user adopting Linux by purchasing it pre-installed on a new PC — only partly for the reasons cited above having to do with “defective by design” marketing failures — or tele-support.

Buying a Windows machine, then installing Linux has advantages well past the ability to pick & choose *any* hardware (that’s compatible), etc.: It allows the user to move their Windows license into VirtualBox (which is superior to dual-booting) and have two OSes to work with, a real plus during “transition”.

Having Windows-in-a-Box provides a near-perfect method for a new user to gradually migrate from Windows familiarity to Linux, pulling up roots slowly, learning the new OS slowly — or as quickly as they wish/are able. And in the end always having the ability to occasionally run needed Windows-only software. I believe the merits of Linux will be a magnet to doing most of their computing in Linux, especially anything having to do with the Internet.

So I think that’s another area where the execution has been flubbed: Easing the transition into “something shiny & new”.