I don't get tablets ...

But that's ok, they're not aimed at me.

I didn't quite understand how the i(ncontinence)pad took off like it did at the time, but now I think I know why.

Most people really just don't like computers at all (of course, M$ has to take the lion's share of the blame here), but they use them because they like what computers let you do. Obviously there is a not-so-subtle distinction between the two.

Apple sold an appliance, and by a fortuitous combination of technology that matured at around the same time - everything from Ghz class portable cpu's to wireless networks to ubiquitous home-lans to cheap manufacturing centres in China and internet publishing, they were able to make a slick-enough device to finally create an appliance-like machine. After all, similar things had been tried before - many times - and failed, mostly because the technology just wasn't there yet. Too slow, too clunky, too expensive, and so on.

And this is the precise reason the M$ $urface will crash and burn.

It just shows that M$ don't get it in the least.

They're still trying to peddle the "computer" experience - and if anything can be gained by the market in the last 5 years is that people do not want that. Least of all the M$ version of it.

And it's all the funnier because that is precisely their biggest selling point!

A netbook by any other name ...

We had small computers with underpowered cpu's, tiny screens, shitty battery life, and fold-out keyboard years ago - they were called netbooks. And at least they were cheap.