Tablet Wars: HP, ARM Attack iPad with New Videos, Warnings

Ed Sutherland ()

Tablet Wars: HP, ARM Attack iPad with New Videos, Warnings

HP and ARM are ganging-up on Apple’s iPad, introducing new videos highlighting the tablet’s lack of Flash support and warning the Cupertino, Calif. company may not have the stage to itself much longer. Indeed, the chipmaker says there could be at least 50 iPad-like tablets introduced just this year.

HP’s “slate” device, with Windows 7, will be able to display the “complete Internet — including Flash,” the PC maker announced this week. The company also introduced a number of videos highlighting its device’s compatibility with Adobe’s Flash.

Apple has called Flash “too buggy” to be included in the iPad, while Adobe has defended its technology, saying Apple’s refusal to include Flash will let the Cupertino, Calif. company protect its revenue. Whoever is correct, HP is making hay of the dispute, releasing videos to counteract the iPad’s Oscar introduction.

In the video, released on YouTube, an Adobe executive, Alan Tam, shows Flash content running on the HP device, as well as an MTV clip and a Spongebob Squarepants game.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in January gave a highly-expected, but extremely brief glimpse of the HP device in a public appearance. Ballmer, who’s company powers the device, noted the iPad-like touch-screen. Ballmer released no specifics, such as name, price or availability, leaving with as many questions unanswered as were when he stepped onto the Las Vegas stage.

Along with the frontal assault from HP on the iPad’s lack of Flash, chipmaker ARM said Apple may not have the tablet platform to itself for long. Roy Chen, ARM’s global mobile computing ODM manager, said more than 50 tablet devices could appear in 2010.

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Apple Source: Adobe’s Flash Is “Too Buggy” For the iPad

Chen made the statement while in Taipei to unveil two tablets powered by Google’s Android OS: a 7-inch device from Compaq and a smaller product named the Armadillo. Like the iPad, both devices use ARM cores. Apple reportedly paid $1 billion to create the iPad’s A4 processor, the result of the company’s $278 million acquisition of chip designer P.A. Semi.

[via AppleInsider]

19 comments »

About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • mick

    Tablets with WIndows 7 are not iPad-like, they are like all the previous tablets that have come out & not impressed anyone.

  • Mac N’ Crunch

    I wonder if Apple released a computerized gerbil with a sweet interface, if HP would release one later in the year just to stay on the cutting of being second to the punch and doing it half-@$$’d like most everything else they’ve done. If the focal point of their attack is the lack of flash then that’s sad. The truth is I was a huge pc and borderline anti-Mac guy a while back, but after having almost every freakin’ pc or laptop that I’ve owned either fry my HD or just get throttled by a fan going down or whatever the case, I gave Apple a try. They have amazed me with their streamline, clutter-free, awesomeness that is my Macbook Pro. Good Luck Microsoft, oh yeah, hope your “smart” phone/whatever it is phone that’s about 3 years late works out for ya too. Sad.

  • strangel00p

    I think the more competitors there are the better. Apple’s will stand out and the others will just muddy their own water.

    Too bad they had to taint SpongeBob in the process though.

  • joh

    There will be a flood of cheap tablets with resistive touchscreens and Windows 7 or Android, no doubt. And since they will be cheap people will buy them. Apple won’t dominate the tablet market but do they need to do that?

    And I can just imagine *good* tablets with Android. I can hardly imagine good tablets with Windows 7 right now. Not only because the OS is wrong, but because Windows doesn’t run on ARM CPUs. Intel tablets will come either with a pathetic battery life or will be large and heavy. Or both.

    Still, people will buy the things because they’re cheap and promise them “the full PC experience”. And then they will find that the things suck and they will scoff at iPad-owners because everybody knows that tablets suck and only marketing can cause these Apple fanbois to be so smug while using a tablet… I’m already tired of all this even before it happens.

  • dennis

    flash?
    who cares?
    mostly for crappy sites with no content and advertisement.
    adobe is getting their just. And those of US that know what I mean, know that I mean.

    Paybacks are a bitch, aye Adobe?

  • JustaGuy

    Big deal. Apple doesn’t have the MP3 player or mobile phone market to itself either and it’s doing just fine. There will always be other options (which is a good thing) but I don’t think that will prevent Apple from making a lot of money.

    The cream rising to the top as they say.

    As a side note, I don’t consider HP to be an option. I have vowed never to knowingly buy another HP product ever again. I think they are the only company I have decided to 100% banned from my spending dollars.

  • http://nzhomgeek.wordpress.com John

    Having used windows7 on a tablet, I can say it is a huge improvement over XT Tablet and Windows Vista, but it still requires a huge amount of RAM and disk. This still makes it impractical for ultra mobile devices, while still keeping the price point low. What people have to get a handle on is that the OS doesn’t really matter, once you get good remote client software.
    My iPhone does OK with VNC and SSH sessions, but really is a bit sluggish, and the small screen is a problem for anything other than quick use, but the iPad at 1024×768 – thats a propper desktop size! 10 hrs on battery! Under NZ$1000 for the 3G! What makes me want this over a Netbook is the form factor, and battery life.
    The Windows7 tablets are just going to be underpowered, over priced, or built like crap.
    The computer I use most away form my desk now, is my iPhone. My laptop is used occasionally, but 3hrs on battery means I only ration out it’s use away from my desk, and when I do use it, it is as a Citrix, or X11 client which is why my 5 year old 13″ tablet with 1.6GHz cpu is still fine now, because with it I can access my dual CPU 3Ghz quadcore with 64GB RAM with no problems.

  • shaunathan

    Apple’s course of action is simple:

    *Show the CES footage of Steve Balmer fat fingering the HP device.

    *Show the you tube statistics that the HTML5 beta runs movies faster, and with clearer audio than the normal flash interface.

    If HP and ARM want to tie themselves to the anchor of Flash, let’s just cast the anchor overboard and let them sink with it. Problem solved.

  • IcyFog

    Two problems with HP’s theory.
    1 – Flash is not a killer app.
    2 – Their tablet runs Windows.

  • JW.

    Anyone with half a brain can see that these tablets don’t have a chance to compete. Why? Where’s the pipeline for content — the real money maker — for these other devices? Apple has the itunes store and the appstore, so suck it HP and ARM.

  • Charli

    1. Putting Twilight on your device to make it seem cool doesn’t really work. Not when you are selling to a bunch of adults.

    2. Maybe you did announce first but ‘later this year’ is so vague that half the folks just looking to check email, twitter and such will end up ‘just checking out’ the ipad and then buying one rather than wait for said still unknown date.

    3. if Apple follows recent history and does their back to school, this could be bad for HP etc. No they aren’t likely to give a few ipad. but I’ll bet that the $200 rebate will be allowed to be applied to the ipad cost just like they did with larger model ipod touches and classics.

  • http://ObamaPacman.com ObamaPacman

    @JW,

    So far, Apple has been selling content near cost.

  • RealUnimportant

    @ObamaPacman:
    “near cost” is still better than “at cost”; even a fractional profit multiplies up well when you consider how many sakes they make, and their almost total lack of development costs.

    I think the point being made though was that ARM can put processors in anything they like, but there’s very little non-AppStore content available to run on them.

  • JW.

    @ObamaPacman (cool handle)
    Agree — redirect is: content is king. Without content a slate computer is just a lovely paper weight. Content brings the masses, especially via the model Apple tout.

  • Evan

    Flash iz gay!!!! HTML5 rulz !!!! or something…

  • BaldSpot

    Amen to joh’s comment:

    “Still, people will buy the things because they’re cheap and promise them “the full PC experience”. And then they will find that the things suck and they will scoff at iPad-owners because everybody knows that tablets suck and only marketing can cause these Apple fanbois to be so smug while using a tablet… I’m already tired of all this even before it happens”

    ————
    I bought a refurb minimum MacBook just to see what my MacNut friends are all talking about. Then I bought my wife an iMac (talk about major brownie points!) Now six months later, my own iMac is on its way. I’m a total convert! PC’s are history in this house.

  • http://www.alcoholismtreatmentfaq.com Robert Ahmed

    Spongebo and Patrick are really great characters. love them.`-*

  • http://www.bodydetoxdiet.net Lucy Robinson

    what i like about spongebob is that he is sarcastic and funny*’.

  • http://www.acnetreatmentdigest.com Jason Rivera

    sometimes spongebob is stingy and annoying~.”