, 01001001 wrote

Joe consumer does not equate the iPad and Gingerbreak/HoneyComb/ICS generation devices with Tablet computing.

In the minds of consumers this is not a tablet computer but a whole different device class that Apple basically invented.

Apple wisely differentiated the device in sufficient ways from Tablet PCs that they created a whole new class, and made it stick.

Besides the fact that Apple created this far before Microsoft.

But again, the consumer at the store doesn't care about this.

You're right, the iPad is just a giant iPhone that's horrible as a content creation device and not particularly good at anything except reading websites.

Anyway, the problem with Tablet PCs was never that consumers hated the idea, it was what I said --- that they were more expensive and didn't have a touch friendly interface. Whether Windows 8 tablets will be successful is yet to be seen, but I'd hardly consider it a retread of old Tablet PCs.