Where are all the Netbooks? Over there in the Corner.

This is what happens when a technology falls. Consumer interest and want control the market constantly. When something more shiny (ok sometimes more innovative) comes along and seems to do more than the previous technology. The latter falls.

As for Netbooks, this has come quite gradually and without warning that someone realized “Hey, the netbook sales are worsening month over month.”

When this realization hit it still took time for the reality to come into focus. Netbooks. Which have been taking the stage for quite awhile now, have all but disappeared. This obviously begs the question, what happened?

Of all the news articles I have read on this I have never heard an explanation I think turns the page for Netbooks, i’m not about to give one either. By some elemental law there must be an explanation for this steady decline of one of the most influential devices in this decade, but there’s really nothing solid.

When you ask someone (Techie) about Netbooks they might say “Oh I bought a Tablet”. Tablets have been blamed for the netbooks failure at the end, but I think there’s more.

Tablets have come up unsurprisingly right after the iPad. The with the iPad Apple made sure they got tablets right, providing access to not only a giant app store, but also tablet specific apps of which Apple has plenty. Android tablets also chipped away at market share, but in my opinion Android cannot stand up to the height that iOS can. While the iPad is certainly a great tool I think it’s interest spawned from the fact that it was more user friendly, not more compatible. When I go to school everyday I open up my Netbook and use Word and other applications that only run on pc’s. This makes it so I can easily use all of my schools resources while having my own. With a tablet you can’t do that and I think that’s something that was missed. Why? because schools adapted. Some at least, but enough that Netbooks took a hit and their target audience started vanishing. So yes, before I go on I think that Tablets played a big role, but not a center role. Schools converted their systems and allowed their students to access wifi and provided utilities to connect their iPads. Adults who simply used the internet didn’t need to be carrying things around so they simply bought a 3g iPad and were set. The elimination of an audience I agree was a strong point, but not the only one.

IT’S NOT SHINY. I’ve said it and it’s true with netbooks, there’s no shiny anymore. With the iPad I can interact directly with TOUCH. I can “touch” the object I am manipulating, and that right there is the concluding reason that not only have Tablets taken over, but tablets have taken the shiny aspect of things and made it point directly to them. The Netbook is no more. I do realize that I’ve countered myself, but I still think that the little piece of pie that netbooks have is important.

Omnitechnews has a shorter post, feel free to read.