f13.net

So, aside from that sounding like a Chicago accent saying iPod, it's finally been announced. No price point yet.

It looks like a big iPhone.

The conference isn't even over yet!

still watching...

Watching it here (http://live.gdgt.com/2010/01/27/live-apple-come-see-our-latest-creation-tablet-event-coverage/) since gizmodo and others took a dump on me.

It's a scaled up iTouch. The only "new" thing I've seen is a native new york times app. Does not appear to have flash for web browsing which is a surprise. Maybe it will be a big reveal at the end.

Doesn't appear to have a camera, so no video conferencing.

Thanks for the link Bhodi.

That battery is pretty impressive. 10 hours of video on one charge?

I'm not big on Apple gadgets but I want one of these.

The one I'm watching is here - http://i.engadget.com/2010/01/27/live-from-the-apple-tablet-latest-creation-event/

They just announced their iBook thing. Striking back against the Kindle, I suppose.

These two sentences don't go together.

Apple's ePub is open format too. Kindle is DOA.

Yeah, except the prices are still stupid. $14.99? I'm not paying hardcover prices for something that doesn't require any manufacturing. Fuckyouverymuch. Also, their book app? margins inside margins? ugh. Also, everything appears to come through itunes. So far, no mention of how to get files onto the thing.

I suspect the battery life is a flat out lie. Even if it's not, since it's not widescreen movies are only about half size.

So far, I have seen nothing that warrants any excitement, really. I'll buy if it's < $500 and if I can get ebooks on there from my collection to read in bed. I fully expect a $899 pricetag though.

Still shocked it has no camera. Video conferencing seems like it was made for that thing.

It's sounding more and more like "Wait for generation 2 and see what happens"

Watching Apple's stock tank as of 1pm has been fun

I would still bet that the kindle's screen is better for long reading sessions.

Hahaha so funny I have to post

 11:14AM - “We’ve got a real breakthrough here. Two awesome plans. The first is up to 250MB per month — a fair bit of data, most people will get by on that — for just $14.99.” Bit applause.

11:13AM - “Now, what does it cost for the data plans? In the US cellphone companies typically charge $60 per month for a data plan for a laptop.”

11:13AM - “This is a real benefit. Now, I’d like to talk about wireless networking. Every iPad has the latest and greatest WiFi. But we’re going to have models with 3G built in as well.”


250mb per month? hahahahahahahaha I can't stop laughing what a bunch of suckers who buy that


even better!

 11:14AM - “If you feel you need more, we have an unlimited plan for just $29.99. Real breakthrough prices. We’ve got a breakthrough deal with AT&T who is providing the service.” Ouch.

Still laughing! hahah AT&T ahahahahaha

$29.99 a month no contract.  That's not bad.

This is the age of the internet. Who the fuck is going to pay $30/mo for an additional non-phone device? wtf? So they can sell you shit on itunes? You're PAYING for the bandwidth for them to SELL YOU SHIT. At least kindle was free.

lol I love it "Breakthrough deal with AT&T for $30 a month unlimited data", um isn't that the exact same deal the iPhone has?

500 bucks!

+$130 for 3G access, +$200 for 64GB.

No camera.

Fail.

So, finally. Pricing!

"at $499 a lot of people can afford an iPad. 16GB is our base model. For 32GB it’s $100 more, and for $100 more than that you get $64GB. The 3G models cost another $130.

so, $500 for the shit model with 16gb and no 3g. I can't see why you would ever want 3g anyway so the mid range seems perfectly fine.. maybe 2nd gen.

So, no flash then? There was an error when he went to a web page that required flash.

I don't see any reason for me to get this thing, so far. The idea of reading books on a backlit LCD screen is unappealing.

The only market this thing is going to impact is the netbook market, which is growing fast enough to absorb this w/o effecting current players.

$499 for 16gb.

No camera.  Every netbook has one.

It would however be absolutely friggen hilarious if this thing had phone capability and people could just walk around with their giant iPhone.

3G support for the device adds another 130 bucks onto the base model, making it $630 for the 16 gig with 3G.

I do like that it is 30 bucks a month for unlimited data, with no contract.

It seems like they're going after the kindle rather than netbooks, this thing can't do shit.

After seeing all the tablets at the nvidia press conference, the ipad will be overshadowed this year anyway. The tegra chipset will own all.

I think it's pretty funny that the "base" model has half as much storage as my iPod Touch, costs almost twice as much, and from the sound of things has no additional functionality beyond being larger (which is IMO a drawback since if I wanted something that I couldn't cram into my pocket I'd have a real laptop).

I have a real, real hard time stomaching having to purchase internet access more than once.  I currently do it for my phone and my home which means I am already past my comfort zone, no way in hell am I going to pay for home+phone+the maxiPad.  The announcement should have been "In a break through deal with AT&T the iPad is able to use the iPhone's internet access in tethered mode at no extra cost!".

This thing is useless, why would anyone want one that isn't sucking applecock?

Gah. 

I"m assuming it won't allow 3rd party multi-tasking?

Don't forget, no flash for webpages.

As far as I can tell, this thing is a scaled up ipod touch - exactly. No phone, no camera, just a bigger screen and a few new apps that use the bigger screen size.

64gb seems pretty low too.  I thought the ITouch even had more room than that?

Yes but that is a breakthrough deal if you look at what other laptop "tethering" price plans are. For AT&T it's $40/month for 200 MB and $60/month for 5 GB.

64 GB is the max right now for the iPod Touch though Samsung has recently announced a single chip 64 GB flash memory chip. The iPod Touch has room for 2 flash memory chips while the iPhone only has room for one which is how you get the 64 GB limit for Touches and 32 GB limit for iPhones. But when the new 64 GB chip becomes available in quantity it's likely Apple will release 64 GB iPhones and 128 GB Touches.

Apparently the iPad only has room for 2 flash memory chips like the Touch which seems odd. Or maybe it uses more lower capacity chips to keep the cost down like 4 16 GB chips instead of 2 32 GB chips.


 

 :awesome_for_real:

http://www.apple.com/ipad/#video

The video is up.

Or you can just say fuck the ToS and just tether your phone behind their back or use clear.com (http://www.clear.com/shop/overview?s_kwcid=TC|9630|clear%20wireless||S||4934529669).  This is one of the things I hate about the wireless phone business's philosophy, they fuck their customers for being loyal but they will sell their service in bulk to a competitor so that competitor can turn around and sell it to their customers who aren't being loyal.

edit: works same way with Tmobile in Austin, they allow tethering and charge reasonable rates and yet they purchase 3g network access from another wireless company who is not as friendly.

iSupplemental eReader.

or

iEPaperisDead

or

iStillWantaLaptop

In other words, yes, it ONLY exists to destroy the entire ebook market and make a technology (epaper) obsolete. Bravo to them, that shit sucked. Otherwise, vapid shit for vapid people.

Edit: Development cost for games on this thing to not look like shit is going to be wayyyyy too high, and goodbye awesome 99c pricepoint on apps. I really don't understand how much, if any, went into the thought of "let's make the iphone huge" - it's a totally 80s thing to do. Bigger is better. :shrug:

So, the 16  is the mini Pad

and the 64 is the maxiPad

While it works, it's not the most elegant solution, and it's going to get messy after heavy use.

Add to it the fact that it was presented by a douche.

I think that's enough.

I'm pretty impressed with electronic ink stuff.  It is much easier on the eyes and with the week long battery life, kindle opening up for app development, not charging monthly rates for data access and color electronic ink coming down the pipe I can see the kindle possibly killing the iPad.  Of course it won't have to kill the iPad because that was already DoA.

edit: Maybe the iPad will move Amazon into opening up the format a lil though so it may be a good thing.

Except you know, its twice as expensive, you have to pay for your uplink to download the shit you buy, the books are slightly more expensive than the amazon store, and you're reading on a backlit LCD screen so hello eye strain.

I just don't see it killing epaper, certainly not this generation of the device.

Amazon already announced an SDK and app program for Kindle, and a 70% marging for authors and publishers to publish directly through them.  So yeah, I dunno.

iPad sounds like just a big iPhone.

Re. eInk -- there is some new HD LCD tech out there I remember reading that's as good as eInk and enabled touch.  Will be interesting if it takes off.

T-Mobile's official policy is they don't allow tethering. And using T-Mobile as the 3G provider here in the US would crush their network.

what's up with no Flash?  that's  :ye_gods: for gaming

Apple's legion of new product fanboys will buy as many of these things as Apple can initially build in any case. There was no point in adding multitasking, a camera or anything else useful. That's going to help sell the second generation. Jobs is an evil corporate bastard, but he's not a complete fool.

Right now it's a cool X10 controller for poseurs, and sadly that's enough to sell as many as they can build for months.

lol.

No flash, no multitasking, no keyboard, no support for external storage, shitty gimped IPhone OS, no front-facing camera, no hand-writing recognition, no 3g (unless you add $130), backlit screen, 16g-64g of storage (lol), no PDF support, no MicroSDHC slot, no handwriting recognition, no removable battery, no USB slots?!?!,  Why not get a cheaper netbook, with better features, and tether your iphone to it?

Speaking of controllers is there a droid or iPhone app that emulates a ps3 controller?  Or even turns your phone into a bluetooth keyboard for use with ps3?

Not that I am a fan of this giant iPod Touch deal but there is indeed PDF support and there is a dock to USB connector that comes in the package.

http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/

No Flash, so what. Flash sucks.

It's going to be a great gaming device, and though you hardcore folks don't see it, just get a gander of iPhone sales now…

Deal breaker for me is cost, non built in 3G (who wants another contract), and the whole closed off nature of iPhone OS (I spend most of my time in web browser, text editor and terminal sessions).

(http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kwxagbrJ3U1qz5f77o1_500.jpg)

Wait, this is going to be a great gaming device? HOW? Who is going to want to game on this? lol. Hell, who is going to want to TYPE on this? It's too big to type with your thumbs, so you'll have to lay it flat, which means you'll have to bend over it and stare straight down on it. Holy hell, what were they thinking?

Not much of a problem because it'll be jailbroken in a jiffy. The real problem is the lack of multitasking. A phone-like application stack is just dreadful for a device like this. I'm guessing that AT&T wanted the full computer data rate if it could multitask, and that the $30 rate is only available for phone-like devices. So there will probably be an option that adds multitasking in a future software release, but enabling it will hike your data rate. Just my guess.

Hardware-wise, the lack of a camera without adding an external device is the biggest problem. Software-wise its too horrible to contemplate in this form. It's also a touch too overpriced for a Linux experiment.

The fuck we don't get it, we just like BUTANS. I have over 100 games on my ipod touch. Most are shit. Sales don't change that.

Sturgeon's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_Law)

Most all PC games are shit. Most Wii/PS3/XBox 360/DS/PSP games are shit.

Too expensive for a "watch videos wherever you like" device, too restricted for anything else.

Steve Jobs said "It's the best web experience you've ever had."

But it uh... doesn't have flash.

Looking at some of those enervating flash sites, thats what he might have meant!  :awesome_for_real:

Enraging deal about "lack of multitasking" is that the built-in Apple apps are excepted from the restriction — mail works in the background, you can listen to your "iPod" when using another application, etc.… but no soup for you if it's a third party app you DL from appstore.

But not as draconian as Apple lording over what actually can be "legally" (without jailbreaking or running your own development fruits) installed on it.

lulz screen resolution of 1024x768, I bet the markup on this thing is insane cause at every turn it looks like shit hardware.  They at least could have ditched the giant ass bezel and tried to make it wide screen friendly (1440x900 or something).

This thing missed on so many levels and yet they will still make money off of it because it is probably dirt cheap to build.

Perusing my feed reader, noting even a lot of apple haters considering the device as a Kindle replacement — yeah, whispernet built-in but for same price as Kindle DX you get color + pictures + email + iTunes + etc.… …and you can already have Kindle on your iPhone/iPod Touch…

Well... it will be a hell of a porn viewer though.  :why_so_serious:

It's an IPS panel unlike those POS TN panels everybody else uses. This costs more money.

It's like the iPad is the retarded version of the iTouch.  Like those gigantic big button phones that dumb people have to use.

(http://atomic2mod.com/Auctions/images/BigButtonPhone/BigButtonPhone1.jpg)

Then these people are not avid book readers.  E-ink over LCD anyday.

That's not a hate thing.  It's a nice piece of tech.  But as an e-reader?  No thanks.  Comics would be nice on it.

While I've only gotten to play with a Kindle, I talk to coworkers who own it and eschew it for Kindle on the iPhone — as if you are one that does most reading in bed, that kind of nullifies the e-ink advantage.

Also, I sit in front of an LCD all day and read text and it doesn't seem to bother me…

Can't be that much more at that size.  I bet the 3.7" AMOLED display on the Nexus One costs close to what the iPads 10" IPS screen does and production costs for that were figured to be $23.50 + $17.50 for the touchscreen.  Given nexus hardware pricing it looks like the costs of the 10" touchscreen would be more than what kind of panel it was integrated with.  No doubt someone will do a total cost breakdown in the near future then we will know, I'm guessing at most $150 in parts for the base model.

I do all my reading in the bed.  Do they sit in the dark cradling that tiny screen close?  Dragging left and right on the touch screen to read each sentence?

Sorry, it's good in a pinch, but for actual reading, e-ink.  Kindle/Sony/Nook whatever.  I use to read on my netbook before I got my Kindle.  No contest.

People reading on a backlit iPhone in the dark are going to regret it in a few years.

I've done quite a bit of reading on my iPhone. If you hold it landscape each line has enough text, you just have to scroll up a lot.

What's the file size of a ripped DVD movie converted to 1024x768?  Can I rip widescreen movies and letterbox them for viewing on a 4:3 screen?

Most of the torrent stuff gets ripped down to CD size and it still looks decent enough on a 50inch 1080p TV, so I would say you would be fine at 700meg per dvd.

Yeah, can't wait to crawl into bed and curl up with my iPad. Watching 2 hour movies on a screen a foot away from my face sounds totally awesome.

This thing is "an order of magnitudes" more farcical than the fucking Air.

Holy shit Mac, yet another crazily off-the-mark swipe at a slice of the netbook pie. Just cut a fucking 15" Macbook Pro in half already.

That it is so thoroughly inept despite the massive leaps in technology means few people beyond slavering must-buy Mac fans will be very forgiving for at least this and most probably the next generation version of it. Right now, it's a gloriously expensive Fisherprice iPhone with half the capability.

So fucking underwhelming, makes me glad I'm not an apple fanboi.

Time to have some fun with those smug fucks.  :why_so_serious:

I think it's pretty awesome, definitely makes a fun little niche market for itself. I can easily see getting one and using it as my online gaming help machine rather than my current laptop. The laptop suffers from being big, clunky, takes a while to boot up, and its just awkward to use at times. For the low price point, I could easily see scoring one of these had I not already had a laptop. If I didn't already have a long list of fiscal priorities I might just got one right now anyhow.

I definitely think it gives the netbook culture a run for its money, and I would suspect it would also meet the needs of 90% of laptop users out there as well. It's a fun little platform.

Is anyone boggled at how this is suppose to kill the netbook market?

So is this suppose to kill off the macbook air?   :why_so_serious:

 :why_so_serious:

sauce (http://layscience.net/node/919)

Wait, so you want to use this as a "shit, where is the quest NPC!? I could alt-tab but I'd rather grab my iPad, turn it on, wait for it to boot, navigate to google, bring up the on-screen touchpad and awkwardly type my query, and wait for it to load" device?

Well worth $500, imo.

You probably could have easily deduced that I am a console gamer rather than embarrassing yourself.

I still am at a loss at how being a console gamer makes this a better purchase than an equally-priced netbook.

You could make the same argument for *any* of Apple's products - their computers, iPods, iPhones and laptops are all more expensive than their counterparts. If you haven't figured out what makes them successful yet, then no, the iPad isn't going to be some stunning revelation for yourself.

hahahahahhahahaha Apple fanboys are the worst.  They've been eating shit for years and screaming "mmmmmmm! Delicious!"  I mean seriously, who wouldn't want more expensive products with less functionality? I mean c'mon, they have style.

Some people have money to burn and like style?

His point is for your specific use a $200 netbook would do just fine.  Hell, some of them you can put OSX on the damn thing.

The same could be said for every single iPod that exists - it's not like the iPod did something amazing with the music it contains, any other portable MP3 player will suffice, and they're cheaper to boot!

iPods do what they do better than anything else that existed when the debuted and have pretty much stayed in the same position to this day. iPhones were similar; this is just a locked-down overpriced e-reader with games, true tablet PCs will eat this for breakfast.

No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

The same could be said for every single iPod that exists - it's not like the iPod did something amazing with the music it contains, any other portable MP3 player will suffice, and they're cheaper to boot!
[/quote]

Hence the 'style' part of my comment.  Your point?  I have, at times, owned an iPod, iPod nano, Creative Zen, IPod Touch, and a Zune HD.  The Zen was probably the worse of them, but the Zune occupies much the same space as the Touch, with a better screen.  It's not like I burned my iPod Touch after I got it.  It's still around the house.

None of that has anything to do with this product.  They are saying, independent of the Apple brand, there are cheaper products with equal parts style and workmanship at half the price.  Your response has been nothing short of....BUT APPLE!  I'm not holding a raging hard-on for the HP Slate either.  I've had a tablet at work. 

These are the same issues with the Macbook Air.  It was a nice piece of tech that was well designed, but there was really no reason to aim for it over a number of other laptops of the time.

Did people forget that Apple sometimes has bad ideas?

I'm totally disappointed by it but I see where they intend to go with it. It's not made to compete with a computer. It's meant to be a paid content delivery machine. Any more functionality and it would probably either cannibalize their low end laptop line or be so expensive that it would be an even bigger joke. It's meant to make them oodles of money distributing games, books, newspapers, movies, etc. It's a one way entertainment device with some internet thrown in. If they'd added a digitizer, multi-tasking and a camera, it would be Robot Jebus (IMO) but that would make too much sense. Plus, no standard apps would work on it due to it's ARM CPU. I'd love to trade my work MacBook for something like this but that ain't happening. And yeah, I know there are third party retrofits but I'm not too fond of the execution.

edit for spelling. Got my 'their/there' mixed up.

As I said on Twitter, it's an iPhone (actually an iTouch) the size of one of Flava Flav's clocks and I'm supposed to get all dewy with excitement?

Fuck that. 64GB of storage? Those data plans? $500? Fuck off.

Actually, all I said is that I'd like one if I didn't already have a laptop. Are you arguing that I shouldn't, in fact, feel that way?

Hahaha, keep letting me know what I should think :)

Yeah there's some weird confusion here. The iPod actually was significantly better than the other stuff on the market and is still a well-designed thing that has all the features it should to do what it is supposed to. The iPhone is similar (although I'd personally grab a Droid over it, I need real buttans.)

The iPad is not in the same league, it would appear, particularly in the "has the features it needs to actually do its job" department.

No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

Are you kids going to research this or what?

I don't see how it would as $500 is the high end of the netbook market ($299 is the low end). I guess if you consider extra $200 you pay for a iPad as the premium for an "ultra-portable" netbook you could sort of shoehorn the iPad into the same market.

If it actually ran the full Mac OS X it might have had a chance to do so. Since it's running the iPhone version of OS X though, not so much.

Funniest quote I saw today on Digg was 'Shrek sized iPhone'  :awesome_for_real:

See, that's what I use my iPod Touch for.  It's great for that.  (In fact, it does that job so well that I ended up giving away my laptop, which had previously filled that role.)  It also fits in my pocket, and is way cheaper than this thing, and has more storage space.  

I can't fathom what this thing does that is not done better by something that already exists and costs less.

That's a ridiculous comparison.

Of what? F13 vs. Slashdot?

Forgiveness.  Missed this part.

And thus you've pointed out the problem of this.

Yes, CmdrTaco being wrong about the iPod automatically means that everyone who ever says an Apple product is lame will be proven wrong and made fun of for the rest of the internet's existence.  :oh_i_see:

I hear the market for wifi devices was huge in 2001  :oh_i_see:

OT:

(http://www.filedump.net/dumped/applecreation0128rmeng1264635854.jpg)

That's the problem with continuous threads, the kids get so confused what you're referring to, it becomes a gong show.

The comment is in response to "iPods do what they do better than anything else that existed when the debuted"

 :oh_i_see:

Thanks for playing!

I'm not sure why you're being a douche about this, I didn't insult you. And I'm 35 and read /. at the time, thanks.  :oh_i_see:

CmdrTaco was wrong about the Nomad being better in the first place. The iPod was a better product.

The original iPod came out on November 10th 2001, the NOMAD Zen wasn't even announced until October 14th 2002.

Yes because we like to invent famous quotes which are easily verified on the net.

Do we have a hole digging emoicon?

The thing is you can't look at the features individually. It's like those stupid car ads that say Car A has better acceleration than Car B, has better braking than Car C, and cheaper than Car D.

E.g.

The Kindle is cheaper and lighter and has an e-Ink display but it doesn't have color and it can't run thousands of apps
A netbook is cheaper and can run a non-crippled OS but it's heavier, has a crappier screen and doesn't have the tablet form factor
Media player X is cheaper and can store more but it doesn't have a large screen

and so on and so forth.

In other words there's nothing like an iPad (yet) that has the same or a superset of the features of the iPad and is cheaper.

I'm still confused what the hell you guys arguing about.

This is insane.  Why would anybody who is familiar with modern technology buy this?  No Flash, on what is supposed to be competition against a netbook, are you for real?


I think I've spotted the problem here: you've bought into apple's bullshit.  Netbook culture?  Please, these are tools, made for function.  If you are buying into the aesthetics of a device that is wholly inferior to less-expensive alternatives already out in the market, you deserve to lose every penny they overcharge.

EDIT: The main positive I can see out of this so far is that hopefully we will see some much more impressive copycats from the competition.

I'm puzzled too, the main thrust of his argument seems to be that a lack of wireless capacity and the superiority of the Nomad mp3 player means that the iPod wasn't the best mp3 player when it first came out. Neither of which make any sense.

 :headscratch:

Oh for sure, hindsight is 20/20. The comment is really in response to the complaint that X product might lack X, Y or Z features, and thus be inferior. Sometimes people can be rather short-sighted and think the product with the most features wins, and my train of thought is looking back, we can see the same feature-lacking complaints existed when the now wildly successful iPod was first introduced. The hilarious thing is the message that "feature pumping doesn't matter" is continually re-enforced in our culture (any Apple product, the Wii, etc), yet we often fail to listen to the message.

Personally, and like I said when I first joined the conversation, I think it's a neat little product which will enjoy a niche market. You shouldn't expect every Apple product to reinvent how we do things.

Thanks for letting us know you also said that on Twitter.  I was wondering.

We just bought a Sony Vaio notebook for my wife about two months ago for $735 after tax from Best Buy.  Outside of the added "benefit" of being required to buy everything through Apple, I'm not seeing how it's any different.  We can curl up in bed and watch Fringe on Hulu with her system, we can watch Blu-Rays, we can play webgames and Diablo 2... what else does one need?  

Oh yeah, and we don't pay a monthly fee for it.  

Monthly fee is for 3G. Do you want 3G? If not, then buy the cheaper ones without 3G support and don't get a plan.

Literature, people.

Correct.  If you have any number of those above items, there's no reason to get this.  It's far more general purpose.  Jack of Many Trades.

Nonsense.  They are doing the same thing they always do: exploiting their idiot fanbase for first and second generation sales before finally making something close to worth the price-tag on the third revision.  The upsetting thing is the smugness coming from these beatnik wannabes while they happily let themselves be completely ripped off.

 :tinfoil:

AT&T runs commercials goofin on Verizon for not being able to talk on the phone and check email/surf the web at the same time.

Yet, AT&Ts new bastard-baby the iPad can't.... surf the web and check email at the same time. Or do two of ANYTHING at the same time.

 :uhrr:

I get that, but where does this particular set of features fit into an actual human being's life?  I mean, I can't think of any use case where my iPod is too small and a laptop is too big and an iPad is just right.  Certainly not any use case that's worth $500.

Apple's own apps can support background processing. E.g. Mail can pull or be pushed email while another app is running.

 :roffle:

A lightweight tablet is a better form factor compared to a netbook/laptop for surfing on the can :awesome_for_real:

And an iPod has a better form factor for stuffing in your pocket so nobody knows you're surfing on the can.   :awesome_for_real:

Exactly.  I already have an iphone for that.  :why_so_serious:

That's too small for me when I'm at home.

What, your eyesight suddenly diminishes when you walk in your front door?

Okay maybe that wasn't worded as well as it could've been...

That's what kills it for me. If it was a full blow OS X you would have a lot more options and even start providing a broader SDK framework for OS X desktop.

Also I don't have ogre hands and would have to constantly lay the device down to type.

iPad makes me think of sanitary pads. One that, I dunno, sends you an email when you should change it.

Just wait till there's a version that supports Sprint's WiMax network :drillf:

so any bets now on when the tabletop products will be out?  iTray?

There are rumors Apple is working on a touch screen iMac. I think something like that would be better for "embedding" into a tabletop.

The topic #iTampon is a trending topic on Twitter. You're not alone.

I figure pretty much any lady nerd thought of that immediately. Dunno about dude nerds!

Think bigger.... iWall

Now once they get the LCARS (http://www.lcarscom.net/) set up on it, Mr. Roddenberry will have truly become immortal.  :why_so_serious:

 :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: :drill:

If you buy this piece of shit, you're a bad human being.

I don't understand how embedding a touch screen in a horizontal surface would be that comfortable to use.  My back goes into spasm just thinking about hunching over a desk to work/play/etc.  If they get the ergonomics right it would awesom-o.

I was awaiting this announcement like a giddy school girl waiting for whatever boy band du jour's concert.  I was curious if there was some way I might use it as a replacement for an aging laptop.  Part of me is going "squeeeeeee" but the rational thinking part of me is going "Nope better off with a new laptop".  That's my preference and I can sleep better happy in my own special place.

Now to the other big question: will Apple sell a bazillion of these things.  Absolutely, and people will love them.  Do I care?  Nope.

So... you're just going to pretend the 8 minute long video back-slapping session of digitally cleaned up Mac Honchos extolling the fabricated virtues (BEST WEB OMG 10 HOURS OF USE LOL) of their exquisitely designed yet useless slab of empty promises doesn't exist, then?

Oh, the hate in this thread is delicious.

Name is no stupider than the Wii.

Regarding iPad being a kindle killer, I honestly don't see it.  Magazines and newspapers maybe, but not novels.

Kindle is 1/3rd the weight, 70x the battery life, 1/2 the price, massively easier on my eyes, and has free wireless instant gratification book purchasing.

The only two things that impressed me was that the entry level price was as low as $500 (but all the options beyond that are super high margin -- 16GB extra flash for $100?!) and the no-contract data-only 3G plans (if I could get $30 data only on my smartphone and use some voip silliness for calling, I'd jump at that).

The software was surprisingly underwhelming.  I expected Steve to show off at least one "wow" app that did something you just can't do well on ipod touch or macbook.  He basically introduced this as a middle ground product (see the slide behind him with iphone | ipad | macbook) and said "we made a new category, you should buy it" without providing much reason as to why it's in any way better than the other two alternatives that most people who'd have $500 to drop on this toy already own...

Steve: "netbooks aren't better than anything"
Me: "well they can run all the software you won't let me run on your walled garden, Steve gets 30% platform"

I guess I fall into the "I don't get it" category on this one.  Feels like Mac Cube or Apple TV to me.

Kinda how I feel after reading through everything and exploring it.  It's neat, but other things do it just as well (if not better in some cases) and I'm not sure I am the target market for this thing.  I am sure the hardcore Mac faithful will love it, but I'm just kinda "feh" towards it which is considerably different than when I saw the iPod for the first time (I had portable MP3 player experience since 1999 and Apple was one of the first to get it right).

Both ipod (original) and iphone entered interesting, growing markets with plenty of demand but lousy execution by the existing players and set the bar for product execution, then proceeded to take a big chunk of the market.  This feels like a very different play to me -- I'm not convinced there really is a ton of demand for bigger than an smartphone but much more limited than a laptop and closed like a console.

Well said.

So, ya, what is the deal with Apple not doing flash? Is it some beef/copyright thing with Adobe or something? Or is it that Flash is just so CPU/Video intensive they can't do it right on the hardware so they just avoid it?

It's all about Steve getting his 30% cut of all apps and control of app deployment.

Thus their blanket ban on any "virtual machines" or the like that would allow you to execute content that's not gated by the itunes store.

Quite a lot of the ipod/iphone gaming content is "casual games" stuff that could easily be implemented in flash and played via the browser which would be an end-run around their walled garden for app content.

What's hilarious is that adobe is working on tools to "compile" flash apps to native binaries which then can be submitted to the app store.

On one hand, I'd love to see flash die.  On the other hand I'd rather see it die because it sucks rather than because Steve has decided that it allows for insufficient control over his app ecosystem.

I haven't owned an Apple product since 1988. The streak shall continue.

+1
Don't discount the convenience of hand held porn viewers! Porn killed Betamax you know...


Also, comic books (http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=24603), dunno why Marvel doesn't have something on it now since Marvel is now owned by Disney and Jobs is on the board of directors at Disney.

Color is a huge plus for me. To me, the b/w Kindle compared to the iPad is no less a big jump from the old green CRT screens to color VGA.

I think this is a better alternative:
ASUS Eee PC T91 - Atom - 8.9" Netbook with rotating touchscreen (http://www.google.com/products/catalog?rlz=1C1GGLS_enMY291MY303&sourceid=chrome&q=touchscreen+netbooks&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=18304857431730714492&ei=aEJhS8jQIsSztgfspKnYDQ&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBAQ8wIwAA#ps-sellers)

 :uhrr: :oh_i_see:

Just a Hitler video, but it's really well done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnT0zp8Ya4

The iPad seems like a nice computer for a six year old, so I am going to get one for my daughter.

Porn also killed HDDVD.

This whole thing makes sense if you think about it as a beta product. And oh the potential down the road . . . imagine you can just go to McDonalds and input your own order on these beautiful touchscreens with pretty pictures of burgers and fries



  :why_so_serious:

I just want something like Microsoft Surface in tablet form tbh.  I think that type of system would have a lot more useful scenarios, and be more fun to play with.

The internet is on the case:

(http://i.imgur.com/wApCi.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/Wo27t.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/oRffH.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/Nj3iE.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/5vREa.png)

If it had a little more memory and ran native OSX, we'd think about it. We've been considering laptops for years and Apple is just priced too high for us, this product falls into (the upper end of) our budget. (she's nixed a netbook hackintosh)

Syncing with itunes and ebooks would be a perfect setup for her, though...but then taking away multitasking kinda hurts that combo. Playing some Bach while reading? Opening a browser while playing Bach and reading to check reference on some plot point? If you could hook up a bluetooth headset to it and use it as a phone as well, put in GPS + topo maps...Give us a device that can do all these things, run OSX, be sexy, and not break the bank.

Maybe iPad 2.0, but it's not there yet. About the only flash app we let run at home is youtube, so not really a problem there.

(edit: good point on USB, need to be able to hook the camera up to it)

The only flash you watch is YouTube? No Hulu? No Dailyshow, no news video, no college humor, no vimeo? I guess in a way this worries me the most about apple users. Its not that they're dumb, but that they're slowly but surely being corralled into a sheltered world for the sake of Apple's profit margin. All the dread and agnst once levied at Microsoft back in the 90s about how they were subjugating the world to its small vision of computing seems to have come into full bloom in Apple's vision of the world.

The sad thing is that its probably going to work this time. I work with otherwise brilliant professors in highly sophisticated fields. They are increasingly coming to me with their MacBooks with no idea how to configure their email, run automatic updates and essentially showing an apalling lack of knowledge of how the rest of the computing world works. And these aren't the older professors. The older ones understand computers far far better than the younger ones.

Are you really trying to correlate mac ownership with inability to comprehend the computing world?

You best be trollin'

At home? No. And the youtube is mostly just some cool music clips I want to share with her, like the Chris Cornell stuff I posted a while ago. Even at work I don't watch much video.

Why should non-tech people have to know how their computers work? That's a failure of computing imo. But lulz that old people are better at computing than young users.

I know I am always thinking "Fuck I hate Bonjour. I wish I had to manually configure every printer, hunt down drivers, etc. Just selecting a printer from a list and having it work BLOWS."  :oh_i_see:

Your nightmare is my dream.

Some Mac owners come from a *nix world and get IT. Some. They are fairly rare. In my limited experience in the academic world.

When I say 'get computing', I'm not talking about understanding the difference between DDR2 and DDR3. I'm talking about understanding a computer's file structure. Or even knowing that one actually exists behind OSX. The type of knowledge that scientists that are going to be expected to write code in Matlab, ArcGIS or SAP should have some familiarity with.

And again, you seem to be intimating that this lack of knowledge is only found in people who use Macs.

Indeed.  I'm not a Mac user, but I work with a good number of people who know very little about computers past 'clicky the icons'.  And I work in an IT company. (our admin staff have no clue)

Exactly, I used to have to explain almost daily what a thin client was to a VP of IT at Morgan Stanley back in the early aughts. He was a dyed-in-the-wool Windows user and before that, a mainframe guy. And he was far from the only one that didn't understand the technology or would look at me funny whenever I broke out my titanium Powerbook. Now, from that anecdotal evidence, I could gather that all windows users and IT guys in general know fuckall about computing too. I'd be wrong, but I could make that assumption kinda the way Engels did about his Mac using professors.

Bottom line, the vast majority of computer users, no matter what their choice of platform may be, haven't got a bloody scooby about what they're doing with their computers outside of surfing porn playing games and using whatever their program of choice is.

Someone turn up the seriousness today?  :why_so_serious: (double green)

Why should the average user have to know anything about file structure? Again, that's a failure of people who 'get' computing to create a user-friendly system. A user is not a tech.

I like to help people here learn if they care to. The rest I make things as easy as possible, from their standpoint the only thing that has changed in ten years is they click an icon in the dock instead of on their desktop to get to our server, which (to them) appears exactly as it did when it was running on a G3 box running ASIP. Most people don't give a shit, they have work to do.

Holy shit...a bunch of people who dislike Apple products and wouldn't have bought this anyway, are saying they dislike Apple products and wouldn't have bought this anyway.

I swear I've read this exact thread before....


...


...

Holy shit...a bunch of people who may have like this product are underwhelmed and confused!

Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/editorial-engadget-on-the-ipad/)





Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/ars-ipad-reax.ars)






I dig it.  You like Apple.  But ladies and gents, not everything they do is the second coming.  And to some this is a disappointment and a misstep. 

I was just calling for people to stop buying Apple products. I still hold that belief.

I mean the competitors were already coming, like so (http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/08/msi-shows-off-10-inch-android-tablet-running-new-tegra-chipset/):

MSI Tegra Tablet.  That was at CES.  Tegra and Android powered.  
Will it be better?  Who knows.  

Dell has 5-incher.  Also Android.

I'll give it 6-8 months and then see if I have space in my everyday life for a tablet at all.  I doubt it, but who knows.  But I do know I'm not already tied to the Apple sphere for the most part, so that's not a draw for me. (I get my Mp3s through Amazon, for instance)

Surlyboi, you seem to be a fan of this thing, but so far you've just posted random emoticons and snide comments without actually being able to defend this thing.  I curious to hear your opinion on it.

Hell, I ain't buying one.  I was speaking more toward remarkable similarity of this thread as compared to previous threads on [InsertNewAppleProductAnnouncement].

Let's face it:  Apple is a company everyone loves to hate.  Meanwhile they are printing money at a gross profit margin that would make a Goldman Sach's executive jealous with rage.  The market will vote with their dollars, and so far it looks like the voting is handily pro-Apple.

This thing could have been named iJehova, with flash video support, a $99 price point, sixteen built in cameras, a Terminator-like fusion power source, a screen size that dynamically adjusted to your preferences by scanning your thoughts, and a life-sized head of Katy Perry that popped out and offered to fellate you at the end of every browsing session, and people would still be complaining about it across the net.

I mean, why doesn't it multitask too!

The best defense I've heard so far is along these lines:

(http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/215499741_EEML7-L-2.jpg)

That's bullshit, and you know it.  There is a difference between unrealistic handwringing from the fringe, and legitimate complaints from a potential userbase.  For you to dismiss this as nothing more than anti-apple froth is unbelievably stupid.

I would actually like a touchscreen device of around this size and capability. I think the price is too high (I'm sure that the screen is very nice, but it's more than I need) and I'm unwilling to have such a device use a phone application stack. I could have been tempted to pay the price had this box run a fairly complete version of OS X and I might still be tempted if somebody gets a stable and fairly vanilla Debian based Linux onto it. The 3G data stuff is of little interest - my applications for such a device put me within range of wi-fi whenever I would use it.

I think Apple will sell fucktons of these things to people with too much money who want to look 'cool' while reading newspapers. I think that both Kindle and Nook are better devices for that, but I don't own any of those devices either so my opinion isn't worth much. I suspect that the success of iPad will stymie the addition of features that would make the device more appealing for other applications, so I don't expect iPad to thrill many people here in its second generation either. Once Apple have saturated the coffee shop poseur market in a couple of years, they might actually do something useful with it. By the time that happens, there may be a viable market for small fully-featured tablet computers without keyboards, but at the moment the ball seems to be in Android's court, not anybody who is building devices for Windows, Linux or OS X. Which sucks - phone application stacks, etc.

What are we talking about in pro-Apple voting?  

Money? I believe Microsoft cleared more revenue and profit in every quarter last year.

Just phones?
(http://www.macobserver.com/imgs/tmo_articles/20100105smartphone2.jpg)
In actuality, Blackberries still beat everything else, for business reasons of course.  Apple is still strong, but Android is growing quickly.

iPods are definitely Apple's market and they control it with an iron fist.  70%+ market share I believe.

Notebooks?  HP holds around 20% market share last I checked.  Followed by Acer, Dell and Toshiba.

Desktop OS?  Windows still holds 92% with Apple in second place at 5%.

So Apple leads in...  one market.

They're very good at design, putting it all together, and controlling the message.

Why not?  Is that such a bad thing to ask?  To do two things at once?

I'm just glad computers don't require you to do two things at once most of the time.  When they do, my brain mostly stops working and I become perfectly still.  This might be just the device for me!

I think my problem with everything here is that this thing from anyone else would've been met with a total Meh. The ONLY reason we're even discussing it is because it's from Apple.

That's it.

It's the most closed computer ever made. Ever. I'm flabbergasted this has actually hit 5 pages on a gaming website. You know, a site where people boycott games because they have Starforce.

This is the Apple Starforce, you silly fuckers.

Windows is OS Starforce.

Consoles are gaming Starforce.

You are a retarded sad clown that makes unfunny comments that you think pass as "jokes." Stop trying to make one-liners, it comes off as the desperate cry of an old man looking for acceptance.

Shut the fuck up.

This is the cold, hard truth.  Tons of people had tablets at CES 2010.  Microsoft had their concept last year.  

If Acer or Asus or anyone else had dropped this specific product, it wouldn't get near this much press.

:why_so_serious:

No Sky, it's not why so serious. You have a fucking problem. Solve it on your own time and stop shitting up every fucking thread with your failed bullshit humor. Last Warning.

Shit, if Microsoft put out a platform where all of your apps had to be approved by Microsoft, the Mac faithful would be screaming bloody murder about it.

Again, not exactly enamored with the device (unless price goes under $300), but the device is no more closed than a Kindle — unlike iPhone, you can drag files onto it from desktop, it can tackle .epub and .pdf formats (though Kindle does PDF, it's ebook is Amazon proprietary) and while I loathe the whole AppStore concept, it's not any different than the entire console market. iPhone/iPod/iPad development, in fact, is easier, less costlier and less troublesome than all those platforms (except, ironically Mac OS X, unlike the crippled world of Windows, where Apple ships the complete development tools (XCode/Interface Builder) used to build the suite of software that comes with the machine).

And while it may not be your cup of tea, game makers and game players are flocking to the platform, and growth is App Store transactions continues to arc up exponentially…

Again, despite my despising of the model and incessant Apple bashing, it is indeed relevant from a gaming perspective — that's (that and Facebook games) where the money and attention is going, like it or not…

The Kindle isn't being marketed as a almost-computer. That particular comparison falls flat.


wat

Why are you even comparing this to consoles anyway? I really don't understand what you're trying to get at here. It seems like you're reaching for things just to make Apple not look ridiculously overprotective, or in Jobs case, an moneygrubbing douchebag egomaniac.

I do think they chose the right word for this event though, it certainly is a Creation, particularly with the Pollock like art used around its hype.


I have an ipod and mac mini for iphone dev and am a game designer at a company exclusively making facebook games. Please to get with the program, I know far more about the whole thing on both sides than most. This isn't coming from some blind hate Apple position.

Your second point is why I'm loving Android.  Development is around the same and it's open.  Tasty like wine.

Note:  For me personally, the Google Nexus was around the same hype, and again, was little more than a Meh.

Then why is Amazon pushing it's own SDK and app store realm? (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,40002138,00.htm)


Mac OS X ships with C compiler and all the dev tools need to create pro apps. Windows OS does not provide such dev tools (no, C# does not count) — they must be obtained via additional costly purchases.


Because that's the market — Apple UI genius to give media consumption device without the need for fiddling with the likes of power users and more enlightened, savvy computer owners…



OK. What point are you making again?

What don't you like about the app store concept?  I got a Mac Mini and have been fucking around with iPhone dev stuff (haven't actually made anything yet), and I think its pretty damn nice.

That does not make Windows crippled.  I've heard the same argument for Ubuntu, in that build essentials and gcc are not a part of the main install.  The reason they are not is because the vast majority of users who use those operating systems do not use them.  That being said, how long has it been since you last look at the tools that are available for Windows developers?

Here's a list:

http://www.microsoft.com/exPress/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/0k6kkbsd.aspx
http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/directx/default.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/bb980924.aspx

If your perspective is that of a game developer looking to write games in C++, there is no reason to buy Visual Studio, as all that gives you is access to the MFC, and those are vastly inferior to anything in either the STL or Boost.

Presumably because consoles are well-known existing examples of computers which have been crippled by walled garden development environments which require developers to get the blessing of the application vendor. In the case of consoles, you presumably feel that this is reasonable because you accept that they are primarily devices for playing vendor-blessed games on and you are content with their limited purpose. Apple intends this device to be limited to browsing the web and reading newspapers, and most of the complaints levelled against the device are that it isn't a general-purpose computer that suits other needs. That's a reasonable criticism, but it doesn't mean that the device is bad for the purpose Apple want to sell it for, just that we don't want such a device or that we have alternative means of addressing the application which we feel are adequate (e-ink devices, laptops, netbooks). I think that this device is irritating to a lot of people because it mostly does hit a perceived need but falls short in a number of ways. However, nobody has ever made any money at all out of a tablet based PC, so there's good reason for Apple not to repeat everybody's failures in exactly the same ways. I'm not sure that going after the eBook/newspaper market will create the tablet PC market that every manufacturer has been hoping for for two decades, but Apple are relatively well-off - they can afford to be the next people to fuck up trying.

How much additional money is required for Windows development tools? Visual Studio is not cheap. Yes, it been a few years since I was in world of Windows, but equivalent tools (XCode/Interface Builder) were costly. Are Windows apps being built with gcc now?

And it doesn't have to come pre-installed as even on Mac OS X, they come on the install disc (though typically, effortless migration simply updates your tools via internet DL).

Regarding my beef with Apple App Store — not the store concept enabling developers to get paid (even allotting for the 30% Apple tollbooth cut), but the draconian imposed guardian-ship that blocks apps not to their liking (anything that competes with their own software) or any arbitrary standard (be it NSFW, potential piracy concerns, aesthetics (yes, lots of apps have to hurdle over the look & feel aspects which Apple dictates UI standards imposing)).

Also, on the iP(hone|ad|od) OS platform, the charge on multitasking is shallow — the built-in Apple apps multitask, it's just your apps that are blocked from it.

Visual Studio C++/Basic/C# Express editions are all free to download and use. Commercial licensing "there are no licensing restrictions for applications built using Visual Studio Express Edition". Products were released in 06.

It's all about phone companies (well, one less than ideal phone company) and I'm convinced that if this were a wi-fi only device, it would also be a relatively open OS X device. With Flash.

Don't be retarded.  If I wanted to build an RPG for the Xbox 360, the Wii, or PS3, do I need submit my game for a review from Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony, in which they can reject it without telling me why?  Can they just decide to stop selling my game in their store because it suddenly conflicts with product they want to develop?  Of course not.  Console are more akin to Windows than Apple - the game manufacturer must of course ensure the  game is in the format expected by the console and  packaged on the appropriate media, but Nintendo is not able to ban the selling of the next Final Fantasy game because it bears a resemblance to the next Zelda game.  Furthermore, I do not need an account to a store run by the manufacturers to purchase the games, I can go to Best Buy and buy a cartridge.   I've read more than enough stories on both /. and Hacker News about people who games were either rejected with no reason given or their product was pulled because Apple thought it was a good idea and stole it from them.  There's an allegation going around that Apple ripped the design of iBooks from Delicious Books and didn't bother to pay anything to person who owns Delicious Monster. 

You do realize large portion of the OSX applications available are written in Java - a language virtually identical in design and performance to C#? Java as a platform is however a little more mature than .NET thanks to having been around for longer.

STL and Boost don't do GUI though (unlike MFC), they're just utility libraries. .NET/Forms or /WPF is largely used even for VC++ in my experience, since it now has extensions to handle managed resources (the .NET CLI.) Even Office 2007 does significant bits of GUI with C# (Office is like 20 million lines of code, so I doubt we'll see a full port anytime soon.)

And don't forget XNA (http://creators.xna.com/en-US/) if we're talking games. That also allows lets you build games for the XBox - in C#.

The deal is this: Noone cares about the "pro" (if pro means mucking about with low-level APIs) developers. They're an insignificant portion of the developer community. 99.9% only want to get shit done in an orderly and practical fashion, the exact implementation is irrelevant to pretty much any desktop application. Having to deal with an OS API is practically an argument against a platform. Abstraction is good, it lets us think larger and produce faster.

PS.
Visual Studio Express has pretty much everything but some enterprise tools, like more advanced debugging and some source code diagnostics. On the other hand, Visual Studio Team Suite is a massive set of tools few mortals can actually handle.

Erm all 3 of those consoles have gate keepers that can (and have) rejected games, and you need an account with them to purchase online games.  Furthermore, at least 1 (microsoft) has been shown to cripple your hardware if they decide to ban you.  So not sure what your point is.

I stand partially corrected on 2 of the 3 things.  That being said, Microsoft will cripple the Xbox when they ban you.  So either you don't play on Xbox Live, or you don't do something that breaks the EULA and ToS.


Your post reminded me about Qt, for some odd reason.
You're absolutely right in that neither the STL nor Boost do GUI, and if I was writing an application that needed a GUI, I'd use, as you pointed out, with WPF (with MVVM) or Windows Forms.  I was looking at it from the perspective of a game developer, who'd want to use either DirectX or OpenGL for the graphics themselves.  

Like what? None of the apps I use on a daily basis are Java — all are XCode/IB built in Objective-C — Mail, TextMate, Safari, Chromium, Firefox (well, perhaps not Firefox, but it's certainly not Java), Terminal, etc.…


/true, but the apps and tools you use on a daily basis (and the games you play) are built with those "pro" tools…

On console games, you most certainly need to be "blessed" by console maker to publish a disc/cartridge game. Maybe not for Wii-ware, whatever it's called on Xbox 360, etc.… but even there, your app most definitely can be yanked off…

Think Different (http://intertwingly.net/blog/2010/01/28/Think-Different)

No.

People who have mental impairments don't choose them, so it's rather stupid of you to ask somebody not to have such an impairment, irrespective of whether they do or don't. I might as well tell you not to be male or not to sweat.

Quit trolling, or at least be less fucking obvious about it.

Few of these are applicable for what I'm talking about - they'd use assembly written in Sanskrit if they had to in order to get acceptable performance. Browsers are one of the areas where speed is important, because all they do is interpret languages like EcmaScript and parse and render CSS and markup, both of which are pretty costly to do. Mail is Apple's, isn't it? Terminal doesn't really motivate a higher level language.

My point isn't that there's isn't a place and time for C or even ASM, there are plenty of performance demanding situations where they're pretty much the only choice, it's that their accessibility isn't important for the viability of the OS as a development platform. In the age of Internet, bundling a C compiler is virtually pointless because the miniscule number of people that does want one knows where to find it (if it's at all available - which it is for discussed OS'es.) I think it would be more efficient to bundle Klik'n'Play than an Obj-C compiler. It'd certainly have more people go "hey, I can make stupid games with my Mac!" than bundling XCode does. How easy it is has very little to do with how easy the tools are to get, it has much more to do with how easy the tools are to use and that's where interpreted language like Java are useful.

If the approval process consisted of simply verifying an app cleanly uninstalls and had a $20 or less fee it would be a dream come true!

You are dodging the question. You claimed a large portion of Mac OS X applications are written in Java. That's simply not the case.

Java as a viable platform for mac development was deprecated in OS 10.4.  Very few mac applications with any reasonable sized user base are actually written in Java.   

My mistake then in that case, for some reason I was pretty convinced of this. My sources are obviously old. Is Obj-C in other words the only viable option nowadays?

Pretty much. That or one of the multiplatform frameworks; I've been playing with Titanium recently.

The Mac OS X Cocoa framework is written in Objective-C. There are a handful of languages other than Objective-C that have Cocoa bindings (Java is one such language but as mentioned above the "bridge" bindings are no longer support by Apple past 10.4) but it's rare to see a Cocoa app, especially a commercial one, that isn't written in Objective-C. Carbon is another older framework that uses a C API which makes it easier to work with other languages but Apple has designated Cocoa as the preferred framework for UI work now so it would be unusual to see a (relatively) newly developed Mac OS X app written using Carbon.

If you don't care about creating a native UI you can of course use whatever other UI framework works on Mac OS X but in terms of apps that people actually use (e.g. not counting all the open source projects out there that nobody other than the author(s) use) there aren't many of those either. I use Wireshark and GIMP on occasion which are an X11/GTK applications and I would assume there are people running Eclipse (a Java IDE) on Mac OS X as well.

Thanks for the update, what I was after was what it took to write an application that felt and looked like a native app - and in that case it's pretty much Obj-C, in other words. Which, in my opinion, isn't a good thing for Mac. In my mind it made sense to have "native" support for Java aswell, since it's quite a bit faster when efficiency isn't your main priority (because as said, it mostly isn't) -and- it has plenty of good, stable frameworks. What made Apple drop the Java binder?

This.

They didn't call it an iTablet for a few reasons, but chief among them is probably the abject failure of that name to take off for the masses. They certainly serve a purpose, particularly in doctor's offices and factory/distribution centers. But they tried to be a general computer plus, not an oversized PDA. So they were compared to the same types of laptops netbooks aren't being favorably compared against either.

Nothing Apple said is surprising. I also don't think they're going to see as much success here as they have with the iPod and iPhone. The device won't be a good browser until it supports even the gimp Flash they've been trying to get Adobe to create. Or unless they do an end run and create browser APIs that will run apps in browser. Regardless, it will launch with hefty limitations.

It also has the problem of an LCD screen as an ebook reader. It's not like Sony/Amazon went e-ink because of cost (it's way expensive tech). They did so because it's the easiest on the eyes. LCD screens are not. Remains to be seen if pixel resolution and proper coloring can get over that. And I suspect it will sooner than e-ink can support high res color (years off iirc). So a few generations of iPads may solve it. But again, launch limitations.

Otherwise, everything else was valid. If you're a 20-something person toting an iPhone between their workstation and their meeting at which they're presenting a Keynote presentation. Otherwise, wait for the second generation of it when it probably gets a camera, SD card and can make phone calls (beyond just Skype).

Flash is still the issue. Adobe has no business reason to create a gimp version and Apple has no reason to allow access to a bunch of free content when people are willing to pay $0.99 ports of miniclip games.

I don't think they gave an official explanation but Jobs hasn't been keen on Java for a while now.

It'll be sooner than that. Pixel Qi (http://www.pixelqi.com/) has started volume production of their screen and there are a bunch of other companies working on the problem.

I was a bit surprised that the iPad used IPS. Isn't that technology unusually bright compared to other LCDs? I have an IPS monitor, and I have to turn down my brightness to ~25% or I get  a sunburn. Great for video, but I would have to see text on it to believe it will shoulder in on the ebook market.

Not really. They tend to be brighter than MVA panels but TN panels can be as bright or brighter than IPS panels. E.g. my 27" TN HP montior is an eyeball scorching 400 cd/m2 (I have mine turned down to 10/100 at home) while Apple's (roughly) equivalent IPS 27" is 370 cd/m2.

No pretension of actually being right about this but I'm getting the feeling they jumped the shark with this one.  It's not edgy or innovative like their other products.  It seems to me than a good design and innovate company should recognize this and delay until they get an amazing product.  

From 2006 MadTV (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFNQE_TzQNI)

Apologies if its a repeat post. I have read this thread for the most part :)

They had to, the fact that the device has been announced before they are ready to even take orders proves this. Here's what I think:

Apple drew up this product design just over two years ago. Their flawed vision included 3G cellular data capability.

Apple almost locked everybody out of the market by buying up nearly all the world's manufacturing of screens of this size. Having shown their hand in this way, all Apple's competitors decided that if Apple were in for this much risk, Jobs must be about to redefine a previously unprofitable market and they had better produce their own mini-tablet PCs.

In the meantime, 3G became an albatross - telecoms licensing happens at a glacial pace, doubly so with Apple's preferred US provider. By the time Apple got provisional device certification, Apple's competitors were announcing products and there was plenty of screen manufacturing capacity. However, there's got to be something else that really forced such a rushed launch - I'll bet that their technology partners were signed up to Apple exclusivity deals that seemed reasonable when Apple first signed them. After months of device certification, its quite possible that various Asian technology partners are soon allowed to sell the same hardware in (better) devices.

Complete speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if this has happened. Watch for a similar device to be announced on a non-AT&T US network in a few weeks.  :why_so_serious:

I still think the 3G is stupid mistake. Better to get licensing for an iPhone to act as a modem to the iPad and expect everybody to carry both. The iPhone stays in your pocket while you go online on the iPad via a wifi connection to the iPhone. Nobody wants a separate bill for each device, and they're going to be carrying their phone anywhere that they would want to use 3G on an iPad/slate/tablet.

The idea of plugging your Ipad Nano into your Ipad is beyond fucking strange.

On that note, web browsing on the Nexus One over 3G makes the Wifi on a 2nd Gen iPod Touch look like decade old tech. Fucking Nexus One is FAST.

A lot of comments here sound eerily similar to those blasting the mouse (yeah, I am that old :() way back…

Touch is the new mouse…

Another developer perspective (http://joehewitt.com/post/ipad/)…

No, no he meant plugging your Ipad into your Ipad Nano!


If Apple drops their A4 SoC into their nextgen ipod/iphone (would seem logical), they should be able to pull off similar performance (same clock rate ARM V7 architecture, A9 class CPU).

So, in a year since they just blew their wad until, at minimum, September - which is a laptop event typically.

Good for them, I guess. When the Nexus Two or whatever drops and has 4G, I suppose we'll just repeat this conversation. Heh.

Summer is the traditional time period for iPhone stuff.

I'm an Apple hater, and not apologetic about it.  I've hated everything Apple has put out since the Lisa.  I think Jobs is the Devil.  iPod's are over-priced pieces of crap designed to die (built-in Li-Ion batteries that will expire in no more than 2 years under the *best* circumstances).  The iPod Touch is *barely* justifiable, in that there aren't a lot of things that size that can do real web-surfing (excepting Flash, which is a big fucking hole).  Mac's are for people who need training wheels for their computers.

But *setting that aside*, I can't see the point in this thing.  It's too big to carry in a pocket (even a large coat pocket, which at least the Kindle can manage), too expensive to risk dropping (and too big to hold securely in one hand), can't be mated with a real keyboard, doesn't do Flash, and Mark Cuban loves it (Mark Cuban loves anything that makes metered TV easier to achieve, and gets *everything* related to it wrong, he thinks SlingBox is wonderful but BitTorrent breaks the internet).

One of AutomaticZen's quotes got the core of it: I can't leave my phone behind, or my laptop.  I can't stick it in a pocket, or use it one-handed, or....  It's not just that it doesn't do anything something else doesn't do better, it's that it does *nothing* well enough to be worth the investment.  At least iPod's are decent media players (while they last), and the iPhone is a decent smartphone (even if the AppStore sucks balls).  This thing just sucks.

--Dave

Yes it can (will be able to). Apple already announced their mechanical keyboard dock for the iPad and the 30-pin connector supports USB so in theory any USB keyboard should work with it though you might need an adapter/special cable to get it to work.

Yeah.  And you can pair a bluetooth keyboard.

 
My girlfriend has gone through three different iPods that broke.  Her Color died.  A Video (Now the classic) that died.  They sent her a refurb that died as well.  Her Touch is still alive.  (technically it's my Touch, but she uses it)

Will be interesting to see if they finally do a significant hardware refresh.  If they want a higher resolution display and minimal suckitude for existing apps that probably means 640x960 so they can just pixel double instead of doing some ugly stretching.  I was honestly a bit skeptical about going to WVGA (800x480/854x480) for NexusOne/Droid, but for web browsing those extra pixels are nice.  Having to move around 2.5x the pixels compared to HVGA ended up being worth it.

The fact that the tablet feels like there's been little or no OS changes done makes me think maybe we are in for an iphone OS refresh too.  Will be fun to see.

EDIT: Grr, fix my numbers.  Math is hard!

Version Up! Now in iPhone OS, Select All and Scroll Lock!

:shrug: Their iphone updates me me lol.

iPhone is 480 x 320 so they would have to go to 960 x 640 if they were going to pixel double, which is close to the 1024 x 768 of the iPad which is why they can do the pixel-doubling on the iPad for iPhone apps.

The thing about the OS, though is that it's pretty capable even in its current form. Watching the demo of the iWork and iPhoto iPad apps makes it look they are running on a desktop OS that's optimized for a touch interface rather than apps that are running on a mobile OS. Yes there's stuff that's missing that it's going to be needed once there's more competition but I don't see Apple making any radical changes to it in the near term.

Edit: be needed

Well it is the same OS, underneath.  The mach kernel will never die.  I meant more that the interface/framework side hasn't really had much of a refresh since launch, and more surprisingly they didn't change much for the iPad -- most of what they demoed was very iphone-ish but bigger, or osx-ish with more touchable UI (similar to the iphone feel). 

They added cut and paste  :awesome_for_real:

In the demo they did show some new stuff like "partial pinch open" (to peek at a iPhoto stack) and the "group selection" interface (in Keynote) but no they did not demonstrate a "revolutionary" tablet UI that some people were expecting.

I've been of the opinion that most mac products as of late are for the mentally and mathematically challenged, the margins apple most likely makes on a lot of their products would be enough to make me feel like a rape victim if I were to shell out for them. I think this device is the ultimate test, we take a really shitty laptop, cut off the keyboard and add a touch screen and see if people are to stupid to notice. Granted I do think there's a valid reason to get a device with this setup, but it's not anywhere near the size where most people should give a shit. Then there's the Archos 9 which is a better device in pretty much every regard, which made about as much of a buzz as the iPad would have done if it was made by any other company than apple.

( Oh, and I raise schilds Nexus One surfing experience with my N900 surfing experience  :awesome_for_real: )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjBcv9iZinY

This is vaguely closer to what I feel the iPad should've been, but I can't say I expect much of Dell.

Last week:
(http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/770509271_mUGL4-L.jpg)
UPS is telling me that my Nook will arrive on the 25th, just two days before (most people believe) Apple is set to announce their thing, which is awesome. This is more or less how it always happens when I decide to make my move on a piece of technology. I'll try to find something ironic to read on it before it catches on fire, burning itself out of existence.
It's got to be so annoying to compete with Apple, at anything really, because it's not like they're doing something fucking crazy. Everybody's had these ideas before. The difference, and this is grim if you are a competitor, but the difference is that everyone else spends a lot of time (and often, money) determining why those things aren't possible. And then it comes out, for real, only you didn't make it.  Some other guys did.  And when you come out with what is (on paper) a better version of the same thing, maybe even multiple times over, it's too late.  You made a "product" to compete with their "product," tastefully arranging your regiment, only to discover that they hadn't made a product at all - they made a narrative.  A statement about how technology should interface with a life.     
I'm not saying this to be mean, or get my kicks, or to engage in psychic vampirism.  Competing with these fucking people must be a genuinely harrowing state of affairs.


This Week:
(http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/775608220_HL2Ac-L.jpg)
That iPad presentation had to be the worst thing I've even seen on on the Apple stage. There is a part where they - I am not making a joke - there is a part where they try to make creating spreadsheets seem awesome. Jilted may be the word. Of course, we're at the second wave of commentary now, the reflexive defense phase, but I've seen this practiced arc too many times to feel its pull. Apple didn't make a case for the device.

No doubt, no doubt. But the n900 is huge in comparison, so it better be fast. What blows me away with the Nexus is how thin it is and it's still pumping out all this performance.

Gosh, thats a very negative way of putting it. Considering the fact that consoles have a set hardware, is a plus to making software on them.

No doubt, especially since consoles aren't pitched to a live audience as an attractive laptop with down syndrome.

Yeah, the Nexus looks awesome, I was choosing between it and the N900. I really wanted the physical keyboard however so in the end I got the N900 even though it's a bit clunky.

I'm curious as to who thought a 10" screen would ever be a pocket portable item and why anyone anywhere is listening to that complaint?  Anyone who brings that up should be donkey punched.

Is the iPad something that I am creaming my pants for?  No, but neither was the iPod or iPhone when they were first released.  Since I don't actually see the thing being used outside of your home or office network, at least in current incarnation, I also don't get the 3G gruff.

I do see it being used sitting on the couch or lying in bed reading, adjusting the stereo or controlling the TV or web surfing, and it seems like it will be the ideal gadget for that but otherwise?  Not really.

iPad + media server + 802.11n home network + hundreds of thousands of books?  Seems fun.

I like it when the main argument in a discussion is that people who like different things are basically retarded. Way to go Sairon. Hopefully you can provide some thoughts next time.

Apple has roughly a 30% margin on all hardware, which is no news for anybody who knows how to read SEC reports. Something any PC maker would kill for. This might seem high but the margins for home appliances or cars are higher and I have never heard anybody tell somebody else that he's stupid or mathematically challenged for buying a washing machine.

The real question is: Why are so many people actually buying from Apple although the price of their merchandise is higher than that of competing products? If you like you can boil it down to "people are stupid" but that would be missing the point entirely.

The iPhone has been a runaway success because Apple delivered on promises other mobile phone companies were making for nearly a decade but couldn't keep. Just like the iPod has been a runaway success because it delivered on the promises other musik player companies made but couldn't keep.

A sound like a rabid fanboy now but I'd like to elaborate a little bit.

For a decade now Nokia, Motorola and other companies have promised us that we could use our phones for more than just making calls and texting.
- music
- video
- internet
- third party applications
- games

I burned through a lot of different phones from different manufacturers over the years but every time I tried to use those phones for more than just making calls it has been a horrible experience.

Browsers that couldn't render most web pages and were slow as molasses.
Musik player applications that didn't support ID3-Tags, playlists or only played proprietary formats like WMA.
Video players that didn't support even the most common codecs and couldn't even play those videos at a decent frame rate
Text input with standard phone keypads or tiny virtual keyboards operated by a stylus
Broken sync software so that one isn't even able to get all of those musik and video files on that thing.
A totally fragmented hardware and software platform so that applications only ran on some devices but not on others.
Out of memory errors, background apps that didn't close and sucked your battery dry, browsing through ten different subdirectories just to do basic things.

Even worse because of all those broken features even the basic features of a mobile phone (making calls, adress book, texting) became more and more unusable.

People fell in love with the early Nokia phones because they were easy to understand and easy to use and provided nothing more than what people actually needed, namely making calls, managing your contacts and texting. Nowadays you won't enjoy doing any of those things when you use a Nokia phone and it doesn't anything of its new features really well.

The iPhone was the first phone that did everything it offered well enough so that people actually enjoyed doing those things. For me it has replaced my phone, my iPod, my portable video player, my DS or PSPgo and my laptop for browsing the web, email and social media.

I would have been able to do any of those things on other phones as well but never did because the experience was always very frustrating. I mean why should I use the horrible music player application of my phone when I own an iPod? Why should I use a mobile browser that only renders 10% of all the web pages correctly when I own a laptop? etc. pp.

iPhone users account for most of the web traffic in mobile networks because it's easy to browse the web on that platform. People have downloaded over 3 billion apps from the App store because it's easy to do and for many people that single device has replaced their phone, mobile music and video player, game console or even laptop. Because that phone replaces all of those devices and it does this well enough.

This especially appeals to non-nerds. Most people I know and who don't work in IT hate computers and electronic gadgets. they don't care about the possibilities that devices offer because they are frustrated about how complicated those things are. Most people use them in spite of those frustrations because they have to or the benefit of owning one and being frustrated is still bigger than not owning one.

That's what most of the other companies haven't understood even until today. Features don't count if your customers hate using those features. That's why people choose the iPhone over 'superior' devices even if they are cheaper, that's why the biggest sellers in the mobile phone world are still devices that can only make calls and support texting, that's why the iPod is a success although there are better and cheaper alternatives.

A stupid car analogy: Enthusiast or expert drivers choose stick shift, because they want the control and they can get better performance that way. Still the majority of people buy cars with an automatic gear box for ease of use and because it's good enough.

On the other hand all of the above is exactly why I don't think the iPad will be a success.

The iPhone replaced a lot of different devices and it did it well. You could justify the price tag if you no longer needed your Phone, iPod, surf station and mobile game console.

The iPad doesn't replace anything, you'll still use a phone and you already own a pc. The iPad won't even be of much use without a pc. So you can do a little bit more with it that you could with the iPhone (or at least a little bit more comfortably) but less than the pc you already own and you can't even replace your pc because you need it to get all of your music and video on it.

Why should I buy one for my grandma? Without a pc she can't get anything on that device and if she owns and knows how to use a pc she wouldn't have any use for an iPad. Why should I bring my iPad on the road when I already own an iPhone, which does on the road stuff nearly as well when the iPad does less than a netbook?

If you buy an iPad you'll still use a pc and a phone because it can replace neither completely. The same dilemma that netbooks suffer from. The ability to have the internet in your hands just in case you want to do a little bit more than with your phone but still a little bit less than with your pc is something people won't be shelling out 800 dollars for.

So... if I need to carry an iPad around and a keyboard... wouldn't I be better off with a netbook?

My boss just got this cute little Dell for $270.  I can see lots of uses for it.  I can't see any for this thing.

For $799 you can get an iPad with a big hard drive or you can get the Alienware M11x.


Don't rag on someone and then make the most insipid analogy in the thread. When someone starts charging 30-70% less for something better than a washing machine (a Windows 7 PC), we can talk about people being stupid and mathematically challenged for buying a regular old washing machine.

Everyone has entirely missed the point of this (and every other Apple product for that matter).  All of these things have one purpose and one purpose only:  to get as many people in front of the online stores for as much time as possible.

Jobs said it himself:  over 120 million credit cards are registered with iTunes, this new iPad will do a great deal to increase those numbers.  They are selling a relatively high margin product to get you in front of their obscenely high margin product, which is the online stores, where they can enjoy ~80-90% profit margin all for the cost of running some servers and hosting a web site.

A camera?  Nope, not needed to get you on iTunes.  Multitasking?  Nope, buying the background doesn't make sense.  You can tell that the thought process was "What if these things are taken out of the home?  How will people but stuff online?  Let's add 3G support too!"  Flash?  Nope...might allow people to buy stuff other than what's offered on the online stores.

If you think about the products as merely portals to the high margin online stores, then everything falls into place and makes sense.  These are highly stylized versions of what is essentially a drive through window at Taco Bell.  You have to stop thinking like a tech person, and start thinking about whether you want the Burrito Supreme or a Chalupa....just point and buy.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f7a03edbd7/pee-wee-gets-an-ipad

 :awesome_for_real:

iPhone 3GS goes for about 8 500 SEK unlocked, the N900 which has both more and better hardware across the entire board goes for about 5 000 SEK, although it uses a resistive screen. The Nexus One which has significantly better hardware across pretty much the entire spectrum than the 3GS goes for 7 300 SEK. The mathematically challenged comment was made mostly in regards to how people usually pick up an iPhone "But it's only $50 a month".

The E71 did most of what you mentioned ( if not all ) around the same time as the iPhone, and is universally very well received amongst its owners. Interesting that you mention the web, as the iPhone really isn't that great on it, which is the reason for why there's a shitload of apps to make up for it ( in fact, the company right next to mine is doing just that, creating apps for the iPhone which makes their web content usable on the iPhone ).

I do however like how the iPhone shaked things up, and it certainly changed the direction on where smart phones are heading nowadays. Point is however, things have changed since 2007, and the competition has in my opinion surpassed the iPhone on most of its strengths. But what difference does it really make, people don't want the best phone or the best value, they want an iPhone. It seems to be the same with the iPad, they don't want the best tablet, they want an iPad. People are already talking about how it will revolutionize how we use computers, even though there's been comparable devices around for a long time, just not created by Apple.

This:
(http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/4/2010/01/500x_slate_showdown_chart_final.jpg)
Got me here (http://www.slashgear.com/notion-ink-tegra-android-smartpad-uses-pixel-qi-display-1866308/):


That's what I wanted from Apple.  Something that makes my tech boner hard.

Why would I buy an Alienware pc for $799 when I can buy another brand pc for $499 or $399 which is essentially the same device running the same applications and the same os?

You'll most probably list alot of reasons why the Alienware device is 'better' but most people that use computers today have a different understanding of what exactly better means.

For them better doesn't mean better performance, bigger ram or a larger hard disk because that are features they simply don't care about, don't understand or don't need. For such people a no name $399 device is basically the same as your $799 alienware pc, because it runs the same OS and the same applications they use but it's half the price.

That's what's killing pc vendors at the moment. They cannot offer any good reason why a customer should buy their brand if all of the other companies offer essentially the same device only in a different case. So they compete over price which drives margins down. They have to do this because they have no control over any part of the computing experience. They don't own the hardware, they don't own the software and they all buy from the same hardware and software companies.

The same will happen with Android. a lot of companies will latch onto it to get rid of their proprietary os and software platforms and as a consequence will lose the only ability they have to differentiate themselves from other device makers.

But that's not the point. Apple doesn't compete with PC makers on price or features because they don't need to. They control the whole software and hardware platform and user experience and can differentiate themselves from their competition by other means than just price, which seems to work quite well.

The question is not "Why should I buy an iPad if I can get a vastly superior pc for the same price?" but rather why aren't my customers buying the vastly superior pc and go for something different which is more expensive?

Which brings me back to the 'most insipid analogy' in this thread. Profit margins of 30% or more are not unusual. Those margins are unusual for pc vendors who lost the ability to compete on anything other than price. All they can offer is "cheaper" or "make the same apps and the same os slightly faster".

That's the point Sairon so eloquently made in his post when he attributed stupidity or the incapability to understand basic math to Apple customers. "Why are they buying Apple devices when they could get the same performance for less money?"

In my opinion that's missing the point entirely because people stopped caring about performance. Even the cheapest pc on sale today can do 99% of the things the majority of people need to do. Hell most smart phones can do 99% of the things most people use their computers for.

They don't want 'cheaper' or 'faster' they want 'better' or just different. Things pc makers cannot deliver because they lack control of the platform as a whole.

I don't think the iPad will be a runaway success but I consider focusing only on price vs. performance to be myopic. A person that hates pcs and doesn't like to use Windows will neither buy the cheapest nor the best pc unless he absolutely needs to in which case he will choose the cheapest. He might even be willing to pay more for less if it offers him a better overall experience. Something pc vendors cannot offer and most of them don't even understand.

Google has realized that, which is why they offer Android and Chrome OS to get more people to use the web which is their main source of revenue. At some point they need to start to offer their own hardware however (Nexus is a first step in that direction) because otherwise they might suffer from the same consequences Microsoft suffers from. A totally fragmented hardware and software base because lack of control over the hardware. This would be the only thing that could kill Android. Apple makes a killing at the moment because they realized that first.

If Google starts offering their own hardware it will spell doom for a lot of mobile phone and pc companies.

No.

Eventually, market will catch up or exceed Apple breakthroughs.

But what comparable device are you referring to? Equating previous MS tablets to this touch device (or even iPhone implementation) is a joke. It's nowhere near the same experience, and one is foolish to claim so. When that claim is made, it's ignorance.

Even the Google Nexus, which is snappier and has improved screen hardware, still is less than the iPhone experience — no multitouch (yes, I know the device is capable, but it's purposely omitted by Google), and an inferior UI (judging not from tech-wizards, but typical users, who've expressed frustration with the UI). Early sales figures for the Google Nexus are embarrassing. But, point is, interesting that Apple set the standard and now competitors yearn to match their model, but falling short in replicating the experience, even considering better hardware and cheaper cost (though comparing Google Nexus cost with Apple iPhone, I didn't see that significant a difference).

Another developer perspective… (http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Jan-29.html)

Nobody outside the nerd or geek crowd buys devices unlocked anyway.


As a business device. Querty keypad, long lasting battery but not exactly a multimedia machine at least according to reviews.



They might just have a different opinion about what is "best" than you do. The N900 might offer the better hardware platform but Maemo is barely usable and offers nearly no software. Nexus One is an interesting device because the Android platform has reached a certain level of maturity and creates momentum in the developer community. It's interesting to see if Google can stop the fragmentation of the device market however.

As far as tablets are concerned. Why should I buy a tablet if all it does is run another copy of Windows 7 and provides no additional benefit?

Burn the heretic! 

I'm guessing the comparison was made to alienware because both brands are overpriced for what they offer, which makes the ridiculousness even more pronounced.

That Pee-Wee video is awesome.

Ding ding ding.

This is a bit of retread of part of the Android thread but: iPhone OS freeing anyone from any kind of "tyranny" is hysterical.  One line removed from mentioning the AppStore just puts it over the top.

A message to the Internets regarding the iPad (http://cruftbox.com/blog/archives/001592.html#001592)

Stop fucking quoting bloggers. None of them are making the point you're looking for.

Everyone who has ever bought a laptop has, which includes a lot of non-nerd/geeks.

I'll agree that in the US, people generally buy subsidized phones, because hey math is hard!

But one of my gripes about the iPad is it really is much more laptop than phone (capabilities, form factor, etc), and it's priced as a laptop (unsubsidized, no contract, etc), yet it's locked down like a subsidized phone (you can only obtain your apps and premium content from Steve!).  That feels like a big step backwards to me.

Maybe I'm wrong and all those people who love their macbooks and whatnot don't actually care at all about them being general purpose computing platforms with no restrictions, but I think the more cash people plunk down and the closer to a laptop you get, the more people might wonder why all the restrictions on use.

This is the type of disgusting smugness I was talking about previously.  You like apple, we get it.  Congratulations on expecting your third with Steve.  Are you done with the useless links?

Um, the math isn't hard, it's just that it costs more to buy the phone unlocked over the course of the contract than buying it subsidized.  The only time it's cheaper to buy a phone unlocked is if you purchase it for T-mobile, and T-mobile does not have good 3g everywhere.  That's why I didn't buy a Nexus One and went with a Droid, cause all reviews I read said 3g in Orlando, FL sucks (not exactly a hole in the wall). 

Also, even the T-mobile savings doesn't necessarily make it appealing to buy a phone unsubsidized.  With the NExus One, if you buy it unsubsidized you save about $130 over the course of 2 years.  That's not exactly a stellar savings, especially considering the outlay.

From the same blogger:

Dunno about that random blogger dude, but you can sure tell who the Apple fanboys are in this thread by the volume of shit they're copying and pasting.  I guess it beats posting your own words and risking having the big bad Internet mans make fun of you.

Looks like I want either an HP Slate or an Archos.  HP Slate is a "real PC" that's been stripped down to a touch-screen system, but can have the other bits tacked back in (so it can replace my laptop, but be easier to carry around), Archos is a jumped-up smartphone that can have enough tacked onto it to function as well as a netbook for general computing.

--Dave

EDIT: OTH, the Slate has no 3G.  But it can operate on *anyone's* network via a USB dongle, rather than being locked to a particular vendor.  Or even tech, running it on a 4G network where available would just be a different dongle.

Didn't think of that aspect, that could be huge. Having a touch screen app for a control surface in the studio would be huge. To this day I don't record on the computer because I despise using the mouse on the control surface. Otoh, digidesign already makes a pretty nice physical control surface, and real studios use real control surfaces, so it's a pretty niche application. For home studios a control surface app + mixing software (+ the high-end storage iPad) that can come in under a digi003 would probably move a few units.
I can't discuss the iPad with my supervisor. He thinks it's revolutionizing all computing (and textbooks) and his kids will be required to have one for college.

People keep wanting the iPad to replace an iPhone or a Laptop. But it's not intended to do that. It is a device to consume media (music, games, movies, newspapers and books) from behind paywalls. Everything from Star Trek to Minority Report have featured devices like this. And yet nobody's ever asked just what sort of business models would need to exist to see that happen.

Welp, this is the business model: Make people pay for shit, and make them want to through superior user experiences. That's what the iPad is going for.

Apple isn't just consumer electronics. Their entire CE end user experience is an ecosystem of paywalls and media consumption. This is why so many others can't make any headway with their promises. They compromise something (usually usability) by prioritizing the wrong things (usually business interests).

Oh, and according to Techmeme, this video at 9to5mac (http://www.9to5mac.com/apple-flash-ipad-3954934055) shows working Flash on the device. But it's still not a certainty as far as I can tell. Particularly since, like, that'd be big news and stuff unto itself.

Honestly, after seeing the user interface of the iPad from the video in Darniaq's post I definitely see the appeal in the device.  Though for me the appeal isn't big enough to spend the huge amount of money they want for it, but I can definitely see this succeeding now.

My $300 Dell Vostro A90 netbook dual-boots Windows 7 and Snow Leopard.  It multitasks.  Runs my choice of software.  Plays Flash.  Has lots of expansion via USB and a flash memory slot.  It's a more useful machine in every regard and fits in my toolbox.

My $300 iPod Touch has all the functionality at half the price of an iPad of similar storage capacity, plus it fits in my pocket.

If the iPad was not significantly more expensive than my Touch, I'd consider getting one just to have a convenient display for my gaming books in PDF format and a bigger ebook reader.  Something that I'd be keeping around the house or carrying in a bag with other stuff, because it's definitely not sized as a carry-anywhere device.  But before I'd buy the thing, the price needs to come down and/or it needs to have better functionality than the current generation.  I'll check back in a year.

For a book-sized tablet device that will actually make an impact on my daily life, I'm keeping an antenna pointed in the direction of microsoft's courier tablet.  If they manage to get it out of the prototype stage without fucking it up, it's going to be huge.  The Hard Rock Cafe on the strip in Vegas has a wall and some tables using microsoft's surface tech, and they are sweet as hell, so whatever team microsoft has working on tablet development definitely knows what they're doing.  If they get that same quality into a fold-closed two-screen tablet, everyone gets that computer book that Penny had in Inspector Gadget that I always wanted so much as a kid.

Yea, the thing I'm most looking forward to is the Surface-style devices and then the evolutionary next step beyond of projected UIs. Tables and projections are the future, just a question of how we inch forward to get there.

I want a dual boot laptop. Just because.

Nobody knows what the fuck the HP Slate will or will not have in it, we only know that they intend to run a full version of Windows 7 on it, so it'll no doubt be rather expensive, and last about 11 minutes on battery. That was even more of a spoiler announcement than Apple's iPad. That they omitted wireless telephony from the design remit will allow them to react very quickly to what others bring to the market, so they're probably hashing out the specifications and price point now that Apple have played their hand. The Archos is more interesting and it has an Android OS so it could be worthwhile eventually. The initial range of Archos-supplied apps aren't going to cut it though.

I think the MSI is more interesting still, but somebody will have to port Linux to it. WinCE (or WinEC) is not something that I want. Given a few months, there will 30 companies selling similar things, so we'll just pick then... ;)

Since I've only used iPhones very briefly for testing purposes I'd love to know what this obsession with multi touch is based on. The 2 use cases I've seen are zooming and apps requiring multiple input ( mostly games ). Zooming isn't really common enough that I'd consider it a factor, I presume there's a greater need for zooming on the iPhone though since the resolution is about 1 / 4 of the competition. For games I can see the use when there's no hardware buttons, although I must say I personally prefer to not have my fingers blocking the view while gaming ( I even find this to be a bit irritating on the DS which uses a stylus ).

As for flash, adobe had it working on the iPhone in 2007 iirc, but Apple would have none of it because it would cut into the app store.

Does MSI have 2 tablets in the works?  One slated for this year is a $500 android tablet.

Maemo is an older and more mature platform than iPhone OS in a lot of regards, as a development platform I can tell you that they're worlds apart to maemos advantage. So far the only quirk I've had is when playing music through my bluetooth headphones while torrenting / downloading at high transfer rates. It plays pretty much any media format, viewers and in most cases editors for all of the widely used document formats, I can't really think of anything in the app department really missing except for DLNA server software. When you have a real desktop like browser experience a lot of the iPhone apps becomes redundant anyway. It doesn't have a lot of games, and probably never will have though. As for usability, I don't really see what advantages iPhone have in this regard?

I just reconfigured a year old HP Touchsmart tx2 tablet PC for Windows 7. It has multitouch, handwriting recognition, draw on screen with a stylus thingie. Plays Flash, plays DVDs. Has 3 usb ports, rj45 jack and wireless. Weighs ~ 5 lbs with a fully functional keyboard. It originally came with Vista, which ran like crap. With Windows 7 its pretty snappy. Its basically the iPad. A wee bit heavier, an half inch or so thicker, and probably only around 3 hours of battery life on full blow mode. Its running an AMD Turino 64 bit processor and dedicated ATI card. The price was ~ $1000.

If that's year old tech, I imagine the HP slate will do alright.

Oh, and all these folks that keep on going on about how great the MP3 player is in iPhone/Pad/Pod has seriously drunk coolaid. ITunes is probably the most unintuitive media manager out there. The default windows player does a more rational job. Don't get me wrong, I love my iPhone at the end of the day, but the ITunes interface is a dog.

Oh, and


FIFY. Have to understand that in the rest of the world, 2 year contracts are not common.

Maemo is basically Debian on an ARM tablet/phone. As I understand it, one of the main draws of the nokia tablets is that porting linux apps to them is (intended to be) super easy... I still don't see a compelling reason to buy one, though.

You're a techie though. Most people don't do that. They burn out a machine and move on to the next. All this talk about open source and configurability and stuff doesn't matter a whit to the vast majority people that will never configure anywhere that deep and have no problem paying through the paywalls. That's why they're the mass market :-)

As has been said, Apple didn't open anything, they merely closed some channels and opened different ones directly to themselves. That's all the iPad is doing too. It's not a computer. It's not a device for people who want to hack and improve the user experience. It's a device for people who think it's the best user experience they'll get at this time and are all fine with that because they either don't know any better or don't care to know.

That's not an indictment on the uninformed masses. It's just fact.

My point is that from a hardware level, this tech been available for at least a year. Running Vista, which is probably why it failed to capture an audience. Windows 7, with its record breaking sales, may paint a different picture for HP and other tablet platforms that could easily rival the iPad.

Here's the one killer app that would get me and the rest of the geeks to buy one (or two) of these things: A software synth/sequencer program like that Korg app on the DS. Bigger screen would mean more control and performance options. If the hardware could handle it, I'd be all over it. I'd be willing to bet there'll be some version of Garageband (or hopefully something better) available for it after launch. This thing is just screaming to be a real time music performance/production system. Think a Kaoss Pad on steroids.

No, I was confused, the WinCE one is something else.


They just announced the Kaossilator on steroids:

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2010/01/14/korg-intros-kaossilator-pro-dynamic-phrase-synthesizer/

It's a bit cheaper too. However, I agree that multi-touch parameter control of MIDI instruments would be a great use for an iPad. After all, there's basic control software for iPhones/iPods already:

http://www.itouchmidi.com/

Alas I'm not from the US. 2 year contracts with subsidized phones are standard nearly everywhere.

That it's usable by anybody who is not a Linux geek?

maemo is by no means a stable and mature platform. They even switched the gui library from gtk to qt midway through development. Also the Maemo team inside Nokia has already been dissolved and developent has stopped.

Man, if I hadn't just bought a new car...
I'm liking the looks and demos of the thing (watched a few on youtube) but I was thinking more along the lines of actually having a virtual keyboard or drumset along with controls for effects and built in sounds and such. If something like this is ever developed for the iPad I know what Kraftwerk's new setup is gonna be. ;)

Edit: Wish I'd seen Sky's link above before posting. Again with the posting before completely reading. Although I will say I have no trouble with mouse based input for music software. 9 times out of 10 my compositions are all piano roll style input though a touch screen certainly would speed things up.

I don't know much about Linux and has had no problems. Everything is programmable, but unless you really want to go nuts it's straightforward, this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7emvUBpEkbU) shows of basic navigation and multitasking.

I wouldn't know what's going on inside Nokia, they must've stopped fairly recently then because there was a rather large update just a few weeks ago.

Sorry I am more snarky than usual.

It's just always the same old discussion and I'm getting tired of it. Buying decisions are never just about price or potential. If you just view it as such you'll always come to the conclusion that people are stupid because they didn't choose the best price or the most potential.

The value of a purchase might just be that it offers something besides price or performance potential at that difference might even be enough to get them to pay more. Since most normal users I now seem to hate their phones and computers it might just be a device that I hate less than what I own today.

As to Maemo: A good friend of mine met a few of the Maeomo developers at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin at the end of december (one of the biggest hacker conventions in Europe). They told him that the project team has been dissolved.

Tablet PC's have been around for at least 6 or 7 years.

You're all acting like everyone and their mother hadn't already tried to come up with a killer app to get people to buy them, and failed miserably, for years.  Now that Apple has everyone in the mindset of how they could be fun toys you're all disappointed that they (Apple) are following the same product mentality that got them here.

At first I was disappointed with the iPad announcement but since then I have come to realize that the only real reason I felt that way is because of the unreasonable hype preceding the launch.

For something that is the same price as the Kindle DX you get something way more attractive, feature laden and functional and I am supposed to think it's a failure as a product before it's seen a day of sales?  Really?

Sense you make not, hmm?

I can stick a Kindle in my pocket, and use it to surf the web for free.  eInk isn't as fragile a display medium, either.  Not a big fan of tablets, and I've got an HP "convertible" notebook (tap-screen that flips around and latches down to make a tablet).  On rare occasions I have used it in tablet format (when using it strictly for reading an eBook or a lot of web surfing where I know I won't need to enter text), but generally it's too much hassle.  iPad is quite a lot heavier than a Kindle, as well (about twice as heavy, in fact), and the form factor is too large for one-handing it securely (and again, more fragile), especially as being a touch-screen you can't just clamp a thumb over it, but would have to hold it by the edge.

I'd be all over a smartphone with a 7-inch screen and the ability to function as a netbook with plugins.  Or a 10-inch (wide format) netbook with an eInk screen on the top cover that could be used for reading without killing the battery.  This thing is clumsy, half-assed, and if it wasn't from Apple everyone would react with a "meh".

--Dave

EDIT: Not everything with an Apple logo on it is golden, remember the Newton?  This seems like another "almost cool, but not quite" concept to me.  For a company that normally puts such a high premium on usability, that they created something too big for one hand or pockets, but way short on functionality for something you carry in a bag, seems like another such "whoops".

EDIT2: Also, the version that could *almost* compete with the Kindle on price has no 3G and too little storage to actually deliver on "feature-laden".  The one that does what you are arguing for costs twice as much as a Kindle DX, three times as much as a classic Kindle, and costs extra per month for the 3G required to make it more than a paperweight.

I'm not sure why you think it has to have 3G or 32 times the storage to be competitive, no the version I am arguing for is the base model, I think it's perfectly reasonable to compare that to the Kindle DX.  Great, with the basic kindle you don't need to find a hotspot to DL a book.  Whoop de do.

Again, in simpler terms, I think you have no clue what a 'good' tablet PC should do or be (no one else does either) so your just saying the iPad isn't it, sight unseen.  Whatever, I don't think it does what you think it does.

This is not directly competing with eBook readers. It's creating a category between eBook readers and laptops for people who want to consume full color content and have some other experiences.

If your first reaction o the presentation was "I want to program/design/work" on it, you are not the audience. The iPad is trying to create a new market nobody is sure exists. Maybe it'll tank. They can afford it if it does.

Not everything from Apple is great (Newton, those DSP voice-to-text models, that stupid anniversary one I only ever saw on Seinfeld, many desktop models, etc). But each failure was based on trying to enter an existing market with a half-assed solution.

They've narrowed their focus to industries that could easily be conquered by doing one more thing right: the ecomm system between consumers and media companies (iPod, iPhone, iPad). Notice that the Apple of today is not the Mac business of old. That business is more being helped by their CE/service business nowadays than the other way around.

They're not inventing anything. They're just doing it better by ignoring some of the things that have held everyone else back (The Rules). It's why I keep calling them the Blizzard of CE.


Lots of people keep saying this without recognizing why: it'd be plastic, flimsy, cost $199, have a crappy UI designed by engineers, and would only be interesting to those that aren't interested in the iPad because of an open-source foundation that lets the user solve all the stupid decisions those engineers made  :grin:

Edit: now with more snark

Okay, then tell me *what* I'm supposed to do with this thing.  I want a portable computational and connectivity device.  One unit that I can use as my core electronic device for information exchange.  Sometimes I need to enter a lot of text, so it needs to be able to support a real keyboard.  Sometimes I want to read a lot of text, for hours at a time, so it needs to be able to display a webpage decently and not kill the battery doing it.  Sometimes I want to view video or listen to audio, so it needs to handle that (including storage).  Sometimes I want to have a phone conversation, so I want it to do that.  Sometimes I want to manipulate information, so it needs to run *real* programs, including ones I write.

A smartphone with a decent sized screen, battery life, open architecture, and standardized PC-style I/O (USB, Bluetooth, laptop card slots, whatever as long as it's more than just an SD slot) would fill my desires adequately.  So would a netbook with built-in 3G/4G, Bluetooth, and VOIP.  Bonus points if they have the ability to drive a full-size display when it's available.  Nothing *quite* gets there yet, but some of them are coming close (and many Android platforms are *very* close).  iPad is going off in some weird direction for reasons that make no sense, filling needs I don't have in ways I don't like.

--Dave

EDIT: And it needs to do all of that in something I can tuck into pockets, at least large coat pockets.

This is supposed to go on your coffee table so that you can pick it up when the urge to search imdb strikes during a movie. Since we're envisioning the sort of people who are not permanently attached to a laptop here, that rules out most of us as candidates. However, for the many people who typically use the computer in another room of the house, this is the non-intrusive computer that can live on the coffee table rather than being closed and hidden under it like the netbook that they're using today. This may well be a viable market. If it is, I could imagine it being one where custom modding shops could make a lot of money too.

Are we also envisioning people who don't have smartphones or iPod Touches?  I don't even have a laptop any more because it just started gathering dust once I got the iPod.

I have to agree with Righ here. I'd take it an nth degree further; the target audience is the people who only reluctantly accept the need and utility of the internet/computer.

I'm not sure why there is so much angst about this.  I've been asking for a larger iPod touch for a long time.  The only real issue I see with it is that you cannot, to my knowledge, listen to music and do other stuff at the same time.  If true, that is a mistake that will likely be fixed rather quickly. 

You are not supposed to do anything with it. Because you already customize your surroundings against expectations you've spent years refining. And along the way have adopted the tech-leaning mentality that quality through iteration can only happen in open style environments upon utility devices. That's not a value judgement, it's just a personality profile.

This is for people who want a good media consumption experience and aren't going to spend months researching the best ones based on processors and clockspeeds. This is for the person that reads, listens and watches more than they type, compose and designs, and if they do the latter at all, they've got a computer for that. It's for someone like my wife who will watch TV with the iPhone but grumbles about the small screen. It's for someone like my oldest who loves the apps and music but would like to play on a bigger screen. Basically, the same market as the netbook user except locked down enough the user doesn't try and do things it's not designed to do and therefore returns it (which is a problem with netbooks).

Everyone wants the single device that does them all. But until we get to wrist-strapped personal 3D holographic projectors (itself just a babystep towards shared network neural implants), we're stuck with what's here. And we're stuck not until technology improves, but until adoption improves enough to compel iteration. Tablet PCs weren't getting us there because they are billed as utility devices with an additional feature people can't figure out why they want.

Meanwhile, that's what the iPhone and Touch have been doing for three years.

So far the only thing I'm seeing the ipad designed to do is exploit the eagerness of the apple faithful.  For now, I'll do just fine with my ipad-nano, and maybe their third or fourth revision will have things actually worth excitement.

Completely separate but related question.

Been poking around the web today and only now started seeing what others have probably been hearing for awhile: developers moving away from Flash to HTML5?

Is this real or just some fringe anti-Flash group? Most of the conversations I've seen focus on video players rather than what I've mostly seen Flash used for (Games). Does HTML5 offer that level of programmable interactivity? Is it projected to be fully supported by browsers this year? What makes it better than Flash?

This may be better as a separate thread. iPad doesn't have Flash and I don't know if it'll support HTML5 either. It's just because of this thread I even stumbled upon such articles in the first place.

I'm no HTML5 expert, but my (very fuzzy) understanding is that modern browsers with HTML5 and javascript, css, svg, canvas, video, etc, can do an awful lot (all?) of what you can do in flash.  And flash is just notoriously unstable and cpu hoggy (I think flash probably accounts for like 95+% of the browser crashes I've seen in the last couple years).  The flash imaging model also has a bunch of annoying features that make it really hard to 2d/3d accelerate well, which contributes to the performance issue.

Which is why on the face of it, I don't find Steve's "no flash for us" policy completely irrational.  (I'm just annoyed that he won't let you install an alternate browser with flash if you prefer flash to stability or whatever ^^)

Quinton is pretty much on the money. HTML5 has three elements that (if designed well and then successfully implemented by browser vendors) will largely obsolete Flash; video, audio and canvas.

- Video is what you expect, an inline video player;
- audio, an element to define and play back audio;
- canvas, an element that lets you draw onto a surface at pretty decent speeds using JavaScript, bitmaps and SVG. Combine this with <audio> and using Javascript for input and you got a pretty powerful tool. There are even tentative specifications for ways of saving the canvas to disk, so you can basically create an image editor in nothing but HTML and script and then let people save their results directly, without having to post geometric data or similar to the server. With the advances in Javascript interpreters (like Chrome's V8), it's all rather exciting to be honest.

Flash is, frankly, a terrible technology for mostly anything. It's used because it has good coverage mainly. I don't think anybody would really miss it if it went the way of the dodos.

The iPod player on the iPhone and the iPod Touch can play music in the background and there's no reason to expect the iPad is any different.

Yep. And nowadays developers can give playback control from directly within the app, beyond the normal pause/volume/fwd/back you can get from the popup.


Ah ok thanks. How does this work for games? Can Canvas create the kind of interactivity you'd get on Miniclip or Addictinggames games? I've also read about Silverlight, but I don't know how that works beyond image and movie media playback.

What I'm really wondering is how online games will evolve in the coming years if Flash declines. For mobile devices that won't matter much*. I'm thinking more PCs and laptops.

* Incidentally, I find it interesting how Adobe keeps showing they're on 99% of all browsers, when so many browsers hitting the net are on mobile devices that don't support Flash.

Well, http://www.canvasdemos.com

A NES-emulator written in JavaScript, using HTML5: http://benfirshman.com/projects/jsnes/

Works best with Chrome (thanks to the superior JS engine) but also works well in FireFox and supposedly also in Opera and Safari.

Thanks. That's pretty cool. The image animation portion works fine on the iPhone too.

Just found out Silverlight offers similar interactivity as well. Some freaky games out there, usual experimental indie stuff (usually the best kind).

Do people foresee a sea-change coming in the next year or two? Or is Flash here for a long while yet? As in, how entrenched is the development community (and marketing/PR types) vs how easy will it be for studios to branch out (or will they be forced to through adoption)?

Yeah, Silverlight is Microsoft's answer to Flash, basically. It's a subset of .NET sandbox'ed in the browser pretty much, with its own set of advantages and drawbacks. Silverlight is rather more "serious" than Flash, as it has a real GUI layer (Windows Presentation Foundation) and uses a "real" virtual machine (.NET). Last time I checked, Flash still has an edge concerning a lot of the bread-and-butter stuff for games, like 2D rendering. The big issue with Silverlight is that since it's Microsoft, most vendors are reluctant to support it because, well, it's Microsoft. Otherwise I think it's a pretty nice piece of technology, but it doesn't have nearly the same coverage as Flash and that makes it less interesting in itself, because in the end you just want your stuff to work for as many as possible, and not necessarily by using the most able technology.

One cool feature of Silverlight is that it lets you break out of the browser host and run it stand-alone, in itself hosting "web applications" that are basically Silverlight apps running from a webserver, distributed-style without needing a browser at all. It creates a link on the desktop and you can run it directly like any app and have an experience that's pretty darn close to a real app.

Edit:
As for your question, I can't see that we've fully replaced Flash even in five years. It's just too deeply ingrained in the community as the "catch-all" solution to all the problems script and HTML can't solve (even if it's a bad idea, like Flash site navigation.) That's just my personal opinion, however. :-)

Youtube and some other video streaming sites are heading toward <VIDEO> tag.  I wouldn't be surprised if flash was more and more marginalized over the next couple years -- nobody really benefits from flash except adobe (who sells authoring tools) and it causes headaches for pretty much everybody.  I think as the bulk of the installed base of browsers winds up supporting HTML5, VIDEO, etc we may finally see the end of flash.

I despise flash with ever fiber of my being, but until something usefully replaces it (not Silverlight - it's no better), we're not going to see flash going away. Could be a while.

Moderately interesting blog here "iPad explained to geeks" http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/192799.asp

I still think its useless though.  Oh look, a device that fits firmly in a place between my phone and my laptop...a place where I didn't need anything.

Good infoz, thanks. The more I read about HTML5, the more I hope that gets adopted quickly. I don't mind Flash, but mostly because I'm not the one stuck developing in it (that's what sub-contracting is for :-) ). I just want it to stick around long enough to see how their upcoming App porting strategy is going to play out. I've seen this promise before (on some older handheld CE devices like the GP32), and it never is as easy as they think. I would guess it'd be easier to just learn the iPhone SDK dev environment than it would be to try and design once and port multiple times within a system that's going to come with a lot more overhead by default, to slow down the experience and make it more buggy.

And that blog post is basically what I've been feeling. This kind of announcement is like Apple before the iPhone. They'd come out and announce OS X.## or some new Macbook and most people didn't give a shit because it was just a Mac, or an iPod or something for other people. The iPhone comes along and converts enough geeks to a superior experience that is almost great except it's locked down unless jailbroken and stuck on AT&T unless you want T-Mobile through another jailbreak. But they think the iPhone is for them "if only it had..."

I think it's that audience which is the most disappointed. They wanted another device that was almost for them but which actually isn't at all, for the same reasons the iPhone isn't.

But it already is starting to go away.

On some sites, 1 in 6 or greater have flash disabled. As new sites are rolled out, old sites refreshed, the splashy stuff flash used to do is supplanted jQuery or other javascript (AJAXy) library photo carousel plugins. And even video/media is coded to use HTML5 (or non-flash H264) first, and fallback to flash if browser doesn't support. Eventually, just like IE6 with most sites now, the plug will be yanked for good.

Thanks for posting that artcile, Malakili. I reluctantly have to agree with its conclusions.

Darniaq, I think you're very wrong about the iPhone appeal audience. The iPad probably isn't going to be for geeks, but the iPhone, because it is a small portable device, a phone, camera and 3g/edge internet device does meet most geek needs. I can ssh into my solaris email server from the bustop and make sure the processors aren't jammed by spam. The tablet just isn't handy that way.

The nefarious part is that the iPad is creating a content portal. Much like the airlines, it will probably end up a pseudo monopoly where everything is cut in the name of profit, and the end user is just as hosed as the underpayed and overworked airline pilot. The difference being that if content portal devices such as OnLive, iTunes and XBox Live become legion, the masses will forget that there were once other options. They will fork over money for things that once upon a time were slightly more sophisticated and comparatively cheaper.

You're talking 2 or 3 years at least.   Youtube just announced their HTML 5 Test on the 20th (http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/01/introducing-youtube-html5-supported.html).  It doesn't support embedding.  Or full screen.  Or those wonderful ads Youtube loves.  (Plus for us, minus for Youtube)  Vimeo as well (http://www.vimeo.com/blog:268).

At which point the iPad will probably be on it's second or third iteration.  Definitely with more features and fixes.

This item, on the other hand, is not the ultimate internet device they tout.

HTML5 is hot though.

HTML5 will be spiffy as its support becomes more universal, but right now the projected date of full adoption of the standard is 2022.   :uhrr:

I'm sure that the real day to day Internet will have adopted a 'good enough' HTML5 that plays nice on all the major browsers in the next year or two, and I'm looking forward to it.  I hate plugins and format wars.

No, see, that was my entire point: The iPhone attracted a type of geek that is disappointed the iPad doesn't do anything for them. Which is to say they were expecting the followup to the iPhone to be just as much for them as the iPhone was. Apple doesn't see them as a market, but that audience wanted to be one.

Think of it this way: just because a company makes an RPG for a certain type of audience doesn't mean all of their RPGs are going to be for that audience, even if that audience wants that to be the case.

I hope so.  There is a good chance that the idiot "Genius" at the mac store had no clue what they were talking about. 

I'm sure, likewise, that you won't be able to stream music with Pandora or some other third party service while you run other apps, just like the iPhone.  I assume Apple's answer to this is not "enable background apps" but instead "provide a proprietary streaming music solution endorsed by Apple" (see purchase of LaLa).

This adoption shit takes time, too much time. As an example, the sites I work for still have between 10 and 15% IE6 users. Firefox is like 20%. Anyone saying IE6 is "dead" is sorely mistaking themselves, it just looks that way to us as powerusers. We even have a small percentage (like 2-3) that still uses goddamn IE 5. I don't see how though, because the sites don't support IE5 one iota but I guess if they've endured this long, they'll keep enduring. You can't tell that many people to "get an upgrade", you're not the first and it just won't happen. They'll just not use your site instead. I think the big job there is to get rid of all the Windows 95/98/Me/2K users that can't update their IE past version 6. Once a user has XP, it's atleast possible to get them to update IE, if not get them a proper browser.

But atleast we can thank God for modern JavaScript libraries that take 95% of the development pains out. :heart:

Wuh? You can stream music through the Pandora app. Did it on the Touch and have been doing so on the iPhone. My usual process is Shazam>Pandora>purchase-maybe.

Or did you mean stream music in the background with Pandora? That you can't do.

"while you run other apps"

Doh.

Maybe that is what the guy  was referencing at the store.  To be honest, I get so fucking frustrated any time I have to go to the Mac store for anything that I usually just tune those idiots out. 

I'll probably get one of these when they come out.  I got the wife a Nook for Christmas and its a buggy piece of shit so far.  Maybe the iPad will be better.

Gah.

Most online services have already dropped IE6 support. Google makes it official on March 1, when they drop support for IE6 users using google docs. Other services like Tumblr throw up a huge error box to IE6 users and instruct them to download a more modern browser — giving them links to Firefox, IE8, Safari…

Most? Specify. I have a very, very hard time thinking many sites can defend blacklisting 10-15% of their users, given they have the average share of IE6 users. The exact percentage of course depends on location and field. I can imagine Google Apps has a very small share of IE6 users, since it's pretty much a power user web application. In addition, prompting users to upgrade is a very different thing from dropping support.

In a year or two the number of IE6 users might be small enough (like a few percent) to be ignorable, but right now it's certainly expected that a site works in IE6, even if in dimished capacity. Blackballing your users isn't exactly a great idea. It's no coincidence that companies that have their products working on as many machines as possible often are the most successful.

Then we have IE7 to get rid of!

Naum's only slightly ahead of himself, but Google just (as in the 29th) announced (http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/01/modern-browsers-for-modern-applications.html) they're dropping IE6 support on Docs.  But as you said, this still leaves IE7.

The breakdown is as follows:

Internet Explorer 6   20.07%
Internet Explorer 7   14.58%
Internet Explorer 8   22.31%
Firefox 3              5.29%
Firefox 3.5             17.10%
Google Chrome           3.92%
Other                        16.17%

And by version (http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2):
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0   22.31%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0   20.07%
Firefox 3.5   17.10%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0   14.58%
Firefox 3.0   5.29%
Chrome 3.0   3.92%
Safari 4.0   3.55%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 - Compatibility Mode   2.79%
Opera 10.x   1.65%
Chrome 4.0   1.16%
Firefox 3.6   1.07% Firefox 2.0   0.79%
Opera 9.x   0.70%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 - Maxthon Edition   0.61%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 - Tencent Traveler Edition   0.42%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 - Maxthon Edition   0.40%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 - TheWorld Edition   0.32%
Netscape 6.0   0.31%
Opera Mini 4.2   0.31%
Safari on Windows 4.0   0.29%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 - Compatibility Mode - Maxthon Edition   0.21%
Safari 3.1   0.19%
Safari 41   0.18%
Opera Mini 4.1   0.13%
Safari 3.2   0.12%
Mozilla   0.12%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 - Compatibility Mode - Tencent Traveler Edition   0.10%
Firefox 1.5   0.10%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 - Compatibility Mode - TheWorld Edition   0.09%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 - Tencent Traveler Edition   0.09%
Safari 3.0   0.08%
Chrome 2.0   0.07%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 - TheWorld Edition   0.06%
Opera Mini 4.0   0.06%
Opera Mini 5.0   0.05%
SeaMonkey   0.03%
PLAYSTATION 3 5.0   0.03%
Firefox 1.0   0.03%
Konqueror 3.5   0.03%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0   0.03%

We still support IE6, even though it's 10%-ish of our users. 10% isn't much when you only have 5,000 UVs, but when you have millions .... it's a large chunk.

iPad nano (http://calacanis.com/2010/02/01/just-got-my-hands-on-the-ipad-nano-its-amazing/)

Jokes already a week old :(

It's not official till the blogosphere says it is.

But is it taking it very seriously yet? I must know!

Windows 7 on iPad? (http://gizmodo.com/5461810/windows-7-running-on-the-apple-ipad-via-citrix)

Hey an application for that thing that actually sounds sort of useful!

This thing looks like a product searching for a market, rather than filling a necessary niche.

I don't think it's going to have the wide appeal Apple would hope for, although given it's Apple it'll at least get a real shot at acquiring one.

My personal thoughts: It's too bulky for the functionality. It's just a bad trade-off -- you don't get enough "Extras" for the hassle of carrying it around.

Mass appeal wise --- I can sort of see it as a portable media station --- hooked to, say, home wireless and a good, fat pipe and you could have a hand-portable TV, web interface, book reader, whatnot -- allowing you to, say, watch a movie or a TV show without having to leave your chair or stick in a DVD.

The problem with that is I don't think it has the bandwidth in the field to stream it on-demand at any reasonable quality (does it?) or store enough to make it feasible. Around the house where it can leach onto your home network, no big.

If the bloody thing could access my Netflex instant queue, live TV and for gravy, my home DVR or provider's on-demand services and stream it at good quality -- that I'd pay 800 bucks for. I use my laptop enough for watching Netflix or DVD's that trading it for a less bulky interface would be nice and worth quite a bit as a media station, and being able to check email and surf the web would be gravy.

I don't see it killing e-readers, though. Totally different market. People with e-readers don't want a tiny laptop. They want an "anybook" that'll access an entire library, can be read without eyestrain, and weigh no more than a regular book. 

What people said about the iPod 9 years ago when it launched… (http://garry.posterous.com/what-people-said-about-the-ipod-9-years-ago-w)


(http://technologybubbles.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/400px-ipod_sales_per_quarter-svg_.png)

Seriously? Did you even read the original source about 4 layers down?

Half of the bad things people said was from one post (http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=5323&postcount=46). If you look at a majority of the comments was bad based upon the $399 release price.

In regards to the pic it took 4 generations of the iPod to get up to steam and an entry level pricing of $299 to make a big splash. So what your pointing out is that in 3 years and a few revisions down the road the iPad will be worth buying?

Would you like the same for the Apple TV or Macbook Air?  Not even counting it took awhile to get to that point with the Pod.

What people said about the iPod 9 years ago:

[insert link to a single thread from 2001 with people jizzing all over it]

Because they do exist and I'm not even going to bother looking.  Seriously, thats the proof it will be ok, one thread on a forum where people bitched?  Anyways, I hate that argument.  "People were wrong about the iPod.  So they MUST be wrong about the iPad!"

Though the fun thing about that chart is that is shows us nobody was buying the fucking things until several upgraded models later, when they integrated all sorts of cool features, AND lowered the price.  Which is what I think (and am actually hoping) happens with the iPad.  What they introduced sucks ass.  I know Apple has the ability to make a great tablet, so I'm hoping in a few more iterations we'll get baby Jesus.  Thats the model they seem to follow with everything lately.  

Or it could just end up being another cube, which I seriously hope not.

edit:  Aaaaand beaten like a Red Headed step child by everybody else.

Google sez a iPad?  Great idea, lets have a gPad too! (http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/google-tablet-to-give-apple-a-touch-of-its-own-medicine-20100203-nc8u.html?autostart=1)

Goddamn.
 :awesome_for_real:

Uhm, that's sorta a remote connection to Windows 7 running on another machine. Sure, its a form of cloud computing, but instead of an app its an OS.


Not sure why that would be better than plain vanilla remote desktop.

It's not, other than the fact that Windows Remote Desktop Connection doesn't run on the iPhone OS.

I always hold off on version 1 Apple products… …wait a few months, or a year, it will be half the price, more features and the early "beta" adopters will hash out all the glitches…

I figure 2 years out and they'll have the version I'm willing to work with.

I got it on mine... http://www.jaadurdp.com/

Wow cool thanks.

The cool features you're talking about are known as Windows compatibility and USB support. Both introduced with the fourth generation of the original iPod which offered no significant new features the first iPod didn't already have except a bigger hard drive.

If you don't think those are significant, I got nothing.

And to play naum's game, which Apple product are these comments about?










Or this gem:
and the reply:

Same shit, different day.  Who knows if this will be a success or not.

Well Windows compatibility is a significant feature which kind of defeats the point you were trying to make.

The original iPod used an HFS file system, had firewire and the only compatible sync software was availiable for Mac only.

Still there were enough people who wanted one desperately enough to kick start whole businesses. People reverse engineered the sync protocol, a lot of firewire cards for PCs were sold, HFS drivers for Windows were developed and popular music managemet software was adapted to work with an iPod.

iPod sales took of not because it got cheaper (it didn't) or had more features (it hadn't) but because Apple opened the device for Windows users.

If they would have had a Windows compatible iPod on day one you'd see a lot more sales in the first two years. In fact there was such a lot of pent up demand that the Windows version of the 3rd gen iPod was sold out for nearly half a year. (I know because it was the first one I bought). A fact that wan't reflected anywhere in the media at that time.

I checked back to the news item the most popular german IT news service released on the day of the iPod announcement. The forum discussion was a really great flame war but not between Apple fanboys and users who didn't like the iPod but rather between people who would have bought one if it was available for Windows and those who didn't see the point in another mp3-player.

As for the quotes I could just copy and paste the same amount of quotes that state the failure of the iPod but it's just pointless selective quoting. Nobody knows if it will be a success or not that's true

The discussion that follows a new Apple device however is pathological. Some see in it the herald of a new era of computing some don't see the merit because they can get a computer/toaster/foot massager that bakes muffins for half the price, both parties are too myopic too realize that they are the fringe of the discussion because all they do is live in their own internet echo chamber.

Most people don't care for revolutions and they also don't care that you could buy a veritable super computer for less. They want something that "just works" and they actually enjoy using without getting a masters degree in computer engineering.

A fact nobody in the profession seems to get.

Err, the iPod Video?  Came out in 2005, same year that chart suddenly shows a boom in sales of iPods.  Lets you play video and games on it.  Also, incidentally, the first year I got one.  Theres a huge difference between those models and the first models.

Teleku covered this is his post.

The same happens with any tech that hails itself a 'revolution', not just Apple.  When Sony hit the block with their PS3 the first time, the comments were about the same.  So there's no reason to paint Apple as some sort of martyr.

If I say my new product is going to, 'change urban transportation as we know it', and then I give you this:
then sorry, there's probably going to be some disappointment thrown my way.  Not even going into the fact that a regular bike would do the same thing, for cheaper.

Add, 'that serves a need'.  Again, as has been pointed out many many times, you can buy a netbook to do the same things for less.  It's not like Netbooks are in bargain basements only.  Pick any electronics store and there they are.

This may be the one, but not this version.  Maybe gen 2 or 3.  This is a great proof of concept, but it's certainly not the 'best internet device ever'.

Personally, the elegance ends for my mother the instant she needs to type on the virtual keyboard.  For me, it'd need handwriting recognition.

I'm still at a loss to what need this fills.

What's the end use supposed to do with this thing? How's it supposed to integrate into daily life? Not niche -- mass market.

The iPod was an MP3 player. And later a video player + mp3 player. The market there, the target they were going for, was obvious -- the people who liked listening to music. There were already existing items in the market -- portable radios, walkmen, there were even dedicated mp3 players already.

"Take your entire music collection with you in a pocket-sized device with 10 hours of playtime" is not a hard pitch. It might succeed or fail, but it's really clear what it's for.

What's the iPad for? Who is it being sold to? What uses is it for? What needs is it fufilling? Do those needs represent a large market? Or a growable one? Is the pricepoint acceptable for that?

I can see uses for an iPad sized device, sellable ones, but not the ones the iPad seems to be offering. So what am I missing?

It's a computer for people who can't handle the complexity of modern computing, which is most folks. It can do basic word processing, web surfing, and email. For a lot of folks that's all they need. It's kinda dumb that it needs a home computer still, but I can see that going away in the future.

I'm pretty tempted to pick one up for around the house and traveling. I do a lot of web reading on my iPhone, so it seems like a no brainer to pick up something similar with a much larger screen. It also looks much more pleasant than my phone or laptop for watching movies while traveling on planes. Getting my laptop in a comfortable position on those stupid trays is always unpleasant. It'll also be nice for having web based recipes in the kitchen. My laptop has a lot of nooks and crannies crap can get in, but my iPhone has too tiny a screen to be pleasant to use. When they get video chat on it it will damn near perfect. I take my laptop on most trips just to be able to video chat with home.

So basically, it's a simplified tablet with enhanced media -- using a touchscreen interface?

Looking over the price, the memory, and the like it seems it lacks both the storage and the real bandwidth to reliably stream video or store anything more than a very few movies. (Maybe I misread the data storage? 64GB would be bare minimum, and that's at the MUCH higher pricepoint).

Hmm.

I'm getting a camel vibe off this thing. Perhaps it'll surprise me. More likely, successive iterations will fix what seems like poor compromises. I can see the appeal of a hand-held, portable media station -- basically an iTV with enough storage to hold a good number of movies or TV shows, and then tacking on the ability to stream from Netflix or equivilant when you have a WiFi signal to leach off, and web-surfing off the 3G side.

I think it's memory is too small for that, it's battery time is okay but not great (hopefully you can swap them out easily -- you can have 18 to 20 hours between airport waits and flights easily enough). I also see some significant resistance to paying for 3G access again (it's too bloody bulky to be a phone -- hopefully At&T decides a dual iPhone iPad service is a good idea), I think the base (and most affordable) model isn't going to do anything well -- which will probably be the biggest hurdle.

Yeah, definite camel. I can sort of see what they're going for, but they're bound by price and by technology, and the resulting product isn't going to satisfy anyone but the hard-core technies, or the well-off who love their electronic gadgets. It's not even worth getting unless it's the 64GB model with the 3G, and that price point is ludicrous for the functionality.

iPhone worked. iPod worked. iPad? Talk to me in a few iterations. I can see possibilities there -- but not this tech, at this price, with those limitations.

But hey, that's my own personal opinion. It'll sell or not sell, succeed or flop, entirely independent of me.

Excellent proof of concept.  But they're not there yet.  Rev 2 or 3 maybe.

To make it really solid, you'd need say....250GB of memory (enough to hold a decent library of movies and tv-shows). Access to Netflix or an equivilant when in WiFi range. You'd probably need to pump the battery to a minimum of 12 hours, but 10 is acceptable if you can pop in a new one (like a laptop battery). I'd also say alter the dimensions to add standard widescreen support.

And the price point needs to stay below 600 bucks, I'd guess. Without adding much weight. 1 1/2 pounds is a lot -- you'd defintely want a way to prop the bloody thing up, so you didn't have to hold it.

I mean, basically what you want is a TV that works like an iPod. You cart it around, watch TV whenever. I'd honestly say web surfing and email and such would be a low-use functionality. Laptops are ergonomically awkward enough. iPhones get away with it because they are small and light.

2 problems here. 1: You simply are not going to get 10 hours useage out of the iPad unless all you want it to do is display the time. Full screen video and wifi/3G use is going to drain that battery dead in half that time. 2: Hello Mac, hello closed user access. You won't be replacing the battery in it yourself any time soon, short of buying some kind of bulky dock/extra battery affair which again, makes having the iPad in the first place seem pointless when you need to cart around more peripherals than the average laptop.

Yeah. I know.

Right now, I think your average tablet is a better choice. *shrug*. People saying it's an e-reader killer or a Kindle killer are just smoking crack, though. I could see it becoming a nice media station, but not the way it is now.

A wireless/3G toggle would probably solve that problem.  A physical switch to turn it on and off.

Keeping it charged should be pretty trivial. Most airports and planes I've seen recently had USB plugs for charging small electric devices( although I don't get around all that much ). Also I don't see why it would be a bad ebook reader. I've read quite a bit on the iPhone it is perfectly acceptable.

Several reasons. First, and probably least: It's too heavy. A pound and a half? Doesn't sound like much until you're trying to horse it around like a book. People can, and will, use it to read. But it's not built for it -- the ergonomics and the weight are simply wrong for holding for long periods of time.

Second, and most important -- it's backlit. It's a recipe for eyestrain. (There's a reason ebooks use e-ink. It's not because LCDs are too expensive). Reading for any length of time is simply going to make your eyes hurt.

Lastly -- it's too big. Not just "too heavy" -- to BIG. Books are portable, hardbacks less so but still. This thing is big and fragile.

Ebooks are sized to have roughly the weight and proportions of a real book (either paper or hardback) so they can be held like one. Their screens are made to mimic ink, so they can be read without eyestrain -- even though it requires a light in darker conditions.

It's probably a good selling point that it can handle ebooks --- if you're already lugging it around, being able to call up reference works or charts is nice. However, it's not going to outsell the Kindle or Nook as an e-reader. People who buy the iPad for other reasons might put up with the awkwardness, the weight, the eyestrain, and the short battery span and read books on it so they don't ALSO have to lug around a Kindle or whatnot.

Even then, I doubt it'd be used as an ereader often. 

Harry Potter Deathly Hallows soft cover weighs 13.6 ounces. The hard cover weighs 2.6 pounds. A Kindle DX( the big one ) is also a pound and half. The iPad isn't looking too far out of whack here. The regular Kindle is 10.6 ounces.

I've never suffered eye strain from a backlit screen, but I can accept that is an issue for some people. Flipping through the research it looks as if tweaking the hue and brightness of the screen can reduce these effects, but I still can imagine it will be issue for some people.

As to the big part, it's smaller than both my laptop and my sketchbook that I routinely carry. It's smaller than most of the books I take on the train. It's is larger than a mini-Kindle, but not by all that much. It won't fit in a evening bag, but it probably fits in most purses(especially these days. )

I agree that the need for this thing is debatable, but some of your arguments don't seem all that valid.

Have you sat there and tried reading from a backlit screen for six or eight hours straight? 'Cause that'll cause eyestrain, which will worsen with repetition, in anyone. I use a PC all day -- it doesn't bother me. But if that was the source of ALL the reading I did? My eyes would hate me.

I'm not going to argue that the last Harry Potter book was a fucking beast. I know I had no fucking intention of carrying around a book that damn big. Most people don't -- they read them at home. Most of the people lugging books around seem to prefer paperbacks, or relatively light and thin hardbacks. Because most hardbacks are too big and heavy for easy carrying.

I read Anathem at home. I read Matter at work, but only because I was already using a backpack and had nothing else do do at 3:00 AM. I don't tote hardbacks around as casual reading if I can avoid it.

I don't like the DX -- it's too big. I mean, the extra screen size is nice -- but it crossed from 'easily portable' to 'bulky'. I feel the same way about books -- I'd much prefer to carry a paperback than a hardback, any day of the week.

As for the Kindle proper -- I can't speak for the DX, but the ergonomics on the Kindle 2 are nice. The page button is right where your thumb rests when holding it -- and holding it is pretty much exactly like holding an ordinary paperback.

I guess my problem with the iPad boils down to: It's a lot less functional than your laptop. Or your tablet PC, for that matter. It's not that much more functional than your iPhone, especially given the price. It's not as good an e-reader as a kindle. I don't see what you're getting, in improved functionality and use, for the money. I don't doubt that some people -- the folks stuck lugging reference books, laptop, etc -- will find it'll consolidate all that down into one device.

I just don't think there's that many people.

I'll keep my iPhone (well, iPhone equivilant) and my Kindle. There's nothing the iPad does that I need or really even want that the iPhone doesn't do adequately enough. Why spend all the extra money? And the Kindle -- seriously, fuck backlit screens for reading. I get enough of that shit at work.

Easier in my opinion.  The weight, ease of use, and e-ink is what convinced me to switch.

I actually had a customer tell me yesterday that he thought the iPad was an awesome device. Now admittedly, this guy was a complete Brent Sienna, Apple will take over the world type, but still. After he spent 20 minutes complaining about our lack of OSX compatibility, and telling me about his vast number of Mac using clients, he went on to explain how awesome the iPad is going to be for Realtors like himself. Apparently he is convinced it will be easier to show his clients pictures of houses on his iPad than it would be to say use a netbook. We'll see.

I mean, if he wants to use it as a glorified digital picture frame, I'm sure it'll function in that regard just fine.

Actually, for that use...yeah.  I could see it.

That's not the main reason most adults read Harry Potter at home :why_so_serious:

Despite the fear of being branded Apple Fanboy for good.

The compariosn of the iPad and netbooks is stupid. "I can do everything that the iPad does on a netbook and even more" is NOT the point.

It's not about cheaper or smaller. A netbook is a tiny computer with the same problems and complexity issues of a real computer. People that don't like normal sized computers won't buy tiny computers because they are exactly the same only smaller and cheaper.

It's not the size or the price. If your average user is overwhelmed by the complexity of Windows or Linux and can't really use it without technical support by friends or family he won't buy a netbook because he'd be dealing with the same problems only on a smaller device.

My mother won't suddenly buy a netbook because it's cheaper and smaller than a normal PC because it still is a PC. It runs Windows or Linux, it runs the same applications, it's used in exactly the same way as a normal computer and she'd have to battle with exactly the same issues that keep her from using a normal computer.

The same with current phones. The majority of people doesn't like using computers because they are overwhelmed by all of the issues and the inherent complexity of those devices. The majority of users doesn't like using smart phones ecause they are overwhelmed by all of the issues and the inherent complexity of those devices.

Ask anybody who is not a geek if he likes to work on a PC or about his recent frustrations with technology. People who religiuously post on the internets are not the target audience for such devices. We get computers, we like to tinker with them, we are the car nuts of the internet age. We are fringe.

Unfortunately we are the ones who design and build computers, who design and build software that run on those computers, who design and build all of the appliances that normal people use every day.

We build and buy the equivalent of a Lancia Stratos or Mustang GT with unsynchronized gearboxes, chokes, manual transmissions and stuff while everybody else wants a Honda Automatic with satnav.

It's not about whether you or I will buy one. Of course we won't. This doesn't change the fact however that the comparison of netbooks and those tablets is pointless. It's pointless because for us it's a comparison between a small computer that's cheap has more features and offers more performance than an iPad and an appliance that does less and is more expensive.

For others it's a comparison between something that resembles the thing they don't like using (or never managed to use properly) only smaller and something that does most or all of the things they need only without the inherent complexity.

Asking why anybody should buy an appliance that is more expensive than a netbook is asking the wrong question. Why are so few people actually buying netbooks although they are cheap and do nearly everything a real pc does? Is a much more clever question.

If smart phones are too complicated for people, and the iPhone is a smart phone, and the iPad is essentially a bigger iPhone, then...  :headscratch:

Already been over the rest.  We did not make the comparison first.  Apple did.

On all the rest, one answer: Android netbook.  ZOMG!

According to those that have handled an iPad, in terms of responsiveness, snappiness, UI, etc.… there is no comparison — netbooks are slow and clunky (at least at that <= $500 price point, which I believe will be <$300 come next year)…

Also, I see lots of comparisons to netbooks with traditional HD v. flash storage. Yeah, having 120G is a plus over 16/32/64G, but is easily negated by advantages of a flash drive…

AFA Kindle e-Ink display, I can't attest to spending long periods with it, but its font rendering, page turn lag and washed out B&W seem inferior to color, much superior anti-aliasing on the Apple display…

On its bulkiness — it's ~7.5 in by ~9.5 in — that's smaller than a sheet of 8.5 x 11 inch paper and only 0.5 in thick — thinner than a MacBook Air (to me, it seems that this is the device "obsoleted")…

Unlike all the netbook WiFi setups I see, includes 802.11n (the Wii is the only device in my home not capable of 802.11n)…

Use cases?

√ reading the newspaper at breakfast time or on the couch instead of the computer… …or in my desire, my Google Reader feeds…

√ smart remote control sitting on the coffee table that can drive TV, music players and home computers throughout the home…

√ a slick gaming pad that makes the DS and PSP archaic throwbacks…

√ a textbook replacement, with color, hyperlinks, charts, graphics, images, sound, video, etc.… 

√ while unsuitable for heavy duty computing on business travel, certainly sufficient or vacation/leisure travel, with or without a wireless/dockable keyboard accompaniment…

√ while panned as "content consumption" with little use for "content creation", there actually is a whole realm of existing and heretofore realm of new applications suited for touch "drag and drop" UI — mind mapping, charting (OmniGraffle (or Visio for you Windows folk)), note taking, annotating, etc.…

√ and don't forget about the elderly ;)
(http://www.cagle.com/working/100202/fitzsimmons.jpg)

You know, apple is just laughing at you. All of you (and by that I mean the world).

Because you know they have a fully functional/beefy version SITTING in the production cue for 2012. Just like the iPhone. You don't design a product like this, then sell the best version, you design the product fully, then, strip it down in functionality, and sell the lesser versions as you ramp back up to the full. So you get the upgrade monies.

I was thinking this as well.  I'll wait about 5 years when they finally release a version of this that does what I want, and then maybe i'll buy it.  Until then, its going to be a pretty piece of hardware that people put on their coffee table to impress their friends when they come over.  I'd much rather have something like a Touch Book.

Probably not as much as I am.

All these pros for the iPad are also pros for the new tablets coming out with the Tegra chipset. The only thing those can't do is download stuff from the App Store.

IMHO it's about 2-3 years too late.

How about using:

• a newspaper?
• your TV's remote?
• a gaming device with an actual selection of games?

To be fair, I can think of some potential uses, too.

• a coaster
• a serving tray
• a substitute to fine china for throwing during an argument
• a way to throw money away

* Star trek LARPING

/thread :awesome_for_real:

I get where you are coming from, but even a relatively short flight (4 or 5 hours) reading a printed book destroys my eyes.

If that's true you probably need to see an eye doctor for a check up.

The iPad's too big to be a TNG-era Federation standard-issue PADD (there are bigger versions but you don't see those as often on the shows). The Kindle is too big as well.

Clearly they just need to miniaturize the thing now.  :why_so_serious:

They do come in lots of sizes though:


Linky to PADD's (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/PADD)

It's less than $500 now.

If I'm using it as an e-reader, I don't care.  I'm reading books in perfect clarity.  The whole point of the Kindle is a reading experience that mimics paper.  Period.  The screen can be read in direct light and the battery requires far less frequent charges than any other device.

Who said it was bulky?  It's twice as heavy as the Kindle, which personally indicates to me that it might be a slight bit too heavy for prolonged used for the elderly, but that's neither here nor there.

I can give you three netbooks that came out in early 2009 that have 802.11n.



Of course it can do all those.  Our point, time and time again, is something else can do it the same or better, for a smaller price tag.

Here's the thing I don't get.  Look at the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-YAQ1wfNqc
Or this picture:
(http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/4/2010/01/500x_oldtablet.jpg)
What do you notice about how people are holding this?  Two ways:

• Legs up for the item to lay against
• Holding it up

Why?  To get the correct viewing angle.  I'm just not seeing my parents wanting to hold it like that, and therefore using this for long periods of time.   Nor do I see them taking to the virtual keyboard, but that's another story.  Add to it, the fact that twice as heavy as the Kindle (which I get tired of holding up in bed sometime - I tend to switch hands every hour or so) and I'm just not seeing this as a strong item for the elderly.  From a ease of use perspective perhaps, but in actually handling the physical item?  Not so much.

It's a good shot, but not there yet.  The case/kickstand needs to come standard for one.

Sir bruceing!

Yes I mentioned that but the ones you usually see the Captains holding or on their desks are the small versions.

It is just the right size for those clipboard looking things they use in Mass Effect though!

My main hope from all this is that this causes tablets to be such trendy things that other companies can now find a market share.  I look forward to the Android tablet.

Nobody tell WUA about where this thread is going.

More on the weight.  The Kindle DX weighs 18.9 ounces, or 1.2 lbs.  The iPad is 1.5 lbs at it's lowest.  

Kindle DX issues?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=19708
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124467271645603777.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31569340/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/itdojo/?p=1176

You get the idea.  Will these things matter to the elderly?  Who knows.

I assume that's breaking up a quote to talk about certain parts?

Adding comments has been disabled for this video.

Now you're just being silly…

√ subscribing to 300+ newspapers!? uh, I think the cost of an iPad is a fraction of that, let alone the mess of paper and print that would need disposing of or fish to wrap…

√ my TV remote doesn't talk to all the machines in my house (like iP(hoone|od|ad))

√ are you completely ignorant of the thousands of games (exceeding any handheld console) available already? yes, Sturgeon's Law and all, but there are gems to be found and the major game makers are eagerly embracing the platform…

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Harmony-Advanced-Universal-Remote/dp/B00119T6NQ

Do you really expect good, playable games that involve holding a 1.5lb tablet with both hands and tilting/tapping it while you play?

Eagerly embracing the ability to price war each other into the ground to sell $1-2 "casual" games...  but you know Steve doesn't give a shit about much as long as he gets his 30% cut.

Yeah, for $250, er marked down to $200 now…

Opposed to a device that will be < $300 a year from now that includes that as an auxiliary feature…

Strategy games, board games, card games, etc.… along with all the other silly games…

Settlers of Catan, for instance, is a polished game experience on the iPhone that exceeds XBox 360 version and woeful Java implementations on the web…

Of course I'm being silly.  You're going on and on about this thing like it's the next coming of Jesus.

There may be a reason for that.

Like hell it will be.

I do agree that there could be some cool board game/table top type games that could be made for this.  Don't know if that helps justify all the other limitations though.

Apple will add new features, call it iPad Gen 2, and keep the price the same.  That's generally how they work.

They dropped the original iPhone price substantially within the first 6 months (and pissed off a lot of people in the process) so it wouldn't be unprecedented for Apple to drop the price on the iPad sooner rather than later. Also with tech devices they typically get more powerful over time *and* cheaper. E.g. iPod 1G was $399. Current hard drive iPod, which is far more powerful, is $249.

I think it will drop. I do not think it will drop that low, that fast. If they do that they'll be hurting their own iTouch product, the largest capacity iTouch is currently $399. It would take extremely deep price cuts across both the iTouch *and* iPad lines to get the iPad to under $300 and I don't see that happening inside a year.

But will it run the version of Windows that Microsoft is going to release next year that costs $5 and is more stable than Linux?

...you are intentionally misinterpreting what I wrote

I swear I'm not.  It just seems to me like the goalposts are moving all over the place.  In this thread I've heard the iPad described as being both a full powered computer on par with a laptop and a simpler and more streamlined user experience than the iPhone.  It can't be both, and in fact I'm pretty sure it's neither.

This will be my one and only post on the actual device.

Don't bitch or rave about it until you use one. When the time comes, drop by your nearest Apple store and try one. Then you can come back here and rip it apart or praise it to high heaven.

That is all.

/internet

Aren't there some networks (verizon, ATT) that were offering 3G enabled netbooks for free along w/ a cell phone subscription?

Seems like a logical offering to offer an iPhone + iPad + 3G service deal to both for 2 years sub.

lol go into an apple store. Good one.

Oh, hai Mac traditional 'hands on' marketing technique - "DON'T ASK WHAT'S INSIDE AND WHAT IT'S FOR LOOK AT THE SPARKLY LIGHTS AND THE SEXY SLEEKNESS OMG YOU SO WANT ONE NOW DON'T YOU LOOK APPLESTORE IS NEAT WOW"

 :facepalm:

Here's the thing people are still missing.

The announcement got people talking about this device as if there's this huge established mass market for netbooks and Tablet PCs. There isn't. People going on and on about "well, I can just get a netbooks/PC/laptop/converted-Macbook/etc to do that" aren't doing that. They say they can, but they're not ponying up to grow that industry. This not only means they are not the market for the iPad, they aren't the market for any of the adjacent devices that are already out there either. Because their needs are fulfilled already and/or they'll tinker future solutions.

The iPad is about introducing an otherwise alien concept for a lot of people who'll merely be attracted by ease of use. It's not easier than the iPhone. It's almost exactly the same, just with a larger UI. Along the way Apple is experimenting with the e-book market and that's fine because it could be a good device for that (unless eyestrain remains the problem as it usually is with backlit LCDs). The primary business is to get you to buy movies, music and apps.

I agree with everyone whose holding off until generation 2 or 3. That's when to do anything Apple, from buying a new computer line to installing a new OS buying a new CE device from them. Let the raving lunatic fanbois jump all over the generation 1 marketed beta device so their complaints can help Apple iterate into the full device it needs to be. The only difference with the iPad is that a lot of stuff has already been figured out over the multiple generations of the iPhone and its OS.

However, I personally am on the bubble. If they add full telephony functionality to this in the gen 1 device, I'll be all over it. I never use my iPhone by holding it to my ear, so that's not an issue for me.

I was in the "scratching my head trying to see what need the iPad fits" crowd until my mother of all people came up with a good one.

My aunt, who is nearing eighty and has never used a computer in her life, has recently expressed interest in getting into the whole email and photographs scene. I figured we could get her a netbook, but frankly my heart was sinking thinking how we would ever teach her to use it.

But for her, the "weaknesses" of the iPad could actually be strengths. Only one app at a time, no windows to worry about, no folders, no mouse with left, right and double clicking. She can type well, so getting her a version with the keyboard dock could work out very well.

Yep, that is the crowd. And once the tech goes mainstream, we probably all will end up with similar devices for every day use. Its just vital to understand that this is an appliance, like a microwave or a tv, rather than a computer.

Yes, the elderly.  An awesome target market which is growing in number every day...

The thing can certainly have uses, but if we're looking at niche markets to find a use for a product, then it is pretty telling about how prevalent it will be.

Not that his to do anything with the iPad, but the elderly ARE an awesome target market with is growing in numbers every day.

Well, it would be amusing if the latest product from the company that advertises with annoying hipsters turned out to be a hit with the geriatric set.

The computer-illiterate elderly, however, are a rapidly shrinking market. 

At this point I've only got one person in my family (my 89-year-old grandmother) who doesn't have an email address that they can check on a regular desktop machine, and an entire side of my family is composed of militant luddites who don't drive cars or watch TV.  But except for her they've all either given in and learned to work Yahoo Mail or died off.  And I can't envision that grandmother getting an iPad either -- she won't even have a flatscreen TV in her house, and insisted when her old tube TV died last year that it be replaced with a new tube TV (which are really hard to find these days).

I basically agree with you Samwise. But at least judging from my family, while nearly all use computing technology, many are really struggling with it and would be much happier losing functionality in return for simplicity. I think we have at least another 20 years with a huge market of people who find Windows and the like really, really hard. And in computing, that's an infinite amount of time.

I went back to school 3 years ago to finish my BS. There were a LOT of students at the school, a private school at that, that were barely computer literate. They weren't dumb; many could talk your ear off intelligently about history, literature, or fashion, but they were nearly useless on a computer. Just because kids are growing up with PCs doesn't mean they are good with them. As long as they can get get to Facebook on the iPad, they might be happier that way. I'm not trying to say that the ipad is the future, but I wouldn't discount it or other machines like it.

I am happy for the iPad, it will get every moron who doesn't belong on a PC off of a PC.

I thought that was the iMac's job?

There are people who don't even belong on an iMac. Trust me, my customers are scary people around technology.

I will gladly sell one of them to any of my customers that wants one, and charge a hefty markup for the convenience of them not having to go to the store themselves.

Build something idiot-proof and they'll breed better idiots.  I can't wait to see what comes out in another ten years for people that can't handle one app and a touchscreen.

Why do people think the Mac OS is any easier to use than the PC? It isn't. It's still double click. It's still folder structures. It's still utility programs for doing just about anything. It's still logins, installations, bugs, viruses, etc.

Except that Macs look prettier, there isn't enough difference for anyone to accurately claim the Mac is "easier to use". The same people that would struggle with Windows will with a Mac, for most of the same reasons.

And yes, the Baby Boomers are a huge ass demographic entering retirement and a good chunk of them were not in office jobs surrounded by Windows all day. This is not the only audience for the iPad, but it's a pretty good one. Well, those that didn't take a path on hedge funds or devalued homes anyway...

While the core concepts are similar, there are subtle differences that make Macs easier to use for some people. Applications are organized in a more straightforward fashion. The computer settings are all in one place, well labeled, and easily searchable. Application installs and uninstalls are very simple for most apps. The photo and music apps pretty much manage themselves. I've had a lot of luck moving family members to Macs. My tech support load has gone way down as a result.

My XP with family and friends does not conclude this.

There are a few gotchas with OS X (most notably, that OS X is more "windows-esque" in that clicking the red X closes a "window" and not the application like it does in Windows, and a more nasty un-Apple-esque UI foible in that some applications, new users who inadvertently click this little tabby deal lose the command-icon dashboard bar, and remain puzzled how to get it back (you tap the button again, but if you didn't know that already…)), but on the whole a much superior UI experience for users at all levels…

(http://img.skitch.com/20100207-mbnqern37acfncht2kf7xq376t.png)

√ …as stated, iTunes and iPhoto, while much to the chagrin of power users, are drop dead simple to use compared to traditional Windows apps (yeah, Windows has made great strides in this regard, but they're in tortoise-hare mode in this regard.

√ …have to call bullshit on the viruses — I've been using Macs since 2003 and have never ever seen a virus on a Mac (and have worked in all Mac (excepting a few sales people) shops, entire house has macs, and about 1/3 of folks use Macs at current job site). In that time frame, I cannot count how many Windows users whose machines have been totally compromised, heavily spyware/malware infected, etc.… …not saying it's a 100.0% guarantee on Mac platform, but it's exceedingly a rare anomaly.

√ …ditto on the "bugs" claim. Again, not 100% but far superior than Windows and generally speaking, the slogan about Macs being for people that want to work with their machine instead of on their machine is spot on. And I write this is somebody that used to build my boxes, partition discs, run Linux OS variants, roll up my Linux implementation, and still do this on server platforms. For my home machines, tired of this tinkering and Mac platform is about "don't make me think" as can be (at least compared to market alternatives at this point in time).

√ …desktop friendly UNIX with the most aesthetically appealing display. Anti-aliasing works best on Mac displays, as my poor eyesight is sensitive — looking at Windows displays or worse, Linux font rendering is like going back to B&W television from color TV (or to standard resolution from HD).

Sorry, don't mean to transform this thread into another exhausted Mac v. PC diatribe…

Wow, that was that saddest little rant I've seen here in some time.

I think you've mistaken a bit of gentle hyperbole with ranting there, chap!   :why_so_serious:

Mac is infinitely easier to use than Vista, however I think that Windows 7 is very nice.  Definitely a major upgrade from Vista.  I think a lot of Mac's reputation stems from the fact that their machines are stable, not necessarily because of the OS but because they don't have thirty thousand products out there that have different drivers being churned out from every corner of the earth to fuck it up.  There are a limited number of hardware items that are supported and Apple can do a better job of preparing drivers for these items.  Also, many PCs come pre-loaded with so much crapware designed to "fix" flaws in the Windows system that most of the systems are doomed right from the start.  My Sony laptop sucked until I did a clean install. 

I'm seeing a ton of people, especially teens and early twenties, bringing them into the library.

Seniors: also spending a LOT more time helping seniors who have new laptops their kids/grandkids bought them so they could receive email and pictures of the carpet rats.

I'm sorry, but Apple's marketing has made it painstakingly clear to me that I'm not enough of a hipster douchebag faggot to overspend on a computer that won't run any games but has some nice tools for editing home movies or whatever. Also, I don't seem to have the same crashes-ten-times-a-day version of Windows as that fat guy they use to tell me what an idiot I am for not buying their shit.

Clearly you know how to surf porn safely, WUA.

 :drill:   :heart:

Hey, leave John Hodgman alone…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1JIa5r5nkE

Way more true than it should be. You need the computer equivilant of condoms to surf porn on a PC -- firewalls, on-access scanners, shit guarding your Windows settings....

That should be Mac's new slogan: "Mac, because internet porn's better bareback".

It'd sadly be true for any OS with a 90% market share, regardless of underlying architecture. Even condoms are dangerous in the hands of small children.

lol. Try telling any fans of small-fry architecture, or web browsers, or anything that their lack of problems aren't because of flawless application or their competition's flawed approaches --- but because a lot fewer people bother trying to fuck them over.

"Go to the Mac store and cradle one in their arms and gently rock it back and forth," is the most dickless endorsement of a product I've seen in some time.

You know what would make it an excellent product?  The same thing, made watertight and impact resistant, with something to protect the screen.  That would be a fucking near perfect tablet PC, with an obvious purpose.  Buy hey, I'm sure you'll grow to love your iPad, welcome it into your household, and integrate it into your lifestyle.

Don't be a fucking idiot. It's fine to hate to on the iPad but don't ask it to be something so wildly different.

Oh and BTW the thing you are asking for costs > $3000.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/10/panasonics-toughbook-h1-field-makes-pansies-of-those-other-tabl/

Oh, for a lot less $, my OLPC (http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/index.shtml) was fairly durable — I even tested it by bouncing it off the floor…

Too bad I couldn't type on it (to be fair, keyboard meant for elementary school age fingers)… …and worse, when used in eBook mode, I would be frustrated, wanting to touch the screen to control (yeah, iPhone had infected my brain already…)…

The tablet form factor is effectively only good at being durable and usable while standing, and exposes the screen to gouges and scuffs.  It makes no fucking sense to make one that's not meant to be more durable than the average laptop, unless it's small enough that you can slide it into a pocket.  The iPad is an exercise in design looking for a purpose.

Err, so are most CE products. Consumer product design is all about design looking for a purpose. Nobody has asked for an iPad any more than they asked for a Tablet PC or an iPhone or smart phones or any of the other evolutionary products that follow the introduction of a new thing.

Design is only about "solving problems" in specialized cases. Most other times it's about filling store shelves and credit cards.

Having said that, I agree with Trippy on the underwater uses of the iPad. As in, no. It is designed to be used on the couch for specific use cases that don't require you to be compiling code or access your server files or gene sequencing or whatever the heck else people claim they can "just do on a laptop instead" while they're sitting on their couch flipping channels.

Everyone knows that AmigaDOS/Workbench is the One True OS/GUI combination anyway.  :thumbs_up:

Other people have said it, but I will echo the sentiment. Don't be a fucking idiot.

Also, that wan't what I said. I said try one, THEN praise it or bash it. Reading for comprehension is your goddamn friend.

I'm lying on my bed in the morning, typing this on a Samsung NC10 netbook purchased a year ago, which has become my main computer.

It runs XP and has a very comfortable keyboard. I use it at home for website editorial work, everyday tasks/research and entertainment (even played EQ1 on it when I was sick and bored). I've taken it travelling with me twice. I watched seven episodes of 24 on it recently.

It gives at least 4 hours per battery charge, usually 5 hours. It resumes very fast from hibernation. I've put it through hell and it never skips a beat.

I'm definitely now part of the netbook market and there must be many people like me. But the iPad is unappealing. The advantage of this little XP netbook is it's a real computer with a real-feeling keyboard, so it's consistent with my computer at work. The iPad is only consistent with iPhones and while I could watch the episodes of 24, I couldn't alt-tab to my email and work tools like I can on my netbook.

GUIs are for pansies.

VAX VMS or get out.

Yeah, I got what you said, it was just retarded and didn't dignify a serious response.  Hence me making fun of it.  You don't need a Mac store to know whether you want an iPad.  But since you're evidently unable to reason it out for yourself:

The thing is too heavy to be held like a book.  It could be held like a clipboard if you're willing to have it braced against your chest constantly to avoid it putting stress on your wrist.  The wrist strain problem could have been solved with a strap and/or handle that lets you better secure it to your forearm, or with a no-slip rubber coating on the back; but it's too trendy for those concessions to usability.  It's entirely inferior to a laptop for use while sitting or at a table, and inferior to the iPhone for portability and use while standing.  It's storage capacity is pitiful, it's OS is restrictive, you have to use Apple's bullshit dock if you want to plug something in to it, and it's $200 too expensive for a device to surf the web while you watch TV.

This thing is made obsolete by Apple's own fucking iPhone, that's how hard it fails.

That's not the testimony of folks that have actually gotten their hands on one.

I didn't get the iPhone either until I got one and post-iPhone, every other phone is like going back to B&W television (at least until recent round of iPhone knockoffs, no not Palm Pre but Droids and Nexus).

And as a developer that's tinkered a bit with the SDK, there's realms of yet to be imagined and implemented apps that leverage the affordances of multitouch and a larger screen.

Yeah, it's definitely not for everybody and really doesn't compete in the netbook space in many aspects. And it's definitely overpriced, but just like iPhone, I expect that price to be less than $300 or even $200 within a year.

But it's not the same thing as the Windows tablets touted in earlier posts. Anyone saying otherwise is spouting out of pure ignorance.

Thanks for deflecting this back to the chicken and egg argument.  You'll have to forgive my cynicism, but it's in the title of the board: what exactly about a bigger screen makes it iPhone++, rather than the most comically fuckstupid product release I've seen in a while?  No, don't deflect back to the "you'll just have to feel it," we've already established that you're not going to sell me shit if I don't know it's purpose beforehand.

Here's one thought from dude who developed iPhone Facebook App (http://joehewitt.com/post/ipad/) (sorry, may have posted this earlier):


Here's a clarion call for another unique app (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/02/ipad-app-of-my-dreams-the-digital-talking-pad.html), and with this author's following, I wager version(s) of it will be built:


And games, already, a natural platform for board games (http://www.purplepawn.com/2010/02/label-interactive-advertising-ipad-board-games/), and already has a existing library with a title count (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/02/screenshots-from-a-full-screen-ipad-game/) that dwarfs DS, PSP. Most of the EA games (including Madden, Tiger Woods, Sims 3, NBA Live, etc.) are already on the iphone and I suspect they'll more fully supported on the bigger screen iPad (http://www.eamobile.com/iphone-games).

Got it:  Interactive whiteboard, board games, ports from the iPhone, and magic APIs magically making existing apps better.  Why didn't I think of these things as potential new and exciting breakthroughs?

How did you get the impression actual magic wouldn't be involved? This is Apple we're talking about.

Keep justifying your hate because you can't seem to find a use for it. There are plenty of people who can and will.

I'm also having a bit of a problem seeing exactly why I should bother to buy an iPad, simply because I'm not one of those who have to distance myself as far away from PCs as I can to be "hip" or whatever the reasoning is. I use my PC at home for everything, because I think it's usually the best tool for the job. I lug around a laptop when I need to do something semiserious away from work/the apartment.

About the only thing I can see this being useful, is when I'm out photographing and I want to do a bit of previewing before I get back home and sort out the good from the bad pictures. Reading books? Nah. Reading newspapers? Not very likely where I tend to go; no cellphone coverage. Watching a movie? Playing NFS? Come on, I'm a PC gamer, and all the games displayed on the iPad have so far made me think it would be a limpwristed experience.

I actually watched the entire presentation, and the only thing they've done that's "amazing!!!" is, they've made something semi-small, which has pressure-sensitive (I assume) multi-touch capabilities. Anything else they (including steve jobs) said just triggered my bullshit-o-meter. The display is not HUGE. The resolution is not HUGE. The quality is not AMAZING. 10 hours is not AMAZING. Spreadsheets will not be AMAZING and EASY and PROFESSIONAL just because I'd use the iPad.

I guess I'm just too old, too bitter and not hip enough for these kinds of products, but I also don't really see any place in my equipment repetoir for an iPad. I'm sure tons of other people will buy it and probably praise it, but I'm not one of them.

I'll cut you. :x

Haha, Apple wishes. You won't be seeing genuine pressure sensitivity on the iPad or any other touch-based system Apple produce for a couple of generations - the current stock of iPad screens were supposedly bought 3 years ago or more.
It's really only just been made technologically possible thanks to quantum physics! (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8504373.stm). Samsung have already bought license rights.

Adobe has Flash 10.1 beta out (see Anandtech article) and from the looks of it, Flash will now play decently on some netbooks at 480, sometimes even 780. If Adobe gets their shit together and makes Flash not be such a resourch ho, then the iPad may be relegated to Newton status right quick.

Nothing wrong with arguing against the iPad as a business opportunity. It doesn't have a clear market, just a bunch of use cases it isn't for. And it's only gotten all the attention because the most vocal technphiles are recent iPhone converts who can't believe anyone who makes that device wouldn't also make a subsequent device for them.

But analyzing the feel of something you haven't held is like getting into a spitting match over MMOs based on concept sketches.

Or you could just get a copy of this, and read it one-handed without supporting it on your chest.  Go ahead, I'll wait.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c5/I_Am_America_%28And_So_Can_You%21%29.jpg/200px-I_Am_America_%28And_So_Can_You%21%29.jpg)

I don't get people who bash netbooks, telling me that they are worthless.  My netbook rules.  It does everything I need it to do and is everything I want in a portable computer.

It was cheap, it is tiny and can fit into any bag I own (not so large that it requires a special pack - like my old laptop, which wasn't all that big anyway), the battery lasts forever.  I can browse the web, do word processing tasks, play online poker, play Diablo II...

The only reason I ever needed a powerful computer was to play video games... and I don't really do much of that anymore.  MMOs are just dead to me, and I haven't felt the itch to play an FPS in a while.

I think, if anything, ipad is further justification for the netbook market.  It's Apple acknowledging that inexpensive, portable computing is something for which there's a lot of demand.  It's interesting to see them wade into the $500 price range, where previously they were highly dismissive of anything that cheap being any good at all. 

It's also interesting to compare features -- you can get some pretty impressive little machines in the $300-500 market these days.  Machines with 160+GB of storage.  Machines that can play HD video and video games.  Machines that come standard with wordprocessor, spreadsheet, etc, not requiring you to pay extra for those.  Machines that you can write software *on* not just buy software for.

Sure, they're not 1.5lbs and machined from a single piece of aluminum, but it's possible that that's not the only criteria for awesome at the $500 price point.

I'm personally thinking about getting some sort of e-book thingy, but I'm not sure the kindle dx size is really all that useful. It strikes me as too big, normal pocketbook size should probably suffice just fine, as that actually fits into the pockets I usually have available. iPad strikes me as way too big for that. It also strikes me as awkward for use literally anywhere except when you stick it in the keydock, or when used as a showoff device (look at how hip I am to have this device to show off my pictures with which isn't a PC!). Not for serious use when on the move.

I personally feel if you're going for the Kindle DX, wait.  An iPad, Notion Ink Adam, and somesuch in that case will probably do more for you at the same size and weight.  The Kindle 2 on the other hand is the perfect weight for extended one handed reading.  I'd probably give a bit more leeway to an iPad of that size, but I can't see why Apple would ever do that.

Kindle 2 strikes me as the perfect size for reading on the bus. Only thing is maybe get that flash fixed and higher resolution on the display itself.

http://gawker.com/5474900/what-steve-jobs-said-during-his-wall-street-journal-ipad-demo

Few gems from the article:


What about quicktime?


Wow.

We know the whole thing is bs. Ergo, any sort of retcon/justification stated to any audience is bs. There's nothing technical that prevents support for Flash. They just don't want people doing for free what they'd rather charge them for.

Additionally, they talk about Flash with regards to video a lot, and the lack of Flash video support on the iPhone hasn't been a killer. They just coded a YouTube app around it.

So if the Flash topic is predominantly about Flash video, then this won't be a huge issue. For me, it just sucks you won't be playing Facebook or Miniclip games on this almost-a-tablet. But that goes back to the why of it all. And honestly, there's more than enough crap in the App Store to supplement the vast majority of crappy Flash games.

You just get to the stuff differently.

No.

Flash sucks, is a CPU pig, and while may run OK on Windows machines, is not OS X friendly at all. My machine hums along, and I can tell when my browser stumbles across a site with flash when I hear my machine start whirling. While Mr. Jobs might be exaggerating, he's not off the mark in assessing that most all the browser crashes are triggered by Flash plugin.

Now, there's arguments to be made whether Adobe has made a sincere enough effort to optimize Flash runtime on OS X or any OS other than Windows (Flash sucks even worse on Linux) or if as they claim, Apple doesn't let them dive down far enough into the machine internals to provide a more pleasant Flash experience). But Apple can take the posture that Flash is not needed because:

(A) H264 minus Flash is better quality video anyway (BTW, is all that YouTube "app" is doing — it will play just fine from the Safari browser or any other app).

(B) For games, why would one prefer a glitchy, jerky Flash game over a native app, especially when there is a major game maker and/or independent game in any of those genres that far exceed any Flash game.

What about it? Quicktime isn't a format - it's a trade name for a framework that provides access to what are primarily third-party codecs that are licensed by Apple. You can use any viewer application that has Quicktime hooks to access those codecs and you can use non-Quicktime applications and codecs to read the formats that Quicktime does because there's no proprietary formatting involved. Flash just writes non-standard files that use other peoples' codecs (usually grossly out of date versions) so that you have to use their viewer. I'm no fan of Quicktime, particularly the 'Player' app, but I'll take it over Flash any day.

Wait, what? We actually agree here. We're just arguing it from different angles.

• Me: Apple doesn't want to care about Flash for reasons that have more to do with business than with tech.
• You: Technical reasons why Apple shouldn't care about Flash.

We completely agree on there being better video experiences (particularly H.264 once HTML5 takes hold) and better game play experiences (native apps). But it's not like Apple is backing these merely because their underlying tech provides a better user experience. It's because they don't want to use someone else's proprietary player and don't want to shift focus away from revenue-generating apps.

Personally, I can't see Flash doing anything better on an iPhone that a native app couldn't do better anyway. And there's certainly no shortage of app developers.

I hope my iPad was made by 15 year olds making 20 cents an hour.

Does it say something about me that whenever you post one of those cryptic comments Schild I immediately Google it in anticipation of massive win?

I meant to post the link to the article about Apple's cheap fucking factories hiring kids because it's all about the bottom dollar. Oh, and slave wages.

Edit: Here you go:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/27/apple-supplier-audit-reveals-sub-minimum-wage-pay-and-records-of/

I'd say it's massive win, imo. Considering people make Apple out to be more than just another corporation.

Wow. Amazing. A CE company is making stuff where labor is cheap and with (far) less regulations than the U.S.

Welcome to the backbone of a consumer economy. And to 1986.

Yea, I'm sure there might be a few Macolites who are surprised iPads aren't manufactured by 20-somethings at their climate-controlled desks between three hour breaks during their 15 hour work weeks. But this special brand of niavete is relegated only to those who've never even bothered to ask how stuff goes from design to retailer inventory. And this kind of "discovery" can't really get much media coverage because everything happens this way. Everything.

Some reading comprehension is in order here.

Please, if you are in favor of child labour and worker exploitation, the best thing you could do is express your outrage at Apple for independently auditing, investigating, and punishing their suppliers for these practices.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/02/27/apple_taken_to_task_for_reporting_partners_child_labor_violations.html

In other words, Apple getting raked over the coals for performing their own self-discovery of contracted companies.

Unlike most companies, Apple actually bothered to investigate their suppliers and uncover these abuses rather than simply taking them at their word.

I wonder how Dell, for example, stacks up by comparison.

Dude.  Not a good comparison.

Also, although I love to hate Apple, that report did not illicit hatred.  It painted them as at least trying to do the right thing.  And that's more than I can say for most.

Why not? Dell is manufacturing all their own boards, cases, drives and other components right here in the good ol' U S of A?

Prison Like Conditions for Workers Making IBM, Dell, HP, Microsoft… (http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/02/17/234866/prison-like-conditions-for-workers-making-ibm-dell-hp-microsoft-and-lenovo.htm)


http://www.nlcnet.org/article.php?id=613

You know, I never quite understood the issue with wages companies pay in other countries.  I mean the outrage that gets generated with "OMG!  These workers are only being paid $0.41 AN HOUR!!!11!! to make these items for us! HORROR!!"  Except that there is rarely any conversion showing how much that is in local currency and/or what a typical or comparable wage really is.  It's information given in somewhat of a vacuum in order to rile people up, specifically Americans who think everyone in the world should make $15+/hour, be unionized (because that's the shiznit!), and get 15 minute breaks everyone other hour.  It makes no sense.

I'm all for decent working conditions and not treating workers like slaves, but that whole salary thing just baffles me.  It's as if people think those workers should be treated like union autoworkers because that's the bestest work environment evah while completely ignoring that kind of thinking helped to completely fuck over the US automakers.

Or maybe it's just me.

Oh no.. fined for being late to work!

Americans have had this 'the work day starts when I want it to, not my employer' attitude going for a while now. It's getting worse just when it's easiest to export those jobs elsewhere.

Oh, and factory work sucks.  Always has, always will. Particularly the unskilled jobs like, oh... pushing keys into a keyboard.

Labor conditions circa 19th century style.

12 hours shifts, 6-7 days a week, with just barely enough compensation to pay for company provided room and board. And which typically involves a "prison-like" fence and gate structure.

Not to mention the coercion of young females, completely dominated by bossman (i.e., rapes, forced abortions, etc.…).

Yeah, not the case in 100% of contracted manufacturing. But well documented, and indeed the case in a good number instances.

But Americans don't want to hear about this.

We didn't banish slavery and oppressive factory overlords — we just basically enacted a don't ask don't tell exporting of the practice.

Because Dell is at least passing the savings on to us instead of spending it on $900 black turtlenecks.   :awesome_for_real:

Hm, this thread didn't go where I expected. I was making a throwaway comment. I'm not really raged or anything. However, one thing stood out:


This is what they want people to say. Fuck right off with that.

One would think the time for vigilance would be before they set up a manufacturing network and began production, otherwise it looks sort of sordid.

But then they wouldn't be able to reap the profits and then have people say "well, at least they tried to do the right thing"!

Consumer electronics is pretty crazy price competitive and consumers are very sensitive to price.  I don't think it's practical to build mass market consumer electronics locally and hit the kind of prices people want to pay.  The process ends up being too labor intensive and labor is expensive.  Which ends up meaning "manufacture it in China" or the like.

Apple obviously takes a lot of heat because they're larger and they have a "green" image they try to project, but I think they do deserve some credit here for actively auditing their manufacturers and pushing them toward policies more palatable to the western world (even if some would argue they don't go far enough). 

I'm not sure what you mean.  Who is they?

:tinfoil:

Or, you know, they've exposed themselves so they can have their cake and eat it too.  Smart money says they don't go through transaction and employment records to make sure everyone retroactively gets a raise for the time they put in.  Also likely that they'll drop these manufacturers after they're done their run of production and move on to the next set (or an allied manufacturer) without checking for suitable employment standards before production begins.

So, they're "not as bad" as Dell or whoever the fuck you want to single out because they apparently care enough to check for shit like this long after they've started doing business.  Also, since I figure you can expect the workers at these factories to eventually get a raise (you know, after all the negotiations and paperwork goes through) these workers will have a few weeks of pure bliss until production on keyboards or whatever comes to an end and they all get laid off.  Also, a week later the manufacturer will exit the market citing economic hardship, sell off all of it's assets to a corporation that materialized a week before.   The new corporation will gladly honour all the contracts of the old, except labour who were laid off.  But you know, we've got positions open, you might want to walk inside and talk with the foreman...

Sadly, good probability that this is what pans out.

Indeed, the manufacturing of image has supremacy over actual reality.

soooooo

Did anyone purchase one of these yet?

No, but I might later.  For on top of the coffee table where the coffee table books people give us that we don't want sit.  I think it'll look nice there.

Eh, if money wasn't so tight right now… …and didn't have need of a new television also… …really want one, but it hard to justify plunking down cash for something that is mostly going to be a coffee table/bedroom luxury…

I was going to wait until the price dropped (I'm assuming there will be one in the Fall before school starts) to decide if I wanted to get my own but now I can get one through the company I work for so I'll be getting a maxed out 3G model when those become available :grin:

Mine will be waiting for me at work on Monday.

I'm waiting for the 3G version before considering it. I want one, but now we're buying a new house, so I've capped my spend policy :-)

Elegant  :awesome_for_real:

How is your new toy?

Manhattan Mac store, corner of 5th and fiftysomething:


Not sure if the image captures the ginormous line of people wanting to purchase.

And yet, some people just wandered into the local Best Buy and picked one up.  No lines, nothing.  Me, I wouldn't stand in a line like that for anything, not even tickets to Emerson, Lake and Palmer for the Show that Never Starts.

There are things worth standing in line for. Berlin Symphony does Mahler. Pink Floyd in Barcelona. Off the top of my head. Dubious Apple product, on a glorious spring day in Manhattan? Idon'tthinkso.

My faith in nerds has been shaken somewhat by the iPod kilo.  When it was introduced, a lot of reviews were all, 'Oh, it's a giant iPod.'  Because it is in fact a giant iPod.  But those SAME people over the course of two months are now babbling about how it's revolutionizing everything.  Before it even hit any shelves.  Was something added to the water?  Are they dead and replaced by Apple agents?  Or are tech nerds really that pathetically easy to feed a line of bullshit until they buy it?  If it were a fully functional OS X tablet, I'd've been elbowing elderly people in the face to get at one.  But it's a giant iPod.  For twice as much money.  Which I can't take anywhere unless I get a purse.

Have you ever watched an apple product launch before? ^^  Ya gotta give it a few weeks for the reality distortion field to wear off before you get anything besides the rabid pro- or anti-apple ranting.

The thing that has me scratching my head is why in the world do they require you to have a computer with itunes to "activate" this thing.  I mean, really, we got that right in 2001 with hiptop/sidekick, and most modern smartphones are usable without first tethering them to a computer (but not iphone...).  It's just weird.

I see a lot of "this will be great for people who don't like computers", but I'm wondering what happens when they get home with their shiny new ipad and can't use it because they lack a computer to activate it.  #outoftheboxfail

They'll put it on their coffee table and talk about how great it is.

I hadn't heard of that particular piece of stupid.  I've been using my touch as a completely self-contained device for months without syncing.  Song I like on itunes?  Direct download.  New software I want?  Direct download.  The last time I actually plugged the thing into my computer was for the OS update a while ago.

A coworker of mine told me that his was not usable until activated by syncing with itunes, and that in order to use itunes to activate it he had to either have an apple account (itunes account?) or provide name/address/phone/creditcard.  Seems pretty obnoxious to me -- both that you have to sync it with a pc to get going (yuck) and further that you have to setup an account to just use the basic features (like the web browser) as a side-effect.

The iTunes activation is the same as it is with the iPhone and the iPod Touch (contrary to Kitsune's statement). You don't, however, have to be "tethered" to iTunes to buy stuff since the devices all support on device purchasing.

If you don't have a computer you can activate it in store. If you had it shipped to you and don't have access to a computer then good luck to you :awesome_for_real:

It's just such an obvious oversight -- especially given that, duh, you can buy things via itunes without having to sync with your pc.  What possible reason could there be to require tethering for activation?  Best explanation I've heard (from ex-apple folks) is that it's a political / control issue on the side of the itunes group.

I hooked my ipod to my computer first thing, yeah.  But that step just makes sense for an ipod, given that it's a music player and your music's on your computer.  Given that the touch can communicate with your computer wirelessly, it's not so mandatory as it was with previous generations, but I wasn't incensed or anything at having to plug the thing in.  Iphones and ipads, however, are being presented as stand-alone devices, and that tethering requirement is increasingly ludicrous.

It's not an oversight. Apple forces you to register your device with them.

They could easily do that without forcing you to use another computer.  It seems like an unnecessary roadblock, especially if their goal is to try to go mass market as some kind of computer for people who aren't into computers, etc.

It's zealous early adoption syndrome. Apple rely on it, but I think this time round, the drop-off rate is going to be catastrophic. The Air sold bucketloads in the first few weeks, and then everyone realised what a horrible, poorly devised bit of kit it was and it has been Apple's albatross over the last couple of years. When the punters realise the iPad is actually half as useful as the Air and just as impractical, Apple ought to start worrying, or at least pulling their finger the fuck out and getting the 2nd gen (with some actual fucking hardware worth buying) out. Until that time, I remain firmly in the 'haha no' population.

It's also worth noting that unless Apple aggressively price the iPad in the UK and EU, it is going to sink like a stone. $499 for the most basic model is currently around £329 at conversion rates... and that won't take into account a: import costs; b: traditional european tech mark-up; and c: VAT. If the basic, wifi/16gb model goes on sale for more than £399 ($610), Apple are going to have some real trouble shifting units, and the 'fully specced' 3G/64gb models will be simply outrageously priced, more along the lines of £650-700 ($988-1065).

Meh.

He certainly won't be touching me on the wallet.

Steve is currently trying to destroy the platform I've worked on for over five years by way of litigation (using a bunch of pretty absurd patents that illustrate the defects of the uspto and current patent law -- varying cpu voltage to save power? granted in 2008? what a crock, etc, etc).  He may talk a lot of talk about some groups at Google wanting to destroy iPhone (total bullshit), but his actions speak a lot louder than his words.  I only see one party here trying to destroy anything.

If anything, that fucker should be sending us a thank you note for scaring him into shipping an SDK and an app store in 2008 -- it's certainly worked out pretty well for him.

Usually you don't see tech companies devolve into patent trolling outfits until after they've failed miserably, but you know, think different.

The term "patent trolling outfit" is typically applied to companies who do not produce anything related to their patents but who register technologies that are being used in other companies' products. Is it your professional opinion that Apple is doing this as its primary business agenda, or are you simply flinging mud in the hope that some sticks?

Oo Google-fanbois vs Apple-fanbois.... fight!

Just kidding. Does anyone know if you can tether (the real term, not the fake definition you guys are using above) the wifi iPad with your iPhone? How about a jail broke iPhone?

To quote Steve Jobs: "No".

Should be able to.

iPad apparently jailbroken already:

http://www.macnn.com/articles/10/04/04/early.hack.gets.root.on.ipad/

The only thing I actually agreed with Jobs about is the Flash issue.

I think he's positing it as Apple using patents of tech that had been developed previously in other iterations outside of Apple to eliminate competition. Frankly that would be worse than simple patent trolling, but i was willing to cut Quinton some slack. When a man starts fucking with your livelihood, you tend to get a bit more involved.

The only remark I was going to make was that Surlyboi is posting on his laptop and scrolling on the screen as I didn't see tell tale fingerprints on the screen. Perhaps this will make chamois handkerchiefs popular.

Apple is being a giant pile of douches and using bullshit patents to try to shut down competition.  That's a little more than 'lol google fanboys' on the list of corporate douchebaggery.  And amazingly, this lawsuit magically appeared immediately after microsoft showed off their own improved mobile OS that looks like it's actually going to be the first un-shitty wince platform, and targeted the people who'd be manufacturing the bulk of the new windows phones.  Hmmmmmmmmmm.   :oh_i_see:

The entire cell phone industry in the process of sueing itself at any given time. I know this stuff can get personal for those in it, but it's not like Apple is acting any different than, say, Nokia. It's not like they're claiming to "not be evil"  :awesome_for_real:

Nah, that closing line was just me being snarky about their tactics.

I do firmly believe they're spooked by Android's rapid growth (Eric's mention of 60K units/day at MWC was, I believe the first public number we've ever mentioned and it surprised a lot of people) and they've chosen to respond by with litigation rather than competing by improving their phone products.  Specifically they're targeting a successful Taiwanese OEM (so they can try for a fast path ITC injunction, etc), and hoping (I suspect) to frighten smaller shops as a result.  There are plenty of other OEMs that ship Android devices, but getting into a patent litigation war with Motorola, for example, might be unwise.

The mobile space is frickin' enormous, and there's a lot of room for a lot of products out there.  Steve is totally smoking crack if he thinks a single product family from a single company is going to own 80-90% of it like he pulled off in the mp3 player space.  He's also pretty crazy if he thinks he invented mobile phones and can deflect competition there with patent litigation, because the companies that *did* invent mobile phones have shit-tons of patents in this space -- it's just that nobody has been stupid enough to go all scorched earth about it yet.

This is, of course, my personal opinion, as a pissed-off engineer, and I certainly don't speak for Google in an official capacity on anything other than kernel/OS architecture and implementation. ^^

Aaaanyway, to get back on-topic, I borrowed an ipad from a coworker to check it out.  Some first impressions:

- It looks very pretty.  Animation is very clean and smooth.
- It's heavy.
- When holding one-handed, the aluminum cases sharp edges around the bezel cut into my hand -- it hurts to hold it one-handed.
- Apps are slow to launch (2-8 seconds by my stopwatch, from tap icon to app actually up and ready for input)
- Since there's no multitasking / background apps, apps are *always* slow to launch (every start is a cold start)
- Using the keyboard while holding it is not comfortable and setting it down to type is annoying.
- Font quality in the browser seems less impressive than I'd expect from Apple -- maybe just the density is low compared to N1/Droid.
- The 2x scaling mode for legacy iphone apps looks really really bad.  I was expecting a clean 2x scale to look much better.
- The comic viewer wants me to have a marvel.com name/pw to view free content. fail.
- I miss having a back button and instead having to hunt for a back widget onscreen, or cope with app modes where my only choice is to hit the square button to go home.
- youtube video quality is terrible (compare the OK Go Rube Goldberg video at 720p on the desktop to this).  Are they using 480p?  Scaling badly?  This issue doesn't seem to exist in the itunes video player.
- The UI likes to make me reach a long way -- why is the back button all the way in the upper left (if it's onscreen at all) instead of down near where I'm holding the device?
- The UI is crazy inconsistent.  Let's take the app store... there's this side to side coverflow thing at the top (cute)... then there are two separate boxes below with apps listed in them... that you scroll horizontally by tapping arrows embedded in the box borders... and the whole page scrolls vertically... and when you click on an app and go to the info page, the preview screenshots smoothscroll horizontally in an inset window.  It's just all over the map interaction-wise.

Anyway, even ignoring external issues I have with Apple, this one's definitely not for me.  

I was curious about this.  On seeing its dimensions and hearing how much it weighs, one of my first thoughts was "huh, that seems like an uncomfortable combination of sharp and heavy".  I sort of dismissed that as a realistic concern, though, because it seems like it'd be easy enough to round the edges to keep it from scoring the user's hand.  And yet.

This photo is the best I've found so far illustrating the sharp edges around the front side bezel:
http://www.tipb.com/images/stories/2010/04/ipad-gallery-5.jpg

I'm not sure why they didn't machine it so it was smooth.  Seems like a strange decision.