iPad

[Trippy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NMThbkuf6E

That guy is so busted.

[Prospero]

I've only spent a few hours with mine at this point, but here are my impressions so far.

• It's definitely heavy, but not arm breaking heavy. I'd probably want to be able to rest it on something if I were reading for a couple hours, but I generally find that to be true with normal books.
• The screen is really beautiful. Great viewing angle and the color and resolution are stellar.
• The picture frame feature is almost worth the price of entry because of said screen. They need library auto-updating over WiFi.
• Everything feels snappy except app loading times. Those seem to vary wildly.
• The touch screen is a joy. It may be the extra muscle of the iPad processor compared to my phone, but it's pleasantly sensitive.
• The mail app still needs away so I can flag my god damned messages. Otherwise solid. Photo apps is good too.
• The battery life is awesome. I streamed movies from netflix for a couple hours and the battery dropped about 10%.
• It seems like a good ebook reader if you are a casual ebook reader. I can't imagine Kindle die hards switching over to this thing entirely.

I'm not sure this is the revolutionary device the faithful want it to be, but it doesn't suck either. It's just a big iPod, but they seem to have used the additional screen space and horsepower well.

[ahoythematey]

So, the current verdict is it's a really nice almost-portable video player with some extras that work well?

[Sheepherder]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NMThbkuf6E

What a douche.

[NiX]

The battery life is awesome. I streamed movies from netflix for a couple hours and the battery dropped about 10%.

In my experience, it's a couple months down the road when you've given it some heavy use that apple products really show their battery life. My iPod mini nosedived after about 2 months.

[AutomaticZen]

Got some time to mess with the iPad, as we got one at work for development purposes.

It's a bit heavy for continuous use, so either you're holding it double-hand style or leaning it against something like your leg. If you're a bed reader, this is strictly a 'sit up in bed and read' kinda thing, not a 'lay on your side and hold one-handed'.

The keyboard is landscape is very nice, and doesn't feel bad for someone with big hands. The only problem is again, you lay it flat (which messes with your viewing angle a bit) or you have to lean it up against your leg.

Everything runs quite smoothly and the screen is a treat.

Randomly, tried out the music player... no Cover Flow? Huh? Just seems like a random omission.

The big fun is the Marvel Comics app. Great presentation.

The work apps are doable, but efficient? Nah. But then again, some will say that's not what this is for. If you're in a pinch and the iPad is all you got, you certainly could bang out a presentation or document. That Apple doesn't have a native PDF reader is a bit of a headscratcher. A couple of the third party apps will do you fine though. The PDF>ePub conversion tool is hit or miss.

In closing, it's nice, but not $500 nice. It's a luxury lifestyle item if you have the money to burn at this point. I'm not seeing grandma using it too long due to the weight of the thing. It is a definite conversation piece. Decent start.

[HaemishM]

So is there anyway to browse the iPad's bookstore without being on in iPad? Smashwords was supposed to make my eBook available in the iPad bookstore and I want to check up on it, yet I can't find a link to it.

[Prospero]

No clue, but I just checked the store. If the name of your book is the one in your sig, it's not there.

[Prospero]

So, the current verdict is it's a really nice almost-portable video player with some extras that work well?

It's a device for consuming any type of media relatively well. I'm not sure I get the almost portable statement; it's definitely quite portable.

[HaemishM]

No clue, but I just checked the store. If the name of your book is the one in your sig, it's not there.

Thanks for looking. It may take a bit for the Smashwords titles to show up, as they are still working out the kinks.

And yes, I discovered there is no way to view the iPad bookstore without an iPad.

[ahoythematey]

Not sure if this has been posted yet, but $499 iPad components estimated at $260.

[Quinton]

Yeah those teardown studies are always a bit absurd though.  They don't take into account assembly costs, expensive upfront costs like tooling, license costs (for mpeg, radio technologies, etc, etc) and so on.  I doubt Apple is losing money on these, but the cost to build an ipad is definitely a good chunk more than the estimated raw cost of its components.

[ahoythematey]

No doubt.  I just thought the closeness of component cost for the different units was interesting.

[Engels]

No clue, but I just checked the store. If the name of your book is the one in your sig, it's not there.

Thanks for looking. It may take a bit for the Smashwords titles to show up, as they are still working out the kinks.

And yes, I discovered there is no way to view the iPad bookstore without an iPad.

Haemish, Got your book dl'd to my iPad and it looks fab, so it is at least available if you already had it for the kindle.

[Quinton]

No doubt.  I just thought the closeness of component cost for the different units was interesting.

Oh definitely -- the memory upgrades are almost all margin.  The $499 price is to stay "under" the five hundred dollar cliff, but the hope is obviously that once you decide to take the plunge you'll spring for the memory and/or 3g radio (unlikely to be as much margin in the radio, but I bet there's still plenty).

[Jeff Kelly]

There is plenty of margin in the 3G radio upgrade. The whole setup including 3G radio GPS and Antenna is probably under $20.

On the other hand don't underestimate the cost of flash memory. It's still rather expensive

[KallDrexx]

There is plenty of margin in the 3G radio upgrade. The whole setup including 3G radio GPS and Antenna is probably under $20.

On the other hand don't underestimate the cost of flash memory. It's still rather expensive

GSM radios come with hefty patent license fees from what I hear though.

[Mrbloodworth]

Yes, Flash is comparatively slow

Negative, its slow on machines that intentional restrict access to hardware and other resources. Anything else, is just bad code/use of flash itself. We are not talking VM's here.  

Bullshit.

As subpar (compared to Windows) as Flash runs on the Apple platform, it's even worse on Linux where there is nearly no "restricted access to hardware and other resources" — where we're looking at the same hardware, but a Penguin instead of Microsoft Bob (or whatever the old clippy animation was).

Regarding web usage of Flash — yes, video is far from the only thing that Flash does, but it's the main usage of Flash on the web. Though other application usages are just as affected…

* …animated image banners — easily done with JS frameworks like jQuery, Prototype, MooTools, YUI, etc.… …and if you hadn't noticed, new site refreshes are dumping the flash in lieu of JS solutions.

* …games — yeah, not going away immediately, but I suspect HTML 5 will supplant this too — if Quake can be written in HTML 5, I'm sure most of the silly Flash games can be too. Also, the biggest FB game maker, Zynga, is eagerly porting its games to the iPad/iPhone platform.

* …other — documents? Audio? These are subpar web alternatives even today.

Ok, sorry, but you kinda sound like this programmer I worked with one that wanted to stop using flash for course ware, and go back to java script and IE6 filters.    For the record, Quake can be done in flash.  There is even a version that contains Hexen, quake, Duke Nukem and such.

Video in HTML 5 is still dependent on the browser having the codex, its just a tag. They are also reinventing the wheel with the canvas.

[caladein]

Yeah, but if the wheel innately explodes randomly I don't see reinventing it as a problem.

[Mrbloodworth]

Yeah, but if the wheel innately explodes randomly I don't see reinventing it as a problem.

I was not referring to flash. There already entire tool chains for things like SVG and other solutions. This smells to me of a proprietary format war.

[Engels]

Can someone refresh me on these nightmares that Flash is meant to permit? I have never had anything significant crash using Flash. The occasionally web based flash game that was probably coded poorly in the first place. I'm also wondering about these security vulnerabilities Flash is meant to have. I know that they exist, but I have never heard of someone getting a trojan or being a victim of identity theft or whathaveyou from a flash-based object.

[Chimpy]

I think the real problem Steve Jobs has with Flash is not necessarily about what format to use, but more about Adobe's inability to make Flash anything but a dog for non-windows platforms.

Apple decided to dump the technology they had, Display PostScript from NeXt and use PDF as the basis for their drawing engine for Mac OSX (which I am sure Apple does not get to license from Adobe for free) yet Adobe still has been unable to make a single version of Flash player run respectably well on OS X in comparison to Windows, even as Apple's market share has gone up. It is even more disturbing when you think on the fact that Adobe has a lot of people who have been making some of their other programs perform better on OS X than in Windows for years.

Adobe just seems to be either unwilling or unable to make Flash player at least comparable in performance on other platforms.

[Engels]

I think you missed the article earlier on where it's Apple's unwillingness to give Flash the code hooks it needs that makes Flash a dog in OSX.

[Quinton]

There is plenty of margin in the 3G radio upgrade. The whole setup including 3G radio GPS and Antenna is probably under $20.

On the other hand don't underestimate the cost of flash memory. It's still rather expensive

GSM radios come with hefty patent license fees from what I hear though.

Even beyond that, $20 sounds awfully cheap for the pcb, processor/ram/flash/dsp, analog radio, power amps, various discrete components, assembly, test, calibration, etc.  I'm sure there's plenty of margin in the 3G add-ons for ipad, but I doubt it's as much as in the flash case.

[naum]

I think you missed the article earlier on where it's Apple's unwillingness to give Flash the code hooks it needs that makes Flash a dog in OSX.

Again, bullshit.

If that's true why does Flash exhibit even more subpar performance on Linux machines. Or why Adobe Air wouldn't even run on Linux for a long time after it could run on Mac and Windows.

[Quinton]

In any case, I think today's updated developer policy by Apple which bans *languages* other than C, C++, objC, and javascript from being used in ip*d apps makes it abundantly clear that the anti-flash stance is primarily a business/competitive issue, not a technical one.

Their requirements that you only use public APIs are not unreasonable, but discriminating against native ARM instruction set *binary* apps based on the *source language* they were compiled from is quite absurd.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/08/apples-iphone-lockdown-apps-must-be-written-in-one-of-three-la/

[naum]

In any case, I think today's updated developer policy by Apple which bans *languages* other than C, C++, objC, and javascript from being used in ip*d apps makes it abundantly clear that the anti-flash stance is primarily a business/competitive issue, not a technical one.

Yes, Apple & Jobs are being royal pricks in this matter and it not only affects Adobe, but a bunch of other libraries used to create iPhone/iPad apps sans Objective-C. There's a Lua library, PhoneGap (using Javascript and HTML5 to create not just a web application but a standalone app w/Obj C wrapper), etc.…

…I only hope they setting themselves up for sort of restraint of trade or antitrust prosecution but there probably be fat chance of that.

And the same on the patent folly, though it isn't like Apple Jobs is the lone wolf in that regard. "Don't Be Evil" Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.… all are engaged in the same ploy. Even IBM (though I haven't explored the matter beyond the headlines) has been recently accused of going back on its word in a similar vein.

[Trippy]

In any case, I think today's updated developer policy by Apple which bans *languages* other than C, C++, objC, and javascript from being used in ip*d apps makes it abundantly clear that the anti-flash stance is primarily a business/competitive issue, not a technical one.

Their requirements that you only use public APIs are not unreasonable, but discriminating against native ARM instruction set *binary* apps based on the *source language* they were compiled from is quite absurd.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/08/apples-iphone-lockdown-apps-must-be-written-in-one-of-three-la/

Yes John Gruber wrote an article about this:

http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/why_apple_changed_section_331

Edit: John

[Quinton]

And the same on the patent folly, though it isn't like Apple Jobs is the lone wolf in that regard. "Don't Be Evil" Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.… all are engaged in the same ploy. Even IBM (though I haven't explored the matter beyond the headlines) has been recently accused of going back on its word in a similar vein.

Pardon?  Please to be showing me a case of Google initiating patent litigation against a competitor (or anyone).

[Quinton]

In any case, I think today's updated developer policy by Apple which bans *languages* other than C, C++, objC, and javascript from being used in ip*d apps makes it abundantly clear that the anti-flash stance is primarily a business/competitive issue, not a technical one.

Their requirements that you only use public APIs are not unreasonable, but discriminating against native ARM instruction set *binary* apps based on the *source language* they were compiled from is quite absurd.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/08/apples-iphone-lockdown-apps-must-be-written-in-one-of-three-la/

Yes John Gruber wrote an article about this:

http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/why_apple_changed_section_331

He's pretty full of crap.  I assume by the same logic he would excuse Apple for forbidding apps that use any kind of framework or library between the Apple APIs and the application logic.  Which is just as absurd.

The whole "Apple protects users from Bad Apps" thing is a crock of shit.  There's plenty of terrible apps in the App Store.  Using that as a justification for this nonsense (forbidding *source* languages) is embarrassing.

It's amazing how the Apple Faithful buy into this bullshit.

[Trippy]

He's actually agreeing with you:

I’m not arguing that it’s anything other than ruthless competitiveness. I’m not arguing (up to this point) that it benefits anyone other than Apple itself. I’m just arguing that it makes sense from Apple’s perspective — and it was Apple’s decision to make.

[Quinton]

He also says:

My opinion is that iPhone users will be well-served by this rule. The App Store is not lacking for quantity of titles.

Which is a typical "well you don't need *that* choice because Steve gave you good enough choices already" justification.  Are iPhone users well-served by not having good Google Voice integration?  Are they well-served by not being able to install a third party browser that supports flash, if they should want such a thing?  Really?

[Tebonas]

There really should be a dummy mode and an extended mode where every would-be expert can install whatever he likes on the iPhone.

Like legalizing jaibreak. If they give the caveat that they stop guaranteeing your phone works after you did that, it shouldn't be too much of a problem for their customer support. It just needs to be hammered into public perception that it is your fault if you break it after that.

But yes, the main problem to their argument is that it sounds good if they say they make it for quality and stability purposes, until you see what crappy software is already sold in the itunes store.

[KallDrexx]

I like Steve's quote yesterday about how Android has porn apps, and how will you protect the kids.  Like the kids can't already go to iphone porn websites and such...

[Mrbloodworth]

I think you missed the article earlier on where it's Apple's unwillingness to give Flash the code hooks it needs that makes Flash a dog in OSX.

Again, bullshit.

If that's true why does Flash exhibit even more subpar performance on Linux machines. Or why Adobe Air wouldn't even run on Linux for a long time after it could run on Mac and Windows.

First, its not bullshit, maybe it will change soon. Second, when has Linux ever been a factor in deciding end user experiences, or other commercial endeavors? Outside of servers, Linux is a niche for end users.

OS Platform Statistics

You can cry foul all day long, but companies and developers design for the possibility of the largest compatibility. Linux is not it. There have already been large increases in 10, but to expect adobe to dump huge amounts of cash to an OS that makes up a tiny 4% of total users in the world is, well just silly, even if they are addressing the issue. Especially when that OS simply refuses to give hardware support, one of the main components to flash video in HD resolutions.

Also: Packager for iPhone