iPad

[Engels]

yada

Really?

It seems Apple drove the smartphone market onwards where circa 2007, it appeared to be in a state of stagnation, with RIM Blackberry basically holding abreast market with awkward and failed stabs by Nokia at regular intervals.

Since then, it's been a non-stop parade of "iPhone killers" and 3 years later, a few phones (Droid, Nexus, Incredible) on par with AND MODELED from iPhone specifications. Phones, I may add, that are near as full featured (though still missing apps like Audible) or greater (better Voice implementation, better screen) but still are subpar in responsiveness and UI.

Now it's going to be 2-3 years of wannabes and "iPad knockoffs" that perhaps in 2012-2013.

I can simultaneously agree with just about everything you said while still worry about what it'll do in the long run. Look at WoW, the equivalent of the iPhone in the MMO world. We are the MMO customers, and I think the majority of us do not like the industry's drive to create a 'WoW killer'. Unfortunately, that's where the investor capital goes, to companies that can replicate the biggest success. Do the customers really want another WoW clone? I don't think so, but unless there's a smattering of that element, devs might not get the funding or support of the big houses.

If it were just about the iPhone, I might be cool with it, since it is, after all, just an appliance. I can't get really bent out of shape over a mobile communication device.

I fully understand Jeff's criticism, and I do think that there's a place for the iPad. Now, that said, this crew is not going to 'learn' anything from Apple. We see and understand fully what they're doing. As users of matured computing devices of all flavors, the Apple Fenced Garden is not for us.

[tgr]

Is being critical of certain products and actions from Apple "slobbering hatred of Apple" now?

[Tebonas]

Roughly as far as praise of certain apple products is Apple fanboism.

[Jeff Kelly]

I agree with your concern Engels.

It's basically the same reflex. We don't really understand the success of the product but we want a piece of the action so we copy it.

It's basically the next level of not having a clue.

But that's not what I meant.

The only lesson other game publisher learned from WoW was that they needed an exact WoW clone, as well as the only lesson other mobile device companies learned from the iPhone was that they needed their own iPhone.

It's what I said, to this day they haven't the faintest clue what drives people to choose an Apple product over their 'superior' offerings. Just like game companies don't have the faintest clue what made WoW successful so they can only copy it.

Alas those copycats usually fail because since they don't know what made those products successful in the first place they don't even know what to copy and in what detail.

To make a better product they'd first need to understand why those products are successful and what their weak spots are.
Or to which target audience they cater and find a different audience with different tastes and needs.

You can't be everything to everybody.

Belitteling the customers of ones competition however just shows that somebody is so single minded that he can't even imagine anyone having different tastes let alone learn from the success stories.

[Prospero]

Is being critical of certain products and actions from Apple "slobbering hatred of Apple" now?

Being critical? No. Mahrin's ramble however was pretty slobbering. A number of of the posts in this thread make it sound like this pointless device is going to destroy computing as we know it, or is some how forcing dumb people to buy it and then screwing them over. That's pretty slobbering my opinion.

I get equally annoyed at rabid anti-MS sentiment by Linux weenies. Linux weenies however are always fair game.

[tgr]

Oh. With the way you kept wording it, it sounded like you were pointing fingers at everyone in here that wasn't literally singing the praises of the iPad and Apple.

[Ingmar]

a few phones (Droid, Nexus, Incredible) on par with AND MODELED from iPhone specifications

I can't speak to the others but if you're familiar with HTC phones, the Droid is very clearly a descendant of the Wizard/TyTn/Tilt series, which predates the iPhone by at least 2 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Wizard

There are very few hardware similarities to the iPhone at all.

[Prospero]

Sorry about that tgr; I should have a had whitelist of the non-slobbering folks.

[Trippy]

Like a lot of people I find Apple's draconian application framework deplorable. But here's the thing - if you don't like it don't develop for it. I mean I hear Android is doing awesome (beating iPhone OS in market share) so develop for that. If the Emperor wears no clothes why are you so worried about the criteria to be his tailor?

Assuming you can only develop for one platform and not both and you are doing a paid app, the installed base of Android phones would have to be around an order of magnitude larger (yes 10x) than the iPhones for it to be roughly equivalent in terms of sales potential. Here's why:

* Android's refund policy on paid apps fucks over publishers. Some companies report >= 50% return rates on their apps. The iPhone paid app market is heavily driven by the $0.99 "impulse buy". That doesn't really exist on Android.

* Android owners don't buy nearly as many apps as iPhone owners. Some estimates put it at 1/10 the amount (that's your order of magnitude right there).

* It's very easy to configure an Android phone to download apps from sources other than the Android Market. I.e. it's far easier to pirate software on Android than on the iPhone.

[Prospero]

It's also a bitch to develop for Android because of the huge array of handsets. I looked at building my game for the Android platform and ran away screaming when I saw how much work it would be to handle all the different handsets properly. If it was my full time job I'd man up and do it, but it's not worth sacrificing extra nights and weekends to make my stuff run well with different interfaces, not to mention the price of getting a number of test devices. Android is awesome, but freedom has its price too.

[Quinton]

Assuming you can only develop for one platform and not both and you are doing a paid app, the installed base of Android phones would have to be around an order of magnitude larger (yes 10x) than the iPhones for it to be roughly equivalent in terms of sales potential. Here's why:

* Android's refund policy on paid apps fucks over publishers. Some companies report >= 50% return rates on their apps. The iPhone paid app market is heavily driven by the $0.99 "impulse buy". That doesn't really exist on Android.

* Android owners don't buy nearly as many apps as iPhone owners. Some estimates put it at 1/10 the amount (that's your order of magnitude right there).

* It's very easy to configure an Android phone to download apps from sources other than the Android Market. I.e. it's far easier to pirate software on Android than on the iPhone.

I'm hoping our market folks will be able to put together some public stats and presentations on all of this, but I will go so far as to say that a lot of the anecdotal evidence about returns and sales rates don't mesh with the actual hard numbers on this stuff.

Total agreement that app sales are directly impacted by overall handset volume, but that is going in the right direction.

I hear the same anecdotal evidence from some developers about rampant piracy on iphone destroying their sales (which given that I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of iphone users, like the vast majority of android users run a stock OS because it's easier and is perceived safer, I'm skeptical about too).

[Quinton]

It just seems like there is a whole lotta extra nerd rage in this thread( amongst a number of people ) because it is Apple, and I don't understand why. I understand why Quinton hates them, but that's a bit more personal.

Well to be fair I have some severe issues with Steve and Apple management because they're using some pretty slimy tactics instead of just competing directly, productwise.  I don't generally "hate Apple" or Apple employees.  It's a small industry and a smaller bay area and a lot of these people are people I've worked with before (some excellent folks I worked with at Danger were key 1st-gen iPhone folks afterwards, starting at Apple around the same time I went to Android/Google), and people I'll work with again.

I am strongly opposed to closed, walled garden platforms on principle as a software engineer, hacker, end user, etc -- I think for general computing devices this is a huge step backward and in the long run hurts the industry and the end users.  I think further that even in the context of a closed ecosystem, the "no languages but those that Steve blesses" policy is impressively backwards and limiting.

I'd prefer game consoles to be more open as well, but game consoles are not quite the same level of general purpose computing (based on capabilities, formfactor, and limitation of purpose (though the latter is somewhat artificial given modern consoles)) as handhelds, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers.

At the end of the day it is of course Apple's right to sell their devices as locked down, walled garden experiences, and unless they actually obtain some kind of complete monopoly on computing devices (highly unlikely) you don't need government regulation or whatever to fix that.  The market will sort it out, as it has in the past.

[Trippy]

It's also a bitch to develop for Android because of the huge array of handsets. I looked at building my game for the Android platform and ran away screaming when I saw how much work it would be to handle all the different handsets properly. If it was my full time job I'd man up and do it, but it's not worth sacrificing extra nights and weekends to make my stuff run well with different interfaces, not to mention the price of getting a number of test devices. Android is awesome, but freedom has its price too.

This is now a problem on the iPhone too, though not to the extent on Android. Even if you ignore the original iPhone, just supporting both the 3G and the 3Gs can be a problem with cutting-edge applications because the hardware is so much better on the 3Gs. The iPod Touches have their own problems as well and now there's the iPad too.

[Ginaz]

I wouldn't have a problem with Apple and their products if: A) they didn't cost 2 or 3 times as much as a similar non-Apple product and B) their overall douchbaggery when it comes to the restrictions it puts on apps and what you can and can't do with an Apple product.  That and a lot of Apple "enthusiasts" are way too smug and arrogant.

WRT pricing, I had a pc built last year with the following specs: i7-920 cpu, 6 GB DDR3 RAM, Radeon 5870, 128 GB SSD, 600 GB 7200 rpm HD.  With taxes and everything (pc's cost more in Canada) it was just over $2500.  You can't get a Mac for anywhere near that price that comes even close to what it can do.  My pc would curb stomp just about any Mac out there, certainly any Mac thats around $2500.  As well, I also recently bought a notebook that ended up costing me a little over $800 with the following specs: i5-430m cpu, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470, 500 GB HD, 17" 16:9 screen, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.  Again, I challenge anyone to find a similar Macbook for a comparable price.  In fact, I don't think you can get a new Macbook for under $1000.  

As for the iPad, I might have been interested in it if it didn't cost so damn much.  From what I understand, the $500 version is just the basic one.  Most  people would probably want an upgraded model, which could end up costing close to what I paid for a fully functional notebook.  If they drop the price a few hundred dollars ($300 and under for something more than the basic version) than I might buy it.  Until then, its just not worth it for me.  Of course, this is all coming from someone who doesn't own a cell phone of any kind and has never been on Facebook or "tweeted" with Twitter.

[Prospero]

I agree Trippy; there are a number of variants in Apple land, but it's easily an order of magnitude less. Developing for mobile by definition means dealing with a lot of platform variants, but I find the number of different input schemes on Android phones daunting. For better or worse with Apple you only have touch screens to worry about.

Considering the parts breakdown for an iPad runs at $260, I'm pretty sure they won't be releasing a $300 dollar version any time soon. 9" IPS screens aren't cheap, which is where netbooks seem to skimp. I've never seen an impressive netbook screen, although I am sure there are some out there somewhere.

[OcellotJenkins]

A) they didn't cost 2 or 3 times as much as a similar non-Apple product ...

WRT pricing, I had a pc built last year with the following specs: i7-920 cpu, 6 GB DDR3 RAM, Radeon 5870, 128 GB SSD, 600 GB 7200 rpm HD.  With taxes and everything (pc's cost more in Canada) it was just over $2500.  You can't get a Mac for anywhere near that price that comes even close to what it can do.  My pc would curb stomp just about any Mac out there, certainly any Mac thats around $2500.  

Let's not get carried away now.  You have a better video card and an SSD but:



You can configure an iMac with a core i7 that comes close to yours for near the price you paid.  You also didn't mention a display.

[Engels]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.383180

and then throw in any of the 27" monitors found on NewEgg and you're still a good 300 bucks below the Core i5 pricing. Remember, with the exception of the $2k one, all that stuff is old hardware they're trying to get rid of. Especially the first one with the 9400M graphics. Its daylight robbery, to be honest. Even the Core i5 has a 2nd gen vid card.

[MahrinSkel]

To be fair, your list is missing an OS, which could eat anywhere from $90 to the full $300 for Windows.  It also doesn't have a hard drive, or an optical drive.  I think he's got you on this one.

--Dave

[Engels]

<shakes fist!> Ok, I won't be lazy next time 

[Quinton]

This is now a problem on the iPhone too, though not to the extent on Android. Even if you ignore the original iPhone, just supporting both the 3G and the 3Gs can be a problem with cutting-edge applications because the hardware is so much better on the 3Gs. The iPod Touches have their own problems as well and now there's the iPad too.

Apple gets a free pass on the "omg fragmentation doom and gloom!" stories, because you know they can do no wrong.  (disclosure: I may have slight bitterness about them having amazing PR ^^)

But as of iPhone 4G, it looks like they'll be supporting 3 different resolutions, 3 different densities, 3-4 different performance categories (cpu/ram/gpu combo), software features (like "multitasking(tm)(r)(invented by steve)") that don't work on maybe 1/4-1/2 of the installed userbase (somebody have numbers on the various generations of iphone/ipod/etc), etc, etc.

Does Apple have some sane framework for dealing with multiple resolutions/densities/etc?  I know nothing about their application level APIs (I barely know anything about *our* app level APIs, I'm a kernel engineer).  That's something that's been in Android since 1.0, as the framework team, having been through this issue at Be, Palm, Danger, etc designed it in from day one.

[Trippy]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.383180

and then throw in any of the 27" monitors found on NewEgg and you're still a good 300 bucks below the Core i5 pricing. Remember, with the exception of the $2k one, all that stuff is old hardware they're trying to get rid of. Especially the first one with the 9400M graphics. Its daylight robbery, to be honest. Even the Core i5 has a 2nd gen vid card.

The roughly equivalent* 27" monitor to the one on the 27" iMac (IPS, 2560 x 1440) is $1200 *by itself*. Your Newegg build plus the Dell 27" monitor is ~$400 more expensive than the quad-core iMac.

* Roughly because the Mac display is LED-backliit while the Dell is not so an equivalent LED-backlit Dell would be even more expensive.

[Prospero]

The APIs for dealing with multiple devices are fairly sane. You can easily find out what capabilities the device has and what resolution it can support. Resolution changes seem to be dealt with automatically by the windowing framework; if you want to use the same UI for the iPad you just set auto-scale to true and you're off the races. It won't be pretty necessarily, but it'll work. They have hooks to swap your view/controllers when the user changes the orientation and for when the user connects to an external monitor.

[Ginaz]

A) they didn't cost 2 or 3 times as much as a similar non-Apple product ...

WRT pricing, I had a pc built last year with the following specs: i7-920 cpu, 6 GB DDR3 RAM, Radeon 5870, 128 GB SSD, 600 GB 7200 rpm HD.  With taxes and everything (pc's cost more in Canada) it was just over $2500.  You can't get a Mac for anywhere near that price that comes even close to what it can do.  My pc would curb stomp just about any Mac out there, certainly any Mac thats around $2500.  

Let's not get carried away now.  You have a better video card and an SSD but:



You can configure an iMac with a core i7 that comes close to yours for near the price you paid.  You also didn't mention a display.

http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_mac/family/imac?mco=MTQzMDMxODY

Apart from the high end one, the rest of the iMac choices are way overpriced when you compare them their pc counterparts.  Even the iMac that comes close to what I have would still be almost as expensive if you tried to configure it to come close to my pc (more ram, the i7 cpu) and even then you would still have a lesser video card and no SSD.  I'm also able to reliably overclock my cpu with a heatsink and have enough cooling with a full tower case.  Which brings up another point.  How upgradable is an iMac compared to a pc?  I ask this because I tend to get a pc built and then add parts to it that I canabalized from my old pc or swap out the video card and ram for updated ones.  There wasn't too much to add with my current one except adding in my old hd, which was super easy thanks to the sliding trays in my case.  The $2500 CDN I mentioned included the 23" one that I bought with it.

http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro?mco=MTM3NDc2NDA

When it comes to my notebook vs. a Macbook, thats where the price difference for performance really becomes clearer.  As I mentioned, mine cost my roughly $800 CDN after all was said and done.  A 17" Macbook with similar specs....$2349 CDN.  Unless you have a very specific reason that absolutely requires you to use a Macbook, anyone that would knowingly pay over $1500 more for a Macbook over a notebook is on glue.

As for the iPad, if they don't change the 3G pricing plans here in Canada I suspect it won't be the roaring success that many people believe it will be.

http://blogs.canoe.ca/loadthis/general/ipad-in-canada-we-pay-more/

[Engels]

This is as close a mimic as I could do on NewEgg to the Apple quadcore. I could have shaved off a bit more if I hadn't included a USB 3.0/Sata6 motherboard from Gigabyte, but I wanted to emulate Apple's high quality hardware standards as much as possible.


That's without the monitor. However, I'm not sure its 100% fair to compare the Dell or equivalent NEC IPS monitor with the Apple monitor. Apple monitors, from my past experience, keep the color fidelity and viewing angles of other IPS screens, but have very high response times (30 inch correlate has 14 ms response time), since they do not focus on gaming.  I couldn't quickly verify this iMac's response times. The Dell and select NEC monitors are that pricey because they not only have studio quality image reproduction but also are very very responsive graphically. Maybe this Apple monitor is different.

That said, I'm backing off my prior claim; if gaming isn't your thing, and you like Snow Leopard as an OS, then this is fairly decent in pricing.

[Trippy]

That's without the monitor. However, I'm not sure its 100% fair to compare the Dell or equivalent NEC IPS monitor with the Apple monitor. Apple monitors, from my past experience, keep the color fidelity and viewing angles of other IPS screens, but have very high response times (30 inch correlate has 14 ms response time), since they do not focus on gaming.  I couldn't quickly verify this iMac's response times. The Dell and select NEC monitors are that pricey because they not only have studio quality image reproduction but also are very very responsive graphically. Maybe this Apple monitor is different.

Assuming you are starting with the same panel (and there's probably only one manufacturer making that particular IPS panel), faster response times means more input lag on IPS and *VA panels so that's a tradeoff when gaming. Also again the Dell isn't LED-backlit.

[Righ]

Unless you have a very specific reason that absolutely requires you to use a Macbook, anyone that would knowingly pay over $1500 more for a Macbook over a notebook is on glue.

Don't be ridiculous. Glue is for poor people who don't have access to better drugs - like PC users.

[Engels]

That's without the monitor. However, I'm not sure its 100% fair to compare the Dell or equivalent NEC IPS monitor with the Apple monitor. Apple monitors, from my past experience, keep the color fidelity and viewing angles of other IPS screens, but have very high response times (30 inch correlate has 14 ms response time), since they do not focus on gaming.  I couldn't quickly verify this iMac's response times. The Dell and select NEC monitors are that pricey because they not only have studio quality image reproduction but also are very very responsive graphically. Maybe this Apple monitor is different.

Assuming you are starting with the same panel (and there's probably only one manufacturer making that particular IPS panel), faster response times means more input lag on IPS and *VA panels so that's a tradeoff when gaming. Also again the Dell isn't LED-backlit.

Tis true. Its very hard to get specs on particular monitor's input lag. From what I understand, most IPS only seem to lag between 20 and 60 ms, which at 60 hz is about a 2 fps loss. It seems low, but someone super twitchy might notice.

[naum]

Unless you have a very specific reason that absolutely requires you to use a Macbook, anyone that would knowingly pay over $1500 more for a Macbook over a notebook is on glue.

Don't be ridiculous. Glue is for poor people who don't have access to better drugs - like PC users.

If you sit on, sleep on, stare at, or touch something for more than an hour a day, spend whatever it takes to get the best.

[Mrbloodworth]

Real AD.

[Mattemeo]

That's a hell of a classy 'fuck you very much' right there.

[Surlyboi]

a rebuttal

[Teleku]

a rebuttal

Weak.

[Quinton]

Yeah, Adobe's "flash is open" argument is pretty absurd.

I think they can make a much more reasonable argument about section 331 and CS5, but of course that's an argument that appeals much more to developers than the general public, so instead they're going after "save flash!" and "flash is open!" which is rather silly.

Apple's policy disallowing third party development tools is dangerous and broken.  One *might* liken it to Adobe's policy where the flash spec is free as long as you're developing only a player/viewer...

Apple has every right to not include flash in their browser.

Apple also has every right to disallow other browsers with flash, but I think that's a pretty crappy policy.

[squirrel]

a rebuttal

Weak.

But true. Anyway they're both being assholes.

My bigger concern in Apple's policy is what it means for people using frameworks like Unity 3D to develop for the iPhone. Small indie shops could end up as collateral damage.

[Mattemeo]

a rebuttal

From an anti-flash mac zealot blogger. Who'da thunk it?