I’m visiting my family and there’s been an iPad around the house since yesterday morning. My main thoughts on it are:
- It’s much easier to type than I expected. I have a very hard time typing on the phone and none on the pad. It’s not like typing on a real keyboard and if I used it for serious typing, my fingers would get tired. But for composing short emails and the like, it works well.
- It’s terrific for reading magazine articles and websites, much better than a computer. I don’t know yet how it works for books.
- It needs a better file management system, some way of storing pdf files and djvu files so that you can search them all at once with something like Spotlight. I don’t think this thing is going to work properly on the iPhone operating system, it’s going to need something different/better.
- The iPhone apps look awful on it. There aren’t enough native iPad apps yet.
I’m definitely going to get one for work. I think every scholar and student is going to want go get one. But I don’t know if it is quite as useful a “Swiss Army Knife” device as the phone is.
The Dr
You mentioned students. Anyone know if they are going to release textbooks (specifically for me law school books) in e-book format for it? I’ve been ready to buy a kindle for my law school books, but they don’t offer them for it. I’d buy one tomorrow (put myself on a waiting list) if I could get my books on it rather than having to buy the real ones.
kid bitzer
this fits with the general take that it’s an iphone for the large-type edition crowd, ie old folks with failing eyesight and non-typing thumbs.
which is a pretty damning review unless you’re a baby boomer in which case: i want one.
dr. bloor
Agent D–do you see this as being a replacement for current stuff, or as a fun/helpful addition?
I sort of like the idea, but I think I’m too old to appreciate it. I have one of the semi-tricked up Verizon iPhone wannabes, and all I do with it is talk on the phone.
Undercover FBI Agent DougJ
Anyone know if they are going to release textbooks (specifically for me law school books) in e-book format for it?
I haven’t heard but I assume they will. Also, once they put a good djvu reader on it, there may be, ahem, other ways to get the books.
Undercover FBI Agent DougJ
Agent D—do you see this as being a replacement for current stuff, or as a fun/helpful addition?
Fun/helpful addition.
dmsilev
You tempt me. I need to play with one myself to see what it feels like before shelling out that much money, but you definitely tempt me.
-dms
Anya
I want one but I am not sure if I actually need it. Need vs want. I already have an iPhone and macbook pro, other than becoming more part of the Apple cult I am not sure why I should buy an iPad. But I really want one.
dr. bloor
other than becoming more part of the Apple cult I am not sure why I should buy an iPad
In court, I think that’s referred to as “asked and answered,” or in this case, “answered then asked.”
Brian J
I know it’s still early and that the applications and organizations associated with the iPad are still evolving, but I’m curious to see how it helps newspapers and magazines, if at all. I love my iPhone because of the ease, but I’d rather read a magazine, like The New Yorker, in print and a newspaper, like The Times or The Journal, online. I don’t have enough money for the iPad right now, but if the price came down and the data fees weren’t too bad, I’d considering getting one.
But my question is, what will be so fundamentally different from reading it on the iPad versus reading it on paper? I think it was Chris Anderson of Wired who said that if the paper copy and the online version are the same, the print version, which is where most publications still get most of their money from, will always be undermined. The solution, as I see it, is to make the print version a little more attractive by giving people a reason to buy it. Why does The Times release stuff from its Sunday version on Thursday? What incentive is there to get it? I’m not saying it has to stay offline for days, but perhaps until Sunday afternoon, if only to juice the print subscription numbers. There’s also the idea that online offerings need to be, well, pretty and filled with extras like video. There’s something to that, and if there’s a decent number of extras that would justify paying a fee, at least a decent number of people will do it.
mistermix
Stuff like this makes me wonder whether other pads, built on Android, Chrome or some other modified open source OS, will be serious competition to the iPad. Not that a file system, or multitasking, will be that hard to add.
burnspbesq
@Kid Bitzer:
Having spent about nine hours on my new iPad yesterday, my verdict on the general take is that it’s ignorant bullship promulgated by ignorant Apple-haters.
The book-reader is excellent.
Video is excellent.
Typing is, as DougJ said, easy. And if you find yourself doing serious data entry or writing on it, the Apple wireless keyboard is best-in-class.
The screen is fabulous.
The note-taking app that I am using, PadNotes, has a learning curve, but if I still have to carry a writing portfolio into meetings, I’ll find a way to live with that.
The only thing I’m not happy with so far has nothing to do with Apple or the device: the Olive software that is supposed to deliver a digital copy of Financial Times to the device is a big bag of suck.
All in all: best $700 I’ve spent in a long time.
Brian J
@Anya:
Like me, you want it, but also like me, you don’t have enough money to buy it and/or you don’t want it badly enough to justify the expense even if you aren’t sitting on a pile of cash. This makes us different from a lot of early adopters.
Also, WTF happened to that little button where you could easily link to what someone else said? I don’t know if this was answered yesterday, as I was out for most of the day, but man, that was cool to have. Responding to other people became a lot less cumbersome with that.
Brian J
@The Dr:
If you don’t mind me asking, where are you going to school in the fall?
dr. bloor
Brian–
I can’t find it, but a childhood friend of mine on Facebook who is now an editor with Gannett linked to a prototype edition of USA Today tailored to the iPad. I get the vague impression that they’re looking at it as the iSavior, although I assume they’ll simply publish the SoS electronically that they do in print, and the business will continue its steady death march.
Anyway, the big thing with the USA Today proto was moving pictures and linky goodness. It looked a little like The Daily Prophet from the Harry Potter franchise.
Nash
I still don’t understand the market for this thing. What’s it meant to replace? What gap is it trying to fill? E-readers? Tablets? Smartphones? Netbooks? All?
I’d honestly prefer something with a good deal more functionality for the price. $800 for 64GB of storage, no USB, no camera, and no multitasking? That’s just nuts.
mr. whipple
dmsilev: how was your trip to the wsm?
burnspbesq
@DougJ:
I don’t know what a djvu file is, but there’s already an answer for Office files and pdfs: Documents to Go.
The Grand Panjandrum
For most people who use a computer to go online for email, watching a few videos and reading news it could easily replace a laptop. Other than that I don’t see this first generation being for others. For all the geeks ifixit.com already has a preliminary teardown so you can tinker with it! Some interesting notes on the teardown as well at the bottom of each page.
Anya
@Brian J: The little button was missing since last night’s s many sport threads.
As for the iPad, I want one but I am fighting the urge to succumb to Apple’s marketing. I guess you can say that I cannot justify the expense. There’s no compelling reason for me to get this gadget, at this time.
mistermix
@dr. bloor: Newspapers have themselves convinced that a new savior has arisen every few months. It’s not a huge amount of work to tailor a site to look great in mobile Safari/web kit, and once you do, it looks good in Android, Palm, iPhone and iPad. And, with the size of iPad’s screen, the sites already look good, from what I’ve seen. I don’t see people paying the kinds of premiums I’ve been hearing (e.g., $10/mo more for the WSJ) to get the content via iPad.
Ginger Yellow
Like 16, I can’t comment on djvu files, but there are quite a few apps to let you manage PDFs on the OS. I use Air Sharing for my iPod – the cheap version is pretty basic, but the Pro version (£6) has a lot more features.
henqiguai
burnspbesq @11
Dammit, burnspbesq, I was hoping to see more of a ‘wait for the early adopters to burn-in the thing’ and/or wait for the competitors to hit the market. But nooo, you have to go and rain on that parade. Well, I’m not a fan of the whole iStuff thingies, and am more interested in ebook readers, so I can wait. Both the technology and business model are still developing.
burnspbesq
OT:
I am amazed at the ignorance of some people who make their living writing about sports.
I’ve lost track of how many times, last night and this morning, I’ve read about Duke shredding West Virginia’s vaunted 1-3-1 zone.
I think we would have shredded it if they had played it for more than two possessions, especially if they played it with Mazzula on the back line as they did against Kentucky. Our guys can make threes from the corner, and Mazzula would have had no way of dealing with our size if we had thrown it over the top.
The point is that they only played for two possessions. They played man the whole game.
C’mon, journos, get a clue.
Umm … never mind. Asking for the impossible before breakfast is never a winning strategy.
PaulW
There’s an app for that.
Look for an app for Kindle or Sony eReader.
burnspbesq
@henquigai:
Sorry.
L Boom
Mistermix: Definitely agree here. There are two big things keeping me from giving Apple my money. The first is the same issue you’re mentioning. It needs to be a bit more PC-like (generically, not OS) in terms of file management and general use for me to like it. Android (or something based on it) would be a perfect solution to this since it’s based on the Linux kernel. The HP Slate (based on Windows 7, I think) could be pretty spiffy, too. Plus with Windows 7, the Slate could stream Netflix, which would be excellent.
The second is simply the amount of control Apple demands over their products; it’s nearing a complete lockdown on what you can and cannot put on the system. If I’m dropping cash on a computer, I’d damn well better be able to do what I want with it. Toss in their recent penchant for suing anything that moves, and it’s only going to get worse. OK, and third: Steve Jobs is really turning into an insufferable douchebag. Bill Gates at his worst could only dream of the kind of control Jobs takes for granted.
Also, the non-replaceable battery seems completely unnecessary and wasteful.
Having messed around with the iPad at Best Buy, though, I have to say I love the form factor. It’s just really convenient and perfect for keeping handy while you’re lounging around the house or multi-tasking. If someone can make one that boots up in 10 seconds or less, has a 3G option, and can connect with a home network, I’ll buy that thing in a heartbeat.
zzyzx
Don’t know about the boot time, but the iPad can do the rest of that when the 3g models come out next month.
dmsilev
mr. whipple: Trip was very nice. The long train ride back was very relaxing (two days without emails!) with some gorgeous scenery to look at.
-dms
dmsilev
Heh. Was just talking with my parents. My dad was tossing around the idea of buying one to take along on their big walking trip in a couple of months. My mom was …not a fan of the idea (largely for practical reasons; extra weight on a 200 mile walk is a Bad Thing, even if it is only a couple of pounds).
-dms
Tom levenson
Re movies, I believe Netflix has an ipad app. As for me, typing this on my iPhone, I whiffed on my reserved unit yesterday because I decided at the last minute to wait for 3g. I’m going to see if this can become my “I don’t need no stinking Macbook Air” machine.
The combination of my geekiest friend’s ecstacy at th excellence of his ipad with the complaints of my aching back as I haul my MacBook pro around (see–another aging boomer incentive) makes trying to turn this into a light-work machine seem really desirable. Which makes th apple-ness of the ipad, with all the zen-fascism of the cult of Cupertino a feature, not a bug, for someone already apple-d to the gills as I am. Mixed metaphor, anyone?
Daniel
Brian J got to my question first. You say:
How so? I haven’t gotten to hold an iPad yet so I can’t agree or disagree here but, to me, this is the make-or-break feature of the device.
leinie
@Lboom
Netflix has an app for it that is just awesome. Streams the instant watch stuff and manages the queue. It’s built specifically for this thing and works great.
leinie
@Burnpbesq
Are you using a stylus with Padnotes? I agree about the learning curve on that, spent some time playing with it yesterday, but my biggest problem with finger writing is size.
Bill E Pilgrim
[email protected] 23
Here it is.
First question I had about it. Sealed the deal, for me.
L Boom
Hah, my lack of research shows through. :) Sounds like it actually does a lot of what I want.
I’m not someone who criticizes the “cult of Apple” or anything like that, but I’m too much of a fan of open source and compatibility to give them my money unless they change some of their policies. They absolutely make fine products, especially if you’re already invested in the ecosystem, but I’m thinking of this first generation iPad as more of a starting point to see where things go from here. Not to mention a bit of time for a shakedown on pricing once there’s competition.
mistermix
@Tom:
I have no doubt that Apple tribe members will find the iPad a great device, for good reasons. My question is whether it will cross tribal borders.
I’m generally a member of the Linux/Google tribe, and I’m waiting for the open source pad or ultraportable touchscreen laptop. But I did own an iPod (until I replaced it with an Android smartphone).
Brian J
@Tom Levenson:
You better be careful when you insult Steve Jobs. After all, he can probably read what you are writing about him, considering we are all or will all be using his devices soon. If you don’t watch yourself, you will soon be wearing one of those blue Apple store shirts and helping housewives and seniors figure out iPhoto.
You’ve been warned.
burnspbesq
@leinie:
Yes, the Pogo stylus. I’m not enthralled with it. Part of the problem is that if your hand comes in contact with the screen while you are trying to write (which is likely to happen for me at the end of most lines, ass I am left-handed), the iPad has difficulty figuring out which is the real input, the stylus or the hand.
Like I said, learning curve.
GuavaEmpanadas
It’s a media reader for a closed content delivery system. Apple receives a hefty cut every piece of media consumed. So, basically you fanboys just shelled out $700 for the privilege of having Mr. Jobs sell you overpriced apps and media. Enjoy!!
If I can’t open it, I don’t own it.
Screws not glue.
BethanyAnne
ok, WP ate that comment, wonder if the link was the problem. I guess this comment is a test >.<
BethanyAnne
So, that’s the 5th comment I’ve made in the past 2 days that WP has eaten. Seems I can’t put links in comments anymore. Anyone else having this problem?
BethanyAnne
Nope, doesn’t work in Safari, either. FYWP
BethanyAnne
http://
giz
modo.com/com
ment/21306663
BethanyAnne
ha! So, I tried to add my link in the edit box after the comment posted, and it said “no, that’s flagged as spam”… Looks like the spam filter is set to 11. Might wanna back that down a bit. :)
scav
You fiend, I am now tempted. I added a link earlier today I’m pretty sure. Jasper Fforde using buttons (ok I forget which exact row of them).
EDIT1, Using Chrome.
EDIT2: manual link add Shades of Grey
Edit3: all serene and well here. Huh.
BethanyAnne
Hmm. Maybe I’m just flagged as a spammer?
scav
Nah, BethanyAnne, I’ve had some weird disappearances in the last few days. This is really random black hole type errorspace.
BethanyAnne
Chrome won’t let me put in a link either.
scav
maybe we’re matter and anti-matter. Pasta and Antipasto. Severely odd behavior.
Janet Strange
For textbooks, definitely for textbooks. I teach biology and print textbooks are just inadequate for the subject. We need animations, and videos, links, and interactive exercises to do the subject matter justice. Print doesn’t do any of those.
Plus print textbooks are heavier than shit and outrageously expensive.
Making textbooks for the iPad – and doing it right – will be a lot of work for the publishers, and they may still be ripping my students off price-wise at the end of the day, but having the other features (animations, etc.) and not having to carry around 40 pounds of books in their backpacks will make it worth it for my students, imo.
Corkbouy
I’m typing this on my iPad. :-)
In response to comment 21, the is an app on the iPad for PDF reading . It’s called good reader and it is the app store for 99 cents.
Brian J
@Janet Strange:
Do you teach at the college level or the high school level? If it’s the latter, let me ask, what is your opinion of open source textbook material? The impression I’ve gotten is that it can be updated, and therefore improved, a lot quicker than more normal and copyrighted materials, but that for the most part, it’s still confined to print and some online use. With a format like the iPad, it can be improved a lot quicker, and costs can come down, too.
If that’s even slightly true, I wonder why more districts haven’t jumped on the open source bandwagon. I mean, I imagine that there are more than enough competent people making the books so that the quality is good, but even if it wasn’t, would it kill districts to ask teachers to look into it? Or is it that the savings don’t really amount to much when you are talking millions upon millions of dollars?
BethanyAnne
I want one. Can’t afford it at the moment, but still want one. All I really want it for is a toy – not that there’s anything wrong with that :-)
Catsmeat
What is the cost of ownership for the iPad? Is it like a cell phone, with a monthly subscription fee to make it function? Or, can you use it as you would a laptop, and tap into whatever network you have available–home, wifi, etc?
arguingwithsignposts
This. It would be really practical to get students to buy an iPad when they start school (k-12, or Uni) and just have the school/bookstore download books onto their iPad every semester. Not just iPad, but any sort of tablet.
Biology isn’t the only subject that would benefit from more multimedia creation.
Which means the publishing industry will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to do it.
Undercover FBI Agent DougJ
Is it like a cell phone, with a monthly subscription fee to make it function?
Only if you want to use the 3G network. And then you can turn the fee off and on.
Janet Strange
@51 Brian J – I teach at a community college, so I’m teaching intro-level college biology courses.
There’s the beginnings of open source textbooks for college level biology, but it’s in its infancy, so there’s not (yet) that much out there. I basically write my own textbook for my students. I call it “lecture notes” and post it on blackboard, but it’s really a textbook, with links, etc.
Most of what I’ve seen looks like professors who do what I do making available what they’ve created, and I haven’t seen any that I like better than my own.
What publishers can bring is online content better than mine, permissions to use really good stuff like good animations, more good stuff that they could create in-house by professionals. Some of them are looking to having professors able to customize their content (with the changes made by the professors clearly identified). I’m looking forward to that.
I think it will be great, eventually. I’ll probably be retired before it really meets its potential, but it’s coming.
Brian J
@Janet Strange:
Interesting. Do you think there’s any potential for this or other non-profit-like moves to lower costs?
I remember when I took linear algebra in college, for the first time at my school, we used a textbook created by the professors at our school. Based on what I saw from another textbook, it was written in a way that our professors wanted it to be written. It also cost a lot less, from what I remember. Why that was the case isn’t clear, however.
henqiguai
Brian J @51
Um, costs ? Out here, not all families can afford even a minimal PC and basic online service. With the likes of an iPad and fairly pricey broadband connection, you’re talking a very real digital divide. And “well, the schools can provide them” is not an option, not when the schools are scrambling to find monies to sometimes simply keep the doors open. Ditto the libraries.
nutellaontoast
“and I haven’t seen any that I like better than my own.”
Janet, at the rist of seeming overtly flame-y and incendiary, that is a quote I would put as a hallmark of poor teachers. You need to start seeing how other people see things, too.
Just my, ill-informed and over-speculative two cents.
burnspbesq
@GuavaEmpanadas:
Fuck you. You don’t get to decide for me what’s “overpriced.”
And if appreciating well-made and thoughtfully executed hardware and software that do what I need them to do makes me a fanboy, I happily plead guilty to the charge.
Shame your prejudices and preconceived notions are blinding you.
jcricket
I look at the iPad just like the iPhone. A great device that propels the overall market forward, and also does a bunch of stuff people want in an elegant and useful way.
I fail to see how the iPhone being closed has hurt the market in any way? It didn’t stop Android from coming about and owning a significant amount of the market. It didn’t kill Blackberry, and it didn’t stop Microsoft from releasing Windows Mobile 7. In fact, it probably forced a couple of those things to happen after Apple’s entry into the market changed the dynamics.
In fact, more mobile application innovation was created by Apple’s terrible-no-good-closed system (see App Store) than anything that preceded it.
And, as everyone who owns an iPhone will attest, they’re easy-to-use, useful, and pretty fun.
What’s the problem again? iPad will be the same thing. Plenty of competition, everything from straight-up eReaders, to netbooks, to cheap laptops, to the new slates that I’m sure will come out from other vendors. If you like those offerings better, buy them. I for one will be all over the iPad once it’s at version 2 or 3 (that’s just what I like to wait for, in general).
EnfantTerrible
If you buy the 3G iPad, you’re stuck with the AT&T network, and there is no USB port. That being said, it looks like a marvelous product. I want one, but I will hold out for a 2nd-or-later-generation model.
Brachiator
Because that’s when it’s printed. It is combined with the later material to produce the Sunday paper. Along with new business models, newspapers have to rethink their old days-of-the week model, and when feature articles might have the maximum impact.
The old model is to consider video as extras which supplement text. But if a paper publishes a theater or dance review, why not illustrate it with a video performance clip, and include a link to buy tickets? If you’re reviewing a restaurant, include a video tour through the interior, show some of the dishes and diners.
Obviously, some of this is happening already. It just has to be done better, more creatively and more comprehensively.
Why does every device have to have a camera? Holding up an iPad to photograph something seems goofy. It’s size does not lend itself to such a function. Multitasking, on the other hand, is a reasonable addition.
Still, there was a time when a mobile phone was expected to be nothing but that — a portable phone. Now we not only take smart phones for granted, but measure new devices by the standards set by smart phones.
I think that the iPad may render the Touch obsolete, and give netbooks a run for their money. Still, it’s only been a couple of days since the iPad’s release. Let’s see how people take to it.
d-man
I don’t have any strong opinion on the iPad, but I love the haters in the morning. smells like… insecurity
arguingwithsignposts
@Brachiator:
I would not want the camera for taking photos, but as a webcam for use with skype, it would seem to be a perfect addition.
And without a usb port, you can’t even add a third-party webcam.
Not so sure about that. The iPad fits in a pocket and is significantly cheaper. It’s a different form for a different use.
I’m intrigued by the iPad (I am an Apple “fanboi” as some say), but the missing elements make it a non-starter for me at this point. I just bought a new MBP instead.
Brian J
Brachiator @ 63:
I didn’t know that they printed some parts of the Sunday paper that early. But even if that’s true, why not hold it until later in the week, if only to maximize the number of people buying the Sunday paper? The only two reasons I can think of are that they are dumb or have realized that by releasing materials when they do online, they are maximizing revenues because of the increased hits they get on their site.
I like the idea of trying to link a theater or dance review with clips or something like it.
I’ve wondered why a national, upscale publication like The Times doesn’t take a page from The New Yorker and publish (more?) original literary items. I’m not suggesting that hiring a staff to sift through short stories and poems will double the paper’s circulation, but I’d guess that there’s a large, untapped audience of people that would read The Times (or maybe The Washington Post) more if they were exposed to it, but because they don’t live in a natural market, like New York, it’s not a first thought for them. Perhaps it could be a competition of sorts. And then when the people go online to see their work or read through the work of their peers, they click on the politics or business or science section links. Now, instead of going to nytimes.com every so often, if ever, they visit once or twice a week, perhaps.
I’m not saying publications have to accept lowbrow stuff, like being people pantsed, as YouTube sometimes does. I’m simply suggesting that there are probably a lot of ways that the modestly profitable/money-losing but important sections could be subsidized.
L Boom
I’d go even further and argue that the usefulness of the non-phone portions of smartphones have actually surpassed the usefulness of the phone in many cases.
Mobile email, navigation software, quick access to the internet (for info or online banking and such) are all more important to me than being able to, well, avoid picking up the phone when people call me. Easily portable data is amazingly useful and a good smartphone is infinitely easier to carry around than a laptop, while losing only a small part of the functionality in most cases. Not to mention that a lot of the apps do things that laptops simply can’t.
Plus MapMyRide/MyTracks/that sort of thing are all amazing for cycling.
arguingwithsignposts
Brian J
It has always been thus. Features, opinion, advertising, business, comics, housing, etc. sections have early deadlines because they are not as time-sensitive. It would be nearly impossible to print that big honking paper in one day. That leaves them with the sports and news sections to fill on the weekend, when a lot of the staff is gone as well.
As to why they go ahead and release it on Thursday, it probably drives a lot of newsstand sales that they wouldn’t pick up on Saturday.
Papers I’ve worked at only released their Sunday paper on Saturday.
tripletee
You’re very good at parroting Doctorow. Do you do any other tricks?
FWIW, I have my 64GB iPad half-full of media, of which around 1% was purchased from iTunes. Everything else is stuff I ripped
from physical media or bought from Amazon or other vendors. And there are already a variety of streaming media options available. You’re only locked into iTunes content if you’re too lazy to explore the alternatives.
Really liking the iPad so far. The Netflix and ABC apps are great, iBooks is really slick, and the Kindle app is pretty good too. And the iWorks programs are really well done; you can put together a great looking Keynote presentation in minutes that’s indistinguishable from one done with the desktop version.
It’s also a nice remote management tool; fire up a VPN and an RDP or VNC app and I can be working on a server or desktop at 1024×768 within seconds of switching the iPad on.
It’s also the first device that I could see reading digital comics on – comics companies are crazy if they don’t make a big push on it.
DougJ, check out Good Reader – currently on sale for .99, you can throw several hundred MB PDFs at it and it won’t skip a beat. It also has builtin utilities for transferring files from a desktop or the cloud.
Brachiator
@Janet Strange:
On Friday’s Rachel Maddow show, a woman reviewing the iPad demonstrated an app called Elements, the periodic table with animation, great pictures, interactivity.
It also brought out a sweet, wistful, human moment, when she mentioned that her grandfather had been an astronomer and would have loved another app which immediately showed constellations and astronomical events in relation to your physical location.
@arguingwithsignposts:
I see your point, but I’m still not convinced that an iPad or similar device has to slavishly duplicate the functionality of a notebook or a laptop. Sometimes you just want a great toaster, not a toaster oven microwave refrigerator.
By the way, I liked Steve Wozniak’s recent take on the utility of the iPad, and also how he deals with a weakness of all smart phones — battery life:
Also, there may be some Apple device that deals with the webcam issue. But aside from that, shouldn’t there be more wireless connectivity, ultimately making USB ports unnecessary?
Bruce Webb
People are simply missing the most natural market segment for the iPad which is hobbyists, particularly any hobby that requires going outdoors or moving from site to site.
Tests have already shown that the iPad is fully operable inside a one gallon zip lock bag. Meaning that any hobby that exposes you to weather or salt air can be enhanced by carrying your fieldbook or whatever on the iPad. For example if you are a birder you could have an application that not only had a fully color picture of each bird, plus a description such as you would find in your Peterson, you could have an audio clip of its song or call, plus perhaps a video clip of it in flight.
And there was a demo on Rachel Maddow of an existing Astronomy program that uses the location and angle capabilities of the iPad to display a sky map, including constellations, of any part of the sky to which you are pointing the iPad. Not sure whether that is Rigel or Mars? Point your iPad to it.
Or say that you are a collector of just about anything. You look pretty fricking dorky walking around a gun or car show with an open laptop, but an iPad has pretty much the same form factor and weight as your typical issue of Guns and Ammo or Car anything. Equally you don’t want to be wandering around a crowded antique store or used book store with a clamshell form factor laptop, even if there is room to set it down while you are browsing. While you wouldn’t want to be reading on an iPad with one hand for hours, it is certainly easy to use it as a two button look up device for that catalog or price guide.
Like to work on cars? Find it kind of a bitch to leaf through that Chilterns when you are underneath the car or under the hood. How about something 8 x 10 that you can prop up or have flat on the ground and flick through contents with your greasy finger (don’t forget the zip lock bag).
Or maybe you’re like me and have a hobby that mostly revolves around sitting at the bar drinking and watching sports on TV while occasionally exchanging a “Hey did you see that?” with the people on either side of you, but also want to browse through the paper or read some in your book. An iPad in portrait mode on its cover’s built in stand can just sit passively in front of you on the bar, needing only you to reach forward now and again to flick your finger to turn the page. Or you can be even less intrusive and have it lying flat on the bar. It works, even in a crowded bar. Laptop? Not so much, even if you ignore the possibility of spillage (because nothing spells trouble like two or three ounces of Guinness or Rum and Coke on your keyboard).
So yeah the iPad works fine as a media browser on your couch, or as a pricey eReader, but it is its ability to serve as a convenient unobtrusive adjunct to any activity you do outside your front door that it going to make it a must have. Right now I use an iPhone for that, but really if you are browsing the internet on an iPhone or contrawise a laptop everything screams “Leave me alone”, the iPad which after all can be viewed by two people at once, even if they are on opposite sides of a table is just inherently a more social device. Right now when I show people something on my iPhone the first thing they have to do is pull out their reading glasses (that’s the over fifty factor working). With the iPad it is going to be more “Look at this”.
Plus I think it is going to be great for mobile blogging, especially for commenting and for those of us who run blogs for monitoring and responding to comments on a device which is auto-on: button, icon, refresh and I am back in the middle of the thread.
Drinkers, wrenchheads, gun nuts, club goers, yard sale junkies, sports trivia freaks, chess players, who exactly in our wired world doesn’t need an 8 x 10 flat portal to the internet or stored content. I doubt that many people have thought of the iPad as killing the market for travelling chess sets, but a photorealistic depiction of a board with unlimited potential choices of piece design and a built in time clock is going to beat the hell out of any folding set based on pegs or magnets to keep the pieces steady. Is there an App out there that will automatically record your games or suggest variations of your opening? I don’t know, but you can bet there will be, along with a Crib board and backgammon.
I wrote a piece for my private blog called “The Magic Clipboard” imagining a day in the life of a supervisor who could replace his clipboard with an iPad that at a touch of a button could turn into anything: training manual, personnel manual, supply catalog, company sales catalog, scheduler, org chart, inventory tracker, regulation library, train and bus route map and schedule, photo album for pics of your wife and kids, plus some games for your break time, all in the same form factor as that brown fiberboard clipboard you carry around every day. Yeah maybe it wouldn’t work for those guys in accounting or engineering, but kind of handy for walking around the office or the shop floor.
On Monday night I plan to be sitting at my favorite table in the lounge of the China Doll restaurant (food? too Americanized. drinks? not for the faint at heart) watching the NCAA Final. And unless they are sold out at Best Buy when I get there in an hour or so plan to have an iPad propped up either open to ncaa.com or CNN or maybe to our joint blog, depending on my mood. And I fully expect to be the object of envy.
People need to stop thinking about what the iPad isn’t and start thinking about what it could be.
arguingwithsignposts
Wireless connectivity speeds greater than a wired connection via USB? on 3G?
And, FWIW, I will state again that I see that the iPad is a different beast than a laptop. I’m not asking for all the functionality of a laptop. But multitasking, usb and a webcam would make it much more appealing to me.
And Bruce Webb makes a good point about using it as a reference guide for hobbyists. I will be curious to see how this form factor does and what consumers use it for the most. And when I land my job as a CEO at a hedge fund, I’ll probably get one. :)
Brachiator
@tripletee:
I am really enjoying your take on the iPad. I like when people talk about how they use the device, instead of just blandly reviewing features. But could you break this RDP stuff down into non-geek?
Isn’t there a big Marvel Comics app for the iPad? I was hearing somewhere that people were grumbling that having comics locked into an iPad would kill the ability of people to trade comics, etc.
Bruce Webb
Biggest misconception about the iPad? That it doesn’t have a USB port. It does. You connect your iPad to your PC/Mac with a cord that terminates with a standard USB plug. And already Apple has released two $30 dollar adaptors, one that has a mini-USB port for connection to your digital camera, another that takes SD memory cards. Although these are billed as being simple camera or video transfer devices, there is no reason in principle that Apps couldn’t be developed to pull data from any external USB device or perhaps through a Firewire/USB converter. Plus there is Bluetooth and WiFi possibilities to accommodate a web-cam which even know often comes as an external accessory.
4 and 8 GB SD cards are dirt cheap, and even 16 GB ones are around $30. And you can carry a dozen of them in an Altoids box. If the iPad can pull JPEGs and RAW images off an SD card, there is no reason a book application can’t pull eBooks and PDFs or a music application MP3s. What is the technical obstacle to having your professional library on one 16 GB card, your collection of SF books and Manga on another, and your Classical music collection on a third?
People are bitching that there is no way to do file management on an iPad. Well this ignores the fact that pretty much you need a home computer for syncing to get full use out of your iPad anyway. And it looks to me that you can organize your data in any folder structure you like on that computer and then transfer it to an SD card and have it available to any App that can access the port. Unless Apple has found some way to actually cripple data transfer via the two existing available adaptors, something they would have little motive to do, this seems to me to just be another failure of imagination on the part of potential users.
arguingwithsignposts
@Bruce Webb:
You’re being purposely obtuse here. It’s a “Dock connector port” not a USB port. So Apple gets in your pocket for another $30 connector to use a mini-USB via the *Dock connector port.*
I work with large files all the time that would bust through a 16GB card in no time flat. I’d rather have a way to connect a real external hard drive ($99 for a TB that looks like a cigarette box). But YMMV.
Which brings up one of my niggling gripes with Apple: their constant f**king around with the connectors. It seems like every two iterations on their Macs, they remove a port, change a port so you have to buy new connectors, or some similar b.s. /rant
Other than Apple’s mysterious app approval process.
The biggest misconception from iPad owners about those who aren’t going to be buying this round? That we’re all totally anti-iPad. I think it’s a cool device with some obvious deficiencies, just like every other technological device/OS/whatever. And if I had $600 laying around, I’d probably get one just to see what it’s all about.
Also, multitasking: It wasn’t too long ago that no Mac had multitasking. I can get that for a tiny screen thing like an iPhone/iPod Touch, but with the iPad, no multitasking seems like a step backwards.
tripletee
RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) and VNC (virtual network connection) are used to remotely connect to computers – you see the desktop of the remote machine and can use it just like you were sitting in front of it. VNC can be used on Windows, Mac and Linux, while RDP is Windows specific.
The upshot of which is that I can sit at home on my couch and troubleshoot a problem in an office 50 miles away, all without putting my pants on.
There is – actually it’s a reskinned, stripped down version of another app that includes comics from a lot of other publishers in addition to Marvel. Both work great on the iPad, and there are other comic readers available too. I think the iPad will end up doing for digital comics what the Kindle did for ebooks.
JCT
I 100% agree with what Bruce Webb said.
The bottom line is this comment:
“People need to stop thinking about what the iPad isn’t and start thinking about what it could be.”
Yes, it sort of “sounds” squishy — but this was Jobs’ point all along, it was not designed to obsolete your laptop. The original invites for the announcement looked like an artist’s canvas — and that it what it is supposed to be, a relatively simple device that people could customize to their own use by configuring it with useful apps and content.
The screaming and hollering reminds me of the endless complaining about the lack of ports on the Macbook Air. Most of the “hating” on that product comes from people who have never owned one. In my case, as an academic who travels a TON, it was like Apple made something just for me. The advantages of having a laptop that I could toss in my regular briefcase was (and is) a revelation. Everyone I know who owns one loves it.
In any case, as my Air is exclusively for work, I am very curious to see if an iPad could be my traveling and day-to-day device. Or a nice way to cull my photos while wandering around Manhattan shooting. I wonder if someone will figure out how to set it up as an Ad-hoc device for an Eye-Fi …
Oh and DougJ — all my grad students (the ones who use Macs, my lab is still 50-50) use “Papers” to organize their PDF libraries. It’s like iTunes for PDFs. I bought them each a copy and I use it as well. I think the iPad version of that program may be one of the academic “killer apps” and they are working on adding annotation.
Worth a look.
Boy, and I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but given the state of the news lately and my near-despair over these crazies running around, but watching a bunch of people get all giddy over a product launch kind of cheered me up.
JT
Sloegin
There’s no technical obstacles, there’s Apple design and Apple developer mandated obstacles. They don’t want you to have a standard file system; they don’t want you to be able copy files in a easy, straight-forward manner.
Not a deal killer, just a pain in the ass.
Oh and wireless print drivers would sweeten the pot; that’s the deal killer for getting something like this for Mom.
arguingwithsignposts
@JCT:
Thanks for that tip. I’ll check it out. I’ve tried several PDF organizational software titles, and haven’t found one I preferred. And I *sorely* need that organization. Academic publishers have finally gotten heavily into providing PDFs of articles, but the naming conventions suck. And it’s a pain to go through and rename them all.
Janet Strange
@60 Nutella Well, yes, I think that is over-speculative. I’m a good writer – I used to write textbooks for a living, which is why I know that what I’ve produced for my students is really a textbook, even though I call it “lecture notes.”
And I’m a good teacher. I’m not sure I’m good at anything else, but that’s one thing I’m confident of. Ask my students.
I’m not sure how I could do any more “looking at things from other people’s point of view.” I’ve been teaching and using commercial textbooks for 25+ years, not to mention that I don’t hesitate to steal any good ideas I find (w/ proper credit natch). That’s one reason I prefer a way of delivering content that has links my students can follow.
Most microbiology books on the market at the moment are written for biology majors, with an emphasis on the nuts and bolts of the molecular biology of microorganisms. My students are future nurses. They need to know more about how microorganisms will affect their patients. For example, the book I used recently had nothing about nosocomial infections, and only a very brief coverage of public health issues. Only a very brief mention of the rise of antibiotic resistance. That’s why I wrote my own.
Comrade Kevin
For those who were wondering, djvu is sort of an alternative to PDF.
Bruce Webb
Well I am not the one that is being obtuse. Given that the cable terminates in a USB plug for syncing with your PC/Mac the connector port is obviously functioning as a USB port as is additionally shown by the fact that it accommodates a mini-USB adapter. Would you feel better if Apple had built a USB port in and charged an extra $30 on the base price? Not everybody will feel a need to directly hook their camera to their iPad, why charge everybody for a feature they might not use?
Plus people need to think. If Apple can supply an adapter to a mini-USB port, is their any reason to believe that Belkin can’t supply an adapter to a standard USB port? If the iPad can read image files from a digital camera or SD card is there any reason to believe that other Apps should not be able to read PDFs or eBooks off that same media card or via that Belkin adaptor. Is there really any reason to dismiss the possibility that you CAN hook up that 1TB drive? As always in the Mac/PC wars people are always looking for a reason to hate on a new Apple product.
As to a built in camera. First the form factor of the iPad makes it somewhere between clumsy and useless as a point and click camera. Plus any built in camera locks people in a at a single quality level, instead of paying extra for a barely functioning camera with less resolution than you would need for more professional photography why not give people the option of hooking the iPad up to whatever quality camera people want? Professionals need one level of hardware and software, amateurs a totally different one, and some people like me don’t really need a camera at all. Ditto on the video, if video-conferencing is important to you there will be solutions, and at various levels of quality. Somehow people managed to survive those primitive days when dinosaurs ran the earth and you had to clip a vid-cam on top of your laptop, I suspect those who want this feature will make it through this particular travail.
And speaking of BS rants, bitching about adaptors gets as BS as it gets, Is it a little bit of a hassle having five or so different USB ports and the same amount of memory cards, I guess, but a have a box full of apapters to and from them plus a card reader and the whole group didn’t cost me more than $20 or so. Shit I have seen stereo enthusiasts spend more than that on a single audio cable.
As to multi-tasking. Except for the guy who pointed out he couldn’t stream Pandora while checking his e-mail, I don’t really get the big deal in daily use. If you can switch back and forth between various programs almost instantaneously and each program maintains the file in the same state as when you left it who cares? The days that you might want to have a text file spooling to a print server or a spreadsheet recalculating while you were doing something else are kind of in the past, I mean we are a little past the days of the 1200 baud modem. And nobody claimed this was a machine for Engineers. In fact at $500 you aren’t going to get a PC laptop suitable for that either. If you really need that kind of functionality get a MacPro laptop, this machine is priced and aimed at the more general mid-level user. Who mostly is not going to be burning through a 16 gigabyte data disk, I don’t know what kind of files you are using, but some of us remember the days when huge files were measured in MB and not GB and when even a 1 GB drive seemed unimaginable outside some computer lab. The rule of thumb a couple of years after I got started in end-user computing was $10 a MB for storage, and terabyte was just a theoretical concept, not a drive you could buy for under $100.
My first computer cost me just under $2000 including a dot matrix printer. In 1985 dollars. It had 128k of main memory with external data stored on a 400kb hard shell floppy. I find it endlessly amusing that people are whining about the insanely high price of computers that after all are at the top end still less than half the price of the Mac 128 when introduced.
Catsy
Apple lost me on the iPad when they made the appallingly moronic decision to leave out a card reader, USB port, or any other way for migrating data that doesn’t involve emailing it to myself or using their shitty software over their proprietary port. There are plenty of other ways in which the iPad was a miserable waste of potential, but those are the biggest ones for me.
It wasn’t due to space considerations–there’s a tremendous amount of unused space in the WiFi models due to the absence of 3G hardware.
It wasn’t due to cost–neither a card reader nor a USB port would appreciably increase the cost of the device.
It has a passing relationship to power usage, but that’s a tradeoff I–and a lot of other people–would be happy to make.
What it has everything to do with is Apple’s arrogant, contemptuous attitude towards their customer base. They don’t think you need it, so it’s not an option. They don’t like the technology, so it’s not an option. They want you to use their proprietary solutions, so it’s not an option.
But most of all, they know that if you could easily transfer data back and forth between the device and a flash drive or SD card, or use a large SD card as primary storage, few people would see a need to pay Apple’s artificially inflated prices for versions with greater amounts of one of the cheapest commodities in the entire computer industry: hard drive storage.
I really had high hopes for this device. I wanted one badly. But instead of making a streamlined laptop or tablet, all they’ve done is make an oversized iPhone, with most of the shortcomings of both a smartphone and a tablet with few of the advantages of either.
It’ll sell a lot of units, because that’s what Apple does. Steve Jobs could have walked on stage and squeezed out a steaming three-coiler into a aluminum punch bowl with a flush button, and the next day there would be fifty blog posts about how fantastic the iCrap is and how three years from now no one will use legacy toilets anymore.
But with any luck and justice, this miscalculation by Apple will result in at best a narrow niche market for people who have disposable income to spend on gimmicks, who either don’t know any better or are willing to let Apple spoon-feed them their idea of what everyone needs.
Martin
A few comments about the iPad (no, I don’t have one. yes, I know some of the people that designed it):
1) It’s really running on a glorified iPhone software base. iPhone 4.0 is where some of these early issues that are more unique to the iPad will get sorted out. Don’t expect a full file system, however, but there’s clearly a need for somewhat more flexible document storage. Multitasking is almost certain to be in 4.0 – Apple has a whole different approach to process management they’re working on (because everyone else’s, including the Mac, sucks dick)
2) The ultimate market for the iPad is the 80% of computer buyers that have casual use (email, web, quicken) but aren’t technical enough (or seriously aren’t interested) to deal with virus checkers, firewalls, service packs, install shield, and the general state of the computer marketplace (from BestBuy to NewEgg). With the keyboard dock and a more fleshed out software marketplace, the iPad is a far more portable and usable platform. But for now, it’s as a netbook alternative for early adopters. It’ll be a version or two before it’s a proper general purpose computer replacement.
3) Textbook publishers are in the bookstore discussion. There’s only a handful of them now (consolidation) to deal with and there are other issues related to their relationship with authors and universities. It’s almost certainly coming. But law schools have their own computing restrictions so it may not be useful there.
4) Printing is likely coming. For now, HP has an iPhone app for printing so it’s being addressed by the printer guys. Printing is surprisingly hard to do general-case.
5) As I understand it, webcam died because AT&T would never offer a cheap 3G service if they had to shuttle full-screen video Skype around. The choice was cheap 3G or video. Video lost. Probably will make the next version when 4G networks are more accessible and can handle the bandwidth more easily.
arguingwithsignposts
@Bruce Webb:
I’m currently running FF, with a window opening watching “Top Gear” and another reading blogs, also I’ll pop over to Preview for a PDF or Photoshop for a photo file. But I don’t have to close one window to go to the other.
As someone who worked with a Mac Classic with a 20MB hard drive and 4MB of RAM doing graphics and layout (QuarkXpress and the like), to me, multi-tasking is a Big F**king Deal.
Until you’ve had to deal with having to buy a whole lab’s worth of new cables because Apple decided to jettison FireWire 400, or had to buy a whole different set of Display adapters for a new set of laptops because they decided to jettison the previous Display adapter, I can assure you bitching about adapters is *far* from as BS as it gets.
And I *love* Macs! But that doesn’t make them perfect, and it doesn’t make the iPad fit what *I* would like. Sucks to be me, I guess.
Martin
Contemptuous attitude? Look, you have a certain expectation of what you want in a tablet. Nobody has any obligation to build what *you* want. Don’t like the iPad, go buy a tablet from someone else that has USB and a cardreader. Yeah, they suck, but you don’t seem to accuse them of a contemptuous attitude for building a shitty product. Tablets have been on the market for a decade. Why piss on Apple?
You’re not the market for the iPad. Get over it.
Martin
@arguingwithsignposts:
Yeah, Apple’s connector history is pretty atrocious, but at least some of that is due to Apple having to chase either a very moving target or an insanely stationary one. How many laptops only output VGA still? That said, Apple has stuck with the same dock connector for the iPod/iPhone/iPad for ages now, and across 3 product lines. They’ve gotten much better in recent years.
arguingwithsignposts
@Martin
After they ditched the Firewire version (I still have one lying useless on a shelf in my abode).
They were getting better, until the latest round of upgrades. FireWire800 on the iMacs and a new display connector on the laptops.
One other thing I’ve noticed about the iPod/iPhone connector, it seems really flimsy. I’ve gone through a couple lately, and I can’t figure out if it’s on the USB end or the dock end.
And putting the headphones jack right next to the dock connector on the iPod Touch was a bit of bad engineering imho. You can’t unplug the dock without taking out the headphones.
And no, I don’t sync my iPod library with iTunes. I’ve got some stuff on the iPod that isn’t on the lappy, and if I sync, i’ll lose it, or have to spend hours reimporting it from a hard drive.
binzinerator
@tripletee
Can you print out stuff? It would be odd to have a productivity suite but not be able to print the text documents or spreadsheets you create.
Ms. binz wants one for doing her facebook thing and watching the early seasons of Lost. Plus Survivor and that one where couples run around the world being Ugly Americans and shouting at people for not understanding English while they race to find clues to win the million dollars.
She’s the Mac freak; she’d already drunk the koolaid when I met her 15 years ago, and I’ve been thoroughly indoctrinated in the ensuing years. I do believe she considered her Performa from her college years as her dowry. I did not and as a result upon marriage I have found myself undergoing subtle and not-so-subtle bouts of forced reeducation to become a member of the correct-thinking Apple cadres.
I am now typing on a MBP.
binzinerator
FWIW, I suspect part of the reason the iPad (or the iPhone or the Touch) doesn’t have a usb connector is simply because there is no physical room for it. There’s only so much thickness in those devices to work with.
Jrod
I seriously have to laugh at people making excuses for Apple refusing to put a simple USB port on its device. Too thick? Is that supposed to be a joke? A mini-USB jack is about 1/8th inch by a quarter inch! Too expensive? Really? You honestly think they created a new proprietary port solely because using USB was too fucking expensive?
Nobody is worse than Apple fanbois, absolutely nobody. Eventually, when Steve Jobs is dictating what clothes you can wear and what food you can eat in order to maintain the privilege of powering on your $1000 iPad mk. 5, you’ll still be telling us “unhinged haters” that we just don’t get it, that Apple is just making things simple, and that following Steve Jobs’ every utterance as natural law really isn’t such a bother, before excusing yourself to participate in the two-minute-hate against Emmanuel Microgooglesoft.
In the meantime, enjoy buying a $30 adapter just to connect every single other device made in the last five years that isn’t obsessed with maintaining absolute control over what you do with it.
Really though, why bother with it? You know that if you put anything on your iPad that offends Emperor Steve, he’ll just have his thought police remotely delete it, and then maybe render your expensive device unusable, just to make sure you’ve learned your lesson.
It’s very interesting just how prescient the 1984 commercial really was.
Martin
The port is designed to do things that no existing port could do – it’s actually extremely full featured. It moves power, USB, video, audio, and some other stuff. Even today there is no equivalent that Apple could choose.
The lack of USB is solely because if you add USB to appease the people that insist on it, then you just piss them off later because the USB won’t do everything that a PC can do. Honestly, if you take the aggregate of all the things people say Apple was stupid/arrogant to have omitted from the iPod and add them all back in, you’d have a fucking PC again. Seriously – you’re all missing the goddamn point – that USB port requires how many drivers to be added to the OS or to be able to be loaded later in order to be fully functional? The iPad won’t do anything that requires 3rd party drivers before it’s functional for the user. It won’t depend on anything that a 3rd party controls (like Flash). If you want a ‘turn it on and it works – every time’ device – which is the goddamn point – then you have to lose some of these physical connectors and you have to lose certain software elements. And if you think the iPod/iPad is bad, you’re going to be really disappointed with any ChromeOS device and any Windows Phone 7 device because the only way out of this morass of user hostile hardware is to do what Apple is doing – and they know that now.
If you want a tablet with USB, HP will happily sell you one. Apple is not obligated to make your personal dreams come true.
binzinerator
@Jrod
No joke, a full size USB (you changed that to ‘mini-usb’ I see — most USB gear is not mini) in an i-whatever would change the form factor. The new thin and wide connector means it can be plugged right into the curved edge of the device. It also means the i-pad/pod/touch can get even thinner for future versions. Aesthetics are pretty darn important to a company like Apple.
But I think Martin’s answer makes the most sense. I forgot that driver and 3-party stuff.
By the way, you don’t have to buy one, ya know.
Jrod
USB ports can’t move power? That’s certainly a surprise to me, what with all the devices I own being charged by a USB cable. USB can’t move data? What the hell are you talking about?
Apple fanbois are funny. You point out the various ways Apple fucks over its loyal customers, from the way they spy on their devices to make sure you’re only using them in Steve Jobs approved ways, the way they design new ports for no reason other than to sell accessories for them, the way they design their batteries to be irreplaceable without sending Apple even more money, and I could go on and on, and the response is “Oh you just don’t understand! Apple doesn’t owe you a pony!”
Yeah, I don’t buy Apple products, since I don’t enjoy paying twice as much for a product just so I can have the smug satisfaction of being in the too-much-money-and-too-little-self-respect club. I’m pointing these things out for the same reason I might speak up if I see somebody punching themselves in the face repeatedly. In part, I’d like that person to stop hurting themselves, but mostly it’s just a shocked reaction that anyone would hurt themselves like that.
But sure, Apple won’t use USB because those drivers are just, like, too complicated, maaaaan. It has nothing to do with selling adapters and proprietary wires for three times what they’re worth, oh no. God-emperor Steve wouldn’t do us like that, no sirree.
Joel
I love my iPhone; posting here with it right now. The interface is clean and simple and finally got me to adopt mobile Internet. The Blackberry just didn’t appeal to me before then. More than anything else, it’s the Internet that makes the phone. That said, the iPad doesn’t appeal to me. There’s no value added to my day. Maybe if I was an ebook adopter, I’d be more enthusiastic.
burnspbesq
@JRod:
You’ve made your ignorance and prejudice perfectly clear to everyone.
Wanna buy a Toshiba netbook? Because I sure as shit don’t need it now that I have an iPad.
Jrod
What a surprise, the Apple fanboi response is yet another variation on “You don’t get it.” I was hoping somebody would explain how USB ports don’t actually move electricity or data, therefore Apple can’t use them, or maybe provide a valid reason for not making batteries easily replaceable like, oh, almost everything else that’s ever used a battery in the history of electronics.
As for my prejudice, blow it out your ass. If “prejudice” now entails accurately describing what a company does, then the word has lost all meaning. I may be ignorant, though, since I don’t perceive the charms of paying $800 for a device I don’t actually own, since Apple maintains the final word on what can be done with it.
Jrod
Oh, I almost missed this: (you changed that to ‘mini-usb’ I see—most USB gear is not mini) Bull. Fucking. Shit. Mini-USB is the same goddamned thing as a full size one, just smaller. Nearly every single device I own that uses USB, from my mp3 player to my PS3 uses the mini jack. I think my printer is the only device that doesn’t.
Of course, the all important form factor might be disturbed if Apple used that! Just more evidence that Apple drones are more concerned with showing off their shiny status symbol than they are with having a usable tool. Who cares if it’ll cost me $30 if I want to connect it to a PC, it’s pretty and new! *puke*
Gromit
Mac OS X has always had preemptive multitasking. Earlier versions of the Mac OS had cooperative multitasking.
The iPhone has exactly the same restrictions that the iPad has. There’s no step backward.
Now, the iPhone OS does have multitasking. It’s easy to get confused about this. The Mail and iPod apps operate in the background with no problem. The real complaint about the iPhone OS is that Apple prohibits third party apps from running in the background. This keeps you from, say, streaming Pandora radio while browsing in Safari, or from running an IM client while playing a game. It also keeps you from installing spyware, and no doubt contributes to the reported ~11 hour battery life on the iPad.
When I jailbroke my first-gen iPhone, prior to the opening of the App Store, I installed a Springboard replacement to extend the home screen to accommodate all the neat apps I was installing. I suddenly found my battery life cut in half, even though my usage patterns weren’t any different. It took some investigating, but I realized that removing the new springboard app solved the problem. The reason? It was always running in the background, even when the phone was asleep, sucking up battery power for no good reason. A user who wasn’t willing to do the legwork to figure this out would have just blamed Apple for sucky battery life. This, in a nutshell, is why the iPhone is locked down the way it is, and one reason why the iPhone has the highest customer satisfaction ratings in the smartphone market.
tripletee
Not yet. You can sync with iWork.com or transfer files via a desktop machine and print from there, but not directly from the iPad. For some people that will be a big pain in the ass, but for my typical uses, I really don’t care – the printer sitting upstairs on a desk gets used maybe once a month. Everything else is emailed or synced to cloud storage.
You’re like the angriest concern troll ever. Deep breaths, dude, deep breaths. Now show us on the doll where Steve Jobs touched you…
burnspbesq
Jeez, you Apple-haters are even more laughable than the Duke-haters.
Peter J
Textbooks?
So, you would pay $700-800, and you would not have one text book. Since text books aren’t free, and I doubt that they would be a lot cheaper for the iPad, you would have to pay more.
And the reason would be what? Less to carry around? The possibility of multimedia, I mean, has that ever been a success? Can’t see why the iPad would change that.
—-
When is Google going to do a 1984 2.0 commerical? Or will jailbreak be the hero of 1984 2.0?
The Dr.
@Brian J
I’m just finishing up my first year at Fordham Law right now.
Gromit
It starts at $500, not $700. And if all it did was display textbooks, yeah, that would be steep.
grendelkhan
This isn’t entirely accurate. As others have pointed out, you can consume PDFs and MP3s on it, or browse the web. It’s perfectly possible to use the device without buying a single bit of Apple-branded media. It’s just not quite as straightforward or obvious.
That said (I posted on a dead thread earlier, so I’m repeating myself for everyone’s benefit): Enjoy your safety pencil and circle of paper, peasants.
Gromit
Holy camole, grendelkhan. I had been thinking to myself throughout this discussion “Why stop at USB? Why not complain about the lack of an ethernet port?”, then I read the comment immediately after yours:
I don’t care if it sounds condescending. Some folks really, truly, don’t get what this device is about.
Andrew
It’s amazing how anything Apple-related can turn the calmest soul into a raving, frothing, chair-throwing, fallacy-spewing nutcase.
My friend bought an iPad this weekend. Until you put your hands on one, you shouldn’t be allowed to speak on the matter. They are really amazing. Please take your straw-men and slippery slopes elsewhere.
grendelkhan
That’s a rather convenient idea, but while it’s relevant to certain criticisms, e.g., the device is useless without an adapter-free USB port, it’s irrelevant to the larger point about its closed nature. It is not, in any meaningful sense, under your control. Yes, I know, nobody here likes Cory Doctorow, but those protests would be a lot more convincing if people didn’t just jerk their knees and ignore the substance of what the freedom-zero crowd talks about.
The iPad isn’t the start of a slippery slope, it’s the end. When Martin said the following, he was being quite accurate.
The point that people were trying to make over at Mark Pilgrim’s place, if the people defending their purchases could see over their own outrage for a moment, is not that the iPad’s lack of a dedicated generic USB port is the end of the world, it’s that the iPad is a device which is not a general-purpose computer, but will replace general-purpose computers.
As I said over at the comment I linked to previously, I don’t think this is some kind of evil Jobsian scheme. Apple is making something that there’s a very clear demand for. General-purpose computing for the masses is a failed idea. We should be honest about it. Safety pencil and circle of paper.