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Apple's "iPad" Out In the Open
Reader oxide7 is one of the many to note that the heaviest speculation is mostly over (still waiting on the price, though) about Apple's anticipated new device (though there are surely plenty of questions about the device's hardware capabilities and the scope of its software and content marketplace): "At an event in San Francisco Apple released its anticipated iPad.'[It's] Way better than a laptop, way better then a phone. You can turn it any way you want. To see the whole page is phenomenal,' said Jobs." The (0.5") skinny: 1.5 lbs, multitouch, up to 64GB of flash, 9.7" screen, and a 1Ghz "Apple A4" chip (more about the A4 in Engadget's developing story). The iPad is closer in concept to an expanded iPhone (OS and all) than a miniaturized laptop, though it doesn't have quite as much connectivity as you might expect, with no 3G connection built in. (You'll have to make do with 802.11n, Bluetooth, and tethering.) Live coverage is ongoing at gdgt live, Engadget, and Gizmodo, as well as various others. Update by timothy, 19:58 GMT: Got the 3G part wrong; 3G is indeed an option. Prices run from $499 (16GB flash, WiFi but no 3G) to $829 (WiFi and 3G, 64GB flash). Should start shipping in 60 days (WiFi only), in 90 days for 3G. Surprsingly, no built-in camera.
Which means no hulu.com, espn360.com or fancast.com. Somehow Mr. Jobs is touting this as a feature.
Isn't this just a big expensive iPod touch now?
So Apple is basically saying that we should stop buying MacBooks and iPhones?
No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I was looking at the iPhone the other day and I was just thinking that it would be so much better if it didn't fit into any of my pockets.
So help me god this thing better have multitasking
To see the whole page is phenomenal
I'm not sure "phenomenal" is the right term to describe "seeing a whole page". You would think that we've never been able to see a whole page before and that Steve Jobs is personally responsible for some entirely new experience.
I guess that's what they mean by the reality distortion field.
You can turn it any way you want.
Good god, you mean I can pick the thing up and actually turn it? I'm so excited I'm about to soil myself! Will Apple innovations never cease?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
This entire presentation seems a little disappointing. Really, it looks, acts, and feels like a giant iPod Touch. Whereas the iPhone and iPod really created a need , I don't see that this substantially innovate to make it a must-have. It doesn't seem to improve on anything so substantially that it is an obvious choice. Maybe I need to see a few more videos, but I don't see this pulling serious market share away from Kindle's targeted market segment.
Yes, quite.
Last time I saw a /. commenter speculating about the future of Apple's latest new thing, it read something like this:
Raise your hand if you have iTunes ...
Raise your hand if you have a FireWire port ...
Raise your hand if you have both ...
Raise your hand if you have $400 to spend on a cute Apple device ...
There is Apple's market. Pretty slim, eh? I don't see many sales in the future of iPod.
~LoudMusic
I prefer to take the 'wait and see' approach.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Watching the announcement live I was struck with just how absorbent the crowd was regarding iPad presentation. It's like this product has wings. I wonder how well the iPad will handle those heavy work flow days.
It might be a normal iPhone but Steve has shrunk
Universities and colleges all have strong wifi coverage
wait for Rev. B!
Apple will sell millions.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, can we move on now?
The last time you saw a comment in /. speculating about the future of Apple's latest new thing was with the release of the iPod? You don't visit very often.
"I see undead people" Warcraft III - Necromancer
I have both an iPhone and a MacBook and I use and love both everyday. However, I've never thought to myself, "how great would it be to have a 10-inch iPhone?" After watching the live coverage for the last hour, that's basically all this is. The OS and UI are basically the same, just upscaled and optimized in some places for the larger screen. As far as I can tell, there are none of the clever innovations that are typically present in a new Apple product. The only people that I can see this thing appealing to would be people that have a strong fascination for touch screens and people that don't feel that they can properly lounge about with a laptop (as exemplified by Steve Jobs lounging in a love seat during the presentation). I think the only obvious application would be as an ebook reader (side note: I nearly had a fit when they decided to reuse the term iBook to brand their ebooks). The presentation still isn't done so there isn't a word on price, but if it can't come within range of the Kindle and similar devices, I'd say this thing is purely novelty.
It actually has a robust power source; it is powered almost entirely by the user's sense of self-importance.
Wireless. More space than a Nomad. Lame.
What was wrong with the oft-rumored "iSlate" moniker?
"Ip ad" doesn't mean anything in English. "Is late" meant Duke Nukem Forever for several years.
"There will be models with 3G support" according to Steve Jobs, so saying that it doesn't support 3G is just a bit, um, wrong.
Modding "-1, Troll" is not a proper response if you disagree with me. Try reason.
No WiMAX. Same storage as an iPod. Lame.
But it doesn't.
I use a 1.2ghz Pentium M tablet PC running XP tablet edition (Less than $350 with a new battery). Why? because I can annotate PDF files, take notes with one note (PLEASE we need a OSS version of that app) and then at the end of the meeting I can simply email all of it via my corperate email. Those two apps are the killer apps most people that use a tablet professionally need. I can annotate the customers blueprints and send them and engineering a copy, Plus my notes in one note are easy to organize. All on something that costs less than this thing will even in it's el-cheapo form.
And that, my friends, is why the Post Anonymously checkbox exists.
Its a convergence device. As such, its designed to be a better netbook than the Kindle DX, a better eReader than an EeePC, and a better portable media player than either.
Its not a better netbook than a dedicated netbook, or a better eReader than a dedicated reader (though, of course, Apple will try to sell it as being better in both these roles than the existing competition.) And maybe not a better portable media player for most uses than an iPod Touch. But Apple's bet is that the perceived price/utility it will provide is better than any of dedicated readers/netbooks because it does a good enough job in all three roles to be a one-stop multirole device.
Not seeing it on the front page, but it's all up here.
I know this comes as a surprise to US users, but in many countries, you get multiple SIM cards on the same contract for no or little extra money. Put one in your phone, one in your reader, one in your laptop, etc. Nice, eh?
This is exactly what happened when the iPod was announced: slashdot dismissed it as derivative while Apple quietly reinvented the freakin' walkman. One thing Apple generally gets right is marketing. There may be nothing technologically revolutionary to most slashdotters in the iPad but the fact is it's already shaken up the consumer world even before it was officially acknowledged as an existing product. At the Consumer electronics show in Las Vegas this year the upcoming Apple tablet was a bigger topic of excitement than any device that actually existed at the time -- Apple didn't even go to the convention and yet they managed to have a significant presence there. They have been very successful in the hype department without even spending a dime on advertising. Technological merits aside they will sell a boatload of these.
Most people here don't see past their own noses... Myself, I like the iPad except for the fact that Apple decides what I can install... but that's the whole point.
The iPad is a platform, not a device.
Most people just want stuff to work, and don't want to care how. Most of the time, so do I. I don't want my stove in the kitchen to require a friggin manual to do basic cooking even if I could patch it to boil eggs 15% faster I never would be bothered. It's the same for regular people with all tech, computers included. People don't want to know the details, they just want to tap on a movie/book/app/whatever, confirm their transaction, and have it all just work.
The iPad can run iPhone apps, and the SDK is available now. App developers will be falling over each other to be first with new apps taking advantage of the larger screen.
I'm very tempted, but still skeptical I'll buy this myself. The closed platform is an issue for me. But most people couldn't care less about what they can't do on a device like this, if they just can do all they want. Freedom is great, but how many of us have truly bothered to go under the hood in our games consoles for instance? I can do all I truly need with our Wii even if I can't run SCUMMVM. Hell, I don't even have time to play all the games I've bought.
The iPad will be a great example of good enough technology. "The internet", in your lap, on this amazing looking little device. With movies, books, music and apps to boot. Joe and Jane Average are gonna think it's great.
.: Max Romantschuk
Exactly my thoughts, they've done the Tablet PC without including the pen, the reason that Tablet PCs are so useful.
Our Uni publishes all the notes online as PDFs, i load up aforementioned app and annotate right on the notes. But i can also insert extra pages, copy-paste and insert diagrams. My logic coursework and having the ability to copy/paste/edit previous lines, as well as doodle without wrecking it is so much more useful than a pad of paper. The brilliance of a Tablet PC is the pen, not the fact you can poke it.
My 3.5 year old Tablet PC has a 1.7Ghz Pentium M with 1GB RAM and is now running Windows 7. It blows the functionality of this thing out the water.
So it's some kind of fancy vibrator?
Check it out.
Edith Keeler Must Die
What gets me is the price step up for the memory ...
To get +16 GB the price increase is $100
To get +32 GB the price increase is another $200
So basically, we are talking $100 per 16GB of flash memory, when I could buy a 16GB USB dongle for any other device for $10 ???
And the $130 extra for 3G ? A lot of mobiles don't cost that, and have a hell of a lot more than 3G built in.
As usual, another iRipoff, and the fanbois will lap it up ... fucking mugs.
I have karma to burn, so do your worst, it won't change reality, only the visibility of this comment ...
Pluses:
While I absolutely agree with you that the prices above the base seem exorbitant in comparison to the 'extra' parts you're getting, you're thinking of the prices in terms of construction, not marketing.
It's an annoyance, of course, but the simple fact is that Apple will have put an awful lot of effort into setting these prices: they don't want to sell for under $600 but marketing tells them that launching at less than $500 will hook the customers. Simple solution is to sell a base model at that price which fewer people will buy, but many will decide that they want. Once people have decided they want it and rationalised that they can afford it, it's much easier to upsell to the one that Apple intended on making all along, at the price they intended all along, by adding an extra $20 of hardware. Make them look at a $630 base unit and many people will write it off out of hand.
Actually you don't get it, the software is what makes this device nothing more than a giant iPhone. Which is absurd.
Dear Europe:
You win.
You're better, and we suck.
We're closing up shop.
Sincerely,
The United States of America
P.S. You can now stop all shipments to us of your pricey cars and kitchen appliances.
"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." - Tacitus
I rather have Apple kill Flash.
If you're going to wish for something unrealistic and beyond their power, at least shoot for world peace.
Okay, so there are three possible visions of the future Web:
1. The AdobeWeb, where every page is just an empty shell around an embedded SWF. There is some risk that this may happen.
2. The SilverWeb, where every page is just an empty shell around an embedded Silverlight object. With ActiveX barely treading water, this is Microsoft's forlorn hope.
3. The iPhone Web, where every page is HTML+JavaScript and scales nicely to small screen sizes.
Personally, I like option 3 the best. And only Apple (and possibly Google, eventually) are backing this horse.
Wow, I'm a bit disappointed :) Yes, with the iPad a bit, but more so with the idea that this is Slashdot and barely anyone has thrown a spotlight on the Apple A4. This is an ARM, high performance, low power CPU with integrated graphics, and more importantly the first piece of processing silicon coming out of Cupertino. Regardless of how much i like the Intel Atom, i think this will be a viable competitor on the ARM front. Too bad it is under lock and key with the iPhone OS :p