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iPad Launches, FCC Teardown Leaked
Apple's much-awaited iPad officially launched today, and iFixit has gotten their hands on photos from the FCC teardown. They've done an analysis of the internals and provided directions on doing it yourself, if you're so inclined. Predictably, it's a hot topic in the media. Cory Doctorow wrote about why he won't be getting an iPad, complaining about the closed, hacker-unfriendly design and what he calls the "Wal-martization of the software channel." Daring Fireball's John Gruber disagrees, pointing out that enthusiasts — even kids exercising their curiosity — are still quite capable of playing around with the iPad through app creation, and with much more of a chance to compete with big companies than in the Apple ][ days. Similarly, others are referring to it as the "bedtime computer" — technology that has a reasonable shot at expanding into completely new areas of use, like bedtime reading for kids. Such a device was predicted in 1972 by Alan Kay, the PARC scientist credited with the epigram "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." His hypothetical DynaBook bears striking similarity to what Apple finally came up with. So, those of you who have picked up or received an iPad already: how do you like it?
People, snap out of it. Its just a tablet computer. They have been around for over 10 years and they have never been all that special. Apple has you in some sort of hypnosis that is causing you to go gaga over closed up commercial productions that you think you need to own.
will be out in force in this thread.
There are faults with any device. It's not perfect, and it won't be for everyone. What irks me is the "I don't like/want it therefore it's crap" attitude; the inability to look beyond what *you* find wrong with it, and see that this might just be golden for someone else. My parents, for example [grin].
But what bugs me above all is the anti-apple crowd these days. Apparently if you express even the slightest appreciation for something well-conceived and well-designed, you're a "fanboi" who's taken in by "the shiny" (whatever *that* is!). Sure there are fanboys (and girls, presumably), but not everyone (not even vaguely close - not in the same universe, let alone ballpark) who likes Apple kit should be labelled such.
I swear the anti-Apple crowd are far and away worse than the real fanboys. Even in the worst-possible scenario, with everyone who likes Apple kit being a fan (ahem, including both genders, here) , at least the fans have something they like, appreciate, and enjoy using. The haters just hate. And that's pitiably sad.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I think Slashdotters are for the most part woefully ignorant of how the rest of humanity actually uses computers, and would do well to understand these types of use cases. They will sell millions.
Firstly, Slashdot is not a single uniform entity. There are many different opinions which in case of iPad there are slashdotters all over the love-hate spectrum. You're not the exception here.
Secondly, in your rush to blame Slashdot, you came up with an example which not only doesn't support "sell millions" argument but also goes against it. iPad's market is much more mainstream than niche semi-disabled 95 year olds. Everyone with an interest in reading eBooks, watching movies on the go, reading news, doing lite creative work, using some productivity tools, students reading textbooks, etc. is the target market.
All of this however doesn't change the fact that Apple has declared war on tinkering and as more and more consumers adopt the "appliance computing" model that Apple spearheads, the future of computing looks less and less bright. Hopefully all alternatives will not perish.
It does less than a similarly equipped laptop, and for only twice the price! As a bonus for your money, you get no USB expansion ports, and can even only run one app at a time! Apple's innovation is staggering.
--Obyron
I don't think that's really true. Whilst I'm not generally a fan of Gruber and his rampant Apple fanboyism, he's not stupid and I think the argument he makes is sound. I wrote programs for the BBC Micro back in the 80s - and it sucked. I knew, even as a child, that what I was doing wasn't "real" programming. I didn't even know what "real" programming was as I had never heard of nor did I understand the concept of assembly language back then. Maybe some kids were smart enough to teach themselves assembly language and then hack the OS itself. I just couldn't do that, I didn't have access to the materials and for an 8 year old even BASIC can be tough. I actually didn't do any OS-level hacking until I was 18 (on Linux) and I don't think it did me any harm.
I happen to think the iPhone and iPad are remarkably poor environments for children to learn programming on, mostly because the amount of crap you have to learn in order to make something fun in languages like Objective-C is enormous. JavaScript or even Java is a much better choice. However, Gruber links to some 13 year old who has written an app and published it on the app store. That's awesome and something I could only have dreamed of when I was 13.
And it's not just kids. I was reading an interview the other day with a guy who published "I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES" on Xbox Live. He did it with the XNA toolkit, in other words it was written in C#. In the interview he said he was glad XNA existed because he wasn't a very experienced programmer and C++ was too difficult for him. But XNA was easy. His game costs a dollar, took a few weeks to make and is wildly profitable. It consistently sits at the top of the indie games charts - because it's excellent. In other words, even though the Xbox is the most closed platform you can imagine, it's still possible for amateurs to compete with the big boys by producing fun games. That's the sort of motivation kids in the 70s and 80s just never had and frankly, I think it more than makes up for having some signature checks here and there.
Yeah, because a company that got and maintained its riches only because of its half-baked operating system and word processor is so much like a company that goes out on a limb (over and over again) to invent a new category of consumer device.
Wow! Apple invented the MP3 player, the cell phone and the tablet PC! You learn something new every day here on Slashdot!
Back in the real world, Apple produce moderately unsucky versions of consumer devices that have been in the market for years, and throw vast amounts of advertising at selling them. Right now they're actually managing to make Microsoft look only moderately evil.... at least Microsoft lets you run arbitrary software on Windows.
Of course there's nothing wrong with their business model so long as they're not holding a gun to your head and forcing you to buy one, but let's cut out the 'Apple is so innovative' crap which merely makes you look like another cultist.
You know there's something that's out there already called the "droid". It works great and does everything and more than the Ipad and actually fits in your pocket.
Most of the people here are missing the point. The iPad is all about paying for content. And the content isn't cheap. The Wall Street Journal costs more on the iPad than on paper. $5 a month seems to be a typical price for online magazines. The iPad creates a direct connection between content providers and your wallet.
And there's no ad-blocking. You will will watch the ads. The "app" concept means that the program, not the user, has control. If the program wants you to look at the ad for 10 seconds, you will look at the ad for 10 seconds.
It seems as though you are not so upset at the size of the iPad, but the size of your pockets.
Will the iPad fit in a lab coat pocket? Or more generally in the pocket of clinical clothing for doctors and nurses? I think those pockets would be far more interesting than those in jeans.
Do the clipboards and manilla folders that doctors and nurses use now fit in their pockets? I don't really think those are professions that use pockets to do their jobs. Doctors will probably be more interested in whether or not they can scribble notes into documents.
What I found interesting was not the size, but the weight. About 1.5 lbs IIRC. I was even more interested to find that the Kindle DX is over 2 lbs, about a kilogram. These devices both boast superior form factor over options like laptops and cellphones when it comes to reading, especially the Kindle. I never read ebooks on my laptop, because I want to lie in different positions, often holding the book above me. I've found this to be really quite nice with my Android phone, but a kilogram isn't light, and when I think about it, neither is 1.5 lbs. What good is a tablet if you have to, over a long length of use, rest it on your lap or a table anyway?
Maybe the weight isn't an issue, I've never tried a Kindle DX, much less an iPad. At the same time, if I'm using something I have to hold (laptops may be heavier, but I'm not expected to carry it to use it), I don't want it to be heavier than whatever it's replacing. Books are really light, so are television remotes, keyboards and mouses (as one reclines with feet up next to desktop monitor), and even laptops resting on laps aren't so bad. If the iPad is supposed to mobilise content into your hands, it'd better not be the single heaviest thing in my bag.