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iPad Progress Report
Now that the 300,000 early adopters have had a few days to play and work with their iPads, we're moving beyond the "first impressions" articles (but here's a video of a 2-1/2-year-old's first encounter with the device). The detailed reviews aren't out yet. The largest source of early complaints is a complex of problems with Wi-Fi reception. Apple has posted a technical support note implicitly acknowledging the problems and suggesting some work-arounds — specifically, changing SSIDs or encryption methods on base stations that offer both 2.4-GHz and 5.8-GHz signals. Finally, here's a detailed look at the gratuitous pain Apple imposes on those desiring to get iWork files transferred from and to the iPad.
I think the grandparent post was commenting on kdawson using "early adapter" instead of "early adopter" in the post. Presumably, an early adapter is someone who is among the first to adapt to the revolutionary new world that the Jesus Tablet brings us.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
You must not have dealt with IBM in a business setting much. They practically invented vendor lock in.
I'm not really bothered by the 300k number. I'm sure there's nearly that many Apple zealots waiting to get their hands on one to begin with. What I'm curious about is how many of those 300k people are people who are just going to buy the next Apple gadget on launch day vs. those who bought it out of genuine interest. Also, I'm curious if this will drive up the sales of iPod Touches when people go out to get an iPad but realize they can save a few hundred dollars and basically have the same functionality + portability. Personally, I hope it flops...we don't need Apple dictating, shaping, and propriatizing yet another format...but that's just an off topic rant.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Think about that. Apple released a new product on an older but proven OS. iPhone OS 3.2 is a version of iPhone OS specifically modified for iPad. It was released in beta back in Jan 2010. You're advocating that they should have released a brand new product on a new, unproven OS (4.0 which hasn't been released outside of Apple yet). Sounds like Apple is trying to avoid the beta-testing you're accusing them of doing.
Also this week they will announce/release the beta version of 4.0 to developers. It will be at least a few months after release before the OS moves from beta to final. That would have to delay the launch of iPad for a few more months.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It's a sad day when getting root on my own device is considered 'hacking'
Reply to That ||
Except how many Macs these days have user replacable graphics cards for example?
Literally nobody who's interested in buying an iPad will be surprised that the other side does not contain a second screen (or a second iPad) -- don't be ridiculous. And saying that it's designed to "look like" some MS vaporware product that nobody has ever heard of so far is just as silly. I'd say the case looks a bit odd to me, plasticky; but I've never been one for protective cases, anyway.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Nonsense.
There is very little barrier to running whatever OS you want to on your Mac. The fact that the "BIOS" allows for this is not different from the fact that the BIOS on any other PC supports booting up Windows, Linux, FreeBSD or Solaris.
A Mac comes with what you need to get it running something other than MacOS.
That's a bit different from needing to hack the device in some way to achieve this (ipod, appletv).
Although once you hack an AppleTV you will see that it too is pretty much just a PC.
The only reason I don't have more Macs running Linux is that the PC market in general caught up and now the price and feature advantages of a mini aren't there anymore. This will happen with tablets too soon enough. Although the ipad will gain a lot more traction by that time when compared to minis.
It's not really accurate to call Apple a computer company anymore...
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
So, in true Slashdot spirit:
It's a sad day when getting root on my own device requires 'hacking'
FTFY.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
You do realize, of course, that many peripheral manufacturers not only test against Windows ONLY; but also silently program around bugs in Microsoft's implementations of standards in general.
Quite aware.
Apple is absolutely correct to follow the published standard to the letter.
In most situations yes, I would agree. However in any situation where one (e.g. Apple) is deploying your minority of hardware into an established environment, the onus falls on them to ensure their hardware works in that environment.
Afterall, isn't that why it's called a STANDARD?
In an ideal world sure. In the world in which I live I can update the firmware in my Mac so that it copes with a flawed router at starbucks or my hotel or a clients office, I can't update the firmware at starbucks, the hotel, or a clients office.
My laptop is only valuable and useful if it works in these places. And so far, its been pretty hit and miss. So far, I've had to replace my home router to satisfy my newest mac; I had to downgrade a friends mac from snow leopard back to leopard so that it would work on an office network he did not control, and I've had to suffer through unbearable internet at a hotel on multiple occasions, while my wifes pc worked flawlessly.
Finally, all this assumes Apple actually followed the standard and its all these vendors with horrific buggy systems. Quite bluntly, Apple is not perfect, and it would be absurd to presume they got everything right, and its all these other vendors who keep getting it wrong. Some of the technical blame lies at apples feet.
And some of the blame that genuinely lies at the feet of other vendors COULD be resolved by Apple if it were so inclined. And it SHOULD take ownership of solving these issues when it can. Customers want laptops that 'just work'; that's what they keep promising.
And above all, in my experience, a lot of the problems could be resolved within a subset of the standard. Often a standard specifies behavior X, and a device doesn't implement this properly, and windows isn't affected because it never requests behavior X. If that's the case, Apple could make their software work too with all these devices, by simply avoiding feature X. Note that by doing this Apple would STILL be following the standard to the letter.
They didn't sell 300,000 units in one day, or even one weekend. They sold 300,000 on 4 months of constant hype and reporting, and finally completed those sales in one weekend.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!