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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.
WTF is that?
other solutions to the wi-fi problems.
Our neighbor picked up an iPad on launch day, and he has definitely experienced the Wi-Fi problem. His Acer Aspire One in his basement can connect to his wireless G Linksys router on his top floor with a good, strong signal. His iPad can BARELY connect while he is on his ground floor, and in his basement you can forget about it. His Aspire One can also see our wireless network as well as the network belonging to folks on the other side of him, but even if he shoves his iPad against the wall dividing our town homes, he still can't even see our router, much less connect to it.
Living With a Nerd
with a Jailbreak.
Yours In Kuybyshev,
Kilgore Trout
Detailed review of the iPad
No one's hacked it yet?
Come on people, get on the ball...
Doing anything with documents on an iPad sounds awful. You apparently have to "sync" with a Mac using iTunes. In any business environment, you'd want to talk to some server.
Apparently the iPad is incompatible with Google Docs, although this may just be a bug.
It sure seems strange to me that Apple, who sell themselves as the "complete" and "it just works" experience would release the iPad before the next version of iPhoneOS comes out. This sounds like the kind of giant pay-to-beta-test sort of thing that Apple is known for NOT doing.
As someone who uses an iPhone and would like an iPad, Thursday will be very interesting.
Is anyone else reminded of the 10.0 release of OSX?
What I'm really interested to know is will the iPad allow me to write a book, save in unencrypted ePub format, and upload it to my own device, to be read by iBooks? I happen to be in the market for an e-reader, but not one that won't allow me to read self-authored content.
Nerd Rock In Progress
The little girl had obviously spent a lot of time playing with an iPhone or iPod Touch. While cute, I don't think it really qualifies as much of a First-Encounter-type UI experiment.
According to PCWorld, the Apple press release citing 300k units is including those sold to Bestbuy, which is of course entirely different from the number of units sold by Bestbuy.
that figure includes those that WorstBuy bought and has sitting on their shelves. Are they sold to end losers yet?
look on Craigslist or eBay to see all the "end losers" that bought them thinking they could flip them.
I wonder what percentage of sales were made up by those?
I like microcars
Is after 1 month after purchase. When the Gee Wiz is out... The back has a few scratches... Do they put it on a shelf and forget about it or will they use it in their daily lives. I remember back in the 90's when I got myself a Palm III I when I first go it I was playing with it and it was all cool and I downloaded apps for it and everything else... But after a month I kept on forgetting to use it, leaving it at home and not really using it for anything useful. I didn't get myself an iPad not because I didn't think it was cool but because as far as I could tell it would just be fun for a month then I would have it on a shelf not used.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Well, considering Apple stopped taking advanced orders, those who wanted one but didn't pre-order would have to get one at an Apple store. If the Apple store was out, they'd have to hope BestBuy had one. BestBuy however carried far fewer per store than an Apple store would have.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Before I become modded down to an oblivion, I would like to point out that on an Asus AEEE or even on a XO I can run abiword or openoffice and have a FULL OS with REAL software that is used by the rest of the world on desktops. Not a DRMed cell phone os with large amounts of resources being used to lock me into a jail with specifically designed office apps that have been made crippled.
I was hoping to run MacOSX when I heard Apple was going to make a sub netbook. Instead it reminds me of WinCE where Microsoft got together to purposedly cripple as much possible.
The tabled is not a computer but a device ... a big IPhone with the phone part disabled.
I am waiting for HPs tablet. I hope it runs Windows and I can put any app I want on it.
http://saveie6.com/
You must not have dealt with IBM in a business setting much. They practically invented vendor lock in.
Adopters. Early Adapters? WTF??
This is looking like a "wait for Service Pack 1" or "wait for version 2" situation.
This could be a nice little device in a year, when the software is debugged, the cellular interface is in and works, the cellular networks have provisioned enough capacity to serve video to the thing, there's decent support for business documents, and the price has dropped by 50% or so.
You cant just buy your own graphics card, more hardware, or even a damn battery for iPhone. You have to buy everything from Apple, from an Apple store, with high Apple prices. This just follows the same lead.
Buying RAM for a Mac: http://www.newerram.com/
Buying a new graphics card for a Mac (Mac edition of graphics cards): http://www.nextag.com/mac-graphics-card/compare-html
Pretty much everything you need to upgrade the hardware of a Mac: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/site-map/
These aren't Apple sites, but you can upgrade your Mac with their parts. Just because its harder to do, doesn't mean it can't be done.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
Apple make a great product. But never first time round. If I did want one of these, I would wait for the next revision at least.
I did buy an iPad. I had a gift certificate so the cost was significantly reduced, and I thought it would be fun. haven't had much time to play with it since work has been crazy since I bought it.
BUT it is a really nice media consumption device. I haven't bought the iWork suite yet (and i'm not sure I will).
It seems to me that using this device for creating word documents is not really that a good idea; it reminds me of the monty python skit where they ask someone to cut down a tree with a herring.
Personally I word process on my desktop when I have REAL work to do. If I want to write leisurely I could see that working on the iPad, but it's definitely not what I envision myself doing.
I'm going to be reading, watching movies, listening to music and playing games. It does those all pretty well IMO, and the OLED screen is gorgeous indoors (kind of reflective outside). Still wish it had a pixelqi screen but, ah well. Such is the fate of an early adopter.
Are developers out of their freaking minds? Do they seriously thing that Things is worth paying $19.99? I mean, I can see the utility, but given all the alternatives, do they seriously believe that people are going to pay that much?
To do list for Windows
Next year Apple will announce iPhone OS 5.0 with an innovative new idea that they're calling "iFile". With this new service all of your applications can share documents by storing them in a common location. iFile will include an innovative system of organization called "Folders". Folders will allow you to group related documents together in a single location. You will even be able to create Folders within Folders.
And coming in iPhone OS 6.0, "iFile Share". Share your iFiles over any network connection.
especially sunlight. Sorry but with this type of device I was really hoping I could use it outdoors without fearing the light. No go. Sorry its abysmal. It also has the problem of not being viewable in page format with polarized lenses, landscape was fine. When I borrowed my friends Kindle I found I could read outside just fine. Let alone the weight, sorry but it really amazes me how much it gets to you over time.
I don't need another device that is trapped indoors. Summer is almost upon us and I don't want something I fear leaving in the sun, let alone using with the sun out. I guess I can sit under the umbrella but really, my marine GPS is beautiful in sunlight, why can't we have an iPad for the outdoors instead of basement dwellers?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Sometimes Apple has a period of greatness and then they have a period of... well, not so greatness. Maybe it is time again?
Personally, I don't know. The Wifi problems sound odd, but then again, who exactly thought putting an metal shield on an antenna was a good idea? But surely Apple would have tested that.
I think what we are finding is that a lot of people are putting this device under an intense microscope, determined to find any and all flaws and blow them up out of proportion. High trees catch a lot of wind, especially if they fail to fall in previous gusts of hot air. Anyone remember people scoffing the iPod and iPhone? They must be getting desperate for Apple to have one of its famous screw-ups again.
I think Apple had a simple reason to launch the iPad now. One of its uses is to go outside and use it. Who is going to go outside in the winter? And soonish they will have to announce a new macbook pro anyway (core 2 duo is getting very long in the tooth) and that makes more sense later in the year, and two must have's should be seperated so the victim eh customer has time to recover from the bloodletting that is called buying an Apple product.
Frankly, I have seen all this negativity before. I don't put much stock in it. If someone were to introduce fire in this day and age, people would find plenty of stuff wrong with it and claim that nobody really needs it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I know that's the question that's been on My mind!
Requires sticks. Dimmer than the sun. Lame.
It's a sad day when getting root on my own device is considered 'hacking'
Reply to That ||
Will one out of every three stories from every newspaper, magazine, website, radio and TV station for the next 18 months really be about the iPad?
I need to know right now so I can prepare myself by drinking a large glass of neurotoxin, with a bullet to the brain chaser.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You just missed the memo:
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/04/04/2223237/iPad-Jailbroken
BTW, let me be the first to say:
"Two year olds, is there nothing they can't do?"
Except how many Macs these days have user replacable graphics cards for example?
iDontCareAnymore
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Apple To Introduce iPDA
I don't need to stream scaled-down "used-to-be-hi-definition" video in 1024x576, so I'll get the iPDA instead of the iPad.
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.
some guy has ths great checklist of reasons your antispam idea won't work we need something like that for first looks at apple hardware Here are reasons why your brand new, expensive apple hardware sucks One or more may apply 1) Its exspensive 2) the warranty sucks 3) the battery, powercable, screen, keyboard or other hardware is cleary defective, as evidenced by a large number of failures,and apple won't honor warrantys, and replacing it is a major pain in the ass, and costly if done thru apple 4) Getting your new toy to work with prev generations of apple software is hard 5) I/O has major glitches, including exspensive and spotty wireless web connection, touch screens that don't work Don't complain; just like those fools who buy a new MS OS before SP2, ou are an early adopter guinea pig for the rest of us. I thank you for your service PS: as a mac hater, I think you are all whackjobs; you buy this overpriced crap that doesn't do anything so you think you are cool. My laptop cost 425 bucks; I could buy two or three for the cost of a mac (and specs don't matter - I only do simple stuff, so it doesn't matter how much ram or hd space or whatever i have) but thats just me Instead of showing off with your mac crap, why don't you buy something cheap, and send the money to haiti or save the children. yo can put a little sticker on your cheap cell phone, I got this cheap cell phone instead of an iphone so 50 kids could have dinner... .....
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.
Giving the "no true Scotsman" line a run, eh?
Good trolling there.
That is such a tired, untrue, cliched argument. Granted, you can't easily go to Best Buy and purchase a battery for the iPhone, but I assure you I can find one online in about 1 minute.
Apple doesn't even make graphic cards, so yes, you actually can go buy a third party graphic card and put it in a Mac (granted, only the Pro is expandable these days, but my G4 has had all kinds of 3rd party stuff inside).
"More hardware"? What does that mean? I've purchased all kinds of non-Apple hardware over the years: USB and wireless mice, keyboards, hard drives, wireless routers, wireless USB adapters, USB hubs, monitors, printers, and so on.
The only Apple hardware I own other than the computers is Airport Extreme and a video adapter. Yeah, the Extreme costs $100 more than some random junk at Best Buy, but Time Machine worked instantly out-of-the-box, which was well worth the extra $100 I spent.
Next argument.
Where have I heard about that before?
The future is now :)
Not to discount the iPad, but the constant barrage of news on this thing undoubtedly makes a dramatic impact on sales. People inevitably want to get on the bandwagon and find a reason to justify getting an iPad.
If someone else had introduced a similar tablet computer, with a well-designed interface and not chained to any one service I guarantee little attention would be given to the device. Of course, the key point here is that nobody else even tried. There were those tablet PCs several years ago, but since then nobody even tried to improve on those designs. Apple did it and now the inevitable imitators are going to flock to introduce their own versions.
So I find myself torn between thinking Apple's products are overrated and being impressed by the fact that they can bring a bit of technology to maturity and really make it work. And they understand integration better than most.
There goes any possible fear of lithium batteries
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
I dunno, his username starts with "pope", so there is a good chance that he is infact gay.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
Sometimes Apple has a period of greatness and then they have a period of... well, not so greatness. Maybe it is time again?
Apple sold 300,000 iPads on the first day. Their market cap just passed Wal-Mart making them the 3rd most valuable company traded in US markets, behind only Microsoft and Exxon-Mobil. Regardless of particular views on the merits of the iPhone or the iPad, they are re-defining their markets and forcing competitive innovation just by their very existence. This is almost by definition a "great" period for a company.
More hardware usually refer to stuff like raid cards, sound cards, gfx cards etc.
As in, you can't just go and buy a high-end sound card like Asus Xonar D2X or a graphics card like GeForce 295 (not that the mac supports multi gpu anyway) and expect it to work in the mac.
And the only mac to support add-in cards at all is the mac pro.
How is selling ~300,000 units in one day disappointing?
In terms of the intense inspection, that is absolutely true, but such inspection is valid. Apple sets themselves up as the gold standard in consumer electronics. Not only do competitors analyze every device to see what they can reverse engineer and implement, they also must find flaws to that they can continue to sell their own kit, which is often inferior. For instance, everyone says how closed the Apple laptop is, but no one mentions that even with all the expandability of a PC laptop, one cannot get a trackpad as efficient as the standard apple trackpad. OTOH, when Apple shipped with the dreaded puck mouse, it was easily replaced.
In fact Apple is in a precarious position, reminiscent of the newton. Most of the sync for the electronics line is through iTunes. iTunes is a program primarily concerned with DRM, and therefore design decision tend to be focused on limited transfer information rather than letting the user get to information. This means that I cannot back up my iPhone on two machines. I am arbitrarily limited because people are afraid I am going to steal music. This was an issue, in a different fashion, on the Newton. The Newton was a very well connected machine, it had full network capability. But there was a sense that it should not be too integrated. The same fear of too integrated seems to be evident on both machines.
Apple has solved this in terms of PDA. All PDA data is not synched over Mobileme, or other services, and is outside of iTunes. User generated content can be moved through other venues as well. What we see here though is that users are going to create various other content, such as office documents, and we are being thwarted by the iTunes DRM watch. If they do not fix this quickly, then the potential of using the iPad as a content generation platform will be destroyed. At the very least Apple must implement a native bridge between the WebDAV extension that iPhone OS. The MobileMe app is not sufficient. Apps must have the ability to access the filesystem. If the file format for iPhone iWork apps is different from iWork applications, then they have made a grave error indeed, just like they did with Newton.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
This is certainly not off topic. Crude, perhaps but AC gets the point across.
~ Ron Fitzgerald
He = Mr iPad
If we defeat him on this WiFi issue then we Republicans will sweep the next election.
Long live CHAOS.
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
More than likely the antenna. My laptop sees networks that my iPod Touch refuses to even see. Or it could be the Broadcom chip, or even the iPhone OS. Who knows.
... Yeah, the Extreme costs $100 more than some random junk at Best Buy, but Time Machine worked instantly out-of-the-box, which was well worth the extra $100 I spent.
Next argument.
Wait, Apple almost beats the insanely good deals that can be found and Best Buy? I guess newegg and and ncix are gonna go bankrupt pretty soon.
I wanted a tablet, but wasn't looking to get anything by Apple or something Windows based. Linux's touch support seems pretty dodgy, so I ended up settling on an Entourage Edge. It looks pretty horrible asthetically, but has been incredibly useful/fun. It's an android-based ereader/tablet with two screens, a WACOM-stylus eink on one side, and a typical touch screen LCD on the other. After using it for a about a week now, I definitely recommend it to others. www.entourageedge.com
If you want to be seen, stand up. If you want to be heard, speak up. If you want to be respected, sit down and shut up.
I've surfed the web on it, I've read my email. I started reading a book. I've watched a few Netflix TV shows and part of a movie on it. Seems to do what it was intended to and by comparison to my iPhone, was a much easier experience on me because of the larger screen. Seems to me like it's a device that does what it's touted to. And I think it can only get better as we have more developers that are actually able to get their hands on it and see their app running on it first hand.
Well, I did buy a Kindle 2 last year March and returned it after 3 weeks. I thought e-ink was the greatest concept but the contrast leaves much to be desire. It's dark grey text on a medium/light grey screen for christ-sakes.
And IPS screens are rather nice. Heck, I read a normal LCD screen all day as it is and it doesn't bother me. I have to wonder when the "you can't read on a computer monitor" took over? For me, it's more to do with whether the monitor has light sensor - monitors just tick me off when it doesn't match the ambient brightness and very few people actually adjust it with any frequency - but phones and this tablet has one so it's no problem.
Is this sarcasm/satire or just a self-fulfilling opinion?
I hope you're shorting Apple stock, because otherwise you look like a total moron for having such a vested interest in a product failing.
The whole industry is moving towards integrated graphics for low end desktops and power efficient notebooks. Of the five macs apple sells, three of them have user upgradable graphics. The other two use integrated graphics for cost and power savings (in fact, apple's high end notebook has *two* graphics cards, one is user upgradable, the other is not. The user can choose the integrated gfx card to add significant battery life).
It's not just apple following this trend, everyone is doing it.
My Apple product is brand new.
My router is old and dusty.
Maybe I should get a new shiny router.
Maybe Apple could sell me a shiny new router?
Good point; only the Mac Pros and Xserves (yes, the Xserves).
I just don't get... eh, ugh... never mind. This post wasn't worth the research I put into it.
News at 11.
Really, why are people surprised? Just because it's Apple doesn't mean first release is going to be flawless. Shiny maybe, but certainly not flawless.
That's the life of an 'analyst', it doesn't matter if you're wrong, just so long as you predict something other than what it is expected.
The iPad is good for reading and some type of games. But Apple didn't figure out how to make a simple user interface, they just limited the device to only being able to do simple things well. Being simplistic is not the same as being simple.
Yes, Apple, there is a reason other systems have buttons and UI standards for things like Menu and Cancel; on the iPad, every app does this differently. And although file systems and explorers suck, what sucks even worse is if every application on the machine has to implement it's own file browser and network file system interface because the OS doesn't. And although one can live without multitasking, it really is a pain.
It's not just iWork that suffers: PDF viewers and annotators, offline web pages, split browser windows, blogging tools, sticky notes, etc. -- all of them have confusing and messy workarounds for the limitations of the iPhone OS and still don't work quite right.
The iPad is actually a great device for a limited set of functions. But Apple needlessly screwed up usability and the OS. Maybe iPhone OS4 will fix sone of these problems.
Ipads are intended for mobile computing. Are you going to carry an Airport extender... to the airport?
iPad wifi reception is objectively considerably worse than other systems side by side. Let's hope the can fix that in firmware.
Is this sarcasm/satire or just a self-fulfilling opinion?
Satire.
However, either I was a little too subtle, or this is genuinely what your run-of-the-mill knee-jerk Apple Hater sounds like, because at least one moderator who marked me a "troll" couldn't tell the difference either.
Tweet, tweet.
The only reason it's "harder to do" is because Macs don't really advertise their internal specs. When you buy a PC, they go around boasting "DDR3 this, Quickpath that". PC marketing is atrocious, but at least you have a list of jargon that says what's inside the plastic box.
It certainly doesn't help that Apple often revises the hardware without changing the name. They've been selling Mac Pros for nearly four years, but the earliest ones were Socket 771 with DDR2 FB-DIMM memory, while current models are Socket 1366 with DDR3 ECC Unbuffered memory. To many Mac users, these models are referred as "the fast Mac Pro" and "the faster Mac Pro". As a non-Apple tech, you really have to crack the thing open to figure out what goes in it.
In the end, once you know which parts will fit, it's just a computer like any other. This is also true of their consumer devices... so what if Apple doesn't sell a battery for your iPhone ? Check a message board, you'll find a bunch of unreputable accessory manufacturers in Asia selling replacement parts. You might have to work a bit harder to install them yourself, or find a local geek to do it for you, but the gear is out there. Up where I live, we have these repugnant little shops that sell all manner of junk like XS Cargo, Factory Direct, and surely others : refurbished and unlocked cell phones, no-name gadgets, gaming accessories... it's like a pawn shop minus all the bad 80's cassettes and unloved guitars. Those guys tend to have all the gray-market modding and repair stuff you could ever want, and they often have an EE flunkie on-site to do the labor rather cheaply. The stuff Apple won't do, those sketchy guys will happily do for a few bucks - that's their business model.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
as a means of ranking one company against another. Or did we learn nothing from Enron and Worldcom? Look instead at sales, at product diversification, licensing and pipelines, and at past performance relative to market performance in terms of alpha/beta. Back in the early 1980s, when Apple launched the Lisa/Mac and Microsoft was launching Windows 1.0, Apple's employee number, market cap *and* sales were literally hundreds of times larger than Microsoft's at that time. Look where they went, and where they are now.
Da Blog
And you can buy all of the pieces for a Mac at Newegg jus tlike most /.s would for a PC.
All of the Mac Pros, the only model with the form factor that supports a replaceable graphics card?
It's all about momentum. Apple uses a lot of the tactics described by 37signals in their new book "ReWork". You just want to ship a high quality product (and it is high quality, despite what seem like teething problems) and get it out the door. Worry about the more complicated stuff (like 3rd party multi-tasking) later. If you keep delaying the release to perfect your product, you'll end up with a Duke Nukem Forever.
300,000 units is a significant quantity for an initial release. Comparing it to the release of the iPhone or the iPod, the numbers are much larger for the iPad. Now look at the numbers the iPod and iPhone are doing years later, and you can guess that the iPad is going to be a pretty successful platform.
Yes, Apple is 'worth' over $210 billion dollars. Reminds me of two years ago when my neighbor said his small bungalow house was 'worth' half a million dollars.
I'm not going to venture a guess as to what Apple is REALLY worth as a company, but when something is so extremely hyped in the media, it's stock is almost guaranteed to be overvalued.
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!
The Wi-Fi issues aren't new, they've been around since the iPhone, it has trouble with throughput dying on 802.11g networks. The fix? Setting the router to 802.11b only mode. Nice job Apple, if only everyone could be as half-arsed as you and still turn a prof- oh wait.
Hahaha. You can't argue with this sort of logic - its worth the $100 more because it worked instantly out of the box. Most PC hardware does work out of the box, even with Linux nowadays, and I don't have to shell out a premium for it. Saying its worth the extra money because it works out of the box is a rubbish argument.
I've dropped my Iphone a million times, no screen protection... its a trooper. They can take a beating. No scratches either.
A couple dings on the side bezel though ;)
And the cheapest Mac Pro is $2,500.
How many PCs in typical Mac form factors have replaceable video cards? Precious few, that's how many. Even where you have an MXM slot in a notebook, most of the time the cooling arrangements are enough to prevent swapping a substantially different card; netbooks and nettops universally lack replaceable video cards, though some do have more upgradability than a Mini. The Macs which come in form factors which in PCs typically have replaceable video cards do in fact typically have them also.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hype is not always a useful indicator of "overvalued". Google was roundly panned as 'not worth the hype,' when it's initial offering @ $85/share happened. And it's now worth nearly $570 a share.
Considering Apple has few (if any) debts, billions of dollars in cash (as I read it on Yahoo Finance, about 28 billion), a multitude of physical assets (land, office buildings, etc), is one of the (perhaps THE now) largest music retailers in the US, and a physical product line that is the envy of the tech world... I'd say that $210 billion isn't that hard to swallow as a "corporate net worth."
There are already better tablet devices in existence that are more functional and support more types of activity, but why so much attention has been centered on the ipad, i can only assume it is apple hype, generated by its market - casual electronics users. I mean, if I really wanted to, I could pick up a tablet pc, throw linux on it, and sit in an airport terminal streaming shoutcast stations and write a paper about the benefits of having a portable computer, while browsing /. on a cellular or wifi network.
I guess the real value in the ipad is that all the hardware and peripherals required that would allow me to do such tasks in the last paragraph are consolidated and compacted into a single device, so the value is not just for the consumer but for the future of portable computing, as this will set a standard for other tablet companies to make such commodities as easy and refined to use (with the proprietariness that Apple forces upon us of course).
I'm not implying that arbitrary hype and buying a product purely because of its brand is a good thing, but this situation to me is at least shaping up to be beneficial for the entire concept of a computer.
Predicted sales 299,999, actual sales 300,000 - result: awesomenitude.
Predicted sales 300,001, actual sales 300,000 - result: suckage.
-- Wilkins Micawber
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The latest generation of iMacs have removable graphics cards.
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac-Intel-27-Inch-Teardown/1236/3#s6693
You are right, you can't argue with my logic because there's nothing to argue about. It's my money, and it's my time. If I think unboxing a router, plugging it into the wall, plugging it into the modem, and then clicking through a couple screens is worth $100 to me, then it is worth $100...TO ME.
some MS vaporware product that nobody has ever heard of so far
Vaporware? The Apple tablet/Istale was rumoured and pre-announced and announced for years before it was finally released. And the only reason people have heard about it is because of all the free hype they got given.
Sure, if you only read Slashdot, you'll only hear about Apple products, but just because you haven't heard about it doesn't mean anything.
(I see Apple moderation is back on form: -1 for anyone who dares to criticise, and insightful for anyone who supports them. Who's getting all the mod points these days? They're the only stories I browse at -1, because the system's broken.)
The Ipad got months of overwhelming amounts of media coverage. This isn't one day's worth, it several months' worth of sales. Honestly, with all that free advertising they got, it would be shocking if they didn't sell some. Pretty much anyone who would want one already knew about it long ago. You also have to factor in that for Apple fans, they haven't had the option of a netbook, so you've got all the people waiting since around 2007 (it's the same idea as people queuing up to by the Iphone 3G - it's hardly surprising they're queuing up, if they had to wait years after 3G became mainstream in other phones).
I don't know what the early sales of the Ipod were like, but did it get anywhere near the same amount of publicity?
Now look at the numbers the iPod and iPhone are doing years later
Which? Those are two products, one of which is market leader, the other isn't anywhere near market leader.
This is the core of the matter. I became interested in getting a Mac when Apple stopped writing OSes and started using UNIX but every time I revisit buying one I always get stuck on the same problem.
I simply can't get past the fact that for the same money I can buy more boxen with better hardware for less money.
I just can't subscribe to this idea that computers are a lifestyle choice that defines me. They're tools. You can get a better tool for less money.
I find being offended by me offensive.
No they shipped 300,000 on the first day.
They sold those 300,000 over the course of months. This is clearly stated in the first line of the article.
I find being offended by me offensive.
MS vaporware product that nobody has ever heard of so far.
Oh my... I'm classified as nobody then... as are a number of the people I know! Seriously, I'm not even interested in notebook-like devices and I heard of it.
The fact that Apple likes to communicate three months before launching something they have been working on for years and that Microsoft prefers to communicate a short time after they just began to work on something doesn't say anything about the "vaporware" status. Who knows about the deadlines of Apple's iPad when the project wasn't known to the public?
Your point is still perfectly valid though, the iPad case is not made to look like a Courier Tablet, anyone vaguely interested in the iPad, or living in an industrialized country would know it was a one-sided tablet.
If I'm wrong, please correct me ; learning is better than being right.
And that would also be because the iPhone had made a lot more sales on its first weekend too.
If I'm wrong, please correct me ; learning is better than being right.
This is not entirely true. iPad would benefit from the iPhone and iPod Touch popularity, because it is something relatively similar.
On the other hand, lots of early adopters doesn't necessarily mean success of a platform. Lots of early adopters is a sign that the hype is working well. It could fail later. I'm waiting too see how the iPad will sale on the long run.
If I'm wrong, please correct me ; learning is better than being right.
Who's getting all the mod points these days?
Probably me. But I don't always bother, so I tend to lose at least as many points as I use. Oh, and although I am a part-time Apple user (when not on Linux), I'm not a fanboy. Contary to popular belief, some of us are actually capable of exercising our brains.
How many laptops have user replaceable graphics cards? After all, the Mac Mini and the iMac are basically laptops in elaborate cases.
Note that after smashing it on the base a couple of times, you can still see the virtual keyboard popping up on the screen. Very fragile build, ehh?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
The only reason it's "harder to do" is because Macs don't really advertise their internal specs.
OTOH, try to find the actual tech specs of a computer on HP.com, dell.com or lenovo.com - then try on apple.com Heck, on the Dell site I once found two (slightly) different specs for the same computer when going a different path.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
whatever item,if it is from apple, then it is hot and fashion. http://www.electronicswholesaledistributor.com/