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Google Preparing iPad Rival?
dazedNconfuzed noted an update in the ongoing rumor train about the Google iPad Competitor. It would be based on Android (not ChromeOS) and supposedly Eric Schmidt was telling people about it at a party in LA recently. If any Googlers want to leak me s3cr3t information, I promise anonymity, though without an actual product, price or date it's tough to get really excited. But the iPad clearly has significant limitations that someone else can capitalize on.
Google is making an Archos 7.. or is it an Ipad?
You can already buy it.
Could be the Enzo zenPad. Pure vapourware.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/09/ensos-zenpad-is-vaporware-get-refunds-while-they-last/
What's really newsworthy here is that the competition is between Apple and Google, Microsoft is nowhere to be found. It's temping to declare that their relevance has hit a new low. Competition is good, regardless of which side you're on, but it's really, really nice to see Microsoft no longer be competitive in a market.
The name of the new product is called "iMenstrual".
Really hoping this rumor is true - not that I need to buy another "pad" device (yes, I stood in line for an iPad) - but I'd really like to see how the Closed vs. Open platform models play out. Best case: Apple revises its Closed stance in response to a thriving gPad ecosystem.
I really like my iProducts, but having been a proponent of open platforms for so long I am uneasy at the tight hold Apple holds over developers and users.
For example, why hasn't Apple approved the Opera Mini yet? I'd welcome a choice in browsers, personally.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Google BLEND.
Enjoy.
Yours In Petrograd,
Kilgore T.
Google never made Android hardware. Both "Google" phones, the Nexus one and the G1 were designed and manufactured by HTC.
The alternative is that they produce the HW themselves, but we saw what happens when they do that (Nexus One).
But Nexus One is manufactured by HTC
Apple is selling a phone with outdated hardware (screen size and type, low screen resolution, bad camera etc), while Android vendors continuously improve the hardware - look at Samsung Galaxy S specs, for example. The same will hopefully be true for android MIDs
By the way, I own nexus one, and with the right firmware (latest cyanogenmod with UV kernel), it's a great phone.
Apple revives a ten year old niche that no one really liked for reasons that are still entirely relevant, and now it is speculated that Google will compete with a Google-style "open" alternative. It was interesting when their battle was over smartphones, but when it is over shoveling out pointless generic consumer electronics, it is not.
Not from Google per se, but how about Notion Ink's Adam Tablet? Gizmodo had a piece about it ... http://gizmodo.com/5471559/notion-ink-adam-tablet-caught-on-video-specs-finalized
I have an iPad. I liked it, until I tried to compose a blog post. Mobile Safari doesn't support content-editable fields.
Typing HTML code into textareas in order to compose blog posts and web pages is NOT fun. Google Docs doesn't work. and rich HTML in Gmail or other webmail services doesn't work. There are HTML editor apps, but that doesn't mean what I think it means, because they are all code editors not rich text editors.
The bottom line is that Apple supports rich text output in PDF and proprietary formats, but not HTML. Not even a little bit.
Everyone has their own priorities, of course, but until Mobile Safari supports tinyMCE and other rich text editors, I have to consider the iPad a toy. Then again, it's perfect for posting on Slashdot! (And it even supports unicode, so why should I complain?)
NO MORE PADS!!!!!!!!
*Tab is a terrible name. For a company who is lauded for their marketing genius, every time I hear the name of their product, I think about menstruation. IPad is just a terrible name. iTab isn't terrible but really Steve, try a new letter or even a whole new word. Not everything in the product line has to start with "i". Google would do well to avoid this trap altogether.
Something like this? http://wirelession.com/products_view.asp?cid=108&id=75 http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/u6lTOUAqv0U/
Did anybody really think they wouldn't? Seriously, who was not expecting everybody who made an iPhone imitator not to make an iPad imitator? MS has already revamped and trying to re-advertise their tablet offerings. Still, I don't think what they get is that what they need is really not a tablet with WinOS, but a touch screen slate with a better OS designed to do what the device is supposed to do. I expect Android to come out with a larger version of the Droid. Since Palm is up for sale, I guess they probably won't come up with something any time soon. Who I do see jumping into the competition will be Amazon and other book reader manufacturers who will try and capitalize on the iPad sales as well as from having them cannibalize their own sales.
Despite being a Mac fan, I think this if fine and good. I like Mac products because they put time and efforts into their designs, not simply because they have an Apple on the side. Let's see the competition. Let's see Flash on a Droid. Let's see open source app competition for other products. Let's see some fresh and new ideas incorporated into new products that others haven't tried before. Let's see everybody have to put some time and effort into their devices and raise the bar a little with every release. Apple may be my first choice, but it certainly isn't my final choice. If another product is better and suits my needs, I will switch.
You might have assumed that already, but lack of experience in manufacturing electronics doesn't seem to be dissuading anyone else.
Let's hope they get the eye candy right, because for the first time I can say that that is the only reason that an Apple product looks better. There, I said it.
a device with those specs and 3G would be receiving much more noise than, well... none
Well, clearly it's the wrong story. "Company releases new multi-touch tablet device with accelerometers and 3g capabilities." That thing fizzles at the gate.
"Apple releases magical and revolutionary device with mindblowing features. It will change the future of media and the planet, and it's glory will echo throughout eternity!" Send out the skin tight girl jeans, put on some popular music and a novel graphic overlay. Hey, you just made a billion dollars!
That's why you need marketing departments. They are depraved human beings, but someone has to polish the turds.
Two reason I will not buy an iPad
The LCD is not sunlight readable, it is another fashion over function device
USB support, lack there of.
Actually the first is the real killer. I will not buy something that only works indoors or should I say, is usable only where the light isn't bright and the glare can be minimized. Sorry, having to change the devices orientation based on lighting sources while even INDOORS is usability bullshit.
Damn, why is it the majority of upcoming computing devices practically require you to be indoors? Basement dwellers rejoice, your new freedom empowering computing/etc device is optimized for work under the stairs.
My marine GPS is perfectly legible in direct sunlight, let alone rugged enough to get a bit wet. Hell I would be afraid to take an iPad outside, less it get wet or too hot, totally disregarding the fact I cannot read it unless I held it above my head to block the sun
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Archos has been making an Android based tablet for some time now well before the iPad came out. Of course Microsoft has been trying to sell various tablets for years since Pen Windows plus various WinCE devices, UMPCs, Windows XP tablets etc.. Universal reaction tablets are dumb and waste of money. Steve Job's throws on his magic turtleneck and tells everyone "This is a magical device. I am really proud of the team. I really think your going to love it." And people go stand in line to get a tablet. Umm so can we all just agree there is a certain group of people that will buy whatever Steve tells them they need and hype it for him endlessly? Sorry folks but you who behave this way represent an abnormality and are not really representative you are iPeople.
Did you miss CES when a dozen Android tablets were announced? Did you not notice the multiple android tablets that were released this month and last month?
How come when Apple does something people take notice. But when a hundred others go through more traditional channels such as trade shows people who think they are industry insiders don't have a clue?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I can tell you all there is to know. It will have 4 cameras, 2 on both side, for 3D video conferencing. Obviously the display is 3D as well. It will have a number of sniffers to detect chemicals. It has more than one so that you can easily detect who it was that farted in the elevator. A 3D holographic arrow will pop up to tell you! The sniffed data is used to automatically update your twitter and facebook accounts. It will have 4g, WiMax, WiFi, and Token Ring networking support. The touchscreen display can give tactile feedback, making an onscreen display feel like real. Obviously it has uses in internet porn as well.
Most importantly, the product is not only free, Google will pay you to use it. In return you will give Google the rights to all data the device collects or sends. In order to unlock the device though you have to brand the google logo on your buttocks.
My sig will be released in 2015 third quarter. Rating pending.
If any Googlers want to leak me s3cr3t information, I promise anonymity
Looks like a very questionable idea, would probably break NDA, for one thing
It lasted 50 years, and turned a backwards agrarian society into a world superpower and put the first man in space.
"When Hitler rose to power, a lot of people just stopped playing. And you know who those people were? The French. Are you French, Clyde?"
Living With a Nerd
It will be interesting to see if the iPad will remain in the middle of the entertainment vs. productivity market, or if it will be shifted more to the entertainment side of things by more business oriented devices.
I believe that Google should spare no expense in SOLID build quality. Even if it's expensive, a high-resolution, magnesium-cased, tough, PADD-style device would make Android the platform with clearly the BEST tablet device. Put the best of everything into it; cameras, good speakers. Enough to mesmerize the tech journalists. Other, more reasonable, price-points would benefit from being in that market.
It also butchered it's own people by the 10's of millions.
Russia also wasn't quite as backwards as you're trying to make it out to be.
Their big problem was being a corrupt inbred aristocracy rather than being primitive.
Also, Russia put their first man in space the same way the US did: captured German rocket scientists.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
But the iPad clearly has significant limitations that someone else can capitalize on.
Yeah, less memory than a Nomad.
When was the last time that a /. opinion on anything counted for something? The track record of this community on what the greatest thing ever is and what will fail is not exactly stellar.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The transformation from an agrarian society was already underway when the Soviet Union was formed. In fact, it was probably the political destabilization caused by that very transformation that allowed the Soviet Union to be formed. And 50 years as a country is not particularly impressive. That's a bit like bragging that your marriage lasted 6 months.
It is their 5 and 7 Home tablets, not their Internet tablets.
It lasted 50 years, and turned a backwards agrarian society into a world superpower and put the first man in space.
Pre Soviet Russia was not a backwards agrarian society, any more than other states were.
It was never a world super power, but it was a nuclear one, driven by fear after being driven by hate.
The soviets were so powerful, they signed a pact with Nazi Germany, and offered many congratulations to Hitler, each time he domino'd a single state, including france. And during this time it decided to get a bloody nose picking on Finland.
Afterwards, when the panzers rolled across these so called previous agrarian lands, the soviets screamed for a second front from people it had cast into the fires of history to be crushed while it stood by and watched (and in the case of Poland, decided to go join the fun.)
Despite all is supposed power, it spread a failed political doctrine far and wide, caused untold damage to the planet, and now 1 in 5 people have an AK47, and a higher percentage have failed and weak governments. It never got true amphibious power, and spent the whole cold war in agressive posture, yet never able to make a move, failing in the end because of its own weight, and inability to go on.
And this summary does not count the millions killed and enslaved and left in misery by this comparitive short period in human history.
Oh don't worry, You won't quit publishing garbage, because its what good socialist and communists do.
We`re all equal
The Lenovo Ideapad U1 Tablet slated for this summer is the first real rival I think.
It kicks the iPad's rear for the shear fact you get a Windows 7 notebook with a detachable tablet screen that performs the same function as the iPad with WiFi and 3G.
The tablet part will have an 8 hour battery life running Linux on the snapdragon processor I think.
I don't care if it looks like a copycat either because it's taking a good idea and expanding on it.
Full Disclosure:
I have a strong personal distaste for Apple products due to high price tag with less features.
I'd like to see a pad or netbook that's an explicit extension of a smartphone. You pop your Android / iPhone / etc. smartphone into the device. You're still using your smartphone but the "mothership" pad / netbook gives you a bigger touchscreen, more battery life, a real keyboard, webcam, better (if still not necessarily great) audio, etc. etc. No worries about syncing since the mothership has no RAM or SSDs (at least none intended for explicit use by the user.) Pop the smartphone out of it on the fly when you don't want to carry the mothership around. Basically a dumb terminal for your smartphone.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
iPhone/iPad is great because Apple owns every aspect of it.
iPhone/iPad is inadequte because Apple owns every aspect of it.
I went out to Google "tinyMCE" because you mentioned it and I found a perfectly suitable Javascript widget that I have wanted for a long time. Thanks!
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
With MeeGo (the Moblin-Maemo offspring), surely we could have a tablet that was more open than the iPad and closer to a standard Linux to develop for than Android. You could have an OMAP or an Atom processor depending on your price / performance / power draw constraints. If Dalvik's VM etc ran on it you could even have Android applications. That'd be far more attractive to me, giving me access to more applications whilst still retaining advantages for development and openness.
Um... Nowhere to be found?
What's really newsworthy here is that the competition is between Apple and Google, Microsoft is nowhere to be found.
I don't know if "Microsoft maintains its 30-year tradition of not entering the consumer PC market" really counts as "newsworthy."
I think it has more to do with the wholesale rebranding of Windows Mobile as an operating system for phones, not tablets or smartbooks. Microsoft used to have an OS for smartbooks but abandoned it.
Don't forget the Always Innovating touchbook. When detached from its keyboard/auxillary battery, it takes the form of an ARM-based tablet device. It's been "available" for some months, although waiting lists are long.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/04/12/the-wepad-gets-a-price-and-launch-date/
This all seems very similar to when the iPhone came out. A lot of people bitched and complained about how it was junk and no one wanted it, then every phone manufacturer turned around and tried to create their own version. I can see this being exactly the same way. For whatever reason you want to come up with (poor decisions, no business clout, no innovation, etc) companies do the same thing over and over, and we get lulled into more of the same. Smart phones were stagnating and pretty poor in some cases, then Apple came along with a really well designed phone. No one made any progress in the tablet market, and Apple comes along with something well designed.
Once again, everyone will complain, but if this is correct, we'll be seeing people coming out were more versions of tablet systems running a non-desktop OS. But everyone will still complain that Apple didn't contribute at all.
I know I probably sound like a fanboy (I am to some extent), but I always find it odd that a lot of technical people can't understand that 90% of the world are just users, and want something nice that just works and looks cool.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
I'm holding off for the Notion Ink Adam or the Dell Mini 5.
Jobs: If you see a stylus or a task manager, 'they blew it'
Google: If you see a proprietary, locked-down OS and App Store which may not support your model in three years, 'they [Apple] blew it'
There is so much potential to blow the iPad out of the water:
- Dual cameras for video Skyping,
- non-Integrated obsolescence (at least not having your hardware vendor determine what updates you get)
- Open App store
- Google voice / Apps.
Though I still think that the most open phone platform is still Maemo5/Meego. There are rumors to the affect that Nokia is also planning a tablet... But Nokia's execution has always left something to be desired. (In what they envision isn't want is actually delivered)
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Neil Armstrong was from the US, you fucking moron.
It has not. Simply by the fact that the USSR was able to sustain the population after the second world war. FYI the soviet losses in the WW2 were about 20 millions. The total population of the whole USSR was about 100 millions in 1920ies. If there really were tens of millions butchered then by 1945 the USSR would have a population of 50 millions or less. Frankly, it was not the case.
And yes, russian empire was as backwards as it gets.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
The Always Innovating touchbook does some of the things you mention, but it is more a case of a tablet docking into a proper laptop.
Let's see Flash on a Droid.
I have Flash support on my Droid Eris.
Reply to That ||
Apple is 2nd to none in hardware and UI design. On top of that they add pretty good software and 2nd to none app availability & delivery system. Google is inferior in all three of these, especially the first item. They could give away their hardware for free and not catch up to Apple.
The question is not whether Google can deliver but whether they'll be fashionably late enough while doing so.
Pre Soviet Russia was not a backwards agrarian society, any more than other states were.
I'm afraid that it was. The communist revolution leaders (e.g. Lenin, Trotsky) had to make major philosophical changes to Marx's theories to accommodate the fact that the bulk of the people were "peasants" and not "working class." It was under Stalin that the Soviet Union really industrialized.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
It is utterly ironic that the debate about openness has been twisted into one of elites vs honest folk. These anti-elistist sentiments are so powerful they drive much of American politics and scientific backlash (e.g. creationism). Moreover, Apple - long seen as the maker of elitist products for snobbish users - has been recast as the ally of the common man (or grandmother). If I were a PR manager for Apple I could not hope to do better.
There is definitely a strong strand of elitism among technical folk, from the the old idea that users are losers to the incredible resistance to ease-of-use I remember from the 1990s ("If they can't use a command line I don't want them using my software). A lot of technology really is obtusely designed; the people who get frustrated (which is to say all of us) are not stupid. Tying the open vs closed debate to this experience of disrespect and frustration, and the wider discourse of elite domination by entities from bankers to bureaucrats, is very effective for evoking (legitimate) emotional responses, passing over the need to make thorough arguments.
Because the linkage is wrong. There is no necessary connection between something being open and it being hard to use. The iPad is easy to use and it is relatively closed. That is correlation, not causation. Apple is simply very good at designing (and marketing) the user experience. This ability seems to be rare among its competitors.
There is a historical precedent for a more open system that turned out to be easier to use than what it (partly) replaced. You allude to it in your post. The Web was a huge step up in intuitive usability compared to the desktop software that had previously performed many of its functions. It was also a huge step up in terms of capability (compare searching Wikipedia to searching Britannica). And it is open. Too open, in fact, for the iPad and its prohibitions on running interpreted code. Fortunately for today, it is already established and was granted a special exemption. If the iPad lockdown had been the norm 20 years ago, the Web might never have been invented. If lockdown is the norm in the future, the next huge improvement in usability and functionality might not happen.
I am fully confident that Apple has the talents to develop an easy-to-use and open system. (After all, my computers are Macs.) But the temptation for control is hard to resist. Especially when you can remake yourself as the computer of the people with that wonderful anti-elistism PR.
though without an actual product, price or date it's tough to get really excited.
That didn't stop all of those months of speculation on the iPad.
Which means in the battle with Apple fanboydom, it has already lost...
Uh, wrong. The Russian Empire was - compared to the rest of Europe - a backwards agrarian state with a huge percentage of illiterates, almost no industrial base (nearly all machines had to be imported from Britain and Germany), crazy cultists who've cutted off their own dicks and an absolute monarchy comparable to the French monarchy just before the revolution.
Also wrong. The pact was only because both Germany and the Soviet Union were isolated by the rest of the world.
Poland likes itself in the victim role, but the truth is that Poland itself has invaded the USSR in the 1919, occupying western Ukraine, a huge part of Belarus and a good half of Lithuania. The division of Poland between Nazi Germany and the USSR was pretty much the revenge.
The rest of your argumentation is even more laughable (OMG the evil communist AK47!!!1111one one one eleven)
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
What an interesting mismatch of fact, propaganda, and ignorance.
Where to start?
* Pre soviet Russia, was very backwards. Look at their performance in WW I where they showed up with ancient weaponry.
* It was a super power, no other way to describe a country that controlled half of the world, put the first man & satellite in space and was capable of destroying the world umpteen times over.
* Yes, it was a super power *AFTER* WW I, not before or during.
* And finally, being a super power doesn't mean you are a nice guy. If that's a requirement to super power, then yes it was not a super power.
I neither endorse nor condone any violent actions the Soviet Union performed during its history, but your account was just too messed up to leave un commented upon.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
It has not. Simply by the fact that the USSR was able to sustain the population after the second world war. FYI the soviet losses in the WW2 were about 20 millions. The total population of the whole USSR was about 100 millions in 1920ies. If there really were tens of millions butchered then by 1945 the USSR would have a population of 50 millions or less. Frankly, it was not the case.
And yes, russian empire was as backwards as it gets.
The Russian populace at 1920 was around 137,727,000 , so you can quit lying.
On 26 January 1934 Joseph Stalin reported to the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party as one of the main achievements "Growth of population from 160.5 millions in the end of 1930 to the 168 millions in the end of 1933". On 1 December 1935 Joseph Stalin made a speech, on the Meeting of Kolkhozniks with the Soviet and Party leaders:
“ Everybody says that the material situation of workers has dramatically improved, that life has become better and more fun. It is of course true. But this has led the population to breed much faster than in the old days. The birth rate is higher, the death rate is lower and the pure population growth is far stronger. It is of course good and we welcome it. [Jolly murmurs in the auditorium.] Now every year we have a population growth of three million souls. It means that every year we grow as much as the whole of Finland. [Everybody laughs.] ”
Combining his reports, one could have expected to have a population of about 180 million in 1937.
Official statistics based on the registered birth and death rates implied that the 1937 census should show a population of 170-172 million. On 21 September 1935 Sovnarkom adopted a decision On the organization of registration of natural population changes most probably authored by Stalin
Stalin's population growth, meant that he enforced a change in the agrarian system - one that was implemented by force and was focused on the Kulaks and 'mechanised farming'
According to data from Soviet archives, which were published in 1990, 1,803,392 people were sent to labour colonies and camps in 1930 and 1931. Books say that 1,317,022 reached the destination. The remaining 486,370 may have died or escaped.
In the region of 24 million people, civilian and military were lost in WW2, but you can add in plenty there was killed by their own side, in the red human sausage machine.
Afterwards, millions were enslaved, and sent or killed by the regime, and stalin's words ever echo in the imphamy of history;
"One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic".
The butchering of people by the 10's of millions might be an expression too far, but millions fits, and thats before any expression about the misery caused to the rest of the populations involved in soviet misery
We`re all equal
The soviets were so powerful, they signed a pact with Nazi Germany, and offered many congratulations to Hitler, each time he domino'd a single state, including france. And during this time it decided to get a bloody nose picking on Finland.
Mr. Hand? Is that you???
"Apple's model will always compromise developer flexibility when user experience is at stake."
You meant to say that
"Apple's model will always compromise user & developer flexibility when platform lock-in is threatened"
Tablet PCs are a tiny niche market at best, and completely worthless at worst. The only thing the iPad does that other tablets haven't done before is prove just how completely stupid Apple fanboys are. Why does Google want to introduce a competitor to a worthless product?
Who are you trying to bullshit? These "plans" and expectations had nothing to do with reality. Even in 1990 the Soviet population was less than 300 millions.
Compare it to the German population - it was at 65 millions right after the war, 65 years later it is at 82 millions - and that is in a much prosper state with a much higher life expectation.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Because moving upwards of a billion dollars' worth of product in the first few weeks on the market isn't "completely worthless".
How much $$$ has your whining about the iPad made you, Mr. A.C.?
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Others have pointed out some details in your account that they felt obligated to contest. However, the part I wish to critique is this:
What? Did you just come back from a tea party rally or something?
It strikes me that you are writing about a country that is not your own from an extremely American perspective. Ordinarily that's not a bad -- it's only fair that you write from the perspective of the place where you are from. But I think your writing should be more open to the fact that others don't see it in your terms.
Precisely in this thing about "socialists and communists". You are drawing a false dichotomy between "socalists/communists" and those who oppose them, when really this is irrelevant to the discussion. I've known enough Russians to know that it's perfectly possible to say good things about the USSR's accomplishments and still not be a "socialist" or a "communist". Most Russian people in the 21st century have moved on from these terms, if they ever supported these ideas to begin with (many of them did not). There is also widespread acknowledgement of the USSR's flaws. In my mind, though, this should not prohibit them from recognizing their country's successes where they do exist. It doesn't make them a "socialist" to do so.
Before the Nexus One came out they gave them out to Google employees as a gift, one of those employees was showing me theirs and mentioned off-handedly that it was "faster than our tablet". I tried to get details but they said they weren't even supposed to show me their N1 and couldn't say anything about the tablet.
So, it does exist. Whether it'll ever come to market, who knows.
OT:
Not that anyone on /. will read this, and not that you especially will bother educating yourself, but the Soviet Union's aggression had zero to do with it being a communist state. Its tyrannical nature was independent of its economic policies, and not all socialists and communists support violent suppression of people - as a matter of fact, very few of them do.
But go on, keep publishing uneducated sheepish drivel on the internet, you buffoon.
Apple releases magical and revolutionary device with mindblowing features.
Mind-blowing features? Don't tell me Apple is responsible for the we-vibe!
http://we-vibe.com/
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
80 years
And don't forget North Korea is still going on.
Yep, you seem like someone who totally gets it. Apple totally blew it with the iPhone OS being locked down. Apple is not making money hand over fist on it. Apple hasn't turned the mobile industry upside down and made other companies go out of their way to copy Apple. Take a step back and realize what Apple has done.
I don't think you have a clue how fast mobile devices are made obsolete. I have friends who purchased normal mobile phones and 6 months later when it broke they weren't able to get the same model. They were forced to switch to a totally new device. If you are REALLY still using the first gen iPhone then you are really missing out. But, if you decide to stick with it ... you can still use 3.0. There are TONS of apps that will continue to work with 3.0. Apple didn't say they were no longer supporting 3.0, they just said that 4.0 won't work on it. With technology there comes a time when you need to cut ties with older stuff so you can innovate forward.
An open app store isn't going to make a difference. Apple still and will continue to hold the top position regardless of the app store openness. If your theory was correct then Android would have passed the iPhone OS already. Guess what, it hasn't and it won't.
To be fair, interpreted code was added later with Javascript and CSS. If Apple permitted Web browsers, their current lockdown would have resulted in an HTML-only Web. That would be a great loss. Today, Javascript is essential for many Web applications like GMail and Flickr that are easier to use than their desktop counterparts. This was not true in its early years when Javascript complicated Web sites unnecessarily. Initial complexity followed by refinement and easy of use is not an uncommon pattern for open systems.
Apple's ban on interpreters and other languages looks like a huge gamble to me. One of the time-honored techniques of solving a problem with software is to invent a language for the general case, then use that language to implement the specific solution you need. This has been standard advice for Unix developers for decades. XSLT and Prolog, for example, are orders of magnitude more effective within their problem domains than are general purpose languages. The organic fit between object-oriented languages and GUI interfaces is another example (one that often obscures the fact that there are many problems for which OO is not the best fit). Without the ability to use the right language for the job, many programs simply wouldn't be written.
It's not just a matter for geeks either. The possibility of anyone writing HTML web pages, even though only exercised by a few, fed the Web's explosive growth and ultimately led to easy-to-use publishing software like blogs and wikis. There is no nice clean line between geeks and ordinary users. It's in that fuzzy region where the two mix that much of the most innovative work happens.
So the big egos at Apple came out with an iPad with deliberate limitations. Then the big egos at Google prepare a competing product that (users hope) will capitalize on those limitations, but will almost certainly have limitations or flaws of it's own. Let's face it -- when you can capitalize on mindshare, you don't have to work quite as hard on the actual product as long as it's shiny.
I'm thinking we should still wait until Acer or some company with smaller egos and no axe to grind produce a product on which someone can actually get work done, and that interfaces to the usual peripherals in the usual way. I'm thinking I'll wait for that.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Please, just stop talking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#USSR
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_pogroms
Orwell was an optimist.
Android has a real problem translating to something the size of a tablet - the hardware buttons.
Already, with the iPad, the single button sometimes is annoying far away (when I'm holding the device in landscape). Now imagine the Android back buttons (which get used all the time instead of the iPad's button used for simply closing an app) equally far away... do you add buttons to all sides to solve that? Yikes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't care whether Google prepares an iPad rival. A whole bunch of new Linux tablets are coming, likewise a whole bunch of "smartbooks" (netbook computers with non-x86 processors).
I'm really excited about the nVidia Tegra 2 chip. Typical power dissipation of about 500 milliWatts, 8 cores: ARM7 "housekeeping" core, dual 1GHz ARM9 processing cores, audio core, graphics accelerator core, video encode core, video decode core, and "image processing" core (which will support a high-resolution camera). nVidia showed off prototype smartbooks with a Tegra 2 playing HD video, and claimed that the chip was dissipating 150 milliWatts; elsewhere I have seen 500 milliWatts as the typical number.
I'm also excited about the Pixel Qi screen. That's the same display technology from the OLPC. A nice-looking display that dissipates 2 Watts when the backlight is on, and about 0.2 Watts with the backlight disabled. If you want to sit outside in the bright sun, you turn the backlight off and you get a nice, readable, sharp display that's very suitable for ebooks and web surfing, but you could watch movies that way too if you wanted.
A typical Atom system dissipates 15 to 20 Watts while operating. That's why netbooks need cooling fans. A Tegra 2/Pixel Qi system ought to have tremendous battery life, especially with the backlight off, and won't need a cooling fan. Win/win.
So, what I want is a tablet and a smartbook with a Tegra 2 and a Pixel Qi screen. I want Linux, but that's no problem, because Windows doesn't even run on a Tegra 2, and I don't think anybody is going to ship a Windows CE tablet. And I insist on a device with USB ports: I want to be able to plug in a keyboard, a mouse, a memory card reader, or USB storage devices.
I imagine that Acer and Asus will both ship products I will want. But the actual announced product I know about is the Notion Ink Adam tablet: Tegra 2 chip, Pixel Qi screen, capacitive multitouch touchscreen, Android OS. It also has an intriguing feature: a trackpad on the back of the device, which allows you to use Flash applications that were designed for use with a mouse (you use a finger on the back to drag the cursor around, and tap on the front with your other hand to click the mouse). It also has a camera that can be flipped around to point at you, away from you, or in between. It was originally announced for June, but recent news casts doubt on that.
By the way, one reason why tablets are the hot new form factor: people who see something that looks like a notebook computer expect it to run Windows, but people who see a tablet device have no expectations. So, there will probably be more tablets than smartbooks.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
How is that any easier of an answer than slapping iPhone OS on a tablet?
If you look at the new OS features added to the tablet, and the work that went into the guidelines for using the device, it was hardly "slapped on". As much as you might like to believe what they did was easy, sweating the details is always hard.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Give it a keyboard and it'll kill the Ipad.
-ubuntu others as you would have others ubuntu you.
So where are people going to line up and create the buzz for the Google Pad - Best Buy, Radio Shack, Sears??
Apple's iron triangle of hardware, physical stores, and iTunes is pretty much unstoppable at the moment. I sure don't know how I'd play anyone else's hand in their chosen markets.
Being great and not failing are two very different things
Beng great is, if you think about it a form of failure. If you were not making something great, what was the point really?
Lots of people like to define away failure so that no-one can get hurt, but that just makes everything suck more.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Russian Empire was backwards compared to the most advanced industrial nations but it still had a respectable industry. I certainly hope you do not think their weapons manufactured themselves. Nor that they merely bought weapons from abroad while fighting France, Britain and the Ottoman Empire put together in the Crimean War. The Tula Arsenal, for example, was founded in 1712. It still exists today. I should also add the Russian Empire had less military manpower yet smaller losses in the Crimean War, even though they lost, the war took like 3 years so it was no cakewalk. This could not have happened if the Russian Empire did not have reasonably advanced weaponry. In the late XIXth century they designed and manufactured the Mosin-Nagant rifle which is still considered a respectable weapon today.
I'm a programmer and I carry a notebook almost anywhere I go. It's my destiny.
/. I expect a higher than average amount of critical opinions towards these gadgets.
Although my eye sight gets poorer over the years and I'd be better off with large fonts, I'd be damned to carry a mini PC like the iPhone around. So I have an Android phone.
I don't see a single reason for me to carry a notebook sized [ig]Phone with a crappy keyboard next to my notebook.
Sure YMMV, but here on
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Imagine the situation like this:
Google would have brought out the ipad.
Afterwards Microsoft would ready its rival - trying to copy all the best things from the ipad.
Do you think MS would get the same positive (or even lukewarm) reception here? Nope - it would be 'Redmond's "innovating" (i.e. copying/stealing/plagiarising) again!!'...
But because this time it's google doing it: Hey! It's all fine! I hope it will have a bigger screen, better xyz, more foo-bar, additional ...
Note: I love linux - I have used it since early slackware days - but with the ipad, apple has done something, noone has succeeded at yet, and immediately we applaud if someone else tries to build a clone.
Note 2: The same, btw. is true between open and closed source. If closed-source comes up with something open source has done first - oohh - bad guys!
But when plex86 (first attempt at a vmware clone) was 'announced': "Yay! Go, open source!".
Nooo ! cookies are an evil security risk and ..... oh, never mind
I guess you don't know the difference between "first man into space" and "first man on the moon". You fracking mormon ;)
Cheers, Chris
The Soviets used far fewer and less knowledgeable Nazis and they abandoned them much sooner than the USA. To suggest that the Russian space program was a German affair is incorrect. By the time they sent the first man into space they didn't use any significant German scientists.
Dear asshole,
THE MOON IS IN SPACE. Or do I need you to draw a Venn Diagram?
My thoughts exactly - there are other tablets around, and there's no need to give free hype to Apple even when we're covering other products (for once) by calling them "iWhatever Rival/Killer/etc". It was bad enough with the Iphone (who cares about rivalling Apple, when there are loads of bigger companies in that market?) It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - these products aren't compared to Apple because of anything to do with Apple, it simply results from the media always comparing to Apple in the first place.
Or maybe we could just quit with the astroturfing and say "Google Preparing Tablet Computer". This is supposed to be a place for geeks - we know what products like mp3 players, phones and tablets are, without needing to be told in terms of brand names. (Was the news of Google releasing ChromeOS announced with "Google Preparing Windows Rival (or worse, OS X Rival)"? Was Firefox announced as being an "Internet Explorer Rival?" Was the first Iphone announced as being a "Windows Mobile Rival"?)
What an interesting mismatch of fact, propaganda, and ignorance.
Where to start?
* Pre soviet Russia, was very backwards. Look at their performance in WW I where they showed up with ancient weaponry.
* It was a super power, no other way to describe a country that controlled half of the world, put the first man & satellite in space and was capable of destroying the world umpteen times over.
* Yes, it was a super power *AFTER* WW I, not before or during.
* And finally, being a super power doesn't mean you are a nice guy. If that's a requirement to super power, then yes it was not a super power.
I neither endorse nor condone any violent actions the Soviet Union performed during its history, but your account was just too messed up to leave un commented upon.
Most sides in WW1 turned up with ancient weaponary. The advancements came during the war, not really before it. Or maybe you've never read about the appalling losses and complete stalemates of WW1.
As for the rest of your inept garbage, I have little care for socialists or and especially communists, or their spewing of idiocy. The death of the communist Soviet was and remains one of the great days in human history.
We`re all equal
Nothing is being said about succeed/fail. People are just saying that that iPad is pretty lame and has some staggering limitations that would be embarrassing if seen on a 20 year old personal computer, just like the original iPod was pretty lame compared to its contemporary music players. WTF does this have to do with track records? Yes, maybe the iPad will take off, just like Windows 3.1 took off. That doesn't mean it ain't lame, though.
Onto what "counts"..
Again, you don't get it. This is about efforts, not predictions. People want computers that don't suck. Nobody is saying they'll get them, just that they want them and they're trying to collaborate. Most "computer people" think the iPad is a piece of junk; the speaker is voicing a common opinion. If they can find others, then maybe they can make sure the iPad doesn't get too much marketshare before it's too late.
To use an analogy, you're saying, "You voted against GW Bush, but he won, so your criticisms of him were invalid. You don't have a very good track record."
It's advocacy. Yes, infused with opinion, but not just opinion, and certainly not prediction. Imagine a world where the iPod hadn't sold, so that it would be standard for music players to be able to play modern codecs like Vorbis, and music players could be synced to any OS without proprietary software like iTunes, etc. I'm not saying the iPod didn't sell, I'm saying too bad it did, and maybe the world doesn't have to repeat the same mistake.
Wouldn't it be great if (assuming the tablet market isn't a totally stupid idea) people got decent tablets instead of iPads?
Pre soviet Russia, was very backwards.
True.
Look at their performance in WW I where they showed up with ancient weaponry.
Not quite so true. Some was ancient, but it was true of many other countries, too. But e.g. infantry rifle was the same as later used in WW2; and Russia also fielded the first dedicated bomber plane in the world.
Russian weaponry was very outdated in Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905), which is largely why Russia lost it - and that, in turn, gave some boost to new research in the area.
But, of course, a country can have fairly advanced weapons while still being mostly backwards otherwise. I mean, Pakistan has nukes, and maybe even North Korea - so what?
You'll find many understood right and wrong.
The invasion of Poland resulted in Great Britain and the Dominions, and France declaring war on Germany. I rather trust their view more than yours.
As for the rest of your garbage I don't need to say much, others have already said enough to cover it previously.
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Winston Churchill
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
Winston Churchill
"If I were asked the difference between Socialism and Communism, I could only reply that the Socialist tries to lead us to disaster by foolish words and the Communist drives us there by violent deeds."
"Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the abject worship of the State."
"Government of the duds, by the duds, and for the duds."
"No socialist system can be established without a political police."
"Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy."
"It is not alone that property, in all its forms, is struck at, but that liberty, in all its forms, is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of socialism."
"'All men are created equal' says the American Declaration of Independence. 'All men shall be kept equal' say the Socialists."
"Some see private enterprise as a predatory animal to be shot, others look on it as a cow to be milked but a few see it as a sturdy horse pulling a wagon."
"If you destroy a free market, you create a black market."
"The vice of capitalism is that it stands for the unequal sharing of blessings; whereas the virtue of socialism is that it stands for the equal sharing of misery."
"Socialism assails the pre-eminence of the individual."
"Is it better to have equality at the price of poverty or well-being at the price of inequality?"
"The flame of Christian ethics is still our best guide...only on this basis can we reconcile the rights of the individual with the demands of society."
On leftists:
"They are the most disagreeable of people...Their insincerity? Can you not feel a sense of disgust at the arrogant presumption of superiority of these people? Superiority of intellect! Then, when it comes to practice, down they fall with a wallop not only to the level of ordinary human beings but to a level which is even far below the average."
"These very high intellectual persons who wake up every morning...see what they can find to demolish, to undermine, or cast away."
"Let them quit these gospels of envy, hate, and malice. Let them abandon the utter fallacy, the grotesque, erroneous, fatal blunder of believing that by limiting the enterprise of man, by riveting the shackles of a false equality...they will increase the well-being of the world."
On Communism:
"Bolshevism is not a policy; it is a disease."
"The day will come when it will be recognized without doubt throughout the civilized world that the strangling of Bolshevism at birth would have been an untold blessing to the human race."
We`re all equal
Obviously you still can't count to "first". Do you want me to draw you a number line? Maybe it can intersect the Venn Diagram.
People were in space before they went to the moon. The Venn Diagram you speak of will therefore show you that "First In Space" does not intersect with "First on the Moon"
Oh come on. I owned a Mosin rifle some years ago (the finnish version, which is somewhat better). It is nothing special and was nothing special at the time of its introduction. Actually, it was backwards in some ways, using rimmed ammo because Russian Empire couldn't afford advanced machinery for making rimless cartridges.
If you want to take a look at a truly innovative bolt action rifle of the late 19th century, take a Swiss Schmidt-Rubin.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
That is the first thing I thought when I read this article. Oh and please note I'm not a fanboi or so. I like my iBook, use it now, works fine, serves me well. I also love the Ubuntu box connected to the other side of the KVM switch.
Back to Apple.
It started basically with the iPod (though that took a while): Apple enters a new market with a new device - that hardwarewise is not spectacular but looks nice and so. A few years later it was the reference player - as if there was no other.
Then after a year or so of rumours there it finally was: the iPhone. Yet another smartphone in a saturated market. Weeks later, sorry days later, the iPhone was the smartphone against which all other smartphones were compared. Within weeks we were talking about "iPhone killers".
Now the iPad has been released. Not the only computer in this format, not the first one. Half a year or so ago at some major conference this new format got the name "slate". It is all but forgotten. Apple has released the iPad and with all it's shortcomings it is already the reference device.
It has been released for just weeks now. And already it's apparently so dominant in the market that "Google [is] preparing [a] iPad rival". No they are not bringing out a "slate-device", but it's an "iPad rival".
Apple's marketing is really beating Microsoft's here, and then I'm talking about the best times of MS marketing (I think around 1995 and the release of Win 95). I'm really impressed by what Apple has pulled off again.
They even had to go as far as to sell DRMless tracks in iTunes.
If anything Apple is too slow to respond to the people that know what they are talking about, in the case the shortcomings of the iPad (from the device itself to the app store draconian and restrictive model of software distribution) is is patently obvious how straight-jakceted the device is.
People buying Apple gadgetry upgrade firmware allright, it is just made transparent to them, or it is explained in simple terms, but upgrade they do.