Heavy US Demand Delays iPad's Worldwide Release

Dave Knott writes "The international launch of the iPad has been delayed until late May, a one month setback from the original launch window of late April. Citing Apple's press release: 'Although we have delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week, demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply over the next several weeks as more people see and touch an iPad. We have also taken a large number of pre-orders for iPad 3G models for delivery by the end of April.' International pricing will be announced on May 10, at which time international pre-orders are expected to begin."

Comments

Marketing

[sopssa]

It's only interesting that just today, along with this news announcement, was the first time when we (as in Europeans) even heard about it or when EU operators even announced iPad coming and its release dates.

Yes, there really was no announcement on release date before Apple said they will be delaying it. Marketing at its finest.

Another interesting aspect; Those UK operators were also all send the same basic marketing template they used in their press releases today.

Bar the name of the operator and the countries mentioned, the Orange and O2 statements are exactly the same as Vodafone's. So written by Apple, then, and cut and pasted by the carriers.

Can't leave any marketing aspects to be ruined by other companies eh?

And the last interesting point - iPad sales dropped down to ~10% after first day sales.

Apple - PR and Advertising.

Re:Marketing

[vijayiyer]

Microsoft spends almost twice as much as Apple as a percentage of revenue on marketing. Apple spends about the same amount as Dell.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2009/10/28/apples-2009-ad-budget-half-a-billion/

Could it be that people actually want products that you don't?

Re:Marketing

[biryokumaru]

iPad sales dropped down to ~10%

Well, at least they're right about exceeding sales expectations. That's way more than I expected anyone to buy.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Delay means time to concentrate on important stuff.
Thanks, Steve Jobs, for delaying the release of your shiny new iPad in Australia.
Now I can compare its merits against other such slate devices from HP, the Chinese factories and Asus among others. I hear they have things the iPad lacks, such as USB, decent Wi-Fi reception, a camera for Skype, multi-tasking and faster processors.
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/172222,opinion-thanks-for-not-giving-me-an-ipad.aspx

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has 4 to 5 times the amount of products apple does and a much higher profit margin as they don't ship hardware, would be far wierder if they didn't spend at least double what apple do.

Re:Marketing

[phantomfive]

You know, if you really cared about tablet computers, you could have gotten one a decade ago. It's not like Apple is opening a new market here that competitors need to rush into. So after a delay of 10 years, it's not like another few months will really convince anyone to go with one of the other devices.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

That $500 million is spent on recruiting stupid fanbois.

Re:Marketing

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

So why aren't they pumping the Zune and Windows Mobile the same way Apple is?

For every Mac ad I see, I see at least 3 or 4 ads for Windows 7.

Re:Marketing

[jo_ham]

They said "in April" and then delayed it to "May". What's wrong with that if you know you are going to be behind?

This is why companies like Blizzard don't put release dates or give out speculative info, even if they have an idea about when a product will launch. They merely say "we'll release it when it's ready"- the famous Blizzard "Soon(tm)" for product release dates.

If they say "It will ship in April 15th" and there is a delay then a horde of raging nerds go crazy on the forums about shitty service and demanding free game time and so on.

If they say "soon" and they have to slip the date back, they can just say "it will come out when it's ready".

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, there really was no announcement on release date before Apple said they will be delaying it. Marketing at its finest.

Well here in Australia they where saying it would be released at the end of April, it has now been changed to late May.

Re:Marketing

[socceroos]

Wow, you would really have to be blinded to not see through this.

Every other Apple product release in the past they have done exactly the same thing.

I'll eat my hat if the same PR isn't released during the next Apple product release.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

That's actually a farely twisted way of looking at the numbers. As they say people can make statistics say whatever they want. Hardware vendors tend to have a much high sales revenue but much lower profit margins and hence percentage wise it looks like MS spend way more. If you actually move into their incomes the numbers come down to Microsoft spending similiar amounts percentage wise (or slightly more).

Re:Marketing

[DAldredge]

Developer outreach is a marketing expense.

Re:Marketing

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

And the last interesting point - iPad sales dropped down to ~10% after first day sales.

They sold 300K the first day, including all the pre-orders, then about 50K every day thereafter, according to the published numbers from Apple. So more than 10% of the first day, but I guess I don't see the relevance. Since market researchers are showing it is sold out in many stores, so constrained supply limits sales in some cases and reduced demand in others. Until they start to keep up with the demand, we won't really know what that demand is like. By the same logic as you've presented you could claim the Wii was going to be a failure since after the first day sales dropped dramatically. Actually, the numbers are slightly lower (500K vs. 600K), but close to that of the iPhone when it was released. To claim the iPad as a success or failure at this point, especially because of the distribution of sales is, well, premature.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Well sopssa, what you said technically true, except there was two leaks that the ipad would be released in March or April. Maybe you just weren't paying attention?

But I'm sure you'll be happy with google's or MS' tablet.

As for the sales drop off. While there is huge drop-off in sales, they're still selling 24,000 per day, 168,000 per week. That is quite respectable in that at that rate they will still have sold nearly 9 million units in a year. In any case, this "sales drop off" is a tune we've heard before from Apple haters about the iphone and we see how right they were.

I'm no fashionista, and I certainly won't be buying an ipad because 'm perfectly happy with my laptop, but the irrational Apple hatred from people like you on this board is a drag.

Apple - Well-designed and clever products.

Re:Marketing

[VGPowerlord]

...because Microsoft knows what people will reasonably buy?

Windows and Office are Microsoft's biggest money-makers, so they correspondingly have the most advertising.

Re:Marketing

[ronin510]

Here are a few press releases before this press release:

March 5th, UK - End of April launch http://www.nma.co.uk/news/apple-announces-april-uk-release-date-for-ipad/3010816.article
March 5th, European release - End of April launch http://www.cln-online.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=612:ipadrelease&catid=40:industry&Itemid=135

In a post below you said you'd eat your hat. Can you post that on youtube? Thanks.

Re:Marketing

[_Sprocket_]

Could it be that people actually want products that you don't?

I won't know until I read what the pundits and advertisements say. On a related note, this isn't about marketing budgets. It's about marketing itself.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people who don't like Apple products bother to even read stories like this. I just do not understand why there are some people who feel so threatened by Apple and seem to feel outrage that there are people that do like Apple products.

Re:Marketing

[Space cowboy]

...because Microsoft knows what people will reasonably buy?

Hmm. So what you're saying, is that you need an appealing product before you throw any money at it for advertising ? Makes sense...

Simon.

Re:Marketing

[bl8n8r]

iPad sales dropped down to ~10%

what they mean to say is 10 of the 11 people that bought one did so on the first day.

Re:Marketing

[Tharsman]

Wow, you would really have to be blinded to not see through this. Every other Apple product release in the past they have done exactly the same thing. I'll eat my hat if the same PR isn't released during the next Apple product release.

False. They only done so with the ipads and iPhones, perhaps because... it happened? They have not done this with the iPods (at least not with most of them) or any of their "new" or "upgrade" computer lines.

Re:Marketing

[Obyron]

Microsoft spends almost twice as much as Apple as a percentage of revenue on marketing. Apple spends about the same amount as Dell.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2009/10/28/apples-2009-ad-budget-half-a-billion/

Could it be that people actually want products that you don't?

I considered this, but it's just not likely. I mean, I can't see why they'd want it.

Re:Marketing

[brunes69]

Microsoft does not have to "pump" windows mobile because, despite all the iPhone hype, the number of Windows Mobile smartphones is only slightly behind the number of iPhones (http://www.fiercedeveloper.com/pages/what-were-top-smartphone-operating-systems-october-numbers)- and the number of windows mobile applications vastly outnumbers the number of iPhone applications (by about 10 times I wager)

Re:Marketing

[Cryacin]

Exactly. You can sell Ice to Eskimo's. You just need to value add! Look! Yellow snowcones. What?!? It's lemon!

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually MS lost that race before the counts even got to 25,000

http://www.macworld.com/article/139245/2009/03/iphone_beats_windows_mobile_boasts_of_25000_applications.html

Re:Marketing

[Jahava]

Microsoft spends almost twice as much as Apple as a percentage of revenue on marketing. Apple spends about the same amount as Dell.

Jerry Seinfeld isn't cheap! Then again, I'm guessing from previous examples that Microsoft gets nowhere near as much bang for their buck.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

I just read your Tim Horton's "scam". There are no words to describe how stupid that truly is. You're bitching about them throwing away a paper cup while you're throwing away gas waiting in a drive-thru. Stones. Glass house. All that. The hypocrisy is astounding. Yeah, I know, you've seen them throw it away inside as well. If the customers and the management didn't stress the employees about "wait times", they might actually give a fuck about making you feel good about being an ecologically aware individual. Tempest in a fucking teapot.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

I recommend that you short AAPL, then. Put your money where your mouth is.

Only on /. is the iPad doomed to failure.

Re:Marketing

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Exactly. You can sell Ice to Eskimo's. You just need to value add! Look! Yellow snowcones. What?!? It's lemon!

If Apple sold lemonade-flavored snow cones, here is how Slashdot would react:

"Oh please, people have been making yellow snow cones for years!"

"You can't eat with unless you have a special cup for it! (Well I don't know if that's actually true but it sounds plausible!)"

"I've never tried one, but I know they're not actually sweet! Steve Jobs just told them to like it! Sugar is just a marketing term they made up."

"If you go to the Kwik-E-Mart you can get other flavors, too. If you look hard enough, you can even buy them from your neighbor's kids from their stand down the street! They don't taste as good, the quality is not as consistent, and the coloring will run down your sleeve, but you have choice!"

"Heaps and heaps of people only by them so they can show off their yellow mustaches!"

... etc.

Re:Marketing

[iluvcapra]

It seems strange to be so self-righteous about marketing, in a forum on a site that is basically a big community PR platform for VA Linux. It might seem like it fosters open debate, but overall the selection of issues and the guidance in the summaries is strongly tilted toward facilitating dialogue about how awesome Linux and the GNU interpretation of open source are, with a regular diet of Apple/science/general tech stories to draw in new readers.

Everybody markets, and you are constantly acting under marketing's influence. Marketing's awesome! You saw the TRON trailer, right? That's marketing.

You're wearing denim jeans right now, right? Marketing.

You may fancy yourself an expert on a few things, capable of making objective decisions, but in most aspects of your spending life, I assure you, you're responding to very basic stimuli induced on you by marketers. And it's completely legal, legitimate, fair, and even necessary.

This continuing slashdot obsession with disqualifying goods (from any manufacturer) because they're well-marketed is bizzare.

You shouldn't be asking why Apple is so effective at marketing... Apple is merely competent. You really should ask yourself, why, if HP and Dell have such good products, they invariable allow their products to be introduced as blurry pictures on Gizmodo or Ars Technica, give them unrememberable names, and are so inept in their follow through and promotion that anybody who actually cares to develop or add value to their product might as well blow their brains out now and save the trouble.

Re:Marketing

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Mobile phones and computers are sold over many millions a day.

Dell sells 365 million laptops a year?!

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does Apple have so many indignant forum warriors? Aren't you all supposed to have lives and be getting real work done?

You're not like part of a cult or anything are you?

Re:Marketing

[PylonHead]

People might take you seriously if you stopped creating posts exclaiming, "Your math fails", then writing (300+4*500) = 600000.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

they have no mindshare though.
and windows mobile users TOLERATE it, I have only met one guy who liked windows mobile and that was because ATT refused to offer anything other than iphones that werent winmo and blackberry smartphones. and blackberry app development sucks.
he is insanely pissed about win phone 7 being an iphone me too

microsoft just doesn't have the mindset to do mobile.
hell, for consoles they had to poach sega's console development team

Re:Marketing

[node 3]

It's only interesting that just today, along with this news announcement, was the first time when we (as in Europeans) even heard about it or when EU operators even announced iPad coming and its release dates.

Except that's not true. Apple announced that the iPad would begin worldwide availability late April.

Yes, there really was no announcement on release date before Apple said they will be delaying it. Marketing at its finest.

No, they really did. Your post is ignorance at its finest.

And the last interesting point - iPad sales dropped down to ~10% after first day sales.

I assume you mean down to about 10% per day, which is a number much lower than I've heard, but regardless of the specifics, this is exactly what always happens. There's the initial rush (including pre-orders from a month ago), then things settle down to a more sustainable level of demand.

There's also the little matter of Apple not being able to keep the iPad fully stocked, which places an upper limit on sales numbers.

Instead of trying to spin reality completely backwards, why not admit that the iPad isn't the dud you and those who mod you up thought it would be? What's wrong with admitting the truth? Is your technological self-esteem so insecure that it must be propped up by hiding reality lest... Lest what? Will your Windows PC or Ubuntu netbook or Android tablet serve you any less well if you admit that there are many other people out there that prefer the iPad to *your* device of choice?

Apple - PR and Advertising.

And profitability and shipping millions of products per year. Apple is the fifth largest PC maker in the US, and that includes businesses which skew much more heavily towards Windows PCs. Even then, Apple sells 8% of all computers in America.

That does not support your "PR and Advertising" smoke and mirrors claim. There's substance to back up their flair. Unlike your incessant posting of ignorance on all things Apple.

Re:Marketing

[RJHelms]

Especially when the "cred" comes from (300 + 4 * 500) linking to a Wolfram Alpha query for (300 + 6 * 50).

Here's some tips:

4 != 6
500 != 50

Re:Marketing

[RJHelms]

I don't mean to reply to myself, but I just realized - even if the math was right, I don't quite get what that equation has to do with anything.

2 + 2 = 3, therefore iPads blow... ?

Re:Marketing

[node 3]

I considered this, but it's just not likely. I mean, I can't see why they'd want it.

Yet the fact is that they *do* want it. So you can either adjust your assumptions and accept reality (even if you are unable to understand why things are like they are), or you can pretend, like a sizable portion of Slashdot has done, that the iPad is a failure, facts be damned.

Re:Marketing

[AndrewStephens]

And the last interesting point - iPad sales dropped down to ~10% after first day sales.

Are you saying that Apple will sell as many iPads in the next 10 days as it did on the huge first day? I don't think Apple has a problem with that.

Re:Marketing

[oji-sama]

If Apple sold lemonade-flavored snow cones, here is how Slashdot would react:

But there would also be a new article about them every day for a month. :D

Re:Marketing

[Jesus IS the Devil]

Do you want him to eat his hat now, or later?

Re:Marketing

[metallik]

There are over 100,000 iPhone apps out now. According to you, this would mean there are one million Windows Mobile apps (your 10 times). Do you honestly believe that?? I sure as hell don't :)

Re:Marketing

[Monty_Lovering]

Nur...

He was talking % of revenue, not total spend in $, so number of product is not relevent.

Try responding to a comment you understand next time, and who could mod you as interesting?

Re:Marketing

[Nowhere.Men]

The trends are more interesting than the actual numbers.
Microsoft number is stagnant while all others are increasing. At a glance Apple does not increase the fastest.

The data are relatively old. Microsoft hadn't yet annouced / delivered its new mobile os.

Note : Where are the error bars?

Re:Marketing

[Monty_Lovering]

And what would MS marketshare of smartphones be if they had one choice of hardware in a handful of options?

Less than Apples, as day to day experience of iPhone and OS beats Win M unles you are a Windowtard geek.

Re:Marketing

[Nowhere.Men]

Same in Europe. Apple main page ( www.apple.com/fr/ or www.apple.com/uk/) announced end of april availablility which has now been changed to end of May.

The only additional bit of information is the date when you can start ordering one.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear hear! I just read that tripe too, some "scam". What a fucking hypocritical retard.

Re:Marketing

[Cyberllama]

Apple announced that the iPad would begin worldwide availability late April.

Not to play semantics, but "late April" is not a "date". It's a time-frame, and if you'll recall Apple missed their "time frame" for the domestic launch too (originally was 60 days, ended up being like 65-70).

There's also the little matter of Apple not being able to keep the iPad fully stocked, which places an upper limit on sales numbers.

Stock has not been a major issue. Some stores have run out, but then gotten more a day or two later. In most areas of the country, if you want an iPad, you can go out and buy one with no problems. Best Buy hasn't gotten nearly as much stock as the Apple stores, however, so if you live in an area with no Apple store you might have to call around.

Since Apple has had no major problems keeping it in stock domestically, one would have to wonder if demand has truly exceeded their expectations. Perhaps they only expected to sell exactly as many as they had pre-ordered? If there are problems with supply, its probably not a function of under-estimated demand, but with production issues (Keep in mind the US launch was later than they initially stated and there were plenty of rumors about manufacturing issues).

At any rate I don't know if Apple has any supply issues or if this is just marketing, and neither do you -- but If I had to guess, I'd guess its probably just marketing. Although, it could just as easily be both: they could have a real reason for the delay, but give a different one that helps create demand. I have no idea.

Instead of trying to spin reality completely backwards, why not admit that the iPad isn't the dud you and those who mod you up thought it would be? What's wrong with admitting the truth? Is your technological self-esteem so insecure that it must be propped up by hiding reality lest... Lest what? Will your Windows PC or Ubuntu netbook or Android tablet serve you any less well if you admit that there are many other people out there that prefer the iPad to *your* device of choice?

A big part of whether the iPad is a success or not will be measured in its ability to live up to its own hype, and not so much its ability to turn a profit. It's way too soon to say if the iPad is a success. Knowing that it's an Apple product, and Apple has a large following, it would be inconceivable that it would be an outright failure. Apple TV sold over 6 million units to date and nobody really considers it a success . . .

And profitability and shipping millions of products per year. Apple is the fifth largest PC maker in the US, and that includes businesses which skew much more heavily towards Windows PCs. Even then, Apple sells 8% of all computers in America.

That does not support your "PR and Advertising" smoke and mirrors claim. There's substance to back up their flair. Unlike your incessant posting of ignorance on all things Apple.

There's two possibilities: It's marketing or apple *failed* to gauge the market and organize their production chain effectively. They've had other product launches exceeding a million units sold in the first week, so this quantity of iPad's is easily something they could handle. Given everything you just said about Apple, which do you think is more likely: They dropped the ball and didn't handle the launch intelligently, or they're doing the smart thing now and trying to increase demand? Smart or stupid, your call. Personally, I think Apple is *smart*. I don't necessarily like every product Apple makes, but I do believe they know what the hell they're doing when it comes to marketing and supply chain. With that in mind, I can't imagine that this is anything other than marketing.

Re:Marketing

[pHus10n]

There was no specific release date other than "late April", which has been on Apple's UK site for over a month. Quit trying to make a damn conspiracy out of nothing.

Re:Marketing

[shutdown -p now]

If you discount the "fart apps" for both platforms (most of those would be on iPhone), and account for internal corporate applications for WinMo, then parent may be closer to the truth.

One market in which WinMo dominates with no replacement in sight (not even WinPhone 7!) is corporate - where phones are used as thin clients with custom software. The main reason is that .NET CF makes it very easy to write stuff that integrates well with middle tier running on typical Windows shop IT infrastructure (web services on IIS, data in MSSQL, users in AD, and so on), and developer tools emphasize RAD. Oh, and, of course, the fact that you can install applications locally, or from a centralized corporate repository.

Re:Marketing

[abigor]

Your hatred for Apple is pathetic. They are a company that makes products. Some people see a need for them and buy them, others don't. To bring emotion into it shows how impoverished your life must be.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Could it be that people actually want products that you don't?

Could it be they managed to tap large masses of free volunteer advertisers like yourself?

That and let's not forget that MS has quite the negative image to counter. Apple still has to ruin its image the same way.

Re:Marketing

[gnasher719]

Since Apple has had no major problems keeping it in stock domestically, one would have to wonder if demand has truly exceeded their expectations. Perhaps they only expected to sell exactly as many as they had pre-ordered?

It is quite obvious that in order to start shipping in the UK, Apple has to build up some stock for the first day (say 1/5th of US, that's 60,000) and be able to supply a smaller number every day (say 1/5th of the US, that's 10,000). Apple knew how many they are building. When they announced "late April" shipping to the UK, they must have estimated that by end of April they would have a huge number of iPads left to ship to the UK, plus a huge number for Germany, France, Italy etc. These iPads are not there! All the iPads intended for shipping to Europe are being sold in the USA!

Re:Marketing

[uglyduckling]

True. And Windows Mobile is a platform used by virtually every device manufacturer in at least one of their phones, bar Apple and Google, and has been on the market for years. I would phrase your statement in the reverse "despite Window Mobile being on the market for many years, and despite being pushed by a plethora of device manufacturers, Apple have easily beaten its market share in the short time that the iPhone has been available".

Re:Marketing

[gnasher719]

Are you saying that Apple will sell as many iPads in the next 10 days as it did on the huge first day? I don't think Apple has a problem with that.

300,000 in 10 days = 10,950,000 per year. Of one iPad model only, and in the USA only. That would mean at least 25 million total sales worldwide per year. Netbook and notebook makers should be very, very frightened.

Re:Marketing

[beelsebob]

I would be really surprised if there were even 15,000 windows mobile applications, let alone the 1.5 million you're claiming.

Re:Marketing

[indiechild]

This is brilliant!

Re:Marketing

[pydev]

"Oh please, people have been making yellow snow cones for years!"

Are you saying they haven't?

Re:Marketing

[pydev]

The price and weight for tablet computers has finally come down far enough that it's worth having one.

It's still kind of pricey, which is why only a company like Apple can put out a product. In 6-12 months, there are going to be plenty of cheap and high quality competitors.

The real innovation here is in battery life, electronics, and screens.

Re:Marketing

[pydev]

Yes, we do feel threatened by Apple because Apple has been playing evil tricks since the 1980's. They tried through legal tricks to become the only company making GUIs, using technology they copied from others. And they're trying to pull the same thing with iPad and iPhone. At the same time, they misrepresent where their technologies are coming from, and people like you believe them.

Yes, we're worried and we're outraged, and we have a right to be.

Re:Marketing

[Angostura]

It's only interesting that just today, along with this news announcement, was the first time when we (as in Europeans) even heard about it or when EU operators even announced iPad coming and its release dates.

You're wrong. the UK Apple Store site has been saying 'Late April' since the introduction of the device, so I'm not sure which part of Europe you are talking about.

Re:Marketing

[node 3]

Not to play semantics, but "late April" is not a "date".

But you *are* playing semantics. sopssa's point was that Apple wasn't delaying anything, because they didn't make any initial statement to begin with. Late April and late March are so different that there's no way to claim that there was no delay, which is exactly what sopssa claimed.

Stock has not been a major issue.

I never said it was a major issue, I said it had an effect. And it has.

Some stores have run out, but then gotten more a day or two later.

Exactly. In other words, some people walked into an Apple Store, and were unable to walk out with an iPad. This, by its very definition, means there's an upper limit to the number of sales which is being bumped up against. This is especially relevant as the topic was about the number of sales daily compared to those on the launch day, when stock was significantly higher than it is now.

At any rate I don't know if Apple has any supply issues or if this is just marketing, and neither do you -- but If I had to guess, I'd guess its probably just marketing.

You're absolutely wrong that this is simply marketing. It would be absurd for Apple to deliberately not have enough iPads (or hold them back in warehouses) for the sole purpose of making it look like demand is super high, because this would mean lost sale after lost sale. It would also mean that Apple is deliberately under producing (or under selling).

This absurdity would be doubly compounded by the delay to international markets. Why would Apple then parlay lost US sales into delayed foreign sales?

To be sure, there would be some benefit to have the buzz be "ooh, look, demand is so high that Apple can't keep up with it!", but to sacrifice actual sales for such hype would not only be absurd, but also illegal. Apple's shareholders would not allow 1/3rd of a quarter's sales to be completely vanish for a little bit of hype.

And contrary to common belief here on Slashdot, Apple doesn't live on empty hype. They *do* benefit from hype, but from hype that is backed up by reality. It's far more effective to have the hype of being unable to keep up with demand because demand is actually high, than it is to have it hyped up, but demand actually be low. If Apple tried the latter, the iPad would get a short-term media boost, but the market would clobber it in the long run.

There's two possibilities: It's marketing or apple *failed* to gauge the market and organize their production chain effectively.

Or they are producing them as fast as they can, and that's just not fast enough.

They've had other product launches exceeding a million units sold in the first week, so this quantity of iPad's is easily something they could handle.

Which Taiwanese factory do you know of that can churn out iPads fast enough? We're talking IPS LCDs, large glass multitouch surfaces, custom SoC, high capacity batteries (that aren't simply a bunch of AA cells shrink-wrapped together), high capacity, high speed flash memory, etc.

And they are also having to ramp up production of the 3G iPad, so units of those are accumulating for their launch.

Given everything you just said about Apple, which do you think is more likely: They dropped the ball and didn't handle the launch intelligently, or they're doing the smart thing now and trying to increase demand?

Why would they have to do something like you are suggest in order to increase demand, when demand already exceeds production?

The simple fact that far too many slashdotters can't grasp is that people actually want iPads. You clearly haven't been to an Apple Store over the past week. They are packed with people gathered around the iPads.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

And of course, the other half of Slashdot would spend months evangelising Apple's new revolutionary yellow snow cones which will change the way people think about snow cones forever, it'll be bigger, tastier, creamier, more nutritious, it will solve world hunger and help develop higher brain functions. Then on the day of release when they find out it's just a regular snow cone that Steve Jobs pissed on, they'll still buy them up in their thousands, all the while singing Apple's praises for how they haven't burdened the cone with features people don't want but instead have kept it simple and easy to use.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do so many people here get so worked up over a simple computer product?

Re:Marketing

[BasilBrush]

I don't think much of your research. That's from October last year. The report from the same company is widely available for Feb this year, and it has Apple on 25.4% and MS on 15.1%.
http://comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/4/comScore_Reports_February_2010_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share

Worldwide, they both do less well, because Symbian is still holding on ot the lion's share. Apple 15.1%, Microsoft 8.8%.
http://www.canalys.com/pr/2010/r2010021.html

and the number of windows mobile applications vastly outnumbers the number of iPhone applications (by about 10 times I wager)

Worst bet ever. Number of apps on Microsoft's own Windows Marketplace for Mobile = 872. Number of Apps on iTunes = 185,000.

Re:Marketing

[LKM]

Look at your finger. Does it look like a mouse to you? No? Then why did all previous tablet computers assume that people wanted to use an operating system designed for a mouse with their fingers? Just because the iPad and some crappy Windows tablet are both flat doesn't meant they're the same thing.

Re:Marketing

[LKM]

Apple's announcement makes it clear that they are not selling more because they can't produce them fast enough. We won't know how many they can actually sell until they manage to fill the channels.

Re:Marketing

[Tapewolf]

Are you including bespoke applications? To be honest, that is about the only thing WM is really decent for. For instance, these are all running either WM or bare Windows CE:

http://www.motorola.com/Business/US-EN/Business+Product+and+Services/Mobile+Computers/Handheld+Computers

...that's just one manufacturer. There are dozens. Now that WM7 seems to have completely dropped the ball for this kind of stuff, I imagine most of them will be either sticking with Windows Phone 'Classic' (aka 6.5) or going over to pure Windows CE.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot. Please stop posting here.

Re:Marketing

[jecowa]

I don't know about everyone else, but this made me really want to try one of Apple's lemon snow cones.

Re:Marketing

[paziek]

They might have sold those, but not necessary to the end user. iPads were available in - for example - Poland pretty much since release day. Some people just went to USA or had someone there that shipped it to them, and just re-sell it here. There ain't that much demand on those here, so not much supply either, but I imagine that in places like Germany or UK re-selling is at its finest. They delayed international sale, but it was going well since day 0, and then they claim that sales in USA are so much better than in EU or elsewhere. I call bull.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that - it's still better than giving the customer the paper cup to throw away, because keeping them in a central location means they're easier and thus much more likely to get recycled. Let's give credit to companies that are making some effort, even if they're not doing it 100% the way we'd like, because there are a hell of a lot of companies not bothering to make the effort at all, and they're not likely to if people start bad-mouthing the ones who do try (let's face it, the marketing aspect is the real reason these companies try to be green, start punishing them for only being a little bit green and you take away their motivation to do anything at all).

Re:Marketing

[delinear]

Who said it was a failure? Most of the negative comments I've seen were along the lines of "underpowered, too many restriction only really useful for Joe Sixpack, will probably sell a ton despite all that", while most of the positive comments were along the lines of "it's not restrictive, it's a streamlined user experience which brings applications to the average guy, and for that reason it will sell a ton". If sales are you success/failure metric, I don't think I've seen anyone saying on either side of the fence that this would be a failure, just a missed opportunity.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you, windows slate sucks. but at some point you have to compromise: look at your finger again, now tell me which modifier you use to switch between scrolling gesture and selecting text gesture.

you have to put the finger, wait for the "hey it's not moving _maybe_ he wants to select" and then you have your finger all over the place you're selecting. And maybe you were just about to scroll but finishing reading that last text line.

problem with ipad is that is a "content consuming" device. wonderful at that, but _heavily_ geared toward that goal only. Imagine you're browsing the web, you find a book you like. It's not on the ibook store, so you quickly put up safari and search in the local and online reseller where you can found a bargain for an used copy.

Would you open and close safari and notes repeatedly to write down prices? also entering in editing mode in notes suffers from the is he scrolling? is he selecting? is he starting an edit? gesture overload problem.

you'll look pretty silly with your ipad and a piece of paper for writing down notes

so while windows on slates sucks, ipad is too far on the spectrum of balance to provide a natural experience.

Re:Marketing

[hitmark]

i think thats the reason why microsoft plans to keep winmob 6.5 alive, but rebranded as winphone 6.5.

Re:Marketing

[amiga3D]

Well as far as Zune and Win Mobile go, even MS knows you can't polish a turd.

Re:Marketing

[jimthehorsegod]

hell, for consoles they had to poach sega's console development team

Who were otherwise very busy individuals...

Re:Marketing

[hal2814]

New products call for new solutions. Why write down the price, take notes, etc when you can just bookmark the page? It took me a while to adjust from using the Palm as an organizer to organizing with my Palm, but once I made the switch I never looked back.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has 4 to 5 times the amount of products apple does and a much higher profit margin as they don't ship hardware, would be far wierder if they didn't spend at least double what apple do.

Quote the OP: Microsoft spends almost twice as much as Apple as a percentage of revenue. But thanks for proving that Apple hating mods are just as idiotic as you are.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft does not have to "pump" windows mobile because, despite all the iPhone hype, the number of Windows Mobile smartphones is only slightly behind the number of iPhones (http://www.fiercedeveloper.com/pages/what-were-top-smartphone-operating-systems-october-numbers)

Yeah, I'm sure Microsoft doesn't have to pay all the advertising the makers of those phones have to pay for so somebody will buy them. Gee, I wonder how much that adds up to - 10 times as much, I take out of the same ass you took your apps number from.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

To bring emotion into it shows how impoverished your life must be.

Says the guy showing the emotion of contempt.

Re:Marketing

[MrCrassic]

Forgot to add

That's great...but will it run Linux?

and the various GNAA trolls, goatse links and Hitler references.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Sopssa never disparaged marketing. Nor did he state that well-marketed products ought to be "disqualified".

Re:Marketing

[mdwh2]

FTFY:

"It doesn't matter that people have been making yellow snow cones for years, no one started eating them until Apple came along, and they were the ones who popularised it!"

"You can't eat with unless you have a special cup for it, but that's a good thing, it makes the product better!"

"Apple make the best ones, even though I've not tried all the other ones on the market. In fact I wasn't even aware alternatives existed. If you tell me that Apple aren't the largest producer in the market and show data to back that up, I'm going to pretend it isn't true."

"It doesn't matter that the Apple ones don't taste as good, the quality is not as consistent, and the coloring will run down your sleeve - what's important is that it gives you a superior tasting experience. I can't explain how it's better, it just is, you just have to believe."

"It doesn't matter that over cones look better on paper. What's more important is that this shows off my yellow moustache."

Not to mention the absurdity that Slashdot would start covering snow cones as soon as Apple produced the iCone, even though it obviously doesn't now.

The fact that people have made phones/tablets/etc for years is worth mentioning, because so many people round here, including the coverage from Slashdot, suggests the belief that Apple really were first.

With your second comment, are you suggesting that the policies about Apple's App Store and what an Iphone can't do unless jailbroken and so on are simply made up? My sources for these claims are Apple users themselves - who insist that it's a good thing that their phone is locked down like this.

Re:Marketing

[MrCrassic]

You shouldn't be asking why Apple is so effective at marketing... Apple is merely competent. You really should ask yourself, why, if HP and Dell have such good products, they invariable allow their products to be introduced as blurry pictures on Gizmodo or Ars Technica, give them unrememberable names, and are so inept in their follow through and promotion that anybody who actually cares to develop or add value to their product might as well blow their brains out now and save the trouble.

Because one you're at the point where your product becomes a necessity and/or a household staple, creativity and intuition are no longer needed. HP and Dell did their hard work in the early 90's; now that everyone associates "new PC" with HP, Dell, Compaq or Apple, why should they add extra glitz to their products if they don't need to?

Notice that those companies only get "creative" when the market forces them to.

Re:Marketing

[mdwh2]

Only a month???

We're coming up for three years for the Iphone.

And only one a day? Look at the current Ipad story rate! :)

Slashdot in 2015: Consumer News for Appliance Users; Stuff about Tasty Snow Cones.

Re:Marketing

[mdwh2]

They beat Microsoft. Now how do either of these compare to RIM, LG, Samsung, Motorola, or (most notably) Nokia?

Re:Marketing

[jedidiah]

> Why write down the price, take notes, etc when you can just bookmark the page?

That will quickly become an unwieldy mess.

What you're describing isn't even a new solution. If anything, it perhaps highlights
the need for something genuinely new rather than finding a new way to abuse old tools.

Re:Marketing

[VGPowerlord]

You're absolutely wrong that this is simply marketing. It would be absurd for Apple to deliberately not have enough iPads (or hold them back in warehouses) for the sole purpose of making it look like demand is super high, because this would mean lost sale after lost sale. It would also mean that Apple is deliberately under producing (or under selling).

I have two words for you: Nintendo Wii.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, Nintendo under-produced Wii units for at least the first two years it was on the market. Even now, stores still run out because Nintendo isn't producing enough of them.

Yet Wii is the number one video game console worldwide... figure that one out.

Re:Marketing

[node 3]

Who said it was a failure?

Which Slashdot are you reading? There is no shortage of posts claming that no one will buy an iPad, and will buy netbooks instead. The initial poster of this very thread claimed in this thread that this delay is just a marketing gimmick (look at the subject) and that the iPad's sales have dropped so bad that this was just to make the iPad look like something people actually want, etc.

Sure, there are some level-headed geeks here who claim that it's underpowered for them, but should still be great for most other people, but there's certainly no shortage of outright iPad detractors who called it a failure from the moment it was announced all the way through to today, in spite of facts to the contrary.

Re:Marketing

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I have two words for you: Nintendo Wii. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, Nintendo under-produced Wii units for at least the first two years it was on the market.

Ahh, but Nintendo did not intentionally underproduce. They underestimated demand, then did not want to invest in more plants because they assumed they would catch up with the demand and did not want to be stuck with expensive production plants when they did not need that many for the long term sustained demand.

They could have immediately started building more plants, but they wrongly assumed they had misinterpreted initial demand and failed to stockpile enough. Basically, they badly underestimated the demand in the new market segment they were entering. What's amusing is that, at the time, conspiracy theorists who were not the target market spent all sorts of effort theorizing about how it was all some sort of marketing trick and the Wii was not really in demand that much, simply because they could not understand that there was a large market demand because not everyone is just like them. Here we see the same phenomenon all over again.

Re:Marketing

[LKM]

As far as I can tell, I have roughly ten fingers. I'm pretty sure one could use some of them and come up with a non-modal user interface for selecting text :-)

I agree that the iPad is largely a content consuming device. My point was not so much that the iPad is a replacement for a Windows computer, but that it is an entirely different thing, specifically geared towards the tablet form factor.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, there really was no announcement on release date before Apple said they will be delaying it. Marketing at its finest.

Well here in Australia they where saying it would be released at the end of April, it has now been changed to late May.

Imagine that, more disinformation from that guy.

Re:Marketing

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

With your second comment, are you suggesting that the policies about Apple's App Store and what an Iphone can't do unless jailbroken and so on are simply made up?

No. I'm suggesting that some of the people bitching about Apple's policies aren't smart enough to stay within the bounds of what they actually know about. We all know, for example, you're not going to get an alternative email app for the iPhone. Perfect thing to bitch about. And... no, twice I saw somebody modded up a day or two ago for saying that you need iTunes to install an app. Amusingly these are the same sorts that like to use the term 'Reality Distortion Field'.

My sources for these claims are Apple users themselves - who insist that it's a good thing that their phone is locked down like this.

I consider this seperate from my post, but I wanted to comment on it anyway. Maybe I can shed a little light on it. I've had numerous mobile devices since.. oh... 98 or so. Pocket PC's, Palm Pilots, a Zaurus, you name it. You would think with all the babble here that there aren't any interesting apps on the iPhone. Now, I don't know the sole reason why, but this is comically untrue. The iPhone, by a long shot, has been far better supported software-wise than say my Pocket PC's or Treo. (I have not had an Android device, let's be real clear about that.) I'm resigned to the fact that I'm not replacing the browser, email client, etc, because Apple won't allow that. In exchange, I'm getting MUCH better games support. For whatever reason, maybe it's the number of iPhones out there, maybe it's the number of people paying for apps, I dunno, but the game market on the iPhone is sooooo much bigger than it was on the other devices. I can get Chinatown Wars on the iPhone. I'm not saying it's never happened, but this is the first time I have seen a major game company release a major title on the iPhone. For all of Apple's restrictions, the diversity of the software is well above what I've seen in Windows Mobile or Palm Pilot land.

On top of the software support, Apple has also made it very easy to find, pay for, and install apps. Before it was a research project to find an app that does something. Today it's something I do while I'm waiting for a coffee at Starbucks. That's one of the benefits of having a centralized place to get software tied into a rating system. Otherwise I would have been browsing the web on a slow cellular connection using a shitty browser to try to find that app.

Here are a couple of cases where at least it seems like I'm benefiting from Apple's policies. The things I would have normally complained about (like the lack alternative browsers) haven't, in reality, been an issue. And that's the key difference. It's easy to use terms like "Reality Distortion Field" and imagine that we all follow our lord and master Steve Jobs, but the reality is we actually have the phones and it's working out, as opposed to the other dudes out there who are arguing it academically. Suddenly their world revolves around having Flash but in my world, except for wanting Hulu on my phone, it hasn't been an issue. Silliness. But... I can't say I've never behaved like that. I've said all kinds of silly things about Linux even though I've never used it on my desktop. :D

Re:Marketing

[English French Man]

Microsoft spends almost twice as much as Apple as a percentage of revenue on marketing.

The conclusion that I draw is "Apple is better at marketing, it achieves more with less money". This has nothing to do with quality.

Re:Marketing

[jimthehorsegod]

Worst bet ever. Number of apps on Microsoft's own Windows Marketplace for Mobile = 872. Number of Apps on iTunes = 185,000.

Number of bespoke WinMo apps written by companies who use smartphones as ultra-portable devices for running in-house software?

Re:Marketing

[intheshelter]

So you admit you were wrong and that Apple understands what consumers want better than you? How big of you.

Re:Marketing

[Buelldozer]

Comparing the numbers between the MS WM and the Apple Marketplace (iTunes) is worse than meaningless. There are far, far, more apps than 872 for the WinMo platform and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

There is no practical way to get a firm count of the number of applications available for the WinMo platform. Is it on par with the iPhone? I have no idea but like the other poster I'd bet that it is and your proof of the contrary is no proof at all.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

It's partly a pee-joke and partly a commentary on the lack of mastery of the topic they're babbling about. I.e. they ignore the difference between lemonade and pee in order to make fun of Apple.

Re:Marketing

[iluvcapra]

now that everyone associates "new PC" with HP, Dell, Compaq or Apple, why should they add extra glitz to their products if they don't need to?

It's weird because in these new markets the old line vendors do need to differentiate their product and push it hard if they want adoption. Their approach, in general, has been utterly feckless and they all basically lean on Google and Microsoft to do all of the work for them, and then applying their effort not on consumers but on resellers, to get favorable placement and tie-ins. When people want an Apple, they want an Apple. When people want an Android phone, they want an Android phone, so they show up at a shop, and basically, whichever hardware vendor made the most favorable arrangement with the shop, that vendor's phones sell better.

It's almost as if they enjoy being the tail on Google and Microsoft's dog, and don't mind being commoditized and having to duke it out in price with a hundred Chinese knockoffs.

Re:Marketing

[mattack2]

Eskimo's what?

Re:Marketing

[BasilBrush]

Number of bespoke WinMo apps written by companies who use smartphones as ultra-portable devices for running in-house software?

No one knows. And even if they did it would be irrelevant. You can't buy them.

Re:Marketing

[BasilBrush]

Comparing the numbers between the MS WM and the Apple Marketplace (iTunes) is worse than meaningless. There are far, far, more apps than 872 for the WinMo platform and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

What's the use of there being apps if you can't find them?

Is it on par with the iPhone? I have no idea but like the other poster I'd bet that it is and your proof of the contrary is no proof at all.

No, the other poster bet it was 10 times as many. = 1,850,000. Which is of course fucking batshit insane. 872 is certainly a closer figure...

Re:Marketing

[jimthehorsegod]

What has being able to buy them got to do with anything?

Re:Marketing

[BasilBrush]

Angels on the head of a pin, teapots orbiting around Mars, and now unlisted, unbuyable, hypothetical Win Mobile apps numbering over 1.6 million. Whatever next?

Re:Marketing

[jimthehorsegod]

The number is irrelevant, that wasn't my point. They're a reason to buy - or stay with Windows-based smartphones, whether they can compete in volume with the (not always high calibre) apps for the Apple. The mere inability to write bespoke apps for Apple devices is a plus for other platforms

Re:Marketing

[BasilBrush]

They're a reason to buy - or stay with Windows-based smartphones, whether they can compete in volume with the (not always high calibre) apps for the Apple. The mere inability to write bespoke apps for Apple devices is a plus for other platforms

As opposed to the never high calibre apps for Windows Mobile?

Who told you you can't write bespoke apps for the iPhone/iPad? Of course you can. There's an enterprise development program with all the tools needed for deployment.

And given that hypothetical apps seems to count, perhaps there are 10 times as many enterprise apps for iPhone as for Windows Mobile. After all, nobody knows, right? ;-)

Re:Marketing

[4phun]

"It doesn't matter that people have been making yellow snow cones for years, no one started eating them until Apple came along, and they were the ones who popularised it!"

Everybody has been using old PISS for years to make yellow snow cones. It was Apple who hit on the idea to use LEMONS and SUGAR instead of recycled PISS, so they made a fortune.

Re:Marketing

[Caetel]

Not only press releases, they had an end of April release date advertised on their homepage, at least in the UK.

Thank god!

[Anonymous Coward]

Another iCrap stories. Don't ever stop.

Re:Thank god!

[Petrushka]

I note that at this moment, the front page has

• two iPhone stories
• three iPad stories

-- all separate, i.e. five stories.

FUCK THIS SHIT, and fuck all the Apple astroturfers like Paska just below.

Re:Thank god!

[gzipped_tar]

It is possible to turn off the Apple section in the index setting.

But if you do it you won't be able to enjoy the real slashdot...

Re:Thank god!

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple astroturfers like Paska just below.

I think he is Finnish. His nickname directly translates to "shit" and "crap" :)

Re:Thank god!

[Anonymous Coward]

I note that at this moment, the front page has

• two iPhone stories
• three iPad stories

-- all separate, i.e. five stories.

FUCK THIS SHIT, and fuck all the Apple astroturfers like Paska just below.

And there's generally several stories that are pro piracy and file sharing each day. Welcome to Slashdot. If you want balanced reporting you've come to the wrong place. iPhones/iPad ARE tech stories. You might not be interested but half a million people already disagree with you the first week. Will I get one? Probably not but I'm still interested in following the product. Hopefully they'll add some of the missing elements, they already are slated to add multi-tasking. It's a media/game player that can run some apps, deal with it not being a proper computer. Neither is your smart phone. I've got four computers sitting in the room I'm in. I don't need the same capabilities on every single electronic device I own.

Re:Thank god!

[Anonymous Coward]

and every one is in the apple section, if you hate apple so much just disable apple news in your prefs you stupid dumbass

Re:Thank god!

[nikomo]

Funny thing, paska is shit in finnish.

Re:Thank god!

[Paska]

I note that at this moment, the front page has

• two iPhone stories
• three iPad stories

-- all separate, i.e. five stories.

FUCK THIS SHIT, and fuck all the Apple astroturfers like Paska just below.

What has Slashdot editors posting Apple stories got to do with my opinion based in a market that I actively work in?

My opinion isn't some by-the-edge-of-my-seat observation, I work in the Apple industry for a company that is *not* Apple. We sell Linux, Windows, OS X, and push the right solution for the job.

The simple fact is the Apple solution is now becoming a lot more relevant then ever before, people want their products, and to ignore this (and if you want, fight it with a better/more open product) is just plain ignorance.

Re:Thank god!

[feepness]

-- all separate, i.e. five stories.

Someone needs to submit a story about this.

Re:Thank god!

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

FUCK THIS SHIT, and fuck all the Apple astroturfers like Paska just below.

Blame the haters, too. 670+ comments in the last 5 iPhone/iPad related stories. 1,470 if you go back only two more. Slashdot is ad driven and ads are served even if you post just to complain.

It reminds me of a friend I had that'd corner people in their cubicles and endlessly complain about how he never had time to get any work done.

Re:Thank god!

[shmlco]

"But they have the same capabilities."

Uh... my desktop and notebook are touchscreen portable tablets???

Wow! Thanks for the heads up!

Re:Thank god!

[node 3]

It's just that Apple locks you out from using your device and restricts you to their App Store so they can milk even more money from you.

The reason for the app store is not primarily as a revenue source. It's to make the iPhone (and iPod touch and, now, iPad) more appealing. The same thing is true for the iTunes Music Store in relation to the iPod.

Re:Thank god!

[narcc]

"But they have the same capabilities."

Uh... my desktop and notebook are touchscreen portable tablets???
Wow! Thanks for the heads up!

That whooshing sound you hear is the point the other user made flying over your head.

Re:Thank god!

[Anonymous Coward]

Paska is Finnish and means Shit if translated to English.

Re:Thank god!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for commenting and making this story more popular; it is now more likely that there will be more iProduct stories in the future! :)

Re:Thank god!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just that Apple locks you out from using your device and restricts you to their App Store so they can milk even more money from you.

The reason for the app store is not primarily as a revenue source. It's to make the iPhone (and iPod touch and, now, iPad) more appealing. The same thing is true for the iTunes Music Store in relation to the iPod.

They could also have let you have access to the App store and whatever other program you wanted to you (like Linux does with its repositories where you can get tons of apps but aren't limited to just those ones).

Re:Thank god!

[moronoxyd]

Bull. The main reason is $$$$.
Making the iProducts "more appealing" or "more stable" or whatnot is only an excuse, an afterthought at the best.

Re:Thank god!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea it's getting awfully annoying. All my favorite IT news site's have too much daily iNews. Pretty much dumped one already because at some point it's enough.

Admittedly it's not only iNews. They all seem to clutch on 2-3 news topics and churn out articles for people to comment on. Most of the time you don't even have to read them because you know what's in them by the headline.

Comments are interesting and all but by the - literally - 100th time you read comments on basically the same subject, it gets boring.

Re:Thank god!

[node 3]

Bull. The main reason is $$$$.
Making the iProducts "more appealing" or "more stable" or whatnot is only an excuse, an afterthought at the best.

A common view, but utterly wrong and ignorant of reality. Apple makes far more money on Macs, iPods and iPhones than they do on their online stores. If their stores can increase sales of hardware even a modest amount (say, 2%), then the stores will have generated more revenue and profit in hardware sales than they make directly on the music and apps themselves.

But it's not a modest amount. The iPhone, for example, easily sells many multiple times more due to the App Store than it would have without it.

Re:Thank god!

[harlows_monkeys]

FUCK THIS SHIT, and fuck all the Apple astroturfers like Paska

He is not an astroturfer. Maybe you should actually learn what the word means before tou try to use it.

Re:Thank god!

[LKM]

So, which ones of the stories are not newsworthy? Or do you not want to hear them simply because the word "Apple" appears in them, regardless of whether they're relevant?

Re:Thank god!

[dropadrop]

FUCK THIS SHIT, and fuck all the Apple astroturfers like Paska just below.

As it happens Paska stands for shit in my native language (Finnish). :)

Re:Thank god!

[Anonymous Coward]

FUCK THIS SHIT, and fuck all the Apple astroturfers like Paska just below.

You are absolutely right - but at least he has chosen his username correctly as Paska=shit in finnish ;)

Re:Thank god!

[PPalmgren]

Well lets be fair, these get a lot of views. Not because this demographic is gaga over iStuff, but because the comments are as entertaining as an evolution article's comments on CNN.

They keep posting this crap because people love watching the cult followers defend their god. As annoying as it is, I like the entertainment.

Re:Thank god!

[ben_white]

FUCK THIS SHIT, and fuck all the Apple astroturfers like Paska just below [slashdot.org].

I'm not sure how this comment is insightful. If you look at the comment numbers for these stories, the community is interested. Just because Apple seems to offend you in some way doesn't make stories about their products inappropriate. If there were five stories and almost not interest in them (as measured by comments), then I would agree with you, but the community is interested!

If you don't want to see continued Apple stories, stop reading and commenting. If they stop garnering the heavy traffic, then you'll get your wish; fewer stories. But then what you would you spend your time doing, and where would you put your comments?

Re:Thank god!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off astroturfing troll.

Re:Thank god!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is possible to turn off the Apple section in the index setting.

You are assuming this guy has the intricate computer knowledge it would take to do that. Apple haters usually don't, no matter what they claim.

Re:Thank god!

[Anonymous Coward]

As it happens Paska stands for shit in my native language (Finnish). :)

Isn't it amazing how many people Nokia pays to point that out.

The iPad will redefine the industry

[Paska]

I work for a predominate Apple authorised reseller in Australia in an engineering role, as a result I get to hear feedback from every corner of the landscape. From consumer sales, small business, big business, government and educational.

The iPad, and just the talk around it, I have never experienced in my 7+ years in the I.T. industry, and 3+ years in the Apple industry.

I have no hesitation in saying that the iPad has a huge chance of being the game changer, it's launch officially brings the "PC" into being a commodity device that anyone can use.

Hell, just today with my desk behind our retail sales floor. I've had an old lady come in enquiring about pre-ordering it, just so she can check her email in Cambodia. Schools are talking about it, business is talking about it, but the most surprising thing is that the older generation, the type of folk who see computers as these big, ugly, hard machines to use are not just wanting them, they are consistently calling us each and every day to find out the latest news on them.

Apple will sell these things like absolute hot cakes, and the rest of the I.T. industry is going to be left scratching their heads as to why they didn't come up with this idea sooner.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[_Sprocket_]

Apple will sell these things like absolute hot cakes, and the rest of the I.T. industry is going to be left scratching their heads as to why they didn't come up with this idea sooner.

Yes - because nobody else ever thought about a pad device before. Nobody.

Sure - Apple may have gotten it right. Form factor is important. You can look at the iPod as an example (and for all the mocking - CmdrTaco's analysis was dead-on... at least on the points it touched). You can also look at Apple's Newton vs. the Palm Pilot. And so Apple may have managed to do it right. But please - let's not get too carried away. This is evolution, not revolution.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean, its a laptop?

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[phantomfive]

it's launch officially brings the "PC" into being a commodity device that anyone can use.

You do realize that a PC *is* a commodity device that anyone can use, right? Grandma's all over the world are already using them. In fact, if you know what a commodity actually is, the iPad is less of a commodity than a standard PC.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Post like this make me want to go to a car analogy. Comparing an Apple Tablet to the other things out there is like comparing a Tesla Roadster (iPad) to a Ford Focus (Joojoo). Revolution is evolution.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[SilverJets]

Meh. All the hype around this useless toy device reminds me of the hype around the Segway. "It will revolutionize urban transportation." "It will change the way engineers plan cities." Blah, blah, blah.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did get that speech from, did Steve email it to you? Game changer? and what do you base that on? The iPad still requires your "old lady" to have a full real computer if she wants to sync anything to it like her photos etc.

Apple can spin their PR as they usually do but time will show it is not the big success that Apple would like it to be.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys fail; A commodity is a valuable thing.

PCs have been a commodity since they were invented, just like anything else that has value. iPads are actually more of a commodity than typical budget PCs because, gasp, iPads are more valuable.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[node 3]

While your critique is valid, it's fairly obvious he meant "appliance".

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Commodity: a good that is sold by several suppliers with no or little differentiation.

Laptops (and especially netbooks) fit that description _a lot_ better than the ipad.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[TedRiot]

It isn't. The problem with previous pads has mostly been that they have pretty much been keyboardless laptops with operating systems and UI's that are not from the very beginning been designed for touch use. I think that Apple actually is on to something by choosing the phone OS for this kind of device instead of the desktop/laptop OS. There are weaknesses as noted here and you are locked to their store and so on, but I imagine (haven't tried one) that it is a much more pleasant experience than using Windows or even OS X on a touch screen. In the phone world you can try Symbian touch devices and notice that it doesn't work there either that you try to glue touch UI on top of an OS that is meant to be used with a different input device.

I have never used iPhone OS, but I tested an Anroid phone a while back for a couple of weeks. What I noticed that I started using the phone much more as a tablet, or what I imagine I would use a tablet for, than a phone. At the launch of iPad my first thoughts were pretty much with the Slashdot mindset, thinking why not OS X. But at the moment I'm turning around to think that this is exactly the right decision and I think I would be a bit tempted to buy one - or an Android tablet, or MeeGo tablet, if it was cheap enough. I wouldn't ditch my laptop for it, but it would do some things better that lead me to go for an ultraportable last time I bought a laptop. But I wouldn't want to lose the keyboard from my laptop nor would I want my tablet to be the OS I'm running on my laptop.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[Anonymous Coward]

"It will change the way engineers plan cities."

Hey man, time is going to tell on that one.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[phantomfive]

If only Segway had delivered on the price point. A $500 Segway is definitely something I would consider getting. Not saying it was possible for them to deliver at that price, but if they had, there would be a lot more Segways on the streets.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[Trogre]

Funny thing is, I believe Jobs was responsible for both those quotes.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[_Sprocket_]

Evolution is revolution. What I wouldn't pay to have all the other consumer junk I have done right. Having a design that I not only like on day one but am not cursing a year later, if the device hasn't died by then, is absolute revolution.

It's very possible Apple has done this right. And I agree - doing it right matters. Again - Apple had the Newton but it just wasn't the right form factor. Palm wasn't doing things THAT different than others, but Palm got it right with their Pilot and that changed the market. The iPad could very well be the Palm Pilot of it's time.

But even if the iPad changes attitudes towards mobile computing, it's not doing things that weren't fundamentally done before. It isn't that nobody has even thought of doing these sorts of things. Heck - Star Trek had the concept going in the 60's. But having the idea isn't the same thing as implementing it. If anything, Apple has figured out the way to implement the idea in an effective way. That deserves kudos. But let's keep in it perspective. A well designed device isn't in itself a revolution.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[eggnoglatte]

Bullshit. The Segway quote was from Dean Kamen.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[Anonymous Coward]

No.... this is hype because people actually want to buy the product, the Segway hype was all created by the company selling it.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[Cyberllama]

People talking about things typically has more to do with marketing than the products merits. I hear people at work who couldn't tell the difference between a Toaster Oven and an iMac talking about the Droid. None of them own one, they've just been blitzed by commercials.

With the ipad, its hard to miss it. Not just commercials, but it's showed up on the Emmys, multiple television shows, every nightly newscast under the sun and most of the late night talk shows. Did you see that Betty White skit with the iPad? It's being absolutely pounded into people's consciousness. Of course people are going to talk about it. They're going to be curious about it. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll choose to buy one once they know more about it, though no doubt some will. Advertising works. There's a reason why the Droid has massively outsold the Nexus One, and it's not necessarily that one is superior to the other. It's largely just a function of advertising.

At any rate, that doesn't mean a revolution is coming.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[LKM]

The difference isn't the hardware, it's the software. Comparing the iPad to a windows tablet is like comparing a car GPS to an iPhone because they both have similar hardware.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[BasilBrush]

Funny thing is, I believe Jobs was responsible for both those quotes.

Here's what Jobs thought of the Segway:
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3533.html

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[BasilBrush]

In the phone world you can try Symbian touch devices and notice that it doesn't work there either that you try to glue touch UI on top of an OS that is meant to be used with a different input device.

Symbian OS was originally called EPOC32. It was created for the Psion Series 5 PDA, which had both a touch screen and a keyboard. Touch is built into the OS every bit as fundamentally as keyboards/keypads.

It could be that your comment refers to Nokia's phones. Until recently they didn't believe in touch screens. And they had their own family of UIs on top of Symbian OS. So perhaps their were some growing pains their as they started adapting their UIs to touch screens.

But Ericsson and later Sony Ericsson had touch screens right from the beginning of their use of Symbian OS. There certainly isn't any feeling of touch screens being an afterthought there.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I guess if this is a competition to see who's grandma is more technically savvy, you win. But for the rest of us, it seems a bit silly to put someone through the torture of learning how to use a traditional desktop computer when Apple have shown how easy computing can be.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[TedRiot]

I wasn't aware of the history and my experience with Symbian has been exclusively with Nokia phones, so I wasn't really aware that the UI is very different from device to device. So you're basically right, I was referring to Nokia phones, which have so far been very bad attempts to glue touch UI on top of their old UI.

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny thing is, I believe Jobs was responsible for both those quotes.

Here's what Jobs thought of the Segway:
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3533.html

What else would you expect of the man who said 64K would be enough memory?

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[Lisandro]

Hell, just today with my desk behind our retail sales floor. I've had an old lady come in enquiring about pre-ordering it, just so she can check her email in Cambodia. Schools are talking about it, business is talking about it, but the most surprising thing is that the older generation, the type of folk who see computers as these big, ugly, hard machines to use are not just wanting them, they are consistently calling us each and every day to find out the latest news on them.

Oh for Pete's sake. It's been the same with every single Apple product launched recently - hype, hype, hype. I actually tried one of these at the Apple Store in SF and the description of "oversized iPhone" fits it perfectly. It's neat and very well built, but i find it hard shelling $500+ for a device that's only good at browsing web or watching videos. Seriously, whatever you can do on your iPhone you can do on your iPad... and not much more. The lack of multitasking in particular is a killer for any actual computer work. Also, i'm not particularly fond on tapping on glass for long periods of time.

How many of those 500,000 iPads were returned?

Re:The iPad will redefine the industry

[_Sprocket_]

The difference isn't the hardware, it's the software. Comparing the iPad to a windows tablet is like comparing a car GPS to an iPhone because they both have similar hardware.

Maybe I'm confusing the issue by using the term "form factor." That might imply hardware only. What I mean to say is the entire interface and design of the product; the entire stack from hardware to software. Again, going back to the Palm Pilot / Newton comparison, the Pilot wasn't just smaller than the Newton. It was the right physical size. And it's software interface made all the difference (Graffiti was spot-on at a time where handwriting recognition was notoriously inaccurate).

I'm not saying that Apple hasn't done something really interesting / right. I'm not saying that previous attempts were just as good to Apple's. What I am saying is that Apple hasn't done something that's completely out of nowhere. Like Palm, they might have managed to implement an existing concept in a way that will capture attention and change attitudes.

One final note - I think your analogy has some merit but not in the way you used it. I believe the iPad is more GPS to a laptop / netbook's iPhone. That is, the iPad is purpose-driven while other devices are much more diverse in functionality. It's an imperfect analogy, as most are, as the iPad is more diverse than a GPS. But I believe those who think the iPad is going to be a general computing device will find themselves disappointed.

I don't believe it

[93 Escort Wagon]

But... Slashdot has already declared the iPad a failure!

Re:I don't believe it

[Wolvenhaven]

A technical, hardware, software, and geek usability failure maybe; but not a failure on apple's part to market the hell out of it, convince a bunch of people it's awesome, and doing it with nothing more than a large sized ipod touch. You have to hand it to apple, they do make a very nice UI for laymen. Only those of us who frequent technology sites like slashdot care about what can be done with it and all the unique ways to do it, everyone else just wants a pretty device that does neat things and that they can't possibly break by deleting /system32/ or whatever. Apple simplified a design they've been going with for years, create a device so easy, their lobotomised customers with ADD feel like they're doing something important with it and can understand how it works.

Re:I don't believe it

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's an offensive piece of trollery, isn't it?

I assume you are one of those who decried the iPhone as a failure, too? The iPod? Probably the Macintosh, too?

Enjoy your moment of (ill-conceived) superiority. Then again, I doubt you'll eat your words if the iPad is a success. You'll just insult the people who bought it. Again.

Re:I don't believe it

[dangitman]

A technical, hardware, software, and geek usability failure maybe;

A technical, hardware and software failure? Ooookaaayyy... what evidence do you have that there are technical problems with it, that the hardware and software is faulty? Or that it's hard for geeks to use? In other words, just what the hell are you talking about?

Re:I don't believe it

[RightSaidFred99]

Yeah, because Apple using the old artificial scarcity ploy makes it sooo successful.

1. Hype a product for months on end.

2. Intentionally sell out for a week or two to make people think your product is in crazy demand.

3. ??????. Wait. Actually you can skip 3.

4. Profit!

Re:I don't believe it

[jayveekay]

I'll wait for Netcraft to confirm that, if you don't mind.

Re:I don't believe it

[LKM]

Yeah, because Apple using the old artificial scarcity ploy makes it sooo successful.

We really need that irony mark, I can't tell whether you're serious.

Re:I don't believe it

[Wingsy]

Except when it's artificial the company doesn't give you actual numbers. Apple did, so you can decide for yourself if the product is in high demand or not. Compared to many other products on opening weekend the iPad is doing very well indeed.

Re:I don't believe it

[amiga3D]

Yes, it's amazing how a year later the products still sell. Apple may be the only company I know that can keep a fad rolling on for years. Remember what a flop the iPhone was? And how about the iPod! Remember how no one would buy one of those?

[offtopic] International

[gzipped_tar]

These days the word "international" has lost its meaning. It used to be "between or across nations" but now it's becoming a synonym of "foreign".

As a person whose native language is not English, I don't care much about the semantic shift. But could it be a hint that the "spirit of our times", assuming its existence, is also making a shift towards the positive end of the political bigotry spectrum?

Re:[offtopic] International

[fnj]

Purely as a semantic question, is the positive end of the political bigotry spectrum "more bigoted" or "less bigoted?"

I guess it depends on whether you use positive in the sense of "more," or in the sense of "better."

Translation...

[LibertineR]

"We at Apple continue to be amazed at the number of people in the U.S. who will buy just about anything we put in front of them. We never expected the number of these doofus morons to grow, but hey, whose counting? We are simply THRILLED that we can slap a camera on this thing, and the same nuts will buy another one, throwing the old one on Ebay for the credit challenged wannabes who couldn't hack Round 1."

Suffice to say, we can probably get 3-4 rounds from these same people....maybe a USB port for the 3rd go round? Boy, will they lap THAT up...."

" For round 4.....we'll rumor Flash compatibility, but not deliver it, of course.....we'll please the masses with a custom Steve Jobs signature edition, complete with virtual-arrogance, and disdain for all things with pre-emptive multitasking! "

Re:Translation...

[amiga3D]

They shouldn't be amazed at all. Look at all the millions that buy Windows. It's obvious that the majority are ignorant.

Re:Translation...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who pays for Windows?

Seriously, I've never paid for an MS operating system since I started using them with DOS 3.3.

Man, for a second there...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought I read that as heavy flow!

selling them

[tivoKlr]

I went to the Apple Store at Park Meadows, CO on Saturday to have my iPhone repaired, and while I waited at the Genius bar I observed one guy selling (upselling really to the 64Gb unit) an iPad to an older couple.

He sold them Applecare, and then the Genius returned having repaired my iPhone (some cables were loose and yes it has worked perfectly since the repair (I was skeptical)) gave me back my iPhone.

I went and tried out the iPad. I did not leave with one. However, the young hipster couple to my left did leave with a 32Gb unit, so they are not holding back stateside.

Sorry rest of the world.

Re:selling them

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry rest of the world.

The rest of the world says: thank you America.

Seriously though, I learned to love Apple news. You always learn something new, like the pathetic fact that they actually call their help desk "Genius bar". Complete with hipster retarded multi-cultural promo photos on their homepage.

Re:selling them

[hitmark]

yep, with apple its all about experience. Thats also why the iphone os is so limited by design, in that nothing should get in the way of the interface experience being smooth.

Re:selling them

[Anonymous Coward]

what a douche.

I can buy an iPad right now in my third world small banana country but who is going to buy such piece of crap, no really, people in the "rest of the world" still have a functional brain and common sense to waste the money while they can buy a kick ass laptop for the same $.

The iPad It's going to be a hit? Yes, obviously
The iPad it's a good piece of hardware? HELL NO!

Sorry USA we will soon get FLOODED by cheap and capable tablet devices thanks to the hype you advertisingdrivenautomatons have created.

Just like the Wii...

[herdnerfer]

Anyone notice The similarities between the ipad release &the release of the wii? The xbox and ps3 (netbooks & tablet pcs) were doing a lot of things the wii couldn't, but that didn't stop nintendo from selling millions upon millions of them and you can even argue that the wii is just a huge nintendo ds...

Re:Just like the Wii...

[JimboFBX]

my wii makes a great dust collector now. I wouldn't be surprised if your statement comes true in more ways than one.

Re:Just like the Wii...

[VGPowerlord]

my wii makes a great dust collector now. I wouldn't be surprised if your statement comes true in more ways than one.

Nintendo is releasing two high-profile first party games in the next two months: Super Mario Galaxy 2 (mid-May) and Metroid: Other M (mid-June).

Superiority complex

[paimin]

This reminds me of when GUI's were new in the mid 80's, all the elitist jerks who fancied themselves to be high-caliber nerds loudly proclaiming that it was all a gay bullshit fad, etc., ad nauseum. Lemme ask you guys, any chance we'll get a humble redaction if it turns out you are completely and utterly wrong about this?

Re:Superiority complex

[SuperBanana]

This reminds me of when GUI's were new in the mid 80's, all the elitist jerks who fancied themselves to be high-caliber nerds loudly proclaiming that it was all a gay bullshit fad, etc., ad nauseum. Lemme ask you guys, any chance we'll get a humble redaction if it turns out you are completely and utterly wrong about this?

Hmm. *Looks at the 6 terminal windows open to all the various departmental servers*.

Every tool has its use. GUI may be king for the dekstop, but CLI is king for much server administration.

Mature people argue about the best tool for a job or function. Childish people declare a particular tool "the best." Most platform argument-wars can be described in this way.

Re:Superiority complex

[lennier]

This reminds me of when GUI's were new in the mid 80's, all the elitist jerks who fancied themselves to be high-caliber nerds loudly proclaiming that it was all a gay bullshit fad, etc., ad nauseum.

Lemme ask you guys, any chance we'll get a humble redaction if it turns out you are completely and utterly wrong about this?

I still think most GUIs are fundamentally wrongly engineered. Not only is there no text interface to them, there's often no interface to the event stream at all. It all has to be done with compiled OO languages, hugely platform-specific binary interfaces, and callbacks, which compared to the scripting power of a good CLI - or even to the original Smalltalk/Dynabook vision - is just... wrong is the only word for it. The whole messy overcomplicated paradigm 'works', but only in very limited cases and in spite of itself.

I mean, to make our fancy classful binary OO GUIs work across the net, what did we have to invent? A text-based, page-based protocol called HTTP. There's something wrong with this picture. Wasn't OO itself supposed to solve distribution scalability problems? In our universe, it didn't. We had to go back to ASCII text streams for that.

There must be lessons to be learned from the whole GUI -> Web experience, but I don't see many people teaching about them, or even acknowledging that they exist.

Re:Superiority complex

[blueg3]

Mature people will use any tool that works well, knowing full well that these are few and far between.

Re:Superiority complex

[Splab]

No, mature people accept there are tools for the job and they get the job done.

Re:Superiority complex

[Anonymous Coward]

GUIs took simple coding out of the reach of the everyday user. I think their ubiquity may have been a mistake.

Re:Superiority complex

[node 3]

Hmm. *Looks at the 6 terminal windows open to all the various departmental servers*.

All residing in a GUI.

Mature people argue about the best tool for a job or function. Childish people declare a particular tool "the best."

Ah yes, the "everyone who agrees with me is mature, everyone who disagrees with me is childish" argument.

He didn't say GUIs where "the best", he said that those CLI-ers of the day that put down the GUI for being a toy or a gimmick, etc., were wrong, and tied that into the topic at hand. I didn't see any childishness in his post.

Re:Superiority complex

[thoughtsatthemoment]

The command line is a text editor that allows you to type a command that will be subsequently executed with results displayed in the editor. It's just a special case of GUI.

Re:Superiority complex

[ClosedSource]

The only reason that HTTP is "text-based" is because that's the way UNIX is designed and it derived from the UNIX community.

Had the web been designed by the embedded community, it would have been much more efficiently encoded. Likewise HTML would have just been a file format without delusions of being a "language".

Re:Superiority complex

[Waccoon]

Bah. Amiga users learned to live with both a CLI and a GUI environment before high-caliber Linux nerds made it cool.

Re:Superiority complex

[shutdown -p now]

This reminds me of when GUI's were new in the mid 80's, all the elitist jerks who fancied themselves to be high-caliber nerds loudly proclaiming that it was all a gay bullshit fad, etc., ad nauseum. Lemme ask you guys, any chance we'll get a humble redaction if it turns out you are completely and utterly wrong about this?

Since we're being nostalgic here, this reminds me of when 3D virtual reality was supposed to be the next big thing just around the corner, and then finally VRML arrived to get us there, and... poof.

That said, I wouldn't expect iPad to be utterly unpopular. For Apple to get there with their brand, they really have to try hard. I do believe that this won't in any way "revolutionize" the market, and the device will remain a gimmick catering to a limited niche, rather than a new iPhone.

Yeah, you can have my humble redaction on that should I be proven wrong. Say, 3 years is enough to settle it? You can call me out then. Though why would you care about what some random guy says on /. in the first place?

Re:Superiority complex

[bertok]

This reminds me of when GUI's were new in the mid 80's, all the elitist jerks who fancied themselves to be high-caliber nerds loudly proclaiming that it was all a gay bullshit fad, etc., ad nauseum.

Lemme ask you guys, any chance we'll get a humble redaction if it turns out you are completely and utterly wrong about this?

I still think most GUIs are fundamentally wrongly engineered. Not only is there no text interface to them, there's often no interface to the event stream at all. It all has to be done with compiled OO languages, hugely platform-specific binary interfaces, and callbacks, which compared to the scripting power of a good CLI - or even to the original Smalltalk/Dynabook vision - is just... wrong is the only word for it. The whole messy overcomplicated paradigm 'works', but only in very limited cases and in spite of itself.

I mean, to make our fancy classful binary OO GUIs work across the net, what did we have to invent? A text-based, page-based protocol called HTTP. There's something wrong with this picture. Wasn't OO itself supposed to solve distribution scalability problems? In our universe, it didn't. We had to go back to ASCII text streams for that.

There must be lessons to be learned from the whole GUI -> Web experience, but I don't see many people teaching about them, or even acknowledging that they exist.

In comparison to the *nix model, where a software program 'A' generates human readable ASCII text representations of binary objects, which are then piped, character-by-character, to another program 'B', which has to parse the display representation, convert it back to a binary object. Of course, none of these display representations follow any meaningful standard like XML, none can be parsed without in-depth knowledge of all of the various possible outputs (none of which are documented), and there's not even any real consistency between any of the tools or APIs. Not to mention that much of the text manipulation in Linux tools is in ASCII, not Unicode, so the whole thing comes crashing down the instant you step outside the Anglophile world.

This is why the atrocity called 'Perl' was invented, because *nix scripting is actually largely centred around text manipulation, searching, and parsing, not actually, you know.. doing things.

In comparison, Windows exposes stable binary interfaces with auto-discovery metadata that can be directly called by either scripts or native code, and all that is involved is a "drag&drop" operation.

Oh.. the horror!

Re:Superiority complex

[shutdown -p now]

The only reason that HTTP is "text-based" is because that's the way UNIX is designed and it derived from the UNIX community.

That seems like a stretch to me. HTTP was text-based largely because most other similar network protocols to date were text-based - most notably, FTP, and that one was originally spec'd in 1971, when Unix was still in its infancy - and definitely not in a state where it was usable for network servers. Indeed, the original FTP RFC (114) only mentions reference implementations on Multics and ITS.

Re:Superiority complex

[Rogerborg]

No, mature people accept there are tools for the job and they get the job done.

Those tools are called "developers" and mature people use them to earn productivity bonuses which they spend on boats, Bollinger and blow.

Re:Superiority complex

[Jedi Alec]

Having been on /. for over 10 years I'll be more than happy to agree that a lot of developers can in fact be aptly described as "tools". From my experience though, mature people tend to spend their money on kids, mortgages and car payments these days.

Besides, what's the point of getting blow without a hooker to serve as a snorting surface? ;-)

Re:Superiority complex

[LKM]

Apple has managed to create a number of utterly unpopular things, the iPod HiFi, the AppleTV and (to a lesser degree) the MacBook Air being three newer examples. The idea that people buy Apple's stuff simply because it has an Apple logo is akin to sticking one's fingers into one's ears while loudly singing "LALALALA". The simple fact is that many people like Apple's products because they work better for them than products from other manufacturers.

Give an average person a Windows tablet and an iPad, and see which one they'll use to answer mail, surf the web, and watch movies.

Re:Superiority complex

[Anonymous Coward]

Every tool has its use. GUI may be king for the dekstop, but CLI is king for much server administration.

Mature people argue about the best tool for a job or function. Childish people declare a particular tool "the best."

...and you just declared CLI to be "the best". :-P

Re:Superiority complex

[hitmark]

XML on its own would do no good anyways, as its just about basic rules for tags, one would need another on top to define the actual tags and their meaning.

Re:Superiority complex

[amiga3D]

It should be obvious to anyone with a lick of sense that emacs is the best.

Re:Superiority complex

[drinkypoo]

all the elitist jerks who fancied themselves to be high-caliber nerds loudly proclaiming that it was all a gay bullshit fad, etc., ad nauseum.

today, those people are using X11 mostly to get higher resolution and thus more characters per inch in EMACS, and to them, it still is a gay bullshit fad, and to us, they're still halfway to luddites. On the other hand, they tend to spend a lot less on computer upgrades.

Re:Superiority complex

[painandgreed]

This reminds me of when GUI's were new in the mid 80's, all the elitist jerks who fancied themselves to be high-caliber nerds loudly proclaiming that it was all a gay bullshit fad, etc., ad nauseum. Lemme ask you guys, any chance we'll get a humble redaction if it turns out you are completely and utterly wrong about this?

Yep, I remember those days. I've been a Mac lover since my mechanical drawing teacher brought one to class in '85. I remember DOS users making fun of them because they used 3.5" floppies when 5.25" were everywhere and near free. I remember them making fun of the mouse because it was a gimmick. I remember them making fun of the GUI because it did nothing but take up resources. I remember them making fun of dual monitor setups because nobody except a few professional users need that sort of thing. I remember them making fun of dropping the 3.5" floppy because everybody use them for everything. I remember them making fun of switching to USB because there were no devices except the Mac keyboard and mouse and two cameras that used it.

Yep, no bitterness in my heart.

Re:Superiority complex

[shutdown -p now]

Apple has managed to create a number of utterly unpopular things, the iPod HiFi, the AppleTV and (to a lesser degree) the MacBook Air being three newer examples.

Good, because I never said there weren't any such examples. I only said that Apple has to really fail it for the stuff they make to be unpopular. If it is merely mediocre (i.e. on par or even slightly below other offerings), it still sells like hotcakes.

The idea that people buy Apple's stuff simply because it has an Apple logo is akin to sticking one's fingers into one's ears while loudly singing "LALALALA".

You mean, those queues of raging fanatics storming Apple stores when iPhone was released were just figment of my imagination, and all those were respectable people who were there only to get a product that they knew would work better for them than any competition (despite the fact that none of them seen iPhone at that point, and most didn't ever own any smartphone before)?

Give an average person a Windows tablet and an iPad, and see which one they'll use to answer mail, surf the web, and watch movies.

I'll give an average person a Windows desktop or a notebook/netbook, and we'll see which one (vs any tablet) they'll use. Especially for answering email, where you have to actually type things!

Re:Superiority complex

[jam244]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Server_2008#Server_Core

Re:Superiority complex

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of when GUI's were new in the mid 80's, all the elitist jerks who fancied themselves to be high-caliber nerds loudly proclaiming that it was all a gay bullshit fad, etc., ad nauseum. Lemme ask you guys, any chance we'll get a humble redaction if it turns out you are completely and utterly wrong about this?

Hmm. *Looks at the 6 terminal windows open to all the various departmental servers*.

Every tool has its use. GUI may be king for the dekstop, but CLI is king for much server administration.

The irony of needing a GUI to have 6 terminal windows open for an effective use of the "king for much server administration" may have been lost on you.

Re:Superiority complex

[SuperBanana]

All residing in a GUI.

Not on the server, moron.

Hence the statement, "GUI may be king on the desktop"

You can get AIDS by touching an iPad....

[Anonymous Coward]

And who knows what else...

Proving yet again...

[Anonymous Coward]

That there truly is a sucker born every minute..

Welcome to Appledot

[Anonymous Coward]

News for Macfags,stuff that doesn't matter.

wake up people

[Anonymous Coward]

the only people scouring to get these devices are apple fanboys. the device pales in function compared to any netbook (let alone the new pad coming out in Germany). i just dont see what everyone is getting all hyped up about. people really need to pull themselves out of the world and see how engulfed they are with media and hype. willing to drop so much money on nothing!

Re:wake up people

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't any of you sad fuckers feel superior quietly. Seriously. Shut the fuck up and let the rest of us enjoy our toys.

Suck the iCock

[Anonymous Coward]

Suck on my iCock you iTroll bitch.

A tablet is not a PC - because the PC sucks.

[MikeFM]

I did get one a decade ago. It sucked. All the ones I've had running Windows or Linux sucked. I've considered a Mac-based one but I expect it'd suck. Why? Because desktop OSs are crap and are triple crap for a tablet. Also without good multitouch, small form factors, good battery life, and wireless tablets are crap.

If you've never noticed that EVERY desktop environment available is crap then you've obviously never used a computer or helped anyone else use a computer. iPhone OS is still pretty lacking but it's better than any version of Windows, Mac OS, KDE, Gnome, etc that I've used. I have seen some stabs at a netbook environment that were moving in the right direction too but they all were still more concept than reality. Keep the OS simple and let applications provide whatever level of complexity is needed to complete a given task. As iPhone, Android/Chrome, etc move towards a task/document centric approach instead of application centric and find the right middle ground for safe/easy versus flexible I think we'll all be a lot happier.

Re:A tablet is not a PC - because the PC sucks.

[timmarhy]

no one is stopping you from going off and writing your own OS that'll blow them all out of the water.

i suspect you have no idea what's wrong, you just don't understand the balancing act OS dev's need to do.

Re:A tablet is not a PC - because the PC sucks.

[Cylix]

Actually he is pretty much on target as to why tablets have kinda sucked. I admit he did not express this opinion very well, but again he is in the ball park.

I remember playing around with an early tablet with an MS tablet variant on it a while back.

I really like the concept and we liked what we could potentially do with the device, but it's like putting the squares in the place of the circles in a peg board.

Lets look at smart phones as an example market. I have a windows smart phone and I really like it. The OS is still very quirky and I would never dream of having a keyboard-less phone. There are places where writing applications support the stylus, but it falls completely apart when I need to type in that area as well.

Now, if you want a really good idea of how a table should work with the OS I would hunt down the MS vaporware video on you tube. They had some really good ideas in there, but we all know how their implementation really hits home.

I will give Apple some credit for making everything work reasonably well on their phone. (I don't own one and I wouldn't buy one, but I can appreciate what they have done there).

Who knows perhaps this will spur some development in the area, but lets not kid ourselves as to why they have traditionally been sucktastic.

Re:A tablet is not a PC - because the PC sucks.

[uglyduckling]

No, I think he understands that OS devs don't really think about tablet computing. None of the mainstream OSs are really suitable. Think about this - how much do you rely on 'hover'? Whenever I get a new piece of software, hovering over buttons to see the popup help / tooltip is my main way of getting to grips with it. May websites (particularly ones based on Flash) rely on hovering to reveal parts of the page. A proper tablet UI doesn't allow this, because you don't want a mouse pointer, you want the user to directly tap to indicate a click. The only way to support hover properly is to use a horrible cludge like some Windows-based tablets where there's a mouse pointer that jumps to your finger position, then lags behind as you move your finger around. You then have to take your finger off and tap again to register a click. This breaks the UI metaphor and makes it clear that you're using a poorly-adapted desktop environment.

This might sound like a minor detail, but the more you use a cludged tablet environment, the more of these details become obvious. The iPad is the first tablet that I'm aware of to have an OS designed from the ground up for fingertip usage, and that is a major development (if not quite a breakthrough). For those who were hoping for a relatively powerful general purpose computer with a unix-based OS that they could use on the bus or in a lecture theatre, it's obviously a disappointment. For the rest of the world who want to read the news and check their email whilst having coffee in bed first thing, it's ideal.

This is also one of the reason why I agree with Apple about not supporting Flash. I'm sure it's not their main reason, and is basically Jobs' brand of social engineering, but Flash relies heavily on hover - especially on websites - and Apple would be forced into cludging together a way to make that work. I think in five years, everyone will be happy with that decision, just like the decision to drop floppy drives from iMacs was ridiculed because "everyone needs them", it turned out Jobs was totally right.

Re:A tablet is not a PC - because the PC sucks.

[FreshOuttaMaps]

Hovering works just fine on a tablet with active digitizer.

Re:A tablet is not a PC - because the PC sucks.

[krakelohm]

Just because it 'works' does not mean that it is the right way to do it.

Re:A tablet is not a PC - because the PC sucks.

[uglyduckling]

No, it's a cludge, which is exactly my point. There's no way to have a proper touch-screen UI (i.e. press your finger to the screen to indicate the required action) that supports hover. You either have to have a touch-then-touch-again to click, so that the first touch is registered as a hover, or you have a tap-to-click, then tap-and-hold to hover. The first is a problem because you effectively have a hidden pointer (think about website where you hover over different icons to see different parts of the site) - unless you have a pointer on the screen you don't know where you're hovering. The second option has the opposite problem - you have to keep you finger (or stylus) on the same spot and then try to see through the stylus or hand to read the text. _Hover does not work_ on a tablet OS.

Re:A tablet is not a PC - because the PC sucks.

[MikeFM]

Actually I've spent years tinkering with alternate user interfaces designed to be easy and efficient. It's mostly the UI that needs addressed as an OS such as Linux is overall fine otherwise. (Other than OS's need to tell hardware companies to f off and force them to design to common interfaces with open drivers.)

The first thing wrong with your average GUI OS environment is that it's based on the desktop and windowing metaphors. These never worked well but they were adopted because they had gee whiz factor way back when and gave people some basis to understand computers in a time when people hadn't grown up breast fed by them. They also were created when people had a handful of programs and maybe a few dozen files. In an average week I probably use hundreds of programs spread across many machines and networks. Likewise I have millions of files spread across the same. The average user doesn't have THAT many but they do have a lot more than their metaphor was designed to represent.

I understand that OS dev's haven't tried to significantly improve the user-experience in years and like any geeks (being one myself) they'd rather fiddle with the interesting code bits than actually do usability studies and such. Balance it all you want but if it sucks for the user then it sucks. Fail to understand that and you shouldn't be writing software.

A combination of task-based and content-based design seem to be a good start. Not hiding everything behind a 'Start' menu and endless folders is a good idea too. Minimizing chrome and multiple windows helps a lot. I tend to favor a full-screen only approach to applications with a dashboard-like approach to certain apps that make sense to float such as calculators and note pads. I also favor apps that are small and to the point over huge monolithic messes that most people never fully understand or use. Components that can be plugged together by the end-user are my favorite and I've spent some time experimenting with these. For example instead of having an app that includes a gazillion photo effect filters you can have a special kind of applet that takes an image as input that when dropped on an image, or vice versa when the image is dropepd on the filter, would apply that effect to the image and save a new version of that image with the effect applied. Minimal levels of menus to dig through and dialog boxes. I favor a flat, tagged, versioning file-system where there is no file heirachy or visible difference between local and remote files and the file view is filtered by what kind of file is being looked for and specific keywords that have been attached. Accidentally over-writing or deleting a file should be as close to impossible as can be done. Or for another example, instead of a font selection dialog a standard file balloon (equiv to a file folder) should pop up showing available fonts and allow you to simply drag it to the text you want to apply it to. All these behaviors should not change based on what application you're running or what content type you're working with.

iPad Hype

[foo fighter]

I brought my iPad to D&D Encounters tonight because my daughter had to come with due to my wife's previous commitment.

My daughter loves the Adobe Ideas app (she just knows it's the blue pencil icon) because it's easier to draw with and choose colors with than the other two drawing/sketching apps I have on there. She kept going back to listen to the book apps she'd already listened to a couple times that evening (Toy Story and Dr. Seuss ABCs and Alice). Her favorite is Diner Dash even though she keeps losing at the last level I mastered.

The entire D&D session was almost derailed by uber nerds wanting to use and/or talk about my iPad instead of playing D&D.

After that encounter and after my wife picked up my daughter after my wife's salon appointment (I know! what a fucking cliche, right?) I ended up having a long conversation about Apple and why I pre-ordered an iPad.

My takeaway was the only people buying and using netbooks, and the people who most want an iPad, are people who are a most perfect fit for either an iPad or a MacBook.

As someone who uses OpenBSD from a command line for most of my professional life and who turns to Apple as soon as my time is my own, I have to say I think most of the Apple hate amongst the fellow nerds here is just jealousy.

Re:iPad Hype

[bnenning]

I have to say I think most of the Apple hate amongst the fellow nerds here is just jealousy.

Can you not understand the concern that Apple's strategy if successful will leave them with more of a stranglehold on mobile computing than Microsoft ever had on the desktop? You may not believe that's a significant possibility, and that's fine, but the idea that opposition to the iPad is primarily "jealousy" is silly. Most geeks like Mac OS X exactly because it's a solid Unix that grandparents can use.

Re:iPad Hype

[foo fighter]

"Can you not understand the concern?"

As a total geek & nerd: no.

"Most geeks like Mac OS X exactly because it's a solid Unix that grandparents can use."

I like OS X because it's a solid Unix **I** can use. I say that as a Unix geek & nerd.

What is your point?

I use something because it provides the best value. The nutjub "opensource community" has completely failed to live up to its promise since the mid 2000s or so.

When there is an open platform that can do a fraction of what my iPad can I will agree that you have a point.

Re:iPad Hype

[frist]

As someone who uses OpenBSD from a command line for most of my professional life and who turns to Apple as soon as my time is my own, I have to say I think most of the Apple hate amongst the fellow nerds here is just jealousy.

Yes, it has to be jealousy! There can be no other explanation. The Jobs Reality Distortion Field is strong with this one.

Re:iPad Hype

[foo fighter]

Explain it then.

Re:iPad Hype

[Culture20]

As someone who uses OpenBSD from a command line for most of my professional life and who turns to Apple as soon as my time is my own, I have to say I think most of the Apple hate amongst the fellow nerds here is just jealousy.

I hate Apple because I have to administer them, and locking them down is a pain. Default settings are nothing like OpenBSD in terms of software security, and physical security is a joke (You can't lock the RAM cover on an iMac, a RAM reseat erases the nvram password, and then you're owned by a CD boot or you've had RAM stolen).

Re:iPad Hype

[Wheely]

As a Unix geek for over twenty five years I think I'm qualified enough to say that OSX is the dumbest, most irritating, most badly designed and unstable *nix ever thrust upon the world. That would be my explanation at least.

Oh, I also have a mac mini, a mac book pro, a time capsule and two iPhones so I don't think I suffer from Apple envy.

Re:iPad Hype

[zippthorne]

Meh. Far and away, no one is selling a product with as much polish in their respective markets as the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPad. There are products with more horsepower out there though. Plenty with "better value."

If Apple manages to get a "stranglehold" it won't be because of anything fundamental about the "mobile computing" market except their understanding of it. Nothing prevents someone else from coming in with a product with just as much care or moreso than the Apple products.

But you're probably not going to see entrants who just throw out half-assed feature lists succeed. We've all been burned by products which have "feature X" in the hardware, but the software update that takes advantage of it never arrives. We're wary. In the mobile computing market, what works out of the box is all that's important, even if the feature list is shorter than others, if everything on the feature list is actually something that does something...

Further, even if the only advantage apple had in the market was the "fashionable" appearance of their products, that's still an important aspect of a moble computer compared to a desktop machine: your friends will eventually see your mobile device, and there are very few people who don't think too much about the face they present to their friends.

Re:iPad Hype

[mean pun]

As a Unix geek for over twenty five years I think I'm qualified enough to say that OSX is the dumbest, most irritating, most badly designed and unstable *nix ever thrust upon the world. That would be my explanation at least.

Oh, I also have a mac mini, a mac book pro, a time capsule and two iPhones so I don't think I suffer from Apple envy.

Surely you are going for a funny moderation with that one. Right? Right?!?

Re:iPad Hype

[Wheely]

Hehe. No, I just hate OSX with a passion. Odd really because I bought another mac mini today. I love Apple hardware, i love funky things like the combined digital and audio audio out, I love the airport express (hate iTunes) , building one mac from another over firewire, the teeny weeny little bluetooth keybaord and bits and pieces like that.

The OS itself drives me nuts though I will make an exception with regards to its midi device handling. That's brilliant.

Re:iPad Hype

[k2r]

> Can you not understand the concern that Apple's strategy if successful will
> leave them with more of a stranglehold on mobile computing than Microsoft
> ever had on the desktop?

While this may be a very strong point to make the arguments usually run along the lines of
"it's low quality, overpriced crap, the GUI sux, only stupid fanboyz would buy it, hate hate hate, UR gay, yadda"

Japan launch in May

[mattr]

Orders to be taken from May 10, sales in second half of May. A month later than expected.

Let me tell you where you can put your iPad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I'm hoping somebody can tell me where to put these pads. Hmmm...bad phrasing, let me try again, heheheh.

So you got your shiny new touch-screen tablet, Apple or otherwise. But how do you carry it around? I wouldn't be caught dead with a "man-purse" and I'm a bit too old for a messenger bag. A laptop case seems over-kill (unless you're actually carrying a laptop) and a briefcase seems weird when I'm not working. A slip-cover seems okay but it won't hold the cables and other crap. What to do, what to do?

Here's my two cents if anyone cares. The iPad is truly shiny but very expensive and quite closed (no ports, no camera, etc.). I'm waiting for the inevitable horde of Linux and Android tablets. The competition will lower the price and I'm sure to find one with the goodies I want. I have no brand loyalty and I have the patience to wait. Works for me anyway.

Re:canadian outraged.

[Yvan256]

As I'm writing this post, Google tells me that 1 Canadian dollar = 1.0006 U.S. dollars.

What will be the Canadian price for the iPad, however? Even a few months ago when the Canadian dollar was at parity with the American dollar, Apple priced their products at about 5-10% higher for Canadians.

What slashdot do you read?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every "+5, insightful" comment is ALWAYS a pro-Apple, pro-iPad and anyone who dares question the hype is moderated down to oblivion, so I love the irony of you claiming that slashdot declared it a failure when the opposite is clearly true.

Re:What slashdot do you read?

[shutdown -p now]

I don't know what kind of /. you read, but in mine, there are plenty of +5 pro-Apple comments, but there are also plenty of +5 strongly anti-Apple comments. I'd say that pro-Apple ones have been more numerous lately, but not by a significantly large margin. In any case, you definitely get to hear both sides.

(And, yes, I'm generally skeptical about Apple, except for the few things that they have that are really interesting - such as LLVM,)

By the way, this applies to most other topics (including - gasp! - Microsoft). There is bias, for sure, but if your comments are coherent, and have references to back their claims, they will be upmodded eventually. The way bias generally comes out is that the "groupthink" comments get upmodded without providing references, and even being clearly trolling. But, again, you see both sides of the story.

About the only one on which going against the groupthink is virtually guaranteed to get you modded down to oblivion is being perceived as pro-"big copyright" in any story on a related subject - e.g. if RIAA sues another poor guy for $X million, and someone posts that he had it coming, and should cough up; or, say, that 90+ year copyright terms are economically beneficial. Then again, this is borderline trolling, so no surprise there.

Re:What slashdot do you read?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every "+5, insightful" comment is ALWAYS a pro-Apple, pro-iPad and anyone who dares question the hype is moderated down to oblivion, so I love the irony of you claiming that slashdot declared it a failure when the opposite is clearly true.

+2 Insightful: Self fulfilling claim of the oposite of what actually happens each and every time.

I proclaim that 2010 will be...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the year of iPad on the laptop!

Re:canadian outraged.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's more to selling ones product in a foreign country than cexchange rates that needs to be considered. There's the different taxes, customs duties, regulatory requirements, legal and marketing fees to name just a few.

Re:canadian outraged.

[Yvan256]

Except that taxes are not part of the retail price in the USA and Canada.

What shortage?

[Animats]

I looked in on the Apple store in Palo Alto today, and it wasn't that busy. They had plenty of iPads on display. I think everybody who wanted one early already has one.

The first spyware for the iPad has already been deployed: "Our engineering team has devised a workaround to Safari on the iPad's rejection of any and all 3rd-party cookies."

Re:What shortage?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Plural of anecdote is not data.

Re:What shortage?

[drinkypoo]

I looked in on the Apple store in Palo Alto today, and it wasn't that busy.

Is that like the GM dealer in Detroit? Come on, you can do better than that. Just like GM won't let the local Chevy dealer run out of Camaros or Corvettes... er, wait, that may be a bad example...

First they expect to sell 700k on the first day

[Kartu]

So, first they expect to sell 700k on the first day:
http://business-news.thestreet.com/technology-news/2010/04/04/a/606016821-analyst-apple-sold-600-700-thousand/

But actually they sell 300k. Then it appears device has WiFi connectivity problems (bad routers are causing it, not apple, "obviously"). Then, after selling about 500k total they suddenly "run out of devices" and that's the reason of the "delay" in Europe launch...

Re:First they expect to sell 700k on the first day

[Dahan]

So, first they expect to sell 700k on the first day: http://business-news.thestreet.com/technology-news/2010/04/04/a/606016821-analyst-apple-sold-600-700-thousand/

I see reading comprehension isn't your strong suit.

Re:First they expect to sell 700k on the first day

[Anonymous Coward]

When you say "they", you do realise that you mean analysts who pluck numbers from their arses, don't you?

No surprise

[Trogre]

PR stunts aside, I'm not surprised by this at all. Living as I do in New Zealand I can get PC hardware no problems, but if I have to buy a Mac for someone it's like pulling teeth. There's plenty of Apple resellers about touting the latest wares, but try actually buying say a MacBook Pro and you'll be lucky to see it before two weeks. If it's a recent-release you're looking at closer to six weeks. Not that it bothers me since I don't personally use nor encourage Apple products, but occasionally I have to do purchasing for work.

I'm pretty sure we're near the bottom of the distribution chain, with the US at the top. Does anyone know of the official distribution hierarchy?

Re:No surprise

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Really? Many big NZ chain stores stock Macs theses days. I walked into Harvey Norman Lower Hutt and 10 mins later walked back out with a nice new MBP. You can also order from Apple directly, which usually only takes a few days. Waiting for weeks used to be a problem, but not as much these days in my experience.

Re:No surprise

[miggyb]

If anything, New Zealand should get new Macs from Apple faster, considering new models ship directly from China on a pallet.

Re:No surprise

[cffrost]

[...] if I have to buy a Mac for someone it's like pulling teeth.

We're kindred spirits! When someone asks me to buy a Mac "computer," I work 'em over with a pair of Vise-Grips until they become reasonable.

Same ol' Same ol'

[SuperKendall]

Every other Apple product release in the past they have done exactly the same thing.

You mean the other products that really were such successes that supply was constrained?

Unlike other makers Apple doesn't stuff the channel (see: Palm. Sigh.) , they try to build only what they estimate they will sell. So when they underestimate, they run out.

So to say they are doing the same thing is correct, but not your odd assertion this is some kind of marketing move. People are coming to Apple with money and Apple is having to send them away, never a great thing for a company to have to do.

Re:Same ol' Same ol'

[nmosfet]

They haven't really sold out in stores though. I can go to the nearest Apple or Best Buy to pick one up, and I'm in NYC.

Re:Same ol' Same ol'

[SuperKendall]

Sure they are not sold out everywhere, but the point is they still see larger than expected demand in the U.S. that they want to meet. It's still a supply constraint problem even though you can find specific examples still sitting in stores.

It's more like, you can find one BECAUSE you are in NYC, where Apple obviously sent more to...

The two Theys

[SuperKendall]

So, first they expect to sell 700k on the first day: (link to "The Street")

But actually they sell 300k (insert link to Apples press release)

How is "The Street" a spokesman for Apple? Apple never gave any estimates, so you have two totally different "theys" you claim to be catching in a restatement.

But then, I'd expect nothing less than embarrassingly misleading points from card-carrying Apple Hater.

Hint web stats and browser ID are not "spyware"

[SuperKendall]

The first spyware for the iPad

Right, because web tracking tools that look at browser ID's of incoming requests running ONLY ON A SERVER are so often termed "spyware".

Can you not understand the alternative?

[SuperKendall]

Can you not understand the concern that Apple's strategy if successful will leave them with more of a stranglehold on mobile computing than Microsoft ever had on the desktop?

Nope. Not even a little.

Because you have not thought through what happens if it's not Apple with the "stranglehold" you predict.

Apple may lock down products. BUT they do not are about hackers (they could thwart jailbreaking if they really wanted to). And they build a lot of things atop a lot of open standards - they have one of the better HTML 5 supporting mobile browsers (which they support to everyone's benefit by helping out Webkit), they have strong support for GCC and now future compiling technologies like llvm, and of course there's the BSD kernel stuff they use of the fact they ship full computers with Apache and perl and ruby and bash included.

So that's worst case, that that company has a "stranglehold" and demand the market use open standards to interoperate.

What is the alternative? Microsoft. Microsoft and more Microsoft, with Microsoft only twists on standards you have to adopt. Boo to that, I say.

You fantasy world where we boil away Microsoft and Apple cannot exist. So I choose to support giving a company an upper hand that actually supports open standards for real.

The benefit of that is, that it's very unlikely we'll see a true "stranglehold" the way Microsoft was able to execute things. Because when you are competing in a standards based world you tend to end up with at least a few viable competitors at any given moment.

As for the iPad/iPhone in particular, inside it's still UNIX as I can see from programming for it. Heck, I'm using GDB daily to debug it... and being a geek, that likes UNIX, at any moment I have the power to use UNIX tools directly on the device if I so choose. What's so bad about a world where everything works pretty well for people that don't care about the internals, but that truly technical people can get deep inside of of they choose?

the idea that opposition to the iPad is primarily "jealousy" is silly

Not from reading the plethora of extremely childish (and churlish) comments on Slashdot for just about any Apple story. For people that don't like Apple they sure do like to talk about how they don't like Apple.

Re:Can you not understand the alternative?

[VGPowerlord]

they have one of the better HTML 5 supporting mobile browsers (which they support to everyone's benefit by helping out Webkit),

This phrase alone has SO many qualifiers that need to be thrown out there:
1. Apple started the Webkit project by forking KHTML. Mainly because they weren't getting along well with the KHTML people.
2. Apple is only supporting HTML5 video using a codec they helped write.

Re:Can you not understand the alternative?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

1. Apple started the Webkit project by forking KHTML. Mainly because they weren't getting along well with the KHTML people.

Yo clearly don't know what you're talking about. Apple did not tell the KHTML people they were working on the code because the project was a secret until they launched. The project forked because the KHTML people did not want to pull all of Apple's changes back into the project because they had different design goals. This whole story about the KHTML team keeps going around because it is interesting and controversial, but it isn't really true. One guy on the KHTML team complained that Apple had not documented things well enough and it was hard to pull specific changes back into their project, which then got blown up into some sort of Slashdot frenzy about how evil Apple was being, to the point where the KHTML team was drowned out by the ignorant indignation. A coder at Apple actually went through and re-commented the code specifically to cater to the KHTML guys and gave them access to the versioning tree at Apple despite Apple's secrecy policy regarding new versions of Safari.

In short, Apple's behavior with regard to KHTML code was better than the majority of corporate contributors and far and beyond what was required by the licensing. The Webkit guys were playing nice and the KHTML guys appreciated it and people with no involvement went nuts and invented a controversy.

Apple is only supporting HTML5 video using a codec they helped write.

Safari on OS X already supports any plug-in you drop into Quicktime, including Ogg, via the "video" tag. It works right now. On the iPhone and iPad you're limited to H.264 supported by the video card for performance reasons.

Not it is not

[SuperKendall]

You do realize that a PC *is* a commodity device that anyone can use, right?

Your definition is basically: anyone can have one and type into it. That's what you MEANT.

But what you SAID is - "anyone can USE".

And that is simply wrong. Not just ANYONE can USE a Windows computer, certainly not a Windows tablet which takes an extra level of geekery to grok the oddnesses of.

The key is USE. For many years the industry has failed on the front despite things like WebTV and Windows Home Edition and Bob, which generations now of computer geeks have had to help maintain or set up.

Re:Not it is not

[phantomfive]

Not just ANYONE can USE a Windows computer, certainly not a Windows tablet which takes an extra level of geekery to grok the oddnesses of.

I wasn't talking about Windows tablets, I was talking about Windows PCs. And PCs can certainly be used by anyone. Reinstalled, fixed, or cleaned of malware? No, but used? Yes.

Re:Not it is not

[SuperKendall]

I wasn't talking about Windows tablets, I was talking about Windows PCs

So was I, the tablets are just especially hard for normal people to use. But I was talking about computers in general really, even Macs are not THAT easy for people to use compared to something like an iPad or iPhone (though Macs are certainly more maintenance free for the average person than Windows).

Re:Not it is not

[SakuraDreams]

However, you can get productive work done on a Mac/PC but not on an iPad. The iPad is great for reading newspapers, books, watching videos, listening to music (not at the same time yet) but you're limited to end user functionality.

A television set is also easy to use, you have an ON button, buttons to change channels and buttons to change volume. Easy! But can you actually work on it? Some people will say yes, you can watch news bulletins on it for example and see what the stock price is doing but you can't really use the device (iPad or TV) to produce anything significant. You can watch a video on the iPad, nice! However, you can't EDIT it.

Secondly, your video file has to be the exact format and profile of the H.264 codec to be playable on the iPad. So you can't really watch other videos, eg AVCHD or XDCAM that you shot on your camcorder without first transcoding.

What Apple has done is re-invent the portable telly (as The Register pointed out) with an obviously easy interface and added some other features (newspapers, web browsing, iTunes music, etc) and you have a nice end user consumer product - primarily aimed to be used for consumption of mostly Apple content. The PC/Mac on the other hand is a different ballgame. It's everything the iPad is with a less finger-friendly interface and more - you can actually WORK on it and not just monkey around and watch iTunes video clips or read newspapers. Apple has made a nice appliance device for content consumption but not content creation, a nice toy.

The trick for Tablet PC makers, I think, would be to have an iPad like interface on a device which can do the work of a PC and not a multi-modal portable television.

Re:Not it is not

[BasilBrush]

You can't get work done on the iPad? Depends what the work is. Examples off the top of my head:

1) It seems like it's a pretty good computerised replacement for people that do work that involved carrying clipboards around.
2) Pilots are going to love it.
3) Splendid for doctors.
4) Great for sales reps. You can do an informal presentation across a desk. Or plug in a cable and give the presentation on a projector.
5) Great for students. Reading textbooks *IS* part of their work, and being able to carry a large number of them in a small package is good. Even if they have a laptop, it's good to be able to type on that whilst having the book open on a separate screen.
6) Great for anyone that needs to travel light whilst still doing some light data entry tasks. The Macbook Air is small and light, but the iPad is half the weight and significantly smaller.
etc.

Re:Not it is not

[VGPowerlord]

1) It seems like it's a pretty good computerised replacement for people that do work that involved carrying clipboards around.

Some people who used to have clipboards have already switched them out with specialized pads. See: FedEx.

Chances are someone that still uses a clipboard is filling out some sort of form. Policy may require that these forms be filled out by hand and signed. So, while some people who carry clipboards may be able to switch to one (or another pad for that matter), not all will.

2) Pilots are going to love it.

I'd prefer it if pilots would, I don't know, fly the plane. In fact, they may be forbidden by policy to carry electronic devices due to recent problems with Texting causing crashes (See: Continental Connection flight 3407)

3) Splendid for doctors.

See paragraph 2 of my response to #1.

4) Great for sales reps. You can do an informal presentation across a desk. Or plug in a cable and give the presentation on a projector.

The iPad doesn't have a video output. You'd need a USB (or Bluetooth) projector, or you're out of luck.

This is also assuming there's an app for that.

5) Great for students. Reading textbooks *IS* part of their work, and being able to carry a large number of them in a small package is good. Even if they have a laptop, it's good to be able to type on that whilst having the book open on a separate screen.

I'd argue that last point. These days, laptops have widescreen. It's not that hard to have two applications each taking up half the screen. With a Laptop and an iPad, you need room to have both on your surface (desk, lap, etc...), as you can't both hold the iPad and type on the laptop at the same time.

6) Great for anyone that needs to travel light whilst still doing some light data entry tasks. The Macbook Air is small and light, but the iPad is half the weight and significantly smaller.

Yes, and light data tasks are all a touchscreen is good for. You really need a keyboard for anything heavier, or even, say, writing a letter.
("It looks like you're writing a letter! Do you need help with that?" Er... sorry, I'm done with the Clippy joke)

Re:Not it is not

[BasilBrush]

Some people who used to have clipboards have already switched them out with specialized pads. See: FedEx.

Of course. Which is one of the things that proves my point. People are already using touchscreen devices for work. The iPad will also be used for work.

Chances are someone that still uses a clipboard is filling out some sort of form. Policy may require that these forms be filled out by hand and signed. So, while some people who carry clipboards may be able to switch to one (or another pad for that matter), not all will.

MAY require? Policy MAY require that they use the iPad issued to them to fill out the form on the exterprise app its supplied with.

I'd prefer it if pilots would, I don't know, fly the plane. In fact, they may be forbidden by policy to carry electronic devices due to recent problems with Texting causing crashes (See: Continental Connection flight 3407)

Which just shows your ignorance of flying planes. Pilots have been buying apps to help with piloting planes since the very first PDAs came out. It's not a distraction from piloting, it *IS* piloting. And pilots already use such apps on the iPhone. Regardless of what you in your ignorance would prefer they do.

The iPad doesn't have a video output. You'd need a USB (or Bluetooth) projector, or you're out of luck. This is also assuming there's an app for that.

Now that's the dumbest thing you said, because a look at the tech specs would have shown you that the iPad comes with a dock connector that you can plug a VGA or composite video cable into. Just as you could with the iPhone and iPod touch before it.

Furthermore, of course theres an app for that. Keynote, part of iWork. Announced the same day as the iPad. Available the same day as teh iPad came out. Better than Powerpoint. And again if you'd bothered to look you would have seen that output via VGA or composite cable is specified as a feature to be used with that app. http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/keynote.html

Yes, and light data tasks are all a touchscreen is good for. You really need a keyboard for anything heavier, or even, say, writing a letter.

Yes, they're good for light data entry tasks. Which is why I said as much. But a letter is certainly within the easy capability of an iPad's touch screen. You just wouldn't want to spend all day writing letters on one.

Re:Not it is not

[phantomfive]

Sure, but nowadays even people who have extreme trouble with computers are able to use them to check email or do word processing (and maybe play games). It's not like the 80s where you had mass portions of the population who were terrified of them, now even grandmas use computers.

Re:Not it is not

[intheshelter]

"you can get productive work done on a Mac/PC but not on an iPad"
"What Apple has done is re-invent the portable telly"
"Apple has made. . . a nice toy"

Are these the lies you tell yourself so you can sleep at night. Everyone of those is such utter bullshit. I can get plenty of productive work done on an iPad. If you hate Apple or the iPad then just say it and quit wasting our time. Posting this stupidity just makes us wade through more false prose to come to the conclusion that the author (you) is just a hater.

Re:canadian outraged.

[abigor]

Most imported consumer items are more expensive in Canada. Having only 1/9th the population of the US leads to economy of scale issues. Plus there is the French requirement.

Not YOUR taxes

[SuperKendall]

Except that taxes are not part of the retail price in the USA and Canada.

What about Apple's payments to the government just to import a product? You are not considering tariffs and other fees.

Re:canadian outraged.

[Anonymous Coward]

Import duty, more shipping, more expensive Canadian distribution costs? I dunno, why do you give a shit? Apple or any other country is free to charge whatever price they feel will maximise their profit in a given market. I would say that the lower limit on that price is US Price / 1.0006, and the upper limit is around the price that prevents you from bothering to 'arbitrage' them by shipping from the States and paying the import duty and extra shipping.

So on top of evil routers we have evil analysts eh

[Kartu]

"Bad routers", now "bad analysts"...

Apple expects to sell 10 million tablet computers in the product's first year, according to a former Google executive.
http://mashable.com/2010/01/01/apple-tablet-10-million/

If most info about apple's product weren't "leaks"

[Kartu]

If most info about apple's product weren't "leaks", you would have a valid point.

iPad banned in Israel already

[S3D]

In bizarre move Israel Ministry of Truth... err Communications banned iPad. Custom officials already confiscating iPads at airport. Incompatibility with Wi-Fi standard given as the reason. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1162992.html

One the one hand..

[Ian.Waring]

annoyed here in the UK. All the announcements said end of April and they even went as far as blacking out vacation for Apple Store employees here for the weekend around April 23rd. The new pre-order date is May 10th with deliveries at the end of May, when i'll be in San Francisco anyways. At least we should have a firmware update after all the beta users in the USA have helped debug the WiFi issues for us. Ian W.

When have analysts been good?

[SuperKendall]

Analysts are almost universally wrong on any topic, so again you cannot give analyst numbers and claim they are Apple's. Apple has to be very careful whatever number they actually speculate on they can meet, while analysts can pull any number out of any orifice they chose with no repercussion for failure.

If you want sales estimates, currently Apple is speculating they will sell a bit over a million iPads in the first quarter. Tell us, do you think that is high or low? I predict that estimate to be on the low side based on current trends (and actually using the device), enshrine your guess for all to reflect on later.

Remember the 3G versions have not even shipped yet...

ipad sales heh

[luther349]

what can i say people with cash to burn will buy anything. but shocking enough the ipad did get good reviews from even the toughest of geeks. the only real gripe anyone has is the same with other apple stuff and thats lack of flash. but not having flash is good and bad. shure many video sites dont work but your also not hit with annoying ads. well most video sites have a app for the iphone ipad ipod these days. so even the lack of flash has became moot. if fact people have aruldy said will ipad kill netbooks. the answer is no the ipad is in a market of its own and whont kill anything. the market is the pretty dead tablet market that apple may revive with the ipad. ipad has set the standerd on what a tablet should do.and as it was said hear launch sales dont mean mutch of sales drop off fast. your getting the ritch and apple fanboys at the front of the line. the question now is how many of the geeks will buy them.

Artificial scarcity drives demand

[VShael]

As it invents the extra "caché" of owning an iPad.

There's no way the demand exceeded their expectations. Maybe with the iPhone or iPod, they could have argued this. But not now.

Re:Artificial scarcity drives demand

[drinkypoo]

As it invents the extra "caché" of owning an iPad.

Is that how iFanboys spell cachet?

There's no way the demand exceeded their expectations. Maybe with the iPhone or iPod, they could have argued this. But not now.

I dunno, I can see it. "Wait, they fell for it again?" Overestimating your opponent is at least as dangerous as underestimating them...

Re:Artificial scarcity drives demand

[VShael]

"Is that how iFanboys spell cachet?"

It's how my spellchecker spelled it. Stupid lack of dictionary...

Re:Artificial scarcity drives demand

[Just Some Guy]

As it invents the extra cachet of owning an iPad.

Et viola! I fixed it for you you.

Pro-tip: Don't use a foreign word and go out of your way to point out that you're using a foreign word (quotes, accents, etc.) unless you're really, really sure you know the foreign word.

Re:Artificial scarcity drives demand

[Anonymous Coward]

"I fixed it for you you^H^H^H^H."

Pro-tip: Don't use English words unless you really really know when to stop.

Bullshit

[LKM]

The release date for many European countries was well-known. Apple Switzerland had it in a huge banner taking over the whole site.

Thank god!

[broknstrngz]

Oh so it'll take a while before we see these in Starbucks all across Europe! I salute that!

hi

[maryastell]

Thanks for all your great posts. I will keep an eye on your labor law blog as usual~~ Cool Massage Techniques

Re:canadian outraged.

[SerpentMage]

This is a pile of crap! I live in Switzerland and our electronics are way cheaper than the rest of Europe (even taking VAT into account). Having French requirements is not a big deal for a multi-national corporation.

The reason why Canada is more expensive is due to the traditional Looney US exchange rate. Corporates gouge Canadians!

What came first, the Apple or Nintendo?

[Necroloth]

Anyone else getting deja vu with the shortage supply of Wii's that was always being reported in order to keep in the public news and get more sales with people starting to think "wow, so good that it's sold out already? I should get on the list too!".

Simple marketing ploy, nothing more.

Re:What came first, the Apple or Nintendo?

[Wovel]

Yes because companies have good reasons to limit supply during the initial period of peak demand. If you were to put some thoughts into your comments you would realize how truly absurd they are. If your comments mean anything at all, the implication would have to be that they need to create artificial demand because the products really suck. Of course if the products really sucked the best strategy would be to sell as many as you could before word of mouth kills you.

Then add in the fact that word of mouth from users of both products is overwhelmingly positive, you have a much better explanation for the shortfalls. People really want them. Companies can only afford to invest so much into the inventory of a new product. This is why there is a shortage on the initial iPhone and no shortage on the 3G or 3GS.

But hey you tried to sound smart!

Waiting on a price correction

[Shivetya]

because the iPhone sold like hotcakes the fist few months and then sales went flat till Apple corrected the price. Of course after outcry they refunded some money to early buyers.

I think the iPad is a great idea with some serious setbacks, like not being viewable in sunlight easily... but the price turns me off completely. $500? Get real. Make a 16 at 299, and +100 for each doubling.

oh... and can we have a version which works outdoors in bright light please!

Re:Waiting on a price correction

[illumin8]

oh... and can we have a version which works outdoors in bright light please!

Yeah, because netbooks work just great in bright light. I'd like an eInk display with 24 bit color and a 1 ms refresh rate too, but it's not going to happen anytime soon...

hi

[jennajameson15]

That is very interesting article and good information about make money with blogging green planet

honestly...

[hitmark]

i dont trust the spin-meisters at apple one bit.

their production delay can just as well be a "better get in line, those ipads are going to be rare", as it seems that apple loves having long lines outside their stores at launch day (makes me ponder human behavior, as we hate standing in line for basic goods. But if its something that we can get a nice replacement for elsewhere, we line up for hours).

heck, if the basic statement had just been "sorry, it will be delayed" i would have understood, but when they add that its about "demand" i suspect marketing spin.

or maybe i am just tired of seeing the latest fart from steve jobs and co reported as if its the ultimate solution for world energy. Nokia ran into unexpected demand for the N900, and it barely got reported.

iPad is confusing

[Anonymous Coward]

Its an interesting product i guess but despite all the here say its really just a tablet PC done well. And its selling like crack in the 80's...
It feels like the previous apple products are the only reason this one's going wild. As if the brilliant marketing and high quality streamlined products have turned the fanboy into a mainstream creature.

Is it just me? I mean I cant see any practical use for it in my life and i like techy stuff.

That's a neat excuse for "nobody buys it...

[Hurricane78]

...but apparently there are enough Americans, stupid enough to fall for religious reality distortion". ^^ (Proof: Watch the fanbois tear this comment apart. Preferably without having to bring up actual arguments.)

They should also market the iPad in the other countries that have the most fundamentalist religious people (e.g. those under heavy mullah influence. ;).

P.S.: *puts on his war suit and loads the Predator-style Gatling, to fend off the rage* ;)

I blame...

[da_guy2]

Leo Laport! LOL

Marketing != Money Spent

[mdwh2]

You're not including the vast amount of free advertising and astroturfing that's been given to it, for months, by the media (of which Slashdot is included - how many Ipad stories have we had? There are three right now on the front page, alone). Even outside of the US, mainstream public-funded sources like the BBC are giving large amounts of coverage, when they hardly give any mention to any of the other tablets (similarly with phones - the BBC are all over the Apple Iphones, but rarely mention Nokia despite them having many times larger market share).

Apple don't need to spend as much money on marketing, when other people do it for them. Which yes, is something to their credit sure - but it's a marketing achievement, not a technological one.

Who the hell want's an IPAD I am looking for...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Brushed Keyboard Illuminated (like the the old BTC's but METAL!) Hell for that matter I would take an old btc! But where? who bought them all up and is sitting on them now? I'll pay $100 for an btc 6300cl but I can not find one.

It seems "the powers that be" don't want us to have BTC 6300CL style keyboards anymore.

Dumping that idea, I thought about the clear acrylic ones, but all those are discontinued as well.

Dumping that. some of the nice looking illuminated keyboards have a screwed up layout.

WTF? I don't like the layout on most of those keyboards they're all shit!

I like brushed metal, backlit, square edges, number pad, and the 6 Keys insert, home, Pageup, Delete, End, Page Down need to be not scrambled crap like the thin (nice on the thing but fucked on the wide) logitec.

I hate those fucking keyboards. Beyond that it doesn't matter.

Well ...
Let's make the keyboard KVM certified!

Just a few years ago Clear Acrylic was all the rage. Now you can't fucking FIND IT!

Okay honestly? I want to make a stargate SG1 styled keyboard. I see their projects out there and I have every episode they ever did, I want mine to be black onyx with gold illuminated symbols--not stargate symbols, but something cool like the alphabet of Malachim or something.

Steampunk already did runes... ..I am going to need an army of slaves to work in the onyx and gold mines..

Order from Apple

[aclarke]

Why not just order directly from Apple? I'll even provide you the link: http://store.apple.com/nz/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro?mco=MTAyNTQzMzk. There you go.

I just looked at the just released 17" Macbook Pro, and it says it ships within 24 hours. Add in expedited shipping and I'm pretty sure you could have your hands on one in 4 days max. Whenever I've done this, they've shipped from China. I'm in Canada, and the same happens for Americans. I can't see how shipping to NZ from China can be THAT much less efficient that shipping to Canada.

Buy buying from Apple directly, you get the added bonus of potentially being able to save a bit of $$ by buying a refurbished unit.

Re:Order from Apple

[Trogre]

Apple won't deal with corporate customers unless they're resellers.

Re:canadian outraged.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason why Canada is more expensive is due to the traditional Looney US exchange rate. Corporates gouge Canadians!

It's because Canadians can afford it, eh.

...but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just heard on the radio(IIRC) the other day how so many Apple stores still had the things in stock, so I suspect what they REALLY mean is that they didn't make ENOUGH of a particular model(s).

OTOH the report from an analyst was unclear, but in the end IIRC one of them raised the forecasted number of units to be sold for the year, while mentioning Apple itself had set no expectations at all, apparently.

Anyways, non-user replaceable(easily) battery, no handwritten character recognition(nice that Apple decided to let this go to waste), and fairly steep price are making me wait to see what else comes out and at what price points. Probably end up with something like the nook or Spring Design's Alex instead as they'd actually be comfortably readable in bright sunlight or possibly some other design that incorporated both e-ink(or some variation) and LCD ("full" sized)displays. (I think that Asus or one of those Taiwanese companies had a mockup/plans for one last year...)

Deal dude.

[WiiVault]

I think you have anger problems. Turn off the Apple section and save us from having you troll the discussion and bash other members.

Re:If most info about apple's product weren't "lea

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you even trying to make sense?

Ok, so analysts aren't evil, simply clueless...

[Kartu]

"We ran out of devices" could happen because:

1) "Demand is higher than expected"
2) "We have some problems to fix" ("evil" WiFi routers anyone?)

Who, honestly, thinks that 1) is the case?

There are torrents of news about Apple, for free..

[Kartu]

There are torrents of news about Apple, for free. This is also "marketing" isn't it?

Honestly, (1) is the case

[SuperKendall]

Who, honestly, thinks that 1) is the case?

Just read Slashdot, it's easy to see a ton of people not understanding the iPad would actually take off, and Apple is conservative with first builds anyway.

It's obvious to me this is the case. The WiFi issue you bring up is not universal, my unit for instance has no issues in that regard... and you forget that soon the 3G models launch which don't lean as heavily on the WiFi.