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History Repeats Itself — Mac & the iPad
Keith found an interesting story telling a bit about how Steve Jobs operates. It involves small teams of young engineers willing to work 90-hour weeks in total secrecy, and a complete willingness to throw away bad ideas without flowery language. The iPad is surprisingly similar to the Mac."
Does that mean it's about as useful as a BOAT ANCHOR!?
I think Grossman gets it right in the last paragraph of his Time article.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
You mean like a cult?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Oh please, Apple has come out with some Spiffy stuff. The I-Pad is a Vanilla offering undeserving of the apple moniker.. And no, I'm no Mac Fan.
End of Line.
No other comment is necessary if you've ever met the man.
Love me, please, I am in need for Steve has forsaken me.
It's a freaking arm-based MID. Get on with interesting things already !!
So which chapter is this in the Apple book of marketing?
Small teams of young engineers willing to work 90 hour weeks in total secrecy, and a complete willingness to throw away bad ideas without flowery language.
How small? How young?
I'm sure a nice chunk of R+D projects fall under a pattern defined by:
"Some engineers willing to work a lot, secretly, with a boss."
That the state of consumer technology has caught up to Steve's ambition. Could it be that we are on now finally able to realize the 'magical' devices that Steve has had knocking around in his head these past few decades? Perhaps. Or maybe Steve is just a really lucky guy. ---or he is just a genius.
From TFA: "It was Steve's vision that if you made every single computer with the same exact OS and the same amount of memory, developers would always have a fixed platform for which to develop, making their jobs easier."
I've always been of the opinion that this is one the 'advantages' of the dominance of Windows. If you're a small development house cranking out applications, you only need to make a Windows version and you've got a big chunk of the market - The dominance of windows makes "the job easier."
Let's conveniently leave out any mention of OS 9, NeXT Step, and the fact that for a while it looked like Apple was going the way of the Dodo.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The article states, with a distinct air of knowledge and authority, that the working conditions of an Apple engineer on the core iPad team are this and that. Take the "90 hours a week" claim as an example. The author then goes on to state that they work in total secrecy. Well, which is it? Either it's known to be, for example, 90 hours a week, and therefore Apple isn't working in complete secrecy, or it is completely secret and noone knows what the conditions are like.
It can't be both.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Those guys started a religion.
Hey, come to think of it, so did Jobs...
The iPad has everything that any other computer has...so who is to say that it is not a computer? Apple can market it as a "media device" all they want, but if people want to use their iPads in other ways, they should be allowed to do so. Nobody, not Apple, and certainly not Steve Jobs, should be dictating what people are allowed to use their iPads for (except perhaps as a deadly weapon).
The iPad does not need to "mute" anyone, as the Time article puts it. Apple is dictating that it should, because of their desire to do business with book publishers.
Palm trees and 8
I use my iPad at home, you probably won't see me walking around with it.
The original mac blew everyone away, it was among the first computers with a clean, mouse-driven GUI. It could do everything and do it snappy with just 128k of RAM to boot. by the time the mac classic came out it was an icon of creativity and productivity. The ipad does not even have all of the features of the original mac much less the mac classic. the Ipad is basically a big ipod touch. It is not even a paradigm shift.
No, no, no...
You went one generation too far.
The iPad is surprisingly similar to the Lisa.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
The fact that Company X makes a closed system is nothing new, nor is it noteworthy. Closed systems are a dime a dozen.
What the blogs are on fire about, and what we ALL should be worried about, is a closed developer ecosystem. It's Apple's new focus, and if it's allowed to propagate to the open platform we're all screwed.
I'd be rolling in the dough, as the portable, digital media player, was my idea.
MAC = LISA ?
IPAD = MAC ?
A giant customized Starbucks in Cupertino California where lattes and no soy skim macchiatos are given out free to all employees. The background music involves a playlist of Nora Jones, David Matthews, John Mayer, and Bono on loop from an Ipod docked somewhere in the Apple/Starbucks facility. Hours are long but morale is surprising high as developers, hardware and software, are given 30 minute breaks to masturbate to the new itunes interface.
All developers sit at cafe type tables with a Mac Book Pro while their lord and master Steve Jobs stands deskless in his predictable attire of a turtleneck and jeans. In fact, this is the preferred (mandatory) dress code at Apple. Jobs walks around to each and every department, separated by latte and vegan preferences, and checks on the performance and efficiency of his developers. At any given point in the day one may see Mr Jobs yelling at a programmer for not implementing a button in the perfect shade of corn flower blue (#6495ED) and immediately sends him to the apple punitive chamber, consisting of a HP Compaq running Vista Basic.
There are 2 software development departments and 2 hardware development sections in Apple. For software there is the Apple core team, Apple Open Source team. In hardware there is the Apple systems and management team and the iDevice team. Since the OSX kernel consists of a BSD darwin kernel there is no real need for low level programmers and as such the entirety of the Apple core team consists of UI designers and photoshop junkies. All software churned out from the core team is designed in a program strikingly similar to Visual Studio's form designer but with Cocoa Objective C generated instead. The 16 hour day (Jobs demands 16 hour days since he himself never sleeps) of a core dev involves lining up the right shade of chrome with the latest photoshopped graphite button and maintaining the correct color scheme, not an easy job at all.
The Apple open source team involves a little bit more coding, which is mandated to be done in TextEdit or the option of a $80 third party mac text editor. The Apple open source team doesn't actually create much code but searches the internet for interesting BSD licensed software and modifies it as it's own through obfuscation and conversion to objective C. Many of the items a mac user sees comes from the open source world stamped by apple such as the ability to play music taken from 67 different originally linux based players, CD burning, and the overall ability to click a mouse. Apple's legal department has no qualms about this practice and has assured many that since most of the code is BSD and if any is GPLed many Linux hippies should be grateful that Apple fostered WebKit by using KHTML and adding some Gecko bloat. Perhaps one of the most important items that the open source team has done to date is use parts of the FreeBSD to keep the kernel up to date.
There's not much to say about the Apple systems and management team. I suppose they can be classified in to desktop and laptop systems. Because hardware work is beneath Apple in general and thought of being only worthy of Windows Users and as such can be found working on these beauties in the starbucks bathroom. Desktops are currently made by buying dell machines and putting them in Lian Li cases, where the majority of the costs goes to buying titanium Apple emblems to paste on the sides. Laptops consists of the rebranding of only the most silver and black Sony Viaos but talk has been going around about rebranding Asus EeePCs for a new Apple netbook but you didn't hear that from me, for fear of my life.
The iDevice team's job is to develop for the ipod, iphone, itouch, and many other portable electronics apple may release in the future. Their jobs are very interconnected with the open source team as well as the core dev team. Using firmware from random samsung devices and giving it an OSX skin the ipod stands as a shining example that infringement only applies to greasy file sharers and that the music player remains the best in market
For content creation:
- an ePub authoring program (given Pages.app v1's execrable html export I'd like to see someone other than Apple create this)
- AppleScript Studio --- let's take HyperCard to the next level and let's use computers as more than glorified memory typewriters
- both of the above could be merged into a tool to create iTunes LP format files for eBooks w/ interactivity
- ArtRage / Autodesk Sketchbook / Corel Painter (and a stylus)
- FutureWave SmartSketch (the program now known as Flash was originally a vector drawing program written for Go Corporation's PenPoint) or some other vector drawing program suited for use w/ just a stylus
- Infty Reader or some other sort of handwriting recognition software which encompasses not just multiple languages but also mathematical equations (naturally this too needs a stylus)
- a free-form database / spreadsheet which can be queried in a graphical fashion and have formulas calculated from it, where they formulas are natural expressions --- something like Lotus Improv plus sBook5
But above all, the option of a stylus --- we're no longer Pythagoras reduced to drawing figures in the sand w/ our fingers --- people are the tool using animal, let's provide the most natural possible tool for drawing, writing and calculating.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Anyone who thinks the lost 4G iPhone was an accident is fooling themselves. Talk about a free marketing windfall.
--- What?
I use my iPad at home, you probably won't see me walking around with it.
I'd be ashamed too.
You could paint it orange and pretend it's a brick.
Or glue some hair to it, a rope, and pretend you're walking a chihuahua.
RobotBox - Robot projects from around the world
The iPad definitely has its place...it's just a really pointless place, in my opinion.
... that Apple released a tablet called the iPad, which is white, has mutitouch and runs iPhoneOS, and just move on? In the meantime, Endgadget received a JooJoo board and made a quick video preview of it, there were news about the Notion Ink Adams (along with a nice video too), the HP Slate, the Gemini, and probably a slew of other tablets nobody even heard of, because they were drowned by the Big Apple Marketing Monster.
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
There are a lot of fanboys with sand in their vaginas, Apple had to do something
Charging you 5-10 times more than what it cost to build the device...
Locking down software/apps from working on anything else...
Pissing off developers from the start.
Crash differently.
Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers.
- Life without walls. PC
From the article:
Word on the street is that Google has already powered up its copiers, and will be chunking out an iPad clone.
This characterization of google as "chunking out" clones is unfair. Google is going to enter the pad computer market with its own line of products; if anyone that enters a device market is cloning, the 99% of the tech business is engaged in "cloning."
They were willing to throw away bad ideas, but kept the name iPad? What names did they throw away that were worse? iColonoscopyBag?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Read Soul of a New Machine about a team at Data General developing a computer to compete with the brand new VAX computer. Similar stategy of getting group of young engineers to work long hours on a project. Personally I think Job's genius is producing a product when the technology is ready that really appeals to people. He also has the dictatorial power to push back the release date if he feels that some aspect of the product is unacceptable to him and must be changed.
Finally one quirk of his design for the Mac that I dislike is the one button mouse. I much prefer the way the two button mouse use has evolved for most Windows stuff namely right button=show options and left button=perform something.
lol. I really wish I had some mod points left.
...they got it right when they said the iPad is similar tot he Mac, what with both having the exact same capabilities and specifications.
the ipad can run javascript and any and all javascript
Can JavaScript on the iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad access all the I/O, including audio in and out? Can JavaScript run a video decoder efficiently? Turing completeness isn't enough; the ability to put things on the tape and get things off the tape in a way that suits the user is also needed, as is reasonable time efficiency.
Never heard anyone call a mouse by that name, but it did jog my memory about the little rodentiometer display buried in a menu somewhere that literally displayed how many feet and inches you've moved your mouse. In the context of how he was trying to kill cursor keys to force people to use the mouse interface, that metric suddenly makes a lot more sense than the cheap geeky gimmick I thought it was at the time.
So, it was a fairly interesting article, despite the reek of fanboism and my relative distaste for the user-friendly straightjacket I always feel on me any time I actually had to try to use one of their products.
The iPad is built to be a device to access content on the move. The iMac and MacBooks are strongly oriented towards content creation.
The split between hardware for creating (Mac) and hardware for consuming (iPad) will reflect and/or be reflected in class distinctions between users who create and users who consume. I thought information technology was supposed to reduce these class distinctions, not reinforce them.
Anything created by Microsoft also sounds like it's from a line of hygiene products - hasn't stopped them so far..
which is totally what she said
You can knock it all you want, but there's a niche for the iPad. It's ideal for people like my wife. She likes knitting in her recliner while watching TV. Every once in a while, she will need to look up a certain stitch that she's not familiar with. So she has to put up knitting out of reach of the dogs (they like yarn too), leave the room and look it up on the computer. That means if I'm using the computer, I need to get up so she can poke around for a few minutes trying to find a good illustration or video demonstrating the stitch. In most instances not a big deal since I can usually stop what I'm working on, be it coding, editing video or paying bills & balancing the checkbook. Every once in a while it will be when I'm playing WoW and I'll be in a group, so it can be a pain in the neck because it inconveniences more than just me.
In our situation, the iPad would be perfect for her. If she needs to look up a stitch, she could just set her yarn & needles in her lap and look the stitch up on the iPad. If there's something on the news and she wants to look it up, check the weather, check her mail, check her Facebook, etc., she doesn't need to go through the whole rigamarole of stowing her knitting and then switching user accounts on the computer, etc. It's not that she can't do these things on the computer in the other room, but it would be so much more convenient for her to be able to check it from where she's sitting.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
This is not surprising. Most geeks are an intensely romantic lot (yes, some even have sex, but that's not what I mean). The type of people drawn to the profession are always those who want to change the world to be what they think it should be, rather than living in what is. This is great, it's called progress, and despite some fits and starts, more people are living longer, healthier, self-actualized lives than at any time in history. The reason Mr. Jobs and Google and others seem to have the cult-like crowd, is that they give all these young men and women a vision, purpose and feeling of belonging to a greater purpose that is missing in so many parts of our culture. Great things can be accomplished this way - irrigation canals, pyramids, cathedrals, etc. Just so long as the intent is good ...
FTA:
Few will remember, but, when the Mac debuted in 1984, there were no arrow keys on the keyboard. That was a big deal. Almost every application then in existence depended on the arrow keys (then called cursor keys) for navigation. With that one stroke, Steve reduced the number of apps that could be easily ported to the Mac from tens of thousands to zero, ensuring that this new computer would have a long and painful childhood.
[snip]
I was responsible for putting the arrow keys on the Mac some 18 months after first release. I didn’t do it because I thought Steve’s original decision was wrong. On the contrary, I believed then and I believe now that decision was critically important. Without it, the new machine with its rodentiometer* and unproven interface would have been overrun with great hordes of horrific software, likely preventing the new interface from taking hold.
Rather, I added the cursor keys a year and a half later because the interface had taken hold and was growing vigorously. The Mac’s childhood was over. Not only had the value of the Mac interface been proven, but those few developers that had tried a straight port had been publicly humiliated by the press and had faced immediate financial failure. It was time to open the system up more, particularly to people who are visually impaired, by overlaying a complete keyboard-driven interface onto the primary, mouse-driven interface.
Is it me or does this sound like illogical revisionist nonsense?
If you're a small development house cranking out applications, you only need to make a Windows version and you've got a big chunk of the market
Until you run into hardware issues. Hardware issues for Windows and Linux applications fall into at least two categories:
Apple hardware tends to have fewer driver issues because the hardware is fairly consistent even across the Mac mini, iMac, and MacBook lines. You also know what minimum level of CPU, GPU, and RAM to expect from a "2007 Mac" and an end user can understand this.
You could argue that the display is bigger, but that doesn't make it more convenient.
Anything created by Microsoft also sounds like it's from a line of hygiene products - hasn't stopped them so far..
I don't know what kind of women you know who would use such a product named "Visual Studio." Eww.
Surreptitiously cover up the 'io' with your thumb and it gets more appealing to some.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Don't wear them on your head, and that won't happen.
> The iPad is surprisingly similar to the Mac.
A niche device that won't achieve more than 10% market share?
Seriously, who has an iPad and isn't already bored with the thing? I mean, don't get me wrong, it is a great portable web browser. It is the physical manifestation of what the web browser was born to be. But revolutionary? Changing how people consume books and media? Hardly! It's a boring tool right out of Star Trek. And I'd still rather use a real computer, because there is this ancient technology called the keyboard that is far more effective for entering text.
But still, it is very good when you want something to read and don't particularly care about the fuzzy text. I use the iPad once about every three days. I leave it on the stand outside my bathroom.
You have to give Steve credit, he makes amazing products and has amazing ideas. He tapped a huge market, sheepole. They don't want to lean or think for themselves. They are perfectly happy in the little boxes on the hillside. So here comes apple with devices that fill that desire. Sheepole are so hungry for idiot proof devices that they will pay a huge premium to get them, not just in cost but freedom as well. Most don't even realize because the cage is so shinny. Even the employees, "working 90 hour weeks and loving it." Don't see the forest through the trees. Consumerism rums our lives, and our governments, and Steve Jobs is our next dictator.
I use my iPad at home, you probably won't see me walking around with it.
I'd be ashamed too.
You could paint it orange and pretend it's a brick.
Or glue some hair to it, a rope, and pretend you're walking a chihuahua.
Priceless!
God is imaginary
Marginally successful in a niche market for the coming 20 years ?
I was referring more to the "Microsoft" part, it's a perfect brand name for a line of feminine hygiene products.
which is totally what she said
At the folks who think that once Steve Jobs' reign at Apple ends, that he will be easily replaceable by anybody at Apple.
When Steve Jobs goes, so does the rest of the company. There's only one man who can inspire people to work 90 hour weeks when they could be making more money with better benefits at Google, Microsoft, Cisco, etc. And there's only one man who can see the vision that Steve sees, and the way to get there. Apple is a success solely to Steve Jobs visions and ability to see what will be a success and the path to get there. Developers can have a billion good ideas, but it takes a Steve Jobs to pick them out and make them into a polished, finished, cohesive product.
I love my iPhone but with the closed environment Apple is bringing, I am looking at the Android or WinMo7 phones. And lots of other developers are too.
But it is funny to think that Apple fanboys think that Apple will be a great success once Steve is gone.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
it's quite amazing to see what fanaticism does when it's aimed towards building products that people want instead of worshiping a self-served delusional visionary
The iPad has everything that any other computer has...so who is to say that it is not a computer?
The iPad is like a NetApp or a Juniper appliance. It is technically a computer (and all three run FreeBSD-derived OSes), Similarly some Samsung LCDs use the Linux kernel. But they were all built for specific purposes.
You can certainly hack most of these devices aren't design to run "anything" on them, though nothing is stopping you from hacking them and doing your own thing. You are certainly free to do that, and the manufacturer is free to tell you to take a hike if you ask for help after hacking them.
Please repeat after me: iPad == appliance ~ toaster.
You're free to hack your toaster, and the toaster maker is free to tell you to fuck off. It's that simple.
And just like last time, Apple copied most of the technologies from other companies, is trying to sue them to get exclusive use, and is marketing the device as if they invented it all.
Whoa...need to remember to not read /. while drinking coffee...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Uh, you guys do know who Bruce Tognazzini is, right? Oh I forgot, your average Slashdot poster living in his mother's basement had more insight into this than the guy responsible for the original Macintosh user interface guidelines.
Not necissarily for the parent / grandparent . THIS is for those who whine about Apple lockin and lack of options for Apple products ...
Begin Rant:
If you want a PC, buy a PC, and stop complaining that Apple locks you in. SERIOUSLY, there is no monopoly except on "Cool" and Apple has that in spades.
Zune is better than iPod, as is many other devices, nobody is stopping you from listening to your music, your way. You just can't do everything you want on an iPod, and thus the iPod is not for you, you want a Zune (or other MP3)
Same with the iPad. There are other devices, and products that do everything you want, some less, some more expensive than iPad. The iPad is not for you, you want a Kindle or Netbook.
For all intents and purposes, you want a toaster oven, not a toaster. A toaster toasts bread. That's all it does. A Toaster oven can actually cook other things besides bread. Big Whoop. Do you complain that a toaster has "vendor lockin" because you can't reheat pizza (well you could, but it would be messy)?
You don't understand the marketplace, nor what Apple is making. Just because you sound good in your rants doesn't mean you're smarter than you think. You're not smarter, you're just showing your ignorance and lack of understanding.
Don't buy an iPad. There are plenty of other devices that do everything you want to do. The iPad is not for you. You can run all the crappy stuff you want when that German Linux Pad comes out, and it won't be nearly as slick as the iPad and will fail miserably because while it does everything a "geek" wants, there just aren't enough of us to make a difference in the market. And you'll still want an iPad, because it just works (makes toast) don't buy it. Just remember, you can't cook your pizza in it, and geeks eat pizza not toast.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
... what?
Oblivion Awaits
Basically people with no social life and no life at all willing to enter into slave labour. Work life balance? Non existent in US companies. Microsoft in Denmark do this and they cannot keep a single Danish employee, they all walk out due to the American slave work culture. Denmark believes in a work life balance and Microsoft is incompatible with Danish work environments. In fact, Microsoft Denmark a subsidary of Microsoft Nordic, has to employee students from Romania, Poland and they actually do not hire Danes as they know theyll will not tollerate the American companies as they enforce their work culture onto them.
Could we please have three fewer iPad stories per day? It's new and shiny, I get it, but there's really only so much you can write about it. Maybe once some great apps come out it'll be worth mentioning, but until then can you refrain from rehashing all the Apple fluff? I'm more interested in how their gear works than the "philosophy" behind the business, and while I love OS X the iPad and iPhone OS has left me underwhelmed. I must not be the only one since it's the least talked-about part of the package.
Your brain is not a computer.
What about a netbook for your wife?
This is slashdot, many dont have much experience of the species called "females", let alone get close enough to understand.
Have a nice day!
"It was Steve's vision that if you made every single computer with the same exact OS and the same amount of memory, developers would always have a fixed platform for which to develop, making their jobs easier."
If this could help developer move away from that piece of shit that Flash is and focus on HTML5...
I frakkin' hate Flash with a passion and sure do never install this piece of garbage.
I don't care about Apple but Flash, common, that is mediocrity from the most mediocre "developers" that ever walked this earth.
care to back this one up?
But it is not a simple device: it requires a desktop or laptop for maintenance and synchronization
Actually not really. If you wanted, you could use the device without connecting to a computer (except for the initial connection to iTunes which is required).
After all, you can buy books and apps and music on the device. Although you'd probably want to connect it to a computer some times to back up data, even that is not absolutely necessary, especially for someone without a lot of generated data.
For instance, I can easily imagine giving one to a parent, and coming over with a laptop to do a backup once a month (or more).
aspects of the machine are infuriatingly complex.
Like what? Or are you thinking of something highly technical that no average user would want to do anyway.
It's also pretty pricey
$500 is not that pricey for a whole computer you don't have to maintain.
The thing people really don't think to factor in is screen quality - they say they don't want to read books on LCD's, but a lot of that is because they try reading on super crappy netbook screens where viewing angle is crucial and where images look washed out or slightly oddly colored. If it's really going to be your main device don't skimp on screen resolution or quality in a small form factor!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
especially considering the iPad isn't able to watch flash video except off of YouTube and a couple of other popular sites
That's not really true. I've run into quite a few sites that feed up raw video when browsed from the iPhone, and of course the same would remain true on the iPad.
And, there are already a number of common Flash players that are integrating code so that if Flash is not supported on a device, the player can fall back to HTML5 playback.
Remember that most of the video on the web today is ALREADY encoded in h.264, which the iPad/iPhone play just fine - it's only the flash playback container that gets in the way. It's really simple to just strip that container away for some browsers or devices.
You can't just go to a site and say it will not work on an iPad if you see a flash player, you have to actually try on the device and see how the site adjusts content for a flashless mobile device.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You mean like USB ports
For one thing, it has USB connection to some devices. But it also has bluetooth as well, between the two you can already connect to a number of different things you are thinking of when you want "usb support".
the ability to create and run your own software
We had that since the SDK launch (and really even before with jailbreaking). I have a number of custom applications I don't have up on the app store, that I wrote just for myself...
the freedom to download software from anywhere you chose
Web apps and jailbroken apps cover that domain.
Flash support
Apple does tend to drop legacy technologies before lots of people realize they are legacy technologies.
the ability to export and import files at will
You can do that today with the iPad/iPhone, in a variety of ways. Some applications act as WebDAV containers, some use the built in document transfer mechanism in iTunes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...the name sounds like an Apple-created feminine product, sigh.
That's because the iPad IS a feminine product...
You also know what minimum level of CPU, GPU, and RAM to expect from a "2007 Mac" and an end user can understand this.
Same goes for Windows, it's just the minimum level is a bit lower since Apple doesn't make netbooks. The main difference however, is that Windows' costumer base includes a large segment who *knows* how to upgrade specific pieces of hardware.....
I only know one person who can do hardware upgrades other than myself. I'm not saying I know all that many people, but I would bet it would provide a reasonable sample. Realistically, as a percentage of total PC owners it is a very small % who can, or would even want to, work with their hardware upgrading or otherwise (such as putting in a bigger hard drive or more memory). Most of the people I know hardly know how to use the computer they have for much more than emails and such. A few others are a bit more savvy and are into video editing and such, but none are knowledgeable about hardware. When you say "...Windows' costumer (sic) base includes a large segment who *knows* how to upgrade...", what is your definition of "large segment"? Personally I replace my Macs about every 3 years and my PCs about every 5 years. I buy one with what I need to replace what I have with consideration to the state of the art at the time of purchase. I *can* do upgrades (believe me, I've done many over the years going back to the 1980s doing memory mods to my Amiga 1000 and adapting it to interface via SCSI), and I have built PCs from parts, but I think I'm in the vast majority who simply don't want to or need to. It's a brave, new century and people buy computers like the buy TVs. I've seen friends throw out perfectly good 2 and 3 year old computers because they were "broke" (Yeah, they told me after the fact and it's always unrelated to hardware - It's always something that I'm sure was just a virus issue). If I wanted something to tinker with I'd probably buy an old car (or get off my ass and do some work fixing this old house I live in up a bit). That's why the iPad is selling. *MOST* people buying them want a basic device they can use, not as a hobby. If it dies and is out of warranty they may buy another one (if they used it and liked it they will buy). Computing devices these days are a commodity more than they are for hobbyists.
So, in different words, I'm right: it does require a desktop or laptop.
In any words, you are wrong. It requires a computer to SET UP. As in ONCE.
To use however, it need never touch a computer. It can be a good idea for SOME uses, but is not REQUIRED.
Like, oh, editing a file in Keynote and sending it by E-mail.
You just go through the presentation list and hit the exact same icon you use for sharing web pages in Safari that people are already used to using - that sure is complicated! It takes two presses, three if you are already in a presentation and have to go back to the list.
Like printing something.
Most people don't need to print much anymore... but if you do, there is an app for that.
Like finding and deleting files
It's hard because (from a users standpoint) THERE ARE NO FILES. As far as the user is concerned there are no files, only documents in applications. You are fundamentally misunderstanding the technical philosophy of the device, you cannot seem to move beyond what you know traditionally from "normal" computers. Of course users that really don't understand files in the first place will hardly see being released from file management hell as a burden.
It's also hard to make a good daiquiri with it because it's not a blender.
switching between E-mail and WiFi settings in order to copy WiFi access keys over from an E-mail
??? I do that all the time today. It's called copy & paste. You copy a word in email, switch to settings, and paste it in the password box. You said you had an iPad?
Like navigating through several menus just to schedule an appointment,
On the phone, and on the iPad, you open the calendar, select a day and hit "+" to schedule a new appointment.
clicking half a dozen times to move between mailboxes
They fixed that in 4.0 (unified inbox). That was annoying, but most non technical people just have one email address. You are not separating very technical users from the larger majority of people that exist and can use the product.
But it's neither a "whole computer", and it does require maintenance.
Actually no, it doesn't. You could give one to someone set up, and never look back - what would there really be to fail except physical components? I've never had to "maintain" my iPhone in years of use, not the same way computers require maintaining.
I do want to read books on LCDs, which is why I got an iPad. And that's also why I can tell you with the benefit of hands-on experience: the iPad is not a replacement for even the lowliest netbook that costs half as much.
Well what can I say, I've also had an iPad since launch and I can tell you from personal experience it's far better than a netbook exactly because it's not a laptop (I have one of those already). It also has a lot more potential, since many applications will be written targeted exactly for the iPad whereas almost no applications are being written specifically to make a Netbook more usable.
In a few months, there will be some high resolution Android tablets out, and they will be a lot easier to use
Right, sure, because Android on phone devices has been touted as being so much easier to use than the iPhone.
Have you thought much about what Android on a tablet means? I have, and it has a terrible weakness - the combination of reliance on the physical back button, and the number of physical buttons all Android devices must have. Already on the iPad I find it somewhat annoying to have to find the home button because you use the device in many different orientations. And you only have to use the home button to quit an app!
Now imagine traversing menus on an Android tablet. You have to hunt around the screen edge for the back button pretty much constantly, which I think is going to feel pretty awkward - on the iPad back buttons are usually close to whatever you were manipulating. And there are four buttons
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Define "Magic". Is there "Magic" at Disney World? My girl friend has told me I have something that does "Magic" for her, but she just won't explain to me what she's talking about ;)
small/discrete and non chafing.. perfect!
which is totally what she said
In any words, you are wrong. It requires a computer to SET UP. As in ONCE.
I didn't say "USE", I said for "maintenance and synchronization". If you don't connect to the desktop, it means limited iTunes access, no music sync or sharing, no backup, no printing from most apps, etc.
You are fundamentally misunderstanding the technical philosophy of the device, It's hard because (from a users standpoint) THERE ARE NO FILES. As far as the user is concerned there are no files, only documents in applications.
That philosophy is an old hat and widespread. But whether you show a file dialog in each app or give users a "Finder", they still need consistent ways of renaming, finding, uploading, downloading, printing, sending, and receiving files. Apple screwed it up by not encouraging a standard and by imposing needless restrictions on what users can do with documents.
You just go through the presentation list and hit the exact same icon you use for sharing web pages
But in other apps, there's a sharing icon on the open document, not on the document list. In yet other apps it's a completely separate screen. There's no consistency.
On the phone, and on the iPad, you open the calendar, select a day and hit "+" to schedule a new appointment.
You should be able just to tap on the time slot.
??? I do that all the time today. It's called copy & paste. You copy a word in email, switch to settings, and paste it in the password box. You said you had an iPad?
You left out the part where you need to start up and shut down each application, which means you lose context every time.
Most people don't need to print much anymore... but if you do, there is an app for that.
There is an app that lets you print files you download from somewhere; you can't generally print documents stored on the device.
You could give one to someone set up, and never look back - what would there really be to fail except physical components?
They need to connect for firmware upgrades, backup, flash filling up, watching TV episodes, using the music player fully, using iWorks fully, and using many other apps fully.
I have, and it has a terrible weakness - the combination of reliance on the physical back button, and the number of physical buttons all Android devices must have.
It's wonderful, isn't it? Four standard buttons that invoke standard operations in a standard way. iPad applications have no standard way of invoking any of those functions. Every application does it differently and inconsistently.
it's far better than a netbook exactly because it's not a laptop
So it's not a "whole computer" after all.
Have you thought much about what Android on a tablet means?
A choice of decent on-screen keyboards. No need to hook the thing up to a PC, ever. An easier-to-use and more consistent UI. Standard buttons for common operations. A decent software architecture and a choice of programming languages. No ad hoc restrictions on the app store. My choice of online service providers. Among other things.
I'm happy to hear you do understand that you're not being forced to buy Apple products. But go ahead. Complain away about something you're really not interested in buying to begin with.
> 90-hour weeks
Looks like some Apple execs need to go to prison.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
I think a couple OS upgrades could fix a lot. The hardware is pretty sweet (minus the lack of cameras). iPhone OS really isn't bad for what it was originally made for but it feels a little tight with our growing expectations from mobile devices. I'm disappointed in their upcoming version 4. Multitasking sounds well implemented but there are really no other interesting upgrades. I really was expecting a tags based filesystem that would transparently expose internal, local network, and Internet shared files, wireless printing/faxing, and some sort of access controls so you could really use the iPad in situations such as a classroom. I think these are critical features to the success of the iPad beyond those of us waiting to hack into them. Instead their giving us a stupid ad platform and OpenFeint competitor? Way to innovate guys.
I hope they relax the restrictions on being approved to develop dock-compatible devices (they relaxed it in programming with OS 3 afterall) and push to offer some cool bluetooth devices.
I still think iPhone OS and the iPhone/iTouch/iPad are awesome but I think Apple needs to step it up just a bit. Other companies are waiting to eat their lunch if they don't. It'd be pretty easy for Android to be adapted to not have a crappy user-interface/user-experience and someone is going to release a non-crap hardware platform for it eventually.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Your problem is you insist on seeing it as a phone or a netbook. It's neither. It's exactly what the majority of people need from a computer. The iPhone is great but it's not a good general purpose computer due mostly to it's screen size. It's small size is both it's best and worst feature depending on your need. Sure my 27" iMac is awesome but most of the time my computing needs don't have me sitting in front of a desk and being strapped to the desk is frustrating or not possible. The laptop is a little better but still not really a device that is always there. The iPhone/iTouch is always there but as I said it's size is limiting for some common uses. The netbook is almost always there but because of it's clamshell design and keyboard/touchpad requirement it is clumsy and it's reliance on outdated desktop/windows metaphors in the OS isn't well suited to seamless computing. Also netbooks have been getting bigger and are now practically laptops again which I think defeats some of the benefit. Makers have gotten confused between cheap laptop and netbook. The iPad slides nicely into that always there spot without the problems of a netbook.
The iPad really has only two problems. First is the price. I spent almost $900 on mine before the accessories. That's a bit high for their two biggest potential markets: moms on the run and kids. Even the cheaper models aren't that cheap. Sure a netbook of comparable specs would be just as expensive (try getting a cheap one with a 64GB SSD) but consumers see price tags first and not the fact that it's going to suck and break much faster than an iPad. Second, Apple really needs to make it easier/cheaper to sell 'Made for iPhone/iTouch/iPad.' hardware. Dock connected, bluetooth, and even local network devices that play well need to be far more abundant if they really want to challenge the netbook market let alone the PC market. It's fine that it doesn't have SD and USB - those suck anyway - but it should take full advantage of what it does offer. There are so many possibilities that Apple is just ignoring.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.