IPad 2 Teardown Shows Tablet's Guts

alphadogg writes "Apple's iPad 2 tablet, which became available Friday, boasts a big battery, tiny speakers, an ample 512MB of RAM and a glass front that's tricky for tinkerers to take off. That's the upshot from an initial teardown of the new Apple tablet by iFixit, which specializes in Apple product repair. IFixit warns that those who dare to peer into the insides of the iPad 2 on their own risk cracking the glass front panel, which is thinner than that from the original iPad (0.62 mm vs. 0.85 mm) and glued on rather than attached via tabs. A heat gun was needed by iFixit to disassemble the device."

Comments

Tablets

[devxo]

I don't really like the normal tablet style of iPad. I mean, it works I guess, but people are more used to holding books. I got interested in tablets after I saw Microsoft's Courier, but it looks like they cancelled it.

Is there any other more natural feeling tablet? It would be much better than the usual ones. Since all the Android devices are quite much clones of each other, I hope someone uses this to their advantage and makes a device like Courier. Or Microsoft should continue their project. It's really interesting anyway.

Re:Tablets

[DavidR1991]

The thing with courier is that, whilst I agree it was a great form factor, it didn't actually exist. It was all talk - no shippable product. So for all the flaws that may exist in Apple's vision of the tablet form factor (or the Android ones for that matter) at least they actually exist - they're real, they work and they are being sold today.

Courier looked as though it was years away from even being thought of as a real product, let alone being sold to people in the real world

Re:Tablets

[UnknowingFool]

Is there any other more natural feeling tablet? It would be much better than the usual ones. Since all the Android devices are quite much clones of each other, I hope someone uses this to their advantage and makes a device like Courier. Or Microsoft should continue their project. It's really interesting anyway.

Considering MS won't release a competitor to iPad and Android tablets until Fall 2012, producing a working Courier product for MS might be a daunting task. Remember MS never showed a demo of Courier. Everything that was released a mockup of how they wanted it work.

Re:Tablets

[arcite]

The Courier was DOA. As a concept it is interesting, but as a functioning device it would be barely usable. What would the battery-life/weight ratio be for a two screen device? How would the interface adapt to both right and left handed users? What about durability? Is there really an advantage to having two smaller screens as opposed to a single one?

As for natural feel....cavemen were writing on tablets tens of thousands of years before books were invented. How about scrolls? Even those are more durable than 'books'....

When iPad 3 or iPad 4 has a retina screen with an even faster processor, speech recognition (along with longer battery life, thinner, lighter...) it will be even more durable.

Re:Tablets

[Nerdfest]

Something like this maybe? I saw another one as well that was targeted at universities as textbook readers, etc.

Re:Tablets

[Nerdfest]

The more book-like reader was the Kno.

Re:Tablets

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's undoable. While the whole dual screen was interesting, the machine was a combination of ideas. The first is the dual screen movement. Using one side for navigation, and the other as a work area.

What the Courier needed was its ideas incorporated into Windows Metro. Metro should be able to do all the stuff courier could, like scan documents quick, have applications that you can scribble on with your finger, then take a picture on it, record video or voice and have it as one work area note, similar to the Memo Note (iOS app). And the CORE cool thing that Windows can do that no other company can is to treat any Windows PC as a secondary screen.

Now that would be a value proposition. Except Microsoft can't even come out with copy and paste on time.

Re:Tablets

[yog]

As a long time Linux programmer and user whose only Apple purchase was an 80 gig iPod a few years back, I was skeptical about the iPad, but after extensive research into the Android tablets, I finally decided to give the iPad a try. I own a Google Nexus One Android phone and was really hoping for a decent Android tablet, but they simply don't exist yet. Every single one has some sort of flaw or missing feature, although the Moto Xoom looks to be a competent offering, once it's tweaked and polished and the prices come down a bit.

I have found the iPad to be a beautifully designed, well engineered best-of-class portable computer. Its battery life is outstanding, the user interface is smooth and natural, and it is incredibly convenient.

I fly a lot, and even a small laptop is a pain to use in a cramped coach class seat, whereas the iPad in combination with a $30 leather portfolio case that lets it stand up in various configurations plus a wireless keyboard is just about ideal. It works with all my Google services--email, docs, calendar, contacts--about as well as on an Android handheld, and it does audio Skype phone calls, and the book reading software is adequate. Apple Pages is a pretty decent word processor. Eventually, my 6-year-old will inherit this unit when the really good Android tablets come out, and already she's addicted to the touch interface and the colorful paint and animation games one can download.

I returned it within 14 days because the iPad 2 had just come out, and now I have to wait like everyone else to upgrade, but I don't regret my purchase for a minute.

The touch tablet concept proved its value first with the Palm and iPod/iPhone products, and so a larger tablet was merely a logical migration, not a revolution. And yet it feels revolutionary, because suddenly I use a computer for a lot of things that I never would have done before. It fits easily and neatly on my exercise machine, for example, so I can read or watch videos while working out. It slips into a backpack or satchel very easily and is about as thick as a pad of paper, so it's almost an afterthought to bring it along to work or trips or events (but keep an eye on it!). I use it to read in bed, or watch videos late at night--also dangerous, because my eyes are getting tired from all the close-up focusing. I find myself reaching for the tablet rather than the laptop when I want to look something up, because it's simply easier and quicker, even without a mouse or full travel keyboard.

By the way, the iPad's keyboard is surprisingly not bad to touch type on in landscape mode. I write stories in my spare time, and I have found I can type almost full speed--when I miss a key, the auto-correction often fixes it, although you need to be careful because it will auto-complete to the wrong word occasionally. The thing doesn't totally keep up with my typing, actually, and I'm hoping the iPad 2's increased CPU power will remedy that.

Everyone screams about Flash missing from the iPad. I would agree that it's better to let the consumer choose, but really I have found it's a non-issue with the iPad. I have watched videos on WSJ, Yahoo, CNN, and a few other websites with no problem. The Youtube app works great, as does the Netflix app (both free). In fact, it's the best way for me to watch Netflix streaming video, since I don't own a Windows PC (hitherto, I watched Netflix in a VirtualBox Windows session but it's not ideal). On my Android phone which of course has Flash, I find it's mainly good for seeing fancy animated ads on websites.

It's nice that after installing some iPod compatibility software from the Ubuntu software dialog, I could plug in my iPad to my Ubuntu laptop and explore the file system. I could also run iTunes from a VirtualBox WinXP session to do fancier sync'ing.

Undoubtedly, by Christmas '11, there will be a plethora of highly competent Android tablets in the $200-$300 range that have all the features left out of the Apple products--Flash, MicroSD card expansion, USB

Re:Tablets

[PopeRatzo]

I own a Google Nexus One Android phone and was really hoping for a decent Android tablet, but they simply don't exist yet.

And you just couldn't wait another second because...?

Re:Tablets

[jo_ham]

I own a Google Nexus One Android phone and was really hoping for a decent Android tablet, but they simply don't exist yet.

And you just couldn't wait another second because...?

He wanted something useful right now?

Re:Tablets

[BasilBrush]

Because in another second a decent Android tablet still won't exist. Maybe a decent one will exist in a few months, maybe it won't. But the excellent iPad 2 is out right now.

Re:Tablets

[macs4all]

I don't really like the normal tablet style of iPad. I mean, it works I guess, but people are more used to holding books. I got interested in tablets after I saw Microsoft's Courier, but it looks like they cancelled it.

Correction: You can't cancel what never was. The Courier was never a serious project; it was merely a way to counteract growing Apple tablet rumors.

Is there any other more natural feeling tablet? It would be much better than the usual ones. Since all the Android devices are quite much clones of each other, I hope someone uses this to their advantage and makes a device like Courier. Or Microsoft should continue their project. It's really interesting anyway.

And entirely impractical in terms of battery life, weight and cost. That's one of the very many reasons it could not have been a serious project in the first place.

We just all grew up with dead-tree books. That's why we, quite naturally, want to hold something in a familiar form-factor. But there is almost no advantage in the dead-tree-publishing world taken of that form-factor. In other words, information on each page is almost without exception simply a linear presentation of the data. Once in a great while, you will see a book take advantage of a two-page "spread"; but those are pretty rare instances that are more than made up for by the many, many advantages of electronic reading devices, not the least of which (he says, being over 50) is the ability to make print larger. Plus, color publishing is no longer a truly premium-price publishing choice, etc, etc. Not to mention that, when reading in bed, that "fold-in-the-middle" habit of books is actually quite annoying to have to constantly deal with. And, as I said, any two-display device would be horrendously heavy, costly, and expensive. There's a reason you haven't seen "Courier-like" tablets. They simply aren't practical.

In other words, stop being bound (no pun) by the familiar. It's a new day for publishing. Get with it, or GTFO. ;-)

Re:Tablets

[macs4all]

The more book-like reader was the Kno.

Horrible site. Looks like a Hax0r site.

I stopped watching the instant the STYLUS came out.

Re:Tablets

[macs4all]

I don't think it's undoable. While the whole dual screen was interesting, the machine was a combination of ideas. The first is the dual screen movement. Using one side for navigation, and the other as a work area.

What the Courier needed was its ideas incorporated into Windows Metro. Metro should be able to do all the stuff courier could, like scan documents quick, have applications that you can scribble on with your finger, then take a picture on it, record video or voice and have it as one work area note, similar to the Memo Note (iOS app). And the CORE cool thing that Windows can do that no other company can is to treat any Windows PC as a secondary screen.

Now that would be a value proposition. Except Microsoft can't even come out with copy and paste on time.

I'm pretty sure that the iPad 2 can do all that. And in a Touch UI paradigm, you really CAN'T have a "secondary screen" (that isn't touch), unless it is used just for showing content. With that in mind, there are some iPad apps that can do this to a secondary display (iMeetingPad, MapProjector, VGA Expedition), and if you Jailbreak your iPad, Cydia has something called "Display Out" that does that, too. I understand that isn't exactly the same thing as using your computer as an iPad secondary display; but it is kinda close.

But all the big interest seems in making the iPad function as a secondary display for your computer, not the other way around.

And I guess i have to ask "Why?" The whole idea of a Tablet is PORTABILITY; if you are sitting at your (much better spec-ed) computer, why would you want to use your iPad as the PRIMARY input and control method? Other than a Touch UI (which is not as advanced in many ways as a conventional mouse-driven GUI), I really don't see the advantages to any but the most fringe applications.

Re:Tablets

[Bert64]

As you say, people are used to using dead tree books...
MS recently published a story about cloud computing, and using horseless carriage metaphors... I think the same applies here.

A tablet is a new form factor not really been pushed before, trying to use it like a book or like a desktop computer is wrong, and is very much like fitting a fake horse head on the front of your car. Apple seem to understand this, while MS keep trying to shoehorn existing ideas into incompatible form factors.

Re:Tablets

[jedidiah]

Sounds far too much like a shill.

While I agree that the iPad is a very interesting device, it is still terribly limiting in some respects. It is bound to increase the number of devices you lug around rather than decrease their number. There's still the problem of doing everything that Apple refuses to allow. For a web tablet, you simply can't gloss over Flash being banned outright.

The fact that one is forced to run an OS not of one's choosing is also very problematic.

Re:Tablets

[PopeRatzo]

But my question remains: What's the hurry? What is it about the tablet that requires you to have one even though by your own admission it is less then what you want?

I'm sincerely interested in the buying impulse when it comes to consumer technology. Two years ago you didn't know you could not live without a tablet. Today, you are so certain you must have one that you'll overpay for something you wish was different.

Re:Tablets

[PopeRatzo]

He wanted something useful right now?

I could ask, "Useful how?" but I'd just get a regurgitation of the advertising copy. So I'll just accept that there is something about his life that requires an iPad, and then a year later, an iPad2.

Re:Tablets

[node 3]

I own a Google Nexus One Android phone and was really hoping for a decent Android tablet, but they simply don't exist yet.

And you just couldn't wait another second because...?

Because he's not an irrational Apple hater, and doesn't mind buying the best tool for the job?

Re:Tablets

[BasilBrush]

And there's something about your life that requires the computer that you're using right now. There's also something about your life that doesn't understand when people make different choices from you.

(And if you think he bought an iPad and then bought an iPad 2 a year later, you need to read his comment again.)

Re:Tablets

[Dog-Cow]

Please kill yourself. Or better yet, give someone else some pleasure (for once) and let them kill you.

Re:Tablets

[node 3]

He wanted something useful right now?

I could ask, "Useful how?" but I'd just get a regurgitation of the advertising copy. So I'll just accept that there is something about his life that requires an iPad, and then a year later, an iPad2.

Hold on a sec... Just a moment ago you suggested he should have waited for an Android tablet, but now you disparage that he must have some inconceivable "requirement" in his life for an iPad. So one can buy an Android tablet for any reason whatsoever, and you're just fine with it, but if someone buys an iPad, you request they justify it to you?

I always assumed your nick was just a joke, but maybe you are the Pope of Android Fanboys? Infidel Apple customers will be confronted, Android will be praised, amen?

As much as I definitely have a preference (and make no attempt to hide it), I never tell anyone what they should buy, or question what they spend their own money on. Especially unbidden like this.

Re:Tablets

[node 3]

It's because you can only buy what actually exists, not what you wish existed. And your "overpay" comment is silly. Proper Android tablets can't even meet the price of the iPad, how is buying the cheapest tablet "overpaying"?

Had he bought the more expensive Xoom, would you have questioned his purchase?

Re:Tablets

[BasilBrush]

You're a hypocrite. Your "What's the hurry?" angle indicates that you think it's perfectly acceptable to spend similar money on an Android tablet. But because at the moment there isn't a worthwhile Android tablet, you question the whole rationality of buying tablet.

In computer technology, there's always something better a year in the future. There might be some decent Android tablets by then. But then again, the goalposts will have moved yet again with the iPad 3. So they iPad may still be the better buy.

Re:Tablets

[UnknowingFool]

While I agree that the iPad is a very interesting device, it is still terribly limiting in some respects. It is bound to increase the number of devices you lug around rather than decrease their number. There's still the problem of doing everything that Apple refuses to allow. For a web tablet, you simply can't gloss over Flash being banned outright.

Depends really on what functionality you require. For some people, they have to have a laptop. But based on what I've seen most general consumers really want is email, MMS, FB, surf the web. etc. They don't code; they're not editing music, etc. They don't really need a laptop, but at the time, it was their own real choice. They could have used a smart phone and some do but the screen size was a big negative. Along comes the iPad. It does what they want for most part without having to lug a laptop around. Personally an iPad or Xoom would replace my laptop if I went on vacation. If I was traveling for work, it would be extra weight to carry.

The fact that one is forced to run an OS not of one's choosing is also very problematic.

Depends on what you mean by "forced." You can jailbreak any device legally despite what Apple says; however, the manufacturer of the device reserves the right not to provide support you if you do. The idea of the tie between hardware and software is much older than Apple; remember the Unix variants and how you couldn't run AIX on a Sun machine. It hasn't changed in decades and Apple wasn't the originator of this trend.

Re:Tablets

[BasilBrush]

While I agree that the iPad is a very interesting device, it is still terribly limiting in some respects. It is bound to increase the number of devices you lug around rather than decrease their number.

Why would it increase it? If what you need for mobile computing can be done with an iPad, then why would you take a laptop too? On the other hand, if you need your laptop anyway for some particular reason, you'd probably leave your iPad at home.

There's still the problem of doing everything that Apple refuses to allow. For a web tablet, you simply can't gloss over Flash being banned outright.

I block flash from my laptop, as it seems to be used for little more than annoying adverts in my experience. How then is it a disadvantage if iOS devices don't have it?

The fact that one is forced to run an OS not of one's choosing is also very problematic.

Huh? You chose iOS when you buy an iPad or an iPhone. You choose Android when you buy an Android phone or an Android tablet. You choose Windows Phone when you buy a WP phone. etc. If you find that a problem, you need to find some sense of perspective. Go out. See the sun rise. Smell the flowers.

Re:Tablets

[node 3]

Sounds far too much like a shill.

Yeah, especially the parts where he said he would rather have an Android tablet, that he only ever had one iPod from Apple, and how he runs Linux and runs Windows in a VM. What a total shill! By which I think you mean, he said nice things about something you don't like.

While I agree that the iPad is a very interesting device, it is still terribly limiting in some respects. It is bound to increase the number of devices you lug around rather than decrease their number.

What does that even mean? If it replaces one's laptop, it doesn't decrease the number of devices, but it significantly decreases bulk. If he never really carried a notebook all that much, but brings his iPad with him more often, that increases devices, but this is not a negative. If he brings a notebook and his iPad, it seems a bit much (for me, an iPad greatly reduces the amount of times I bring my notebook with me, to almost nil), but if he finds value in carrying both, I still fail to see how this is a negative.

There's still the problem of doing everything that Apple refuses to allow. For a web tablet, you simply can't gloss over Flash being banned outright.

He didn't. He lamented it, but honestly noted that while he wished it was an option, its omission isn't all that bad. I.e., instead of blindly raging against Apple, he openly evaluated the impact this has actually had.

The fact that one is forced to run an OS not of one's choosing is also very problematic.

For 0.0X% of the population.

Re:Tablets

[fredmosby]

There is no specific feature a Tablet has that a computer doesn't. A tablet does most of the things a computer can do, but it's easier and more convenient to use.

Re:Tablets

[ChunderDownunder]

I would've thought the capacitive touchscreen *is* the specific feature the computer doesn't have. Which facilitate the apps, a novel and exciting method of input via finger.

Re:Tablets

[Anonymous Coward]

For a web tablet, you simply can't gloss over Flash being banned outright.

Flash is deader than a mackerel. It's as if the lines of people stretching around the block on iPad Release Day (soon to be a major Federal holiday, apparently) are full of people holding axes, machetes, and murderous intentions towards Flash.

Flash is simply no longer a viable player in Web development, for better or worse. And no, I'm not saying that's a good thing.

The fact that one is forced to run an OS not of one's choosing is also very problematic.

... for you, and 3 or 4 other neckbeards, and nobody else.

Re:Tablets

[91degrees]

Yeah, especially the parts where he said he would rather have an Android tablet, that he only ever had one iPod from Apple, and how he runs Linux and runs Windows in a VM.

Well, if I wanted to sell my product to Slashdotters, I'd present it as being for people who run Linux, choose Android, and aren't rabid Apple fans.

If he said "As a mac user and having tried the iPod, I felt I had to try the iPad", he'd have come across as a rabid Apple fanboy.

It's curious that he felt the urge to mention his credentials at all.

The rest of it is written in a style that suggests this is a commercial review with the intent to guide buyers. Mention of the portfolio (and the price) would be valuable information in a magazine review, but seems bizarre in a comment, and the fact that it's entirely positive makes it read very much like a puff piece.

Re:Tablets

[macs4all]

As you say, people are used to using dead tree books... MS recently published a story about cloud computing, and using horseless carriage metaphors... I think the same applies here.

A tablet is a new form factor not really been pushed before, trying to use it like a book or like a desktop computer is wrong, and is very much like fitting a fake horse head on the front of your car. Apple seem to understand this, while MS keep trying to shoehorn existing ideas into incompatible form factors.

Well, until the internet gets an order of magnitude or two faster, and deep-packet inspection becomes impractical due to bullet-proof encryption, I'm with the horse-head people as far as Cloud Computing goes.

I'm still with you on the tablet vs. book thing, though! ;-)

And one of the best U.S. muscle cars of the '60s (Ford Mustang) went pretty far with that Horse Head metaphor, LOL!

Re:Tablets

[PopeRatzo]

.A tablet does most of the things a computer can do

"Most of"? A pencil and a piece of paper can do "most of" the things a computer can do, too.

Maybe you should tell me what a tablet can do that a $100 netbook cannot? Not how it does it, but what it can do.

Re:Tablets

[PopeRatzo]

Because he's not an irrational Apple hater, and doesn't mind buying the best tool for the job?

And which job is that?

Re:Tablets

[PopeRatzo]

Just a moment ago you suggested he should have waited for an Android tablet,

No, I didn't. I just wanted to get a clearer understanding of desire to have a tablet. I'm not crazy about the Android tablets either. And I own an iPad which my wife bought me for Christmas.

I'm seriously just trying to understand the urge for early adoption, when it's expressed in terms of "need" and the willingness to overpay for it. Not trying to boost any particular platform.

I don't think tablets become worthwhile until they start about $100 for a capable unit.

Re:Tablets

[PopeRatzo]

Had he bought the more expensive Xoom, would you have questioned his purchase?

Absolutely. Paying more than $500 for a tablet doesn't make sense to me. Especially since Androids are still pretty immature. The iPad is a much more refined device, but it's just been tamed to the point where it's not as interesting.

My challenge is not "iPad vs Android". It's "Why is the 2011 version of the underpowered PDA such a fascination when it still lacks many of the capabilities of a $99 netbook?

Re:Tablets

[macs4all]

But my question remains: What's the hurry? What is it about the tablet that requires you to have one even though by your own admission it is less then what you want?

I'm sincerely interested in the buying impulse when it comes to consumer technology. Two years ago you didn't know you could not live without a tablet. Today, you are so certain you must have one that you'll overpay for something you wish was different.

So, I assume that your iPad just sits there, in perpetual "standby", or do you actually use it for ANYTHING?

If the answer is that it just sits there, in standby, then why didn't you just return it, and save your wife hundreds of dollars; or better yet, buy HER something nice with the money?

However, if your answer is that you DO use it, then how on earth can you question any other person's decision to purchase one?

Either way, your position is totally untenable, and you are nothing but a disingenous troll.

Re:Tablets

[macs4all]

Because he's not an irrational Apple hater, and doesn't mind buying the best tool for the job?

And which job is that?

Uh, maybe the 65,000 iPad-specific "jobs" that are available on the App Store?

Just because YOU have no imagination, doesn't mean everyone is challenged in that way, too.

Re:Tablets

[PopeRatzo]

Uh, maybe the 65,000 iPad-specific "jobs" that are available on the App Store?

Oh, I quite agree. If someone has one of those "iPad specific jobs" they should definitely consider buying an iPad.

Re:Tablets

[macs4all]

Sounds far too much like a shill.

While I agree that the iPad is a very interesting device, it is still terribly limiting in some respects. It is bound to increase the number of devices you lug around rather than decrease their number.

That is FAR from a "given". There are plenty of people that have STOPPED carrying devices they normally carry once they got an iPad.

There's still the problem of doing everything that Apple refuses to allow. For a web tablet, you simply can't gloss over Flash being banned outright.

Doesn't seem to be bothering people who actually USE the iPad. In fact, quite the opposite. Next?

The fact that one is forced to run an OS not of one's choosing is also very problematic.

And how is that different from ANY Android device, except, perhaps, the Nexus smarphones? You have to jump through some serious hoops (and sometimes it isn't even possible) to run anything other than the version of Android that the manufacturer ships with their devices.

BTW, there is absolutely NOTHING stopping you from writing your OWN OS for the iPad, except your lack of talent/laziness/time/interest. If you have the chops to replace the OS on your Android, you should be able to write your own replacement OS for the iPad, right?

Re:Tablets

[shutdown -p now]

Just because someone is used to some shape doesn't make it the most ergonomic shape. I definitely prefer holding Kindle (of the non-DX variety) to holding a book. The main problem with tablets currently is weight - iPad and Xoom are 700g, iPad 2 is 600g - it's still too much to conveniently hold in one hand (in contrast, Kindle is 240g).

Re:Tablets

[narcc]

Because he's not an irrational Apple hater, and doesn't mind buying the best tool for the job?

What job, exactly, is the iPad the best tool for?

Re:Tablets

[macs4all]

Uh, maybe the 65,000 iPad-specific "jobs" that are available on the App Store?

Oh, I quite agree. If someone has one of those "iPad specific jobs" they should definitely consider buying an iPad.

So, wait. NOW you're saying that there are 65,000 reasons FOR buying an iPad?

That's a pretty large envelope. Are you SURE you want to keep claiming that you can't understand WHY someone would "need" an iPad?

There is practically no one (relative to the population) that NEEDS a computer, either. Or a microwave oven. Or a TV, DVD player, MP3 player, game console, radio, or stereo. Do you? Yet I'll be willing to bet that you own all, or at least some, of these.

If you do, then by your own logic, you're just being stupid, right?

Re:Tablets

[fredmosby]

People don't buy tablets to save money or get more features. They buy them because they are easier and more convenient to use then computers or laptops and they meet most users computer needs. They can be used to surf the internet, check email, and write documents.

There seems to be some kind of miscommunication. In my previous post I said a tablet can't do anything a net book can't do. So why are you asking me for features? Maybe you're asking what makes a tablet easier to use then a computer or laptop. So here are some of those reasons in no particular order:

1. They are smaller and lighter than most net books.
2. They can be used in more positions than a laptop, for example it is easy to use one when standing up or sitting on a couch.
3. They have a multitouch interface, which is more intuitive than a traditional mouse and keyboard interface.
4. They have an application based interface, which is easier to navigate and maintain than the file based interfaces of most computers.
5. They have a much better battery life then most laptops or net books.

Re:Tablets

[yog]

My original comment was directed at the parent comment which questioned the value of a tablet. I tried to show how I, an Apple skeptic, nonetheless found value in an iPad. I brought up that I was not in the Mac/Windows community as a way of showing my objectivity, not as an insidious way of shilling.

I'm amazed and disappointed at this stunning display of poor reading comprehension among some of the Slashdot readership. I tried to use short paragraphs and simple words to make my points easy to digest. Pearls before swine, I suppose.

As others noted above, I evaluated all the alternatives, at least to the extent that I was willing to read about them, and concluded that the iPad was the best tablet product currently available. Mind you, this was just before the Xoom was released, although I was aware of the Xoom and also the excellent Samsung Tab 10.1. I would say that Apple has successfully fended off these competitors with their iPad 2 offering, at least until they become as thin and light and can reduce their prices.

I just noticed that Apple entirely refunded my open-box return of my refurbished iPad, so I'm only out the $12 it cost to fedex it back even though they originally said they would keep 10%, or $42.90, for the restocking fee. This pleases me. Now I feel better about upgrading to the 2.

Perhaps I didn't emphasize this in my original comment (well, I did, but for the benefit of those who don't read very well), but I do fly a lot, typically about four long plane flights a month, and the iPad has changed my whole travel experience. For one thing, it's tiny in my carry-on, literally like a pad of paper, and the charger is this little USB-to-AC cube plus a USB-to-Apple cable. It's so much less weight than carrying a brick-like Dell laptop plus a two pound power supply. Then, of course, it actually is useful during flight, unlike the Dell which has about four hours of battery life on the dimmest screen setting and which has to sit half-closed on the tray if the guy in front of me reclines his seat, which inevitably they do. The one thing I miss about a real laptop is that I can play DVD movies and AVI files (although I notice there's a free AVI player available for the iPad now). Hmm; just how well does a $99 netbook play a DVD, anyway?

The other cool feature of the iPad which I didn't mention above is its instant-on capability. Actually, it's instant-unhibernate, but effectively it's like it's off when it's sleeping. You can turn the thing all the way off if you really need to, but hibernate is good enough almost all of the time. That's another reason it's superior to laptops--when you need it, it turns on within a second, similar to a Palm Pilot or a modern day iPhone/Android/Blackberry. It's there when you need it, with none of this waiting around while the OS boots, loads tons of stuff from the hard drive into RAM, runs Norton Antivirus, checks for updates to the OS, all of that crap that takes a couple of minutes minimum on a traditional machine.

Lastly, my long term plan is to upgrade to a state of the art Android Honeycomb 3.1 type of device with all the bells and whistles and my ipad 2 will go to my dear wife and/or six year old who will gladly use it without missing all the cool connectivity and openness of the alternative platforms.

Do I regret trying the iPad, and now having to wait for an iPad 2? Not one bit. I am in fact going through tablet withdrawal right now, and it's going to be a frustrating couple of weeks before the 2 becomes available. Of course, it's probably better to wait a month until the initial manufacturing glitches shake out--I've already heard about weird spots on the screen, LED leakage or some such--but I suspect they'll fix things quite a bit faster in a 2nd generation unit.

Re:Tablets

[PopeRatzo]

They can be used in more positions than a laptop

You're right, I hadn't considered the many different positions in which I require computing.

Re:Tablets

[PopeRatzo]

So, wait. NOW you're saying that there are 65,000 reasons FOR buying an iPad?

No, I'm saying there are 65,000 jobs which require iPads, and at very least those 65,000 people who might need iPads, though I understand most of the iPad development is not done on iPads.

You must admit, there is a certain elegance in a platform that you can use to develop applications for that same platform. I consider that one of the greatest weaknesses of iOS: That you can't use it to develop iOS apps. How popular would OSX be if you had to use Windows to develop software for it? Or vice-versa? The processing power of iOS devices is certainly sufficient for development, so the only thing preventing it from being a complete solution is the Apple business model. I'm not sure if Android has the same shortcoming, since I'm not an Android user.

Do you think that tablets will always have to be tethered to a desktop? Do you really believe that there won't be tablets that can be used for general-purpose computing? This is why I feel that my iPad (yes, I own an iPad) is just a transitional technology. I don't believe the "walled garden" will endure once full-featured tablets become widely available at competitive prices. The prices are still in the early-adopter stratospheric levels. There's no reason the entry level iPad shouldn't be under $200, like the iPod Touch (which I also own, and I also consider a "transitional" technology at best). Sort of like the early very early iPods before they became open enough to play different formats. Considering there are already very crude tablets available for $99 at K-Mart, I believe it won't be long before the technology opens up. At that point, there will be something of a crossroads for Apple: either stick with the walled garden consumer-electronics approach or try to reach the techies, DIYs and open-software markets. That will probably happen after Steve Jobs is gone.

I

Re:Tablets

[fredmosby]

Obviously you haven't. But unless you're only interested in using a computer at a desk it's a factor. The point is they're easier to use in general, and that's why people are buying them.

Re:Tablets

[narcc]

Because he's not an irrational Apple hater, and doesn't mind buying the best tool for the job?

And which job is that?

Uh, maybe the 65,000 iPad-specific "jobs" that are available on the App Store?

The claim was that the iPad is "the best tool for the job".

I call bullshit on your rhetoric. Name ONE job for which the iPad is "the best tool".

Re:Tablets

[node 3]

I'm seriously just trying to understand the urge for early adoption, when it's expressed in terms of "need" and the willingness to overpay for it. Not trying to boost any particular platform.

Everyone else's iPad works just like yours (well, iPad 2 is a bit more powerful with a few extra features, but it still works basically the same way). All those things you can do on yours? That's what we do with ours. The only difference is we enjoy it and don't believe it's overpriced. If you don't find yours worth the money, I'm not sure what you expect someone to be able to tell you to bring you to a different conclusion. It's not like there's some secret app or something that we are all running that you just haven't been told about or anything.

It's like baseball or rap or American Idol, or whatever thing you don't like that a lot of other people seem to. People are diverse and have diverse tastes, values, and opinions.

Re:Tablets

[node 3]

My challenge is not "iPad vs Android". It's "Why is the 2011 version of the underpowered PDA such a fascination when it still lacks many of the capabilities of a $99 netbook?

Because it has many capabilities that the imaginary $99 netbook lacks. I know you probably won't understand this, but not running a desktop OS is a *HUGE PLUS* for many people. Reading books and viewing photos and videos is far more enjoyable on an iPad than on a netbook. Not having to open a cumbersome clamshell is very nice.

Let's assume for the moment that you still aren't convinced. At least accept the fact that well over 15 million people chosen to buy an iPad, and millions more buy them each month. Clearly you don't agree with them, but they seem to really like their iPads, so there's obviously something there for many people that isn't there for you. Some people like vi, some people like emacs, and the other 99+% have no clue what vi and emacs are, and just use a GUI text editor or word processor. You remind me of an emacs graybeard who can't understand why anyone would use something as limited as notepad.exe instead of something as powerful as emacs. No need to change your opinion, just accept that not everyone shares your opinion, and that's not a bad thing.

Re:Tablets

[node 3]

Because he's not an irrational Apple hater, and doesn't mind buying the best tool for the job?

What job, exactly, is the iPad the best tool for?

A portable computer that performs a requisite list of tasks. As long as it meets that standard, everything else is opinion. If it's the best tool for
yog or me or anyone else, what's it to you? I don't care if it's not the best tool to you. If it's not, then simply don't buy one, and everyone's happy. Why butt yourself into other people's choices?

Re:Tablets

[FxChiP]

Proper Android tablets can't even meet the price of the iPad..

Actually, I don't think you're taking the pricing in the proper context.

While true that the *cheapest* iPad is, in fact, much cheaper than, say, the Motorola XOOM, you'll find that -- at least in hardware -- it's also lacking many of the features that the XOOM *does* have. Fortunately, there are models of the iPad that are comparable down to being in the same provider with the same storage space and other similar specifications.

First, let's look at the XOOM: a dual-core 1 GHz ARM CPU (just like the iPad 2 IIRC) with 1 GB low-power DDR2 (twice the amount of the iPad 2) and 32 GB storage space to start, upgradable with another 32 GB to a maximum of 64 GB -- but let's ignore that and stick with the 32 GB baseline. The crucial thing to keep in mind here is that this baseline also, by default, is for Verizon cell service, and it unfortunately doesn't seem to be able to have any alternatives for that. The resolution is also at 1280x800, whereas the iPad's is 1024x768.

That's just pointing out the discrepancies you'll be facing when you see this comparison. So in order to get a fair (IMO) price comparison on this, we'll need an iPad 2 that's roughly the same, INCLUDING Verizon service. If we completely ignore storage altogether and just go Cheapest vs. Cheapest, the answer... depends on getting a contract. If you're a new customer with Verizon (or, I suppose, if you're renewing and they want to give you the contract rate), the cheapest iPad 2 sits at $629 whereas the Motorola XOOM... sits at $599 . If you're matching storage points and getting a contract, the XOOM still sits at $599 but the iPad goes up to $729! Of course, however, if you're not getting a contract and purchasing the device outright, the XOOM does get its ass handed to it on price -- although, to be fair, I could not find contract-less purchasing for an iPad 2.

tl;dr: XOOM is less expensive, spec-for-spec unless you're buying it without a contract.

(No, I'm not including software, usability, etc. -- I'm just going hardware-for-hardware and ignoring the OS, which is largely a measure of personal bias. Full disclosure: my personal bias is Android. However, what I've written here may be verified by going to the websites for the Apple Store and for Verizon's store.)

Re:Tablets

[FxChiP]

You can jailbreak any device legally despite what Apple says;...

Right, but that's not really having a choice of operating system, that's simply hacking the operating system already in place; being able to run an alternative operating system is non-functional on anything but the very first iPhone, to my knowledge. Even if Apple doesn't have to provide support for it -- and they don't -- it's still troublesome that they actively prevent even the attempt.

Re:Tablets

[FxChiP]

If what you need for mobile computing can be done with an iPad, then why would you take a laptop too? On the other hand, if you need your laptop anyway for some particular reason, you'd probably leave your iPad at home.

Actually, just throwing my two cents in, I could see myself lugging both a tablet and a laptop around -- the tablet for those instances when I just need to look something up quickly or do a minor task and don't want to wait for the boot-up (looking up wikipedia, for example), and the laptop for when I need to do much more intensive work that I have to deal with the boot process for anyway (SSHing to multiple places and doing tasks concurrently).

Re:Tablets

[narcc]

Why butt yourself into other people's choices?

I didn't butt into anyones choice. I asked a simple question regarding your post which apparently you don't have an answer for.

Why do you feel the need to defend a multi-billion dollar corporation against legitimate criticism considering that it is, by any measure, doing rather well?

Re:Tablets

[crossword.bob]

Easy - one such job is being a decent eReader, browser, remote desktop tool, e-mail device in a single device. No it's not the best eReader, but the best eReader can't do all the rest of it. A device doesn't have to be best-in-class for any one single task to be considered the best tool for "the job" when "the job" involves combining a range of tasks.

Re:Tablets

[BrokenHalo]

But all the big interest seems in making the iPad function as a secondary display for your computer, not the other way around.

I can think of a variety of ways in which the current iPad form factor might be useful to me, but they all involve the device working as a "real" computer, rather than just as a media or "app" box like the iPhone. Apple already markets quite a good OS in the form of OS X, which (ignoring flames from detractors) has the advantage of being Unixy enough for my purposes.

If Apple would consider dropping OS X on to the iPad and marketing some form of roll-out or foldable keyboard for it, I might seriously consider buying one. But as it stands, it seems Apple is pointing the MacBook Air in my direction, and that just looks like an inadequate laptop.

Re:Tablets

[narcc]

So you're saying that you can't name a single job for which a tablet is better suited than other devices.

Re:Tablets

[crossword.bob]

Wow, did you not even bother to read my comment? It is better suited than other devices for doing the job of combining those features on a single device.

Re:Tablets

[PopeRatzo]

I agree about diverse values. And I don't think the iPad is "bad" or anything like that. I just believe it's still an expensive toy, though, which is how I use mine. I ask every iPad user I meet what they do with theirs. Like me, it's mainly a media player, and a slightly less capable eReader. Very light web surfing. I'm not ready to hang laurals around Apple or Motorola or Google or LG or Samsung until they start producing tablets on which I can do work. Further, it's impossible to use an iPad with one hand, like while standing on the train, which is when it could be most useful.

Re:Tablets

[narcc]

Wow, again, you're an idiot. Having several features on a single device isn't a task.

Re:Tablets

[PopeRatzo]

Reading books and viewing photos and videos is far more enjoyable on an iPad than on a netbook.

Reading is not nearly as pleasant on my iPad as it is on the eInk devices I've seen. And the form factor is not comfortable for reading. It's not easy to hold in one hand, nor is it as nice to hold as a paperback book.

And how often do people "view photos" when they're on the way to work or on a plane? Are you telling me that "viewing photos" is a major reason for owning an iPad instead of a netbook costing only 1/4 as much?

Re:Tablets

[crossword.bob]

If you don't consider combining numerous tasks on a single device as a worthwhile job, then yours was a dumb question. Who cares whether or not a general-purpose device is the single best device for any one thing?

Call me an idiot all you like, I'm not the one who is utterly failing to understand basic principles of worth.

Re:Tablets

[macs4all]

But all the big interest seems in making the iPad function as a secondary display for your computer, not the other way around.

I can think of a variety of ways in which the current iPad form factor might be useful to me, but they all involve the device working as a "real" computer, rather than just as a media or "app" box like the iPhone. Apple already markets quite a good OS in the form of OS X, which (ignoring flames from detractors) has the advantage of being Unixy enough for my purposes. If Apple would consider dropping OS X on to the iPad and marketing some form of roll-out or foldable keyboard for it, I might seriously consider buying one. But as it stands, it seems Apple is pointing the MacBook Air in my direction, and that just looks like an inadequate laptop.

OS X is different that iOS when you get above he Darwin layer, if I understand the OS architecture. I correctly (I am not an OS X or iOS dev; just a user). I'm pretty sure that Quartz and OpenGL (not to mention GCD and OpenCL) are nowhere to be found in iOS, either. Since iOS is a "windowless" OS, I would imagine all the window-management stuff is out as well. With that in mind, I'm pretty sure that, even disregarding the cross-compiling issues for x86 vs. ARM, that OS X would REALLY suck on something as lightweight in processing-power as the iPad. I don't know where the ARM9 Cortex core is as far as throughput per GHz compared to, say a Core2Duo; but I'm pretty damn sure that you would not have the zippy, fluid experience that people love about the iPad, if it ran bog-standard OS X.
br> In fact, that has been the reason that the iOS devices have been so pleasant for the user; because Apple wisely didn't take the easy way out, and just throw hardware at the problem; instead, they really tightly optimized both the hardware AND OS design.

And that's what sets it apart. I'm sure that Apple looked at the issue long and hard before embarking on the iOS project; and I'm also sure that the very first thing they tried was to recompile OS X for ARM, and give that a go... No one wants to maintain TWO OSes; but at least Apple was smart enough to realize that it was the only practical solution.

Re:Tablets

[node 3]

although, to be fair, I could not find contract-less purchasing for an iPad 2.

All iPads are contract-less. You are paying full price for the hardware, and own it outright. With a subsidized Xoom, you enter into a contract and are giving a discount in exchange for the promise of two years of payment or the payment of an ETF of $350.

tl;dr: XOOM is less expensive, spec-for-spec unless you're buying it without a contract.

So, the one case scenario where the Xoom is cheaper is if you compare the subsidized Xoom with the unsubsidized iPad (hardly fair, but at least subsidy is an option with the Xoom, so there's that for now). In every other scenario, the iPad is cheaper. If Verizon (or AT&T) were to offer a subsidized iPad, you'd find that iPad to still be much cheaper than a Xoom.

Re:Tablets

[node 3]

Why butt yourself into other people's choices?

I didn't butt into anyones choice. I asked a simple question regarding your post which apparently you don't have an answer for.

When you ask someone to justify their purchase to do, butting in is exactly what you are doing.

Re:Tablets

[node 3]

Reading books and viewing photos and videos is far more enjoyable on an iPad than on a netbook.

Reading is not nearly as pleasant on my iPad as it is on the eInk devices I've seen.

You asked why it's better than a netbook.

And the form factor is not comfortable for reading.

It's *fantastic* form factor for reading. Vastly superior to a netbook.

And how often do people "view photos" when they're on the way to work or on a plane?

What is your problem? Every time I tell you of a scenario it's better, you bring up one where it's irrelevant. Do you think the only time I use my iPad is at work or on a plane? What about when I'm visiting friends and family, or they are visiting me.

This is why I say you aren't simply asking honest questions, but have a clear agenda. You are Fox News.

Are you telling me that "viewing photos" is a major reason for owning an iPad instead of a netbook costing only 1/4 as much?

Ignoring your faulty math, yes, it's *A* major reason. I listed more than one, and my list wasn't complete. But given your reluctance to engage in an honest discussion, I don't expect any of that to matter to you.

Re:Tablets

[node 3]

It's absolutely impossible to have a rational discussion with someone like you. You "discuss" things like Fox News. You only look at things from one point of view. You "accept" that there are other points of view, but they just all happen to be wrong or trivial (i.e., iPad is an "expensive" (a negative) "toy" (triviality)).

And I don't think the iPad is "bad" or anything like that. I just believe it's still an expensive toy

Yes, because "expensive toy" isn't a put-down...

Further, it's impossible to use an iPad with one hand, like while standing on the train, which is when it could be most useful.

This is the funniest thing about your posts. You always come up with one thing that is completely not apropos of anything and completely non sequitur to itself.

Can you use your netbook with one hand on the train? Which completely begs the question of whether you only have one hand on a train in the first place. Even standing on a commuter train, one can spare a second hand to scroll text and click on links, etc., as needed.

You start with the conclusion, then spout out whatever scenario fits that conclusion, consistency be damned! How is an iPad better than a netbook? I answer this, so you reply that it's worse than an eink reader. If I tell you how it's better than an ereader, you tell me it's not as good as a netbook!

I'd like to hear you justify physical paperback books. Oh, it's easier to flip to a page? Well, you can't fit thousands of books in one paperback! It's only $5 to replace if you lose it? But can it surf the web?

Then take the other position and defend an ereader against a paperback. You can download any book you want without going to the store? Well, my paperback doesn't run out of batteries. You can look up words inline? Well, I can read my paperback in direct sunlight.

Re:Tablets

[narcc]

When you ask someone to justify their purchase to do, butting in is exactly what you are doing.

I never asked you to justify your purchase. My question, which you are unwilling or unable to answer, was the entirety of my post:

What job, exactly, is the iPad the best tool for?

See? Nowhere in that post do I ask you to justify your purchase.

So... do you have an answer?

Re:Tablets

[PopeRatzo]

You are Fox News.

Man, that's harsh. OK, I'm sorry. The iPad2 is the greatest piece of consumer technology since the iPad.

Just please don't compare me to Fox News again. Please. I'm sorry that I ever suggested that I didn't think my iPad was fantastic for reading on the bus or that when I get together with friends and family I don't immediately reach for my iPad.

It's *fantastic* form factor for reading.

I agree. Absolutely.

Tell you what: if you promise not to call me "Fox News" again, you can have my 8gig iPad. I don't know what I'll tell my friends and family the next time they come over to look at it, but I just can't take the Fox News comparisons.

I won't do it again, promise.

Re:Tablets

[BrokenHalo]

No one wants to maintain TWO OSes; but at least Apple was smart enough to realize that it was the only practical solution.

True. For now. Sooner or later, it will presumably become possible to miniaturise the technology suffiently to do the job - I guess I'm just expecting too much, too soon.

My expectations are partly based on the fact that over the last couple of years, since I am no longer working with huge databases or doing the molecular modelling of my student days, my processing demands have taken a big drop, so I no longer need the horsepower of my big Linux desktop box, which is why this oldish second-hand MacBook has worked pretty well for me, except when playing around with graphics rendering.

Good job.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a fucking hobby project. This is a retail device, sold for profit. You are NOT encouraged to take it apart. This entitlement attitude of being able to reverse engineer everyone elses IP is starting to piss me off.

Re:Good job.

[E IS mC(Square)]

Take it easy Steve. Stress is not good for your liver.

Re:Good job.

[Culture20]

This is not a fucking hobby project. This is a retail device, sold for profit. You are NOT encouraged to take it apart. This entitlement attitude of being able to reverse engineer everyone elses IP is starting to piss me off.

Profane statement, 36 characters. Statement, 41 characters, two parts. Emphatic statement, 40 characters. Statement, 105 characters.
Conclusion: Each sentence is twitterable. How about you post your rants there?

Re:Good job.

[HalAtWork]

Who said anything about reverse engineering for your own benefit? What about getting your product fixed for a reasonable price? You could take an out-of-warranty appliance (TV, radio, microwave oven, washer/dryer) in to a electronics repair shop and get it fixed up when the original manufacturer discontinued service, or maybe you just wanted a better price even if it voided your original warranty, and the repair shop would provide their own warranty plan so you could just take it back to them. What's wrong with doing the same with an iPad or whatever else you want?

Re:Good job.

[spire3661]

If by entitlement you mean enshrined in law, then yeah we are entitled to reverse engineer.

Re:Good job.

[BasilBrush]

Nothing ideally. In practice it's hard to imagine how they could have done the same (or an equally thin and attractive design) without gluing the glass on. Laptop lids tend to be glued too.

And again, in practice, the gluing won't stop professional service shops. It'll just be a bit too scary for most end-users to have a go.

Re:Good job.

[Bert64]

Some of us like to see what's inside, having the information available means we now have less reason to open it up (which voids warranty and risks damage. I have often been disappointed to find that rather expensive products often contain extremely cheap components inside, open up some midend commercial networking appliances someday if you want a good laugh.

Re:Good job.

[jedidiah]

There are a number of words that have sort have mutated into NewSpeak versions of themselves online. "entitlement" is a great example of this.

Expecting that I can use my property in any manner I choose is not "entitlement". It's called acting like a free man.

This corporate feudal mentality is really running amok these days.

It's one thing when it's applied to things that are actually property of the corporation. On the other hand, it's completely inexcusable when it's applied to the property of the individual.

Perhaps these corporatists believe that everything now belongs to the corporations in much the same manner we used to all be property of the local robber baron.

Re:Good job.

[n dot l]

This is not a fucking hobby project. This is a retail device, sold for profit. You are NOT encouraged to take it apart. This entitlement attitude of being able to reverse engineer everyone elses IP is starting to piss me off.

Hey idiot, if I buy the thing (even at retail!), it's mine to do with as I please. The only thing your Dear Corporate Leader's IP stops me doing is duplicating it (or, were I unfortunate enough to live in a corporatocracy, fucking with the DRM).

You do know what "mine" means, yeah? Refers to this silly little notion called "property", I'm sure you've heard of it somewhere...

(Yeah, feeding the troll, the answer's more for the mass of mindless like-minded retards we've all seen around here - for instance ones that modded him up as of when I wrote this.)

Re:Good job.

[BasilBrush]

It's great to see what's inside, and iFixit do us all a favour by doing these disassemblies. It saves us having to pull one apart ourselves and risk not being able to put it back together.

Re:Good job.

[macs4all]

Who said anything about reverse engineering for your own benefit? What about getting your product fixed for a reasonable price? You could take an out-of-warranty appliance (TV, radio, microwave oven, washer/dryer) in to a electronics repair shop and get it fixed up when the original manufacturer discontinued service, or maybe you just wanted a better price even if it voided your original warranty, and the repair shop would provide their own warranty plan so you could just take it back to them. What's wrong with doing the same with an iPad or whatever else you want?

Um, and where is that repair shop going to get the nearly 100% CUSTOM components to effect said "repair"?

Think; then post.

Oh, and using a heat-gun to get something apart is well-within the capabilities of any reputable "repair-shop" (and even most tech-savvy users). Anyone else SHOULD really stay the fuck out, because there is absolutely nothing to be gained (and lots of potential for damage) by an unqualified user just poking around in a device containing static-sensitive components.

But, if you were truly experienced in electronics, you would already understand that. I, for one have been an embedded hardware/software developer for over 30 years, and have also worked as a bench tech, repairing a wide variety of consumer electronics.

With that in mind, let me just say in closing that, you sir, are simply full of shit.

Re:Good job.

[narcc]

Um, and where is that repair shop going to get the nearly 100% CUSTOM components to effect said "repair"?

Think; then post.

Hmmm... If only there were some way to collect functional parts from damaged units or some marketplace that allowed the sale of nonfunctional equipment and harvested parts.

Well, since no such sites exist, I guess you're right.

Think; then post.

Re:Good job.

[Nursie]

"This is a retail device, sold for profit. You are NOT encouraged to take it apart. This entitlement attitude of being able to reverse engineer everyone elses IP is starting to piss me off."

Because learning is bad children!

What's inside there is magic that belongs to the Apple corporation, and if you look inside to see how it works that's STEALING!

Jesus fscking christ, what is the world coming to?

Re:Good job.

[badboy_tw2002]

Apparently a place where people fall prey to obvious trolls. Come on, he wasn't even trying that hard...

Re:Good job.

[cowscows]

Expecting that you can use your property in any manner you choose is fine. Expecting a manufacturer to make significant design decisions based on your atypical anticipated usage is entitlement.

Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[Laebshade]

Sounds a lot like an iPhone 4 and the Macbook Air. I work for an authorized Mac sales and service center; our Mac specialist had to use a heat gun to take the screen/glass off on a Macbook Air. Research for the iPhone 4 returns similar needs.

Like the article says, a heatgun did the trick.

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[BasilBrush]

If you work for an authorised service centre, why haven't you got the service manuals?

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[bytesex]

The service manual probably says: Throw away. Replace.

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[Laebshade]

Who says we don't?

I said that she had to use a heat gun to take off the screen/glass on the Macbook Air. I never said she didn't have manuals (she does).

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[somersault]

Is having the service manual going to magically make it possible to take the device apart without the heat gun?

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[PolygamousRanchKid]

"User error. Please replace user, and try again."

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[ilikejam]

You can use a microwave as well - it's a bit faster.

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[ColdWetDog]

You can use a microwave as well - it's a bit faster.

I imagine that an oxyacetylene torch would be faster yet, but speed isn't always the only metric.

(People these days, no patience.)

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[BasilBrush]

It just read like she was working out what so was doing as she went rather than following procedure.

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[BasilBrush]

And somewhat more sparkly!

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoosh!

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you had the printed repair manual you could avoid the heat gun by setting the manual on fire and heating the device over the resulting flames.

While I know that these devices have a water sensor, I don't think they have a "tried to roast it like a marshmallow" sensor.

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[macs4all]

Sounds a lot like an iPhone 4 and the Macbook Air. I work for an authorized Mac sales and service center; our Mac specialist had to use a heat gun to take the screen/glass off on a Macbook Air. Research for the iPhone 4 returns similar needs.

Like the article says, a heatgun did the trick.

If you work on consumer electronics products, then you well know that the use of high-performance adhesives is very common, and certainly not limited to Apple products.

From a mechanical-engineering and "packaging" standpoint, displays are particularly well-suited for the use of high-performance adhesive attachment methods. In a former life, I worked for an industrial controls company that replaced a really problematic front panel/display attachment bracket-thing with a thin line of industrial cyanoacrylate adhesive. That method wasn't perfect, either; but it was a damn sight more manufacturable than the bracket and screws that it replaced. And this was back in 1992, so it ain't exactly a new solution to this problem. In fact, it's a widely-accepted industry practice. Loctite and 3M, to name two adhesives manufacturers, have a whole line of industrial products specifically designed for this sort of thing.

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[macs4all]

You can use a microwave as well - it's a bit faster.

Aluminum back on the iPad. Macbook Air, also an Aluminum case.

Try again.

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[ColdWetDog]

No, whoosh, WHOOSH!

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[hexadecimate]

it's a bit faster.

And a bit explodier.

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[lwsimon]

No, he was right, but you're missing the part where he talks about making it safe to put in the microwave. Press Alt+F4 to show that part, then it will make sense.

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[SeaFox]

A better question would have been what the service manuals said to do for disassembly for repair.

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[macs4all]

No, he was right, but you're missing the part where he talks about making it safe to put in the microwave. Press Alt+F4 to show that part, then it will make sense.

Well, typical Slashdotter that I am, I didn't RTFA; but that's only one thing. I'm not exactly sure that exposing the electronics to that much microwave energy for that long would be a good thing, anyway. Also, wouldn't the sugar-water in the LCD get pretty damned hot, too?!?

Thanks, but I think I'll take my "heat" from the other end of the EM spectrum! This isn't a frozen burrito, it's an electronic device. I get nervous when I send that stuff through an XRay machine, let alone let it sit in a microwave with the power on, even for a few seconds. That's just insane.

Oh, and as for the "Alt+F4" "tip", as you might notice from my username, I don't run Windows; but thanks for ASSuming that EVERYONE does, you insensitive clod. ;-)

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[bryan1945]

You can use a microwave as well - it's a bit faster.

An ax is my preferred method of panel removal. Also, I suck at my job...

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[lwsimon]

I was attemping a gentle *whoosh*, but I see it didn't work.

The point of putting the iPad in the microwave was to "fix" it by destroying it. See? It's not nearly so funny when it's spelled out like that ;(

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[JonJ]

Oh, and as for the "Alt+F4" "tip", as you might notice from my username, I don't run Windows; but thanks for ASSuming that EVERYONE does, you insensitive clod. ;-)

That's ok, on the Mac it's cmd+w :)

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[JonJ]

I work for an authorized Mac sales and service center; our Mac specialist had to use a heat gun to take the screen/glass off on a Macbook Air.

Really? Unless you're in china/india wherever they send their parts for repair, you'd replace the whole display unit. There's not one single AASP that removes the display with a heatgun.

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[greed]

Even some speakers are assembled this way; I've got a pair of Logitech V20 USB-powered speakers that failed. Thinking, "I'm not bad with a soldering iron and test probe", I took out the 4 screws... that merely serve to hold the case together while the adhesive sets. 5 minutes with a spudger finally cracked the case open.

(Once inside, I could see why they glued it shut--well, aside from the obvious "buzz" prevention--the PCB manufacturing is horrible. Really, really bad: uneven layering of the solder mask I could forgive, but all of the through-hole soldering could serve as a textbook photo of a "cold solder joint". And there's either flux residue or something worse on the power filter cap. It reminds me of my soldering... from when I was 10 and had no idea what I was doing.)

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Yeah, I don't recall as much brouhaha as this when the Palm V came out.

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[1_brown_mouse]

Really? I did not know the aluminium was that thin on the MacBook Air. Good to know.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=107010828

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[BasilBrush]

There's quite a lot of "I think"s and "I don't know if"s in that link you gave. I'm not sure I'd be putting my valuable gadget in a microwave on the basis of that.

And my first thought would be about the thickness of the Wifi antenna, not the case. And the screen, given that you're going to have to leave the lid open to let the microwaves get to the screen surround where the glue is.

But please feel free to experiment, and to post the photos afterwards.

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[segin]

And not running Windows does not automagically invalidate the Alt+F4 thing. A number of X11 window managers have that keystroke bound to the usual command, or can be bound that way by user config.

Re:Sounds like an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air

[macs4all]

And not running Windows does not automagically invalidate the Alt+F4 thing. A number of X11 window managers have that keystroke bound to the usual command, or can be bound that way by user config.

Sorry, I don't use X11 unless absolutely forced to. When I see "Alt+[anything]", I immediately think "Windows". And so do the vast majority of computer-users.

BTW, love your sig! I thought for years that it was "just me" that thought that C++ was a ridiculous language, that didn't deserve to share an alphabetic designation with the mighty C; but after years of reflection, I'm with Sir Linus on this one! I just wish it would die the death it so richly deserves; so it will stop being a fucking bullet-point on job requirements!

fucktards

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever seen somebody watching a two hour movie on ipad? It's a sight to behold. TWO HOURS of holding it in your one hand.

Also, did they find any keyboard in the 'guts'? I guess not. I have tried my hands on this newfangled touchscreen keyboards, and boy, do they suck.

The point I am making here is - tablets do not function as a useful tool except for the guys who scan your creditcards with a handholding device (and for similar purpose). But who am I to reason with retards, fucktards and fanbois?

Re:fucktards

[arcite]

OK but.... wirelessly sending the movie form your iPad to your hi-def TV is decidedly more cool and useful.

Re:fucktards

[UnknowingFool]

Have you ever seen somebody watching a two hour movie on ipad? It's a sight to behold. TWO HOURS of holding it in your one hand.

Have you ever seen somebody watching a two hour movie on a laptop? It's a sight to behold. TWO HOURS of holding it in your two hands. Or someone reading a book. Hours and hours of never moving or shifting and just keeping that thing suspended at arms length the entire time. ;)

tablets do not function as a useful tool except for the guys who scan your creditcards with a handholding device (and for similar purpose). But who am I to reason with retards, fucktards and fanbois?

You're right. And 15 million people who've bought an iPad are completely wrong. And the millions more who bought/may buy Android tablets. Why can't these people see that tablets is ill suited to your needs and thus they should never get one?

Re:fucktards

[somersault]

Yep, my flatmate did this even though he was sitting in front of his 40" TV, and has HDMI out on his iPad dock..

Re:fucktards

[Anonymous Coward]

TWO HOURS of holding it in your one hand.

One hand?

Exactly what kind of movies were these people watching?

Re:fucktards

[S.O.B.]

Have you ever seen somebody watching a two hour movie on ipad? It's a sight to behold. TWO HOURS of holding it in your one hand.

You know you can hold it with two hands...unless you're watching porn. If the people you saw were watching porn then I guess that was a sight to behold.

Re:fucktards

[Anonymous Coward]

In fairness, I know a lot of people who have bought ipads and now don't know what to do with them once they've gotten over the whole "it's cool" factor.
Tablets don't really replace anything or particularly bring anything new to the world. I've been tempted by getting an android tablet for watching films in bed, though. Can see it being useful for such but again, not a new thing.

Re:fucktards

[Anonymous Coward]

What percentage of those 15 million people had genuine needs to be fulfilled by the iPad, researched it and similar products, comparing specifications and capabilities, before finally deciding that it would provide the most value to them?

Re:fucktards

[Anonymous Coward]

We have these things called 'stands', which you lean the tablet up against.
Both hands free! With a tiny bit of creativity, one could also use a desk, table, or wall in such a way as to act as a stand as well.

Around 50 years ago we also invented these things called 'keyboards', and while you need a specific type of keyboard that has only existed for about a decade to connect it to a tablet, these keyboards do provide a better experience with massive data input.

For iPad specifically, there is a tiny adapter you can buy with a USB port on it.
For Android tablets, they typically come with a USB port on the side, though you might still need a mini-to-usb-A adapter depending on what port it has built in.

Then you can use any keyboard invented in the last 15 years or so.

I realize you personally don't care, but this is for others who might read and believe what you have to say.

Re:fucktards

[UnknowingFool]

If you are going to buy a product without really having a purpose for it, that's on you. It doesn't mean that others bought it with no use intended. Personally I've seen people buy very expensive computers and only use it for a few months because they were excited to get on the Interweb. I haven't bought a tablet because I don't feel right now that the expense is justified. I could see how I would use it though. I see it primarily to replace laptops for basic usages like web surfing, email, etc. I don't see it replacing laptops to do serious work like proposals, coding, etc. At least not yet.

Re:fucktards

[UnknowingFool]

The problem with everything you said is your basic assumption that 15 million people would do exactly as you do. They're not you. Some people might have said "ooh shiney" and bought one. The vast majority of people I see that have them are using them. Some are playing games. Some are watching movies. I saw one person showing some data to his boss and his boss slicing through the data. I've seen one used at a 10K run where the company in charge of tracking the runners was using it to show runner their times and splits. Now they could have printed all of that and posted on the side of a van or something but the owner told me having the iPad meant he could carry two less things: a printer and paper.

As for comparing specifications, iPad competitors have started to be released in the last six months; however many people consider only the Xoom to be the first serious competitor. As far as research goes I think it would have been quite simple. There was the iPad which they could get easily and other products which had negatives and they couldn't really get.

Re:fucktards

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, Spaniards sold mirrors to native Americans and charged them all the gold, just because mirrors were shiny. Notice any similarity?

So you're telling me ignorance is bliss? Of course, for apple. "15 million are completely wrong"? Perhaps you should ask all Hitler followers before trying to convince us with statistics.

Your logic is flawed, but many people will buy into the iPad because it's shiny and "cool", not because it has an actual functionality. And because many don't know what they want.

Re:fucktards

[Culture20]

The vast majority of people I see that have them are using them.

How many people continue to carry something they never use? Maybe you see people who own one but leave it on the computer desk?

Re:fucktards

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been tempted by getting an android tablet for watching films in bed

Why not put a TV in the bedroom?

Re:fucktards

[UnknowingFool]

And maybe millions of people buy computers and leave them to collect dust at home. I don't know. But the implied assumption was that many of the 15 million units are just sitting idle and they don't serve some sort of need and were not purchased for a need. I see lots of them where I go. So in my sampling they are being used.

Re:fucktards

[Karlt1]

How many people continue to carry something they never use? Maybe you see people who own one but leave it on the computer desk?

Good thing we have facts.....

http://www.mediabistro.com/thinkmobile/study-shows-ipad-usage-increases-over-time_b8613

Re:fucktards

[UnknowingFool]

Your logic is flawed, but many people will buy into the iPad because it's shiny and "cool", not because it has an actual functionality. And because many don't know what they want.

Your logic is that since you don't have any use for it no one does. Thus everyone is you.

Re:fucktards

[MysteriousPreacher]

"Have you ever seen somebody watching a two hour movie on ipad? It's a sight to behold. TWO HOURS of holding it in your one hand."

No. One-armed people get creeped out if I stand watching them for two hours.

Re:fucktards

[Anonymous Coward]

What percentage of those 15 million people had genuine needs to be fulfilled by the iPad, researched it and similar products, comparing specifications and capabilities, before finally deciding that it would provide the most value to them?

According to return rates, 2% of iPad buyers and 16% of Galaxy Tab buyers (though there far less of them).

Re:fucktards

[517714]

But who am I to reason with retards, fucktards and fanbois?

Nearly their equal?

The primary functionality of the iPad is moving money from the consumers' pockets to the manufacturer's. This a characteristic shared by virtually all luxury items, regardless of who the manufacturer is. Challenging others' use of discretionary income definitely earns you the first two of the three epithets.

Re:fucktards

[Anonymous Coward]

People buy jewelry or Rolex and brands just to look cool, still, no actual functionality. And those are more than 15 millions. Diamonds have no actual usefulness on a ring, they are not used to cut something or anything. Yet, many woman use them.

Re:fucktards

[macs4all]

Hey, Spaniards sold mirrors to native Americans and charged them all the gold, just because mirrors were shiny. Notice any similarity?

No.

Re:fucktards

[UnknowingFool]

People buy jewelry or Rolex and brands just to look cool, still, no actual functionality. And those are more than 15 millions. Diamonds have no actual usefulness on a ring, they are not used to cut something or anything. Yet, many woman use them.

So all those millions of people including the hundreds of people I have personally witnessed just take out their iPads and do nothing with them? That's rather odd because I have personally seen them play games, play media, email, etc. Also I've seen people do work on them. One person was showing his boss some data and his boss was slicing through the data with gestures. I've been to a 10K/30K run where the company in charge of tracking the runners were showing the times and splits to the runners and other people on an iPad. "It shows Stephanie was last tagged at the 10K mark 20 minutes ago.

Again you are equating everyone in world to you and since you don't really have a use for it; therefore, ergo, no one could possibly use it. You can't seem to get over the idea that everyone is different. It would be equating the fact that I personally don't use a GPS device thus Garmin/Tom Tom should never sell one to anyone else.

Re:fucktards

[E IS mC(Square)]

Right. because you know, only ipad (or tablets) can do that...

Re:fucktards

[node 3]

Who says it has to completely replace something? Or has to bring new capabilities?

The iPad has replaced my need for a notebook. This is huge. Multitouch is a new way to interact with a computer. All the specific tasks tablets can do are essentially the same as with a traditional PC, but some tasks are much better suited for touch. GarageBand is one very good example of this. Even web browsing is better in multitouch.

But the most telling thing about your post is you start out saying that iPads or tablets in general aren't very useful (people don't know how to use their iPods (really?), people buy these things because "it's cool", that tablets don't do anything that other devices can do), then say you are tempted to buy an Android tablet. That sums up right there that regerdless of whether "new" or not, iPads are compelling products. And at well over 15 million sold in less than a year, it's hard to fathom how this was even a question in the first place.

Re:fucktards

[node 3]

What percentage of those 15 million people had genuine needs to be fulfilled by the iPad, researched it and similar products, comparing specifications and capabilities, before finally deciding that it would provide the most value to them?

Had they bought an Android tablet, would you have derided them for not having a "genuine need" for one, or for not doing some arbitrary level of research? Or is it just that they have different needs and desires than you, so they must be stupid or otherwise irresponsibly frivolous?

Besides, who are you that people need to justify their purchases to you anyway?

Re:fucktards

[narcc]

Even web browsing is better in multitouch.

What does multitouch bring to web browsing? That is, how does multitouch make web browsing "better"?

I doubt that your tablet would let you maintain the same level of Apple shilling you do on Slashdot -- touchscreen keyboards are horrible.

Re:fucktards

[narcc]

Had they bought an Android tablet, would you have derided them for not having a "genuine need" for one

Why not? I certainly would. Tablets are still useless for anything other than dicking-around. They're toys -- not tools.

While there are uses for portable/handheld computers, other devices much better suited to specific tasks have long existed. 10 years ago I worked on a project that coupled a barcode scanner with an ipaq for warehouse use -- what that seems antiquated now, it's still better fit (lighter and tougher) than a 10" tablet. Telxon has a number of handheld products for remote data collection which a tablet computer would be a much worse fit.

If you can find a need (not a want) that is best filled by iPad-style tablets, then feel free to share. A good number of other slashdot users are legitimately interested.

Re:fucktards

[macs4all]

We have these things called 'stands', which you lean the tablet up against. Both hands free! With a tiny bit of creativity, one could also use a desk, table, or wall in such a way as to act as a stand as well.

Around 50 years ago we also invented these things called 'keyboards', and while you need a specific type of keyboard that has only existed for about a decade to connect it to a tablet, these keyboards do provide a better experience with massive data input.

For iPad specifically, there is a tiny adapter you can buy with a USB port on it. For Android tablets, they typically come with a USB port on the side, though you might still need a mini-to-usb-A adapter depending on what port it has built in.

Then you can use any keyboard invented in the last 15 years or so.

I realize you personally don't care, but this is for others who might read and believe what you have to say.

It's even easier than that for the iPad: Just use any bluetooth keyboard. No adapter needed.

Re:fucktards

[narcc]

t's even easier than that for the iPad: Just use any bluetooth keyboard

Great, so you get a stand and a bluetooth keyboard and now your tablet becomes ... ... an expensive yet drastically underpowered netbook, broken into three pieces, and requires two chargers.

Tablets are the future?

Re:fucktards

[node 3]

Even web browsing is better in multitouch.

What does multitouch bring to web browsing? That is, how does multitouch make web browsing "better"?

You interact directly with the page, no mouse or keyboard in between you and the content. That makes it much more enjoyable, to me at least. You may be different. If so, no big deal. Don't get an iPad if you don't want, but don't act like people who buy them are trendy fools tricked by "coolness", only to discover the device is not terribly useful, as the person I was replying to did.

I doubt that your tablet would let you maintain the same level of Apple shilling you do on Slashdot

I'm giving my opinion. Just because it's not yours doesn't make me a shill. The only reason I post so much about Apple stuff here is that there is so much assholery here on Slashdot about Apple. I don't care if people don't like Apple or their products, but Apple on Slashdot is like Democrats on Fox News.

touchscreen keyboards are horrible.

I don't recall ever typing so much while using the web to care enough that the keyboard isn't as good as a physical keyboard. And if I did, I could just use any bluetooth or USB keyboard.

Re:fucktards

[node 3]

If you can find a need (not a want) that is best filled by iPad-style tablets, then feel free to share. A good number of other slashdot users are legitimately interested.

I'm not sure why you think people should feel the need to justify their purchases to you. If you don't see the need, hooray for you. You're starting from a specific point of view with different needs and desires. You say I have to provide a "need (not a want)". Do you have a "need (not a want)" for running Linux (if you do)? Or a netbook instead of a tablet? Or a "need (not a want)" for a portable computer in the first place? Do you only buy things if they are a "need (not a want)"? I bet your desktop LCD is larger than what you specifically *need*. If you have dual monitors, that's even more true. Does your printer print in color? Do you actually *need* color? Shouldn't you just use a B&W laser printer? But then, who am I to suggest you justify your choices to me?

Tablets are still useless for anything other than dicking-around. They're toys -- not tools.

First off, "dicking around" is 90% of what people do on the computer. What do you think you're doing right now? You're definitely not doing something that requires a "tool" of any sort that isn't basically a "toy". (I'm using quotes because it's a stupid distinction meant to belittle anything the speaker doesn't find useful)

With an iPad, I can leave my notebook at home. Maybe that means I don't need a "tool" away from home, although I've done plenty of "tool" things with my iPad, including offloading and sharing of raw files from my dSLR while on vacation. I definitely could have done this with a notebook or a netbook, but why? The iPad is much more convenient.

But then, like I said, I have no need to justify myself to you. If you don't find an iPad (or tablet in general) to be useful, that's fine. I don't mind you presenting your opinion. I only ask you quit acting like *your* opinion is objective fact and anyone else with a different opinion should feel any need or desire whatsoever to defend theirs to you.

Re:fucktards

[narcc]

How can you say so much and still not answer a simple question?

Ah there it is: You use it to copy and share files from your digital camera while on vacation.

My phone does that too. It also makes calls and fits in a pocket. But if you think that your tablet is still "more convenient" so be it. Enjoy carting that around.

Re:fucktards

[narcc]

don't act like people who buy them are trendy fools tricked by "coolness"

All I asked was how multitouch made web browsing easier.

You've failed yet again to answer my very simple question. (Regarding your non-answer: touch != mutitouch)

You'd think with replies as long as yours, you could manage to address my questions.

The only reason I post so much about Apple stuff here is that there is so much assholery here on Slashdot about Apple

I agree. Most of it is from people like Node 3 -- that guy has way too much time on his hands.

don't care if people don't like Apple or their products

Apparently you do.

I don't recall ever typing so much while using the web to care enough that the keyboard isn't as good as a physical keyboard.

If you've typed even half of your most recent posts on a touch-screen keyboard then I can't argue. It apparently works for you. Congratulations, you're in a lucky minority.

Re:fucktards

[crossword.bob]

Why not? I certainly would. Tablets are still useless for anything other than dicking-around. They're toys -- not tools.

I think I must be using mine wrong; I seem to get an awful lot of useful stuff done on it. Maybe it's broken?

If you can find a need (not a want) that is best filled by iPad-style tablets, then feel free to share. A good number of other slashdot users are legitimately interested.

I needed a single device (for portability concerns) that combines at least 2-way orientability (portrait-mode for natural eReading of academic textbooks, landscape for remote desktop work), at least 10" screen (for natural typing in landscape mode) with full screen multitouch capabilities to allow for natural input that involves neither a tiny trackpad or nipple pointer control (both of which I find unusable), and provides gesture-based control (for zooming, scrolling etc., particularly when using a remote desktop)

Do you know of a single non-tablet device which provides all these?

Re:fucktards

[narcc]

Do you know of a single non-tablet device which provides all these?

As a touchscreen is (inexplicably) a requirement, any touchscreen netbook. As an added bonus, it'll also make typing easier.

As you have trouble with fine motor control, I'd recommend that you learn to use keyboard shortcuts -- it'll greatly improve your productivity.

Still, you haven't addressed the question. I guess no one has an answer...

Re:fucktards

[crossword.bob]

Do you know of a single non-tablet device which provides all these?

As a touchscreen is (inexplicably) a requirement, any touchscreen netbook. As an added bonus, it'll also make typing easier.

As you have trouble with fine motor control, I'd recommend that you learn to use keyboard shortcuts -- it'll greatly improve your productivity.

Still, you haven't addressed the question. I guess no one has an answer...

Incorrect, you merely lack the comprehension to see when your question has been answered. This is your style of argument: ask a question, then claim any answer you receive doesn't count. On the other hand, you've not answered my question; a touchscreen netbook is hopeless in portrait more, which was among my requirements.

On top of which, you dismiss (inexplicably) the need for touchscreen, and a convenient input method. Yes, I do indeed have trouble with fine motor control; many people do, and keyboard shortcuts do not replace all pointer interactions.

Re:fucktards

[narcc]

Wow, you're an idiot.

Re:fucktards

[crossword.bob]

LMAO, so the true progression is 1. Ask a question, 2. Claim any answer doesn't count, 3. Call the other guy names when he calls you out on it.

Do let us know if you think you can counter my argument; otherwise go troll elsewhere until you get a clue.

Re:fucktards

[node 3]

It's more convenient than a notebook or a netbook, and it's better than on a phone. Why do you find it so difficult to understand that not everyone is like you? This is a very simple concept.

Re:fucktards

[node 3]

don't act like people who buy them are trendy fools tricked by "coolness"

All I asked was how multitouch made web browsing easier.

You've failed yet again to answer my very simple question. (Regarding your non-answer: touch != mutitouch)

You'd think with replies as long as yours, you could manage to address my questions.

You're being deliberately obtuse. I answered your question. The *multitouch* interface of the iPad removes an abstraction barrier between the user and the content. Just because a non-multitouch touch interface does that (although not nearly as well), does not invalidate my answer.

don't care if people don't like Apple or their products

Apparently you do.

Actually, I don't whatsoever. If you hate Apple and don't want to buy one of their products, I'm perfectly happy for you, and wish you the best with whatever products you do buy. But I do care when you give people shit for liking something you don't. You're a standard arrogant geek who thinks anyone who has a different opinion from you is wrong. I don't tell you what to like, or that you are wrong for liking it. If you want to run a CLI on a netbook, what do I care? If you want to use a TabletPC, good for you. I truly, honestly, and completely don't care. It doesn't harm me in the least, and gives you what you prefer.

On the other hand, if I say that I prefer the iPad to a netbook, you ask me to justify my choices to you. Why is that?

Re:fucktards

[narcc]

What argument? Your incoherent rambling didn't even begin to address my question. This could have something to do with your bizarre idea of what a task is.

Here's a clue: Using your definition, a truck would be considered a task. Sorry, if you're that incompetent, I can't help you.

Re:fucktards

[narcc]

On the other hand, if I say that I prefer the iPad to a netbook, you ask me to justify my choices to you. Why is that?

Why do you feel the need to put words in my mouth?

I never asked you to justify your choice. I only asked you how multitouch made web browsing easier.

You didn't answer that question. Sorry, but you didn't. You answered for touch (Sure, easier if you think so.I personally think it makes things more difficult, especially for small target areas. But that's pure opinion.)

Just because a non-multitouch touch interface does that (although not nearly as well), does not invalidate my answer.

Well, if you think multitouch makes browsing the web easier than regular touch, then I'd say that your answer is quite clearly invalid as it doesn't address the question.

So... how does multitouch make the webbrowsing easier? This isn't a difficult.

Re:fucktards

[narcc]

So the answer is No, you can't think of a need best filled by a tablet.

That's all I asked. Why is it so difficult for you to answer simple questions?

Re:fucktards

[crossword.bob]

Ehm no, I wasn't talking about "tasks"; you just can't read. I was talking about a tablet's job; i.e. its purpose, which is to provide a solution for a range of tasks. Because being the best device for some individual task is irrelevant to a general-purpose device, and hence a dumbass question. One could equally ask for what individual task a netbook is the best suited.

But for all that you pretend nobody's answering your questions, I note you still haven't answered mine. With all the requirements I specified, what device would do the job better than a tablet? As already demonstrated, a touchscreen netbook would not meet the orientability requirement. Want to try again, or go back to evading with puerile insults?

Re:fucktards

[narcc]

you just can't read.

I can't read? You're the one who completely misinterpreted my rather lucid post. Don't blame me for your shortcomings.

As for that other nonsense, I don't care. Though I would like to point out an error you've made:

As already demonstrated, a touchscreen netbook would not meet the orientability requirement

Which is totally untrue. Hybrids, netbooks, laptops, and desktops can all change the screen orientation.

So, yeah, unlike you -- who apparently didn't even understand my very simple question -- I've answered yours. Which is hilarious, as you did your best job to describe a tablet with your play-pretend criteria.

Now go troll someone else. You bore me.

Re:fucktards

[crossword.bob]

you just can't read.

I can't read? You're the one who completely misinterpreted my rather lucid post. Don't blame me for your shortcomings.

I really don't. I blame you for your woefully misplaced sense of superiority.

As for that other nonsense, I don't care. Though I would like to point out an error you've made:

As already demonstrated, a touchscreen netbook would not meet the orientability requirement

Which is totally untrue. Hybrids, netbooks, laptops, and desktops can all change the screen orientation.

And smartphones can run remote desktop and word processing software, but they're not very good at it. A netbook in portrait mode is a kludge. I asked for a device that was better for the task, and that ain't it, no matter how you spin it.

So, yeah, unlike you -- who apparently didn't even understand my very simple question -- I've answered yours. Which is hilarious, as you did your best job to describe a tablet with your play-pretend criteria.

Wrong on all counts. Your question was answered even if you lack the wits to understand that. You failed to come up with a device that meets my requirements better than a tablet. And nope, there's nothing play-pretend about the reasons I chose a tablet over a netbook.

Now go troll someone else. You bore me.

Children have such short attention spans these days.

Re:fucktards

[narcc]

You failed to come up with a device that meets my requirements better than a tablet

Your idiotic little game? Where you DON'T describe the task you want to perform, but the features of the device that you *imagine* will let you best accomplish your as-yet unnamed task?

Honestly, you couldn't be more transparent.

I have better things to do with my time that play your silly little game. If you're not interested in answering my question, them I'm done with you.

Re:fucktards

[crossword.bob]

Your question: "If you can find a need (not a want) that is best filled by iPad-style tablets, then feel free to share."

I described what I needed in a device. Needs aren't restricted to tasks. If you meant to ask for a list of tasks for which a tablet is best suited, that would be more difficult, I would have to concede. My principal uses of my tablet are eReading, remote desktop access, web browsing, e-mail/forum/blog writing. No one of these tasks is best handled by a tablet, and while one could argue that the inclusion of eReading in the list might mark it out in some eyes as the best hybrid device to cover all those tasks, that would be open to interpretation.

But this is why, when you asked for needs, I didn't focus solely on tasks. What tasks a device can perform is only half the story; how it performs them is just as important. Factors like portability, input method, battery life, startup time, efficiency of UI and so on are what for me elevate good tablets far above netbooks or any other ultraportable. My tablet performs each of the above tasks, performs them well, and in addition meets my criteria for each of the above non-task based needs. No other device does so as well.

But that is only speaking for myself; I wouldn't dream of telling you a tablet would suit your own needs more than whatever devices you currently use. I simply ask that others extend me (and the millions of other people whose requirements led them to buy a tablet) the same courtesy.

Re:fucktards

[E IS mC(Square)]

You are banging your head against an itard. Don't expect a logical discussion involving any fact.

Anandtech performance review is more informing

[Shivetya]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4216/apple-ipad-2-gpu-performance-explored-powervr-sgx543mp2-benchmarked

and their review helps as well http://www.anandtech.com/show/4215/apple-ipad-2-benchmarked-dualcore-cortex-a9-powervr-sgx-543mp2

The key items to take away from both are, yeah the cameras suck but this is truly a real upgrade from the iPad. Performance alone puts is ahead of the older model as well as many available tablets. They did find out that the dual core processor is actually running at only 900mhz. While the Xoom pushes more pixels because of its 1280x800 versus 1078x768 the iPad2 pulls far ahead of it, beyond what the pixel count would account for. As for gaming, some games are already taking advantage of the new power, Infinity Blade has been updated and looks fantastic. This brings up the issue, will there be apps sold that are marked iPad2 required?

Better yet, its cheaper than its nearest competition. The only question is, how long before really good Android tablets come along?

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[UnknowingFool]

While the Xoom pushes more pixels because of its 1280x800 versus 1078x768 the iPad2 pulls far ahead of it, beyond what the pixel count would account for.

From what I've read so far about the Xoom is that it's better than other iPad competitors so far but that for an average consumer it still needs a bit of polishing. It functions fine but the little touches aren't there. For example while the Xoom has a higher screen size, it unfortunately has smaller text because the font size in many parts of the OS hasn't been tweaked. For consumers with less than average eyesight, it's a minus. These things can be fixed over time but at the moment, it makes the Xoom seem a bit incomplete.

Better yet, its cheaper than its nearest competition. The only question is, how long before really good Android tablets come along?

Right now it appears that Apple is using every advantage they have to keep the pricing low. A serious competitor can emerge if they are willing to devote a concerted amount of time, effort, and money. Samsung is one such company however they partner and compete with Apple at the same time and can't put together a concerted effort.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly my experience with the Xoom thus far suggests its screen is too high-res. The chipset doesn't have the fillrate to keep up properly.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[qubezz]

Right now it appears that Apple is using every advantage they have to keep the pricing low...

Hi, my name is Steve, welcome to the Apple store and thanks for purchasing the iPad. In order to use your device, you'll need to register with iTunes to ensure a constant flow of money to Apple for apps, music, media, ebooks, etc. Don't worry, e-magazines and such will still be the same price as other websites if they want to get their stuff on your tablet (don't worry that we are taxing your media companies 30% for the privilege of getting through the gatekeeper to your DRM'd locked down device...) Which credit card would you like to register with?

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[Dixie_Flatline]

While you'd expect Android device manufacturers to be slightly ahead of the game because they're on arbitrary release cycles (unlike Apple's apparent 1-year cycle), they can't keep up with Apple on price because of Apple's ability to design the device, pre-order a huge number of the parts, and use the economy of scale to their advantage. I'd suspect that the lag time for an Android device to match the iPad is anywhere from 3 - 9 months. Not only do they have to catch up on the design aspect (mostly; obviously they don't have to be exactly the same), but they might have to wait for component prices to drop enough to make it worth their while. There's only so much loss-leading they can do without completely sabotaging themselves at the moment. It'd be different if they'd hit the market first, but Apple's not ceding that ground easily.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[iluvcapra]

As others have pointed out, Apple really doesn't make any profit from the iTunes business, they just make it available as an inducement to buying iThings -- people want iThings, but they actually want movies, books and videos more, and those things draw people to iThings. They key insight behind the pitching of these devices is the realization that people want content, and an iPod is just an Archos unless you put a store behind it. You can sell on the media you want to iThing owners, as long as you do the whole transaction over the web and don't rely on the platform to do DRM.

I don't know if that justifies the 30% thing, but we'll just see what they can get away with. The dream scenario for Apple is the studios go to the Android media markets, pay lower rates to sell on those, but the "openness" of Android allows the customers to use DRM ripping technology willynilly on the platform, causing the content distros to return to Apple, chastened, swearing never to allow their content on an open platform again. Apple's extracting a high tariff but they provide a protected pipeline, something I'm not sure any Android device will ever do. I'm really curious to see what WebOS does.

The dynamic on the Android phones is similar. If Android users ever begin to systematically circumvent call or SMS billing with VOIP, the phone providers won't play along.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out Apple's financial reports. They make barely any money selling apps. That 30% is mostly the distribution costs. Apple was, and still is, a hardware company.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[macs4all]

Right now it appears that Apple is using every advantage they have to keep the pricing low. A serious competitor can emerge if they are willing to devote a concerted amount of time, effort, and money. Samsung is one such company however they partner and compete with Apple at the same time and can't put together a concerted effort.

Sorry, this has nothing to do with Samsung and Apple "partnering" (which they dont. Apple uses Samsung as a fabrication house for ICs that THEY designed, and a display and flash memory vendor; nothing nearly as grandiose as a "partnership"). You have left out the other half of the equation: Software and Persistance-Of-Vision. Apple has it; Samsung doesn't.

Samsung doesn't really write OS code at anywhere near the complexity-level of iOS (firmware in embedded products doesn't count, nor does rebadging something like Android/Linux), and so will never be able to compete with such a tightly-integrated product like the iPad (and all the other iOS products). Besides, they simply don't have the "vision" to do so. Samsung's products are sometimes very feature-rich and even occasionally, truly innovative, but there's never a "roadmap" of "this product also works with that and that and that" of their other products. They are always too focused on how many of other people's logos they can put on the outside of the box (HDMI! DVD! Blu-Ray! their boxes always trumpet), rather than tying all that stuff together in a way that makes sense to, and is actually useful to, MOST people (which far outnumber slashdot readers), which is one of, if not the most important of, Apple's strengths.

I agree, however, that Samsung DOES have the chip and display fabrication chops to give Apple a run for their money; but that's not the same as being able to produce a product as well-designed in both hardware AND software as is the iPad. And in the end, that's what matters.

BTW, when was the last time that Samsung actually DESIGNED a microcontroller from scratch? They are primarily a FABRICATION house for other people's designs. For the most part, Apple innovates; for the most part, Samsung copies and builds. Big difference.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[UnknowingFool]

Sorry, this has nothing to do with Samsung and Apple "partnering" (which they dont. Apple uses Samsung as a fabrication house for ICs that THEY designed, and a display and flash memory vendor; nothing nearly as grandiose as a "partnership"). You have left out the other half of the equation: Software and Persistance-Of-Vision. Apple has it; Samsung doesn't.

Yes they are not truly partners but Apple simply doesn't drop off a chip design and waits 6 months for Samsung to make millions of them. They have to work with Samsung to have the chips made and on time. As for software, Samsung could complete with Apple, but like I said, it will take time, effort, and money to do so. Samsung could adopt Android, buy an OS like HP did, design their own, etc. They currently do not have that capability today.

BTW, when was the last time that Samsung actually DESIGNED a microcontroller from scratch? They are primarily a FABRICATION house for other people's designs. For the most part, Apple innovates; for the most part, Samsung copies and builds. Big difference.

Samsung is an ARM licensee just like TI and Qualcomm although I think Qualcomm does more low level optimizations. They made Apple's first iPhone chip. Their current generation of chips includes the Samsung Hummingbird which is used on all their Galaxy devices including the Google Nexus S.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, the Apple product is the cheaper one? The world *is* ending...

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[macs4all]

Sorry, this has nothing to do with Samsung and Apple "partnering" (which they dont. Apple uses Samsung as a fabrication house for ICs that THEY designed, and a display and flash memory vendor; nothing nearly as grandiose as a "partnership"). You have left out the other half of the equation: Software and Persistance-Of-Vision. Apple has it; Samsung doesn't.

Yes they are not truly partners but Apple simply doesn't drop off a chip design and waits 6 months for Samsung to make millions of them. They have to work with Samsung to have the chips made and on time.

And your point being? I can tell you've never worked with a Contract Manufacturer. There is a LOT of back-and-forth in ANY project you send to a CM. Any project, any CM.

As for software, Samsung could complete with Apple, but like I said, it will take time, effort, and money to do so. Samsung could adopt Android, buy an OS like HP did, design their own, etc. They currently do not have that capability today.

And by that time, the iPad 5 will be out, with Holographic Gesture Control, Quad-Core 3GHz ARM20 cores and 100-hour battery life.

BTW, when was the last time that Samsung actually DESIGNED a microcontroller from scratch? They are primarily a FABRICATION house for other people's designs. For the most part, Apple innovates; for the most part, Samsung copies and builds. Big difference.

Samsung is an ARM licensee just like TI and Qualcomm although I think Qualcomm does more low level optimizations.

Apple isn't just an ARM licensee, they helped DEVELOP the ARM. There is literally NO ONE on the planet with more ARM experience than Apple.

They made Apple's first iPhone chip.

No, they FABRICATED it. They didn't DEVELOP it. It was those people Apple got from the PASemi acquisition that did the development work. It's the difference between designing a photocopier and operating one.

Their current generation of chips includes the Samsung Hummingbird which is used on all their Galaxy devices including the Google Nexus S.

Again, hardware, but no OS or "Roadmap". So, what's your point, again?

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[macs4all]

Honestly my experience with the Xoom thus far suggests its screen is too high-res. The chipset doesn't have the fillrate to keep up properly.

That doesn't mean the screen is too high-res; it simply means the GPU is too fucking SLOOOOOOOW.

Remember, you can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much display real-estate!

But 1024 X 768 is a perfectly reasonable compromise for a handheld device. If it wasn't, enough people would have bitched (and they haven't) and Apple would have changed it. Having said that, I'm pretty sure that the iPad 3 WILL have more display resolution, but I could be wrong. The iPad's IPS display is stellar, and the cost to manufacture will continue to go down, which will leave more room in the BOM for other things, like more Flash and RAM. Speaking of which, did you notice that the iPad 2 DID have double the RAM? That was a sound engineering decision, due in part to apps like GarageBand needing to keep big arrays in memory, and because of multitasking, not simply a marketing "bullet point". In fact, I don't think that SJ even mentioned that in the iPad 2 Keynote.

Obviously, the Xoom's higher-res display WAS simply a marketing "advantage" to list. But without the GPU and memory bandwidth to back it up, it ends up being a DISadvantage. Nice going, Motorola! Stick to cellphones (which, sometimes, they can't even do those right, either!).

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[UnknowingFool]

Apple isn't just an ARM licensee, they helped DEVELOP the ARM. There is literally NO ONE on the planet with more ARM experience than Apple.

As for ARM experience, your history is off. Apple worked with VLSI and Acorn on ARM. Acorn spun off the design team into a company that later became ARM. Apple had an integral part in the formation of ARM but haven't done much with the company since the formation.

Also considering a dozen companies are ARM licensees, I would fight it hard to believe that no one has more experience than Apple. It is my opinion that Qualcomm has much deeper experience than Apple. For the most part licensees like Apple and TI and Samsung take the core that they get from ARM and build the rest of the system around it. Qualcomm is the only I know that modifies the core for optimization. If you take a look at any dissection of the A4, it clearly shows where the ARM core is located and it appears to be a stock core design with little modification. In the A4 and possible A5, most of Apple's modifications are on everything around the core but not the core itself.

No, they FABRICATED it. They didn't DEVELOP it. It was those people Apple got from the PASemi acquisition that did the development work. It's the difference between designing a photocopier and operating one.

Your timing is off. Apple didn't buy PA Semi until April 2008. The first iPhone was released in June 29, 2007, almost a full year before they acquired PA Semi. Logically Apple would have to be designing the iPhone before June 2007. So somehow PA Semi being owned by Apple designed an ARM chip for Apple two years before they owned them. Not unless Steve Jobs has a time machine. Also PA Semi worked with Power architecture not ARM. From what I recall Apple used a Samsung ARM chip for the original original iPhone (released June 2007), 3G (released June 2008) , and 3GS (released June 2009 and chip designed by Intrinsity). It wasn't until iPhone 4 that they used an A4. I count at least 2 processors which PA Semi could not have possibly designed.

Rumor was it that they didn't fully like the chip in the original iPhone but it was exactly as they specified to Samsung. This was the impetus to acquire PA Semi for general chip design experience and later Intrinsity for ARM experience.

Again, hardware, but no OS or "Roadmap". So, what's your point, again?

You said Samsung never "DESIGNED" chips. I simply corrected you. Samsung like TI and Qualcomm both design and fabricate ARM processors. Apple since the A4 has designed their own processor; however, relied on Samsung and later Intrinisty to design them before the A4. They also acquired Intrinsity back in 2010.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[shutdown -p now]

I own Xoom.

or example while the Xoom has a higher screen size, it unfortunately has smaller text because the font size in many parts of the OS hasn't been tweaked.

I'm pretty sure that's not true. Text size is nice, and font rendering is much better than the usual blurry one so loved by Apple (to my eyes anyway - this is of course subjective).

The thing about Xoom, though, is that the software is clearly beta quality. I stopped counting how many times Market has crashed on me, and it still has no way to rate apps (if you call support, they'll give directions which seem to imply that their script is about some completely different UI). Browser occasionally crashes when you change orientation, and is extremely slow on some websites - most notably, Slashdot, and especially when typing a comment. Overall it feels pretty sluggish, and I'm certain it's a software problem - because my Nexus One, updated to stock 2.3, runs faster on significantly slower hardware.

I've no doubt that it will get better, just as Android on phones did, but for now it really is a "pray it'll get better" device. I didn't return it only because it's a "Google experience device" - meaning that Moto didn't fuck with the UI, it's all stock Google stuff, and Google is the one pushing updates; so this thing will be the one to get updates first, generally speaking, and not delayed or blocked by the operator. It also means that it's unlockable/rootable by design, so even when it stops being officially updated, XDA to the rescue!

Ultimately, it's because I trust Google to fix the most glaring issues - eventually - and am willing to wait with what I have now. But I would absolutely not advise a non-techie to buy one right now.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[shutdown -p now]

Honestly my experience with the Xoom thus far suggests its screen is too high-res. The chipset doesn't have the fillrate to keep up properly.

I'm pretty sure it's software. I mean, Firefox on Xoom scrolls pages noticeably faster than the stock browser - smooth enough that I don't see any stuttering. Same for a few other apps. Pushing pixels is not a problem, software not drawing fast enough because it's doing something else is a problem.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[Anonymous Coward]

The dynamic on the Android phones is similar. If Android users ever begin to systematically circumvent call or SMS billing with VOIP, the phone providers won't play along.

Very old-school thinking there. Where I am located in asia, several telcos have realised that as there were early government price controls on traditional calls and sms, it makes more business sense to exploit data over 3G. In that situation they will gladly help you install skype on your android phone/tablet, make a low-data bundle (say... 500Mb per month), subsidize the phone/tablet, and rake it in over the excess data charging.

The trick to defeat this is easy - most of the time they 'forget' to lock the device to a carrier, so if your data deal is finished - pop in a pre-paid data sim.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[macs4all]

Apple isn't just an ARM licensee, they helped DEVELOP the ARM. There is literally NO ONE on the planet with more ARM experience than Apple.

As for ARM experience, your history is off. Apple worked with VLSI and Acorn on ARM. Acorn spun off the design team into a company that later became ARM. Apple had an integral part in the formation of ARM but haven't done much with the company since the formation.

Also considering a dozen companies are ARM licensees, I would fight it hard to believe that no one has more experience than Apple.

Find an earlier ARM device than the Newton, which started development in 1987, and we'll talk. Especially considering that Qualcomm didn't even exist until 1984, and didn't get its first patent until 1990.

It is my opinion that Qualcomm has much deeper experience than Apple.

But the facts disagree with your opinion, sorry.

For the most part licensees like Apple and TI and Samsung take the core that they get from ARM and build the rest of the system around it. Qualcomm is the only I know that modifies the core for optimization.

And you've seen the internals of the A4 and A5 chips to know that for a fact, right? Idiot, and an arrogant idiot, at that.

If you take a look at any dissection of the A4, it clearly shows where the ARM core is located and it appears to be a stock core design with little modification.

Now you're changing your position to say that there IS modification? Which is it, fucktard?

In the A4 and possible A5, most of Apple's modifications are on everything around the core but not the core itself.

No, they FABRICATED it. They didn't DEVELOP it. It was those people Apple got from the PASemi acquisition that did the development work. It's the difference between designing a photocopier and operating one.

Your timing is off. Apple didn't buy PA Semi until April 2008. The first iPhone was released in June 29, 2007, almost a full year before they acquired PA Semi. Logically Apple would have to be designing the iPhone before June 2007. So somehow PA Semi being owned by Apple designed an ARM chip for Apple two years before they owned them. Not unless Steve Jobs has a time machine.

I didn't say a thing about the original iPhone. It did not use the A4 or A5; but rather a much more "stock" ARM SoC (FABRICATED by Samsung). I think it might have still been slightly customized; but not a from-the-ground-up design like the A4/A5.

Also PA Semi worked with Power architecture not ARM.

That is, until Apple bought them... PASemi was purchased primarily because of their rich experience in LOW POWER (as in current consumption, not "Power" as in PPC) chip design. In fact, they probably had to play catch-up when switching gears to ARM. But engineers of that calibre are usually able to (and obviously did) transfer their special knowledge to another platform. And considering that ARM implementations are often designed with low-power in mind (the TI OMAP microcontrollers being especially current-miserly, IIRC), all the PASemi people had to do was to make sure the rest of the SoC in the A4/A5 was just as frugal on power as the ARM core already was.

From what I recall Apple used a Samsung ARM chip for the original original iPhone (released June 2007), 3G (released June 2008) , and 3GS (released June 2009 and chip designed by Intrinsity). It wasn't until iPhone 4

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[narcc]

Speaking of which, did you notice that the iPad 2 DID have double the RAM?

It has a rather underwhelming 512mb or RAM -- I still don't think Apple has officially released that rather embarrassing spec.

I'm pretty sure that the iPad 3 WILL have more display resolution

That's what everyone was saying about the iPad 2. You know, before we were told that specs don't matter.

and because of multitasking

Someday iOS will multitask as well as windows 3.1 -- I don't know that anyone would consider what it does now "multitasking".

But without the GPU and memory bandwidth to back it up, it ends up being a DISadvantage. Nice going, Motorola! Stick to cellphones

The XOOM has it's share of problems -- but that fact does not make the iPad 2 any less of a disappointment. I know that Steve told us that the specs don't matter (with the iPad 2's specs so low, it's no surprise) and that the ever nebulous "experience" is what matters most -- but iOS is showing serious signs of age. The "experience" users get is of using an antiquated OS.

Android has a few warts, but they'll get ironed out in time as the OS matures. I doubt that Apple is going to offer any serious UI improvements in the next release of iOS -- leaving it's users even further behind the curve.

If you're interested in what a modern tablet OS looks like check out RIMs PlayBook. It'll be out in a few weeks and really puts other tablet offerings to shame in terms of UI and overall "experience". Apple had better take notice -- other tablet manufactures certainly will.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[Anonymous Coward]

How long until the really good Android ANYTHING comes along? Android fucking sucks.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[juasko]

Anyone with a link?

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[juasko]

Apple was involved with ARM to bring out Newton, Newton was the sole reason why Apple got involved with ARM.

Just look at how tight Apple always been with their cpu makers. Before with Motorola, Then the alliance Apple IBM and Motorola to bring out the PPC cpu. And now together with intel. I'm quite sure Apple wouldn't have switched to x86 before the Core platform from intel. Which gave some real improvements to the x86 family. Windows users with 64 bit windows, benefit. not 32 bit win users.

So for sure, Apple wasn't the biggest contributor to the cpu designing of the ARM. But they tightly worked with them to solve requirements that Apple had. Apple had then a product in view for where to use the ARM cpu. For sure they worked tightly with the designers.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[juasko]

Sorry while i agree, with you on most parts,

A4/A5 is not redesigned from the ground-up. Heck the A4/A5 is not even a cpu by definition, they do include CPU(s). The A4/A5 are rather SoC, System On a Chip.

But true Apple is the company that historically has most experience with ARM. Though I believe much of that knowledge died with the Newton. And Apple is again starting up their ARM knowledge.

The A4/A5 are custom chips built for Apple accordingly to Apples specs. But Apple isn't creating their own silicon, they are customizing it. Which is the same as saying they designed the A4/A5, but not the same as to say they designed the Cortex A9 that is included in their design.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[juasko]

#1, It's not embarrassing if it's enough. Just as in 1000 hp on a 2 wheel drive car, is silly, 500 is enough. 4WD and 1000 hp makes more sense.

#2, Specs still don't matter, usability does.

#3, multitasking in iOS. Well I find iOS multitasking principals, smarter. But I would not call it ready, so yes your point is taken.

#4, I agree, iOS UI is too simple to handle all it does. I'm surprised to say this, but WP7 might just have a better approach to handle your data. Android doesn't cut it, same as iOS on that part. Not sure about WebOS, I would like to test it. No idea of RIM, never seen a device from them. Just heard they're good at text input.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[juasko]

Well, how is that news to you, Apple hardware prices has been really competitive for a while now. That includes the MacPro1,1 I bought back in September 2006. It was a bargain, compared to what it would have been and costed to build similar computer myself. Only thing that home built computer would have given me better was a better gfx card. To same cost. But man the interior design of that MacPro simply overshadowed the better gfx card on a dito PC system.

Last time i had as simple computer to get to the inner workings of was with the Apple LC III. With that one not one component needed a screw driver. Assembling and disassembling an LC III needed only a couple of fingers on a hand. I was amazed of that pizza box computer design.

Still the MacPro is a dream to use when you swap components often.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[Anonymous Coward]

As others have pointed out, Apple really doesn't make any profit from the iTunes business

That's BS, and you know it. If Apple can't make money from being by far the biggest online music seller, you know something is very wrong.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[UnknowingFool]

Yes Apple probably worked tightly with ARM for Newton just as they did with Samsung for their iPhone chip and others for their PPC processors. I was disputing that Apple has more experience than anyone else designing ARM chips.

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[UnknowingFool]

Find an earlier ARM device than the Newton, which started development in 1987, and we'll talk. Especially considering that Qualcomm didn't even exist until 1984, and didn't get its first patent until 1990.

My point was never that Qualcomm was the first ARM designer. My point was I consider them to have wider experience. If you haven't been paying attention a lot has happened with ARM since 1984. Apple really has not been involved with ARM much besides the Newton and now the A4/A5.

But the facts disagree with your opinion, sorry.

Qualcomm designs ARM chips for many other companies and businesses. They also design for their own products. Their markets include smartphones and other mobile devices. Apple only designs chips for their own products. Which company do you think has wider industry experience? Which other facts would you like to discuss? These are simple facts.

And you've seen the internals of the A4 and A5 chips to know that for a fact, right? Idiot, and an arrogant idiot, at that.

Before you start calling people names, maybe you should have you clicked on that link where it shows the internals of an A4 and the Cortex-A8 core. If that wasn't enough for you, there's always google where others have dissected the A4 chip.

Now you're changing your position to say that there IS modification? Which is it, fucktard?

Perhaps you should read up on details like SoC and the ARM architecture before you blow a gasket. Apple like other ARM licensees does not change the ARM core they licensed from ARM. Their modifications are around the rest of the system. In fact they can't do so contractually. Their licenses does not cover that modification. Qualcomm is one of the few companies that does modify the core because they are one of the few licensees that have the ability to do so contractually.

I didn't say a thing about the original iPhone. It did not use the A4 or A5; but rather a much more "stock" ARM SoC (FABRICATED by Samsung). I think it might have still been slightly customized; but not a from-the-ground-up design like the A4/A5.

I said: They made Apple's first iPhone chip.
You said: No, they FABRICATED it. They didn't DEVELOP it. It was those people Apple got from the PASemi acquisition that did the development work. It's the difference between designing a photocopier and operating one.

Either you clearly don't remember what you posted above or you're lying about what you said because you've been proven wrong. None of Apple's first 3 iPhone chips were designed by Apple. Samsung and Intrinsity designed them. In some way you might argue the last one was Apple's because they later bought Intrinsity and thus owned the rights to designs but you'd have to know details about the contract between Apple, Samsung, and Intrinsity to determine who owns what part of the design.

And two (A4 and A5) that they could have. So, what's your point?

My point is that you were wrong but rather than gracefully accepted that fact you rather call people names.

I never said "never". I said they were PRIMARILY a fabrication house when it comes to complex semiconductors. Big difference between "never" and "not often".

That's not what you said. You said above:
"BTW, when was the last time that Samsung actually DESIGNED a microcontroller from scratch? They are primarily a FABRICATION house for other people's designs. For the most part, Apple innovates; for the most part, Samsung copies and builds. Big difference."
That first statement implies that Samsung does not design their own chips and has not done so in a while. Their current generation is the Hummingbird but

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[macs4all]

Find an earlier ARM device than the Newton, which started development in 1987, and we'll talk. Especially considering that Qualcomm didn't even exist until 1984, and didn't get its first patent until 1990.

My point was never that Qualcomm was the first ARM designer. My point was I consider them to have wider experience. If you haven't been paying attention a lot has happened with ARM since 1984. Apple really has not been involved with ARM much besides the Newton and now the A4/A5.

That YOU know of, that is...

How far back do you think the iPhone/iPad development goes? Well, whatever you guess, add about 3 or 4 years. Remember, Apple actually developed a tablet internally FIRST; then put THAT project on hold to start development of what would become the iPhone.

Being a 30-year embedded developer myself, with several successful industrial product designs under my belt, I would estimate that, if Apple actually ever left ARM development, it was only for about 7 or 8 years, considering the Newton, et al., were not discontinued until Jobs came back in 1994. I would be really surprised to find that the beginnings of what we now call the iPhone/iPad were started any later than 2002-2003 at the latest.

There were also some failed/never-released products, like the first Apple TV (in 1995?), that I think either never were released, or were released in a very small quantities. Who knows if those embedded devices used ARM? I would submit that at least some of them probably did.

But in the end, both Apple and Qualcomm have the engineering talent on board to actually, really, design a CPU from scratch. Neither of them actually do; because it is much easier to license the ARM IP, and then do what they need. And without being actually privvy to their internal engineering departments (which I don't think either of us are!), anything else is pure speculation on both our parts.

But the facts disagree with your opinion, sorry.

Qualcomm designs ARM chips for many other companies and businesses. They also design for their own products. Their markets include smartphones and other mobile devices. Apple only designs chips for their own products. Which company do you think has wider industry experience? Which other facts would you like to discuss? These are simple facts.

The fact that Qualcomm rents-out its design team to other firms doesn't necessarily give them wider experience. Apple has enough projects that will never see the light of day (yes, speculating; but pretty "sound" speculating) that pretty much negates Qualcomm's R&D rent-boy status. Oh, and BTW, I would be willing to bet that, when it comes to "breadth" of projects, that Apple probably designs more different TYPES of products than does Qualcomm. Qualcomm is all about communications designs (and they do a fucking fantastic job at those, which isn't surprising, given their history); Apple designs a wide variety of embedded products. Much wider. And it is designing for DIFFERENT applications that brings depth (and breadth) of experience; not just tweaking chip designs that have already been incrementally improved with a single application, communications, in mind. Understand?

And you've seen the internals of the A4 and A5 chips to know that for a fact, right? Idiot, and an arrogant idiot, at that.

Before you start calling people names, maybe you should have you clicked on that link where it shows the internals of an A4 and the Cortex-A8 core. If that wasn't enough for you, there's always google where others have dissected the A4 chip.

First, I apologize for my intemperate language. However, the fact that the A4's Cortex A8 core is relatively "stock" does NOT mean that Apple COULDN'T have modified it; all it really means is that they were satisfied ENOUGH that i

Re:Anandtech performance review is more informing

[UnknowingFool]

I agree with you that Apple is probably one of the few companies that can probably made fundamental changes to the design of ARM. And you are right that wider experience doesn't necessarily mean better. I can't find the link but I did read somewhere that Qualcomm can modify the ARM core but they pay a much heftier license to do so. That's why Qualcomm's chips are ARM based but do not have the exact ARM version (like CortexA8) anywhere on them whereas it is clear when other ARM licensees use the CortexA8 .

Yes you are right that Apple could be in negotiation with ARM or doing a great deal of design work in the background. However I don't think it would be so at least the A6. See it has never been Apple's modus operandi to make large changes all at once. They move in small but concrete steps. They built out their iPhone/iPod ecosystem piece by piece over several years. If Apple were to design their own chip from the bottom up, I expect that they would do so by making small changes first.

There is a rumor that I haven't confirmed that Apple has signed a contract with TSMC and that's where the dropping Samsung ideas came from. It could be that Apple just wants two different fabs to spread the risk out or to overcome supply problems. After all having only one supplier of a critical part is risky. However like the whole iPod ecosystem, Apple couldn't have brought on another fab today if they hadn't taken the steps (years in the making) of slowly separating themselves from Samsung.

I think this is a lesson Apple learned from Motorola and IBM. Apple had to rely on them both for processor improvements but unfortunately Apple was just a small customer to them even though Apple was ordering millions of chips a year. Apple couldn't get the improvements they needed like a suitable mobile successor to the G4. And they were stuck until they took the drastic step of switching processors.

ample?

[Anonymous Coward]

"ample 512MB of RAM"??

Re:ample?

[Sponge Bath]

That should be enough for anyone.

Re:ample?

[EnsilZah]

Sure, my desktop computer has 24 times the amount of RAM but... Wait, my desktop has 24 times the amount of RAM? Holy crap!

Re:ample?

[juasko]

Isn't it amazing, how much the iPad can do with even just 256MB of ram, while desktops won't even start well. Still most people don't do much more with desktops than they would do with an iPad.

Programmers you need to go back to the -80 and optimize.

What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[Anonymous Coward]

Realy?

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's plenty if you don't use Windows!

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[somersault]

It's ample because whoever wrote the summary has to keep trying to pretend to themselves that it's competitive to justify the purchase of their little fashion accessory. My phone has 512MB RAM.

I'd consider 1GB to be "ample" for a lightweight device right about now. My netbook is currently using 530MB RAM with only Chrome open, and usage when I have Chrome, a text editor, media player, IM and email clients open tends to be around 700-800MB.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[Anonymous Coward]

My netbook, that I'm typing this on, is running 512mb. I could upgrade it, but I haven't found a reason to.

Aspire one running xubuntu.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[somersault]

I'm sure it's fine if you're happy to wait on swap all the time.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for your apples to oranges comparison

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[dagamer34]

What is the difference between a phone and an iPad? Only screen resolution (and it's about 20%). That's about it.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[somersault]

The difference is that my phone came out last summer, and only has a single core processor. It is indeed a mini tablet, but I really expected more of the iPad 2 since it is starting to see stiffer competition. I'm considering purchasing a Xoom myself, it would be a rather nice upgrade over the netbook.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[iluvcapra]

What is the difference between a phone and an iPad? Only screen resolution (and it's about 20%).

I guess you're writing from inside an Einstein-Rosen Bridge and locally 3.5 inches and 10.1 inches appear to be the same length.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[ruiner13]

From what I read, they did up the system bus speed from 100MHz to 200MHz. Even if they didn't add more RAM than the iPhone 4, it should be able to access it twice as fast. They also used a different type of RAM that has lower latency. So, not just an iPhone 4. I'd expect a lot of the same improvements in the iPhone 4.5/5 when it comes out in a few months.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[SengirV]

4X beter GPU than the Xoom, and 5.5X faster than the iPhone 4/iPad 1, but why cloud your opinion with silly things like facts.

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/03/12/ipad-2-gpu-benchmarked-with-impressive-gains/

That being said, I just bought and rooted a Nook Color.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[gilesjuk]

Apple manages to run an application like GarageBand even on the original iPad 1 with 256MB.

Perhaps you should check out the 64K demo scene and see what people manage to cram into 64KB of memory, people who can seriously code.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[Jakester2K]

What is the difference between a phone and an iPad? Only screen resolution (and it's about 20%).

I guess you're writing from inside an Einstein-Rosen Bridge and locally 3.5 inches and 10.1 inches appear to be the same length.

Resolution != screensize

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[jedidiah]

> It's plenty if you don't use Windows!

I had a Mac that shipped with 512M. It sucked pretty badly when trying to use MacOS until I finally upgraded the RAM to a civilized amount.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[samkass]

My phone has 512MB RAM.

And does your phone spend most of its time running natively compiled C code or a Java-like garbage collecting JVM? Apple's toolchain is improving pretty rapidly, so with LLVM coming online I'd expect the same 256MB to provide more utility, let alone doubling it to 512MB. I was complaining about 256MB with the original iPad, but it doesn't actually seem to affect my usage much and now all the developers know how to write really tight code so 512MB really does seem like swimming in RAM.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[ChunderDownunder]

Isn't the selling point of iOS that it runs only one application at a time? That when you switch between apps it shuts down one and starts the other? In which case 512MB should be enough for anyone. :)

But as soon as you want to run a 'proper' multitasking OS with several apps in memory simultaneously, you'll see the memory spike. Though if those apps are all written to the same shared libraries, or VM, up to 1GB might suffice for the sort of apps typically running on Android.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[lwsimon]

I never thought of it like that - maybe that's my wife's problem. What I see as 10.1 inches, she says is 3.5.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[Relayman]

Memory use is dependent on operating system. I would expect Linux to be much more efficient with memory usage than Windows. I have no idea where iOS fits, but I'm guessing somewhere in between. Also, I would expect systems using flash memory instead of disk drives would need less memory because the reduced delay in getting data from the flash memory.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[93 Escort Wagon]

What is the difference between a phone and an iPad? Only screen resolution (and it's about 20%). That's about it.

Just how big is your phone???

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[click2005]

While they are impressive, those are compressed 64k executables. They use a lot more than 64k of ram.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[T-Bone-T]

I've found that an OS tends to use the ram you give it. My laptop ran just fine on 512MB and Windows used proportionately more ram as I added it.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[Anonymous Coward]

And I had a Computer that had 4 MB ram and it was awesome and played all the current games. Including Wolf3d.
Later I upgraded it to 16MB. But by then it was way past its used by date.

Linux also used to work with a Gui on that computer.

A Modern OS with eye candy and al those application library stacks and sandboxing would not stand a chance.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[macs4all]

I'm sure it's fine if you're happy to wait on swap all the time.

I'm not so sure that iOS actually HAS a virtual-memory provision. I don't know for sure, however. Maybe an iOS dev. can clarify?

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[Spatial]

Usually the other way around. Foreshortening is a bitch.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[Karlt1]

Isn't the selling point of iOS that it runs only one application at a time? That when you switch between apps it shuts down one and starts the other? In which case 512MB should be enough for anyone. :)

Well, no applications have been able to run in the background since last June.....

And by "run" I do mean....

My Nike+ GPS app can run and give me feedback while Mapquest 4 Mobile gives turning directions (this was actually an accident) while Pandora plays music, which can all be interrupted if I get a call either from the phone "app" or Yahoo Messenger (video or audio).....

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[shutdown -p now]

It's not a "GPU benchmark" though, it's a "GPU+OS+drivers" benchmark. Rumor it is that Tegra2 drivers are still sucky and rough around the edges (much like the rest of Xoom software, to be honest).

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[narcc]

I'm not so sure that iOS actually HAS a virtual-memory provision.

According to the internet, it doesn't. A shame, as it could use it -- you know, so Safari wouldn't silently drop your tabs.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[macs4all]

> It's plenty if you don't use Windows!

I had a Mac that shipped with 512M. It sucked pretty badly when trying to use MacOS until I finally upgraded the RAM to a civilized amount.

And I've seen PDP-8 systems that had 8 KILObytes of RAM (core) that supported multiple concurrent apps and multiple concurrent users. Just like dick size, it isn't the absolute size that counts (above a certain, really small number), but rather how you use it.

So, what was your point, again?

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[Paul1969]

I had a Mac that shipped with 512M. It sucked pretty badly when trying to use MacOS until I finally upgraded the RAM to a civilized amount.

That's one reason Apple developed iOS.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[badboy_tw2002]

That's one smelly ruler!

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[somersault]

Yeah, I was referring to his netbook setup. I didn't think that any phones used swap tbh, but it appears that Android can.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[juasko]

Doesn't that tell you how bloated your netbook memory really is.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[juasko]

Well then would all the swap problems occur.

Om my work windows laptop I've set swapfile to minimal amount 2MB. Disabling didn't' work, Explorer would still swap. And now my windows computer works much better. It has 4GB, which only 3.5GB is utilized by windows, It has separate VRAM so it's not shearing it with GPU.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[juasko]

They have different UI in many apps, e.g. mail.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[juasko]

I multitasked a lot in the early -90's I counted RAM in megabytes, 8, 12, 16, 32. I never needed Gigabytes for multitasking.

Software today is simply lousy coded. 512MB is more then enough for multitasking lots of apps, that are well written.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[juasko]

You imply they would use megabytes of ram...
Well they don't. Compressing something to only 64k can not be much bigger from the beginning.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[SengirV]

True for the xoom. But it's not going to get any better for the iPhone 4 in comparison. And that was the poster's point - that there was no difference between iPad 2 and iPhone 4, when clearly there is.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[segin]

I could write a program to calculate as many prime numbers as possible with given memory. The algorithm, possibly the entire executable file, would be (nearly) under 4k of code, yet if it stored it's results to a simple, linear array in memory, it would eventually consume all the RAM of almost any system*

*(Segmented memory, virtual addressing being narrower than physical - PAE or 32 bit code on 64 bit OS, etc aside, in such case, the program will consume as much memory as It can allocate from the OS.)

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[juasko]

Well I guess I could make an simpler app too that would fill the memory.

Still a demo that is compressed to 64k is not much bigger uncompressed. The difficult part is not to fill your memory, but to use it most efficiently.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[sglewis100]

It's ample because whoever wrote the summary has to keep trying to pretend to themselves that it's competitive to justify the purchase of their little fashion accessory. My phone has 512MB RAM.

I'd consider 1GB to be "ample" for a lightweight device right about now. My netbook is currently using 530MB RAM with only Chrome open, and usage when I have Chrome, a text editor, media player, IM and email clients open tends to be around 700-800MB.

Yeah, because iOS, Mobile Safari, iPod, a third party IM app probably with 1 background process only or not running at all, and Mail.app plus their rinky-dinky notepad app has a very similar footprint to a full blown Linux or Windows install on a NetBook running desktop applications.

Re:What's so ample about 512 Mb?

[somersault]

There also are apps like iMovie coming out that actually need a lot of RAM to function well. People will try to make excuses about how 512MB is fine for now, but when iPads with 1GB RAM come along they'll be ecstatic about how amazing it is. One benefit of having less RAM would be that it saves power, but the Xoom claims to have exactly the same "real world use" type runtime as the iPad despite having 1GB of RAM, and a Java VM..

Lame

[Matey-O]

Boy. THAT was a lame article. It was, word for word (except where they doubled up on the same sentence twice) everything stated in the iFixit video. This guy must a spent a LOT of time copying off other people's tests.

Re:Lame

[rudy_wayne]

Boy. THAT was a lame article. It was, word for word (except where they doubled up on the same sentence twice) everything stated in the iFixit video. This guy must a spent a LOT of time copying off other people's tests.

There's only so many different ways to say "over-priced toy".

Re:Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a toy or not based on how you use it. I have an original ipad and strictly use it for ssh, vnc and web browsing. No toy-like action for me.

Re:Lame

[qubezz]

Here's a link to the original article with teardown pictures. Beware blatant product placement of ifixit tools.

Looks like Apple wasn't happy enough putting proprietary tamper-resistant fasteners on this device though, the iPad 2 is glued together.

Re:Lame

[juasko]

Yep, I'm saddened by all this overprice, worst of it is that other manufactures are even more overpriced.

And here is the iFixit link

[wondershit]

Why the main article this summary is about is not linked is beyond me...

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPad-2-Wi-Fi-Teardown/5071/1

Re:And here is the iFixit link

[nOw2]

Because it's yet another link advert for "Network world"

I too was surprised to click the link in a story about iFixit's teardown and find myself on that god-awful website again - and I try my best to avoiding clicking through to them!

I can understand the need to link to websites that can withstand the slashdot effect but these days slashdot itself is really suffering from the quality of story abstracts and the continual linking to the same awful blogs, no doubt paid adverts.

Re:And here is the iFixit link

[dafing]

THANK YOU. Seriously, why wasnt the group who did all the work, who brought and presumably broke (or not!) an iPad 2, took all the nice photos, revealed to the world its magic... and then some jerk grabs a summary of their hard work, throws it up, and links to some other group, for no reason!?

Its things like this that give "real journalists" the right to bitch about blogs, about summaries and content aggregation. I check Slashdot a few times a day, I'm subscribed by RSS in Firefox, why would someone "RTFA" if its not even linked to!?! :-)

Re:And here is the iFixit link

[juasko]

Not, stating references should be criminalized, YES.

512mb? really?

[perryizgr8]

so this is why ipad2 is so cheap. tiny 512mb ram. and shitty cameras. no wonder samsung is finding it difficult to compete with its 1gb ram tablet with a 2mp front cam and an 8mp rear cam, 1080p recording, dual core graphics, dual core cpu.
only steve jobs suck-ups can call 512mb ample.

Re:512mb? really?

[Dixie_Flatline]

Ample here means sufficient. It seems to get the job done, and gets it done better (by all accounts) than the Samsung, despite it being half as much.

Having more RAM in and of itself isn't useful if you're not going to use it. Apple gets to save money on the memory AND beat the performance of the Samsung? That's just clever.

I don't have an iPad of any sort yet, but putting good cameras in it seems a waste of time to me. I've got an iPhone 4 that I'm far more likely to take pictures on (who wants to hold up a whole freakin' tablet to take a picture?) and a Sony cybershot that I'm MUCH more likely to take travelling with me to take movies and pictures with.

Samsung is wasting time and money spec-padding. And that dual-core graphics and CPU don't seem to be helping them any in head-to-head comparisons.

Apple has just designed a better tablet at a better price that people are willing to buy. Don't blame Apple for doing it the smart way, blame Samsung for not paying attention to what will actually perform best and attract customers.

Re:512mb? really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Gates does not suck up to Steve Jobs!

Re:512mb? really?

[perryizgr8]

Apple has just designed a better tablet at a better price that people are willing to buy.

i doubt that. its just the massive hype generation that propels shitty products like ipad, iphone to heights that they currently are at.

Re:512mb? really?

[itsdapead]

no wonder samsung is finding it difficult to compete with its 1gb ram tablet with a 2mp front cam and an 8mp rear cam, 1080p recording, dual core graphics, dual core cpu.

So why don't Samsung produce a camera with less RAM (the iPad 1 seems to work fine with 256MB) a VGA front cam (more than good enough for video calling) and a 720p rear cam (why the fsck would you want to record 1080p through a pinhole lens on a device with limited internal storage or take 8MP photos on a slab which is ergonomically hopeless as a camera?) Making sure it has the latest version of Android (i.e. one actually designed for tablets) would be a good idea, as would not choosing a lame 7" form factor (16:9 to boot) that makes it too big for a phone and too small for a tablet.

If devices like the XOOM and Galaxy Tab were undercutting Apple and had these higher specs then yes, that ought to be a winner (more RAM/better Cameras is certainly nice to have) but they're not. Nor are they going to get anywhere until Android Honeycomb is out and stable.

However, I do wonder if Samsung/MOTO's problem is that they are pricing their tablet offerings according to the mobile phone business model: inflate the RRP so that carriers can offer big discounts with contracts.

Re:512mb? really?

[Anonymous Coward]

"i doubt that" = I can't prove anything but I feel like i'm correct. It's not hype if it does what you want it to do, which my iphone does.

I started with an iphone 3g, sold it because I hated at&t (I was with Verizon before that). Bought a Droid off-contract and used it until the iPhone 4 appeared on Verizon, now I'm back with the iPhone. You can bitch all you want about the or the "walled garden", but there is nothing shitty about the hardware or the usability.

Re:512mb? really?

[Karlt1]

i doubt that. its just the massive hype generation that propels shitty products like ipad, iphone to heights that they currently are at.

So if the iPad is shitty....

What does that say about the top of the line Android tablet?

http://gizmodo.com/#!5781376/ipad-2-benchmarks-way-better-than-the-xoom-kills-the-original-ipad

http://thegadgets.net/feature/ipad-2-with-ios-4-3-beats-motorola-xoom-in-javascript-benchmark-tests/

Re:512mb? really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, it's always hype. Always. iPhone sells well? It can't be a good product, it's just hype. iPad sells well? Just hype. iPad 2 sells well? Just more hype.

It's impossible that it might actually be a good product. Everyone is wrong except you.

Re:512mb? really?

[iluvcapra]

I suspect the sort of hardware Samsung and Moto have to squeeze into a tablet, in order to compete with an iPad on performance, says more about Android than it does about Apple.

Re:512mb? really?

[artor3]

Ample here means sufficient. It seems to get the job done, and gets it done better (by all accounts) than the Samsung, despite it being half as much.

You keep using that word, I do not think you know what it means. Ample means lots, more than enough, so much that you'll have some left over. My eight year old laptop has 512 MB, and considering that tablets are essentially touch-screen laptops, it makes the RAM in the iPad far from "ample". Sufficient? Maybe. But ample has a completely different meaning. Pretending that the words mean the same thing is called "lying".

Samsung is wasting time and money spec-padding. And that dual-core graphics and CPU don't seem to be helping them any in head-to-head comparisons.

How can they compete when the media is either in love with or employed by Apple? The iPad 2 was front page news for days. Every morning show host was playing around with one, infomercial style. Most companies need to pay for advertising. How much does Apple pay?

Re:512mb? really?

[UnknowingFool]

Having more RAM in and of itself isn't useful if you're not going to use it. Apple gets to save money on the memory AND beat the performance of the Samsung? That's just clever.

Especially if you don't know that the amount of RAM is insufficient. The parent assumes that because an Android tablet running a variant of Linux has twice as much RAM therefore an Apple tablet running a variant of OS X needs the exact same amount of RAM. Also why didn't Motorola or Samsung put 2GB RAM because that would have been much better. At some point when building their tablets all these manufacturers determined what was the optimal specification factoring pricing, availability, etc.

Re:512mb? really?

[517714]

In an OS with limited multitasking how much RAM do you need? 512MB is twice as much as has proven adequate for the iPad and iPod Touch for the past year, I think ample is not an unreasonable characterization. An 8MP camera is of dubious value on a large unwieldy tablet. The compelling reasons to avoid the iPad like the plague are not in the hardware or the OS per se.

You did make a persuasive case that Samsung did a poor job of spec'ing their product though that was not your intent.

Re:512mb? really?

[fredmosby]

If 256 MB is sufficient for the original iPad then 512 is ample for the iPad 2, considering it runs the same OS and has the same screen resolution.

Re:512mb? really?

[Dixie_Flatline]

I don't think you know what 'keep using' means, since I only used it once. :)
(I know what it's a reference to, you're just using it wrong. ;)

Anyway, ample in this case IS synonymous with 'sufficient'. It's sufficient for all tasks. There is plenty left over when you use an application. The system can swap between apps and tabs in the browser without any issue. 1GB is also ample, but it is also more than is strictly required. 512MB is sufficient for useful, fast, pleasant operation, and the only way for that to be true is if the quantity is 'ample'.

If they had stuck with 256MB, the amount would not be sufficient, and also would not be ample. If they had put 4GB of memory in it, the amount would have been sufficient, ample and wasted.

Re:512mb? really?

[Dixie_Flatline]

This would only be true if their performance was the same. I would consider 256MB to now be insufficient to lead to an exceptional user experience. When the first iPad was released, it WASN'T running the same OS.

Sufficient at the time of release will not mean sufficient further down the road, necessarily. I appreciate the 512MB in my iPhone, but at the time my iPhone 3G was released, the 256MB in IT was sufficient.

What constitutes ample and sufficient obviously changes over time. I don't presume to say that 512MB will be considered either next year. It might, but I can easily see that not being the case.

Re:512mb? really?

[UnknowingFool]

. My eight year old laptop has 512 MB, and considering that tablets are essentially touch-screen laptops, it makes the RAM in the iPad far from "ample". Sufficient? Maybe. But ample has a completely different meaning. Pretending that the words mean the same thing is called "lying".

For your comparison to work, you'd have to equate an 8 yr old laptop to an iPad. While functionality they probably share some of the same workload for you, they are not the same hardware-wise. 512MB may be sufficient for a tablet as it is probably sufficient for lower power/lower performance mobile devices. Also you are also comparing your laptop OS whatever is to iOS. iOS as a mobile OS has been probably optimized for lower power and to be more efficient with RAM. If HP released a WebOS tablet tomorrow with 512MB RAM, would say it wasn't ample? These devices may actually need less RAM. Lastly unless you've worked with an iPad2 and by experience you can definitively state it needs more RAM, it's a guess on your part based on previous experience which may not be analogue to the present situation.

How can they compete when the media is either in love with or employed by Apple? The iPad 2 was front page news for days. Every morning show host was playing around with one, infomercial style. Most companies need to pay for advertising. How much does Apple pay?

Maybe as a company if you only make announcements whenever you have something important to say, people may actually pay more attention to you. Also if your track record is that most of the new products you release sells millions upon millions each time, companies have to take you seriously when you release another product.

Re:512mb? really?

[ChunderDownunder]

Yes it's a phone with a big screen and no phone. :) For a 'real OS' with a keyboard, trackpad and 4GB of RAM Apple will sell you a Macbook Air.

Apple are deliberately NOT catering to a class of user for whom a dual core CortexA9 with 4GB would be ample as their primary machine. Though nor are Android device makers.

Re:512mb? really?

[macs4all]

so this is why ipad2 is so cheap. tiny 512mb ram. and shitty cameras. no wonder samsung is finding it difficult to compete with its 1gb ram tablet with a 2mp front cam and an 8mp rear cam, 1080p recording, dual core graphics, dual core cpu. only steve jobs suck-ups can call 512mb ample.

Really? Have you ever heard of even the iPad 1 (with its 256 MB) running out of RAM? Find me even one example.

Re:512mb? really?

[juasko]

Reviews are not advertising.

Yes media loves Apple, but take of that folio hat now, they are not bought by Apple.

Re:512mb? really?

[cowscows]

Look, I know it's fashionable to act like everyone not on /. is a mindless zombie completely unable to think about anything at all, but if it was that easy to get millions of people to drop $500+ in the middle of a huge recession, then more companies besides Apple would be doing it.

This whole "hype" excuse has been used to dismiss Apple's success since back during the early iPod days, which was almost a decade ago. If there was nothing behind it except hype, it would not be continuing just as strong (much less growing) 10 years later. Fads don't last that long.

Ample 512mb ram?

[joocemann]

Sorry to burst your applesauce bubble, but 512mb ram is hardly ample in 2011.

Truth mod me up, fanboy mod me down. In the end, you know an expensive piece of tech like this should have at least double, if not quadruple that ram... its 2011, don't forget that.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[illumastorm]

While it is true that desktops and laptops need more than 2GBs of RAM to even run an OS such as Windows. The iPad can get away with 512MB of RAM is due to the fact that the OS and the apps aren't as big as Windows or Windows programs. 512MBs is alot of RAM considering what the iPad is and what it can do.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[metalmaster]

im by no means a fanboy. I dont own an iDevice and i never will, because i prefer the alternatives

With that said...
If devs can write software that uses resources efficiently 512MB just might be plenty. Just because desktops take advantage of hexcore processors and 16GB of RAM doesnt mean a tablet should too. Additionally, it could be an energy saving measure. Im no expert on the matter, so i'd have to ask do higher capacity RAM chips consume more energy?

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[Timmmm]

Are you aware that on Android, apps are limited to 24 MB each? I've no idea what the limit is on iOS, but I can't see why 512 MB wouldn't be plenty.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[itsdapead]

Sorry to burst your applesauce bubble, but 512mb ram is hardly ample in 2011.

Thanks for the valuable info. Without your wisdom, how would I know that the 256MB RAM on my iPad 1 was so pitifully inadequate?

On other systems, users would know that they had inadequate RAM due to the usual symptoms (machine slowing to a crawl, errors, crashes) but Evil Apple has conspired to ensure that these rarely happen on the typical iPad, fooling customers into think that, because their device runs perfectly, they have adequate RAM.

The rascals! I feel soiled.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[sjbe]

Sorry to burst your applesauce bubble, but 512mb ram is hardly ample in 2011.

Depends entirely on the device and what you are using it for. There are plenty of devices in 2011 for which 512mb is a huge amount of RAM. Just because you can put more memory in a device doesn't mean it is needed. Comparing the iPad hardware to a desktop/laptop computer is pretty much pointless because they run very different software and are used for different (if sometimes overlapping) purposes. The fact that my desktop PC has 4GB of RAM has means absolutely nothing with regard to how much is appropriate in a tablet PC.

In the end, you know an expensive piece of tech like this should have at least double, if not quadruple that ram

Maybe you like throwing money at hardware you are never going to use but personally I'd rather it have exactly the amount I actually will use. Anything more is a waste of money and resources. That extra memory is not free. When you can actually point to a specific use for that extra memory then (and ONLY then) will I concede the point. But right now your argument is basically that because it was technologically possible to put more memory on the device they should have.

Disclosure: I don't own an iPad nor do I plan on it anytime soon.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[MysteriousPreacher]

Truth mod me up, fanboy mod me down..

Old martyr meme is old.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[artor3]

I love how all the fanbois are crawling out to insist that "ample" and "adequate" are synonyms.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[Dzimas]

You're missing three key things.

1. The 512MB of memory is incorporated on the A5 chip, along with a dual core CPU and GPU. It's a system on a chip that's estimated to cost a mere $28.90. The true magic in iPad is the hardware engineering -- it's all about providing the best user experience on dirt cheap hardware. For the first time in mass market history, the case (including display) costs more to manufacture than the computer it contains.

2. iOS is a compact mobile OS that runs on homogeneous hardware. There are essentially only two different hardware options. Developers know with absolute certainty how their apps perform when they ship and don't need to overspec hardware requirements -- if it runs sluggishly, they need to recode it. Period.

3. Nearly everyone who owns a computer isn't a computer user. They've never compiled code in their lives and haven't got a clue how their machines work. They're not hard-core gamers, either. They just want to connect with others, write a few letters, surf and play cheap games. They don't need a quad core machine with 16GB of RAM and a few terabytes of drive space for that.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[ColdWetDog]

Sorry to burst your applesauce bubble, but 512mb ram is hardly ample in 2011.

Truth mod me up, fanboy mod me down. In the end, you know an expensive piece of tech like this should have at least double, if not quadruple that ram... its 2011, don't forget that.

Ahh, the passion of youth. The unadulterated joy of believing that the new way is the best way, that nearly a million years of human history can be shoveled under the Pergo flooring with nary an afterthought. The exuberance that comes from a knowledge base spanning months in time.

Get over it kid, people have been running entire rocket systems on much less than 512 MB RAM. It's a limited appliance designed to do a couple of things well. Running Crysis isn't one of them. Sorry to bust your nihilist bubble, but Apple is laughing all the way to the bank.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you aware that on Android, apps are limited to 24 MB each? I've no idea what the limit is on iOS, but I can't see why 512 MB wouldn't be plenty.

The 24MB limitation probably isn't what you think it is - native libraries and allocations from them are not restricted that way, and most resource-intensive apps (games) tend to have large native components.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you aware that on Android, apps are limited to 24 MB each?

He may not be aware of that, because they're not.

The stock Froyo browser uses 35 MB on my phone just after startup, Opera Mobile the same, and Firefox 43 MB. Each of these can easily hit the 100-150 MB territory when viewing websites with multiple tabs open. Unfortunately, my phone despite claiming to have 512 MB of memory, makes only 338 MB available to the operating system. With no "active" applications and very few widgets running, the base system uses approximately 180 MB of that, making approximately 158 MB of memory available to applications. Which is unfortuantely dangerously close to the threshold for an OOM condition when viewing multiple web sites.

I use Opera Mobile as my preferred browser (it has a very fast renderer, kudos to the Opera team for making a very efficient cross-platform mobile browser that's very slick). With it, I was very frequently run into an OOM condition when opening a second tab from Google News to a Washington Post article. It was rather annoying, and made me avoid reading things from the Washington Post, although they've recently modified their site and it doesn't cause as many OOMs as it used to. I doubt other browsers are any better in this regard, other than sites are more likely to recognize their user-agents and present a trimmed down mobile version.

Furthermore, if I'm browsing a website and pull up Google Earth or something, the browser gets killed due to insufficient memory. That's fine, that's how Android is supposed to work, and reopening the browser and pulling up the previous page in history works fine. Although it would be a bit better if Opera automatically loaded the previous page.

My previous phone only had 256 MB and had a similar problem. Roughly 100 MB or so of that was "left" for user applications. So while the amount of memory in phones is growing, thus far it has barely kept up with application demand. Fortunately, there are some Android phones coming or already out this year with 768 MB memory (HTC ThunderBolt, Inspire) and even 1 GB (Motorola Atrix). Assuming that newer versions of Android and its skins do not take up significantly more memory, this should make something like 414 MB and 670 MB available to user applications. Which I think is the sweet spot for allowing heavier applications the freedom to use as much memory as they really do need, and allow the user to make good use of multitasking.

Now, granted, the amount of memory "preconsumed" varies across devices and manufacturers, and there's probably plenty of tricks for stripping down a carrier install of Android to make it more memory friendly. This is just my out-of-box experience with a relatively popular 2010-generation Android device. I don't believe it's far off from others.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[vux984]

Apple has conspired to ensure that these rarely happen on the typical iPad, fooling customers into think that, because their device runs perfectly

If you can only run one thing at a time, you need less memory.

Its the stupid things that drive me nuts with the iOS devices. I was doing some banking... and I couldn't have a calculator open at the same time as the bank app... and leaving the bank app meant I had to re-login. It was idiotic.

Today I'm shopping for a new car, so I was looking at web listings, while chatting with my brother. Again I wanted a calculator up so I could look at listings do currency conversions, tax calculations, and so on.

I find as soon as I want to actually do anything even remotely serious on an ios device, they drive me nuts.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[Schuthrax]

I love how all the fanbois are crawling out to insist that "ample" and "adequate" are synonyms.

From http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ample
ample /æmpl/ Show Spelled[am-puhl] Show IPA
–adjective, -pler, -plest.
1.
fully sufficient or more than adequate for the purpose or needs; plentiful; enough: an ample supply of water; ample time to finish.
2.
of sufficient or abundant measure; liberal; copious: an ample reward.
3.
of adequate or more than adequate extent, size, or amount; large; spacious; roomy: ample storage space.

Sucks to be as dumb as you.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[ChunderDownunder]

Running Crysis isn't one of them. Sorry to bust your nihilist bubble, but Apple is laughing all the way to the bank.

So when can we expect an ARM machine capable of running Crysis? :)

I mean that's the expectation those holding out for better specs have - a machine with all the bells and whistles that can run android/meego etc with all the convenience of an iPad but still fallback to, say, Ubuntu for everything else.

My advice would be buy a Win7 netbook, one of those convertible models. Apple and Android makers aren't going to be shipping 'desktop specs' any time soon.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a design feature to assist users by:

Using the maths skills you learnt at school,
Improving you memory.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[Karlt1]

"If you can only run one thing at a time, you need less memory."

And funny enough, I've been able to run more than one app at a time since June of last year....

"Its the stupid things that drive me nuts with the iOS devices. I was doing some banking... and I couldn't have a calculator open at the same time as the bank app... and leaving the bank app meant I had to re-login. It was idiotic."

Funny, my banking app doesn't require me to re-login.....

"I find as soon as I want to actually do anything even remotely serious on an ios device, they drive me nuts."

It might have helped if you had experience with an iOS device -- it's only been out for *nine* months.....

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[Mattsson]

I've had an Ipad for about six month and I regularly run into out-of-memory problems where applications suddenly shut down. Usually, turning off all the "sleeping" applications helps, but regularly I have to reboot the pad in order to run some applications reliably.
So, yes, the 256MB's of the Ipad 1 is inadequate, at least for my usage.
And, no, it's not jailbroken...

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[juasko]

He said RAM not swap...

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[juasko]

Oh man you really should try out a iOS device...

Pulling up from history, because memory wasn't sufficient and killed your browser. Common this is 2011, I say get a grip. An iPad with 256 MB will give you way better experience that what you describe.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[juasko]

Well fanboys tend to think everyone else is a fanboi

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[juasko]

Well put the rant on your bank app maker.

I have no such issues whit my banking, I can use any app in-between. I could even do it while iOS didn't have its multitasking APIs.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[vux984]

And funny enough, I've been able to run more than one app at a time since June of last year....

Two windows on a screen at the same time? Or just the ability to switch between two apps?

I want the former, the latter is a PITA. I want to be able to SEE the page I'm getting the numbers from at the same time I enter them into the calculator.... not cut/switch apps/paste/switch apps/cut/switch apps/paste/switch apps...

Funny, my banking app doesn't require me to re-login.....

Mine does. And if it doesn't, how do you exit it so someone can't pick up your device, select your banking app, and already be logged in? Do you ahve to remember to logout manually with every use? That's just as bad, if not worse.

I want the banking up to stay logged in as long as its visible. But I want to have a calculator visible too, and maybe a texting app... switch/switch/switch/switch/switch is annoying but reasonable on an iphone. (which I HAVE) due to the small screen, but its intolerable on an ipad (which I have used) which has enough screen real-estate for windows. I ended up just reaching for the 13" laptop, for the massive boost in efficiency at getting the task done.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[vux984]

Fair enough. But since iOS doesn't have task managment, being able to leave the app running and switch to the other, means that you can very easily inadvertantly leave the app logged in...for an indefinite period of time, which may be convenient but is really bad security.

And I don't want to necessarily use an app "in between" I want to use an app ON TOP of the banking window. I want to text my brother about stocks while I'm looking at my portfolio not switch back and forth continually. I want to run some calculations while the numbers I'm working from are displayed on hte page... not cut/switch/paste/switch/cut/switch/paste/calculate/cut/switch/paste...

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[joocemann]

So you're basically saying its a large iphone and one should expect only phone-level applications to be usable....

yeah ok.... sounds to me like you could save a lot of money and just get a magnifying glass for your iphone.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[joocemann]

It's a limited appliance designed to do a couple of things well.

Gotcha. I had higher expectations of the device, but now that you've cleared it up I suppose 512mb will do... now if only the device was WORTH it to do only a couple things well.... I must be in a lower income bracket than most people considering ipads... hundreds of dollars to check e-mail slightly more comfortably than my phone? please... Like I said.. I had higher expectations of what these devices would be capable of doing considering the price.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[juasko]

ever heard of; log off, timeout and security token.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[vux984]

ever heard of; log off, timeout and security token.

Of course. However, timeouts are either too short to be useful or too long to be safe.

Re:Ample 512mb ram?

[cowscows]

and extra skinny fingers.

Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[bogaboga]

...and copy the sleek design to create a product that is equally appealing to the eyes and twice or three times as powerful?

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and copy the sleek design to create a product that is equally appealing to the eyes and twice or three times as powerful?

They don't have $7 billion to buy (pre pay) for millions of the most expensive parts. This gives Apple a heck of a cost of goods advantage.

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Apple buys up the entire stock of their parts.

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[itsdapead]

...and copy the sleek design to create a product that is equally appealing to the eyes and twice or three times as powerful?

Ignoring the "economy of scale" issue (Apple orders displays, Flash etc. in huge quantities to get low prices) how do you make it twice or three times as powerful and still use the same parts?

Faster processors/graphics cost more. They generate more heat (so you can't pack them in as tightly) and they use more power (so you have to make the battery bigger or sacrifice battery life).

Higher-res cameras cost more, and probably use more power/generate more heat to boot. They're usually less sensitive (less light falls on each pixel) which means poorer low-light performance, or more amplification (more noise, more power, more heat => even more noise) or built-in illumination (more power/heat). Higher-quality cameras need higher-quality lenses which occupy more space.

Many of the "improvements" that Apple critics ask for also occupy more space or consume more power: more USB/SD/video connections = more space occupied by connectors and their internal cables and daughterboards + more complex and expensive assembly. Removable battery = user-proof internal battery connectors, extra protection to stop users damaging innards when replacing battery (more space, weight), need to make the battery rigid and safe to handle outside the case (more space, weight, less volume for battery) user-removable back (more space, weight...).

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they used the same parts, it'd hardly be twice or three times as powerful.

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[currently_awake]

Probably because apple subsidizes the (hardware) cost from apps and itunes, something an open system can't do.

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and copy the sleek design to create a product that is equally appealing to the eyes and twice or three times as powerful?

But then they couldn't include user-replaceable batteries. What? Neither the Galaxy Tab nor the Xoom have user-replaceable batteries? Damn, must be Apple's fault.

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[jo_ham]

It's been stated often that the iTunes and App Stores break even for Apple (or close to it) - the bulk of the cash from there goes to the developers. If they're subsidising it's from the large cash reserves they have, or bulk orders, not the App Store.

My sense is volume pricing based on prior sales and the backing of a large cash reserve.

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[UnknowingFool]

Ignoring the "economy of scale" issue (Apple orders displays, Flash etc. in huge quantities to get low prices) how do you make it twice or three times as powerful and still use the same parts?

I guess here is where people seem to ignore that logistics and planning matter. You can't go from 0 to 15 million in one year without having to put in effort to build out a supply network, work through manufacturing issues, etc. Also it appears that Apple was ahead of its competitors at least a year so they could lock down supply of critical components like 10" screens. I've read rumors that Apple also helped their supplier build capacity where needed in exchange for guaranteed supply.

Faster processors/graphics cost more. They generate more heat (so you can't pack them in as tightly) and they use more power (so you have to make the battery bigger or sacrifice battery life).

Here is where Apple designing their own chip has an advantage. They can optimize their chip for power/performance more so than their competitors. While the Tegra is a decent chip, Motorola can't really optimize like they may want. Samsung could design their own chip however as a unit, their chip company is somewhat independent of their consumer electronics division and may not be able to truly leverage expertise like they would wish.

Higher-res cameras cost more, and probably use more power/generate more heat to boot. They're usually less sensitive (less light falls on each pixel) which means poorer low-light performance, or more amplification (more noise, more power, more heat => even more noise) or built-in illumination (more power/heat). Higher-quality cameras need higher-quality lenses which occupy more space.

The Xoom does have better cameras but the Apple cameras are adequate for average consumers. This may be more of a decision that Apple feels that average consumers won't really use the higher resolution. Also this might be also a case to where Apple despite their best efforts didn't think that they could guarantee the supply. So they may have focused their attention on more critical components like the screen, the flash memory, etc.

Many of the "improvements" that Apple critics ask for also occupy more space or consume more power: more USB/SD/video connections = more space occupied by connectors and their internal cables and daughterboards + more complex and expensive assembly. Removable battery = user-proof internal battery connectors, extra protection to stop users damaging innards when replacing battery (more space, weight), need to make the battery rigid and safe to handle outside the case (more space, weight, less volume for battery) user-removable back (more space, weight...).

Really anyone still arguing for a removable battery is blindly ignoring all the disadvantages. There are advantages and disadvantages to having a removable battery. Considering that many smart phones and tablets have opted for a non-removable ones instead shows that many manufacturers consider the disadvantages of a removable battery to outweigh the advantages. Indeed if you ever looked at one of these teardowns, the one thing that is obvious is how much internal volume the battery takes. Making it removable would be problematic without having to use a smaller battery. The tradeoff is that you can have a removable battery but the battery life would be shorter or a non-removable battery with longer battery life. Many manufacturers appear to be picking the later.

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[Dixie_Flatline]

Apple is almost certainly making money on every iPad sold even without apps.

They've got economies of scale working for them, though. They can order parts in such enormous quantities that it's impossible for other manufacturers to keep up.

But on the Android side, there's virtually no development cost for the OS (to the manufacturer); Apple subsidizes all of iOS's development themselves.

Samsung can subsidize their hardware cost because a considerable number of the components that they themselves manufacture are going into their product. Apple doesn't have THAT advantage.

Lastly, whether you love Apple or you hate them, they currently have more experience at making this stuff properly than anyone else. Everyone's been playing catchup since the first iPhone. They've got a lot of talent on board.

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[hey!]

Well, for one thing it's hard to build a system that is very thin, combines a great screen, reasonable performance and long battery life, and to make that all really *cheap*. There are lots and lots of Android tablets at half the price of the iPad, and not surprisingly they all sacrifice one thing or another (typically screen size or quality, performance, or in the case of the B&N Nook support costs are trimmed by limiting functionality).

Apple is using the same (or equivalent) suppliers as anyone else, and they're pretty much guaranteed strong sales, so right there they have a price advantage since they can amortize fixed costs over a large number of units. So I don't think we'll see any manufacturers offering dramatically *better* value than Apple at the iPad price point. That said, the Motorola Xoom is reasonably comparable to the iPad 2, and costs about the same as the iPad 2 model with the same amount of memory after you've shelled out for the accessories (like HDMI output for the iPad) to make them functionally equivalent. Samsung's Galaxy Pad seems to be in the same ballpark hardware-wise, but Samsung has caught some criticism for charging a little more than Apple, especially as Apple has done an especially nice job on the iPad design. Unless a tablet blows the iPad out of the water (not very likely), costing a bit more than the iPad is probably a mistake. You might convince people that something like the Galaxy Tab is just as good as the iPad2, but convincing them its *better*, even $25 better, is much tougher, as by now people know the iPad is very good indeed.

At present the Android software is less mature than iOS, which has been on the market for four years to Android's three. Until recently Android on tablets has had UIs hacked together with varying success by manufacturers, whereas iOS has been customized for tablet operation for almost a year; the first Honeycomb tablet came out last month.

So the state of the market is that the iPad has competitors with comparable (although not identical) hardware at comparable cost, but at present enjoys an advantage in user base running tablet specific software and a net edge in the current maturity of that software. Android is available on devices in the iPad price range all the way down to the $100 level, 1/5 the iPad entry price, with the bulk of the device selling for 50% to 80% of the iPad entry price. That all the devices in the lower price segment are much less refined than the IPad should hardly be a surprise. Many of these devices are feeble, "me too" responses to the iPad, but there are some good values to be had in the sub $300 and under price range for Android tablets.

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[macs4all]

...and copy the sleek design to create a product that is equally appealing to the eyes and twice or three times as powerful?

They don't have $7 billion to buy (pre pay) for millions of the most expensive parts. This gives Apple a heck of a cost of goods advantage.

Um, that's not the total explanation, especially when it comes to chip FABRICATORS like Motorola and Samsung. They SHOULD be able to whip all over Apple when it comes to tablet pricing; but they haven't been able to. Why?

Because it ain't ALL about buying power. The A5 SoC IS apparently all that and a bag of chips, cost/performance-wise. Apple's acquisition of the engineering talent at PASemi is paying off in spades, not their buying power.

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[macs4all]

Probably because apple subsidizes the (hardware) cost from apps and itunes, something an open system can't do.

Citation, please?

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the "when I'll buy it:"
1) Retina display (which means they need a 4x increase in GPU performance)
2) 8MP+ Camera (If camera phones have it, so should the iPad), must also do 720p and 1080p
3) SD cards (of which photos, video and anything else recorded) should be accessible from any application.
4) USB port (or maybe even Thunderbolt instead), of which it should be able to charge and sync from, and also operate in reverse, and be able to power a connected device (eg usb drives)
4) NFC ? (If this is going to be something standard, then I want it. If it's going to be a gimmick, pass.)

Of these, If my camera phone can do it, then the ipad doesn't need to, eg option 2 (mines 5MP),3, as long as that service can be acquired via USB. The reason people are complaining is because of the need to buy a dock adaptor for these things, which means they can't be used on a whim, they can only be used if prepared in advance. Since when do you prepare in advance to take photos?

Even a hybrid solution would be acceptable, eg a Dock connector that has TB,USB,SD/SDHC/XC on it, provided that it's included in the box of the next model, but that's only a stop-gap solution.

I won't even consider an android device until the market stops fragmenting and we get some reliability figures for the companies making them.

This iPad2, is probably in a year going to be considered more like a iPad refresh than a real upgrade. Yes dual core, big deal, it means nothing when even PC/Mac's still release non-threaded software, several years after the fact that dual cores became standard and we're now on quad cores.

Apple may have changed what "people want" in a PDA with this, but everyone needs to stop and look at what happened.
We went from PDA's and "just a phones" to smartphones in 2005, and now we're going back to PDA's now that the battery life doesn't suck and internet is everywhere, if not standard. The last PDA I bought (I bought 3 pre-owned ones before that) had these features that the iPad doesn't have:
1) Retina display (j/k, but it did have a 800x600 display in a 7" form when everyone else was selling 320x240's)
2) SD card and CompactFlash
3) Can be charged from the USB port (or at least I'd like to believe that, I broke the only cable I could get for it, which is why these damn devices need to have the USB port physically on the device)

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Here is where Apple designing their own chip has an advantage.

Yes, do let me know when that happens.

HINT: they rebadged the Cortex chip, they didn't "design it".

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Higher-res cameras cost more, and probably use more power/generate more heat to boot. They're usually less sensitive (less light falls on each pixel) which means poorer low-light performance, or more amplification (more noise, more power, more heat => even more noise) or built-in illumination (more power/heat). Higher-quality cameras need higher-quality lenses which occupy more space.

The Xoom does have better cameras but the Apple cameras are adequate for average consumers. This may be more of a decision that Apple feels that average consumers won't really use the higher resolution. Also this might be also a case to where Apple despite their best efforts didn't think that they could guarantee the supply. So they may have focused their attention on more critical components like the screen, the flash memory, etc.

A love these debates about the quality of smartphone cameras. It's like watching wanna-be NASCAR enthusiasts debating whether a Prius can beat a Pinto in a street race. Photography is one of those fields where you get what you pay for in terms of equipment, and even the best smartphone cameras are at the bottom of the technology chain.

My wife is a professional photographer. Her camera is one of those high-end jobs that doesn't even bother with consumer preset buttons. The manual for it puts to shame every PC hardware manual I've ever seen and the lenses cost more than the camera body. Those sports photographers you see roaming the sidelines at professional sporting events? The camera gear they're carrying on their person costs more than your last car.

Anyone who uses an iPad, or any smartphone , as their primary camera either doesn't know jack about, just or isn't serious about, photography. Sure, they're good for catching don't-want-to-miss-this photos when you have nothing else at hand or just snapping quick, casual pictures to post to Facebook. But anyone who is even remotely serious about taking good pictures is going to invest in a real camera with controllable settings, a real lens, a real flash, and a ready-for-the-earthquake tripod. And don't bother comparing megapixels. More megapixels just mean you can see your crappy photos in higher resolution.

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[juasko]

I much rather have a good 3MP camera on my phone than a crappy 8MP.

Putting 8MP on such small sensors is rubbish. I have 8MP DSLR Canon. That is on a APS sized sensor, And I would so much like to have the full sized sensor, that the 5D.

But yeah fanbois, argue specs. Others might just want quality.

Newton PDA had good battery life too.

Re:Why can't Android makers use the same parts...

[UnknowingFool]

Then Samsung, TI, NVIDIA--in fact no ARM licensee "designs" their chips. I suggest you do some research.

GLUED on?

[Anonymous Coward]

And they're asking several hundred dollars for it? How stupid can people get?

Re:GLUED on?

[T-Bone-T]

You'd be suprised how much stuff is glued together. How can Ferrari sell cars for hundreds of thousands of dollars when they glue their windshields on?

Re:GLUED on?

[macs4all]

And they're asking several hundred dollars for it? How stupid can people get?

And what, exactly, is it in there that you think YOU can repair or replace? Your TV's remote control is probably also glued together. Wanna know why? Because it makes no sense to waste the cost of fasteners on a non-user-repairable device.

So, who's the stupid one, now?

Oh, and call me when you're the CEO of the 2nd-highest valued corporation OF ANY TYPE, and we'll listen to your OPINIION regarding the stupidity of "people".

Many, many, many CONSUMER products use adhesives in place of conventional fasteners. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that you own a few yourself.

Guess that makes you "stupid", too.

babys et al; tear down for our own/others' guts

[Anonymous Coward]

certainly makes the case for having a full tear (fall) down? what do they intend to prove? just what do they intend at all? gut staring? what's that all about?

Re:babys et al; tear down for our own/others' guts

[Anonymous Coward]

ten of them streaming across that internet? and what happens to your own personal internet?

WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[mangu]

I started counting a couple of stories back, this is the sixth first post defending Microsoft that devxo has posted in the last three days.

The other five are:
1
2
3
4
5

Liking Microsoft products is one thing, but keeping tabs of every story and writing a multi-line first post for every other one, well that looks like a real job to me. I wonder how much Microsoft pays him. Does he get overtime, considering all this was done in a weekend?

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[Anonymous Coward]

It is almost certainly an account shared by multiple people at an "online relationship management" firm. Definitely an account set up for pure shilling. Someone suggested a while back actually as a reaction to this devxo character that slashdot institute some kind of first post delay for newly created accounts. Seems like a good idea to me.

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[Sponge Bath]

Maybe devxo is just a compulsive fanboy. Slashdot has more than a few of those hanging around. Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by someone clicking away in their mom's basement.

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[HalAtWork]

But why would anyone in their basement feel the need to defend a multi-billion dollar corporation for free? Does devxo think MS can't defend themselves? Does devxo wish to one day be the head of MS and they're getting their brownie points in early? I mean, I can understand wanting to promote OSS because it benefits you if you use OSS to have as many other people contributing as possible, but what would anyone get out of defending MS?

The only thing I can think of is you get shittier products, because people will be more likely to overlook more of MS's flaws if there are more posts excusing/defending MS. Hmm, maybe devxo is an OSS fanatic in disguise...?

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[BasilBrush]

The giveaway is that the posts from this account are made within a minute of the summary being publically posted. Quick enough to usually beat the "Frist psot!!1" idiots. Yet they contain a reasonable amount of text and are on topic. Paid subscribers get the summaries earlier than the rest of us. Yet this account isn't a paid subscriber. Which suggests a collection of accounts: one to read the summaries early, others including "devxo" to post the shilling comments.

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[macs4all]

It is almost certainly an account shared by multiple people at an "online relationship management" firm. Definitely an account set up for pure shilling. Someone suggested a while back actually as a reaction to this devxo character that slashdot institute some kind of first post delay for newly created accounts. Seems like a good idea to me.

I'm too lazy to look; but is there a consistency in writing style and word-choices? That would be a big giveaway that the account was used for Astroturfing or Shilling; or just an overzealous MS fan with too much Thyme on his Ham.

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[PopeRatzo]

But why would anyone in their basement feel the need to defend a multi-billion dollar corporation for free?

There are rent-boys from lots of different multi-billion dollar corporations who gladly defend to the death any suggestion that their favorite corporations products aren't the greatest. It's not just Microsoft and Apple, although those seem to be the two biggest groups.

It's a tribal thing. A membership signifier. If you are a fan-boy, then your self-image is intertwined with the perception of your chosen product. When you see yourself as a branded silhouette, and your consumer choices are basically product-placement for a particular life-style, you can't allow any non-branded item to intrude on that. It's like the kids in high-school that branded themselves as "goth" or "jock" or "stoner". Most people grow out of that, but with the endless adolescence promoted by the marketing industry, people are now encouraged to stay in that market sector as long as possible. It's a way of encouraging people to put off any clear-headed evaluation of their economic circumstances so they'll keep piling up credit card debt. But now it's gotten to the point that if that enchantment is ever broken, and people figure out just how badly they're being fucked, there would almost certainly be social disruption on a large scale.

It's also why politics has been reduced to quarrelsome tribalism. So people of the same economic class can be fragmented into fighting over these "brands" instead of fighting their oppressors.

So it's not really fair to blame the fanboys because the marketing techniques have become so effective, so sophisticated, that it's virtually impossible to resist them if you consume corporate media. It's just not their fault. The only way to win this game is to not play, which means rejecting mass media, which is a delivery method for the marketing techniques. Very few people are willing to do that, to disconnect the cable, throw out the TV, block all the ads, turn off the radio. And by the way, the industry is working very hard to integrate those powerful marketing techniques into the very content of movies, music, etc, making it that much harder to shut out.

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[Man On Pink Corner]

Makes sense, but why is Microsoft paying people to astroturf a cancelled product? Is this some brilliant new Ballmer-crafted PR strategy that will be studied in business schools for generations, alongside the Ford Pinto, Three Mile Island, and DivX?

I can see them hiring trolls to talk up Windows 7 phones and other things that are actually purchasable, but the idea that anyone is still paying to keep Courier in front of peoples' eyeballs doesn't appear to make sense.

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[91degrees]

Honestly, what difference does it make?

You either agree with what he has to say or you disagree.

Maybe he's just a Microsoft fanboy These people do exist you know.

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[91degrees]

But why would anyone in their basement feel the need to defend a multi-billion dollar corporation for free?

Have you seen how many people proclaim the iPod as the greatest piece of technology ever? Or defending Apples' walled garden approach to their app store? How about all the people who claim Google is better than Bing without even trying Bing? Come to think of it, all the people who insist Coke is better than Pepsi or vice versa.

Why would a Microsoft shill want to promote dead technologies like HD-DVD and Courier (which honestly did look potentially interesting)?

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[Anonymous Coward]

When you see yourself as a branded silhouette, and your consumer choices are basically product-placement for a particular life-style, you can't allow any non-branded item to intrude on that.

Wow, that describes you to a tee.

Apple products clearly offend you, yet my first assumption was that you just don't have the self control to avoid posting rabid hate in Apple stories that clearly are not meant for you.

Clearly I was mistaken, and this is a much better description of why you post mindless hate against products that offend you... They intrude on your life style.

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[PopeRatzo]

Apple products clearly offend you

Tell that to my Mac Pro, MacBook Pro and iPod Touch. Further, I've owned every single dual-processor (or better) iteration of the Mac Pro since they first came out. My problem is not with all Apple products. My problem is with the concept of consumer fandom, especially to a corporation that has shown hostility toward its customers.

I'm willing to take the blame for you not understanding what I'm talking about. Clearly, I'm not doing a good job making myself clear.

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[macs4all]

Honestly, what difference does it make? You either agree with what he has to say or you disagree. Maybe he's just a Microsoft fanboy These people do exist you know.

Yes, but don't you think it's odd that he hasn't posted in defense of "himself"?

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, I can understand wanting to promote OSS because it benefits you if you use OSS to have as many other people contributing as possible, but what would anyone get out of defending MS?

There are loads of OSS zealots on Slashdot and elsewhere who promote OSS because the believe proprietary software to be fundamentally immoral and inferior. People can choose to defend whatever they like, but it takes a small minded faggot like you to think one has rights and the other does not. Fucking prick.

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[91degrees]

True. Honestly, I have no idea what to make of the guy. The posts just don't quite make sense for a shill, and do seem well argued.

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[Sky Cry]

I don't see the point. Why would a company pay someone to bring to everyone's attention its failure to deliver an innovative product that many people were genuinely interested in?

Re:WARNING: devxo is a Microsoft shill

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I don't understand defending/promoting those either if you're not working for them. Why invest yourself into a product that you do not profit from?

Warning

[Anonymous Coward]

NSFW

Q; aren't their first few poops difficult?

[Anonymous Coward]

once their guts (or any other part) are severed (by mortar rounds (get used to saying that?)), everything comes out at once. sometimes, the mommys are unable to die on the same spot, although it would be their preference, & are instead captured, tortured etc.... they do tend to try to stare at what's left of their babys as they're hauled away/dying themselves. it's almost never 'quick' (like on tv) either. see you after that stops.

Re:Lame - Anyone actually work in manufacturing

[Anonymous Coward]

All the talk about the glue and other things being Apple's way of messing with people are missing the point. Structural adhesive is a very good way of keep manufacturing costs down and improving the actual quality of a product. It is far easier to automate than screwing hardware. Some may disagree but having worked in manufacturing engineering and building automated systems for 8 years...that is my opinion.

Does it make it harder to repair...yes. Do modern devices like this need as much repair (I bet the p(95) MTTF is incredibly high)...no.

You know the lights in the corridor between terminals B and C at O'hare--a artistic marvel--are held up by structural adhesive.

IPad 2 Teardown Shows Tablet's Guts

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever happened to 640K should be enough for anyone.

Re:IPad 2 Teardown Shows Tablet's Guts

[netsharc]

What do you mean? I hope you're pointing out the stupidly obvious statement in the headline. What's next? "Using a surgeon's knife on man's stomach shows guts"? Well duhhh!

And what the fucking bullshit is this, the summary doesn't link to iFixit, but to some other blog talking about the iFixit page... fuck you slashdot/submitter!

You guys know that the banks will pay more

[Colin Smith]

If you go over to ZeroHedge and act like a gun/conspiracy nut.

 

Hot climates

[pgpalmer]

What does it matter what method is used for structural support - screws or glue? As long as the glued components can be removed for servicing without causing cosmetic or functional damage, then why not? And as for using a heat gun, that makes sense (again, as long as no cosmetic damage is made in the process) considering you can't use tabs or screwdrivers on glue very easily. My concern would be the usage of this glue in devices that may be used by people living in high-temperature environments. I live in Australia, and normally temperatures can get quite high here in summer. Now, the operating specifications have a maximum operating temperature, but the equipment can be protected by keeping it off in the hot time of the day when outside, but that won't protect the glue from losing structural support.

Re:Hot climates

[Anonymous Coward]

Come talk to us again in two years when you'd like to replace the "non removable" battery yourself, instead of paying Apple some outrageous amount to do it.

Disclaimer: I have an iPad and I really like it, but am concerned about this issue in the iPad 2.

What about in-house service?

[Kupfernigk]

I've already told one potential tablet adopter to wait for the Xoom, because it's already known that it is very serviceable. This means that in-house IT will be able to cannibalise machines for spares after a year or two, and replace the batteries, without having to send things off for increasingly expensive repairs. The Xoom seems to be designed much more with corporate IT in mind. I know that the iPad 2 is thin and light, must have gadget and the rest of it, but corporate users have other priorities.

Re:What about in-house service?

[gtall]

That depends on several other factors, cost for a new fondle slab, utility of the Xoom vs iPad, fit into corporate IT systems, etc. Corporate users probably don't have other priorities, but corporate IT might. I do not have a good feel for what corporate IT feels is their job. At a cost of less than $1000, time spent screwing around with hardware efficiently is fairly short.

Re:What about in-house service?

[macs4all]

That depends on several other factors, cost for a new fondle slab, utility of the Xoom vs iPad, fit into corporate IT systems, etc. Corporate users probably don't have other priorities, but corporate IT might. I do not have a good feel for what corporate IT feels is their job. At a cost of less than $1000, time spent screwing around with hardware efficiently is fairly short.

Actually, it is pretty much nonexistant. How many "IT people" even bother to open up a monitor or a router (even an expensive one) when it breaks, and then, how many can actually FIX one? Replacing a bad drive or motherboard does NOT equal component-level troubleshooting and repair. And since you simply can't purchase the motherboard in an iPad (or a Xoom, I'll bet!), what in the fuck is there to even "repair"? And if you ARE competent to effect a repair (lets say, like replacing a bad display), then a moment or two with a heat-gun isn't going to be that much of a problem, either.

Also, just because you are an "IT person" doesn't mean you magically understand the HARDWARE you're using any better than the "simple users" do. In fact, in my experience, that skillset combination is actually fairly rare in Corporate IT. Those people are usually DESIGNING the equipment, not playing around hooking it up and configuring it, and have EE, not CS, degrees, and certainly not the typical clue-free MCSE (Must Consult Someone Experienced) droid.

The person who is telling his friends to wait for the Xoom because it is "more serviceable" (his GUESS) than the iPad is simply giving bad advice. Too bad his friends might think he actually has a handle on the subject; because he just doesn't.

Re:What about in-house service?

[narcc]

fondle slab

Thanks for helping to keep this one alive :)

Re:What about in-house service?

[drsmithy]

This means that in-house IT will be able to cannibalise machines for spares after a year or two, and replace the batteries, without having to send things off for increasingly expensive repairs.

Which will still almost certainly be cheaper than paying someone to take apart two tablets and put them back together into a working one.

Nobody has said any such thing

[Anonymous Coward]

"As others have pointed out, Apple really doesn't make any profit from the iTunes business, they just make it available as an inducement to buying iThings"

Apple grossed $4B from iTMS in 2009. Its impossible they didn't profit from this revenue.

Re:Nobody has said any such thing

[UnknowingFool]

Apple grossed $4B from iTMS in 2009. Its impossible they didn't profit from this revenue.

Considering that 70% of revenue goes to straight the copyright holders, that means that only $1.2B went to Apple. That amount pays for all the servers, bandwidth, the credit card processing, administration, etc. While it sounds like a lot of money, Apple sold billions of music, hundreds of millions of videos, etc. Apple probably made a small profit after all that, it wouldn't have been much.

Re:Nobody has said any such thing

[juasko]

It was true back in the days when Apple started iTunes and it's iTunes Music store. The revenue paid for the services only. But with the momentum they now have with their stores it pays far more than the service costs. So yes Apple is profiting today with their stores. Earlier they did break even.

But true that 30% of the total price is not only net income. But if half to two thirds of that is net income for Apple, I guess I'm not to far off.

Not close to comparable cost

[SuperKendall]

The Xoom compares to only one iPad2 model, a 3G unit with a decent amount of storage - and even then it's around $70 more.

The thing is that you can get twice the storage for even less with an iPad if you are willing to forgo 3G. Or if you don't have a lot of money you can get an iPad for many hundreds less.

I don't think it's correct to say that because one particular model is close at all price-wise, that the two units are close in price. You have to consider the entry price to get into the platform, which is the starting point that consumers use to make choices. For someone initially considering these two devices they come off as $500 for an iPad2 and $800 for a Xoom... or even to be fair I guess you could use the subsidized Xoom price at $600. But that seems a bit dubious to me as not many people will see that price and it's not MSRP.

Re:Not close to comparable cost

[hey!]

The Xoom compares to only one iPad2 model, a 3G unit with a decent amount of storage - and even then it's around $70 more.

Not once you add the price for the accessories you'll need for the iPad 2 (e.g. funky proprietary connector to HDMI, etc.) When you're done you're within spitting distance. The price difference between the devices reflects what the manufacturers have decided to include.

I don't think it's correct to say that because one particular model is close at all price-wise, that the two units are close in price.

I disagree. If two models with similar specs cost about the same, they're close in price. If one manufacturer offers a different model at a different price point, you can't really compare the value of that device to a differently capable device without bringing in the utility of, say, another 16GB of space. That differs from user to user so we can't generalize about value from *our* preferences.

You have to consider the entry price to get into the platform,

That I agree on, but Xoom to 32GB iPad 2 is the closest thing to a fruit variety to same fruit variety comparison as we'll get. If you start talking about different configurations then you really ought to consider that you can buy cheaper Android tablets that cut other corners besides storage. Maybe you could get by with a 7" screen or a 10.1 inch screen with lower resolution, for example. These are all valid points to raise, but they're *different* points.

What I'm addressing is the ability of competitors to produce a price-competitive tablet. Clearly they can. For various reasons they have not chosen to occupy all the same price segments as Apple, just as Apple has not chosen to address the sub $300 price point that Archos has with the Archos 70. It's not fair to compare the price of the iPad 2 to the Archos 70 because you get so much more with the iPad 2. For the same reason you can't compare the iPad 2 16GB to the Xoom with 32GB. The 16GB model gives Apple a lower entry point, which is a good thing for Apple customers, but that's a *different* issue, and if you're going to make that you've got to admit that Apple could have given its customers an even *lower* entry point, as I expect they will probably do after they've saturated the $500 and up market segment.

So the conclusion is the various prices offered by different vendors don't reflect a dramatic difference in technological capability, but different business strategies. Apple's strategy may well be the best strategy; we can be fairly certain it'll prove far from the worst. But it seems probable that Motorola or Samsung could match Apple in entry level price and specs if they chose to. *Design* of course is a different matter altogether, but it's another intangible whose perceived value varies from user to user. If you said that Apple's competitors should pay more attention to design, I wouldn't disagree with you.

Re:Not close to comparable cost

[SuperKendall]

Not once you add the price for the accessories you'll need for the iPad 2 (e.g. funky proprietary connector to HDMI, etc.

You NEED those just like you NEED 3G. As in, very possibly not at all.

Most people will never use that. A lot of people could just use AirPlay to deliver video to a TV. It's just there for those that need it, but again that's not part of the base cost that people see when they are considering devices.

That's what you are overlooking, my point is that people when initially considering a purchase are going to be looking at base costs and then possibly go up from there. But mentally it all starts at that base cost.

What I'm addressing is the ability of competitors to produce a price-competitive tablet. Clearly they can.

I don't see that, at all. The Xoom cuts corners too - independent of the price it's a lot larger and has much less battery life (a whole movie's less!). Also from reviews, the screen is not quite as good in terms of crispness and I think angle of viewing.

I see it as being really competitive only in the sense that if you must have Android, it's the tablet to get. But a choice like that would be driven by software and since there's so little software tailored to the Xoom, I just don't see that many people would be making that choice.

Re:Not close to comparable cost

[bryan1945]

"Not once you add the price for the accessories you'll need for the iPad 2 (e.g. funky proprietary connector to HDMI, etc.) When you're done you're within spitting distance. The price difference between the devices reflects what the manufacturers have decided to include."

How many of the millions of people want these funky connectors, though? I'm sure some fraction do, but even I don't really care as I have other, more capable, devices to connect to HDMI devices. I suppose there are a number of people who may try to use a tablet as an all-in-one device, but I would think that those people would be in the minority.

Re:Not close to comparable cost

[hey!]

Well, what you're saying is that the HDMI connection doesn't have value for most people. That's a legitimate point. I bought the video out connector for my iPod touch, but most people didn't. I'd like to have a cheaper solution mostly integrated into the device, but clearly most people would prefer a lower price.

Most people *won't* want an HDMI connection, but most people won't buy a tablet in the first place. You don't design a product for *everyone*; you design a product to look like an attractive deal to some subset of everyone. Likewise if you design something like a tablet, your design specs reflect what you think will maximize your profit, not necessarily your units sold. Motorola clearly positioned their product to be attractive to high end customers. Why did they do that, and not match Apple feature for feature at each price level? I think because they don't *want* to.

I suspect the calculus may have went like this. At the $500 entry point, they're going to have to compete with both Apple, and cheap Android tablets costing hundreds of dollars less. At the $800 level its a different ball game. They can turn a profit selling a small number of units, leaving the volume android market to players like Archos, thus establishing themselves as a premium brand. At $500, if Apple sold 10x the number of iPad2s as Motorola sold Xooms, everyone would call Xoom a failure even if it turned a profit. Not so at $800, which is not a segment where volume counts so much. Nobody looks at the gross units sold for Porsche and compares that to Ferrari. Once they establish themselves as a critical success and the low rent Android vendors start chipping away at platform numbers, they can consider whether they want to address a higher volume market segment or not.

If that is their strategy, I'm not saying it's the best possible strategy. What I'm saying is that it's not necessarily totally incomprehensible and irrational. Personally, I think bracketing Apple's entry level offering would be a better strategy, but that depends on how much capital you have to play with. You can't judge a business strategy without looking at opportunity costs and how they limit the resources a company can bring to bear on a market. Here's a question: if you had a choice of putting your chips on a single price point, would that be below Apple or above? My personal inclination would be below, but it's a crowded space.

Re:Not close to comparable cost

[SuperKendall]

Not so at $800, which is not a segment where volume counts so much. Nobody looks at the gross units sold for Porsche and compares that to Ferrari.

In the computer world they do that all the time.

I kind of agree with your assessment of the strategy with the Xoom. The real issue I see, is venturing into selling a premium product hoping that the rest of the ecosystem will come along to fill in the value beyond just the hardware. If the only Android tablets that sell decently are the premium models then developers will not find much reason to tailor applications specifically for tablets, and there will remain a deep lack of software. It seems a bit risky to me, but there's always a chicken & egg problem with any new platform and someone is always willing to try...

Re:Not close to comparable cost

[bryan1945]

Very good insights! I haven't really had the time to look into the tablet/pad market, so my comments are a bunch of "winging it" on what little I know.

Thanks for the ideas, I'll make sure I incorporate them.

Re:Not close to comparable cost

[sglewis100]

Not once you add the price for the accessories you'll need for the iPad 2 (e.g. funky proprietary connector to HDMI, etc.) When you're done you're within spitting distance. The price difference between the devices reflects what the manufacturers have decided to include.

I have had iPad 1 and now have iPad 2 - I still have no HDMI connector. Only "accessories" I've ever bought were a case, and the camera connection kit. But all tablets need a case... if you feel a case is necessary. So I think I'm out $29 on that connection kit versus having a SD slot... which really doesn't help me to go Android anyway since I shoot DSLR and my Canon 7D has Compact Flash not SD.

But it seems probable that Motorola or Samsung could match Apple in entry level price and specs if they chose to. *Design* of course is a different matter altogether, but it's another intangible whose perceived value varies from user to user. If you said that Apple's competitors should pay more attention to design, I wouldn't disagree with you.

Considering they both have premium and cheap Android phones on the market, if that were true... why wouldn't they have a $300 or $400 tablet on the market if they could?

Apples and Oranges

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how much more efficient Dalvik may be than standard JVM, but it is silly to try to equate the two operating systems' resource requirements. iOS runs native C (Obj-C/C++) code without garbage collection, so it's about as close to the metal as can be. The Java VM is without question slower and has more memory overhead, and garbage collection is one part of the reason. I've always joked that with Windows you lose one CPU core to your anti-virus software. With the JVM, you lose some of your CPU to garbage collection, and there is definitely memory overhead. The VM does not come for free -- in order to avoid problems on servers with periodic long garbage collection pauses (app lockups), one solution is the concurrent mark-and-sweep collector, which basically takes a certain amount of CPU overhead all the time as the tradeoff. I *love* Java, but there is no denying that it is noticeably slower than native. JIT etc. fix most of this in theory, but *not* in practice.

So for all you know, Dalvik apps eat twice the memory and twice the CPU, explaining why the iPad could have half the memory and CPU cores, and still be just as fast. If you don't have concrete numbers in those areas, your complaints about "iPad not enough memory" are just pulled out of thin air.

Actual link

[Legion303]

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPad-2-Wi-Fi-Teardown/5071/1

Stellar job as usual, editors, allowing someone to post a shitty blog link instead of the real article.

Guess?

[Kupfernigk]

Check out the iFixit breakdown of the Xoom. It's already been done.

Also, you and your GP are doing the traditional US-centric thing of thinking that the US model of highly Taylorised corporates applies everywhere in the world. In the UK (and Europe) there are many SMEs (i.e. up to around $500 million turnover) that do not fit the US model, and the company I referenced is one of these. My company works (among others) with outsourcers and with break/fix companies that supply services to these SMEs, and I can assure you that maintainability is important to them. Traditionally in costing laptops and similar equipment they factor in an oversupply to deal with EOL maintenance and field failures once the manufacturer warranty expires. Maintainable equipment equates to a lower oversupply.

But shoot, what do I know? I've only been in the business eleven years...whereas I guess that someone who has to SHOUT a lot to try to make their point is probably under 25.

Sorry not buying the bullshit

[Sycraft-fu]

Digital distribution is -cheap- REALLY cheap. Doesn't cost much to host data and send it over the net. For example Netflix pays about 5 cents to Akamai to stream an HD movie. That's 3GB or so of data and remember: Akamai does the hosting as well as the bandwidth, and they have to make money on the whole deal too. So, when you are talking music, small apps, and so on you don't need a whole lot of money to cover costs. Even when people download multiple times, you are still talking fractions of a cent it costs you.

You want to see some evidence that digital distribution makes tons? Look no further than Steam. Here you have Valve, a private company, so no big investors to prop them up if they lose a ton. What's more they've got no consumer electronics division. They do two things: Games and digital distribution.

Well Steam makes them bank. They are more profitable than ever and indeed don't have to worry about game release schedules because Steam is where their big money is. Of course the downloads on Steam are large too. Normal games are 5-20GB these days. What's more, they give away bandwidth. If a game uses their Steamworks copyprotection, then any copy purchased registers on Steam and is eligible to be downloaded. However they don't charge for it. So while they take a cut of the sale price if you buy it on Steam, if you buy it at Target and then register it, they don't. None the less they still provide you updates, reinstalls, etc from Steam to your heart's content. Of course there are other free things too. Demos, no cost mods, videos, and so on.

All that and they are raking in the dough.

So I'm sorry, but I'm not buying Apple's "Really we don't make any money on iTunes!" crap. Yes they do, plenty. Perhaps I could buy they don't make much on the music part, since the music industry probably fucks them on fees, but even then I'm skeptical. However software, apps? Hell no, they make bank.

Re:Sorry not buying the bullshit

[UnknowingFool]

So I'm sorry, but I'm not buying Apple's "Really we don't make any money on iTunes!" crap. Yes they do, plenty. Perhaps I could buy they don't make much on the music part, since the music industry probably fucks them on fees, but even then I'm skeptical. However software, apps? Hell no, they make bank.

Here is the difference between revenue and profit. We don't know how much royalties Valve owes publishers but I think it has to be less than 70% of the revenue. Remember that's revenue. Before Apple can factor in credit card fees and other costs, 70% of every dollar goes to the music providers. Apple made $4.9 in iTunes store revenue last year (that doesn't include the iPhone app store which is counted separately). Apple at most took in $1.5 billion of that.

In perpspective, Apple sold 4 billion songs between Jan 2009 and Feb 2010. That's 11 million songs a day. The logistical problem here is the sheer number of transactions. While every song probably wasn't a separate transaction, being able to serve millions of songs a day can't be cheap. And that's only counting songs. It doesn't account for videos and books which is part of the iTunes store.

But hey I don't what it takes. If you think you can keep an up an infrastructure that serves that much media for $1.5 billion a year (and not including any capital expenditures), more power to you.

Perhaps you should look at them

[Sycraft-fu]

I happen to love demoscene stuff, but I also happen to have a realistic assessment of what it is and how it works. So, let's take a look at one of Farbrausch's demos, since they really are the kings of the 64k compo. So we'll take fr-27, it's one that after the contest they managed to optimize down to just 47k on disk. All that and ti is full 3D, amazing. Ok but here's a question: How large is it in RAM? Answer is 77MB. That's right, as it loads (the little white bar on black background) it is generating a bunch of procedural data to RAM. Tiny on disk, big on the RAM.

Also all it manages with that is some very simplistic geometric shapes and animations. It's cool, don't get me wrong, but it is just very simple stuff. No complex artwork, no detailed animation.

So let's take a newer one, fr-41. This one is a little larger but still only 177k on disk. Also it has a full city scape that is quite nice looking. Still suffers a bit from the procedural generation "copy-paste) brush, but is far more than just simple geometric stuff. Also has some more advanced animation and morphing. Plus it has a UI to configure things. So how's it do on the RAM usage? 835MB. Damn. It has to decompress a ton of stuff in to RAM to fit in that size.

See those small demos are the art of a certain kind of optimization. You go for low disk usage at all costs. That's fine but it ends up taking up massive amounts of memory, plus heavy CPU and/or GPU usage to generate the content. Fine and extremely cool, I -love- it but don't pretend that all programs could be like that. Also it couldn't run on the iPad, not near enough resources.

Then there's just the fact that you lose flexibility. You have to deal with more simple things when it is all procedurally generated, you lose artistic control. You can see it in Farbrausch demos. Have a look at fr-25, their second most famous one (fr-19 their fist 64k is their most famous). It is a demo with a fully produced song with vocals and instruments, not just algorithmically synthesized music, and with advanced animation. Uses the same engine as their 64k demos, but weighs in at 8.6MB.

So you might want to learn a bit more about the tradeoffs one has to make for some of these things. To briefly touch on your garage band thing, I have multiple General MIDI instrument sample libraries. My smallest is a 4MB SoundFont. My largest is 40GB. the 4MB and 40GB library span the same collection of 128 instruments. However if you think the final sound is the same, you are kidding yourself, I don't keep the big one around for show.