hmmm, no, still not finding any keepass app in itunes. I must be in a bad nation.
It's up to the developer to decide which nations their app is listed in. I'm unaware of Apple having any standard policy about this other than what the carriers impose (for example, Slinbox app can't run over 3G in the US, but it potentially can in other nations, but that's entirely of AT&T's choosing, not Apple's).
Google for "keepass iphone", follow the links, then search for the names in the app store. One of them is listed as coming soon on their web site. I found the other one in iTunes (US).
Regarding the keeping of passwords on a computer via a manager; I agree that it is inherently less secure to have a db storing passwords.
I wasn't saying that at all. I agree, it's nothing to really worry about. Someone first has to attain your file, then have the ability to crack your file, and above all, has to actually care enough to do so.
I disagree with the gp, but why is keepass being denied?
Because Apple doesn't want you to be able to save passwords on your iPhone. They think that it's a stupid idea and that no one should be able to do it...
Actually, none of that's true. Open iTunes, go to the Store and type in "keepass" in the search. You will find iKeepass. A Google search shows a second keepass program coming soon to the App Store called MyKeePass.
So, if one of those was being denied before, or if there's some other one being denied, it's almost certainly for bugs, or secondarily, possibly for doing something else entirely that violates the terms of use.
Some examples of truly innovative apps would be welcomed.
Define "truly innovative". There's an app that uses the microphone and speaker a sonic ruler. There are a few apps that let you point the iPhone at the sky, showing you what stars are above you. There are apps that overlay maps and other information over a live camera image.
So what do you mean by "truly innovative"? I tend to find that when people use that term, they don't actually mean anything other than, "I can use this term to dismiss absolutely anything I want". This is because there's invariably someone who says, "augmented reality? That was in Terminator" or "sonic rulers? Dolphins and bats have been doing this for thousands, or millions, of years!" and so on.
So, what sort of innovation are you referring to, that the App Store process eliminates? The only areas of innovation being limited are those which are directly affected by the terms. So, you can't have innovative bugs. You can't have innovative porn. You can't have innovative apps that replace the phone functionality (you *can* have innovative apps which augment it, such as VOIP apps).
So, what innovation are you referring to?
Further, it's not like the iPhone is the only OS out there. Even *IF* the iPhone actually ruled out all possible innovation, there are still PCs and Macs and Linuxen and numerous other systems out there which *will* innovate.
After all, regardless of how you define "innovation", no one[1] looks at the iPhone and goes, "well, it does everything I want and there are over 100,000 apps for it, but it doesn't, well, it doesn't... It doesn't innovate, so I guess I'll pass"
[1] colloquially speaking. I'm sure there are an insignificant number of people who have taken this stance, but it's little more than a rounding error.
I wasn't even talking about the tinkerer specifically. I was more talking about how locking it to the Apple approved app store may prevent a lot of innovative apps from making it onto the iPad. First one that comes to mind would be some sort of touch friendly Photoshop (or any other photo management tool). Or how about web browser innovations? Apple tends to deny apps that 'duplicate functionality' that is already on the device.
Spoken like someone who hasn't perused the App Store recently.
Apple isn't denying apps willy nilly. Most denials are for bugs. A much smaller amount are for terms of use violations (such as porn and telco carrier (read: AT&T) violations). And a few were for functionality duplication. Of those, only apps that have a built-in interpreter and Google Voice come to mind as an app type that isn't in the store now.
While I would prefer no rejections for such reasons, the negative impact has be *extremely* minimal. There are tons of unique and innovative apps.
What you end up with a lot of 'safe' apps on the device that don't look to push it into new areas. People end up avoiding the risk of spending time developing apps that might get denied access.
The over one hundred thousand apps speak otherwise. Apple isn't approving apps (i.e, "do we think this app deserves to be on the store?") so much as disapproving them (i.e., "should this app *not* be in the store?"). It's an important distinction. As long as your app is reasonably bug free, and it doesn't violate a small number of specific terms, it's golden. That doesn't mean there aren't mistakes made, or subjective, sometimes contradictory decisions made, just that taken on the whole, the approval process has had an extremely minimal impact on types of software available, but a very positive impact on the quality (from a bug point of view) of the software available.
You, the tinkerer, will *always* be able to buy a PC that meets your needs.
I certainly hope so...but the trend is disturbing.
Trust me, you will *always* be able to buy a PC that is tinkerable. There is absolutely *zero* chance that, even if this trend continues full-steam ahead, there will be Linux-based PCs that you can buy. It's absolutely impossible to stop them unless you literally make them illegal (and even then, they will still exist).
The new versions of Windows restrict driver development to "approved corporations" only.
Even if MS follows Apple in this regard (they'll try, as usual, but almost certainly miss the point), but even if Windows itself becomes even *more* locked down than the iPad, if it becomes, essentially, an Xbox 360 that can run general purpose programs from the MS Program Store. Even if that happens, there will *still* be Linux PCs out there.
The mass market is being herded toward "appliances".
Not herded. They are demanding them. They *do not* want to tinker.
Gamers are switching to consoles.
For the same reason. Consoles plug into a TV, and they just work. No, "what video card to I have", no "what drivers work best", no messing with the settings. Your choice of OS or CPU, or antivirus or whatever else has *zero* effect on if your console works.
Without large sales volume, the "fully programmable" computers will be a high priced, obscure niche product.
Three things of note:
1. "fully programmable" is a misnomer. You can write programs for your own iPad. Distribution is fairly easy, except for a few cases. Windows is easier to distribute, but you still cannot fully modify the system. Only Open Source/Free OS's like Linux are "fully programmable", and even then they are almost universally installed onto hardware that isn't.
2. The "high priced" charge is silly. There will *always* be cheap little $100 boards that you can tinker with to your heart's delight. There will also always be full-powered motherboards and chips that can be purchased.
3. "Obscure niche product". This I fully agree is a potential outcome. And not only potential, but desirable. Such computers should be niche, as only a niche truly, specifically, wants such a computer. Everyone else buys them because there's no alternative. But trust me, they want easy, powerful but not tinkerable, appliances.
And don't worry. There's tons of niches that do quite well. You will always be able to buy and tinker with your own computer. The only differences is that the rest of us will be able to buy a computer that we *don't* have to tinker with.
So what? Most people not only do not want to tinker with their computers, but they see it as a undesirable. They want something that just works. And when it doesn't work, you take it into Apple and they either fix it or replace it, if it's under warranty, or you go get a new one. And then back home, you plug in the replacement and it automatically reconfigures itself with all the exact same files and settings that you had before.
Now, you may wish to tinker. That's nice. The iPad is not going to remove the ability for people to tinker with their computer. All you have to do is buy one of the countless other computers that are tinkerable. And no matter how popular the iPad becomes (very popular, trust me, most people do *not* share the geek-centered criticisms), and no matter how much the rest of the computer industry follows suit (and believe me, they won't), no matter *what*, as long as there are computers, there will be tinkerable computers. Just buy one of those.
You, the tinkerer, will *always* be able to buy a PC that meets your needs. Why not allow everyone else the opportunity to do the same?
Of course, it's not just photos which will benefit. Video, web, and pretty much anything you will see on the screen will benefit.
Which is why it's particularly bizarre that they left out the USB and/or Firewire ports which would be particularly useful for loading photos and videos into the iPad. And yes, I know you can get around this using USB/Bluetooth adapters etc. but that's not really very consumer friendly, is it? Two micro-USB ports with a micro->normal USB adaptor would have made a lot of difference.
That's what the dock connector is for. Not only can you load pictures over that like normal, they have two adapters in their camera connection kit that has both a USB port and an SD card slot.
You're partially right in that Apple does want people to upgrade to the current OS. But if their motives were as underhanded as you imply, it seems a bit odd they'd price Snow Leopard at $29.
Forces any 4+ year older Mac out of the way since they only started making Intel chips (required for 10.6, no PowerPC chips) in 2006. And thats if you didn't buy an older Mac off the shelf. While the $29 isn't much, it's still a forced upgrade
No one is forced to buy Snow Leopard. Boot Camp with XP and Vista drivers is a feature of Leopard. Windows 7 compatible Boot Camp is a feature of Snow Leopard.
Regardless, Leopard still runs just fine. But like every OS upgrade, if you want the new features, you need the new system.
I'm not sure what you're getting at regarding the older Macs, as they can't run Windows 7 anyway.
Not quite. Microsoft used the launch of Windows XP to increase the price of Windows dramatically.
Besides, when amiga3D says, "they planned it that way", he doesn't mean they planned it back then in 1995. He means they planned it that way last year when they priced Windows 7.
I agree, however Apple has a long history of breaking compatiblity to force you to upgrade to a new product.
Not quite. Apple has a long history of focusing on their current products. Windows 7 drivers are part of Snow Leopard because Snow Leopard is the current OS.
You're partially right in that Apple does want people to upgrade to the current OS. But if their motives were as underhanded as you imply, it seems a bit odd they'd price Snow Leopard at $29.
Think, Message and Note are more significant than simply "i". Furthermore, messagepad and notepad are pre-existing words
Doesn't matter. iPod is now a word, Wii is now a word. Both sounded pretty dumb when they first came out. iPad will go through the exact same process.
it's vaporware (remember, it's not even released yet)
Not really. It's a finished product, primarily awaiting manufacture. Vaporware is more about when people talk about what they're *going* to create, not what they've already finished. Also, there's an implied sense of ongoingness.
Strictly speaking, you may be able to call it vaporware without being technically wrong, but pretty much *none* of the implications that accompany that word apply here, so it's, at best, deliberately misleading.
Unless you honestly believe it's not going to be released any time soon.
What happened to "One mouse button is better"?
What the hell are you talking about? There's no mouse.
Adding complex gestures doesn't necessarily make things easier
You're making the same mistake so many other geek-types make when they decry the one-button mouse (and it hasn't been "one-button" in the sense most people mean by that for a long time now). It's not removing options to be simpler, it's about being more natural. Multitouch *is* more complex, mechanically, than a single-button mouse, but it's so much more natural.
The idea behind multitouch is that it builds upon your pre-existing knowledge about how real-world objects work.
But let's take an example of poorly designed gestures. Instead of pinching-to-zoom (which is so fundamentally natural, everyone gets it instantly, from 2 years old to 100, where as teaching people about dragging or right-clicking, etc., with a mouse can be quite tedious), you have some funky shit like, make a sideways figure-eight to bring up the hud, a triangle to fire missiles, a z-shape to make a 180, and so on. *That* would be not only more complex, but extremely unnatural.
plus you have the downside of a less accurate touchscreen (capacitive versus resistive).
Who cares? It works, and it works extremely well. Capacitive touch screen is really the way to go for multitouch. You always make these really absurd criticisms, which are not only wrong on the face of it, but miss the whole point. It doesn't matter if the screen is capacitive, resistive, or if there are magical gnomes running the show. What matters is how well it works, and the iPhone screen works *wonderfully*.
Welcome to 2002. What portable touch device doesn't have that these days? And I'd rather do that with a stylus, not my finger.
You clearly misread my statement. I'll reconstruct it to clarify:
The brilliance of the iPhone OS is that it's designed specifically for multitouch. You're not just using your finger (or stylus) as a mouse, with handwriting recognition thrown in for good measure.
The brilliance of the iPhone is that you're *not* using your finger (or stylus) to act like a mouse that does mousing and also has handwriting recognition.
And, "welcome to 2002"? Really? Apple shipped a product with handwriting recognition in '93, which they were working on all the way back into the '80s. It's somewhat ironic you would mention 2002 specifically, since that's when Jaguar shipped with Inkwell. So yeah, welcome to 2002, except Apple was already there 9 years before *that*.
Besides, my mention of handwriting input was incidental. My main point was that the iPhone OS isn't just your regular WIMP model with a stylus (or finger) instead of a mouse. Windows and Mac OS are designed around the mouse. The iPhone OS is designed around multitouch. This is far superior to simply using your finger (or stylus) as a mouse.
You, good sir, are talking out of your ass. Obviously you haven't been playing Flash games. Mouse-only Flash games used to be the predominant form of Flash games and they still consist a significant portion of them.
The iPad doesn't have a mouse. All you can do is click. No dragging, not right-clicking, just click. And what happens if you click two places?
My point isn't that there are no games that would work, but that it's not like simply having Flash on the iPad would mean you can instantly use all those Flash apps out there. Quite a large portion will be unusable.
There are more and better fun flash games on the browser than there are App store games. The wealth of flash games is just incredible. The App Store does not more than make up for this and not all App Store games are free.
There are more games in the App Store than a person can possibly ever play. So it can't play Flash games, so what? The Xbox 360 can't play PS3 games, which can't play Wii games, etc. It's not a big deal, because they have their own games, just like the iPhone, and soon to be iPad do.
Lack of Flash is not going to be much of a problem, just as it's not a problem on the iPhone.
Why don't you check out the current Ars Technica poll on how many people would like to have Flash on the iPad:
Polls like this have the problem of people are just going to say yes, after all, why not? The proof is in the pudding, and the iPhone and iPod touch have done just fine without Flash.
I'm not saying that people don't actually want it, but it really doesn't matter all that much.
And yes, Flash is a gaming platform unparalleled on the browser. You may not like Flash games, but a lot of people do. Flash has also ushered back the golden age of game development in the 80s where you could have just 1-3 people teams pumping out fun games
The same is true for iPhone games. Further, the overwhelming majority of Flash games will be unplayable on a multitouch device. They just aren't designed to be played by nothing more than clicking the mouse.
Btw, re: Flash's sub-par performance on the Mac, it's not all Adobe's fault. See this post from Lee Brimelow of Adobe (scroll down to comment #62):
http://theflashblog.com/?p=1703 [theflashblog.com] "Apple is not cooperating in our attempts to improve the performance of the Flash Player on the Mac. Microsoft is, and in FP 10.1 we cut the CPU utilization in half for watching video. Same with other mobile device manufactures. We would love to work with Apple to do the same but they are making a strategic decision not too so that they can increase their revenue. Hey thats business. Another thing to note is that the site you showed is filled with Flash and just because it takes up a lot of CPU doesnt mean that kids will not want to play with it. Give people the option is what Im saying."
That's absurd. Apple isn't keeping Flash running poorly for financial reasons. Apple has a specific way to accelerate video on Mac OS X. If Flash can't utilize this, that's Adobe's fault. Of course, the way Flash works, it doesn't really have a way to interact with QuickTime, but it seems they should be able to do something with OpenCL.
What's more, Flash on Linux also isn't accelerated, and Adobe has full access to the source code there. The problem isn't openness or financial incentives, it's in how Flash interacts with the system. Adobe keeps taking jabs at Apple about openness, or insinuating financial motives, simply because they know it will resonate with a certain audience.
Gee. Hulu. A way to get TV shows that isn't the iTunes store. A way to get TV shows without paying Apple. I think I see why there is no Flash for the iDevice lineup.
Both SlingBox and EyeTV have apps in the App Store. There's no reason to believe Apple will deny a Hulu app.
Because it's a phone. People are used to downloading specialized, overpriced, horrible 'ports' of games for their phones already. Netbooks, however, are a whole different experience with whole different (and higher) expectations.
How many flash games are playable via multitouch? Specifically, no keyboard, just clicking on parts of the board.
Besides, there's no reason to assume that people who currently buy apps on the iPhone will suddenly balk at the prospect of buying them on the iPad. And it's not like there's going to be a shortage of free games, as well.
it's an open question whether it's important to have multiple applications open at the same time in the market netbooks are filling into right now.
Two words: music listening. If you had to close down your browser to listen to music on your netbook, the entire market would likely dissapear overnight.
How has this notion that somehow the iPad can't play music while doing other things become such a common myth? The iPhone has been able to do this since day one.
Not to say anything negative about Apple here, but to those of us not in the gamer community, Wii still sounds asinine.
You couldn't have that any more backwards. The Wii is the one console that appeals to non-gamers.
People may still snicker at the name, I'm not saying that's going away. People still make "iPood" jokes. But the name "Wii" is no longer seen as a liability.
can it, say, play a YouTube video in the background while working on something in the foreground?
This isn't going to be much of a hinderance. While there are some YouTube clips that are really just audio with unimportant video (Feynman lectures, for example), but it's a fairly safe assumption that you'll want to actually watch the YouTube clip you are playing.
Nope. What about Flash? Nope.
Aside from Hulu (which could quite simply create an app, which one must assume they are working on), what's the loss? Porn? I suppose that's not to be completely discounted.
Or flash games? Really? There's no keyboard or mouse to play them, assuming that flash performance is going to be worthwhile anyway. How many flash games are there that are completely playable via clicking? This isn't a huge loss, and more than made up for in app store games.
Apple is going into netbook territory with neither the most user-friendly, innovative, feature complete or robust software library.
Are you kidding? Netbooks are pretty much the bottom of the barrel in terms of user-friendliness, innovation, or features. All they are are miniature, and very slow notebooks, running a full-sized OS, which does poorly at the limited screen size and resolution.
But since Apple has chosen to write an OS specifically designed for the form factor, the multitouch interface, and portable usage patterns. You don't see this sort of specialization in the netbook realm except for things like Ubuntu Netbook Remix (which is done very well), ChromeOS (which also unfairly gets put down for not being a full-featured OS--well, that's the whole point!), Android (not terribly compelling), and a handful of other Linux projects.
On paper, the iPad is doomed to fail. Perhaps in person it might be different, but I tend to side with the people who think its going to fail to appeal to the masses.
Why? The people who say it's going to fail are those that are basically complaining about it not being Mac OS X with a stylus. Having seen the demo, and reading the reviews of people who've actually used them, I have no doubt that people will find them very appealing. The only thing in doubt, in my mind, is whether people will decide they want to buy that mid-range product. I think they will, but only time will tell.
Perhaps, but as a woman I can definitely tell you that all my women friends have agreed it's an unfortunate name because the first thing it makes us think of is feminine hygiene products.
Sure, today. Give it some time and iPad will just be another word, like Wii. People made the same arguments against the Wii. This too shall pass.
Personally, I think the iPad is a good idea. However, I also think that while the app store is a useful evil on the iPhone, it's going to be death for the iPad.
Why? What apps are there really that are being blocked? Google Voice, SlingBox over 3G and...? Yawn. I know there's a list of interesting rejected apps, the losses are minimal, and while lamentable, a drop in the bucket compared with what software *is* available.
On the contrary, the App Store is one of the single most important factors in the success of the iPhone and now the iPad. Yes, the geek-types will lament the control imposed by the app store, and for myself, I'd prefer an official opt-in jailbreak mode, but in terms of mass appeal, the hinderance caused by the control is absolutely dwarfed by the benefit brought about by the single marketplace for discovering and downloading new apps and games.
Oh come on, the name jokes are a manufactured "controversy". Just like the name iPod, iPad will stop sounding like something else, and become a word of its own. But even without this, there are so many other "pads" out there, that this is silly. For example, where was this controversy over the Fujitsu iPAD? Or the various other pads. ThinkPad? Newton MessagePad? MS Notepad? Or simply a pad of paper?
I'm not complaining about the jokes per se. They're kinda funny for a second, but they do wear thin. But what I'm responding to is that this is treated as some sort of serious issue. "OMG, people are making jokes!" How many iPood, iPaid, etc. jokes were there?
In the long run, the name is going to be just fine.
Here's an idea - What Steve should have done was release a tablet version of the MacBook Air (with the exact same software compatibility, OS, etc.) and call it the MacBook Slate or MacBook Touch. I would have bought one of those, and I'm often the first to question the sexual orientation of male Mac users.
And it would have sold worse than the MacBook Air. People have shown they don't want tablets that are just their desktop OS in tablet form. To be sure, there are people who buy them, but they are almost exclusively sold to geeks, artists, and some vertical markets. But as a mass media product, it takes something that's already cumbersome for most people, and making it even more so.
The brilliance of the iPhone OS is that it's designed specifically for multitouch. You're not just using your finger (or stylus) as a mouse, with handwriting recognition thrown in for good measure. Mac OS X no only already supports this, but you can already have your Mac modded into a Mac tablet (or buy one pre-modded). And they're not selling well enough to warrant a separate Apple SKU.
The iPhone is an enhanced version of a device that everybody already knows of and has. There was already a place in every customer's life for an iPhone. It simply replaced their older cell phone. The same thing can not be said at all for this thing. It isn't powerful nor versatile enough to replace their computers. It isn't small or portable enough to replace their iPhone.
It's not meant to replace either.
This is just like the netbook, which also isn't meant to replace either of those. Instead, it's the computer device you take with you, leaving the notebook at home.
As a computer, the netbook is better (and that's part of what has the geek crowd all up in a bunch), but as a device in between the smart phone and the notebook? The iPad wins hands down. All this nonsense about "it doesn't do this, it doesn't do that" is from those that want it to act like their notebook, only smaller, cheaper, and with multitouch.
Were Apple to have released that, instead, it would fail. The geeks would have rejoiced, but just like the Tablet PCs before them, the general populace really doesn't want a touch (or stylus) screened PC.
An IPS panel is certainly neat, but as you can't really use the ipad for anything that actually demands that kind of screen
You mean like viewing photos and showing it to people who may not be standing directly in front of it? Because the primary benefits of IPS are better color, and greater viewing angle.
Of course, it's not just photos which will benefit. Video, web, and pretty much anything you will see on the screen (and given that you're presumably going to be looking at the screen while you use it, that's pretty much everything) will benefit.
1. Netbooks provided an example for Apple to look at. 2. iPad would have existed without netbooks.
If it's *my* reading skills that are poor, please explain how both 1 and 2 cannot both be true.
You asserted Y and Z. "X" implies "not Y". "not X" implies "not Z". Therefore you can't be right.
Your attempt at logical obfuscation does nothing to alter the fact that what I wrote above is not contradictory. Given that, the only logical conclusion is that your attempt to rephrase what I wrote into logical statements and/or your applied logic is flawed.
Meanwhile, lots of people who are apple fans are seriously disappointed with this thing. As an apple hater, I'm not surprised, but I've heard of 1 out of maybe...85+ apple fanatics I know that actually wants the thing.
Same thing happened on the iPhone launch. First it failed to live up to the rumors, which have the benefit of being unhindered by practicality. Press reviews were mixed, with a lot of, "*this* is the iPhone?" Then the launch there were lines (there will be lines for this, have no doubt), but the press reviews were mostly positive (expect this as well) with the obligatory downsides (no exchange, no multitasking, no third party apps). Then the launch weekend sales where huge, but shy of the analysts rumors.
Then it took off. Everyone wanted one. Sure, there were updates that helped (like the App Store), but it was already a success before that. The App Store was like the iPhone squared.
So, here we have the exact same thing. Also, the number one complaint, no multitasking. Look for news later this year about that.
As for no expansion, there are features in the iPad that address this also. The iWork suite, the camera reader, and the iDisk app are clues.
Disclaimer: I am not questioning your opinion, nor am I discrediting it. You are completely entitled to your own thoughts.
And vice versa.
No matter what you do, say, or show me, you will never convince me that buying a device as expensive as a full computer but with only half the functionality is a good thing. Paying more and getting less is not a good thing, even if it comes wrapped up in a pretty package.
I'm not trying to convince *you* of this, just pointing out ways in which your opinion are not terribly applicable to most people.
For example, your part about paying more and getting less is a bit absurd. I can buy a PC for less than my phone (a crappy PC, to be sure, but a PC that is more powerful none the less). But it would be ridiculous for me to *not* buy my phone (and while I have an iPhone, this could very well apply to pretty much any feature phone or smart phone).
The same thing applies here. I'm not going to buy and iPad instead of a PC (or Mac). I'm going to buy it in addition to the computer I already have.
But let's look at the possibility of buying an iPad instead of a PC. While I definitely wouldn't suggest this for most people, there are still cases where this makes sense. The obvious is people who won't take advantage of that extra power a general purpose PC provides. If all you do is email, listen to music, surf the web, view photos, then the iPad not only does those thing quite well, it does much more. If you don't want the complexities of a full PC, then the iPad may be a good choice.
Not for you, of course, nor for me or for most people, but I just point this out to show that even your most ardently bold-fonted opinion isn't as universally applicable as the the heavy typeface may imply. And in spite of your disclaimer (which I accept at face value), your wording isn't in line with the "this is only my opinion for me" sentiment. You didn't state it in personal terms, you stated it in no uncertain, universal terms.
You didn't say "Paying more and getting less is not a good thing for me, even if it comes wrapped up in a pretty package.", you just said, in bold, "Paying more and getting less is not a good thing, even if it comes wrapped up in a pretty package."
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hmmm, no, still not finding any keepass app in itunes. I must be in a bad nation.
It's up to the developer to decide which nations their app is listed in. I'm unaware of Apple having any standard policy about this other than what the carriers impose (for example, Slinbox app can't run over 3G in the US, but it potentially can in other nations, but that's entirely of AT&T's choosing, not Apple's).
Google for "keepass iphone", follow the links, then search for the names in the app store. One of them is listed as coming soon on their web site. I found the other one in iTunes (US).
Regarding the keeping of passwords on a computer via a manager; I agree that it is inherently less secure to have a db storing passwords.
I wasn't saying that at all. I agree, it's nothing to really worry about. Someone first has to attain your file, then have the ability to crack your file, and above all, has to actually care enough to do so.
I disagree with the gp, but why is keepass being denied?
Because Apple doesn't want you to be able to save passwords on your iPhone. They think that it's a stupid idea and that no one should be able to do it...
Actually, none of that's true. Open iTunes, go to the Store and type in "keepass" in the search. You will find iKeepass. A Google search shows a second keepass program coming soon to the App Store called MyKeePass.
So, if one of those was being denied before, or if there's some other one being denied, it's almost certainly for bugs, or secondarily, possibly for doing something else entirely that violates the terms of use.
Some examples of truly innovative apps would be welcomed.
Define "truly innovative". There's an app that uses the microphone and speaker a sonic ruler. There are a few apps that let you point the iPhone at the sky, showing you what stars are above you. There are apps that overlay maps and other information over a live camera image.
So what do you mean by "truly innovative"? I tend to find that when people use that term, they don't actually mean anything other than, "I can use this term to dismiss absolutely anything I want". This is because there's invariably someone who says, "augmented reality? That was in Terminator" or "sonic rulers? Dolphins and bats have been doing this for thousands, or millions, of years!" and so on.
So, what sort of innovation are you referring to, that the App Store process eliminates? The only areas of innovation being limited are those which are directly affected by the terms. So, you can't have innovative bugs. You can't have innovative porn. You can't have innovative apps that replace the phone functionality (you *can* have innovative apps which augment it, such as VOIP apps).
So, what innovation are you referring to?
Further, it's not like the iPhone is the only OS out there. Even *IF* the iPhone actually ruled out all possible innovation, there are still PCs and Macs and Linuxen and numerous other systems out there which *will* innovate.
After all, regardless of how you define "innovation", no one[1] looks at the iPhone and goes, "well, it does everything I want and there are over 100,000 apps for it, but it doesn't, well, it doesn't... It doesn't innovate, so I guess I'll pass"
[1] colloquially speaking. I'm sure there are an insignificant number of people who have taken this stance, but it's little more than a rounding error.
I wasn't even talking about the tinkerer specifically. I was more talking about how locking it to the Apple approved app store may prevent a lot of innovative apps from making it onto the iPad. First one that comes to mind would be some sort of touch friendly Photoshop (or any other photo management tool). Or how about web browser innovations? Apple tends to deny apps that 'duplicate functionality' that is already on the device.
Spoken like someone who hasn't perused the App Store recently.
Apple isn't denying apps willy nilly. Most denials are for bugs. A much smaller amount are for terms of use violations (such as porn and telco carrier (read: AT&T) violations). And a few were for functionality duplication. Of those, only apps that have a built-in interpreter and Google Voice come to mind as an app type that isn't in the store now.
While I would prefer no rejections for such reasons, the negative impact has be *extremely* minimal. There are tons of unique and innovative apps.
What you end up with a lot of 'safe' apps on the device that don't look to push it into new areas. People end up avoiding the risk of spending time developing apps that might get denied access.
The over one hundred thousand apps speak otherwise. Apple isn't approving apps (i.e, "do we think this app deserves to be on the store?") so much as disapproving them (i.e., "should this app *not* be in the store?"). It's an important distinction. As long as your app is reasonably bug free, and it doesn't violate a small number of specific terms, it's golden. That doesn't mean there aren't mistakes made, or subjective, sometimes contradictory decisions made, just that taken on the whole, the approval process has had an extremely minimal impact on types of software available, but a very positive impact on the quality (from a bug point of view) of the software available.
You, the tinkerer, will *always* be able to buy a PC that meets your needs.
I certainly hope so...but the trend is disturbing.
Trust me, you will *always* be able to buy a PC that is tinkerable. There is absolutely *zero* chance that, even if this trend continues full-steam ahead, there will be Linux-based PCs that you can buy. It's absolutely impossible to stop them unless you literally make them illegal (and even then, they will still exist).
The new versions of Windows restrict driver development to "approved corporations" only.
Even if MS follows Apple in this regard (they'll try, as usual, but almost certainly miss the point), but even if Windows itself becomes even *more* locked down than the iPad, if it becomes, essentially, an Xbox 360 that can run general purpose programs from the MS Program Store. Even if that happens, there will *still* be Linux PCs out there.
The mass market is being herded toward "appliances".
Not herded. They are demanding them. They *do not* want to tinker.
Gamers are switching to consoles.
For the same reason. Consoles plug into a TV, and they just work. No, "what video card to I have", no "what drivers work best", no messing with the settings. Your choice of OS or CPU, or antivirus or whatever else has *zero* effect on if your console works.
Without large sales volume, the "fully programmable" computers will be a high priced, obscure niche product.
Three things of note:
1. "fully programmable" is a misnomer. You can write programs for your own iPad. Distribution is fairly easy, except for a few cases. Windows is easier to distribute, but you still cannot fully modify the system. Only Open Source/Free OS's like Linux are "fully programmable", and even then they are almost universally installed onto hardware that isn't.
2. The "high priced" charge is silly. There will *always* be cheap little $100 boards that you can tinker with to your heart's delight. There will also always be full-powered motherboards and chips that can be purchased.
3. "Obscure niche product". This I fully agree is a potential outcome. And not only potential, but desirable. Such computers should be niche, as only a niche truly, specifically, wants such a computer. Everyone else buys them because there's no alternative. But trust me, they want easy, powerful but not tinkerable, appliances.
And don't worry. There's tons of niches that do quite well. You will always be able to buy and tinker with your own computer. The only differences is that the rest of us will be able to buy a computer that we *don't* have to tinker with.
So what? Most people not only do not want to tinker with their computers, but they see it as a undesirable. They want something that just works. And when it doesn't work, you take it into Apple and they either fix it or replace it, if it's under warranty, or you go get a new one. And then back home, you plug in the replacement and it automatically reconfigures itself with all the exact same files and settings that you had before.
Now, you may wish to tinker. That's nice. The iPad is not going to remove the ability for people to tinker with their computer. All you have to do is buy one of the countless other computers that are tinkerable. And no matter how popular the iPad becomes (very popular, trust me, most people do *not* share the geek-centered criticisms), and no matter how much the rest of the computer industry follows suit (and believe me, they won't), no matter *what*, as long as there are computers, there will be tinkerable computers. Just buy one of those.
You, the tinkerer, will *always* be able to buy a PC that meets your needs. Why not allow everyone else the opportunity to do the same?
Of course, it's not just photos which will benefit. Video, web, and pretty much anything you will see on the screen will benefit.
Which is why it's particularly bizarre that they left out the USB and/or Firewire ports which would be particularly useful for loading photos and videos into the iPad. And yes, I know you can get around this using USB/Bluetooth adapters etc. but that's not really very consumer friendly, is it? Two micro-USB ports with a micro->normal USB adaptor would have made a lot of difference.
That's what the dock connector is for. Not only can you load pictures over that like normal, they have two adapters in their camera connection kit that has both a USB port and an SD card slot.
You're partially right in that Apple does want people to upgrade to the current OS. But if their motives were as underhanded as you imply, it seems a bit odd they'd price Snow Leopard at $29.
Forces any 4+ year older Mac out of the way since they only started making Intel chips (required for 10.6, no PowerPC chips) in 2006. And thats if you didn't buy an older Mac off the shelf. While the $29 isn't much, it's still a forced upgrade
No one is forced to buy Snow Leopard. Boot Camp with XP and Vista drivers is a feature of Leopard. Windows 7 compatible Boot Camp is a feature of Snow Leopard.
Regardless, Leopard still runs just fine. But like every OS upgrade, if you want the new features, you need the new system.
I'm not sure what you're getting at regarding the older Macs, as they can't run Windows 7 anyway.
Not quite. Microsoft used the launch of Windows XP to increase the price of Windows dramatically.
Besides, when amiga3D says, "they planned it that way", he doesn't mean they planned it back then in 1995. He means they planned it that way last year when they priced Windows 7.
I agree, however Apple has a long history of breaking compatiblity to force you to upgrade to a new product.
Not quite. Apple has a long history of focusing on their current products. Windows 7 drivers are part of Snow Leopard because Snow Leopard is the current OS.
You're partially right in that Apple does want people to upgrade to the current OS. But if their motives were as underhanded as you imply, it seems a bit odd they'd price Snow Leopard at $29.
Think, Message and Note are more significant than simply "i". Furthermore, messagepad and notepad are pre-existing words
Doesn't matter. iPod is now a word, Wii is now a word. Both sounded pretty dumb when they first came out. iPad will go through the exact same process.
it's vaporware (remember, it's not even released yet)
Not really. It's a finished product, primarily awaiting manufacture. Vaporware is more about when people talk about what they're *going* to create, not what they've already finished. Also, there's an implied sense of ongoingness.
Strictly speaking, you may be able to call it vaporware without being technically wrong, but pretty much *none* of the implications that accompany that word apply here, so it's, at best, deliberately misleading.
Unless you honestly believe it's not going to be released any time soon.
What happened to "One mouse button is better"?
What the hell are you talking about? There's no mouse.
Adding complex gestures doesn't necessarily make things easier
You're making the same mistake so many other geek-types make when they decry the one-button mouse (and it hasn't been "one-button" in the sense most people mean by that for a long time now). It's not removing options to be simpler, it's about being more natural. Multitouch *is* more complex, mechanically, than a single-button mouse, but it's so much more natural.
The idea behind multitouch is that it builds upon your pre-existing knowledge about how real-world objects work.
But let's take an example of poorly designed gestures. Instead of pinching-to-zoom (which is so fundamentally natural, everyone gets it instantly, from 2 years old to 100, where as teaching people about dragging or right-clicking, etc., with a mouse can be quite tedious), you have some funky shit like, make a sideways figure-eight to bring up the hud, a triangle to fire missiles, a z-shape to make a 180, and so on. *That* would be not only more complex, but extremely unnatural.
plus you have the downside of a less accurate touchscreen (capacitive versus resistive).
Who cares? It works, and it works extremely well. Capacitive touch screen is really the way to go for multitouch. You always make these really absurd criticisms, which are not only wrong on the face of it, but miss the whole point. It doesn't matter if the screen is capacitive, resistive, or if there are magical gnomes running the show. What matters is how well it works, and the iPhone screen works *wonderfully*.
Welcome to 2002. What portable touch device doesn't have that these days? And I'd rather do that with a stylus, not my finger.
You clearly misread my statement. I'll reconstruct it to clarify:
The brilliance of the iPhone OS is that it's designed specifically for multitouch. You're not just using your finger (or stylus) as a mouse, with handwriting recognition thrown in for good measure.
The brilliance of the iPhone is that you're *not* using your finger (or stylus) to act like a mouse that does mousing and also has handwriting recognition.
And, "welcome to 2002"? Really? Apple shipped a product with handwriting recognition in '93, which they were working on all the way back into the '80s. It's somewhat ironic you would mention 2002 specifically, since that's when Jaguar shipped with Inkwell. So yeah, welcome to 2002, except Apple was already there 9 years before *that*.
Besides, my mention of handwriting input was incidental. My main point was that the iPhone OS isn't just your regular WIMP model with a stylus (or finger) instead of a mouse. Windows and Mac OS are designed around the mouse. The iPhone OS is designed around multitouch. This is far superior to simply using your finger (or stylus) as a mouse.
This whole, WIMP with a stylus is why all the p
You, good sir, are talking out of your ass. Obviously you haven't been playing Flash games. Mouse-only Flash games used to be the predominant form of Flash games and they still consist a significant portion of them.
The iPad doesn't have a mouse. All you can do is click. No dragging, not right-clicking, just click. And what happens if you click two places?
My point isn't that there are no games that would work, but that it's not like simply having Flash on the iPad would mean you can instantly use all those Flash apps out there. Quite a large portion will be unusable.
There are more and better fun flash games on the browser than there are App store games. The wealth of flash games is just incredible. The App Store does not more than make up for this and not all App Store games are free.
There are more games in the App Store than a person can possibly ever play. So it can't play Flash games, so what? The Xbox 360 can't play PS3 games, which can't play Wii games, etc. It's not a big deal, because they have their own games, just like the iPhone, and soon to be iPad do.
Lack of Flash is not going to be much of a problem, just as it's not a problem on the iPhone.
Why don't you check out the current Ars Technica poll on how many people would like to have Flash on the iPad:
Polls like this have the problem of people are just going to say yes, after all, why not? The proof is in the pudding, and the iPhone and iPod touch have done just fine without Flash.
I'm not saying that people don't actually want it, but it really doesn't matter all that much.
And yes, Flash is a gaming platform unparalleled on the browser. You may not like Flash games, but a lot of people do. Flash has also ushered back the golden age of game development in the 80s where you could have just 1-3 people teams pumping out fun games
The same is true for iPhone games. Further, the overwhelming majority of Flash games will be unplayable on a multitouch device. They just aren't designed to be played by nothing more than clicking the mouse.
Btw, re: Flash's sub-par performance on the Mac, it's not all Adobe's fault. See this post from Lee Brimelow of Adobe (scroll down to comment #62):
http://theflashblog.com/?p=1703 [theflashblog.com]
"Apple is not cooperating in our attempts to improve the performance of the Flash Player on the Mac. Microsoft is, and in FP 10.1 we cut the CPU utilization in half for watching video. Same with other mobile device manufactures. We would love to work with Apple to do the same but they are making a strategic decision not too so that they can increase their revenue. Hey thats business. Another thing to note is that the site you showed is filled with Flash and just because it takes up a lot of CPU doesnt mean that kids will not want to play with it. Give people the option is what Im saying."
That's absurd. Apple isn't keeping Flash running poorly for financial reasons. Apple has a specific way to accelerate video on Mac OS X. If Flash can't utilize this, that's Adobe's fault. Of course, the way Flash works, it doesn't really have a way to interact with QuickTime, but it seems they should be able to do something with OpenCL.
What's more, Flash on Linux also isn't accelerated, and Adobe has full access to the source code there. The problem isn't openness or financial incentives, it's in how Flash interacts with the system. Adobe keeps taking jabs at Apple about openness, or insinuating financial motives, simply because they know it will resonate with a certain audience.
Gee. Hulu. A way to get TV shows that isn't the iTunes store. A way to get TV shows without paying Apple. I think I see why there is no Flash for the iDevice lineup.
Both SlingBox and EyeTV have apps in the App Store. There's no reason to believe Apple will deny a Hulu app.
Missing Flash hasn't killed the iPhone
Because it's a phone. People are used to downloading specialized, overpriced, horrible 'ports' of games for their phones already. Netbooks, however, are a whole different experience with whole different (and higher) expectations.
How many flash games are playable via multitouch? Specifically, no keyboard, just clicking on parts of the board.
Besides, there's no reason to assume that people who currently buy apps on the iPhone will suddenly balk at the prospect of buying them on the iPad. And it's not like there's going to be a shortage of free games, as well.
it's an open question whether it's important to have multiple applications open at the same time in the market netbooks are filling into right now.
Two words: music listening. If you had to close down your browser to listen to music on your netbook, the entire market would likely dissapear overnight.
How has this notion that somehow the iPad can't play music while doing other things become such a common myth? The iPhone has been able to do this since day one.
Not to say anything negative about Apple here, but to those of us not in the gamer community, Wii still sounds asinine.
You couldn't have that any more backwards. The Wii is the one console that appeals to non-gamers.
People may still snicker at the name, I'm not saying that's going away. People still make "iPood" jokes. But the name "Wii" is no longer seen as a liability.
can it, say, play a YouTube video in the background while working on something in the foreground?
This isn't going to be much of a hinderance. While there are some YouTube clips that are really just audio with unimportant video (Feynman lectures, for example), but it's a fairly safe assumption that you'll want to actually watch the YouTube clip you are playing.
Nope. What about Flash? Nope.
Aside from Hulu (which could quite simply create an app, which one must assume they are working on), what's the loss? Porn? I suppose that's not to be completely discounted.
Or flash games? Really? There's no keyboard or mouse to play them, assuming that flash performance is going to be worthwhile anyway. How many flash games are there that are completely playable via clicking? This isn't a huge loss, and more than made up for in app store games.
Apple is going into netbook territory with neither the most user-friendly, innovative, feature complete or robust software library.
Are you kidding? Netbooks are pretty much the bottom of the barrel in terms of user-friendliness, innovation, or features. All they are are miniature, and very slow notebooks, running a full-sized OS, which does poorly at the limited screen size and resolution.
But since Apple has chosen to write an OS specifically designed for the form factor, the multitouch interface, and portable usage patterns. You don't see this sort of specialization in the netbook realm except for things like Ubuntu Netbook Remix (which is done very well), ChromeOS (which also unfairly gets put down for not being a full-featured OS--well, that's the whole point!), Android (not terribly compelling), and a handful of other Linux projects.
On paper, the iPad is doomed to fail. Perhaps in person it might be different, but I tend to side with the people who think its going to fail to appeal to the masses.
Why? The people who say it's going to fail are those that are basically complaining about it not being Mac OS X with a stylus. Having seen the demo, and reading the reviews of people who've actually used them, I have no doubt that people will find them very appealing. The only thing in doubt, in my mind, is whether people will decide they want to buy that mid-range product. I think they will, but only time will tell.
Perhaps, but as a woman I can definitely tell you that all my women friends have agreed it's an unfortunate name because the first thing it makes us think of is feminine hygiene products.
Sure, today. Give it some time and iPad will just be another word, like Wii. People made the same arguments against the Wii. This too shall pass.
Personally, I think the iPad is a good idea. However, I also think that while the app store is a useful evil on the iPhone, it's going to be death for the iPad.
Why? What apps are there really that are being blocked? Google Voice, SlingBox over 3G and...? Yawn. I know there's a list of interesting rejected apps, the losses are minimal, and while lamentable, a drop in the bucket compared with what software *is* available.
On the contrary, the App Store is one of the single most important factors in the success of the iPhone and now the iPad. Yes, the geek-types will lament the control imposed by the app store, and for myself, I'd prefer an official opt-in jailbreak mode, but in terms of mass appeal, the hinderance caused by the control is absolutely dwarfed by the benefit brought about by the single marketplace for discovering and downloading new apps and games.
Oh come on, the name jokes are a manufactured "controversy". Just like the name iPod, iPad will stop sounding like something else, and become a word of its own. But even without this, there are so many other "pads" out there, that this is silly. For example, where was this controversy over the Fujitsu iPAD? Or the various other pads. ThinkPad? Newton MessagePad? MS Notepad? Or simply a pad of paper?
I'm not complaining about the jokes per se. They're kinda funny for a second, but they do wear thin. But what I'm responding to is that this is treated as some sort of serious issue. "OMG, people are making jokes!" How many iPood, iPaid, etc. jokes were there?
In the long run, the name is going to be just fine.
Here's an idea - What Steve should have done was release a tablet version of the MacBook Air (with the exact same software compatibility, OS, etc.) and call it the MacBook Slate or MacBook Touch. I would have bought one of those, and I'm often the first to question the sexual orientation of male Mac users.
And it would have sold worse than the MacBook Air. People have shown they don't want tablets that are just their desktop OS in tablet form. To be sure, there are people who buy them, but they are almost exclusively sold to geeks, artists, and some vertical markets. But as a mass media product, it takes something that's already cumbersome for most people, and making it even more so.
The brilliance of the iPhone OS is that it's designed specifically for multitouch. You're not just using your finger (or stylus) as a mouse, with handwriting recognition thrown in for good measure. Mac OS X no only already supports this, but you can already have your Mac modded into a Mac tablet (or buy one pre-modded). And they're not selling well enough to warrant a separate Apple SKU.
The iPhone is an enhanced version of a device that everybody already knows of and has. There was already a place in every customer's life for an iPhone. It simply replaced their older cell phone. The same thing can not be said at all for this thing. It isn't powerful nor versatile enough to replace their computers. It isn't small or portable enough to replace their iPhone.
It's not meant to replace either.
This is just like the netbook, which also isn't meant to replace either of those. Instead, it's the computer device you take with you, leaving the notebook at home.
As a computer, the netbook is better (and that's part of what has the geek crowd all up in a bunch), but as a device in between the smart phone and the notebook? The iPad wins hands down. All this nonsense about "it doesn't do this, it doesn't do that" is from those that want it to act like their notebook, only smaller, cheaper, and with multitouch.
Were Apple to have released that, instead, it would fail. The geeks would have rejoiced, but just like the Tablet PCs before them, the general populace really doesn't want a touch (or stylus) screened PC.
An IPS panel is certainly neat, but as you can't really use the ipad for anything that actually demands that kind of screen
You mean like viewing photos and showing it to people who may not be standing directly in front of it? Because the primary benefits of IPS are better color, and greater viewing angle.
Of course, it's not just photos which will benefit. Video, web, and pretty much anything you will see on the screen (and given that you're presumably going to be looking at the screen while you use it, that's pretty much everything) will benefit.
Your reading skills are poor.
As I've stated many times:
1. Netbooks provided an example for Apple to look at.
2. iPad would have existed without netbooks.
If it's *my* reading skills that are poor, please explain how both 1 and 2 cannot both be true.
You asserted Y and Z. "X" implies "not Y". "not X" implies "not Z". Therefore you can't be right.
Your attempt at logical obfuscation does nothing to alter the fact that what I wrote above is not contradictory. Given that, the only logical conclusion is that your attempt to rephrase what I wrote into logical statements and/or your applied logic is flawed.
Meanwhile, lots of people who are apple fans are seriously disappointed with this thing. As an apple hater, I'm not surprised, but I've heard of 1 out of maybe...85+ apple fanatics I know that actually wants the thing.
Same thing happened on the iPhone launch. First it failed to live up to the rumors, which have the benefit of being unhindered by practicality. Press reviews were mixed, with a lot of, "*this* is the iPhone?" Then the launch there were lines (there will be lines for this, have no doubt), but the press reviews were mostly positive (expect this as well) with the obligatory downsides (no exchange, no multitasking, no third party apps). Then the launch weekend sales where huge, but shy of the analysts rumors.
Then it took off. Everyone wanted one. Sure, there were updates that helped (like the App Store), but it was already a success before that. The App Store was like the iPhone squared.
So, here we have the exact same thing. Also, the number one complaint, no multitasking. Look for news later this year about that.
As for no expansion, there are features in the iPad that address this also. The iWork suite, the camera reader, and the iDisk app are clues.
Disclaimer: I am not questioning your opinion, nor am I discrediting it. You are completely entitled to your own thoughts.
And vice versa.
No matter what you do, say, or show me, you will never convince me that buying a device as expensive as a full computer but with only half the functionality is a good thing. Paying more and getting less is not a good thing, even if it comes wrapped up in a pretty package.
I'm not trying to convince *you* of this, just pointing out ways in which your opinion are not terribly applicable to most people.
For example, your part about paying more and getting less is a bit absurd. I can buy a PC for less than my phone (a crappy PC, to be sure, but a PC that is more powerful none the less). But it would be ridiculous for me to *not* buy my phone (and while I have an iPhone, this could very well apply to pretty much any feature phone or smart phone).
The same thing applies here. I'm not going to buy and iPad instead of a PC (or Mac). I'm going to buy it in addition to the computer I already have.
But let's look at the possibility of buying an iPad instead of a PC. While I definitely wouldn't suggest this for most people, there are still cases where this makes sense. The obvious is people who won't take advantage of that extra power a general purpose PC provides. If all you do is email, listen to music, surf the web, view photos, then the iPad not only does those thing quite well, it does much more. If you don't want the complexities of a full PC, then the iPad may be a good choice.
Not for you, of course, nor for me or for most people, but I just point this out to show that even your most ardently bold-fonted opinion isn't as universally applicable as the the heavy typeface may imply. And in spite of your disclaimer (which I accept at face value), your wording isn't in line with the "this is only my opinion for me" sentiment. You didn't state it in personal terms, you stated it in no uncertain, universal terms.
You didn't say "Paying more and getting less is not a good thing for me, even if it comes wrapped up in a pretty package.", you just said, in bold, "Paying more and getting less is not a good thing, even if it comes wrapped up in a pretty package."