Just because good may arguably come out of something, doesn't stop an event being a "disaster".
The OP is wrong, not because of your reasoning, but because by dictionary definitions, actually I'd say something does have to be an accident for it to be a "disaster".
I'd support measuring bytes in scientific notation if only to stop the dubious and pedantic "it's gibibyte" claims. (I've never heard anyone refer to it as gibi etc when speaking it.)
I agree. Once upon a time, the Slashdot readers argued against closed locked down platforms, and supported openness. But if in ten years' time, the majority of computing is all on completely closed locked down systems where you need permission from the company to do anything, it'll be places like Slashdot that supported and cheered this model on.
As you experienced, anyone who dares criticise this now gets modded down, if it's not in favour of Apple.
It's only on Slashdot that Apple are treated as the number one company.
I've never understood the reason why they buy them - but let's be fair, I think you can forgive people's misunderstanding, when everytime we ask them, instead of coming up with actual reasons, objective examples of things it does better, instead we just get vague handwaving answers like "I can't explain it, it's just a new paradigm" or "You just have to use it, honest" (which incidentally reminds me of the religious argument "You just have to believe in Him, then you'll see the evidence).
It might not be reasons of "cool and hip", but "Buying it because my friend said it was the best, and I believed him" comes pretty close to that in my opinion.
So you say usability - give me an example of this?
I tried unticking the ads, but it doesn't stop the daily Apple product placements... "Rupert Murdoch loves the Ipad" - really, how is this any more an actual news story than "Random famous person loves Pepsi"?
I know Slashdot is now running daily Ipad stories, but it seems like they've run out of news if we now have a story for every person who uses one. Why not a daily story for every famous person who runs Windows, or has a Nokia? In fact, with those two market leaders you could get away with hourly stories.
Re:Web Research right at the Store
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Welcome to 5 years ago.
And if I want a bigger screen, I'll look on my netbook. Not that I need a bigger screen, as my phone has a well designed UI that makes it just good enough.
For tablets yes, but not the Ipad
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Yes, but you missed his and cheaper than a laptop.
The Ipad is not that device. Yes, I can see tablets becoming more popular when they are much cheaper, but let's wait for the company that does that. There's nothing special about the Ipad, which is just one of several tablets available today, and it's one of the more expensive ones at that.
The iPad isn't original anything
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Except with the Ipad, there are already tablets, touch netbooks and similar kinds of devices. So even if a "killer use" is discovered for them, it won't be anything that Apple did first.
Really though - claiming that we should treat a single product from a single company as revolutionary, because there might be a killer application for it in future? One could make that speculation about any product in existence.
Re:Like Woz didn't move on a LONG time ago?
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Sounds like it'll make front page news for the next Apple rumour story then. I mean, isn't that how the first Islate/pad story started out? "Random blogger notices Apple ordering in some big screens" etc...
Re:Like Woz didn't move on a LONG time ago?
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Well yes, but at least one person exists who prefer an Amiga, etc, or any product. I don't think anyone's saying the target market is absolutely zero, just that it's not very significant compared with netbooks etc.
What does the Ipad do that no other product does?
Re:Like Woz didn't move on a LONG time ago?
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There's a web browser on the netbook.
Heh, indeed - I thought it was bad enough when I saw people, here on a geek forum of all places, under the impression that Iphones were the first phones that could run a web browser. Now, here we witness the first spotting in the wild of someone who thinks that netbooks can't run web browsers and play movies.
Re:Like Woz didn't move on a LONG time ago?
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For the same reasons people want iPhones, and wish the screen were bigger when reading/watching for a long period of time
For years, people have wanted phones to be smaller, and ridiculed any slightly bigger devices as "bricks". But because it's Apple, they get praise for that very same thing.
Not revolutionary, but not pointless either.
Well indeed, but I just wish people would realise that most Apple products are in this middle ground, and nothing special compared to any other product. Give the Ipad one story when it's released - maybe (since some products don't even get a story at all), and that's that. But what do we have here? Endless stories based on rumour and vaporware for months before its released, and now it finally is, we're quite literally getting daily stories (or even more often), giving us the latest updates of Ipad trivia, as if Slashdot had turned into the Apple blog.
For that level of coverage, I expect it to be revolutionary, and the fact that it isn't is telling. Simply "not being pointless" isn't good enough for such overwhelming hype and free media coverage.
Consider how many stories Slashdot gives the Apple PCs - that level of coverage is proportionate to their market share. The Iphones and especially the Ipad seem to be less than this, so why are they so special? If Slashdot had turned into Apple's marketing arm, I wonder why they don't give us daily Mac stories too.
So if you want a small touchscreen computer, go with the netbook. If you want easy access to a web browser, movies, and text from your couch or bed, go with an iPad.
My, if only computers could do those things you list.
Hear hear. There's something particularly depressing that they even have the cheek to suggest that it's sexist when women aren't expected to dress up and look pretty, by labelling that "male".
I'm reminded of the recent news of a Barbie computer geek. Yes, apparently the idea that in computer jobs, women can wear what they like, just like men do, is sexist, and it would be so much better if women were under pressure to dress up and wear make-up like a Barbie doll, like they have to in many other jobs. Again, we have the ridiculous tactic of painting this as being "a man's world":
Web developer and former dotcom employee Rachel Andrew says, in style terms, computing is still a man's, man's, man's world.
"It's very much a young man's industry," says Ms Andrew, now director of Edgeofmyseat.com. "Women find the need to become quite laddish. You try and become very geeky and not particularly feminine."
According to her, expecting women to dress up and behave differently to men is fine, because that's what being a woman is about, but jobs where they don't have to do this makes it a "man's, man's, man's world". (There's nothing stopping women wearing make-up in a geek job - or indeed the men, come to that; in most jobs we don't have that choice, but geek jobs are more tolerant for all sexes. How is that a sexist thing?)
Me too, I love my Sansa Clip. I love how anything non-Apple even in comments gets modded down - why worry about debating which product is best, when they can just pretend competition doesn't even exist?
I wouldn't have heard about this product by reading Slashdot though. Instead I had to look in mainstream consumer sites. I remember when Slashdot used to be a site to learn about tech products, including the alternative ones that were less well known about. Now it seems to be the reverse.
The Ipad got months of overwhelming amounts of media coverage. This isn't one day's worth, it several months' worth of sales. Honestly, with all that free advertising they got, it would be shocking if they didn't sell some. Pretty much anyone who would want one already knew about it long ago. You also have to factor in that for Apple fans, they haven't had the option of a netbook, so you've got all the people waiting since around 2007 (it's the same idea as people queuing up to by the Iphone 3G - it's hardly surprising they're queuing up, if they had to wait years after 3G became mainstream in other phones).
I don't know what the early sales of the Ipod were like, but did it get anywhere near the same amount of publicity?
Now look at the numbers the iPod and iPhone are doing years later
Which? Those are two products, one of which is market leader, the other isn't anywhere near market leader.
some MS vaporware product that nobody has ever heard of so far
Vaporware? The Apple tablet/Istale was rumoured and pre-announced and announced for years before it was finally released. And the only reason people have heard about it is because of all the free hype they got given.
Sure, if you only read Slashdot, you'll only hear about Apple products, but just because you haven't heard about it doesn't mean anything.
(I see Apple moderation is back on form: -1 for anyone who dares to criticise, and insightful for anyone who supports them. Who's getting all the mod points these days? They're the only stories I browse at -1, because the system's broken.)
And because a physical board game can be larger than an iPad so everyone doesn't have to crowd around it?
Coming soon... the iBoard. Offering a massive one metre square multimodalmagictouch screen, at only twice the price of the iPad. It's bigger, so everyone will want one. It'll be even more popular than an iPad!
In the interest of truth, how about the commenters in this thread start by telling us if they own or have used at length an iPhone, Ipod Touch, or an iPad.
And let's also hear how many of those people have also used every other phone, mp3 player, tablet, e-reader and netbook on the market.
You make a fair point, but why is the "But you haven't used this product" only directed towards critics? It works both ways. And given the free advertising given towards the Iphone and Ipad, and the way that such devices are often presented as the default, I wouldn't be surprised if the number of people who have an Iphone/pad/pod without having owned alternatives, is far higher than vice-versa. Indeed, many owners don't even seem to be aware that alternatives exist. "Nokia? Who are they? No one was allowing Internet access on phones or making tablets before Apple did it, were they..." Few people have used every product on the market, so the best we can do it comment on the advantages of products we have used.
I fear the answer is basically because it's the one thing that Apple did first, therefore it's touted as important.
I do agree with you. Touch works fine on my 5800, and lacking multitouch has never been a problem (indeed, I find it easier - one mouse button is simpler, remember?), and a resistive touchscreen has some minor benefits to make up for this minor loss. A well designed UI doesn't need multitouch, it can simply use better paradigms instead.
There are plenty of other touchscreen tablets and phones out there, that would also make perfect boardgame platforms, but we're not going to hear about them here. Expect to see a lot more of these "Doing X on the Ipad" stories, just as we did with the Iphone.
Thanks for this - I've been struggling to find out what the "wash up" process actually is. One advantage of writing to Lords is that you aren't limited by who you can write to, unlike with MPs - you can write to as many as you wish.
I'm not making any assumption. Firstly not everyone has your MP - some may be luckier. Secondly, large numbers of people writing to MPs still has some chance. Tell us, do you have a better way of protesting this, in the same amount of time it takes to send off an email? What good will writing a comment on Slashdot do about it, as you've just done?
There's also the secondary issue that even if it doesn't stop things now, it raises far better awareness long term, if groups can say 10s of thousands of people have opposed the law.
There's a reason the laws of war require combatants to dress in an obvious uniform and avoid civilian areas unless unavoidable: because not doing so endangers the lives of civilians.
Oh I see, it's the fault of the people being invaded. And even if this did make sense - it's still not the fault of the innocent people.
If your country was invaded, you can bet that all notion of rules of war and uniform would go out the window. Of course there'd be all sorts of ununiformed fighters, from Government organised resistance, to just a guy trying to defend his home. You honestly think that our Governments don't have these kinds of plans? And if civilians got killed, you'd go "Oh well, that's obviously our own fault for not dressing up in nice pretty uniforms for them to shoot at us"?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, assuming the only two options were "nuke them" or "complete invasion".
Just because good may arguably come out of something, doesn't stop an event being a "disaster".
The OP is wrong, not because of your reasoning, but because by dictionary definitions, actually I'd say something does have to be an accident for it to be a "disaster".
I'd support measuring bytes in scientific notation if only to stop the dubious and pedantic "it's gibibyte" claims. (I've never heard anyone refer to it as gibi etc when speaking it.)
I agree. Once upon a time, the Slashdot readers argued against closed locked down platforms, and supported openness. But if in ten years' time, the majority of computing is all on completely closed locked down systems where you need permission from the company to do anything, it'll be places like Slashdot that supported and cheered this model on.
As you experienced, anyone who dares criticise this now gets modded down, if it's not in favour of Apple.
It's only on Slashdot that Apple are treated as the number one company.
I've never understood the reason why they buy them - but let's be fair, I think you can forgive people's misunderstanding, when everytime we ask them, instead of coming up with actual reasons, objective examples of things it does better, instead we just get vague handwaving answers like "I can't explain it, it's just a new paradigm" or "You just have to use it, honest" (which incidentally reminds me of the religious argument "You just have to believe in Him, then you'll see the evidence).
It might not be reasons of "cool and hip", but "Buying it because my friend said it was the best, and I believed him" comes pretty close to that in my opinion.
So you say usability - give me an example of this?
I tried unticking the ads, but it doesn't stop the daily Apple product placements... "Rupert Murdoch loves the Ipad" - really, how is this any more an actual news story than "Random famous person loves Pepsi"?
I know Slashdot is now running daily Ipad stories, but it seems like they've run out of news if we now have a story for every person who uses one. Why not a daily story for every famous person who runs Windows, or has a Nokia? In fact, with those two market leaders you could get away with hourly stories.
Welcome to 5 years ago.
And if I want a bigger screen, I'll look on my netbook. Not that I need a bigger screen, as my phone has a well designed UI that makes it just good enough.
Yes, but you missed his and cheaper than a laptop.
The Ipad is not that device. Yes, I can see tablets becoming more popular when they are much cheaper, but let's wait for the company that does that. There's nothing special about the Ipad, which is just one of several tablets available today, and it's one of the more expensive ones at that.
Except with the Ipad, there are already tablets, touch netbooks and similar kinds of devices. So even if a "killer use" is discovered for them, it won't be anything that Apple did first.
Really though - claiming that we should treat a single product from a single company as revolutionary, because there might be a killer application for it in future? One could make that speculation about any product in existence.
Sounds like it'll make front page news for the next Apple rumour story then. I mean, isn't that how the first Islate/pad story started out? "Random blogger notices Apple ordering in some big screens" etc...
Well yes, but at least one person exists who prefer an Amiga, etc, or any product. I don't think anyone's saying the target market is absolutely zero, just that it's not very significant compared with netbooks etc.
What does the Ipad do that no other product does?
There's a web browser on the netbook.
Heh, indeed - I thought it was bad enough when I saw people, here on a geek forum of all places, under the impression that Iphones were the first phones that could run a web browser. Now, here we witness the first spotting in the wild of someone who thinks that netbooks can't run web browsers and play movies.
For the same reasons people want iPhones, and wish the screen were bigger when reading/watching for a long period of time
For years, people have wanted phones to be smaller, and ridiculed any slightly bigger devices as "bricks". But because it's Apple, they get praise for that very same thing.
Not revolutionary, but not pointless either.
Well indeed, but I just wish people would realise that most Apple products are in this middle ground, and nothing special compared to any other product. Give the Ipad one story when it's released - maybe (since some products don't even get a story at all), and that's that. But what do we have here? Endless stories based on rumour and vaporware for months before its released, and now it finally is, we're quite literally getting daily stories (or even more often), giving us the latest updates of Ipad trivia, as if Slashdot had turned into the Apple blog.
For that level of coverage, I expect it to be revolutionary, and the fact that it isn't is telling. Simply "not being pointless" isn't good enough for such overwhelming hype and free media coverage.
Consider how many stories Slashdot gives the Apple PCs - that level of coverage is proportionate to their market share. The Iphones and especially the Ipad seem to be less than this, so why are they so special? If Slashdot had turned into Apple's marketing arm, I wonder why they don't give us daily Mac stories too.
So if you want a small touchscreen computer, go with the netbook. If you want easy access to a web browser, movies, and text from your couch or bed, go with an iPad.
My, if only computers could do those things you list.
Hear hear. There's something particularly depressing that they even have the cheek to suggest that it's sexist when women aren't expected to dress up and look pretty, by labelling that "male".
I'm reminded of the recent news of a Barbie computer geek. Yes, apparently the idea that in computer jobs, women can wear what they like, just like men do, is sexist, and it would be so much better if women were under pressure to dress up and wear make-up like a Barbie doll, like they have to in many other jobs. Again, we have the ridiculous tactic of painting this as being "a man's world":
Web developer and former dotcom employee Rachel Andrew says, in style terms, computing is still a man's, man's, man's world.
"It's very much a young man's industry," says Ms Andrew, now director of Edgeofmyseat.com. "Women find the need to become quite laddish. You try and become very geeky and not particularly feminine."
According to her, expecting women to dress up and behave differently to men is fine, because that's what being a woman is about, but jobs where they don't have to do this makes it a "man's, man's, man's world". (There's nothing stopping women wearing make-up in a geek job - or indeed the men, come to that; in most jobs we don't have that choice, but geek jobs are more tolerant for all sexes. How is that a sexist thing?)
Me too, I love my Sansa Clip. I love how anything non-Apple even in comments gets modded down - why worry about debating which product is best, when they can just pretend competition doesn't even exist?
I wouldn't have heard about this product by reading Slashdot though. Instead I had to look in mainstream consumer sites. I remember when Slashdot used to be a site to learn about tech products, including the alternative ones that were less well known about. Now it seems to be the reverse.
The Ipad got months of overwhelming amounts of media coverage. This isn't one day's worth, it several months' worth of sales. Honestly, with all that free advertising they got, it would be shocking if they didn't sell some. Pretty much anyone who would want one already knew about it long ago. You also have to factor in that for Apple fans, they haven't had the option of a netbook, so you've got all the people waiting since around 2007 (it's the same idea as people queuing up to by the Iphone 3G - it's hardly surprising they're queuing up, if they had to wait years after 3G became mainstream in other phones).
I don't know what the early sales of the Ipod were like, but did it get anywhere near the same amount of publicity?
Now look at the numbers the iPod and iPhone are doing years later
Which? Those are two products, one of which is market leader, the other isn't anywhere near market leader.
some MS vaporware product that nobody has ever heard of so far
Vaporware? The Apple tablet/Istale was rumoured and pre-announced and announced for years before it was finally released. And the only reason people have heard about it is because of all the free hype they got given.
Sure, if you only read Slashdot, you'll only hear about Apple products, but just because you haven't heard about it doesn't mean anything.
(I see Apple moderation is back on form: -1 for anyone who dares to criticise, and insightful for anyone who supports them. Who's getting all the mod points these days? They're the only stories I browse at -1, because the system's broken.)
And because a physical board game can be larger than an iPad so everyone doesn't have to crowd around it?
Coming soon ... the iBoard. Offering a massive one metre square multimodalmagictouch screen, at only twice the price of the iPad. It's bigger, so everyone will want one. It'll be even more popular than an iPad!
In the interest of truth, how about the commenters in this thread start by telling us if they own or have used at length an iPhone, Ipod Touch, or an iPad.
And let's also hear how many of those people have also used every other phone, mp3 player, tablet, e-reader and netbook on the market.
You make a fair point, but why is the "But you haven't used this product" only directed towards critics? It works both ways. And given the free advertising given towards the Iphone and Ipad, and the way that such devices are often presented as the default, I wouldn't be surprised if the number of people who have an Iphone/pad/pod without having owned alternatives, is far higher than vice-versa. Indeed, many owners don't even seem to be aware that alternatives exist. "Nokia? Who are they? No one was allowing Internet access on phones or making tablets before Apple did it, were they..." Few people have used every product on the market, so the best we can do it comment on the advantages of products we have used.
I fear the answer is basically because it's the one thing that Apple did first, therefore it's touted as important.
I do agree with you. Touch works fine on my 5800, and lacking multitouch has never been a problem (indeed, I find it easier - one mouse button is simpler, remember?), and a resistive touchscreen has some minor benefits to make up for this minor loss. A well designed UI doesn't need multitouch, it can simply use better paradigms instead.
There are plenty of other touchscreen tablets and phones out there, that would also make perfect boardgame platforms, but we're not going to hear about them here. Expect to see a lot more of these "Doing X on the Ipad" stories, just as we did with the Iphone.
Thanks for this - I've been struggling to find out what the "wash up" process actually is. One advantage of writing to Lords is that you aren't limited by who you can write to, unlike with MPs - you can write to as many as you wish.
I'm not making any assumption. Firstly not everyone has your MP - some may be luckier. Secondly, large numbers of people writing to MPs still has some chance. Tell us, do you have a better way of protesting this, in the same amount of time it takes to send off an email? What good will writing a comment on Slashdot do about it, as you've just done?
There's also the secondary issue that even if it doesn't stop things now, it raises far better awareness long term, if groups can say 10s of thousands of people have opposed the law.
If you're in the UK, 38 degrees have made it easy to write to your MP about this bill.
Over 20,000 people have already done so.
Right, which is all the more reason why maybe we should be careful to avoid these sorts of problems.
There's a reason the laws of war require combatants to dress in an obvious uniform and avoid civilian areas unless unavoidable: because not doing so endangers the lives of civilians.
Oh I see, it's the fault of the people being invaded. And even if this did make sense - it's still not the fault of the innocent people.
If your country was invaded, you can bet that all notion of rules of war and uniform would go out the window. Of course there'd be all sorts of ununiformed fighters, from Government organised resistance, to just a guy trying to defend his home. You honestly think that our Governments don't have these kinds of plans? And if civilians got killed, you'd go "Oh well, that's obviously our own fault for not dressing up in nice pretty uniforms for them to shoot at us"?