From all the information I've seen, I cannot run iTunes while reading a book or casually browsing the web.... Can you do this on an iPad?
As I said, given that you can do this on the iPod Touch and iPhone currently, I would bet $1000 you can do this on the iPad. I feel so confident, even not having seen the iPad yet, I'm willing to answer your question: yes. Yes, you can listen to iTunes while reading a book or casually browsing the web.
Whatever information you've seen that led you to believe that you cannot do so was incorrect information. Next time you're in a computer store, head over to the iPod section and check out their demo version of the iPod Touch. Give it a try.
I like to listen to music while I read or surf the web. Can it do that? No?
Wrong.
I listen to music while checking email, browsing the web, playing card games, and whatnot on a regular basis.
Please, if you're going to post an opinion on a technological device - especially posting to Slashdot where you're surrounded by tech geeks - at least spend 15 minutes playing with a demo version of at your local computer store so you actually know what you're talking about.
Your browser isn't on the page you spent 15 minutes drilling down to?
And, herein you demonstrate that you have no clue what you're talking about. I own both an iPod Touch and iPhone and have used the iPhone OS browser quite a bit. You can have multiple browser pages open, close Safari and open another app (or 1000 other apps), let your iPod/iPhone go to sleep, come back a week later, and, yes, all those pages that you "spent 15 minutes drilling down to" are still there waiting for you.
Or, to put it more simply, you're wrong.
Go to your local computer store and play with a display iPhone or iPod Touch for 15 minutes and learn how they actually work before you start proclaiming their shortcomings because, well, you're wrong.
As to Pages closing a document when you close the app, time will tell if the app opens the last document or does, in fact, close it upon closing the app but there's one thing I know for certain about it - you don't know what it does. Very few people know how it handles an in-progress document when navigating away from Pages and I'm willing to bet a year's salary that you're not one of those very few people.
Slashdot readers need to remember we are rarely the target audience for a product. We may like and buy a product, but we're very, very, very rarely the primary target audience. We're a very small portion of the majority of consumers out there. Any company that designed a product that overwhelmingly appealed to Slashdot readers would probably be out of business quickly once they realized their market wasn't enough to sustain their business.
Apple makes great products (not necessarily the best but it can hardly be argued they aren't great). They also do a superb job of determining what the largest market is for a given product and then marketing the product to that large group. Sometimes Slashdot readers are along for the ride and other times Slashdot readers decide the product doesn't fulfill their specific product wants so they buy something else. That's fine. That's how our economy should work. But, never ever question that Apple has a better-than-average idea of what they are doing with their product design. They may adjust and alter as time goes by but, in the end, Slashdot is not the main target audience. Nor should it be. We're too small a segment of the overall market.
Mobility. While a laptop is mobile, a tablet is dramatically more so. Can you walk and use your laptop? Nope. You can with a tablet. Imagine an administrative assistant for some executive with one. Do you now start to see the sort of market this type of computing device can target? If you want a computer, buy a computer. This is not a computer - it's a mobile computing device.
You do know that joke wasn't funny 3 seconds after they announced the product name so it certainly isn't funny now after 1000s of geeks have beat the joke to death.
I have an MSI Wind (a hackintosh) that I love but it is not the same thing as a tablet. Too many people view a tablet as "a computer that is just the screen." Apple has gambled (and I am increasingly thinking they're right on target) that a tablet is not a computer - it's a computing device. If you want a computer, you'll use a laptop or desktop. Those already exist and there are hundreds of choices available. A tablet, however, is an ultra-mobile device capable of very specific computing tasks.
In short, I agree - it's about doing few things better. That's why I think the iPad (hate that name) is going to do pretty well as it differentiates itself from the deluge of "computer in tablet form" offerings from other companies. It's not a computer in tablet form - it's a tablet.
The iPad is not a computer - it is an information appliance.
The phrase I am beginning to like is "mobile computing device". Yeah, it smacks a bit of marketing lingo but it has a lot of accuracy to it. It's a mobile device that's easily portable (more so than a laptop) and it is more powerful than a phone but not as powerful as a laptop - mobile computing device.
Other than that, I agree with most of your post. This is a yet another product that demonstrates Apple doesn't necessarily target the uber geeks of society and we, most certainly, do not represent the majority. Should be interesting to see if Apple set their target right.
What devices? Sorry, but seriously, it's actually targeting a different segment than the iPhone/iPod Touch targets and a different segment than a laptop targets. I can see doctors, administrative assistants, teachers, students, and more making use of this in a way that they are currently forced to use a laptop/iPhone for because it's the closest thing available to fill their need. The iPad (hate that name) will more directly target their mobile light computing needs. Laptops are too much, iPhones are not enough - the iPad (hate that name) is just right.
Sorry, but only with the recent flood of tablets is that position being targeted and Apple is being bold in their efforts to try something specialized whereas other manufacturers are trying "laptop in a tablet" approach. Time will tell which approach works but I think there's a lot of merit in Apple's "light mobile computing device" approach. We'll see...
They're both spectacular devices. The iPad will work within a similar ecology and thus has a good chance of being a pretty sweet device (time will tell, of course).
Yet another example of a company attempting to make life difficult for pirates but managing only to annoy and inconvenience legitimate users. People who actually buy the game are going to be faced with restrictions that will, at some point, hinder their ability to use the copy of the game they legally bought while pirates will find a way to crack the system in less than a week and will then be able to use their ill-gotten goods the way they want.
I understand major media companies consider piracy to be a major problem. I understand we're not likely to ever change that opinion. But. It would be nice if they got everything in perspective and realized that they should not hinder legitimate customers in their war against pirates. All that will do is either drive those legitimate customers away or, worse, turn them in to pirates.
Oh Apple, let the Apps through already! You're just shooting yourself in the foot otherwise.
Sorry, but I keep seeing people say this but I have yet to see any evidence to support it (and, quite frankly, have seen nothing but mountains of evidence to the contrary...).
_YOU_ may be annoyed with Apple because they operate in a closed garden but the _VAST_ majority of users really don't care all that much. Slashdot reader =/= average consumer.
Anyone have some first-hand experience with Google Voice willing to share their thoughts? I find it very intriguing but am very hesitant to use it without knowing more...
One example. $250 for the best tickets for U2. Those prices are not unusual any more. Celine Dion did about two dozen shows in Montreal where the best tickets were similarly priced. $100+ for "average" artists is entirely normal. When was the last time you went to a concert? They've become _EXTREMELY_ expensive in the last couple years as bands have realized you can pirate a song but you cannot pirate the experience of going to a live show. That is where the money is to be made.
The best way to combat piracy is to stop spending money on tighter controls that are cracked a week after being released into the wild; stop spending money on formats that users don't want; just generally stop spending money on things that don't work and don't have value and instead spend money on good song writers and good performers and make good music. People are willing to pay for quality.
And, more specifically, the best way to combat piracy is to realize you're not going to succeed and instead find a new business model that works. You'll notice that the bands who are highly profitable have figured something very important out - CD sales are not the road to riches - concert tours are where you make truck loads of money. The _experience_ of music is something people are willing to spend a LOT of money on. Listening to music just entices them to spend $200 a ticket to see the live performance on stage. Once more music people figure this out - once more music people figure out that the old way of becoming rich in the industry is dead - the better off everyone will be.
The US has nothing to lose from social unrest in China.
I would imagine the US has a tremendous amount to lose if social unrest breaks out in China. If that happens, I'd guess the Chinese government would be inclined to dump their rather considerable reserve of US cash onto the open market rendering the US dollar damn near worthless in the global economy. I'm not an economist (nor enough of a fan of economics to even pretend to be) but it's my understanding that this potential financial armageddon is one of the big reasons that China is able to basically bully the US around the way that virtually no other country can. Someone with far more knowledge in global economics than I can certainly step in to correct me where I've gone wrong but I'd imagine the US would very much like the Chinese political situation to remain relatively stable lest it result in the US dollar becoming worthless.
I've already replied to this thread so I can't mod you up but please consider this +1 insightful. Slashdot users often think they are "the norm" when we are far, far, far from the norm. Most people don't have a clue what "open" is and, even when told what it is, don't care. All they care is whether their computer does what they want it to do the way they want it to do it.
...in particular given that probably the majority of the code Apple ships with OS X is derived from other people's open source projects to begin with.
I love how you say that they've done this with an undertone of contempt when, in reality, doing this is a big part the open source movement's philosophy. Not to mention that Apple has given back an enormous amount to the open source community.
I believe that industrial espionage is a crime. And I'm sure several other laws were broken along the way (computer hacking itself is a pretty serious crime). I don't know about the laws in China, but I suspect Google can do something beyond just firing the person.
Slashdot Mirror
From all the information I've seen, I cannot run iTunes while reading a book or casually browsing the web. ... Can you do this on an iPad?
As I said, given that you can do this on the iPod Touch and iPhone currently, I would bet $1000 you can do this on the iPad. I feel so confident, even not having seen the iPad yet, I'm willing to answer your question: yes. Yes, you can listen to iTunes while reading a book or casually browsing the web.
Whatever information you've seen that led you to believe that you cannot do so was incorrect information. Next time you're in a computer store, head over to the iPod section and check out their demo version of the iPod Touch. Give it a try.
It's a shame that software developers can't write an app to do just that exact thing...
I like to listen to music while I read or surf the web. Can it do that? No?
Wrong.
I listen to music while checking email, browsing the web, playing card games, and whatnot on a regular basis.
Please, if you're going to post an opinion on a technological device - especially posting to Slashdot where you're surrounded by tech geeks - at least spend 15 minutes playing with a demo version of at your local computer store so you actually know what you're talking about.
You're seriously complaining about the price? It's $10 more than the Kindle DX and offers a LOT of additional features for that $10 difference.
Your browser isn't on the page you spent 15 minutes drilling down to?
And, herein you demonstrate that you have no clue what you're talking about. I own both an iPod Touch and iPhone and have used the iPhone OS browser quite a bit. You can have multiple browser pages open, close Safari and open another app (or 1000 other apps), let your iPod/iPhone go to sleep, come back a week later, and, yes, all those pages that you "spent 15 minutes drilling down to" are still there waiting for you.
Or, to put it more simply, you're wrong.
Go to your local computer store and play with a display iPhone or iPod Touch for 15 minutes and learn how they actually work before you start proclaiming their shortcomings because, well, you're wrong.
As to Pages closing a document when you close the app, time will tell if the app opens the last document or does, in fact, close it upon closing the app but there's one thing I know for certain about it - you don't know what it does. Very few people know how it handles an in-progress document when navigating away from Pages and I'm willing to bet a year's salary that you're not one of those very few people.
Slashdot readers need to remember we are rarely the target audience for a product. We may like and buy a product, but we're very, very, very rarely the primary target audience. We're a very small portion of the majority of consumers out there. Any company that designed a product that overwhelmingly appealed to Slashdot readers would probably be out of business quickly once they realized their market wasn't enough to sustain their business.
Apple makes great products (not necessarily the best but it can hardly be argued they aren't great). They also do a superb job of determining what the largest market is for a given product and then marketing the product to that large group. Sometimes Slashdot readers are along for the ride and other times Slashdot readers decide the product doesn't fulfill their specific product wants so they buy something else. That's fine. That's how our economy should work. But, never ever question that Apple has a better-than-average idea of what they are doing with their product design. They may adjust and alter as time goes by but, in the end, Slashdot is not the main target audience. Nor should it be. We're too small a segment of the overall market.
Mobility. While a laptop is mobile, a tablet is dramatically more so. Can you walk and use your laptop? Nope. You can with a tablet. Imagine an administrative assistant for some executive with one. Do you now start to see the sort of market this type of computing device can target? If you want a computer, buy a computer. This is not a computer - it's a mobile computing device.
In other news, AT&T admits the sky is blue.
Uh. Yeah. We knew that already...
You do know that joke wasn't funny 3 seconds after they announced the product name so it certainly isn't funny now after 1000s of geeks have beat the joke to death.
I'd mod you up if I could.
I have an MSI Wind (a hackintosh) that I love but it is not the same thing as a tablet. Too many people view a tablet as "a computer that is just the screen." Apple has gambled (and I am increasingly thinking they're right on target) that a tablet is not a computer - it's a computing device. If you want a computer, you'll use a laptop or desktop. Those already exist and there are hundreds of choices available. A tablet, however, is an ultra-mobile device capable of very specific computing tasks.
In short, I agree - it's about doing few things better. That's why I think the iPad (hate that name) is going to do pretty well as it differentiates itself from the deluge of "computer in tablet form" offerings from other companies. It's not a computer in tablet form - it's a tablet.
There's a rather obvious joke about telcos already being dumb pipes that just seems to write itself...
I would imagine it will work once the iPhone OS is updated when the iPad launches (or shortly before launch).
Bluetooth headset, iPad, 3G connection. Ding!
The iPad is not a computer - it is an information appliance.
The phrase I am beginning to like is "mobile computing device". Yeah, it smacks a bit of marketing lingo but it has a lot of accuracy to it. It's a mobile device that's easily portable (more so than a laptop) and it is more powerful than a phone but not as powerful as a laptop - mobile computing device.
Other than that, I agree with most of your post. This is a yet another product that demonstrates Apple doesn't necessarily target the uber geeks of society and we, most certainly, do not represent the majority. Should be interesting to see if Apple set their target right.
What devices? Sorry, but seriously, it's actually targeting a different segment than the iPhone/iPod Touch targets and a different segment than a laptop targets. I can see doctors, administrative assistants, teachers, students, and more making use of this in a way that they are currently forced to use a laptop/iPhone for because it's the closest thing available to fill their need. The iPad (hate that name) will more directly target their mobile light computing needs. Laptops are too much, iPhones are not enough - the iPad (hate that name) is just right.
Sorry, but only with the recent flood of tablets is that position being targeted and Apple is being bold in their efforts to try something specialized whereas other manufacturers are trying "laptop in a tablet" approach. Time will tell which approach works but I think there's a lot of merit in Apple's "light mobile computing device" approach. We'll see...
iPod Touch.
iPhone.
They're both spectacular devices. The iPad will work within a similar ecology and thus has a good chance of being a pretty sweet device (time will tell, of course).
But.
If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Simple.
Yet another example of a company attempting to make life difficult for pirates but managing only to annoy and inconvenience legitimate users. People who actually buy the game are going to be faced with restrictions that will, at some point, hinder their ability to use the copy of the game they legally bought while pirates will find a way to crack the system in less than a week and will then be able to use their ill-gotten goods the way they want.
I understand major media companies consider piracy to be a major problem. I understand we're not likely to ever change that opinion. But. It would be nice if they got everything in perspective and realized that they should not hinder legitimate customers in their war against pirates. All that will do is either drive those legitimate customers away or, worse, turn them in to pirates.
Oh Apple, let the Apps through already! You're just shooting yourself in the foot otherwise.
Sorry, but I keep seeing people say this but I have yet to see any evidence to support it (and, quite frankly, have seen nothing but mountains of evidence to the contrary...).
_YOU_ may be annoyed with Apple because they operate in a closed garden but the _VAST_ majority of users really don't care all that much. Slashdot reader =/= average consumer.
Anyone have some first-hand experience with Google Voice willing to share their thoughts? I find it very intriguing but am very hesitant to use it without knowing more...
http://www.geg.ca/en/show/pressrelease/1348
One example. $250 for the best tickets for U2. Those prices are not unusual any more. Celine Dion did about two dozen shows in Montreal where the best tickets were similarly priced. $100+ for "average" artists is entirely normal. When was the last time you went to a concert? They've become _EXTREMELY_ expensive in the last couple years as bands have realized you can pirate a song but you cannot pirate the experience of going to a live show. That is where the money is to be made.
The best way to combat piracy is to stop spending money on tighter controls that are cracked a week after being released into the wild; stop spending money on formats that users don't want; just generally stop spending money on things that don't work and don't have value and instead spend money on good song writers and good performers and make good music. People are willing to pay for quality.
And, more specifically, the best way to combat piracy is to realize you're not going to succeed and instead find a new business model that works. You'll notice that the bands who are highly profitable have figured something very important out - CD sales are not the road to riches - concert tours are where you make truck loads of money. The _experience_ of music is something people are willing to spend a LOT of money on. Listening to music just entices them to spend $200 a ticket to see the live performance on stage. Once more music people figure this out - once more music people figure out that the old way of becoming rich in the industry is dead - the better off everyone will be.
The US has nothing to lose from social unrest in China.
I would imagine the US has a tremendous amount to lose if social unrest breaks out in China. If that happens, I'd guess the Chinese government would be inclined to dump their rather considerable reserve of US cash onto the open market rendering the US dollar damn near worthless in the global economy. I'm not an economist (nor enough of a fan of economics to even pretend to be) but it's my understanding that this potential financial armageddon is one of the big reasons that China is able to basically bully the US around the way that virtually no other country can. Someone with far more knowledge in global economics than I can certainly step in to correct me where I've gone wrong but I'd imagine the US would very much like the Chinese political situation to remain relatively stable lest it result in the US dollar becoming worthless.
I've already replied to this thread so I can't mod you up but please consider this +1 insightful. Slashdot users often think they are "the norm" when we are far, far, far from the norm. Most people don't have a clue what "open" is and, even when told what it is, don't care. All they care is whether their computer does what they want it to do the way they want it to do it.
...in particular given that probably the majority of the code Apple ships with OS X is derived from other people's open source projects to begin with.
I love how you say that they've done this with an undertone of contempt when, in reality, doing this is a big part the open source movement's philosophy. Not to mention that Apple has given back an enormous amount to the open source community.
I believe that industrial espionage is a crime. And I'm sure several other laws were broken along the way (computer hacking itself is a pretty serious crime). I don't know about the laws in China, but I suspect Google can do something beyond just firing the person.