Any self-respecting computing device that size should have:
1) A file manager. It's not enough that the iPad stores things where it wants to store them. There should be a way to move files around and put them where you want them (without tethering it to a desktop or laptop).
2) Real apps. Sorry, but this running phone apps on what should be a real computer doesn't cut it. You should be able to run something in the class of Microsoft Office or OpenOffice on it, not just iOS's equivalent to WordPad.
And while we're on the subject of apps...
3) Apple's walled garden is a joke. A bad one. In this instance, gatekeepers suck.
4) It's a black box. If you can't get to the command line, see what processes are running, etc., it's not up to snuff for what a modern OS should be able to do.
Slapping a pretty window manager on it isn't going to help iOS. The problems (at least, when you put it on a tablet) run deeper than that.
iOS is perfectly acceptable for a phone, because people don't expect (and shouldn't expect) to do much more than what iOS can do. People shouldn't have any desire to get to a command line on their phones, or manage files w/o a host computer, etc. But any tablet should be a lot more versatile than that. Otherwise, all you're adding is a bigger screen.
To sum up: Without a more robust OS, an iPad is just an iPod Touch afflicted with gigantism.
Probably because adding Chrome OS to the iPad doesn't add anything.
I'm all in favor of running something other than iOS on an iPad, but that's because I think it could be running a more robust OS (OS X, Linux, or Windows, to name a few). Running Chrome OS isn't much better than running iOS, and probably worse, because there aren't as many apps.
So the dimensions in this case refer to the dimensions the electrons can move, rather than the dimensions the graphene actually occupies? Okay, that makes sense.
Okay, so the two dimensions referred to are the dimensions the electrons can travel, rather than the way we usually think of spatial dimensions? I think I understand that.
These properties derive in part from the 2-dimensional nature of the material
Now, granted, I'm not a physicist, but since when have real-world objects been able to be two-dimensional? Even if you draw a line on a piece of paper, the graphite or ink that compose the line will have three dimensions. Is there any such thing in the physical universe as a two-dimensional object?
Strictly speaking, it's coronary artery disease that's the problem, not heart disease, isn' t it?
We've been able to replace ailing hearts for some time now. Obviously, there are supply-side problems, but there are absolutely people working on that by using stem cells to generate new organs.
I've got to agree with you on leaving the metal in there.
I've got a shunt in my skull that pumps the spinal fluid down into my abdominal cavity. (One of the joys of spina bifida.) As a consequence, I have plenty of plastic tubing in my head that's no longer attached to anything useful. It's just floating there. And the reason is simple: It's a lot safer to just leave it in there than it is to go in and get it.
Maybe, but maybe not. Whether your intentions were peaceful or not, wouldn't you be very careful about a situation in which you're heavily outnumbered, and you'd certainly want to stay away from any society that had sufficient technology to destroy your ship.
Also, keep in mind: When the US landed in Japan, at least they knew the Japanese were humans, like them. When you can't make assumptions about what your (potential) foe's weaknesses are, you're in a very different place.
I think the place that makes the most sense to have a first contact would be somewhere sparsely populated, where it would take time to mount any significant attack against you, should it come to that. It's not a matter of hiding. It's a matter of keeping the odds more in your favor.
You might be right about an archer, but I don't think there's a hell of a lot a swordsman's gonna do about an M16. You only see a problem when you scale things up. If you're suddenly faced with a thousand swordsmen, then your M16 might not get you out of trouble.
I would have to agree that Washington DC or New York would be an awful place for an alien to land, as they would likely be shot out of the sky well before they even got close. Especially if it was a "first contact" situation.
I think any civilization w/ a sufficient technology to actually get here might not be (or even have to be) worried about getting shot out of the sky. But I'd think they'd want to play it safe and not go somewhere they could be overrun by sheer numbers.
This is just a guess, but I don't think they'd choose to land in the US or China. Strategically, wouldn't it be a bad idea to land in a more densely populated area? If you had the technology to do it, wouldn't you land in Antarctica or somewhere else where it would take a while for people to get to you? You might want somewhere with a population density somewhat greater than Antarctica, but you wouldn't want to land somewhere with wall-to-wall people and the highest technology on the planet readily available, would you?
Until Apple removes the restrictions inherent in iOS, it's not a real OS, as I defined above. Sure, it's an operating system, in the sense that it contains the instructions for operating the phone and making the UI work, but it doesn't measure up to the kind of sophisticated OS you get on a desktop, laptop, or even a netbook. Let me break it down for you:
1) iOS has a walled garden in terms of software.
2) iOS is a black box, in that it doesn't give you access to the internals the way a "real" OS would.
3) For a number of reasons, iOS doesn't give you real content creation power (e.g., a desktop-level office suite, graphics editor, etc. On a phone, that's perfectly reasonable, since a phone isn't the right size to be a usable work computer, but a tablet the iPad's size doesn't have that size limitation.
I'm sure the ipad could have run a "normal" OS, however it seems more apparent to me that using the iphone OS as a base seems to make more sense.
I agree that it makes sense to start with what people know. It's just that you don't have to end there. That's where I think Apple's gone wrong with the iPad. I think of the iPhone as a handheld computer, and as such, I think the OS isn't quite what it should be (e.g., the walled garden, the inability to go under the hood, etc.), but I can see the argument that a phone needs to be that simple to just work and not be subject to variance the way a desktop or other full-size computer is. But I don't see the same rationale holding true for a tablet. That's what I'm saying.
By what metric does a netbook provide enough horsepower to accomplish 'real jobs' either?
At least on a netbook, you can run a real office suite. Have you read any reviews comparing the iWorks on an iPad with that on a Mac? It's not pretty. And that's without getting into all the applications you can run on a netbook that won't run on an iPad. You don't want to do gaming on a netbook, generally, but they're nowhere near as limited as what you can run on the iPad or iPhone.
By your definition and the readily available data on sales figures and web usage, why would I want a netbook over this device, that does these things as quickly and more elegantly?
Mostly because it doesn't do the same tasks you can do with a netbook. Even a mediocre netbook has a lot more flexibility than an iPad.
Check out the press conference at ~ 1:05-1:20, where Jobs specifically pits the iPad against the netbook -- even in what software they can run (which if you think about it, took real chutzpah, given the limited software an iPad can run).
I think we're talking about two different things. I wholeheartedly agree that you need a UI different from Windows for a touch-based GUI. But you don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. You don't have to have a system where the manufacturer acts as a gatekeeper to what can and can't be put on the device. And you don't have to have a system where the file system is completely abstracted away from you, and you have no choice on where to put things. There should be defaults as to where to store things, for newbies, but there shouldn't be mandated storage areas for files.
Most of all, though, a good touch OS should allow you to do everything you can do on a conventional OS. From what I've been reading about iWork, it's a pale shadow of an office suite. There's no excuse for that. What justification could there be for such a paltry application suite? It seems nonsensical to me. If I'm going to pay more than a netbook for a device, it should do more than a netbook. And that's why it needs a real OS.
A toy, as opposed to what? A serious business appliance?
AFAIK, it was supposed never supposed to be anything other than an entertainment device. And believe you me, there's a big market for entertainment devices...
When Jobs announced it, he didn't position it as strictly an entertainment device. He took solid aim at netbooks. A lot of people are dialing back expectations now, acting like all the iPad was ever supposed to be was a larger version of the iPhone, but if you'll recall, these are the same people who were arguing against that idea when the iPad was first introduced.
I'm not so sure. The ipad/tablets are just taking the place of netbooks. In my opinion netbooks were just underpowered and cramped laptops. The ipad/tablets remove the cramped aspect of the netbook and slap on a touch based gui. It seems to me that it's just the natural evolution of the netbook, taking it's shortcomings and addressing them. So I suppose if netbooks were a toy to you, then by all means, believe that the ipad is a toy as well.
You're missing one of the important aspects of netbooks. They run real operating systems (i.e., not phone OSes). They don't limit you to whatever the manufacturer (be it Apple or anyone else) wants to sell you in their app store.
I'd also take issue with the idea that removing the keyboard eliminates the "cramped aspect of a netbook". You can rip out the steering wheel in a car to get more space, but have you really gained anything? Typing on a netbook may not be a dream come true, but it's a damn sight better than "typing" on a piece of glass.
Another difference that can't be overstated is the black box problem. With an OS like iOS, you don't have any access to anything under the GUI, and the GUI itself only gives you the most shallow of access. Even those applications that do give you folder access on the iPod (and, presumably, the iPad) have to be run from the desktop.
Now, is this all some people need? Sure. There are a lot of people who can get by never having to type a long document, or do content creation on their devices. But these people aren't using their iPads for work. They've got real jobs that require more horsepower. They're using their iPads as toys.
Current tablets are nothing more than netbooks minus the keyboards.
It's worse than that. At least with netbooks, you can get some real work done. iPads are good for reading and light e-mail, but if you're trying to actually do something, it helps to have a keyboard and a real OS (not just a phone OS). And lest anyone think I'm just picking on Apple here, I think HP's plans for a WebOS tablet are similarly ridiculous.
Plugging the wrong tube into the wrong device is user error, not a problem with the safety of the tubes. The nurse in question needs to be paying attention.
A design that allows such a user error to occur is indeed a safety issue with the equipment. Even skilled people in perfect environments have lapses, and nurses are rarely working in perfect environments. If you don't account for that, your human factors work is flawed -- in this case, quite literally fatally flawed.
There have been cases where surgeons have accidentally left an implement inside a patient after surgery. Is that a safety problem with the implement involved? I wouldn't think so.
I've done repairs on my manual wheelchair...And if you're talking about frame adjustments, that's not something the user should be doing by his/herself.
I am just speculating here, but I would not be surprised if some para-athletes are doing some pretty heavy adjustments on their chairs.
The most rational way to handle firmware upgrades would be the same way they handle bug fixes in cars: You send a letter issuing a recall, and upgrade the users in the shop where they bought the device.
Maybe so -- but it's not like everyone takes their car to the dealer, or even to an ASE certified mechanic. I wouldn't want to buy a exoskeleton that could only be dealer-serviced any more than I'd want to buy a car whose hood was locked and could only be opened by the dealer.
Yes, but this isn't a car. A wheelchair is the equivalent of your legs. Would you want just anyone tinkering with them? You might not wan to take them to a specific dealer, but you'd want them to at least go to a qualified mechanic. It would be a very serious design flaw if your roommate could prank your firmware while you slept.
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This is an old debate, but here goes:
Any self-respecting computing device that size should have:
1) A file manager. It's not enough that the iPad stores things where it wants to store them. There should be a way to move files around and put them where you want them (without tethering it to a desktop or laptop).
2) Real apps. Sorry, but this running phone apps on what should be a real computer doesn't cut it. You should be able to run something in the class of Microsoft Office or OpenOffice on it, not just iOS's equivalent to WordPad.
And while we're on the subject of apps...
3) Apple's walled garden is a joke. A bad one. In this instance, gatekeepers suck.
4) It's a black box. If you can't get to the command line, see what processes are running, etc., it's not up to snuff for what a modern OS should be able to do.
Slapping a pretty window manager on it isn't going to help iOS. The problems (at least, when you put it on a tablet) run deeper than that.
iOS is perfectly acceptable for a phone, because people don't expect (and shouldn't expect) to do much more than what iOS can do. People shouldn't have any desire to get to a command line on their phones, or manage files w/o a host computer, etc. But any tablet should be a lot more versatile than that. Otherwise, all you're adding is a bigger screen.
To sum up: Without a more robust OS, an iPad is just an iPod Touch afflicted with gigantism.
If that's all it's good for, it's a waste of time. All you have to do to run Flash on a standard iPad is jailbreak it.
Why wouldn't users love that?
Probably because adding Chrome OS to the iPad doesn't add anything.
I'm all in favor of running something other than iOS on an iPad, but that's because I think it could be running a more robust OS (OS X, Linux, or Windows, to name a few). Running Chrome OS isn't much better than running iOS, and probably worse, because there aren't as many apps.
So the dimensions in this case refer to the dimensions the electrons can move, rather than the dimensions the graphene actually occupies? Okay, that makes sense.
Okay, so the two dimensions referred to are the dimensions the electrons can travel, rather than the way we usually think of spatial dimensions? I think I understand that.
These properties derive in part from the 2-dimensional nature of the material
Now, granted, I'm not a physicist, but since when have real-world objects been able to be two-dimensional? Even if you draw a line on a piece of paper, the graphite or ink that compose the line will have three dimensions. Is there any such thing in the physical universe as a two-dimensional object?
Strictly speaking, it's coronary artery disease that's the problem, not heart disease, isn' t it?
We've been able to replace ailing hearts for some time now. Obviously, there are supply-side problems, but there are absolutely people working on that by using stem cells to generate new organs.
I've got to agree with you on leaving the metal in there.
I've got a shunt in my skull that pumps the spinal fluid down into my abdominal cavity. (One of the joys of spina bifida.) As a consequence, I have plenty of plastic tubing in my head that's no longer attached to anything useful. It's just floating there. And the reason is simple: It's a lot safer to just leave it in there than it is to go in and get it.
A society with sufficient technology to have M16's would not be impeded by a castle wall.
Wouldn't that depend heavily on their intent?
Maybe, but maybe not. Whether your intentions were peaceful or not, wouldn't you be very careful about a situation in which you're heavily outnumbered, and you'd certainly want to stay away from any society that had sufficient technology to destroy your ship.
Also, keep in mind: When the US landed in Japan, at least they knew the Japanese were humans, like them. When you can't make assumptions about what your (potential) foe's weaknesses are, you're in a very different place.
I think the place that makes the most sense to have a first contact would be somewhere sparsely populated, where it would take time to mount any significant attack against you, should it come to that. It's not a matter of hiding. It's a matter of keeping the odds more in your favor.
You might be right about an archer, but I don't think there's a hell of a lot a swordsman's gonna do about an M16. You only see a problem when you scale things up. If you're suddenly faced with a thousand swordsmen, then your M16 might not get you out of trouble.
I would have to agree that Washington DC or New York would be an awful place for an alien to land, as they would likely be shot out of the sky well before they even got close. Especially if it was a "first contact" situation.
I think any civilization w/ a sufficient technology to actually get here might not be (or even have to be) worried about getting shot out of the sky. But I'd think they'd want to play it safe and not go somewhere they could be overrun by sheer numbers.
This is just a guess, but I don't think they'd choose to land in the US or China. Strategically, wouldn't it be a bad idea to land in a more densely populated area? If you had the technology to do it, wouldn't you land in Antarctica or somewhere else where it would take a while for people to get to you? You might want somewhere with a population density somewhat greater than Antarctica, but you wouldn't want to land somewhere with wall-to-wall people and the highest technology on the planet readily available, would you?
From what I understand, the invite list to those press conferences are pretty much fanboys-only, so it's not surprising.
iOS is a real operating system, I assure you.
Until Apple removes the restrictions inherent in iOS, it's not a real OS, as I defined above. Sure, it's an operating system, in the sense that it contains the instructions for operating the phone and making the UI work, but it doesn't measure up to the kind of sophisticated OS you get on a desktop, laptop, or even a netbook. Let me break it down for you:
1) iOS has a walled garden in terms of software. 2) iOS is a black box, in that it doesn't give you access to the internals the way a "real" OS would. 3) For a number of reasons, iOS doesn't give you real content creation power (e.g., a desktop-level office suite, graphics editor, etc. On a phone, that's perfectly reasonable, since a phone isn't the right size to be a usable work computer, but a tablet the iPad's size doesn't have that size limitation.
I'm sure the ipad could have run a "normal" OS, however it seems more apparent to me that using the iphone OS as a base seems to make more sense.
I agree that it makes sense to start with what people know. It's just that you don't have to end there. That's where I think Apple's gone wrong with the iPad. I think of the iPhone as a handheld computer, and as such, I think the OS isn't quite what it should be (e.g., the walled garden, the inability to go under the hood, etc.), but I can see the argument that a phone needs to be that simple to just work and not be subject to variance the way a desktop or other full-size computer is. But I don't see the same rationale holding true for a tablet. That's what I'm saying.
By what metric does a netbook provide enough horsepower to accomplish 'real jobs' either?
At least on a netbook, you can run a real office suite. Have you read any reviews comparing the iWorks on an iPad with that on a Mac? It's not pretty. And that's without getting into all the applications you can run on a netbook that won't run on an iPad. You don't want to do gaming on a netbook, generally, but they're nowhere near as limited as what you can run on the iPad or iPhone.
By your definition and the readily available data on sales figures and web usage, why would I want a netbook over this device, that does these things as quickly and more elegantly?
Mostly because it doesn't do the same tasks you can do with a netbook. Even a mediocre netbook has a lot more flexibility than an iPad.
Check out the press conference at ~ 1:05-1:20, where Jobs specifically pits the iPad against the netbook -- even in what software they can run (which if you think about it, took real chutzpah, given the limited software an iPad can run).
I think we're talking about two different things. I wholeheartedly agree that you need a UI different from Windows for a touch-based GUI. But you don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. You don't have to have a system where the manufacturer acts as a gatekeeper to what can and can't be put on the device. And you don't have to have a system where the file system is completely abstracted away from you, and you have no choice on where to put things. There should be defaults as to where to store things, for newbies, but there shouldn't be mandated storage areas for files.
Most of all, though, a good touch OS should allow you to do everything you can do on a conventional OS. From what I've been reading about iWork, it's a pale shadow of an office suite. There's no excuse for that. What justification could there be for such a paltry application suite? It seems nonsensical to me. If I'm going to pay more than a netbook for a device, it should do more than a netbook. And that's why it needs a real OS.
.
A toy, as opposed to what? A serious business appliance? AFAIK, it was supposed never supposed to be anything other than an entertainment device. And believe you me, there's a big market for entertainment devices...
When Jobs announced it, he didn't position it as strictly an entertainment device. He took solid aim at netbooks. A lot of people are dialing back expectations now, acting like all the iPad was ever supposed to be was a larger version of the iPhone, but if you'll recall, these are the same people who were arguing against that idea when the iPad was first introduced.
I'm not so sure. The ipad/tablets are just taking the place of netbooks. In my opinion netbooks were just underpowered and cramped laptops. The ipad/tablets remove the cramped aspect of the netbook and slap on a touch based gui. It seems to me that it's just the natural evolution of the netbook, taking it's shortcomings and addressing them. So I suppose if netbooks were a toy to you, then by all means, believe that the ipad is a toy as well.
You're missing one of the important aspects of netbooks. They run real operating systems (i.e., not phone OSes). They don't limit you to whatever the manufacturer (be it Apple or anyone else) wants to sell you in their app store.
I'd also take issue with the idea that removing the keyboard eliminates the "cramped aspect of a netbook". You can rip out the steering wheel in a car to get more space, but have you really gained anything? Typing on a netbook may not be a dream come true, but it's a damn sight better than "typing" on a piece of glass.
Another difference that can't be overstated is the black box problem. With an OS like iOS, you don't have any access to anything under the GUI, and the GUI itself only gives you the most shallow of access. Even those applications that do give you folder access on the iPod (and, presumably, the iPad) have to be run from the desktop.
Now, is this all some people need? Sure. There are a lot of people who can get by never having to type a long document, or do content creation on their devices. But these people aren't using their iPads for work. They've got real jobs that require more horsepower. They're using their iPads as toys.
Current tablets are nothing more than netbooks minus the keyboards.
It's worse than that. At least with netbooks, you can get some real work done. iPads are good for reading and light e-mail, but if you're trying to actually do something, it helps to have a keyboard and a real OS (not just a phone OS). And lest anyone think I'm just picking on Apple here, I think HP's plans for a WebOS tablet are similarly ridiculous.
The fact that 4 million people bought one doesn't mean it's not a toy. It just means that 4 million people bought a toy.
A design that allows such a user error to occur is indeed a safety issue with the equipment. Even skilled people in perfect environments have lapses, and nurses are rarely working in perfect environments. If you don't account for that, your human factors work is flawed -- in this case, quite literally fatally flawed.
There have been cases where surgeons have accidentally left an implement inside a patient after surgery. Is that a safety problem with the implement involved? I wouldn't think so.
I am just speculating here, but I would not be surprised if some para-athletes are doing some pretty heavy adjustments on their chairs.
Maybe so -- but it's not like everyone takes their car to the dealer, or even to an ASE certified mechanic. I wouldn't want to buy a exoskeleton that could only be dealer-serviced any more than I'd want to buy a car whose hood was locked and could only be opened by the dealer.
Yes, but this isn't a car. A wheelchair is the equivalent of your legs. Would you want just anyone tinkering with them? You might not wan to take them to a specific dealer, but you'd want them to at least go to a qualified mechanic. It would be a very serious design flaw if your roommate could prank your firmware while you slept.
+1x10^1000