Apple's iPad Megathread

[KTrain]

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by QuadCityImages

..., so why all the efforts to lock down what people can do? If you don't want to risk unapproved apps, no one makes you install them. Android even makes you flip a Settings switch to allow non-Market apps.

Because Apple wants to ensure they get their 30% cut on all apps. Maybe the real reason for using the iphone OS?

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

Because Apple wants to ensure they get their 30% cut on all apps. Maybe the real reason for using the iphone OS?

Dude, seriously. If you don't want it, don't buy it. I don't know why you're making such a big deal out of it. Did you really think Apple was going to just make a little $250 netbook for you to choose from, amongst all the Acers and HPs of the world?

Does this really look like something Apple would do?



You wanted a $250 MacBook, and it didn't happen. Oh well. Time to moooove on. It's not like there aren't 278999000 different netbooks out there for you to choose from already.

[Flames0910]

The image posted above is funny, but kinda ridiculous if you think about it.

It's a pie in the sky idea because developing applications for a touchscreen device and a full blown OS are totally different. That's why we can't have a tablet w/ OS X. Look at iPhoto, iWork, iCal, Mail, etc. Apple had to re-engineer them for the new medium. They're not straight ports.

iPhone OS on the big screen ensures applications will be designed with the device in mind instead of ty ports that don't take advantage of the touchscreen.

Sidenote: Cliche on the gaming side you're right. It doesn't register, which is why it very clearly is not Apple's response to gaming.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by fundmark19

I was just thinking about this on the bus ride home. How incredible is this going to be for watching movies while on road trips. Bigger screen then portable dvd players. Way better battery life. And it can just sit in your lap instead of fighting for a good place to put the dvd player.

Sounds a lot like a laptop computer

[Igottago]

Originally Posted by fundmark19

I was just thinking about this on the bus ride home. How incredible is this going to be for watching movies while on road trips. Bigger screen then portable dvd players. Way better battery life. And it can just sit in your lap instead of fighting for a good place to put the dvd player.

Yeah but how are you going to angle the screen at a good viewing angle? Are you going to lay it flat in your lap? Not the best angle. Are you going to hold it up with both hands for the duration of the movie? Not the most comfortable thing to do.

This is actually my biggest problem with the device. For something with a bigger screen it doesn't account for the fact that you are normally sitting in a position where you need the screen angled in a certain way to view it properly. Like a laptop.

[FanIn80]

At El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, doctors and nurses started working on convertible tablet computers in 2003, but abandoned them last year after moving into a new building with computers in every patient room.

Cheryl Reinking, vice chief of clinical operations at the hospital, said the decision was made after workers soured on the tablet computers - which included a full keyboard - because of their bulk, short battery life and screens that weren't always easy to read.

However, she said, the iPad is promising enough to make the hospital consider a move back to tablets. Reinking said the iPads could be valuable for doctors moving around the hospital.

"You could use this in the operating room, when you need to document things quickly, or in the lab," she said. "Physicians could use the device at the bedside to make notes, or use it as a reference for medications. It could be an amazing tool."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...MN521BP9AH.DTL

[Regulator75]

Nm

[QuadCityImages]

I'm kind of curious what's inside the thing. I mean, its about the same thickness as an iPhone or iPod Touch. It has a more powerful processor, or system on a chip in this case, so lets say that takes up the space of an entire iPhone. The flash storage memory could be about the size of a thumbnail, like a MicroSD card. Add in the guts of an iPod Touch, and you've only got 2 iPods' worth of circuitry. What's inside the rest of it? Does a 10" touch screen need to be thicker than a 4" one? Maybe structural metal to keep the whole thing rigid?

Don't take this as criticism, which I've previously been dishing out, because I have never accused Apple of making junky stuff. They make quality hardware; I'm just curious what the inside of the iPad looks like. With the capabilities that it has, I would have expected a little thinner, but maybe it can't maintain its solid feel at 1/3 of an inch.

[FanIn80]

nm

[Regulator75]

I didn't go through the entire thread. My bad.

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

It's kind of strange that a Porche has 4 tires and a steering wheel, just like a my Cavalier does...

Also, Que is black and white, no App Store (at least not one with any kind of developer support to speak of) and costs $800 for an 8GB model with WiFi and 3G.

It's still a pretty interesting option though, I guess. Unless, you're insinuating that a device Apple has been working on for years was copied from something that was just demo's a few months ago... That would be even more interesting.

Edit: This thing is nothing more than an eReader with document support. Like the Kindle with the ability to edit Word docs. It's almost 2x the price of an iPad too.

Edit again: I think it's strange that this Que looks so much like a giant iPhone...

I didnt say anything about guts, just looks - because it looks EXACTLY the same.

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by Cliche

Oh wait, they already had the iphone for that, and gaming wise, this doesn't even register.

Its not that this will be a better game platform, I believe apple will simply outsell as a % of game (not device) sales for mobile devices for sony and nintendo combined.

Part of my belief in this, is that alot of game makers, and I think Nintendo in particular will start porting games for these devices because they can make more money on this than the hassle of producing and marketing their own devices.

I would like to know numbers currently from apple when it comes to game sales. I think alot of people might be surprised how high it is right now.

Think if the games that might be coming out including a social network based Sid Meier Civilizations game, that kind of game is useless on both Nintendo and Sony, but would work well with touchscreens.

[FanIn80]

I don't know what you're getting at, but I think it's pretty obvious that the iPad was copied from the iPhone.

Now if you're saying that this Que thing looks like iPad, then wouldn't that mean that the Que was also copied from the iPhone? I mean, it sounds like you're trying to suggest something, but I don't think you've thought it through very well.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

This is all the kind of stuff people said about iPods.

"What are you talking about, no CD player? Yeah right. Like that will ever work. This iPod thing will fail miserably, and people will keep buying Sony Walkmans."

Really? Someone may have said that, but I don't believe that was the prevailing opinion at the time. Not that the iPod wasn't criticized, but it wasn't because people were questioning the validity of the portable MP3 player market.

The iPod was introduced in 2001. The MP3 format went public in 1995; the Diamond Rio was introduced in 1998; and Napster was launched in 1999. By the time the iPod came along, anyone with a computer already had every CD they had ever purchased (and many they hadn't) converted to MP3 and was listening to them on their desktops using WinAmp, or other similar program.

From what I recall, the main criticism of the iPod on launch was that it was only compatible with Apple computers, which greatly limited its potential market. Also, it was a higher price than other comparable MP3 players on the market (that were all Windows compatible), which, of course, has been a frequent criticism of Apple's products through the years. At the time, Apple also had a pretty poor track record with consumer electronics that weren't computers.

The iPod succeeded because it looked good, was easy to use, and Apple was a much more well known name than the manufacturers of the other products on the market. Also, very importantly, Apple had a marketing budget that dwarfed all the other competitors.

I wonder how well it would have done had Sony made a stronger push (or any push, really) into the MP3 player market? The thing that has always amazed me about the MP3 player market is how much of a non-entity Sony is. They owned the "Walkman" market in the 80s and most of the 90s, so it should have been a natural progression into the digital realm. They do make MP3 Walkmans but there never seems to be any buzz about them or anything.

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

The iPod is less of a fundamental need device, and apple has sold far more of those than iPhones.

People have been buying portable music players of one sort or another since the transistor radio was introduced in the 1950s. It might not be a fundamental need, but portable music has been around for a lot longer than portable phones. When I was a kid in the 80s, almost everyone had a "Walkman" of some sort (Sony or otherwise), but no one had a portable phone. The iPod was much more an evolutionary thing than a revolutionary thing. People were already carrying around their music in a small portable device, the iPod just made it possible to carry every song at once rather than whatever CD or tape you grabbed that morning.

----------

With regards to the iPad, I haven't seen anything mentioned about its ability to act as a replacement for a good old pen and paper notepad. To me, that would seem like the "killer app" for this thing.

As others have mentioned, it would be great to go into a meeting or a lecture and actually write on the screen (not type with an annoying on-screen keypad), draw diagrams and whatever, and then save everything. Throw in a smart OCR program that can learn to read your handwriting and convert it to a text document, and I think you do have a potential game changer.

Electronic text books could be a huge boon to the iPad market. Imagine being able to read your text book and highlight important text with a swipe of your finger or a stylus, to be able to write notes directly on the page, or on a pop-up note pad, and again save everything in an organized and indexed file. When it comes time to prepare for your final, you open your notes index, find a relevant section, and go directly there with all of your notes right how you left them. The added advantage is the weight reduction of having every text book and note book streamlined into a hand held device weighing a little over a pound. It could be the chiropractor's worst nightmare.

When I picture people using these things, it isn't someone sitting on his couch watching a movie on a 10" screen, or IMing, or sending emails, or posting on a message board using an onscreen keyboard. What I see is a doctor doing rounds in a hospital, with an iPad in one hand and a stylus in the other, pulling up patient information from the hospital's database and writing their notes onto the screen to save for later. I see a student reading a text book on one side of the screen, while scribbling notes on the other.

From what I've seen about the iPad, there has been no mention of the ability to "write" on the thing. To me, it's the most obvious thing that it should have (well, multitasking or Flash might be more obvious). Why would I buy an "electronic notepad" if I can't actually take notes on the thing?

By the third generation, the iPad could be a great "how did I live without this" device, but right now, it's pretty underwhelming.

[FanIn80]

Handwriting is even more dead than flash.

[fundmark19]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

Sounds a lot like a laptop computer

Except laptop computers get nice and hot the longer they are on and die out real fast without having them plugged in. And because it is so little you can easily angle it with a blanket, travel pillow, sweater anything to just lean it on would fix the angle for you.

Also this thing could be baby crack! Kids love interacting with electronics and touching them (wii and ds). Just give your kid this in the car and they can play around with touch screen games on sit there trying to paint. I could see this being perfect to get your kids to leave you alone while driving

[FanIn80]

That's just it. This is being described as a "whole life" device. There are so many practical, every day uses for this thing. People need to let go of this "why didn't they just make another netbook" fixation and start thinking outside the box.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Handwriting is even more dead than flash.

Which is unfortunate because InkWell works really well and would be a great option to markup textbooks on the iPad, scribble notes and quick sketches.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Handwriting is even more dead than flash.

Maybe it is, and maybe I'm a dinosaur, but without it, I would have no use for such a device. I can touch type on a keyboard, you can't touch type on a flat surface.

I find trying to type on an iPhone to be quite annoying, and although the "keys" will be larger on the iPad, I don't see the experience being that much better.