Why do people keep saying that you have to buy your media through iTunes (or anywhere else for that matter) in order to watch/listen/read it on Apple products?
People, please. Learn first, make statements later.
An iPad is not (yet) a good replacement for a laptop/netbook - it can't do a lot of things those systems can.
It depends what you need to do with it. Something that is important to you, is not important to someone and visa-versa. Having USB storage is important to you, but wouldn't be important to me. Who knows when or if Apple would allow you to use USB flash storage on the iPad. The frustrating thing is that they could allow it. The hardware is there, it's just matter of changing the software.
I've been thinking about an iPad for my girlfriend as her laptop is starting to be sketchy with it's wireless connection. I think it would be great for her. She keeps her laptop in the living room and uses it for pictures, email, facebook and internet browsing. That is 99% of her computer experience. I think an iPad would be better for her than a clunky laptop.
One thing I have to say is that the iPad can be pretty terrible outside. It can get really hard to see depending on where the sun is, but I kind of knew it would be like that.
One thing I have to say is that the iPad can be pretty terrible outside. It can get really hard to see depending on where the sun is, but I kind of knew it would be like that.
It's silly that they have to make the screen glossy just to match their corporate product image. The glossy screen makes colors look more vibrant and blacks darker, but if you have a lightsource behind you, it makes it reflective and hard to see. I have a glossy monitor and I can't stand to have it in a room where there's too much sunlight and that's indoors.
Also, telling your Mother that you won't help her with her iPad just because it doesn't have a start button and a file explorer is pretty ignorant.
What's so difficult about googling an error message and telling her what to do? It's not rocket surgery.
Luckily for both of you, though, Apple has some if the best tech support on the planet so she won't even need to bother you with it.
Edit: This wasn't meant to sound as prickish as it does, btw.
Because she's already asking me to download Itunes onto her laptop and calls me everytime she wants a new app for her iphone or forgets where a specific setting is. I feel dirty every time I have to figure out stuff on an Apple product, even though I am typing on an Apple keyboard right now - the last piece of Apple hardware I will ever own.
Edit: This was meant to be prickish because I am in a bad mood this morning and feel like feeding the Apple troll that has been festering inside me since Elementary school when they threw out the wonderful Tandy 1000s and replaced them with Apples.
Because she's already asking me to download Itunes onto her laptop and calls me everytime she wants a new app for her iphone or forgets where a specific setting is. I feel dirty every time I have to figure out stuff on an Apple product, even though I am typing on an Apple keyboard right now - the last piece of Apple hardware I will ever own.
Edit: This was meant to be prickish because I am in a bad mood this morning and feel like feeding the Apple troll that has been festering inside me since Elementary school when they threw out the wonderful Tandy 1000s and replaced them with Apples.
:P
Ha! I feel your pain... My father calls me almost every time he wants to check his email. How hard is it to remember to double click on Outlook?
Ha! I feel your pain... My father calls me almost every time he wants to check his email. How hard is it to remember to double click on Outlook?
My grandfather can't remember how to close his windows. He can't tell the difference between minimize and close. When he does close it, he doesn't know how to bring it back up. I gave up and told him never to close his browser or turn off his computer again.
Because she's already asking me to download Itunes onto her laptop and calls me everytime she wants a new app for her iphone or forgets where a specific setting is. I feel dirty every time I have to figure out stuff on an Apple product, even though I am typing on an Apple keyboard right now - the last piece of Apple hardware I will ever own.
Edit: This was meant to be prickish because I am in a bad mood this morning and feel like feeding the Apple troll that has been festering inside me since Elementary school when they threw out the wonderful Tandy 1000s and replaced them with Apples.
:P
I hope the Tandy part was a joke or a clever troll. Not much good can be said of them, except that they were around in what I consider a real golden age of early PC computing.
I'm sure that this post will fall on deaf ears but here goes anyways.
I'll preface this by mentioning that I'm not an Apple booster by any means. I own a Dell laptop that I adore, and an iMac. I have two iPhone's technically, one is provided by my company, the other I bought as the first generation, but I've given it to my girlfriend. I maintain that Apple is inherently an evil company. I have no interest in buying the iPad at the moment, but I'm very interested in the Microsoft Courier. I also have worked as an iPhone app developer for the past year and a bit on an application that won the WWDC 2009 Best 3.0 Beta application.
This is a post that is about the closed system and a bit of a defence of it.
I think that Apple's decision to make the iPhone a closed system is a brilliant strategy. The applications being sandboxed is a terrific security protocol, and the concept of the application review system is also a great idea. First the sandboxing. This restriction of apps from accessing the filesystem outside of their own sandbox is a big security measure. While it limits the application (and it doesn't really limit it that much), it also limits malicious code from running wild. Apple controlling the applications also fits into this mould of security. Each and every application is reviewed by Apple to ensure that the code does not contain anything that can harm the operating system, file system, or can be used as a known exploit.
Where Apple has it wrong in the application review system is where they reject applications that they don't like for reasons that they determine to be of risk to them, not their users. They're also evil in the sheer amount of money that they derive from the app store. It's frankly obscene in my opinion.
As a developer however, I prefer the app store model to the android model. First and foremost the IDE and SDK that you have access to is second to none. I've been doing software development for more than 7 years and I have never come across an IDE that is so streamlined, and an SDK that is so powerful. I easily prefer Cocoa to Java and C/C++ even though the syntax is bizarre. iPhone app development is a lot of fun.
Make no mistake, for what the iPad DOES and is typically going to be used for, you don't need it to be an open system. And given the popularity that the device and similar devices (iPhone/iPod Touch) security is a huge deal to Apple. They don't have the same worry with OS X because Microsoft already dominates the market, but in the smartphone world, they have to be extremely careful.
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Who is in charge of this product and why haven't they been fired yet?
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The only thing I'm not entirely on-board with is the notion that 30 cents on the dollar is too much to pay for the ecosystem you have access to.
I say that, of course, with zero first-hand knowledge of what it takes to get software to market via conventional means. I'm just looking at the fact that, with the mere push of a button, an app developer can have his product literally published and marketed to a potential market of tens of millions of users.
How much would it cost a guy like me to get an application I've developed published with that kind of exposure? Would I realistically expect to get back 70% of every dollar spent on my app if it was sitting on a shelf at Best Buy and I had to go through some kind of software publishing company?
(I'm meaning this to be a real discussion, btw. This is not "fanboyism" or whatever. They are serious questions that I have often wondered about.)
