[Bryan]

Originally Posted by Napoleon17

Ah. I remember I read it comes with iWorks or something like that, right?

yes, you can by the iWork apps in the app store at $10 each. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote

Anyway, I guess my biggest problem with most Apple products, and the main reason why I've never really wanted to buy one, is their whole business model. It seems like in order to not get bored with their machines, you have to continually buy songs, movies, books, apps, etc.

kinda like what you have to do with a TV, DVD player, Game console, etc? the iPad is not the first device that you have to buy other stuff to be able to use it.

I hate having to pay for access to things like that when I've already paid a bunch of money to get the machine to view or otherwise consume the entertainment. If there were, say, a monthly subscription fee of like $60.00 that would allow unlimited song, movie, app, and book downloads, I might be more open to the idea or purchasing one of these thingys. Even if it were just a month-by-month thing where you only get access to the media you've downloaded if you keep your bill up-to-date.

A subscription model would be very cool. But honestly, I don't want to RENT my music. Movies are one thing, most of them I only watch once. Though the movies that I love that I'll watch over and over, I'd rather purchase instead of renting them.

But I would go crazy if I had to pay $5.00 for a movie, or a buck for a song, etc. I mean, you buy one album, two movies, and an app just to start off with and you're $20-$30 in with 29 days left to go in that month. So you either have to buy more stuff or try to really, really enjoy those movies until your next paycheck. And in my experience everything free in the iTunes store sucks. Is there anything like this available for the iPad? Like a netflix app or something?

there are lots of great free apps on the app store. Netflix is one (you do have to have a monthly subscription from netflix) that allows you to watch endless hours of TV & movies. ABC has a app that you can use to watch tv shows from ABC. You can also get Pandora and listen to music for free and probably discover new bands and artists you'd never think of or hear from on the radio. There are also hundreds of free books that are public domain that you can read. Most of them are considered the greatest books ever written.

[redbaron]

Originally Posted by Bryan

And be thicker, heavier, have less battery life, and because it is running windows, probably slower.

Now now, don't let your fanboyism get ahead of you. My netbook running xp boots significantly faster than my 2ghz macbook even though it has a slower processor and less memory. It's doing less and as a result it's quicker to start. I could probably optimize both of them more, but honestly, the fact that it's a full fledged operating system not a crippled iPhone OS is what would make it slower (at certain tasks). Let's not let blind zealotry for anything released by the Church of Jobs cloud our vision here now

Originally Posted by ApparentlyNothing

If it were capable of all the things people moan about it not being capable of, you wouldn't need a laptop. Netbooks are just smaller, crappier laptops. And tablets with desktop OSes just don't make sense and aren't intuitive at all. The iPad bridges the gap just fine and does so in an elegant and intuitive way. My iPhone is great for having access to my media, email, networking, and the internet on something that is with me all the time. But if I were serious about consuming media, like watching a movie on a plane, or reading an ebook, or playing certain kinds of games, or any other number of things that really benefit from the extra screen space, then there's the iPad. I lost a little mobility, lose things like the phone or the camera, but still retain a good amount more mobility than a laptop. Plus I still retain the intuitively easy way of using the touch screen and the elegant user experience you get with an iPhone that you lose when you move up to a laptop with a desktop OS. But if I want to get really serious about creating, that's what the laptop is for. I get a real keyboard, bigger screen, more powerful hardware and OS, and all those extra ports and storage space. Now tell me, how is the iPad unsuccessfully bridging the gap without cannibalizing either the iPhone or the laptop? Seems to me it fits in there perfectly without taking away anyone's need for an iPhone or laptop.

My netbook has some failings compared to a laptop, but I can still run any app that runs on windows, have multi-tasking, and do things that my phone can't like manage a server, connect to an FTP, create content, etc. It's significantly more than a media consumption device which is what the ipad is. Like I said before if you want to talk about bridging the gap in terms of functionality:

Desktop -> notebook -> netbook -> tablet ~ iPad -> iPhone

It's not like I'm coming at this from a position of fanboyism, with the exception of the iPad (which i'm not in a rush to buy, especially with no 3g yet) I've used all of them, deployed them in corporate environments, and done the case studies. I know what the devices can do. The one place where the iPad beats the tablet is in e-books, battery life, and consumption of media, but in terms of media creation there is no comparison. You can actually do weighted drawing on a tablet, and they've been coming with faster hardware for several years.

How in the world do you figure that? I don't really ever hear about a browser crashing due to HTML5. Now, ask Apple how many crash reports they get for Safari that are due to the flash plugin, and then tell me what is more stable.

Aside from the fact that safari doesn't comply with standards terribly well and it's a lousy browser in general (I use it as my backup browser on my Macbook, much in the same way I use IE as my backup browser on windows) but I was referring to the iPhone. Watching a video in an app, or YouTube i figure i have a 40% chance of making it to the end without being kicked back to the previous page for no particular reason. It is not a mature enough technology and has some serious issues that only time & attention can fix. I'm not saying that it won't improve, I'm saying that it's simply not good enough yet

The only way I can figure that is he found 3 suckers or 3 people in countries where they aren't being sold yet.

EDIT: Looks like the latter..... but really, kinda the former too: iPads selling on eBay for as much as $5000

not sure how he found the suckers (or how they're going for so much on ebay) since this is the first release i can remember of a new product from apple in YEARS that didn't sell out due to demand>supply.

The easiest, most seamless way to enjoy things like the iPod, iPhone, or iPad is definitely tied to the iTunes Store, no doubt about that. But other than apps, there's really nothing requiring you to buy from the store to enjoy music, videos, or ebooks on any of their devices. Rip your own CD's as mp3 or AAC. Rip your DVD's using a program like Handbrake that easily converts them to Apple compatible versions. Even the iBooks app for the iPad uses an open ebook format and, to my knowledge, is able to use other ebook files besides ones bought from the iTunes Store.

And you're wrong. There are plenty of great, free apps in the store. Obviously there's a lot of crap in the store, free and paid. So you can't exactly judge all the free content based off of your limited experience of it. One of the great FREE apps is, yes, the Netflix app.

Netflix for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store

I don't have a problem with the itunes store for apps or content, and some of the free stuff is pretty nice. I wish the iPad was serious about operating on the cloud and didn't REQUIRE iTunes to really be functional in that sense. :-\

I think by forcing the tether apple really hurts its ability to function as a stand alone replacement device for a lot of luddites. I really see it being a great device for people who don't need a computer and just want to read things online and send mail and do consumer-type tasks, but if you have to have a computer as well, that kind of hurts the appeal a bit.


Back to the apps as mentioned by Bryan, there is some great stuff out there, both for free and paid, and a lot of great developers have been churning stuff out for the iPhone. Happily apple is starting to revise their practices to be better for not just the end consumer but app developers who were kind of getting the screwjob before. Which in turn could mean even better app development in the future.

I keep campaigning for some sort of firefox for iPhone

[thesteve]

Originally Posted by redbaron

I think by forcing the tether apple really hurts its ability to function as a stand alone replacement device for a lot of luddites. I really see it being a great device for people who don't need a computer and just want to read things online and send mail and do consumer-type tasks, but if you have to have a computer as well, that kind of hurts the appeal a bit.

On the one hand I can see what you're saying, but I also thing that by forcing the tether on Apple products in general, Apple can maintain the overall stability of their OS and hardware.

As such, the iPad becomes a perfect device for soccer moms that only want to do the simple things you mentioned and very little else, and I think that's a very powerful market to lure.

[Kato]

@Redbaron holy crap on the eBay link! My local apple store and best buy still have them in stock. That alone makes me want to go pick them up and sell them.

[ApparentlyNothing]

Originally Posted by redbaron

My netbook has some failings compared to a laptop, but I can still run any app that runs on windows, have multi-tasking, and do things that my phone can't like manage a server, connect to an FTP, create content, etc. It's significantly more than a media consumption device which is what the ipad is. Like I said before if you want to talk about bridging the gap in terms of functionality:

Desktop -> notebook -> netbook -> tablet ~ iPad -> iPhone

It's not like I'm coming at this from a position of fanboyism, with the exception of the iPad (which i'm not in a rush to buy, especially with no 3g yet) I've used all of them, deployed them in corporate environments, and done the case studies. I know what the devices can do. The one place where the iPad beats the tablet is in e-books, battery life, and consumption of media, but in terms of media creation there is no comparison. You can actually do weighted drawing on a tablet, and they've been coming with faster hardware for several years.

But the thing is the netbook doesn't really do anything better than the notebook. It's just smaller and less powerful. That's it. At least with the iPad, it does some things better than what the notebook can do. And with the right apps, could probably still manage a server, connect to an FTP, and it CAN create content (just not ideal for certain kinds or amounts of content).

And tablets with desktop OSes aren't that successful for a reason. They may work for certain types of people who can get around the "jankified" OS. But I think for most, it's a horribly unintuitive user interface.

Aside from the fact that safari doesn't comply with standards terribly well and it's a lousy browser in general (I use it as my backup browser on my Macbook, much in the same way I use IE as my backup browser on windows) but I was referring to the iPhone. Watching a video in an app, or YouTube i figure i have a 40% chance of making it to the end without being kicked back to the previous page for no particular reason. It is not a mature enough technology and has some serious issues that only time & attention can fix. I'm not saying that it won't improve, I'm saying that it's simply not good enough yet

Safari doesn't comply with standards?

http://img.skitch.com/20100406-fj47r...f7fhitnh99.jpg
http://img.skitch.com/20100406-me857...cyr6j9k82j.jpg

Safari is my main browser and is definitely not "a lousy browser in general". Its speed and simplicity is exactly what I want in a browser. The only one I've considered switching to is Chrome, but I keep coming back to Safari.

As far as on the iPhone, I've never "been kicked back to the previous page for no reason" while watching a video that was embedded using HTML5. I honestly don't know what you're talking about at all.

I don't have a problem with the itunes store for apps or content, and some of the free stuff is pretty nice. I wish the iPad was serious about operating on the cloud and didn't REQUIRE iTunes to really be functional in that sense. :-\

I think by forcing the tether apple really hurts its ability to function as a stand alone replacement device for a lot of luddites. I really see it being a great device for people who don't need a computer and just want to read things online and send mail and do consumer-type tasks, but if you have to have a computer as well, that kind of hurts the appeal a bit.


Back to the apps as mentioned by Bryan, there is some great stuff out there, both for free and paid, and a lot of great developers have been churning stuff out for the iPhone. Happily apple is starting to revise their practices to be better for not just the end consumer but app developers who were kind of getting the screwjob before. Which in turn could mean even better app development in the future.

I keep campaigning for some sort of firefox for iPhone

Jailbreak it then. If you're not happy with being tied to the App Store or the functionality of the OS, that's what jailbreaking is for. And it's not that hard. But you risk sacrificing some security and stability. Nothing wrong with that if you know what you're doing and don't care.

[redbaron]

Safari's implimentation of CSS especially tends to be kludgy or at least lag behind everyone else. I can put together a site that passes W3C XHTL/strict and it'll look fine in FF/Opera/Chrome/IE but it'll have odd rendering-isms in Safari.

Conversely, developing solely for safari can cause some surprises when you attempt to render in all the other browsers. Even microsoft is obeying CSS/W3c now for petes sake

If you haven't gotten kicked back out of a video, you're lucky, I wish I was.

Then again, it could just be my handset is awful & lousy, I have had issues (not since OS3 thank god) but with OS2.x about 50% of the time i plugged in to sync, the sync would complete fine (in terms of backing up data) and then it would brick the phone, and the only way to get it to do anything would be to restore to default and then resync again. Never got to a store when it was actually doing it to get it replaced because they're too far away and I can't live without the phone that long, so I lived with it, and then the warranty ran out, d'oh. That being said, otherwise it's been fine.

The only reason i'd consider jailbreaking is for tether, honestly. The app store is fine from a consumers perspective, the only people apple has been screwing are developers, and as previously noted, they are making some strides to correct a lot of that, partly due to the competition droid is bringing, and the looming winmo7 launch. It's certainly been good for the consumer so I don't really see any reason to switch at the moment.

For all the frustration and rage that my iPhone has caused me, I can't really see anything else better at this point. Right now, the only reason i'm looking at switching come july (if there's a reasonable phone to compete with the iPhone) is because i am in serious HATE with AT&T

[redbaron]

also, just for the lulz...

amazing new ability of the iPad!

[slap_j]

Originally Posted by redbaron

also, just for the lulz...

amazing new ability of the iPad!

I wonder if Apple sent him one of those.

[thesteve]

Originally Posted by slap_j

I wonder if Apple sent him one of those.

Maybe, but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.

I think it's funny how all the comments are about how he's nuts and how he's just throwing away money. $500 to make a commercial for your company is a pretty low budget approach.

[slap_j]

Originally Posted by thesteve

I think it's funny how all the comments are about how he's nuts and how he's just throwing away money. $500 to make a commercial for your company is a pretty low budget approach.

His blenders can be more expensive than the iPad. The top of the line model is ~$1000. I wonder if it can blend itself.

[Bryan]

it was painful to watch him smash it on the blender first, more than watching it blend.

[redbaron]

i was impressed at the resiliency of the device actually. he smashes it to where there's a noticeable bend and you can still the the screen displaying information. That's pretty darn good and suggests that like an iPhone, it may crack/shatter a screen when you drop it but it'll probably stay working

[normajean777]

"Don't like the flat look of your iPad? Simply bend it, and it will sit up on its own!"

[bowstaff981]

I went and played around with it for a bit yesterday. What it does it does well, but it was pretty funny to see my girlfriend set down the iPad and pull out her iPhone to respond to a text message. Overall I just don't see the need for it. Or the want really either.