I run only linux in all my machines - but I think that until KDE can get a decent network manager up and working or UVC webcams start working out-of-the-box, I dont see an Apple like presentation.
Hmm. So, we've got a handheld device with a slick UI, that can be used for video, audio, email, games, and reading, has a long battery life, and reasonable performance ... the first iteration of the mythical "tablet" that everyone's been talking about for two years now ... and the general reaction is that it's too much like a fancy Walkman?
I know, right? TechCrunch has such an extensive history of creating brilliant, usable interfaces?
But you're wrong. This doesn't have a niche. This is going to replace many, many niches. This is going to be what people buy instead of laptops. Unless I'm a hardcore user that needs pro tools, this will do everything I want a computer to do. And it will do it sexier, and sleeker, and it won't have any of the rough edges that my laptop does.
> 10:18AM "Now if I want to send a message, I hit compose -- up pops this gorgeous keyboard." Steve is typing, it looks very responsive.
I would be extremely disappointed in Apple if they produced a device that was supposed to be capable of handling email, and you couldn't type on it. I suspect they've managed to solve the multi-touch/OSD keyboard problem somehow, which would be neat.
I think the muted enthusiasm stems from the fact that there are multiple competitors at or close to release - it's good, great specs, but not 'like nothing else you've ever seen' (so far anyway). Mind you the price is going to help, a lot.
They probably won't build up the same market lead they did with the iPhone, which has only been technologically overtaken in recent months.
When you're talking about features it's awesome. But then when you look at the fact that it's almost as big as a laptop, but without the full capabilities of a laptop. Still no word on flash yet. Don't give a shit about YouTube. With my MacBook I can lug it around and I can also watch hulu. Plus I can actually do work on it instead of browing through photos.
Same here. But, considering how fast Steve Jobs went through the updates and basic description of the product (and pretty much covering all the rumors and leaks), I think there is time (and hope) for a "one more thing" that can blow our minds.
So far, I wouldn't call what they showed "magical and revolutionary".
edit: still following the pace of the event, it really feels to me like there will be more. A little slow-down of the presentation, Steve Jobs will sum up a little bit what they showed and then, starts smiling and say "but there's one more thing that makes the iPad revolutionary". So far, it's really too fast. It would be an unusual rhythm for an Apple keynote. if it kept going like this until the end. (wishful thinking?)
2nd edit: I guess not… not that the product is not super cool and impressive. It's just that I feel it's harder to justify when you have an iPhone and a laptop already. The Kindle is threatened though.
I'm guessing their target market for the iPad won't really care too much about that; plenty of non-technical laptop users already have enough trouble installing/uninstalling software, so something like the app store that makes it easy to find and install stuff, and safe to do so, is probably actually a win for those people.
i can only hope that either because this isn't a phone, a more robust modding community will develop around it, or that a more developer-friendly tablet will be released shortly.
There are plenty of other MP3 players out there, but they haven't hurt the iPod (much).
Google is great at certain things, but UI is not one of them. Their user experience suffers the Linux Problem: it's perpetually unfinished and incomplete, and regular computer users just don't like it. (Techs love it though.)
I don't understand what you're getting at. You seem to be saying that because this new device builds on years of highly successful platform development that this is a bad thing. I disagree with that.
I was personally hoping for a new user experience. I want a tablet like Microsoft's Courier prototype. It's a book, which can easily be held with one hand. You interact with it in fundamentally different ways than both a phone and a laptop. It serves an entirely different purpose.
The iPhone works because I can operate it with one hand. They effectively took the iPod Touch and scaled it up... this left me underwhelmed. If anything they should have made the tablet just a laptop without a keyboard... at least then I could dev on it.
The thing that made the iPhone stand out was that it was a completely new way to interact and use such devices. It gave phones a level of power that previously did not exist. People were comparing the iPhone to other phones. People are going to compare the iPad with other tablets/laptops and realize how limited it is.
I want a tablet like Microsoft's Courier prototype.
This is why Apple doesn't do concepts and prototypes anymore. There is undoubtedly someone at Microsoft wincing every time someone says something like that, seeing as how they don't have a product to sell you along those lines in spite of being on their third try at tablets. (I don't mean that at a jibe at you at all--what you say is perfectly reasonable!)
People are going to compare the iPad with other tablets/laptops
True, but I'm not convinced that everyone will do so and that those who do will not decide in favor of the iPad.
I mean, it compares in some ways to smart phones, netbooks, laptops, gaming portables, eBook readers, and media players. Obviously it's not going to be the best at everything, but I think it stands a good chance of being a successful blend--Apple won't win everybody, but they might win a respectable share over from each. A $500 laptop or netbook might "do more", but is the battery life there? Is it pleasant to curl up in bed and read on? Do people want Windows or do they want the App Store? The Kindle DX is about $500. Are people going to weigh e-ink against everything the similarly-priced iPad does? Is someone looking at a $400 iPod Touch going to reconsider the importance of portability?
I wasn't impressed until I saw the price and the thought of paying $30/month for 3G without a contract. I can take this on a trip, use maps for navigating my route, get on the road and hand it back to the kids to watch a movie on iTunes on a reasonably sized screen. I can think of a bunch of ways I could use this. I also really don't like talking on the phone, so I don't really want voice anyway. :-)
The 3G is almost compelling. However, lots of us already carry around a laptop with an expensive 3G account. I can only use one device at a time, and it's silly to me that I can't either tether to this with it's embedded 3G chip, or else use the same (capped) data plan for both. Since I can't, I'll stick with the laptop for everything.
Of course that's the cell carrier's fault rather than Apple's, but it's still going to keep Apple from getting my money for one of these gadgets.
Good price for an unlimited plan, plus unlocked out-of-the-box.
Also, I have good reason to believe that AT&T's exclusivity deal with Apple is ending around June. If that's the case, expect to see other data carriers run with this too.
I get the reference, but can you explain why people want something that is not easily portable in a pocket, but has fewer features than a laptop? If it's basically meant to be an extremely usable netbook (low price, web/email/etc), then I can get behind it.
Well, I'm not saying it IS better, until I play with it I'm just repeating the hype. But the proposition is that it will surf the net better than an iPhone and a MacBook. As I mentioned in another comment, I owned a Toshiba Portegé TabletPC and I can honestly say it was a KILLER web surfing device. Now I'm looking at the same ability to view web pages in portrait or landscape mode, weighing way less, and without a keyboard to get in the way. I could love such a device without ever taking it out of my house.
Toss in the ability to watch all the movies and the entire Prisoner TV show collection I have in iTunes... That's fairly compelling, I can see myself using it in bed before going to sleep. Watching movies with someone in my living room requires the big screen TV. But watching movies on my laptop is not a great experience because of its battery life, I need to have an extra power adapter in my bedroom and run the cord across my floor.
Finally, this could be a killer ebook platform. I won't say it's better than Kindle, but it seems like it could be awesome for viewing all the PDF and Gutenberg Project books I already have.
So... I think there might be something to the idea of a device that does a few things (browsing the internet, personal movie watching, and reading ebooks) better than an iPhone or a MacBook.
I am quite surprised how poor the showing is for live coverage.
Fox news had a very delayed high quality video feed which dropped several times. CNN had a feed which went to "back soon" as soon as I joined it. Ustream had a feed which was solid up to 16,500 viewers with good quality audio and awful video until it collapsed.
Ars Technica had a "LiveCoverage" plugin thing which fell over all the time, their IRC server timed out twice. Even Engadget who are by far the best site I found failed to load several times.
Twitter stayed up, but wasn't quite what I was looking for.
I ended up with a Leo Laporte laptop/webcam stream restreamed via justin.tv with unusable video and near unusable audio. They claimed 90-150,000 viewers at times, so well done to them.
What happened to 2010, broadband, P2P, multicast, memcached, cloud scalability? How can IRC crash with too many users? People have been shunting text around for several decades.
If multimillion dollar media press companies can't do this properly what hope does everyone else have?
there it is, i think. the no-contract 3G deal with AT&T, it being priced at $30/mo unlimited data, and then the price of the tablet itself starting at $500.
Interesting that McGraw-Hill isn't listed as one of their book partners. Were they dropped after their CEO opened his mouth yesterday I wonder? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1079109
I don't understand some of the negativity here. My credit card is already tingling in my pocket ready to pre-order at the first opportunity.
The proof will be in the pudding - but a device with a decent screen size, with 10 hours battery life, that I can use for browsing the internet from the bed/living room is great.
I have an iphone, I have an MBP, I have an Acer Aspire One (running Linux) But all of these are not quite perfect. The speed improvement of the 3GS over the 3G makes a big difference, but it's still not quite the perfect browsing device. My Acer never gets used - I agree with Steve Jobs that it's worse at everything. The MBP is pretty good - but it's a bit heavy at 2KG versus < 1KG iPad and most of the time the keyboard is redundant.
I bought a Toshiba Portegé TabletPC and it was killer to surf the Internet and read books on the couch or in bed. I will buy an iPad for reading alone. Throw in the ability to watch my collection of movies that are already in my iTunes, read my books that are already in pdf...
I'm an early adopter, so "The plural of anecdote is not data." But I don't need much more to want one.
If you're halfway smart and not just one of the 'I got it first' crowd I'd advice your credit card to solidly cling to the inside of your pocket for the next 6 months.
Let others deal with the inevitable 1.0 bugs.
When dealing with new technology second best is best.
Apple's history with the iPhone/iPod though is that the hardare is generally pretty good at launch and all bugs are in the software/firmware which can be fixed.
It won't be a business critical tool for me - I will happily deal with some of the teething issues.
There were quite a few hw related problems with early iPhones, off the top of my head, 3G issues, battery life, screen tint (not sure if that one was device or firmware related), touch screen dead zones.
I'm not convinced anything is phenomenal on this. Between my desktop, macbook and iPhone, I can't think of any use cases for it. Is it just a bigger, faster iPhone? I don't get it.
It's possible that touch makes a huge difference. People who never held an iPhone don't understand what's so special about touch, but pretty much all new owners spend first two days not being able to let go of the device poking it with a finger.
Are you sure? I'm a former iPhone owner, and the touch was main of it disadvantages.
The touch keyboard is awfully slow. It is a very big step backwards, comparing to Blackberry or Android G1. And, I know, it sells under "don't expect that much it's a phone, you can live with it".
As for the tablet, a portable machine - something between a laptop, and phone, I expect an option to use the actual keyboard. Otherwise, it's going to be utterly passive machine.
Other disadvantages were, for instance, display which makes iPhone unsuitable for browsing the web, even in a bed. This is the lesson fully learned by Apple, though.
Yes I am sure. Many of my friends weren't able to let go of the phone for several days. It should be noted that none of us are heavy SMS or other text users; the most I need keyboard for it to setup email/password so I can read email and an occasional quick web search.
Me neither! I was holding my iPad right now and totally using it, and my thoughts were, like, now that I've actually physically held this thing I can't imagine who would use it. I'm imagining you're not liking your physical copy either?
The point is that not everybody even has all of those. What you're really saying is that your desires are all fulfilled, not that you don't have the desires that the iPad purports to fill.
App compatibility with the smaller models is pretty smart though. I didn't expect anything other than a giant iPhone, but that's enough to make it desirable for a great many people.
If they include a pull-out or pluggable physical keyboard, arranged to allow the pad to stand like a frame, it could be a great replacement for most netbooks and allow for hands-free reading--therefore a Kindle killer as well.
Wonder if they have ever considered the idea and reject it simply for the aesthetics of having the simplest, smoothest device possible. Aesthetics is good, but if a small compromise can be made for much greater functionality, it would be a good trade-off.
I think some other companies might have come up with a device I described above, anyone here knows of one. I would consider buying it. A link would be appreciated.
Its exactly what we should have expected. A giant iPod Touch, nothing revolutionary, but still cool. I'm sure I won't be able to afford it, but maybe one day...
Here's a question: Will AAPL de-emphasize the iPod Touch? It seems like the Touch is now in a bit of a no-man's land: It doesn't have a phone or 3GS go-anywhere connectivity, and won't be as compelling as a game or surfing platform.
It still covers the ground between $200 and $500 for those unwilling or unable to commit to an AT&T contract, including everybody's favorite segment: teenagers.
I have observed a Law of Steve Jobs. If he hypes it, it will suck. If he says nothing, it will rock. The iPhone he said nothing about. Before today, he was hyping the iPad as the most important thing he's ever done.
Interesting detail:
Runs custom Apple silicon, the "A4" chip at 1Ghz. Seems pretty capable based on the demo. But then, everything seems capable in a controlled demo.
But there's not a conflict about the trademark. Fujitsu's TM is only for retail purposes. They certainly could have trademarked other uses if they wanted to. The iPad is pretty much everything but retail (i.e., search the "Apple" link for any mention of retail use cases).
EDIT: I thought those were permalinks. Sorry. If you go to the USPTO and search for iPad among the Live uses you'll soon see the Fujitsu one and one with many, many markets (along with one for bras, one for a medical device, etc). Though, check out iSlate. Similar filing info as the iPad but not as broad. Seems like if they were worried at all about Fujitsu they could have just used iSlate.
The engadget live feed is pathetic. They're saying "Wow" to any regular feature that doesn't really have anything impressive. What is their agenda here?
"I’ve made this suggestion before but let me try this again: Why don’t you fucktards just stop trying to predict what we’re going to put out? Why not just show up like everyone else, sit there with your notebooks on your lap and your hands in the clap position and just wait to hear what the fuck we say and then cheer wildly like a pack of idiots when we give you the "applause" cue? Is that so fucking hard? I mean, Mossberg and Pogue manage to do it, right? How hard can it be?"
Engadget definitely has a severe bias towards Apple compared to say Sony or Microsoft.
Their readers are technophiles who can figure out whether to be excited on their own unless it's not obvious. Seeing some of the stuff on the iPad isn't terribly exciting for me. They haven't shown the eReading capabilities yet though.
Agreed, but isn't that the essence of liveblogging? 'Meh' doesn't retain readers, and I presume they want Apple to advertise with them. I'll allow them some wows for the performance, battery life etc.
This is a leisure device, even if iWork is available for it. I was really hoping for something I can use at college, like the ability to load up PDFs, annotate them, search, report, sync, share with classmates, etc. I suppose someone will write an app to do that (no time to do one myself).
I bet someone in Boston will hear the announcement and think, "An iPad? So what? I've had an iPad for yeahs"
This was probably the most predictable Apple "new product" release I've ever seen. I'm not really thrilled about it, but then again I'm not really a gadget kind of guy
Not many techies getting wowed by this but the question is will it sell? I think it will. Infact I think Apple has possibly opened a market for non-tech savy people like mums, dads and grans who find basic things like email and internet trivial.
TBH, the only thing I can see this being more useful for than a netbook is reading ebooks, as I don't watch movies on my computer. And given that all it has is a standard, all be it nice, display I wouldn't buy one. E-ink is far superior for reading. I can see it being useful for grandma who can't remember how to right click, but given the closed nature of the device, no thanks. The hardware looks ok, but not spectacular. Not that that will stop Apple from making a boat load on them. At this point, Apple could sell rotting fruit and people would rave about how great it is and buy it by the truck load.
Normally I don't get excited about apple products. I wasn't super excited about this one either, but I was looking forward to seeing apple 'fix' tablets- that is to say, fix text entry and make a tablet computer more viable.
Tablets can keep up with regular computers on everything, except text entry. Writing with a stylus is still imperfect, and so are touchscreen keyboards. Long emails, command prompt usage, and essays are frustrating without a physical keyboard. Apple is good at simplifying UI and interaction, so wouldn't they be the one to tackle this problem?
And what do you know, they didn't even try. This isn't a tablet. It's just an big iphone with more focus on media.
Why is writing with a stylus imperfect... I have been using a tablet for a year and used it exclusively for note taking during my last semester in school last year... I was on Vista and onenote and it worked out great! The handwriting recognition was good and the reaction time of the one note page was as good as a real pen and paper.
With a pure tablet like ipad (no physical keyboard) I would expect the stylus to be more useful especially for tasks like writing emails.
The pointer is never as precise as I want it to be- mine is always a few pixels off, and every other tablet I've tried has been worse. You can argue or justify etc all you like, but I have always found this very disorienting.
Handwriting recognition is also approaching perfection, but it's not quite close enough yet. Maybe for some people with good handwriting it is 'there', but I'm not one of them, and I have to stop and correct a word too often.
Plus, symbols recognition is tricky, along with words not out of the dictionary, so command prompt and programming are not fun.
Yes, stylus + touch screen > touch screen, imho. However, correct me if I am wrong, but Mr. Jobs did not show a stylus once during the presentation.
Where's the expanded multitouch gesture vocabulary from the FingerWorks technology they acquired? That would have made iPad special. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1041628
I wasn't sold on it till the price (assuming they can get it here to the UK at as reasonable a price) - that would tempt me as a casual use "sat in bed" device. I often use my iPhone like that so if it turns on as fast as that I would buy it.
No "wow" event? Big deal. The thing will still sell like hotcakes, be easy to use, and be the best thing to happen to the tablet/pad/slate computer market (by way of legitimizing said market), full stop.
What, no e-ink? I was really hoping Apple would take on the Kindle, etc so we could get some critical mass in that market. Instead we get a glorified laptop. Bummer.
Looks like the market wasn't liking this until Steve Jobs announced the price -- right when the price was announced you can see the stock jumping in price.
I'm really disappointed. I was looking forward to being able to easily move around from room to room while video chatting.
Apple brought nothing new to the table today. They didn't solve text entry on tablets, they didn't make it easier to video chat (or even voice chat for that matter), and they didn't come up with a new form factor that is better than a big flat slab of metal.
It's bad when the biggest wow moment for a product is the price and data plan.
Sure.. but it's ugly next to the iPad and as Steve Jobs has proved time and time again looks count. At a $499 starting price this might not kill Kindle but it will take a huge bite out of its market. There is clearly no doubt about that.
EDIT: I am a Kindle owner btw.. I even wrote a blog post defending it against the new Apple tablet but after seeing this I have to change my mind. I had no idea that Apple was pursuing publishers to this extent. That was Amazon's greatest strength but it appears that position is greatly weakened by this news.
I have a Kindle too. It has a few things going for it that the iPad doesn't. First, its screen is really good for reading. Easier on the eyes than a backlit display. Second, it's much cheaper. $500 for the cheapest iPad, or $259(1) for a Kindle. Last, it sounds like books on Kindle are going to be cheaper ($10 instead of $15 on the iPad), though that could change.
What the iPad can do to improve on the Kindle is allow for interaction with reading materials. Note taking, discussion forums based on specific paragraphs/sentences in the text, real-time highlighting, audio/video playback, color photos. All a dream for a college student. None of this exists for iPad yet, but it'll probably come in version 2.0 of its OS. The best Kindle can do in return is its clunky text-highlighting, which isn't saying much.
So my point is, they're far apart in pricing and capabilities. Kindle will probably stay popular among book lovers, which are a fickle bunch. iPad seems like a Kindle with a zillion other capabilities. The iPad is to an iPhone as the Kindle is to a normal Cell Phone. One's very flashy and has some cool capabilities at a cost, and the other is cheaper but does a simple thing relatively well. I don't think they'll eat each other's lunch, but we will have to wait and see to be sure of course...
(1) $470 Kindle DX aside; I'd grab an iPad before a DX any day.
You gotta remember that Amazon has been out there in the market executing for over the last year while others have been developing. Plus Amazon has the inside lane with publishers. And Amazon's infrastructure is second-to-none.
Kindle-killer? Don't think so. If I had to bet on Apple vs. Amazon I'd put my money on Amazon.
I've been watching the stocks of both companies, and apple's has just overtaken Amazon's (not for the first time, mind). The 'ibook' functionality and publisher relationships basically caused them to swap places within moments of being announced. Both are up on today's opening, though down on that of a week ago.
That's true, but why does that matter for digital stuff? (I'm assuming you're talking about Amazon's ability to distribute physical goods). I don't necessarily disagree with your point but I don't see how Amazon's infrastructure is a factor.
I have to joke. It just seems so overblown. Because of the over-hyped nature of this event, I think the wags are more interesting than the event itself.
"Just like a iPhone. Except bigger so we'll make even more money!"
"Last time there was this much excitement about a tablet, it had some commandments written on it"
And still a locked-down platform? Color me not impressed.
It would be great if there were other tech companies with such well presented products and ideas that really made you say 'wow'.