True, if I liked reading ebooks it would be useful to me... I guess it's ok for movies that I own, but otherwise it just doesn't have much use for me at all. (although I admit if I still read comics, that would actually be a great method.. hadn't thought of that before)

I am not saying Google WILL put its weight behind VP8 as the new HTML5 standard video format... but if they DO, they have the muscle to make it stick.. FAR more than Apple and even more than MS

You just refuse to listen man. h264 is a CODEC.. 100% of the web could be h264 and without sites using html5 or flash or another plugin.. it's not accessible. SO YES, ipad users are missing quite a bit of video... because very few sites (regardless of the fact that their video may be h264) use html5 to deliver it...

Even quite a few "ipad ready" sites only have the most recent content in html5... and often not all of THAT.

Unless Google pushes VP8, then EVENTUALLY h264 will be part of html5 and html5 will spread ... but people in the industry are still taking a wait and see approach until we KNOW.. Google will clear alot up this month ... but EITHER WAY.. by the time the gaping holes start to fill in... the ipad will have been made obsolete by the next big thing.

Right now it's all form and very little function (unless used primarily as an ereader a point I conceded from the get go)

By the time the "next big thing" is actually released, the iPad will be updated.

I totally agree, and if HTML5 is ubiquitous and the "new" iPad is head and shoulders above the rest without being priced off the charts and I have a need... I'd buy one... I am not against ALL Apple products . I have had great experiences with MACs in the past.

Hell my first PC was an Apple IIc. One of my first book reports was on the book WOZ, about Apple founder Steve Wozniak.

I have a feeling that there will soon be a slew of cheaper more powerful slates running open source OSes... hopefully Chromium based... but I'd settle for webOS if it can be made more robust. Just not sold on Android and can't stand iPhoneOS.

My point has been all along... why buy a device NOW that won't realize full functionality for more than likely a year or more... seems like more of a status/form move than one based on actually need or functionality.

as always, I exempt the use as an ebook/ecomic reader and pure travel movie viewer... if that is the majority of what you need.. it seems to fit the bill just fine.

Heed your own words. THEY CAN ACCESS THOSE VIDEOS NOW WITHOUT FLASH OR HTML5.

See above.

ROFL

ROFL

Seriously, you have no clue. The iPad is not the end all be all but it might as well be a paper weight as far as you're concerned.

Just got mine 3G version Friday. What are the comics you put on there.?

Oh and posting from it now. I really like this little turd :)

I just do not get your logic here. Not one iota of brain usage.

I bought Comic Zeal and put some comics that I downloaded a long time ago on it. It's cool, because it reads CBR, CBZ, RAR, JPG and PDF formats. I think it does some other formats, too, but I don't have any comics in those.

They can only access video that a site makes available as either HTML5 or using device-based transcoding... most DO NOT.... most have the video served via FLASH.

just because a video is encoded using h264 doesn't mean there is some magic way that apple can force a company to make it available... yes the iPad has a native h264 player built in... that would be the same as an h264 plugin, or QT or Flash plugin basically... here is the problem... VERY VERY VERY FEW sites are coded to make their video available directly to you in this way.

MOST video (though encoded using h264) is ONLY available using Flash.

Don't tell me I don't have a clue... I have tried and tried to explain the REALITY of this to you... but you continue to blunder about in the dark.

Sorry to be an asshole but it's insulting how you have lectured on this from the beginning when this is my field that I work in daily and have for many years... I truly do know what I'm talking about.

No, they do not. I have demonstrated it by my own video in this thread. You just will not concede.

More than you're making it out to be. There are plenty. WSJ, NYT, many porn sites. I've said it again and again, they make flash degrading pages AND they're making iPad specific ones - guess what, no flash means no content on iPad. Companies don't want that. Thus, they make a degrading page or an altogether different page.

You're right. Apple can't force them. But they are changing, anyway.

ROFL, this shows that you know the technical side but almost zero on the practical/user side. Almost all of YouTube is H264 WITHOUT flash, if you want. That, of course, is their going HTML5, but even if it wasn't, they could still play it with the current version of HTML5.

You've told me the technical specifications. Yes, it's a codec. Yes, it needs a plugin.

What you haven't seen is that the web is full of those things already. Flash is irrelevant. HTML5 is nearer. And, most importantly, the iPad doesn't need HTML5 to survive. IT can view h264 video RIGHT NOW. Which has been my point.

Go to my link on an iPad or iPhone. Tell me it doesn't work. Please do.

Silock or Zach.

Since you have them, would you mind telling us if my video: http://kobrien15.webfactional.com/DAVTAKE5.mov

Plays on the iPad?

Yes, it does.

You won't give up even when you don't know shite about the subject... that is a ****ING DIRECT LINK.. how many sites want to go back to 1996 and throwing direct links to raw video online???

yes it can view h264 video, never argued that.. but MOST SITES DON'T OFFER video up in HTML5(yet, and maybe never for h264 if the standard goes VP8) or as a direct link like a high school kid might.

You're out of your element here Donnie.

I'm going to go ahead and tour my regular pattern of sites with FLASH off and HTML5 enabled (Chrome) and see how much it sucks... do you need screenshots???

1 million sold:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20...=2547-1_3-0-20