New Apple Tablet

[dirk digler]

Cool stuff. On Engadget live right now

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/l...est&refresh=30

[Fish]

Originally Posted by kaplin42

Thought this was interesting as well.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2358590,00.asp




Number 2 isn't another reference to no multi-tasking is it? I mean, I could be wrong, but thats what it looks like to me.

Also, whats up with #39? No Java on the iPad either? Good thing java isn't really that relevant either.

To be honest, the majority of that list sucks. The author makes a few good points, but most of those points are BS.

Saying a netbook can be "hackintoshed" is enough to invalidate the list. That's an absurd point. And while possible on a select few netbooks, doing so would be totally pointless.

Gaming on a netbook? JFC....

Your point about multitasking stands, but that list is shite...

[Fish]

LOL.... Type "Steve Jobs is" in the google search field....

[kaplin42]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

To be honest, the majority of that list sucks. The author makes a few good points, but most of those points are BS.

Saying a netbook can be "hackintoshed" is enough to invalidate the list. That's an absurd point. And while possible on a select few netbooks, doing so would be totally pointless.

Gaming on a netbook? JFC....

Your point about multitasking stands, but that list is shite...

I think the point is that there are options on netbooks. Why one would choose to excercise these options, no clue, but at least they are there. This, opposed to the iPad, where you can use it what and how apple tells you that you can and thats it.

[kaplin42]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

LOL.... Type "Steve Jobs is" in the google search field....

Steve Jobs is my new bicycle, awesome.

[NewChief]

I like this perspective:
http://salon.com/technology/the_giga...vil/index.html

Apple and the iPad: Beyond Good and Evil
BY MATHEW INGRAM



As often happens when Apple releases a new product, the conversation around the iPad has quickly changed from “Oooh, I want one!” and discussions of what arcane features it’s lacking into a debate over the eternal question of good vs. evil — or rather, open vs. closed, which in the tech community amounts to pretty much the same thing.

Although many have hinted at or danced around the issue — among them Twitter engineer Alex Payne in a widely read post and Annalee Newitz in a post/polemic at the io9 blog — the first person that I know of who flatly posed the question in good vs. evil terms was Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz, with a post entitled “Is Apple Evil?” Swartz’s point is that however seductive the iPad might seem, the essence of it is evil, because it involves Apple controlling everything — not just the locked-down platform, but every piece of content that comes to users through that platform. As Swartz writes:

“That’s not to say the iPad won’t sell, or that I don’t want one. The scariest thing is that I think it probably will. It’s clear that Apple plans for the iPhone OS to be the future of its product line. And that’s scary because the iPhone OS is designed for Apple’s total control.”
Swartz says the only reason he can see for pursuing such a goal is Steve Jobs’ “megalomaniacal need for control.” After declaring himself to be a huge Apple fan, and saying he would buy an iPad right now if he could, he says that despite all that, “for the first time, I’ve got a real sinking feeling in my stomach.”

Payne, meanwhile, declared himself “disturbed” after watching the launch, because the product looked to him like “an attractive, thoughtfully designed, deeply cynical thing.” As he explains:

“The iPad is competing with full-fledged (if small and ugly) computers capable of running arbitrary programs and operating systems. Play all the category games you want, but the iPad is a personal computer. Apple has decided that openness is not a quality that’s necessary in a personal computer. That’s disturbing.”
Payne says he’s concerned that because the iPad is meant primarily for consumption, and because the platform is so closed and controlled, the device could actually usher in the “end of the hacker era” in digital history. The future of personal computing that the iPad shows us, he says, “is both seductive and dystopian.”

Newitz says Apple’s control over the device and everything in it will return the computer world to a time of “televisions and strip malls.” Because the iPad is merely a media consumption device, rather than something that can be modified or used to create much content, Newitz says it has “all the problems of television, with none of the benefits of computers.”

“I know a lot of otherwise-savvy consumers and hackers who are already drooling over the iPad and putting in their orders. They hate the idea of a restricted device, but they love the shiny-shiny. I’m not saying that they should deprive themselves of this pretty new toy. What I am saying is that this toy represents a crappy, pathetic future.”
Evil, megalomaniacal, deeply cynical, the harbinger of a crappy and pathetic future (the Free Software Foundation calls the iPad “bad for freedom”) — none of this is anything Steve Jobs hasn’t heard before (for the good side of things, see Joe Hewitt’s post.) Similar criticisms have been leveled against the iPod and iTunes for years (Chris Dixon of Hunch deals with the quasi-religious open vs. closed question here, and says he would like Apple to remain closed). But is all of this heavy breathing over openness and creativity and the end of the hacker culture really something we need to be worried about? Hardly.

The reality is that hackers will continue to break open and get root access to things, installing workarounds and reconfiguring whatever they wish — just as they have with the iPhone. If anything, it will make them smarter because they’ll have to try harder. And even Apple isn’t immune to the marketplace: The entire app store evolved because of market demands, and the open web will continue to put pressure on the company to be more open (the advent of app-like sites through HTML5 — which has allowed Google Voice to appear on the iPhone — will likely hasten that process).

If anything, the concern about Apple somehow killing our creativity or our open future give Steve Jobs and Apple far more credit for revolutionizing or impeding the evolution of computing than they likely deserve. It’s a little like conspiracy theorists assuming that the CIA and the FBI and the NSA and even more shadowy organizations are hard at work altering the very fabric of society to their own nefarious ends.

The reality, of course, is that most of those agencies couldn’t find their butts with both hands, and have a hard time even battling a cyber attack now and then, let alone planning some huge, ultra-secret conspiracy.

That’s not to say Apple isn’t a very smart company, or that its products aren’t influential — they are, in many cases far more influential than their sales would indicate. But to assume that just because the iPad runs on a locked-down phone OS or has an iTunes-style content platform that the foundation of our entire digital culture is at risk seems a bit much.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

To be honest, the majority of that list sucks. The author makes a few good points, but most of those points are BS.

Saying a netbook can be "hackintoshed" is enough to invalidate the list. That's an absurd point. And while possible on a select few netbooks, doing so would be totally pointless.

Gaming on a netbook? JFC....

Your point about multitasking stands, but that list is shite...

Yeah, not to mention the broad generalities about other netbooks. They don't ALL have webcams and card readers, though a lot do.

[kaplin42]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Yeah, not to mention the broad generalities about other netbooks. They don't ALL have webcams and card readers, though a lot do.

The point is, if that is something that you want, its available. The iPad, nope, no how, no way, can't do it.

I mean, you could always go buy a web cam...and then the adapters for the USB cable that the iPad can use.

[007]

Originally Posted by kaplin42

The point is, if that is something that you want, its available. The iPad, nope, no how, no way, can't do it.

I mean, you could always go buy a web cam...and then the adapters for the USB cable that the iPad can use.

I like the thing but until it has a card reader slot and a usb port it is a no go. It's still just a large iPod Touch right now. I already have one of those.

[irishjayhawk]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

To be honest, the majority of that list sucks. The author makes a few good points, but most of those points are BS.

Saying a netbook can be "hackintoshed" is enough to invalidate the list. That's an absurd point. And while possible on a select few netbooks, doing so would be totally pointless.

Gaming on a netbook? JFC....

Your point about multitasking stands, but that list is shite...

Again, multitasking IS possible. It just isn't on 3rd party apps. And that's what people want.

Again, I'm guessing that they will unveil multitasking or their version of it in OS 4.0. If not, I'd begin to think their stance on multitasking is the same as flash - you don't need it. I'd disagree with that and cite media and social apps as a huge hole in that thinking, but it's their product nonetheless.

And, yes, that's a shitty article. FTR, I think netbooks are dumb. I also don't think this is aiming for the netbook market, really.

Originally Posted by kaplin42

I think the point is that there are options on netbooks. Why one would choose to excercise these options, no clue, but at least they are there. This, opposed to the iPad, where you can use it what and how apple tells you that you can and thats it.

Apple's always been that way. That's why they haven't licensed their OS. They keep everything tightly integrated which avoids BSoD or things of that nature. Everything runs how it should.

If you don't like it, don't buy it. But articles like the one you posted miss the point.

Originally Posted by DaFace

Yeah, not to mention the broad generalities about other netbooks. They don't ALL have webcams and card readers, though a lot do.

It's funny that Apple would get crap for their control when they were pretty much the ones pioneering the whole webcam on every PC and laptop. Or when they pioneered the mouse.




ALSO, Jobs said that their ebook prices will match Amazon's.

[DaFace]

Daniel Tosh gets an iPad.

[007]

I just don't understand people that do that crap.

[beach tribe]

I don't get it. If you don't want it, don't buy it. I will not buy something w/o card readers or usb ports, but I bet it has them in the future.

Apple keeps everything closed...yes. Do their products do what they say, and not f-up constantly? Yes.

[irishjayhawk]

Originally Posted by beach tribe

I don't get it. If you don't want it, don't buy it. I will not buy something w/o card readers or usb ports, but I bet it has them in the future.

Apple keeps everything closed...yes. Do their products do what they say, and not f-up constantly? Yes.

I don't get why people want USB ports. I get expandable memory ports. But USB?

[Fat Elvis]

Originally Posted by irishjayhawk

I don't get why people want USB ports. I get expandable memory ports. But USB?

Flash drives?

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by irishjayhawk

I don't get why people want USB ports. I get expandable memory ports. But USB?

accessibility ... people want to be able to access it when and how they choose.