Start the reality distortion field - iPad

[So]

Oh, no. People will get over the iPon jokes after a while. Hell, iShitinabox would eventually stop getting laughs. The market won't necessarily get past the problems with the device itself.

No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

Please read my post carefully.

 

[rockyct]

This seems like the Macbook Air all over again. It's a nice piece of technology but it just doesn't make sense for most people and after an initial success, will result in lackluster sales. Maybe the next revision will make more sense.

 

[destrekor]

No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

I tell you. It's proof Apple has a secret formula paint affectionately called iPrintmoney. That paint makes any device it is applied to an instant goldmine, and Jobs laughs all the way to the bank.
The devices are largely quite the opposite of revolutionary at the time they launch, they are often lacking the good qualities of similar devices already available.
But they catch on somehow, that paint just attracts everyone and blinds their logic and reason.
And then they stagnate the market, because now the companies who already had products with more features, race to compete with the less capable device everyone is buying.
And they release version after version after version to get the same people to re-buy the device, largely still not adding the significant features available years ago on many other devices.

The Creative products available at the time of the iPod ran laps around the iPod, yet... Creative sucks at interface design and marketing.

That's the magic that Apple works. They take the products others make, make one cheaper with obviously less features, and market the shit out of it. I can't complain, it works.

But it stagnates the market, so I do complain.

Because products that are truly innovative don't attract the attention of those who are buying into the Apple products, and the competing companies just keep making devices other label "me-too" devices, though often largely better.

I won't lie, the iPod Touch truly was revolutionary, mp3 player meets apps for everything else, awesome concept.

But this... this iPad, it a leap backward. Just like the iPod was.

 

[QueBert]

But this... this iPad, it a leap backward. Just like the iPod was.

The iPad is whatever, but the first iPod was bad ass. I had one of those shitty ass Nomads and hated it, the UI was awful and it just wasn't fun to use. The iPod changed the mp3 player market forever. If Apple had never entered, Creative would be churning out shit cake mp3 players still. The Nomad sucked, the Rio sucked, the iPod was the first mp3 player that didn't suck balls. It might have lacked features the others had, but it delivered an enjoyable experience for the end user. All the features in the world mean nothing to me if the UI is bad/ugly & hard to use. It lacked shit people at the time didn't need, keep it simple often times is best. And the tardos who "needed" tons of features could go with another companies offering, those people tend to not care about a good UI, they just want more features.

BTW I had the Nomad, never had an iPod until the Touch. But I'm not going to lie and say I think the Nomad had anything to offer over an iPod.

 

[0roo0roo]

it stagnates the market because your precious companies fail to compete? give me a break. the world was for the taking by other companies as you said because apple does kind of come late to the game. but apple only brings their sh*t out when its been fully baked. as you said, the creative products had sh*tty interfaces and sony, who could have pwn3d the entire mp3 market a decade before the ipod since they had the minidisc which bore all the necessary components for an excellent mp3 player, but broke their own legs with drm. whos to blame for that? not apple. to say the ipod was a leap backwards is really missing the boat. i had one of those diamond rios and other early mp3 players. they were flaming piles of sh*t. the ipod was clearly a leap ahead.

its easy to make silly judgments off a few pictures on a blog.
watch the keynote
http://movies.apple.com/datapub/us/podcasts/apple_keynotes/ipad.m4v for more use. unless he's using some ridiculous "special" version it clearly puts user experience over everything else. It has no lag in the interface, it just works.

 

[So]

it stagnates the market because your precious companies fail to compete? give me a break. the world was for the taking by other companies as you said because apple does kind of come late to the game. but apple only brings their sh*t out when its been fully baked. as you said, the creative products had sh*tty interfaces and sony, who could have pwn3d the entire mp3 market a decade before the ipod since they had the minidisc which bore all the necessary components for an excellent mp3 player, but broke their own legs with drm. whos to blame for that? not apple. to say the ipod was a leap backwards is really missing the boat. i had one of those diamond rios and other early mp3 players. they were flaming piles of sh*t. the ipod was clearly a leap ahead.

How can you say any of that with a straight face? Apple routinely releases half-baked inferior products, but they wrap them in a better case and put a lot more thought into the UI than most devs. There is a LOT to be said for that approach, and apple's balance sheets will attest to that, but saying they only release the most cutting edge / best products on the market is like saying Microsoft has never shipped a piece of software with a bug in it.

 

[0roo0roo]

How can you say any of that with a straight face? Apple routinely releases half-baked inferior products, but they wrap them in a better case and put a lot more thought into the UI than most devs. There is a LOT to be said for that approach, and apple's balance sheets will attest to that, but saying they only release the most cutting edge / best products on the market is like saying Microsoft has never shipped a piece of software with a bug in it.

i'm not saying they don't have bugs from time to time. But they do value over all user experience more than other companies. they do care about their reputation. you only have to look at what say creative has done over the years..from putting out sh*tty mp3 players to sh*tty headsets with fatal1ty stamped all over them. I got one of em for 10 bucks on sale on black friday and the build quality is shameful for something that normally retails for 50+. poor asthetic design, the cheapest plastics, its just massive wtf, it just shows the management doesn't care.

 

[Arkaign]

What the hell would I do with that stupid thing? Way too big and awkward to be useful for me.

KT

Hahaha yeah. If I want to do big shit, I'll use a notebook.

For that price, you can get a decent used Mac notebook if you want, or a really damned nice PC notebook.

That thing is *NOT* small or convenient. I'm sure they'll sell a few of these things, but this is not the next iphone or ipod in terms of being a big runaway hit.

 

[QueBert]

UI is more important than features, Apple always delivers on the UI, when most other companies fail hard here. I just installed OSX on my Hackintosh, and while it's very different from Windows, I must say a lot of what I've seen so far makes it easier to use. I'm already doing shit quicker than I could in Windows 7. And I still don't know shit about OSX.

 

[So]

i'm not saying they don't have bugs from time to time. But they do value over all user experience more than other companies. they do care about their reputation. you only have to look at what say creative has done over the years..from putting out sh*tty mp3 players to sh*tty headsets with fatal1ty stamped all over them. I got one of em for 10 bucks on sale on black friday and the build quality is shameful for something that normally retails for 50+. poor asthetic design, the cheapest plastics, its just massive wtf, it just shows the management doesn't care.

Agreed, but that doesn't mean that apple doesn't release as many dogs (in terms of features / value) as other companies, they just release higher quality, shinier dogs.

 

[zerocool84]

UI is more important than features, Apple always delivers on the UI, when most other companies fail hard here. I just installed OSX on my Hackintosh, and while it's very different from Windows, I must say a lot of what I've seen so far makes it easier to use. I'm already doing shit quicker than I could in Windows 7. And I still don't know shit about OSX.

The UI better be good when you lock down the hardware for only certain parameters. When you control what the hardware is, you can optimize the OS for it. Doesn't seem that difficult to understand which is why they always will lock down their OS's cus once they license them out they'll lose the only advantage they have.

 

[Pliablemoose]

LOL, I need to learn how to write apps, I've got a couple of ideas that would be slick as hell on the iPad.

Also, the jailbreaking community will be loving this thing.

 

[zerocool84]

The reason is pretty simple: It is the right size for what it's designed to do.

Please do tell what this is designed to do? It's a jack of all trades, master of none.

Hell you can't even run more than one program on it at a time. Someone wants to listen to Pandora while surfing the net or reading a book. OH I CAN'T!!!! What a major fail. Can't go to many of the major sites on the net that are only accessible when you have Flash. Can't go to Hulu when you want to watch shows or any of the major sties out there that use Flash as their video. Have to convert your videos to one of the crappy formats that it supports. Reading a book on this things for hours is going to be killer on your eyes. You want internet when you're not next to a hotspot??? Fork over more cash oh and you still have to pay monthly for it too.

At least with an eBook reader they do one thing and do it well like the Kindle. Please do tell me what this is designed to do?

 

[destrekor]

See, I guess the big issue these days is UI.

Dear lord I'd hate to see what people had to do in the 90s with devices.
Form over function? Is it really that critical of a issue?

I'm in the middle of the road here. I won't like a product that has an absolutely terrible UI and hardware design aesthetic but has all the features ever possible.
And I won't like a product that you can tell the most effort was spent on hardware and interface design, with a lot of missing features.

I like a product that has some semblance of good design and a sensible UI approach. Something that is useful, but it doesn't need to be eye-candy. Not if the difference between eye-candy and useful is a ton of useful features only found in the more useful approach.

But I guess that's this generation for you. Form over function any day of the week apparently.

Creative made some extremely capable devices. I had a Creative Nomad Zen back in those days. For what I wanted it to do, it did it awesomely. I did trade down for a Sandisk Sansa for exercise and not needing a lot of space.
And then I went the Zune route because the software rocked. The Touch was pretty revolutionary, and as a media player base, it excelled. But at this point I couldn't abandon Zune software, and ZuneHD does the trick for me. Features I want, and awesome size. Wasn't sold on ditching the Zune120, in fact I didn't even want to, until I held the ZuneHD in person.

But the point being, I am function over form. Not so much that any terrible form will do still, but as long as it has an approachable design aesthetic and UI, I'll make do. It doesn't need to look like some kind of centerpiece.

 

[lifeobry]

I don't usually find CNET articles any good, but this summed up my feelings pretty well.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31322_3-10443887-256.html

 

[sandorski]

Please do tell what this is designed to do? It's a jack of all trades, master of none.

Hell you can't even run more than one program on it at a time. Someone wants to listen to Pandora while surfing the net or reading a book. OH I CAN'T!!!! What a major fail. Can't go to many of the major sites on the net that are only accessible when you have Flash. Can't go to Hulu when you want to watch shows or any of the major sties out there that use Flash as their video. Have to convert your videos to one of the crappy formats that it supports. Reading a book on this things for hours is going to be killer on your eyes. You want internet when you're not next to a hotspot??? Fork over more cash oh and you still have to pay monthly for it too.

At least with an eBook reader they do one thing and do it well like the Kindle. Please do tell me what this is designed to do?

The days of Flash are numbered.

 

[zerocool84]

The days of Flash are numbered.

When devices claim to be great internet devices yet can't access a huge percentage of it's content, seems like a failure to me. Sure I hate Flash as much as the next person but not even giving people the option to use it whenever they want is just retarded. Just one of the many things that Apple says what you can or can't do on their devices.

 

[WelshBloke]

UI is more important than features, Apple always delivers on the UI, when most other companies fail hard here. I just installed OSX on my Hackintosh, and while it's very different from Windows, I must say a lot of what I've seen so far makes it easier to use. I'm already doing shit quicker than I could in Windows 7. And I still don't know shit about OSX.

People always go on about the iPhone os and I think a post on Engadget summed it up for me.

Sorry to burst your bubble but the iPhone UI isn't as radical a departure from the windowed desktop system as you're proclaiming it to be. Rather than having windowed applications they're just maximised all the time. The home screen is your desktop/start bar from which you have the short cuts to launch your applications. Finally the home button completes the set by allowing you to exit to the desktop. The principals of the desktop system are there, simply hidden behind another layer of abstraction. Add in this proposed multi tasking and it's close to the same. Essentially the only difference is that this removes the layered model of the desktop.

Think of it it this way. I open up a browser on my computer and full screen it. Suddenly my computer has morphed into a browser. Likewise if I do the same with notepad it's a note taking machine. What if I want to play a game? Bam lets boot up some Heroes of Newerth. The iPhone UI is a mild re imagining of the desktop interface rather than an incredible revolution. The effect you're describing isn't so much a result of the UI but rather the bevy of function centric apps available for it. The thing is that same range of software is available on a fully fledged computer.

At any rate you can tell it's not as earth shattering as you think by doing the following:

Set your desktop colour to black.
Set everything to open maximised.
Put a load of shortcuts on your desktop.
Pretend your mouse cursor is a finger (or try this on a touchscreen computer).
Hide the start bar.
Press the show desktop hotkey whenever you want to get back to the "homescreen".

Seem familiar?

Fair enough the iPhone was competing against other smartphones but the iPad is competing against laptops/netbooks/tablets all of which have 'proper os's' .

 

[0roo0roo]

Please do tell what this is designed to do? It's a jack of all trades, master of none.

Hell you can't even run more than one program on it at a time. Someone wants to listen to Pandora while surfing the net or reading a book. OH I CAN'T!!!! What a major fail. Can't go to many of the major sites on the net that are only accessible when you have Flash. Can't go to Hulu when you want to watch shows or any of the major sties out there that use Flash as their video. Have to convert your videos to one of the crappy formats that it supports. Reading a book on this things for hours is going to be killer on your eyes. You want internet when you're not next to a hotspot??? Fork over more cash oh and you still have to pay monthly for it too.

At least with an eBook reader they do one thing and do it well like the Kindle. Please do tell me what this is designed to do?

err no. if it were jack of all trades it would be a full windows tablet type device.
it is clearly limiting its scope, so thats really off the mark.

 

[bas1c]

I can view websites and click on links to get to another page....I have the Internet in the palm of my hands.

I can see my inbox on the left-side of my mail client and i can click one to view the contents on the right-side...I have the Internet in the palm of my hands!

I can receive email and reply to it...I have the Internet in the palm of my hands!!

Revolutionary!

 

[iversonyin]

I don't see how this thing is better than a $300-400 Netbook with SD slot, USB inputs and FLASH viewing browser.....I just don't see it.

 

[BeauJangles]

I agree with the general sentiment here, Apple has created a product that there isn't a clear market for. Ideally, there would be some device that you could carry around and use in lieu of a laptop or an iphone, but I'm not sure that something that essentially amounts to a bigger iPhone and comes with closed iPhone platform will succeed. To add to that, I'm not sure American consumers are ready to drop $400 on what amounts to an entirely frivolous device. IMO, the chances of this device being a huge success are far lower than the chances of it becoming another AppleTV or MacBook Air.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Heh, I love this thread...

In a couple of years I'm gonna link back to it.

 

[Deeko]

Heh, I love this thread...

In a couple of years I'm gonna link back to it.

In a couple of years, people will be out buying the iPad 3. And there's a good chance that that will be a far superior device for a lot less money. That's the way Apple does things. Just because the 3rd iteration of the device is solid doesn't mean this one is any less crap.

 

[KMFJD]

What exactly is the point of the ipad? where is the market for it? what does it do better than an existing device? I cannot for the life of me find any reason to buy one...