ADDED: My first questions: 1. What does it weigh? [ANSWER: 1.5 pounds.] 2. How long does the battery last? [10 hours of video use/1 month standby — great!] 3. Will it mainly just feel like a big, dorky iPhone that I'm never going to prefer to either the iPhone or my laptop? 4. Is it basically good for Kindle-user types who mostly want to read and are not always moving back and forth between reading and writing?
AND: There's WiFi but no 3G wireless. Oh... Bleh. So it's not even a a big, dorky iPhone. It's a a big, dorky iTouch. I don't want one.
MORE: From the previous link (the NYT blog):
“I can take a flight form San Francisco to Tokyo and watch video the whole way.”Said Steve Jobs, making me think this is especially aimed at the poor folk who spend a lot of time on airplanes.
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80 comments:
It's a consumer electronics device Ann. It is made possible because of the use of integrated circuits and miniaturization technologies. You know, things that were developed as part of the first NASA mission to get to the moon.
Imagine if short-sighted people didn't favor killing the space program out of ignorance what future generations could have...
So, like I said. A tablet... but pretty! Sort of.
But if it will function as a great ereader plus a netbook, I would consider buying one. Depends on what similar PCs come out this year.
The iPad? More like the iDon'tWannaBuyThisPad.
I hope they cleared that name with Kotex®
The strategy is not to answer your questions but rather to depend on legions of Apple fans to buy because...well its Apple.
It's a bigger I-phone for watching TV and Movies on. Think of the behind the seat screens used on the Airlines that don't use a common movie screen. Battery life is the biggest question. It could be invaluable for space travel to the moon and beyond. Big Brother this way commeth.
I mean -- is it a mini or a maxi?
If it doesn't have 3G or some other way to download books remotely, then, as an ebook reader, it's not as good as a Kindle or a Nook.
What is the point of this thing aside from being a, probably overpriced, tablet computer? All this buildup for that? We've had tablet computers for a long time now.
But then, I'm a Mac curmudgeon, so I'm biased.
I find it plausible, which means that at some point, they will probably make it work.
What I need when I travel (which I seem to be doing about every other week now) is:
- the ability to read documents, esp. .pdfs
- light email
- light web browsing
- light editing
- connectivity
All of those features are really available on an iPhone, except that the screen is far too small.
But if Apple could provide me with an iPhone with a big screen but no telephone capabilities (excluding data), I would look at it closely.
The alternative right now is that I carry a fairly heavy HP laptop around. I need its functionality upon occasion, but cannot afford not to have it. But it does not provide an easy way to operate at times, such as, on a plane. The small light PCs would be fine, except that they too don't have a big enough display.
We shall see.
My husband gave a talk at the University yesterday. He said that everywhere he went, the students who were standing around waiting were all plugged into their smart devices. No one was interacting with the people around them. They were all texting and browsing.
Made him, and me, a little sad.
What is the point of this thing aside from being a, probably overpriced, tablet computer? All this buildup for that? We've had tablet computers for a long time now.
Because it is cool. And it is from Apple.
“I can take a flight from San Francisco to Tokyo and watch video the whole way.”
I would hate to watch videos for that long!
From the seat Steve Jobs sits in when flying between San Francisco and Tokyo, he can watch movies all flight long on a dedicated In-Flight Entertainment system built into his seat, and use just about 0% of the iPod's battery.
w.v.: scrooc--Bah! Humbug! alright...
I looks like a bigger Iphone.
(this is going to bomb)
It will succeed, I suspect, if it works functionally as a cross between a small laptop and a large iTouch/ereader.
Lots of business travelers would ditch their laptop and ereaders for one of these instead.
"No one was interacting with the people around them. They were all texting and browsing."
They were interacting with the people they wanted to interact with rather than people thrown at them by chance. An improvement.
I'm much more social since the world got wired.
"It's a a big, dorky iTouch."
(1) It's the ghettoblaster of the 2010 decade.
(2) In some pictures, it makes Jobs look like the incredibly shrinking man.
Can you say "Newton"?
They were interacting with the people they wanted to interact with rather than people thrown at them by chance. An improvement.
I'm much more social since the world got wired.
I agree that the Internet has been a boon to social connections. (At least, it has for me.)
But I do think there's a balance. I think it's better to have interaction both on and offline.
Epic fail, Apple. I immediately thought of Maxi Pads when I heard the name, and this is just perfect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsjU0K8QPhs
Did Apple not test-market the name iPad on ANY women?
Hilarious, Zach! And here I thought I'd come up with original (juvenile) humor.
You can put the Kindle in a ziplock and take it to the beach - try that with this where the sun will glare the screen and the touch screen won't work through the bag.
"Did Apple not test-market the name iPad on ANY women?"
No doubt why they dropped the "M".
"Lots of business travelers would ditch their laptop and ereaders for one of these instead."
But aren't businesses mostly PC based? A tablet PC would make a lot more sense. Such as this Dell one
- light email
- light web browsing
- light editing
For those... light flow days in the month.
Correct me if I'm wrong but don't most international flights have plenty of video options already?
I don't get it.
Is it supposed to be a kindle killer? Maybe. Still not a huge niche.
What protects that massive screen from scratches? A case with a big flip top? That's totally inconvenient. Here, let me open my big flip top so I can type on a screen (you know that the typing will be just as difficult as it is on the iPhone).
ZPS: thanks, seems like an unforced error, starting off with that joke hanging out there.
I'm much more social since the world got wired.
But what about dreaming, Palladian? Does anybody dream anymore? Especially important in the formation of the young, I would think.
The iPad is powered by Apple’s own custom silicon, he says — a 1 GHz A4 chip,, 16 GB of memory, 32 or 64 Gigabytes of storage.
That can't mean 16GB of RAM, right?
It is made possible because of the use of integrated circuits and miniaturization technologies. You know, things that were developed as part of the first NASA mission to get to the moon.
No. Not even close. The NASA programs used "ancient" technology in the space program. This was by design; they needed to use the tried and true. Even the space shuttle is positively ancient by computer standards.
Comprehensive studies of the NASA manned space program have found that it had almost zero effect on technology. Even the few things that are legitimately tied to the space program were either already on the market or were used in a way that did little to advance the technology.
The only government programs that had genuine effect on the advancement of technology was the military program and even there the effect was limited. Transistor radios and the simple calculator had a far greater effect.
In other words, private markets have done far, far more to drive innovation in integrated circuits and miniaturization than anything the government has done or even supported indirectly.
"Lots of business travelers would ditch their laptop and ereaders for one of these instead."
exactly - no business traveler is going anywhere with JUST this product. Which means it's another tool to carry. iPhones and iPods work because they're small. This just seems painfully large - so, now I have to carry a laptop, a paper notebook, my phone, my iPod AND another device?
If you could write on it and it would convert your writing to computer text...
As for the iPad. A big yawn. They are doing absolutely nothing that hasn't been done before and far better. The one big niche market for touch computers is the rugged computer/industrial environment market (like needing a computer at an oil field or on a truck.) These computers operate well out of the temperature, vibration, dust and water resistant ranges of the iPad and are dominated by Windows based devices.
For $499, you get you 16 GB of storage, with WiFi built-in. For $599, you get 32 GB of storage. For $699, you get 64 GB of storage.
I will say that I am very impressed with the price points they've managed to hit. Very impressed.
I don't think there will ever be hybrid. It either fits in your pocket, or it's a laptop you carry separately. Might as well carry a feature loaded laptop.
Is it light enough to play frisbee ;)
What is the point of this thing aside from being a, probably overpriced, tablet computer? All this buildup for that? We've had tablet computers for a long time now.
One thing we haven't had, though, is an interface optimised for touch. It's not that it's difficult, conceptually, to think through how it ought to be arranged (essentially, buttons need to be big enough to push, and icons should launch from a single tap, not a double tap). But for some reason, even though Microsoft has been putting together Tablet PC versions of Windows for years now (since 2002), and there have been touchscreen tablet PCs for a while, Microsoft has never bothered to create and market a comprehensive Windows skin that, say, bumps up the size of the window control buttons in the upper right hand corner, to optimise them for touch. In fact, in Windows Vista and Windows 7 (otherwise well optimised for stylus/touch input), they decided to make them smaller and harder to hit accurately with a finger. These are fairly obvious things to do -- you can see them in the first minute or two of interacting with a touchscreen tablet PC -- but for whatever reason, Microsoft never devoted the resources to it. Some other companies, like HP and Asus, have tried to create their own touch interfaces on top of Windows, but they're only skin deep and run a limited selection of programs. As soon as you leave that limited suite of programs, you're stuck trying to squeeze your finger onto tiny menu items and buttons. Still others, like Intel and Ubuntu, have tried to develop interfaces that work with touch, but there's no commercial products running those interfaces yet (and they're Linux based anyhow). That Apple has a true, comprehensive, touch-optimised interface, based on their iPhone interface, is something that I haven't seen in the marketplace before. Hopefully it will increase the market, and spur participants with more experience with these sorts of devices to up their game a bit.
According to boingboing live blogging there will be 3G models ready for sale in about 3 months.
Balfegor, thank you.
At those price points, I think you're right that it should spur on others. Lots of people will buy this thing. In fact, I was planning to buy a netbook and an ereader, so I, near hater of all things Apple, might buy this thing. (It will be cheaper than buying the others separately.)
"Freeman Hunt said...
The iPad is powered by Apple’s own custom silicon, he says — a 1 GHz A4 chip,, 16 GB of memory, 32 or 64 Gigabytes of storage.
That can't mean 16GB of RAM, right?"
Neither is right. The specs I'm seeing say 500+ MB RAM, with either 32 or 64 GB of storage as a flash drive. Given the size of the device, I'm actually thinking the RAM figure is low, but we all need to remember: This is more an upsized iPhone than it is a shrunken MacBook. So operating systems aimed at mobile devices tend not to have too much RAM, and instead depend more heavily on the flash memory storage for things. That 512 figure may be right, but if it is, that's disappointing. The Blackberry 9000 came with a whole GB of internal memory, and that device was only the size of a cellphone.
The space program gave us Tang. Period.
My first questions...
Apple's zombies...er, customers..don't ask questions, they just buy whatever Apple puts out, because that will make them cool....won't it?
The specs I'm seeing say 500+ MB RAM, with either 32 or 64 GB of storage as a flash drive.
Yikes. It's got to have at least 1GB. I've been very unhappy with the amount of RAM in the Apple machines we've had to own in the past. I wish they would do better on that.
Oh, I do like that keyboard dock.
(New at the NYT live blog that Althouse linked.)
"I don't get it.
Is it supposed to be a kindle killer? Maybe. Still not a huge niche."
It will be a Kindle-killer, if it has full color (haven't seen any details yet on the announcement today). The size means it'll kick butt in the ereader market for magazines and textbooks - where size and color are critical to use/acceptance.
And ereaders haven't done anything in these markets b/c the screen's too small, and lack color.
I would love to know what Bissage thinks of this 'tablet'.
"Yikes. It's got to have at least 1GB. I've been very unhappy with the amount of RAM in the Apple machines we've had to own in the past. I wish they would do better on that."
I had to load up my Mac Pro with 8 gigs of 3rd party ram. Standard issue was not even a gig.
The problem with ereader thing is that Amazon has an established review community. Will this store have that? The main reason I buy from Amazon is that I can read extensive reviews of just about everything.
Tang already existed (having been invented in 1957.) The space program merely provided an advertising boost to Kraft Foods.
Trivia of the day: The inventor of Tang, William A. Mitchell, also invented Pop Rocks.
$499 for the 16gb WiFi only iPad will be a Kindle killer, at least, beyond that don't know if the $829 64gb WiFi+3G (and right around $1000 when you throw in the pretty aluminum keyboard and pretty aluminum case), don't know if it will compete favorably with Lenovo's IdeaPad U1 from a functionality standpoint.
The iPad will appeal to who it appeals to, don't know if it will expand Apple's market beyond those within the Cult of Mac already.
Don't jump the gun. There is a model with 3G coming in 90 days, according to Jobs.
I had to load up my Mac Pro with 8 gigs of 3rd party ram. Standard issue was not even a gig.
Yow. Especially bad because, in my experience, Macs are much harder to work on than PCs. Installing additional RAM or other hardware in all of the PC laptops I've had has been a breeze. In the one Mac laptop I owned, it was horrible. And it's been horrible on all of my husband's MAC desktops.
One group ecstatic about this device, are sellers of manpurses.
Maybe I am stupid, but here is what I do on my road trips (and have been doing for years now). I bring my tiny Dell mini with me and use a program like Log Me In to...well...log in - to my work PC. From there I have all of my programs and it is just like sitting in front of my desk. I guess I just don't see the need for this device.
When do the iPed, iPid and iPud come out, and what will they do?
MM: lol
If you notice, in the picture of Jobs using the device, how he had to sit to actually see the screen. Imagine having to hold it up to read it, set it down to type on it, hold it up again, etc.
Who wants to lean way over one of these things and type on it as it lies flat on a desk? FAIL.
iPood will be for the lil 'uns.
Remember that Apple does not care if the PC crowd buys this device. Apple is interested in profit, not in market share.
Jobs always starts his shows with talking about how many customers have accounts on iTunes, and how many stores they have worldwide.
iPhone and iPod Touch users will be able to just move their existing apps right over to the iPad. The existing base alone will generate tens of millions of sales of this device, especially at the low end price point.
Apple can now do something that Amazon can't - which is have beautiful hands-on displays of the device in stores around the globe - the PC guys can't do that either - their venue is Best Buy.
Will there be Dell tablets running Windows? Sure, there already are. All the guys in that space will engage in a race to the bottom to make cheap crappy devices to serve the business market. Unfortunately for them, there has not been any profit in that market for hardware makers for a long time.
To paraphrase Clinton: "It's the Apple Stores and iTunes, stupid!"
iPad might be good for:
1) Magazines so they can still look like magazines.
2) Comic books.
3) Elderly and the physically impaired would find the tough buttons on a large surface more useful than on a little phone.
If you could write on it and it would convert your writing to computer text...
You can do that already, with tablet PC and Microsoft OneNote. Seriously, OneNote is one of the best programs Microsoft has ever made.
This will surely be popular with those for whom gadgets are a fashion accessory. But I think a lot of conversations are going to go like this:
"It looks awesome! Does it run Office?"
"No..."
"Oh...can I at least watch my Netflix movies? Or shows on Hulu?"
"No."
"Huh."
"Balfegor said...
What is the point of this thing aside from being a, probably overpriced, tablet computer? All this buildup for that? We've had tablet computers for a long time now.
One thing we haven't had, though, is an interface optimised for touch...
...That Apple has a true, comprehensive, touch-optimised interface, based on their iPhone interface, is something that I haven't seen in the marketplace before. Hopefully it will increase the market, and spur participants with more experience with these sorts of devices to up their game a bit."
Balfegor is right. The current crop of tablet-like devices have been attempts at shoehorning operating system functionality and paradigms into an interface that gets approached in a fundamentally different way (case in point: Windows Mobile - soon to be called "Windows Phone" or somesuch. Try setting up VPN on a Win Mobile device; it's a clunky farce.). Either that, or they go in the complete opposite direction and concentrate on one-dimension functionality when the device is capable of so much more; only recently have Blackberrys broken this mold (I support mobile devices as part of my job, so unfortunately I'm exposed to this issue on a very regular basis).
The potential innovation here is the forwarding of the tablet/touch interface for computing. Sure, at this time, it's initial marketed function is as an e-reader sort of device, as well as being an oversized iPod with a bigger, better screen (music visualizations should rock now, eh?), but the actual point is to see how the touch interface can be extended to handle functionality beyond what an iPhone and other PDAs are expected to. You see, manufacturers of course concentrate on applicability, and devices end up reflecting that; Blackberrys, for example (yes, that's the proper pluralization for the proper name for the device), were initially designed to interface with and reflect the file structure of enterprise-class messaging services like Exchange or Lotus Notes; that's why the first icon you normally see on a 'Berry is an inbox, the second is either the address book or the calendar, and is also why you have to click an icon or push a button to bring up the phone capability (or just start dialing, but it's not intuitive that you should do that). That structure reflects what you expect to see when you launch Outlook or some other reader designed with the specific enterprise class system in mind. But the problem with this is the same problem that was seen in the earliest days of computing: The user interface was designed around what sort of data the device was expected to deliver, not necessarily how the user wants to approach and use their data or device.
If there's one thing that Apple concentrates on, it's the end user interface of their products.
That's why a new paradigm in tablet/touch computing has the potential to be exciting: The current one is stale, and does not lend itself to anything beyond narrow optimizations of current approaches. If Apple manages to make this product be well accepted and further develops the idea behind tablets and touch-interface devices, then the iPad will have done it's job in computing design, regardless of whether it itself is commercially successful or not.
Balfegor is right. The current crop of tablet-like devices have been attempts at shoehorning operating system functionality and paradigms into an interface that gets approached in a fundamentally different way (case in point: Windows Mobile - soon to be called "Windows Phone" or somesuch.
I don't think that's the same space this product occupies, though. This isn't like a smart phone that you more-or-less automatically carry with you everywhere you go, this is a larger device that you have to decide to bring along. In that sense, it's much more obviously competing against netbooks and Tablet PC's, not smart phones.
The one likely really great thing about this is we're almost certain to see a pretty big price drop on the Kindle before too long.
I'm not sure we've seen an Amazon-Apple head to head before, so it might work out well for consumers. Amazon not only has the already mentioned reviewing community, it also has, I think, a much less restrictive DRM and content control policy.
> Comprehensive studies of the NASA manned space
> program have found that it had almost zero
> effect on technology.
Would you care to share links to these comprehensive studies? I'm genuinely interested here.
I will also suggest people go to this page for a differing view on how much effect the NASA space programs have had on society.
Lots of business travelers would ditch their laptop and ereaders for one of these instead.
When I travel on business, my laptop is used for work, not to watch videos or read books. The applications I use for work (e.g. IBM Rational RSM) are resource intensive (read: pigs), so I actually need a laptop with some horsepower. Unfortunately, those tend to be on the heavy side.
Now, I'd like an inexpensive tablet computer for use in my private plane to run GPS navigation software like this, but they're still a bit pricey for me.
"Lots of business travelers would ditch their laptop and ereaders for one of these instead."
Those small laptops are a good start, but only that, for those of us who travel a lot here in the U.S. I fly 2 to 3 round trips a month, almost all in the western states (as far east as Denver). 1-2 hour flights, plus all the rest of the dead time. Something that would be easy to read, quick and easy to boot and shut down, etc. would be very handy for me.
I have been looking at the Kindles, etc. of this world, and holding off. They are getting close to what I need, but not close enough so that I won't have to lug my laptop around everywhere.
WV: swore - what I did on election night in 2008, and at so much of the Obama Administration's hair-brained ideas.
@avwh Lots of business travelers would ditch their laptop and ereaders for one of these instead.
Not if they need multitasking or video conferencing and more business is being done via online video conference apps nowadays; especially project/team management. No push email either.
So to have it sit securely in your lap, you, what, attach the wings?
Can I put drinks on that screen?
I will also suggest people go to this page for a differing view on how much effect the NASA space programs have had on society.
That list is almost complete bullshit. NASA and its apologists are always making these outlandish claims. Most the claims aren't even exaggerations; they're just out-and-out lies.
For example, CCD technological development had zero influence from Hubble. None. To make that claim is a complete an utter lie and shortchanges Bell Labs and the true inventors and innovators of the devices. (For the record, Willard Boyle and George E. Smith invented the CCD and later won the Nobel Prize for Physics for their work.)
Same with smoke detectors. They were not "first used on skylab." To suggest otherwise is extremely deceptive.
One very important thing to remember is that NASA is very risk averse and uses only tried and proven technologies for the manned space program. The result is that the manned programs typically use technology that if not obsolete in the commercial sector, is close to being so.
By contrast, the NASA atmospheric programs have had a huge impact on aeronautics.
Ironically, at the official NASA site, Teflon coated fiberglass is about the only widely used invention that they could officially come up with. They spun a few "influenced by" things, but the list is hilariously short and belies the claims commonly made in speeches and by apologists. (I noted that almost none came from the manned space program itself which supports my contention that the manned space program has been a total bust scientifically and technologically. It has been a great engineering feat and nothing more.)
I see this as primarily competing against two existing products: netbooks and eBook readers such as the Kindle. I own a ASUS netbook that cost me well under $400 (including the upgrade to 2G RAM). The netbook is heavier (2.9 vs. 1.5 pounds), but still light & small enough to be highly portable. And for this extra 1.5 pounds, I get a real computer with a real keyboard on which I can do real work. For me work involves writing; lots and lots of typing. I can't see myself dashing off a couple of thousand words on the iPad's screen-based keyboard. So it's definitely not a replacement for a netbook.
Now compare it to the Kindle which is designed to do one thing, and to do that one thing excellently. The Kindle is cheaper ($260), lighter (10.2oz), with a screen and button layout optimized for reading walls of text (i.e. books) over long periods of time. In contrast, while the iPad could be used as a reader, it is not optimized for that task.
So for $600 - 700 I can get a device that is vastly less useful than a netbook or an overpowered approximation to an eBook Reader.
Joe, I appreciate you are passionate about this issue. I really am looking for some sources other than you stating emphatically that this list is all bullshit and lies.
My hesitation with just agreeing with you that I currently work for a company that gets funding from NASA to develop technologies. And the idea is that we then sell these technologies in the commercial world.
I am well aware that when engineering something for space travel you have to be conservative--cutting edge technology might fail on you. But that does not mean that companies providing said technology don't benefit from developing it (and then advance it further and faster when bringing it to market).
Freeman, what Apple laptop was that? Replacing RAM on an Apple laptop has been a matter of 2-4 screws on the 4 Apple laptop models I've had experience with. Hard drive replacement? Now there I've only seen one model with decent access (MacBooks, not Pros or Airs).
"Said Steve Jobs, making me think this is especially aimed at the poor folk who spend a lot of time on airplanes."
+++
That reminds me, I have a US Air magazine crossword to finish. Thanks!
Sofa King said:
You can do that already, with tablet PC and Microsoft OneNote. Seriously, OneNote is one of the best programs Microsoft has ever made.
Yes, but can you do it for $499? (Maybe you can.)
Kylos, you are right about the RAM. I mixed that up with the Airport card, which was a real pain to install in my iBook. Also, installing the RAM in my husband's Mac desktops has seemed overly complicated (In the PCs, I just pop the new RAM in there. In the Macs there's some special order or procedure, or there was a few years ago on our G5.) as has changing out hard drives.
WTF!!!!!
SERIOUSLY!!!!
64 GB!!!! THAT IS $HIT
C'MON APPLE IS THAT ALL YOU CAN DO?? I WOULD SO BUY ONE TODAY IF IT COULD HOLD AT LEAST 250GB
HOW IN THE F&#$ CAN I SHOW MORE THAN 2 PHOTO ALBUMS IF MY COMPACT FLASH CARD CAN HOLD 32 GB!!!
SERIOUSLY!!!
64 GB----- MY FIRST GENERATION IPOD HOLDS 40GB WTF!!!!!!
HERE WE ARE 7 YEARS LATER AND WE GOT A BIG IPOD WITH AN 14 EXTRA GB??
SUCH A GOOD DEVICE WITH NO STORAGE IS NOT EVEN WORTH A PENNY.
RIGHT KNOW THE iPAD IS A NOVELTY.
PAD??? JOBS, THIS IS THE NAME YOU CAME UP WITH?
iCondom meets iPad. Sounds like a feminine product to me.
It lacks a telegraph key.
wv: vagiflua
It lacks a telegraph key.
Pretty sure there's an app for that.
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