I think it's only a matter of time before HTC releases an Andriod based Tablet, specced similar to the incredible HTC Evo 4G and actually throw up some competition Apple's way. Apple couldve killed off competitors competitors before they even started by offering up the functionality people were demanding right out of the gate.
512 MB of Ram and a video camera would've cost Apple maybe an extra $5 to include. Instead, they opted to skimp on the ram and skip the camera, leaving a door wide open for Andriod to get a foothold into this market (assuming they're smart enough to walk through it).
My iPhone 3GS sometimes crashes when I have more than a couple of tabs open in the safari browser, and it has 256 mbs of ram.
Considering that the bigger display uses more ram, the problem will be worse on the iPad. There are already reports of the iPad crashing with as few as 4 tabs open.
Why the hell did Apple skimp so much on the Ram?
What happens if HTC releases an Andriod based Tablet with the HTC EVO 4G phone's Specs? Apple will suddenly have a competitor stealing market share, that's what. If HTC acts fast, the iPad could be outspecced before it even released worldwide.
Would it have killed Apple to make the device comparable to that in power level, considering they're charging twice as much for it, it's a device meant to compete with netbooks, and that they have a lot more room to work with?
Of course the even bigger problem (THE BIGGEST PROBLEM) is the severe limitations Apple is imposing on how we can use the device, the inability to download files, the inability to run programs not preapproved by apple, or hell to even browse most of the videos on the internet, is not okay.
That was barely acceptable on the iPhone, and that got a pass because it was cellphone, a device everyone already needed anyways. This is supposed to replace netbooks, a device we buy not out of neccesity, but out of functionality. We don't want limitations placed on that. Putting the same limitations on it that a company puts on cellphones is NOT okay.
This article about sums up the problems....
This is why I'm disappointed...
No iSight Camera (5 MP with LED Flash, 1080P Video Recording and a much bigger lens so that it actually takes decent photos even with low lighting)
No Videocalling/Conferencing/iChat (It would have been awesome to be able to keep in touch with family through video calling (even if enabled over wifi only) when away for college or serving overseas)
No GPS (it has the limited cell tower based GPS found on the iPhone 2G, not the true GPS that can offer up turn by turn navigation found on the 3GS)
No Multitasking
No Wireless Syncing or File Transfers
No File Management or Freedom to download files (even documents) from online, you can't even delete something off the iPad or move some videos over to an SD Card, USB Stick or an External HDD to make room for an App/iTunes Movie Rental. Seriously there is no good reason why the iPhone OS doesn't give us the funtionality to drag and drop video, music, pictures and documents into our iTunes library off of an SD Card or USB Key (or out of our iTunes library into an SD card) without having to sync it to a computer. DRM is ******** and besides many of us have tons of DRM free files in our iTunes libraries that we should be free to move back and forth. If aesthetics was the main reason for leaving out USB and SD ports (unlikely given how ugly the bezel is) they couldve had a slide out panel flush with the device that had these slots/ports
Screen can't display HD resolution, it shouldve had 1440 x 1080 so that it could play HD content without downscaling it to a lower resolution
An extremely disappointing 256 MB of RAM when even many cellphones have 1 gig of RAM
No Additional Touch Gestures (Here's the kinds of gestures we were hoping for... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFnavI57gyQ)
No Java or Flash support (no hulu.com)
Only 16-64 gbs of HDD space when most tablets offer 250 gbs minimum
No USB (3.0) Port (you can't hook it up to a printer to print off an iWorks project, you cant connect a USB key that has some documents stored etc)
No ability to connect to an external hdd, or even to directly pop in an SDCard to expand storage
The enormous bezel is a massive eyesore. I thought Apple was all about design, so how they could make such a large and ugly bezel for a premier device escapes me. And no, its not because it would be difficult to program the software to ignore a thumb placed at the very outermost edge of a screen. I already often have my thumb on the outer edge of the screen on the iPhone and the software is programmed to ignore it and is smart enough to do so. So there really was no good reason to make the bezel so enormous.
No Handwriting Recognition or Support for a Stylus. A huge selling point of any Tablet is to be able to take notes in classes and such.
No Ability to run custom Apps not preapproved by Apple (Google Voice, uTorrent etc)
No Ability to download files from online
No OLED Screen (forgivable) but the screen is incapable of displaying 1080p resolution, and is not even the 1.5:1 aspect ratio of the iPhone (much less 16:9), 4:3 is such a huge step backwards
A Very Low Resolution Display with 25% fewer pixels per inch than the iPhone or iPod Touch, the display should have a higher resolution
No integrated TV Antenna, HD Radio Antenna or FM Transmitter (They even developed a HD DTV Tuner for use in cellphones to allow users to pick up OTA HDTV signals on the go! Just imagine being able to watch tv thanks to off the air hdtv signals, wherever you are. Why they didn't include this technology in this device I won't even understand. They could've even included a record video function on the tablet to give it PVR functionality)
No TV/Video Out (HDMI out like many netbooks)
According to Apple's page on the product, the maximum resolution it is capable of playing MPEG4s at is 640x480 resolution at 30 fps (note I'm talking about MPEG4 Video here, the most popular format for Apple devices)
It features a 1 Ghz processor that significantly slower than just about every single notebook on the market today (as demonstrated by this processor's inability to render MPEG4 at any resolution higher than 640x480)
No OTA Sync With Apple TV or Servers To Stream Video
No Low Reflective Screen Mode for high contrast Ebook Reading that doesn't hurt your eyes
No Gamepad attachment for Gaming With Physical Buttons/Tactile Feedback
http://flickr.com/photos/danielmacdonald/2127089390/
Three requirements are must haves imho...
1. The peripheral should look very sleek, flush with the phone and use the same black plastic found in the front of all iphones. iPhone owners care greatly about how thier device looks.
2. The peripheral must have dual analog sticks/nubs. Imagine the PSP's analog nub, but on both sides. Portable gamers have been clamoring for this feature forever now, so it's about time they get it. I can't overstress how important it is the the iPhone's gaming pad has DUAL ANALOG NUBS (and shoulder trigger buttons).
3. The peripheral must have two shoulder buttons and a solid D-Pad akin to the PSP/PS3's D-Pad to enable fighting games.
Do these things and the peripheral will be a big hit.
Also the smaller the add on, the better. It should be as small as humanly possible. And it should have a rectangular design with curved edges identical to the iphone.
No ability to connect to a bluetooth mouse/keyboard
No RFID/IR to use it as a remote, or to tag it to yourself
No Replacable/Removable Batteries
The $250 netbook that I'm typing this on gives me just about every one of the hardware features that I'm asking for (it has a 320 gb hdd, 2 gigs of ram, a hdmi out, two usb ports, an sdcard slot, removable battery, a great iSight camera etc), and you're seriously telling me Apple couldn't have incorporated atleast some of these features into their device that costs between 2x-3x as much as my netbook did?
Many people (including I) had their credit cards out during the conference and were ready to pay $1000 for an Apple Tablet that offers some of the above functionality, functionality that netbooks that cost a fourth as much offer.
We had every right to be disappointed.
Clearly, I'm not alone in feeling this way, this site is riddled with comments such as these...
In essense, the iPad has all the limitations of the iphone (limited storage capacity/inabilty to connect to an external harddrive to expand storage and transfer files, music and documents/inability to manage or delete videos and music etc) with none of the portability, and a great deal less funtionality than the iPhone as well (it can't take video, it can't take pictures, it can't make phone calls, it doesn't have GPS). It has the size/inconvenience of a laptop but without any of the functionality or freedom.
Both the iPod and the iPhone were actual significant leaps forward when they came out. This thing however is like taking 3 steps back. Post in this thread if you agree. There is so much this can't do that even the iPhone that's a fifth it's size can do, and there is nothing it can do that the iPhone can't. Apple started the presentation by saying that for a Tablet to succeed, it has to some things better than both the iPhone 3GS and a Macbook Pro do. Then they went on to unveil a product that utterly fails this test.
I'm not saying the iPad will fail. The iPad will obviously sell like crazy to casual consumers. But it could have been SOOO MUCH MORE. It could have truly killed netbooks, for everyone, not just the casuals.
I also think the home button is a poor choice aesthetically. There is no reason that it needs to stick out of the bezel like a sore thumb as much as it does and I'm not convinced it even needs to exist. The bottom of the screen couldve instead had a better looking Tab bar that is both used for multitasking and couldve served as the home button..
512 MB of Ram and a video camera would've cost Apple maybe an extra $5 to include. Instead, they opted to skimp on the ram and skip the camera, leaving a door wide open for Andriod to get a foothold into this market (assuming they're smart enough to walk through it).
My iPhone 3GS sometimes crashes when I have more than a couple of tabs open in the safari browser, and it has 256 mbs of ram.
Considering that the bigger display uses more ram, the problem will be worse on the iPad. There are already reports of the iPad crashing with as few as 4 tabs open.
Why the hell did Apple skimp so much on the Ram?
What happens if HTC releases an Andriod based Tablet with the HTC EVO 4G phone's Specs? Apple will suddenly have a competitor stealing market share, that's what. If HTC acts fast, the iPad could be outspecced before it even released worldwide.
Would it have killed Apple to make the device comparable to that in power level, considering they're charging twice as much for it, it's a device meant to compete with netbooks, and that they have a lot more room to work with?
Of course the even bigger problem (THE BIGGEST PROBLEM) is the severe limitations Apple is imposing on how we can use the device, the inability to download files, the inability to run programs not preapproved by apple, or hell to even browse most of the videos on the internet, is not okay.
That was barely acceptable on the iPhone, and that got a pass because it was cellphone, a device everyone already needed anyways. This is supposed to replace netbooks, a device we buy not out of neccesity, but out of functionality. We don't want limitations placed on that. Putting the same limitations on it that a company puts on cellphones is NOT okay.
This article about sums up the problems....
If you're building a tablet from a phone OS, you would fail to have a completely stand-alone device, in the sense that a laptop is completely standalone. You couldn't have file access to dump photos, video and other media onto, you'd have to sync it to something else once in a while to get everything you need. And you have to go through a marketplace instead of installing stuff like a computer.
There is also no real way for apps to interact with each other. There's copy and paste on smartphones, and certain apps can read data files from certain other apps (like the contact list), but there's no way to interact like dragging and dropping files across applications. In the iPhone, you can't even multitask.
Also, because phones are a very isolated experience, App Stores make it much easier to find apps that are both customized for your device and safe to install. This is great for phones, since stability is important, but when you're getting into higher-performance devices, you want the ability to choose what apps you want, not just pick from the ones that Apple or Google deem OK for you to consume. And since this kind of tablet is adapted from the phone ecosystem, that's the only choice you have.
To have a very good experience on any sort of serious computing device (not a phone), you need interactivity. An example on the Mac is the way your Mail application knows if someone is online in iChat, and shows a little light by his name, telling you that you can just IM him instead of emailing.
Peripherals is something else a phone-based OS can't handle well. You're limited to a specific number of device accessories that needs to be vetted in order to ensure compatibility. Even the iPad, which has a few more accessories than the iPhone (like a keyboard), doesn't have nearly the amount of compatibility as a desktop. A tablet needs to learn this lesson from desktops in order to be truly useful. Plug in a keyboard? Sure. A firewire camera to have the device act as a target storage device? Absolutely.
But not all of this is software. As the size of a increases, your expectation for power does too, and battery life decreases in accordance. So theoretically, in a tablet device, you'd want to have one significant step up in performance over phones, which we're not seeing in these devices. I'm not talking just running the same applications faster, with upscaled graphics, I'm talking entirely new things you can only do with increased processing power. Stuff like true multitasking, games that are actually noticeably better than cellphone games, light media editing (not as good as a laptop, of course) and media playback of all kinds, handling all sorts of codecs.
That's right, people expect more functionality and power with that bigger screen.
This is why I'm disappointed...
No iSight Camera (5 MP with LED Flash, 1080P Video Recording and a much bigger lens so that it actually takes decent photos even with low lighting)
No Videocalling/Conferencing/iChat (It would have been awesome to be able to keep in touch with family through video calling (even if enabled over wifi only) when away for college or serving overseas)
No GPS (it has the limited cell tower based GPS found on the iPhone 2G, not the true GPS that can offer up turn by turn navigation found on the 3GS)
No Multitasking
No Wireless Syncing or File Transfers
No File Management or Freedom to download files (even documents) from online, you can't even delete something off the iPad or move some videos over to an SD Card, USB Stick or an External HDD to make room for an App/iTunes Movie Rental. Seriously there is no good reason why the iPhone OS doesn't give us the funtionality to drag and drop video, music, pictures and documents into our iTunes library off of an SD Card or USB Key (or out of our iTunes library into an SD card) without having to sync it to a computer. DRM is ******** and besides many of us have tons of DRM free files in our iTunes libraries that we should be free to move back and forth. If aesthetics was the main reason for leaving out USB and SD ports (unlikely given how ugly the bezel is) they couldve had a slide out panel flush with the device that had these slots/ports
Screen can't display HD resolution, it shouldve had 1440 x 1080 so that it could play HD content without downscaling it to a lower resolution
An extremely disappointing 256 MB of RAM when even many cellphones have 1 gig of RAM
No Additional Touch Gestures (Here's the kinds of gestures we were hoping for... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFnavI57gyQ)
No Java or Flash support (no hulu.com)
Only 16-64 gbs of HDD space when most tablets offer 250 gbs minimum
No USB (3.0) Port (you can't hook it up to a printer to print off an iWorks project, you cant connect a USB key that has some documents stored etc)
No ability to connect to an external hdd, or even to directly pop in an SDCard to expand storage
The enormous bezel is a massive eyesore. I thought Apple was all about design, so how they could make such a large and ugly bezel for a premier device escapes me. And no, its not because it would be difficult to program the software to ignore a thumb placed at the very outermost edge of a screen. I already often have my thumb on the outer edge of the screen on the iPhone and the software is programmed to ignore it and is smart enough to do so. So there really was no good reason to make the bezel so enormous.
No Handwriting Recognition or Support for a Stylus. A huge selling point of any Tablet is to be able to take notes in classes and such.
No Ability to run custom Apps not preapproved by Apple (Google Voice, uTorrent etc)
No Ability to download files from online
No OLED Screen (forgivable) but the screen is incapable of displaying 1080p resolution, and is not even the 1.5:1 aspect ratio of the iPhone (much less 16:9), 4:3 is such a huge step backwards
A Very Low Resolution Display with 25% fewer pixels per inch than the iPhone or iPod Touch, the display should have a higher resolution
No integrated TV Antenna, HD Radio Antenna or FM Transmitter (They even developed a HD DTV Tuner for use in cellphones to allow users to pick up OTA HDTV signals on the go! Just imagine being able to watch tv thanks to off the air hdtv signals, wherever you are. Why they didn't include this technology in this device I won't even understand. They could've even included a record video function on the tablet to give it PVR functionality)
No TV/Video Out (HDMI out like many netbooks)
According to Apple's page on the product, the maximum resolution it is capable of playing MPEG4s at is 640x480 resolution at 30 fps (note I'm talking about MPEG4 Video here, the most popular format for Apple devices)
It features a 1 Ghz processor that significantly slower than just about every single notebook on the market today (as demonstrated by this processor's inability to render MPEG4 at any resolution higher than 640x480)
No OTA Sync With Apple TV or Servers To Stream Video
No Low Reflective Screen Mode for high contrast Ebook Reading that doesn't hurt your eyes
No Gamepad attachment for Gaming With Physical Buttons/Tactile Feedback
http://flickr.com/photos/danielmacdonald/2127089390/
Three requirements are must haves imho...
1. The peripheral should look very sleek, flush with the phone and use the same black plastic found in the front of all iphones. iPhone owners care greatly about how thier device looks.
2. The peripheral must have dual analog sticks/nubs. Imagine the PSP's analog nub, but on both sides. Portable gamers have been clamoring for this feature forever now, so it's about time they get it. I can't overstress how important it is the the iPhone's gaming pad has DUAL ANALOG NUBS (and shoulder trigger buttons).
3. The peripheral must have two shoulder buttons and a solid D-Pad akin to the PSP/PS3's D-Pad to enable fighting games.
Do these things and the peripheral will be a big hit.
Also the smaller the add on, the better. It should be as small as humanly possible. And it should have a rectangular design with curved edges identical to the iphone.
No ability to connect to a bluetooth mouse/keyboard
No RFID/IR to use it as a remote, or to tag it to yourself
No Replacable/Removable Batteries
The $250 netbook that I'm typing this on gives me just about every one of the hardware features that I'm asking for (it has a 320 gb hdd, 2 gigs of ram, a hdmi out, two usb ports, an sdcard slot, removable battery, a great iSight camera etc), and you're seriously telling me Apple couldn't have incorporated atleast some of these features into their device that costs between 2x-3x as much as my netbook did?
Many people (including I) had their credit cards out during the conference and were ready to pay $1000 for an Apple Tablet that offers some of the above functionality, functionality that netbooks that cost a fourth as much offer.
We had every right to be disappointed.
Clearly, I'm not alone in feeling this way, this site is riddled with comments such as these...
In essense, the iPad has all the limitations of the iphone (limited storage capacity/inabilty to connect to an external harddrive to expand storage and transfer files, music and documents/inability to manage or delete videos and music etc) with none of the portability, and a great deal less funtionality than the iPhone as well (it can't take video, it can't take pictures, it can't make phone calls, it doesn't have GPS). It has the size/inconvenience of a laptop but without any of the functionality or freedom.
Both the iPod and the iPhone were actual significant leaps forward when they came out. This thing however is like taking 3 steps back. Post in this thread if you agree. There is so much this can't do that even the iPhone that's a fifth it's size can do, and there is nothing it can do that the iPhone can't. Apple started the presentation by saying that for a Tablet to succeed, it has to some things better than both the iPhone 3GS and a Macbook Pro do. Then they went on to unveil a product that utterly fails this test.
I'm not saying the iPad will fail. The iPad will obviously sell like crazy to casual consumers. But it could have been SOOO MUCH MORE. It could have truly killed netbooks, for everyone, not just the casuals.
This bezel pictured looks far superior to the thick bezel that was found in the iPad that Steve Jobs unveiled, why didn't Apple think to go with a bezel this size instead? It is still plenty large enough to comfortably rest your thumb on. And even if it wasn't, its not difficult to program the software to ignore a thumb placed at the very outermost edge of a screen. I already often have my thumb on the outer edge of the screen on the iPhone and the software is already fully programmed to ignore a part of a thumb placed at the edge of a screen and is smart enough to do so. So there really was no good reason to make the bezel so enormous.The bezel should've been this thin or thinner...
I also think the home button is a poor choice aesthetically. There is no reason that it needs to stick out of the bezel like a sore thumb as much as it does and I'm not convinced it even needs to exist. The bottom of the screen couldve instead had a better looking Tab bar that is both used for multitasking and couldve served as the home button..
