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Bill Gates on iPad: "It's a Nice Reader, But..."

inlovewithi said:
But this is where a person like me reads with caution. You bought all of those laptops, and yet they all stopped working after 1 year. The only place where I read stories like these are in mac sites. I mean you're saying that you bought 5 laptops and they all stopped working after 1 year. That simply does not sound like it's true. Not calling you a liar, just saying there's has to be more to this story because it sounds unbelievable, or like something that a mac fanboy who never used Windows before imagines to be possible, so presents as a story that would be consider possible by the average person.

I have to go to school, so I'll be back tonight.
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Not that I bought all those laptops at the same time and they all broke at the same time after one year. I bought a Compaq back when it was a company, that thing broke down on me because of overheating. Then I bought a HP for school work (software engineering), and its monitor went black and never came back. I bought a Toshiba, but that thing again, overheated due to long hours of work. I then bought a gateway, which got short-circuited because of a fatal case design. One of the brackets that hold the motherboard broke lose and short circuited the entire laptop.
 
headfuzz said:
Dare I say it, I kind of agree with Bill on this one.

The iPad does appear to be nothing more than a iPod Touch on steroids, and while in time I'm sure the apps will get better and better, I'm just not convinced it's as brilliant as Steve would have us believe.

Some people have been lauding this as the saviour of studentdom, and while to a degree (pun intended ;) ) this may be correct it also introduces the worst thing possible for a student: a single point of failure.

It's all well and good being able to download all your textbooks to the iPad and use iWork for dissertation writing etc, but what happens when the iPad dies, or the screen gets smashed? There's no SD card reader or USB port to back everything up to (the camera connection kit states nothing about transferring anything other than photos or videos, and given the jailed design of iPhone OS, I expect this is unlikely to change) and the SSD can't be easily removed and put into a caddy, so unless you're syncing to a computer regularly that you already have (and you at least need access to one to activate it), you're completely buggered.

Given that the cheapest Mac (entry level Mini) is £510 (not including a monitor obviously) and the entry level iPad is somewhere in the region of £319 (using today Converter widget's conversion from USD -> GBP) and the entry level Macbook is £816, how is the iPad cheap exactly?

If the student discounts are similar across product lines then it will still be cheaper to buy an entry level Macbook with optical drive and USB ports for backup, easy access to the hard drive, more screen real estate, more horsepower and unparalleled compatibility (Virtualbox / VMware / Boot Camp etc for Windows only apps). Given that one of the main justifications of having digital copies of textbooks is weight, I doubt any student would moan about a Macbook that weighs the same as 1 texbook when normally they'd be carrying 5 or 6.

As clever as the iPad is, I think Apple are wide of the mark on this one. It is as Gates stated a nice reader and anyone who has an iPhone or iPod Touch wil be instantly at home with it, but I find it too constrained and something of a false economy for the student population, for whom I think this could have been quite good.

Such a device should have easy availability to backup without the need to have a computer present if critical data is to be stored on it. It is fairly obvious that the broader :apple: view is to rope students in to syncing with an iDisk when connected to campus wifi. MobileMe: yet more expense for students on a budget. :rolleyes:

That said, the thought of sitting in a lecture with the external full size keyboard dock (already something extra and pretty cumbersome to carry around) is ludicrous, and two handed typing of lecture notes on the screen...

No. Just no. :rolleyes:
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The issue you raise with backup is a strawman.

You have WiFi, BlueTooth, USB, and in some cases 3G connections to backup through, some less convenient than others on the iPad, but the same single point of failure as any other device including laptops. If your device dies, you're screwed, at least temporarily.

I haven't been on campus for awhile, but I don't see any issues with WiFi storage through the campus network.

Fact is, most people don't backup at all.
 
batmccoy said:
Should they be calling it a "magical" device? Probably not. It is in fact a larger iPod Touch. But part of their marketing is coming from actually having used the device. Most likely, as soon as the iPads get in the stores and people get their hands and fingers on them, they will understand the simple value of a larger screen and the new iPad-specific apps (that will not work on a smaller screen iPhone).
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I think a lot of consumers might actually describe the touchscreen experience as "magical" when they finally get to try it. Most people's experience with a good touchscreen is little to none.
 
Since when has Bill Gates come out with anything that is even on the same playing field as what Apple is doing?

Microsoft tries to copy Apple and fails every time. Why is this? Maybe because Apple has a futuristic vision and Microsoft doesn't.
 
I think Bill is just summing up the lukewarm reaction that he iPad has received across the entire tech community and half the Apple community.

As per usual, he leaves out the minds of millions of non "tech" people, who will gladly pick up an iPad.
 
Bill Gates says...

Hey Steve, your tablet is like totally lame!

But Bill fails to mention his tablet.
We still remember Bill!
5bbaft.jpg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXHKCS28z1s&feature=related

C
 
UmichAg said:
There's so much potential with this device, yet Apple limited its functionality.

For example, why not give it a stylus so that students could write/draw notes while in class or for artists to create a drawing?
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Because they want that to be an expensive accessory, they want to nickle and dime you to death b/c of the devices "reasonable" price.
 
["So, it's not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, 'Oh my God, Microsoft didn't aim high enough.' It's a nice reader, but there's nothing on the iPad I look at and say, 'Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.'"

"There's nothing that the iPod does that I say, 'Oh, wow, I don't think we can do that.'" - Bill Gates, September 02, 2004]


To all you people laughing at this quote, an Ipod does not equal an Iphone. The first iPod that came out cannot be compared to the iPhone.
 
diabolic said:
I think a lot of consumers might actually describe the touchscreen experience as "magical" when they finally get to try it. Most people's experience with a good touchscreen is little to none.
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The last time I saw a large number of people naive enough to believe in "magic" they were standing in line waiting to see Santa at Christmas time while holding their parent's hand.
 
Eidorian said:
OS X needs a reliability monitor interface beyond the logs.

You might want to talk to everyone still running a Dell Pentium 4 Northwood. That is disturbing still the most common computer.
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Disturbing indeed. NetBurst has been the worst POS ever conceived.
 
diabolic said:
I think a lot of consumers might actually describe the touchscreen experience as "magical" when they finally get to try it. Most people's experience with a good touchscreen is little to none.
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I think that's a wrong argument. My friend used a Treo with a touchscreen for years and he had no good words for that device, certainly not magical. So that's a person that had experience yet would have never spoken of the touchscreen experience in any kind of magical terms. It's "magical" not because you touch and stuff happens, but it's you touch and stuff happens in a way that's not frustrating and weird (i.e. Windows Mobile...)
 
It IS a big iPod Touch.

But then the 458 is kind of a big Ferrari.

The Touch is a winner. People will buy the iPad because it does everything the Touch does, but in a bigger form factor.

There's nothing wrong with the iPad.
 
Simon R. said:
Maybe in a few years after Steve realizes that a blown up iPhone isn't enough to sell it. But right now there is nothing "magical" about it. Frankly I think that is the most lame term I have even seen Apple using to promote a new device. I guess they couldn't fine any real, concrete ways of describing what is it good for - instead, let's just call it "magical".
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Uh huh, right. And by the end of the year you'll see ipad knockoffs all over the net.
 
AlexisV said:
It IS a big iPod Touch.

But then the 458 is kind of a big Ferrari.

The Touch is a winner. People will buy the iPad because it does everything the Touch does, but in a bigger form factor.

There's nothing wrong with the iPad.
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There's plenty wrong with the iPad. I still can't decide which is worse, iPad or the HiFi. To reverse your arguement, why would I buy an iPad when the same functionality can be found in a device that fits in my pocket?
 
I think we are going to know immediately if the iPad is on target for Apple prior the release of the product if Apple does not change the price from now until then and the official orders start. They are taking interest emails which should give them a pretty good indication.

Also for anyone that wants to get a little more excited download the paper models of the iPad floating around on the internet. This thing is almost identical in size (total overall dimension) to the screen of the 12 inch MacBook Pro.

I made one and believe me I grab it every day and can't wait to have the real thing. Perfect size for sitting around consuming media, etc.
 
1) If the esteemed Mr. Gates is so certain what a tablet needs to succeed, why have his own efforts failed thus far?

2) I *do* expect that capacitive stylus accessories will be popular among a subset of the iPad users. I would like to see the iPad cases have a slot for holding one (do any?)

3) While web surfing on my iPod Touch yesterday, I tried to imagine what it would be like using a similar interface on a much larger device. I decided it would likely be a completely different experience, since the need to do so much zooming in and out would be gone. This is where the "magical" part of the iPad experience may lie: in using a large, high quality touchscreen with a well-conceived UI. I for one cannot claim to have ever encountered such a beast. Honest question: what's the IE user interface like when using a Win7 tablet?
 
kcmac said:
I made one and believe me I grab it every day and can't wait to have the real thing. Perfect size for sitting around consuming media, etc.
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Interesting that you should say that. Apple is now a company focused on the majority of it's users consuming rather than creating - it's products seem to primarily exist for the purpose of shifting iTunes products.
 
Winni said:
An even larger number of consumers will compare the iPad with a Slate, formerly known as Tablet PC, and they will think: This Slate is a real computer , compatible with the software that I already have AND is can connect to all the devices that I already have. With the iPad I can only do... Now, what exactly?
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A real computer? Really? My G shock is a real computer.
 
lincolntran said:
Not that I bought all those laptops at the same time and they all broke at the same time after one year. I bought a Compaq back when it was a company, that thing broke down on me because of overheating. Then I bought a HP for school work (software engineering), and its monitor went black and never came back. I bought a Toshiba, but that thing again, overheated due to long hours of work. I then bought a gateway, which got short-circuited because of a fatal case design. One of the brackets that hold the motherboard broke lose and short circuited the entire laptop.
Click to expand...

Since November 2008, I've owned an aluminum MB and a 13" MBP and both had to be returned within the first month for massive logic board failures. And anyways, what does MS have to do with the machines on which it runs? Apple made my junk, MS didn't ruin your laptops.
 
neilw said:
1) If the esteemed Mr. Gates is so certain what a tablet needs to succeed, why have his own efforts failed thus far?
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The only truly important question in this thread - and a question that will remain unanswered.

Billy G. has never demonstrated the ability to go anywhere with technology without someone else leading the way.
 
LagunaSol said:
The only truly important question in this thread - and a question that will remain unanswered.

Billy G. has never demonstrated the ability to go anywhere with technology without someone else leading the way.
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This is about like implying that Dean Kamen is a moron because the Segway failed. So much.... fail. God forbid it has to do with the tablet being a crippled form factor ergonomically or that MS doesn't make hardware.

Threads like this are great because all the FB's act like MS is the competitor. The OS war is over, and Apple lost. Apple makes amazing other products, but it's because it lost the fight against MS and had to find another game to play.
 
tatonka said:
So Apple isn't credible in your book? Every software package of the of an OS will have bugs and the engineers know that .. they just don't know where exactly they hide.
Apple usually ships an Update/Bug fix within a couple weeks after releasing a major OS upgrade ..

@on topic
What Mr Gates said is actually quite humble in my opinion, he admits that the iPhone blew mobile Windows away and he wished they had come up with the idea. The iPad is no revolutionary device, there is nothing new about it other then the screen size. He is right about that.
And he is right comparing it to netbooks, because that is what it is gonna go against for most customers. Buy an Eee PC or an iPad .. no matter how hard Apples PR department tries to position it somewhere else.

And it actually is not a nice reader .. it may be a great internet device (although lacking flash, even that is debatable), but it is not a nice reader to me.

T.
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Word. I have been asking my girlfriend for weeks to wait and don't buy an netbook telling her that Apple has something great in the pipeline. She needed some lightweight computer to do her emails in the train to and from the work, and to surf the net at home nd skyping while sitting on the couch. And I wanted something that is instantly on so I don't need to boot the Mac just to read my emails or check the tv-guide online. And I wanted to use it as a remote to listen to my music via Airport since the Mac is not in the living room.

But then, boy, she was dissapointed and I was ashamed when Apple presented this toy.... She can't surf the whole net cause flash is missing, she can*t use a camera for videochatting and I can't put all my music on that pathetic 16 Gig... :mad: I wanted a small computer I can take on my weekend trips, to surf in the hotel and maybe watch a movie or two while I am on the train or bus. But I am not gonna sync my movies every weekend. I want all my movies to fit on that thing, well at least 5 or 6 would be fine too. pleaaaasee.....

In addition to that, this thing is a big miss as a reader. Have you ever tried to read a pdf on your glossy screen MacBook outside in the sun? How are you supposed to read an E-Book outside in the park???

Anyway. Most people will compare the iPad eather to an E-Book reader or to a Netbook, and there is nothing magical that will make Joe Ordinary spend twice the bucks for this thing.

I guess we will just buy a cheap netbook and trade it for the iPad 2.0 as soon as it gets flash-support, a 250 Gig HD or solit state as an option(or at least something like 120 or 160 Gigs, come on we are living in 2010 for gods sake!), a forward facing camera, and a usb port.

Is it that hard Steve? Can't be that my expectations are THAT high???
 
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