Hands-On Impressions of Apple's New iPad

[demodave]

Shifty transmission

It's ok... it just could have BEEN SO MUCH BETTER.... SO MUCH... IT COULD HAVE BEEN "MAGICAL," INSTEAD OF THE LIE...

Lemme help you out here, iPadSad: Nobody at Apple said *anything*, so nobody lied. You are lying by the implication that somebody said something that was untrue. That's a part of the Apple "magic". "We DON"T TALK about Apple Club."
Anybody outside Apple (including that douchebag whose name I can't remember) who said anything about what the eventual iPad would be was *not* *representing* *Apple*. Get it?

Like driving an automatic as opposed to stick. I prefer stick... more control. The best would be having the OPTION of both...

OK, so go out and buy a BMW M3 with an SMG transmission. You can't afford one, douchebag!

 

[puppyflightclub]

yuck. the courier "book" design is....not really in my horizon of potential alternatives, IF i decided not to buy the Pad.

 

[NT1440]

yuck. the courier "book" design is....not really in my horizon of potential alternatives, IF i decided not to buy the Pad.

IF MS ever made the courrier, and it was just like the video, I'd buy it in a second. That isn't in the same category of the ipad IMO though, two entirely different class of devices.

 

[puppyflightclub]

IF MS ever made the courrier, and it was just like the video, I'd buy it in a second. That isn't in the same category of the ipad IMO though, two entirely different class of devices.

2 7inch screens tho? sounding bulky too me/possible...breaking?

 

[NT1440]

2 7inch screens tho? sounding bulky too me/possible...breaking?

I didnt know it was two 7 inch screens, but I'm sure I could adapt. As for breaking, I want to see Gorilla Glass become the standard for ALL products that will be using large glass displays. I hope Apple jumps on that too.

 

[Ugg]

I think this is the right product at the right time. I like the the price is only a little higher than the best iPod Touch. I like that I have something that is better than a netbook for all the things that I would have used a netbook for. I have a workhorse computer (and will be getting another one), but if we're all being honest, I'm not a road warrior. A smaller laptop for me is a surfing and email machine. I do not want to fingerpaint in Adobe Photoshop. The "large iPod Touch" comments don't get it. That is Apple's Touch OS. If you want to call a cursor chasing your finger a "touch OS" then buy a windows 7 slate. No one else did. A proper touch OS lets you launch stuff and gets out of your way.

I said this on another site, so forgive me anyone who read it twice, but: a week ago no one knew what they wanted a tablet computer for and now everyone is an expert on what would make one successful.

I'll be buying one of these for sure. I like casual games, I love surfing, I love email, reading, industrial design, looking at photos, listening to music and podcasts, movies, and the promise of the app store. This is the best device for doing the things I want a carry-around computer to do.

I'm looking forward to the time that I can lie on my couch or bed and have a better surfing experience than with my iPhone or Macbook Pro.

I've been disappointed with all the negative comments everywhere. The PC guys (who never got a slate right) are calling me stupid for aching for this thing. I'm sure the iPad will get better with time (front facing camera and multi-tasking), but for now (and for a starting $500) this is my new hotness and I'm feeling it!

I was thinking of how great iLife is gonna be on this thing, but the app guys are going to make some AMAZING stuff... I know it.

My thoughts exactly.

The original iPod was only a music player. The iPad will also transform itself. What it is now though is perfect for casual, non-power use.

I honestly don't understand why anyone thinks a camera on something this big would be a good idea.

Like you, I can't wait to see what the app developers come up for it. The app store is a billion dollar business because there's a thirst for quality apps. With a bigger screen the sky is the limit for the iPad.

 

[puppyflightclub]

this is supposedly the HP Slate powerered my Microsoft. Can anyone explain how this looks like it will outperform the iPad?

 

[demodave]

It's got *enough* memory already!

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)



But you will need a computer running iTunes to sync to......,,,,,....

Dunno if the multiquote thing is really working or not, but we'll see....

You actually might not need a "computer" to synch to. Think about "synching" to an AppleTV hard drive - or a 2 TB Time Capsule. Think of the iPad as the head upon a headless horseman. (Background: if I have a box/boxen without a monitor, I call it "headless", because I can't see inside of it. Got a few. "I can haz redneck whitecollar concrete blocks?")

Point is: if you have a good DSL/UVerse/FIOS/etc connection at home, you can download your movie onto a local *hard drive*, not necessarily a computer. Then you can stream from that hard drive to your iPad ("n" WiFi will suffice) and you don't need the memory to be on the iPad itself. You have tons of space for multimedia data at home and probably enough room for your entire CD collection on the road. Books don't take up a lot of space, and a few movies will get you thorugh those long nights in a hotel room. Or you could Twitter/socialize and go out and meet a real person to talk to....

 

[NT1440]

this is supposedly the HP Slate powerered my Microsoft. Can anyone explain how this looks like it will outperform the iPad?

It has more functionality, but thats not the point of the iPad.

I really am sick of the industries "lets shoehorn a desktop OS into a different form factor" approach. Apple thought this through and starting building an environment thats MEANT to be used differently, rather than just slapping touch support onto existing models.

 

[jetlife2]

Multitasking Question

On an ipod touch you can play music and surf the web at the same time. You can also play music and play a game. So you may not be able to multi-task any two arbitrary apps, but you are permitted to multitask at least the music player + another app.

I don't have an iphone but I assume it's the same?

So by extension (same OS) we can expect to be able to do that on the iPad too?

I have not seen this question answered...anyone?

I want to read a book and listen to music. Simple.

 

[Avatar74]

Misdirection? We are talking about multitasking for computers - not people. Here is an example that I already posted in another thread.

Take for example an application like Instant Messenger. iPad's screen is rather big. So many people (not you, I understand) would like to be able to keep a small IM window in the corner of the screen so that they could see immediately when they get a message. As I understand, you prefer to close your current application every 3 minutes or so, open IM and check your messages, then go back. Well, as they say: "To each his own."

I'm talking about the product... the guy's comment (which I cited in my post) from Mashable, when he was referring to Apple tending to focus on an appliance that does a few things very well rather than many things poorly.

Again, to do a lot of things very well, there's the laptop... But why should every other device, however small, do what one of their products already does? This is really a niche device, and that's all it's intended to be... I don't think Apple expects this thing to outperform Mac or iPhone sales, but it will, like the MacBook Air, act as a technology testbed with early adopters... some functionalities and features of which will later get incorporated into other product lines the way the unibody design of the Air got incorporated into the MacBook Pro, etc.

Apple is always testing functionality and use out to understand in the field how people interact with technology, and then they're constantly refining their lines once they gain that understanding. It's a neverending process. there will never be "THE" product from Apple... even with iPhone. When they were releasing iPhone 1st gen, they were testing generation 2, designing generation 3 and thinking about generation 4... That's how they think.

So, either iPad does for you the few things that you want a device to do really well, or it doesn't.

 

[cmaier]

You can drag & drop files to and from the iPhone and iPod Touch with apps like DiskAid and PhoneView, I'm sure they'll support the iPad, too.
I agree that this should be a standard feature rather than needing 3rd party software, but at least it's available.

Pay attention folks. Each iPad app is now allowed to have a /documents/shared directory, and files in that directory mount on your mac/pc.

 

[ibrainch]

flash issue

can someone shed some light on the Flash issue for me? is it that the processor is not capable of flash? is flash too big of a memory hog? safari can obviously run flash stuff on a laptop so i imagine it has to be with the hardware. if it is a battery drain, why not have the ability to just turn it off and on when necessary? is steve just being too adamant on this to make a point to adobe? i guess i really don't get why apple would not want to allow the ipad to play flash files. the same goes for multi-tasking - if the pre can do this, i would like to think the ipad/iphone could do it no problem. i have a feeling/hope that iphone os 4.0 (released in june) will resolve all of these two issues - just like the copy/paste...

 

[cmaier]

can someone shed some light on the Flash issue for me? is it that the processor is not capable of flash? is flash too big of a memory hog? safari can obviously run flash stuff on a laptop so i imagine it has to be with the hardware. if it is a battery drain, why not have the ability to just turn it off and on when necessary? is steve just being too adamant on this to make a point to adobe? i guess i really don't get why apple would not want to allow the ipad to play flash files. the same goes for multi-tasking - if the pre can do this, i would like to think the ipad/iphone could do it no problem. i have a feeling/hope that iphone os 4.0 (released in june) will resolve all of these two issues - just like the copy/paste...

1) not supporting flash has lead to faster uptake of html5 and other technologies that Apple prefers
1a) flash is a dying technology. it will be around for a long time, of course, but there's nothing it can do that can't be done better with other technologies.
2) flash implementations of Apple hardware have tended to be too resource-intensive
3) Apple doesn't like not controlling important underlying software technologies on its devices
4) preventing flash allows Apple to prevent side-loading of apps in circumvention of the app store (thus preserving Apple's 30% cut).

 

[charliehustle]

On an ipod touch you can play music and surf the web at the same time. You can also play music and play a game. So you may not be able to multi-task any two arbitrary apps, but you are permitted to multitask at least the music player + another app.

I don't have an iphone but I assume it's the same?

So by extension (same OS) we can expect to be able to do that on the iPad too?

I have not seen this question answered...anyone?

I want to read a book and listen to music. Simple.

Yes, you can listen you your music in your iTunes and open other apps (on the iPhone and iPad)

Except it will shut the music off if you enter an app like a game or something that has it's own music.

Eventually, there will be a jailbreak for it, so you can run multiple apps in the background.

I'm gonna wait for one with a web cam(next gen). I live in Canada, and I can tether legally, so 3G is useless for me since I already have an unlimited data plan.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

can someone shed some light on the Flash issue for me? is it that the processor is not capable of flash? is flash too big of a memory hog? safari can obviously run flash stuff on a laptop so i imagine it has to be with the hardware. if it is a battery drain, why not have the ability to just turn it off and on when necessary? is steve just being too adamant on this to make a point to adobe? i guess i really don't get why apple would not want to allow the ipad to play flash files. the same goes for multi-tasking - if the pre can do this, i would like to think the ipad/iphone could do it no problem. i have a feeling/hope that iphone os 4.0 (released in june) will resolve all of these two issues - just like the copy/paste...

This is the best explanation I ever saw:
http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_adobe_flash

Does it suck that we can't see Hulu and countless other video sites? yeah. but after reading that article, I really see Apple's viewpoint.

I think 5 years from now Flash will be nothing more than a middleware solution for publishing to Mac, PC, and various handhelds.

 

[joe.pelayo]

Here is a short summary of iPad's shortcomings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnT0zp8Ya4

Enjoy!

 

[demodave]

[snip]
Or you could Twitter/socialize and go out and meet a real person to talk to....

I can haz article #669?

demo

 

[demodave]

I can haz article #669?

demo

demo

 

[neteng101]

Does it suck that we can't see Hulu and countless other video sites? yeah. but after reading that article, I really see Apple's viewpoint.

Yet Firefox runs fine for me with Flash on OSX, so it seems that Safari could be bugged maybe? The lack of Flash is a KILLER for today's Web... no other way to put it. Especially for a device whose main aim in being is to be a portal to media.

Leading cause of crashes being Flash - could it be the leading cause because Flash is so prevalent out there on the Web, thus more crashes were reported, vs. something else, that wasn't nearly used so widespread. 1000 crashes in millions of Flash apps vs. 5 crashes in some plugin that may be used on 100 sites, the some plugin is far worse than Flash as far as failure rate goes.

 

[NT1440]

Yet Firefox runs fine for me with Flash on OSX, so it seems that Safari could be bugged maybe? The lack of Flash is a KILLER for today's Web... no other way to put it. Especially for a device whose main aim in being is to be a portal to media.

Leading cause of crashes being Flash - could it be the leading cause because Flash is so prevalent out there on the Web, thus more crashes were reported, vs. something else, that wasn't nearly used so widespread. 1000 crashes in millions of Flash apps vs. 5 crashes in some plugin that may be used on 100 sites, the some plugin is far worse than Flash as far as failure rate goes.

Take a look at your activity monitor, just because the video is playing doesn't mean its running well.

 

[anjonjp]

International customers let down again...

I am so disappointed with the iPad...

Not because it doesn't have a camera (that would be nice!) or a multitasking ability...but because it seems very likely judging by the iPad pages on the Japanese Apple website that iBooks will not be available (at least immediately anyway) to us. Already, we have ZERO movies (not even a movies tab on the iTunes Store) and ZERO TV shows and thanks to certain record labels, don't even have full access to songs and music videos. So with this in status quo after so many years, why should we believe that iBooks will be any different?

With all the 'missing' hardware and the most likely astronomical 3G costs that the Japanese carriers will levy, the iPad is still not a 'Buy' in Japan. It seems that this is not only Japan.

So, as wonderful as this product is.... for the time being at least, it's an American product for the American market. Have fun with it because I am not purchasing a product that reminds me of what I don't have more than what I do.

 

[NT1440]

I am so disappointed with the iPad...

Not because it doesn't have a camera (that would be nice!) or a multitasking ability...but because it seems very likely judging by the iPad pages on the Japanese Apple website that iBooks will not be available (at least immediately anyway) to us. Already, we have ZERO movies (not even a movies tab on the iTunes Store) and ZERO TV shows and thanks to certain record labels, don't even have full access to songs and music videos. So with this in status quo after so many years, why should we believe that iBooks will be any different?

With all the 'missing' hardware and the most likely astronomical 3G costs that the Japanese carriers will levy, the iPad is still not a 'Buy' in Japan. It seems that this is not only Japan.

So, as wonderful as this product is.... for the time being at least, it's an American product for the American market. Have fun with it because I am not purchasing a product that reminds me of what I don't have more than what I do.

I believe that missing content has much more to do with providers wanting to rape customers across the world for content than it does with apple not trying to establish deals.

 

[Hog]

What a let down. I already have an iPod touch thanks, and it actually fits in my pocket.

 

[neteng101]

Take a look at your activity monitor, just because the video is playing doesn't mean its running well.

Sad to say - but its not Adobe's fault that it isn't running well. Flash works better in Windows... because there are open APIs in Windows that 3rd parties can hook into.

Apple has an antitrust case in its very near future coming - I know it will happen, not a matter of if, just when.