iPad SDK 3.2 Details: External Display, File Sharing System, No Multitasking

[theneweyes]

Pretty hilarious how Steve Jobs built up iWork. It went down something like this: we weren't sure if we could do it, iWork requires a lot of horsepower, could it work on an iPad...

Are you kidding me? One of the hallmarks of the "magical" and "revolutionary" iPad is being able to run word processing and spreadsheet software?!


Now in all fairness Apple wants to make money. If they entered the netbook market they would compete with their own product line. Why buy a Macbook for a grand when you could buy an equivalent netbook for $400 that does everything an average user needs it to do?

I would kill to have Apple design an "old-fashioned" netbook. No need to break new grounds everytime.

I'm tired of "just beautiful", "just works", blah blah. Yeah I want it to look good but it seemed like that was the only strongpoint of the iPad. "The most beautiful ruler in an application" - I laughed when Phillip Schiller said this. And the part when he dragged the giraffe and the text wrapped around it and the audience started clapping. Seems to me like Apple went backwards on the road of innovation with this one.

But somehow I feel like this is a step in the right direction. The first step is the hardest.


On a side note, why are all the other speakers so bad with their presentations? Steve Jobs is a great public speaker, no debate there, but how hard would it be to get some good spokespeople?

16 gig aint s!@# Steve. But $499 is a lot of money in this economy.

 

[soLoredd]

All the moaning here is hilarious.

Do you think this is aimed at you (or me)? If you visit this site, the answer is ... probably not

If you visit this site, you are probably (apologies if you aren't!) interested in computer hardward, software, how they work, RAM, HDD, etc etc...

This product is aimed at people who just don't care about *any* of that stuff...

And I think I'm safe in saying, there are many many more of them than there are of us....

The iPad will be a huge success. Its just not aimed a people who want as much flexibility and as many options as you get with a laptop. If you want / need that... get a laptop.

People who just want their email, web-surfing, gaming, social networking, etc etc to "just work" will love the iPad, and will buy it in droves, I think.

Cheers

Jeremy

I respectfully disagree. This is a niche product. Why would someone go to the store and choose the iPad over a netbook when they see them side by side? What does the iPad bring that a netbook doesn't? A netbook is cheaper and more versatile. In my opinion, the iPad is just like the AppleTV - another product to act as an extension of your desktop.

Now, I will say that, as a niche product, it certainly has it's opportunity to be a huge hit in specific areas. For example, hospitals. I can take an iPad around our Intensive Care and bring up patient xrays or lab results, continuously monitor patient vitals, etc.

 

[Wolfmore]

love it

This exactly what i've been wanting. I love the user experience on the iPhone and had wished it was bigger like a 10" screen. Looks like the iPad is just that. Lots of people will love it and lots of people will not. Its not for everyone but it is definitely a sweet product that looks to deliver a superb user experience. Better then a netbook? Yes, because the iPhone is better then a netbook it just doesn't have the screen realstate. Problem solved: iPad.

 

[theloon]

No Camera! No Sale...

I usually rave about Apple kit, I own loads of it, it's great....but this is just ridiculous. It would be less that 7$ to put in a half decent camera in the thing and then the iPad would have been a good purchase.

Shame, was looking forward to having it as a portable, 12 day travel device for work.. No good if I can't do Skype and other Video calling..

 

[mj1108]

Somebody should tell the folks at Apple that this is the year 2010 not 1985!

This can't be quoted enough regarding multi-tasking.

 

[dwhittington]

iPad

This all reminds me of when the 2.5G iPhone could only display a single page of apps, had no app store, native MS exchange support, etc. Apple has taken a conservative approach with introducing features into their iPhoneOS product line.

I suspect and hope that we will see some form of multitasking in iPhoneOS 4 across the board.

While a software update wont put a camera lens on the front panel of this device, I can understand why the camera is not there. I don't like it at all, but lets face it... putting too many features on this device would threaten the MacBook line. A device like the iPhone, with a bigger screen... as on the iPad is a definite threat to portable computers. Think of all the applications you've run on the iPhone that would just be "perfect" if we could have just a bit more screen real estate.

I think this device has definite potential and will grow as iPad specific applications are released.

 

[HDH]

congrats on the new product Steve ............ now focus on fixing your lemon iMacs

 

[neutrino23]

I'm actually a little disappointed with the product in general. I really was hoping it would be a real table Mac, that runs OS X and allows you to do everything a regular laptop would be able to do but in a tablet format. Woulda loved to be able to use a stylus to mark-up documents, save files to a hard drive, print, all the things a regular laptop can do but the iPad can't. I do like the iphone/ipod touch interface as well, but wish it also had the option to act like a regular MacBook and use OS X. It could be much more capable than what it is. I'm not sure if people will go for simply an oversized ipod touch...I know I won't

That's pretty much my impression. It looks nice for what it does, but I was hoping for more. A touch driven OS X would have been very nice. I'm a little surprised at the aspect ratio. I thought they would have gone for an HD ratio or something close to that. Also, 1024 x 768 seems a little spare. However, I think it will be at least moderately popular and will find its niche.

 

[neutrino23]

...
On a side note, why are all the other speakers so bad with their presentations? Steve Jobs is a great public speaker, no debate there, but how hard would it be to get some good spokespeople?
...

It's just by chance that Steve is a great speaker. The other people all have day jobs and are not professional public speakers or actors. In that sense they are genuine, if not polished.

It really is interesting to watch the contrast. Somehow, Steve brings energy to the stage just by standing there. You get a sense of anticipation watching him you don't get with other people.

I think a lot of it is that this is Steve Jobs talking about Apple. This is his life, he owns this. If says it you have to believe it. It is as if you could watch Henry Ford talk about the car industry or Thomas Edison talk about inventing. Like them or not they would be speaking authoritatively. If Steve was on Oprah talking about fashions in running shoes or on Martha Stewart sharing recipes it just wouldn't be as dramatic.

 

[khunsanook]

This is just like the iPhone: It's got great potential, but you'll want to wait till the second or third generation when the major kinks have been worked out.

Couldn't agree more. Now if only the iPhone would come into line with iPad pricing.

 

[dergoog]

Underwhelmed, but wow... what a solution.

Having interacted with other touch devices outside of apple, you can just see how well apple has solved a lot of the problems with a touch only device. I still think the keyboard is going to be tough for us to adjust to, but you should see my friend's kid type on his ipod touch - he's as fast and accurate as I am with a physical keyboard... so perhaps its that I grew up using a tactile surface and devices like this will pave the way for full touch interfaces in the future.

I admittedly wanted a lot of the things we have been wishing for on the rumors site, but they've clearly tried to draw a line that would not cannibalize their other product lines.

But after I let those "aww man" things go by the way side, I start to realize the absolute genius in their interface design, the thing that I think most other manufacturers skimp on and do terribly (HP's touch interface is pointless to the verge of useless).

Is it enough for me to add this device to my already device heavy life... (macbook, iphone and imac) I don't know. I'll have to play with one in the store first and see just how "magical" it really is.

 

[ijoyner]

Multitasking - what it's for

This can't be quoted enough regarding multi-tasking.

No it has been overquoted. See my comment a few pages back under same title.

There has also been some discussion at:

http://reviews.cnet.com/8601-13727_...3&targetCommunityId=2123&blogId=263&tag=mncol

but I'll summarize: Multitasking is mostly used on machines with multiple users interacting for resources - iPad does not need this - it's single user. A single user only interacts with one application at a time - Cocoa and Cocoa Touch route events to that application.

The only thing you really need multitasking for is to run daemons to detect other events such as incoming phone calls or messages and then post a notification to the user asking what they want to do. The user can ignore a message or chose to respond to it by clicking OK to enter the IM application.

There has been far too much breast beating over multitasking - work out what you want to do first and then design the ways to satisfy those needs. Apple has made a good start on that with the iPad and again shown they think different, not just gone along with people's mistaken concepts of why such things as multitasking are needed.

 

[MAG.]

Built in Apps Multitasking = yes
Third party Apps Multitasking = no

That means no spyware, no viruses.

Oh really? You're saying Apple's solution for viruses is not allowing third party applications to run in the background? Wonderful. How about not turning on the device at all? Wouldn't be safer? Dumbass...

 

[DMann]

That's pretty much my impression. It looks nice for what it does, but I was hoping for more. A touch driven OS X would have been very nice. I'm a little surprised at the aspect ratio. I thought they would have gone for an HD ratio or something close to that. Also, 1024 x 768 seems a little spare. However, I think it will be at least moderately popular and will find its niche.

What better way to ascertain the market - front facing camera will likely appear in Rev B, as will multi-tasking in iPad OS 4.

OS X Cocoa is touch driven, designed from the bottom up for multi-touch interfacing - much more responsive and fluid than any implementation of touch tacked upon an OS designed for mouse and curser input could ever be, i.e. W7.

1024 X 768 on a 9.7" screen is nothing to sneeze at. I'd take that over the current iteration of OLED screens any day - hopefully we'll soon be seeing a hybrid of reflective pixel technology and OLED to solve the current sunlight washout issues.

I'm greatly looking forward to the ensuing wave of higher powered apps - the potential of this platform seems very promising, as it's capabilities and price point, IMO, are pretty appealing, from the outset.

 

[hiimamac]

So it'll be like iphone/touch. Any of my media (films/episodes) that I er havn't acquired through itunes wont play on it. No quicktime/vlc etc..unless I convert it to bloody mp4 or whatever. That's a complete downer for me. What a shame

Seems so. Gotta pay for what's already free with respect to iTunes. It's a locked device tied to iTunes. Thank goodness for jailbreaking. They will have a field day with this. You'll ne watching dvr shows via wifi after they get through with it. And it's to pricey for what it doesn't do. Just look at the negative to positives. Huge differential. Many more negatives.

 

[mbikeboy]

Sorry, but despite the aggressive pricing and all, most of the features are US only and that's useless to me...time is going to have to prove to me that it's worth buying. My iMac, iTouch and my MacBook do everything I need with ease, so to convince me to buy one, as well as overlooking the ignorance of the US market, good luck!!! Rather pump that money into something else like a car stereo which I'd use more!

 

[mbikeboy]

That's pretty much my impression. It looks nice for what it does, but I was hoping for more. A touch driven OS X would have been very nice. I'm a little surprised at the aspect ratio. I thought they would have gone for an HD ratio or something close to that. Also, 1024 x 768 seems a little spare. However, I think it will be at least moderately popular and will find its niche.

Me too...I'll hapilly wait and see what options are on offer down the track. As it stands I want for nothing, so to push me some gibberish about needing a new toy is going to be hard. Far out...I got around Paris with an iTouch on Maps swiping free WiFi, so I'd like to see how this new MaxiPad does anything else I can't already do with an iTouch or a MacBook. Wank of the century amen!!! Love the idea, but keeping the bulk of the goodness to the Yank market is akin to looking at your wrist with a razor blade in the other hand...the key market's outside the US are bigger and tell the US what to do. Shareholders will realise this soon enough anyways...dumbasses!

 

[Towhead]

reader NOT

There'll be a bit of use with this iPad, in six months you'll see them often, for awhile.

I won't buy one, though. I've seen maybe four iPhones in my life, and have no desire whatsoever to slide my fingers over some screen and watch graphics bounce around. None at all.

I have no desire to be on Facebook, or Myspace, or Twitter, or whatever seems to be grabbing everyone's goat these days. I do like Digg, and some of that stuff where people can rank a digest. I like fatwallet, too, as I've got a house full of stuff I didn't need that I got largely for free.

I do own a couple Macs, because I don't want to worry about the bullsh*t that goes on with the Windows OS, but I don't care about it other than that. I use Windows at work, though, because there isn't an embedded compiler made for the Mac - and let my employer pay the costs of maintaining Microsoft's tragedy.

I own a nook, because I like to read books - and lots of them - and with my near-photographic memory, I can recount tales from books I read when I was ten. You see, I'm deaf, and television didn't mean sh*t before the days of captioning and subtitling. Tora Tora Tora was my favorite show, as half of it was in Japanese! It wasn't until my kids started watching Scooby-Doo that I knew that there was a Fred, Velma, Daphne or even Shaggy. I absolutely hated, and still hate with a deep passion the muppets - try reading the lips of that green fa**ot frog. So, what did I do as a child, but read books (lots of comics).

Would I read read books on this iPad, if I was given one for free? Hell no. I would just browse fatwallet, check my email and spam, and be done with it. I might carry an iPad with me when shopping so I could quickly call up the actual price, check for coupons, or the like to determine if I'm getting the best deal I possibly could. But, mostly, it'd be the thing to use during commercials while watching TV, it's captioned now. If the iPad hadn't been such a crummy resolution, I might buy the thing for the quickie-ftvgirl on the shuttle but now the pubes are going to be a pixelated blend. HD hard-ly!!

Let me ask: Is anyone at all, let's be serious, going to use iWork on the thing in VGA resolution? For crying out loud, the text is going to be so spaced-out, you'll be holding it at arms length with a larger font to be able to read it comfortably at all. Damn, what a crying shame. Photographs aren't going to look that great either, the resolution being so much lower than the lousiest ink-jet printer's!

What I will spend my money on is the Skiff, if it sees the light of day and has sufficient content. (see http://skiff.com). To me, it's the kind of technology they're pioneering that will be more a next big thing than this iPad, if there was any promising technology to speak of. E-ink has some color technology being developed (see http://www.eink.com/press/images/image_release_86c.html). Yeah, baby, I'm interested! The iPad? No thanks!

And finally, I think I speak for a large part of the population - the part that isn't included in numbers Facebook likes to quote when counting its "unique visitors", most of whom are parents of children coaxed into signing up only to never log on again. The part that far outnumbers the little queebs and nerds running around acting as if their life depended on a gadget and its ability to tie them into knots!!

Here you go, from Pink Floyd's Animals:

"You like the feel of steel,
You're hot stuff with a hatpin,
And good fun with a hand gun.
You're nearly a laugh,
You're nearly a laugh
But you're really a cry."

 

[str1f3]

It's kind of funny seeing this in relation to the earthquake in Haiti. Millions of people have no home and Apple releases a product that is not a necessity and replaces nothing. It's just more bloat.

Hopefully ten years from now there will be a fully-functional touch based Mac OS computer that isnt't closed.

 

[hiimamac]

AGREED!

I think if he courier is real, this is what college students may get. Imagine if MS somehow licensed moble me and iLife. I think the courier if not vapor is going to win. To much self induced cripware and Jobs is supposed to be his prodest????

 

[spud1252]

is it a 2010 newton

wot a let down iI think i will be getting a hp slate apple had better rebuild the ipad or it will go the same way as the newton!

 

[fat phil]

If the iPad hadn't been such a crummy resolution, I might buy the thing for the quickie-ftvgirl on the shuttle but now the pubes are going to be a pixelated blend. HD hard-ly!!

...?? Okaayyy....


Personally I think it's wicked amazing hardware, looks the business (even if the wide bezel looks a bit much) and the apps have had a great overhall. As a dev, I can't wait to get my hands on one.

As a user though, I was all excited until I watched the promo video with Steve Ives et al trying to tell me there was no better way to watch video or browse the web. Now, my desk is like a little Mission Control... I have 30" Cinema Displays & 24" BenQ monitors, a 46" LED Samsung TV and all sorts of good stuff... figure it out for yourself.

The problem here isn't the hardware, or the software: it's the snake oil sales tactics. "This will make your hair grow back".

Dammit but I wish I didn't cringe when I watched that promo video. I wish Apple could just be cool and not feel the need to over-sell themselves. I wish I didn't know that they believe their own hype to the point of oblivion. And I wish the only word I could think of to describe Steve Ives and friends wasn't "Tossers".

Suddenly, irrationally (because I like the kit), I don't want one. How about that.

 

[iMaggot]

LMAO the "iPad" ?
Lol this is a big FAIL, Hell i already have one, it's called an iPhone.

 

[Colman]

Given the viciousness of the naysayers here, the iPad is going to be an outstanding success.

 

[knightlie]

And once again the MacRumors community votes overwhelmingly negative on a new product because it didn't match their own hype.

To the multitasking whiners - if you need multitasking on a device like this, you need a laptop. Get over it.

Given the viciousness of the naysayers here, the iPad is going to be an outstanding success.

Exactly; the same sort of people bleated about the iPhone not matching their wet dreams, and look how that went. They should go and buy Steve Ballmers photo frame PC, assuming it's ever released, if they dislike the iPad so much, then they can experience real disappointment.

LMAO the "iPad" ?
Lol this is a big FAIL, Hell i already have one, it's called an iPhone.

No, you don't. Did you even see the presentation? It can't make phone calls for a start, of course it's not an iPhone. Only a fool can posibly think this product is a failure.