I don't think you realize how irrelevant those things are to making a useful and fun device which sells well and gets good reviews. No matter what the specs are for the device, you could always say 'well they should have been greater, imagine what you could do if they were greater'.
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Is the iPad Overpriced and Underspecced? What should it have...
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I don't think you realize how irrelevant those things are to making a useful and fun device which sells well and gets good reviews. No matter what the specs are for the device, you could always say 'well they should have been greater, imagine what you could do if they were greater'.
I think you hit on the important thing: user experience has very little to with what's under the hood. Implementation is the key, and Apple is better than most at doing it.
Developers will create amazing apps for the iPad. As with the iPhone, they won't hesitate to take advantage of new hardware versions in the future. There are numerous apps that only run on the newer iPhones, so nothing is holding back the way apps will use available power on future versions.
As far as how good the iPad is or isn't, I think I'll rely on my experiences holding this one here in my hand rather than listening to someone who doesn't even have one telling me why it should suck.
Yes it's a different device. But that doesn't excuse it being a significantly weaker device than the device it's supposed to be displacing.
Uh huh, Microsoft would never release Office on a direct competitor. This is why they never made Office for OS X. Oh... wait.
If the average consumer doesn't care about flash, why is it that my grandparents email me almost nothing but flash videos. You don't they will care that their iPad (if they ever got one), will not be able to play or watch those videos they love to email.
How would a two minute flash video significantly alter battery life anyway. The only way the inclusion of flash might effect battery life, are heavy users that spend hours browsing flash heavy places.
And I guarentee those people would prefer being atleast able to view that content, even if it hurts battery life.
If they really care about battery life that much, they could simply click on Settings and Toggle Flash off, the same way they toggle Bluetooth off.
Hell Flash could have started off toggled off by default, so that only those that want flash content, even at the cost of battery life, get it.
Maximizing a device while limiting technological needs for higher specs is not a negative thing but a positive one. It's all a balance. I'm sure we will see some tablets that fit your desires more shortly, they will have faster processors more ram, better video chipsets..just like the droid has over the iPhone. Yet they will be lagger, and buggier, like the droid vs iPhone. If you run a supercomputer with crap software on it a net book could be faster. So again. Specs mean nothing for this device IMHO.
As it turns out, the Apple A4 with it's measly 256 MB of RAM is about 37% faster than the 1 GHz Snapdragon with it's massive 512 MB of RAM in early testing.
Exactly...
I don't live my life through specifications, I actually use the product and determine whether or not it suits my needs. If the iPad didn't suit my needs, I would have returned it. As it is, you'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands to take it away from me since I am in love with this device.
does it again. 
Stop with the Flash support, please.
Major websites are already moving all of their content to HTML5. HTML5 is also capable of playing games like Quake in-browser. Give it time, and there will be a choice on every major website to use Flash or HTML5.
Most of your points are a little ridiculous, because the iPad isn't meant to replace a computer. It is meant to accompany a computer. The specifications have nothing to do with why Microsoft won't develop their applications when Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are all on the iPad and in fine working condition.
As anyone will tell you, software is a lot more important than the hardware. This is why Apple is in business, and this won't change ever.
Major websites are already moving all of their content to HTML5. HTML5 is also capable of playing games like Quake in-browser. Give it time, and there will be a choice on every major website to use Flash or HTML5.
Most of your points are a little ridiculous, because the iPad isn't meant to replace a computer. It is meant to accompany a computer. The specifications have nothing to do with why Microsoft won't develop their applications when Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are all on the iPad and in fine working condition.
As anyone will tell you, software is a lot more important than the hardware. This is why Apple is in business, and this won't change ever.
I was interested in this so I did a little test. I don't have an ipad yet
However, on my iphone 3GS,
I opened 8 tabs in Safari, Yahoo, Apple, Flikr, Facebook, Google Maps, Youtube, Wikipedia and Macrumors.
No reloading when switching between them at all!
And I was playing music in the background.
what a long rant against the iPad! You don't even know what you are talking about for the most part and especially about the ram. why is more ram needed? all apps are made to run on less than 256 meg usually 128Meg. More ram would just be a waste, that's just windows thinking. besides and here is my point. The ram is not just on a separate chip that could be replaced with a larger identical pinout upgrade for $5. You are completely off base on that.
The A4 has the ram built in! It uses a POP design which means the ram is in a separate die layer on top of the CPU. It uses two such layers at 128meg each to get the 256 Meg memory. It would have to have 4 layers to make 512Meg and that is just nuts to ask for that. If it were easy to put a 256M die in there , Apple would have done that and saved a layer but there were obviously issues that prevented that so they had to put two in at 128M. I suspect two layers is the maximum they wanted to go with for heat dissipation and routing the data lines. So they would have had to design a different chip just to please you. Gee sorry they didn't ask you about chip design since you claim to know more than them.
The A4 has the ram built in! It uses a POP design which means the ram is in a separate die layer on top of the CPU. It uses two such layers at 128meg each to get the 256 Meg memory. It would have to have 4 layers to make 512Meg and that is just nuts to ask for that. If it were easy to put a 256M die in there , Apple would have done that and saved a layer but there were obviously issues that prevented that so they had to put two in at 128M. I suspect two layers is the maximum they wanted to go with for heat dissipation and routing the data lines. So they would have had to design a different chip just to please you. Gee sorry they didn't ask you about chip design since you claim to know more than them.
I've been using it now primarily since Saturday, and while it does have its limitations, it has impressed me more than I expected. I was pretty critical of it when it was announced, but decided to wait until I used it before I came up with a final opinion.
I respect everyone's opinion in this thread but I wanted to share what I thought as I read through it. I felt more impressed with the engineers for only putting 256MB of RAM in this thing. I used to be a programmer many many years ago. In those days, folks took pride in finding a way to create a program that had the fewest lines and ran with the fewest amount of resources. I know its not so much like that anymore, but the iPad reminds me of that mindset. Now a days, computers have so much RAM, who cares if it uses a little more if its going to save you time writing your program. The iPad on the other hand is much more refreshing. The fact everything runs so fast, so smoothly, and can do so much with only 256MB of RAM, as an engineer I am really impressed with what they've achieved. Instead of just mindlessly banging out line after line as good, much more care was taken to ensure everything was optimized for the hardware.
Would it have cost them much to double that RAM? Definitely not. So I completely understand that position. Just wanted to share my thoughts as an engineer.
I respect everyone's opinion in this thread but I wanted to share what I thought as I read through it. I felt more impressed with the engineers for only putting 256MB of RAM in this thing. I used to be a programmer many many years ago. In those days, folks took pride in finding a way to create a program that had the fewest lines and ran with the fewest amount of resources. I know its not so much like that anymore, but the iPad reminds me of that mindset. Now a days, computers have so much RAM, who cares if it uses a little more if its going to save you time writing your program. The iPad on the other hand is much more refreshing. The fact everything runs so fast, so smoothly, and can do so much with only 256MB of RAM, as an engineer I am really impressed with what they've achieved. Instead of just mindlessly banging out line after line as good, much more care was taken to ensure everything was optimized for the hardware.
Would it have cost them much to double that RAM? Definitely not. So I completely understand that position. Just wanted to share my thoughts as an engineer.
Nice to read some calm, reasoned, and informed commentary on the iPad's RAM, after all the frothing rants. Thank-you.
The rumor is that Apple hardcoded basic functions of the iPhone OS and the Safari browser directlyinto the processor in order to achieve smooth performance of the OS and Safari even with the limited ram.
That is an impressive engineering feat and I'm happy that Apple did it.
However, what this means is that uses outside of what is already hardcoded onto the chip, may be significantly harder to do while maintaining smooth performance. 3rd Party Apps may not run nearly as well, which would be quite a shame.
That is an impressive engineering feat and I'm happy that Apple did it.
However, what this means is that uses outside of what is already hardcoded onto the chip, may be significantly harder to do while maintaining smooth performance. 3rd Party Apps may not run nearly as well, which would be quite a shame.
People who don't read MacRumors probably all agree.
Most people don't even know what processor it is. All people know is this thing is DAMN FAST and SMOOTH.
LOL at the ridiculous size of that rant. Obviously can't be bothered to read it.
But if it is that wrong for you, I have to wonder why it is even worth commenting on. Clearly it will never be right for you.
Something to keep in mind with all of the hoopla some are giving to the 256MB of RAM. Apple is certainly also using the available flash memory as well, so while 256 MB does seem small, it's probably a non-issue. Just because some of Safari's pages reload when you back them is not proof in itself that it's even a memory issue. There could be some other reason for that happening. Also, these memory utilities that some are using to support the argument of small amounts of RAM being available were written before the iPad was even released, so their results are dubious at best. The bottom line for me is performance, and as far as I'm concerned the performance is great.
Honestly, in terms of device price, people need to stop claiming that "the iPad is $300 more expensive than an iPhone/HD2/Droid/etc. and can't even make phone calls".
The iPad in terms of pricing is a great value, and sits right where it should; in between the iPod Touch and the iPhone. A 16GB iPhone 3GS is $100 MORE than a 16GB iPad, sitting at $599 vs the iPad's $499.
The iPad in terms of pricing is a great value, and sits right where it should; in between the iPod Touch and the iPhone. A 16GB iPhone 3GS is $100 MORE than a 16GB iPad, sitting at $599 vs the iPad's $499.
Please, it'll be years before the internet, not the five or six websites you might be thinking of, who knows, you don't say who is supposedly switching over. In that vast amount of time in between, Apple has a fleet of devices that can only access a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of multi-media on the internet.
On the iPhone and iPod Touch, it's excusable, at least for now. On the iPad? They are hindering the functionality of the iPad by taking away something that people MIGHT want to use. Don't even give you the option. It's like laptops not being able to play graphics heavy games because it might hurt battery life. Hell, it WILL hurt it, it'll kill it, but I've been giving the option to use it, and I've got the brainpower to decide whether or not I want to do it.
With the way apple has a chokehold on what you can put on a device you paid for, this isn't all that surprising.
And no, just because Apple doesn't add something, doesn't mean it was something terrible. So what, SMS was terrible? Taking videos is terrible? Copy and Paste is terrible? Until Apple adds it, then it's the greatest thing since sliced bread?
Yeah honestly, in would bet about 80% of the people who bought the iPad wouldn't care.
the addition of a 512MB of ram would of been great. I don't understand why apple didn't put 512MB. since they were making 250 dollars profit per head.
As of right now, it looks as if the RAM isn't the bottle neck of the OS and Apple only changes product specs once they feel the market needs higher specs. This has always been apples game.
I cringe everytime I think the ipad i am holding which cost me 599 has the same ram as my phone. But I'm happy everyone i turn it on.
My GF can make all the trouble in the world, but once you look at her body. You smile and just let it go.
As of right now, it looks as if the RAM isn't the bottle neck of the OS and Apple only changes product specs once they feel the market needs higher specs. This has always been apples game.
I cringe everytime I think the ipad i am holding which cost me 599 has the same ram as my phone. But I'm happy everyone i turn it on.
My GF can make all the trouble in the world, but once you look at her body. You smile and just let it go.
Nobody (in US) buys iPhones for $599. You can buy it (with a contracts) for $200. That's the price. You can not do the same with iPad.