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More iPad First Impressions and Discussion
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diamond.g
macrumors G5
I totally agree with you. Apple controls the quality of the device and the software it runs. I have a MacBook Air for the times when I travel. It's small and light and works as an adjunct for my iMac. The iPad would fit the role just as well at a third of the cost. I see the iPad as a great device to have around the house, to pick it up to read the paper, a magazine, a book or just to check my e-mail. I can walk out on my deck to continue the experience without even thinking about it. Eventually the price will drop and we will all have this device to do a lot of things around where we live. This is merely the first iteration of a new way of doing things.
JoeSixPack
macrumors member
Very good question, this is why I am waiting for the content I need to be available. But if all works according to plan, the iPad will:
-make newspapers cheaper and easier on the environment (and keep me from freezing while trying to get the newspaper out of the driveway in a snowstorm, or forgetting to put it on hold and have to buy it twice when I travel). Even without the cold, on $ this pays for the iPad in five years.
-make books cheaper and easier on the environment
-make magazines cheaper and easier on the environment (if the magazine publishers get over themselves and the notion that they can continue to charge the consumer the same newsstand price and pocket the printing and transport savings)
-make traveling easier, instead of carrying 1 laptop, 1 iPod, 2 chargers, 2 paperbacks and 2 magazines through airport security 1 iPad + 1 charger is a dream
-Save desk space in homes (most homes only need 1 Desktop/laptop for heavy work and would be better off with 1 or more iPads for communication and entertainment)
-Allow you to do all that communicating and entertaining from the comfort of the couch. Instead of having each family member in their room on their computer or watching tv, now everyone can be together. They may still ignore each other but they will at least be in one room 🙂
Note, all of these lifestyle conveniences are "wants" instead of "needs" and Apple may have a slow go of it pushing this technology in a recession (though if you are an environmentalist maybe they are "needs")
JoeSixPack
macrumors member
This may not be a bad thing. For older relatives the techie in the family should to do the initial set-up and occasionally back it up. (If you are going to be the IT Dept you should at least know what your users are doing).
But that's not happening, is it? I'd love to see the price of books and periodicals on the iPad decrease. So far that is not happening. That's a big downside for me. I get weekly coupons in my email for Boarders for 20-40% off books. Whenever I need one, I go to the store, show them the email and receive a nice discount. Until the the iBook store offers similar discounts, I will not switch over to eBooks.
It's really easy to find discounts for magazines, as well. My subscription to Mac Life was $10 this year. That's not happening on the iPad just yet.
To be clear, I want to purchase an iPad. I think it is a great device with unlimited potential. However, there are many things that must happen before I drop the cash.
Flash is not drying up soon. To many Windows users and non iPhone, iPad users. When iPad users (non Apple) find out that a lot of websites cannot be accessed on iPad then they will start to see that it's just a big iPhone with out the phone.
If Flash is so bad on Mac's why doesn't Apple remove it from all Apple products? That's the only way to kill flash.
If you surf the net and can't view a site on your iPhone or iPad what are you going to do? Go to your desktop and surf the web. To the average user they see the iPad or iPhone as not being able to access site in Flash.....not the other way around.
NT1440
macrumors P6
jmggs
macrumors regular
i love to see apple fan's.
No usb, no flash. Can't share internet from my phone (buy the 3g version and pay the acess to web...) Can't view the websites correctly. Can't share a file that i created to a simple usb pen, i doubt that camera kit will allow share to a pen drive.
Every device have usb, everybody uses usb to share files, my car have usb to listen music what a well apple?
The next step is to remove all the usb and firewire ports from mac's (remember the removal of firewire from macbook) ?......
This is a big ipod touch.
Open your eyes apple is getting the new Microsoft they don't care a damn about users they want to control everything it's all about apple lock in and of course a beautiful design.
No usb, no flash. Can't share internet from my phone (buy the 3g version and pay the acess to web...) Can't view the websites correctly. Can't share a file that i created to a simple usb pen, i doubt that camera kit will allow share to a pen drive.
Every device have usb, everybody uses usb to share files, my car have usb to listen music what a well apple?
The next step is to remove all the usb and firewire ports from mac's (remember the removal of firewire from macbook) ?......
This is a big ipod touch.
Open your eyes apple is getting the new Microsoft they don't care a damn about users they want to control everything it's all about apple lock in and of course a beautiful design.
Which is still a big thing.
You really don't get it, do you? Mobile devices like phones and iPads are a MAJOR growth area in the next 1-3 years. The logic of economics is going to compel sites to take this into account. If Adobe isn't going to optimize it for handhelds, then sites will put up dual versions to cater to handhelds.
The existence of a feature means nothing if it's not usable for a device. Being power and resource hungry is tolerable on a laptop. It will not be on handhelds.
I dunno...I'm pretty sure I can read ebooks, run all kinds of games and write emails on windows 7 (dont get me wrong, love apple).
I guess i have to keep in mind that iPads werent meant to replace a PC
Experience was better than expected, and probably will get another one in the future. Perhaps the most telling thing is that my wife - not a techie - immediately wanted to use it, and her parents - visiting for the holidays, in their 70's - wouldn't put it down. They were using Safari and browsing photos (including pinching and zooming, etc.) within minutes. These are people that haven't managed to put numbers into their cell phones by themselves. That's how easy and intuitive it is. That's good news for Apple investors, I think this is going to eventually be a very hot seller. There's really very little reason to choose a netbook over an iPad.
The battery life is stunning. They did NOT overestimate this. Speaker quality is surprisingly good, and definitely adequate for watching home videos/slide shows. The setup is a little different than on iPod Touch/iPhone, which was a little confusing at first. "iTunes", which I figured would be the music player, is instead just the iTunes store. (Spent a while trying to find my music there before realizing it's under "iPod.") It's a fingerprint magnet, but it wasn't that annoying. VERY fast. Wide placement of icons is a little strange - it seemed like they should be side-by-side like they are on the Touch. At landscape orientation, most websites did not require any resizing at all, and the browsing experience was very cool.
The battery life is stunning. They did NOT overestimate this. Speaker quality is surprisingly good, and definitely adequate for watching home videos/slide shows. The setup is a little different than on iPod Touch/iPhone, which was a little confusing at first. "iTunes", which I figured would be the music player, is instead just the iTunes store. (Spent a while trying to find my music there before realizing it's under "iPod.") It's a fingerprint magnet, but it wasn't that annoying. VERY fast. Wide placement of icons is a little strange - it seemed like they should be side-by-side like they are on the Touch. At landscape orientation, most websites did not require any resizing at all, and the browsing experience was very cool.
No I get it but everyone says it's a flash killer. Other mobile devices are moving to flash and it's still better viewing the internet fully on desktop or good laptop with flash. Do you see Windows net books not using flash? you don't get that this kill flash is a Apple / Steve Job thing and it's not just that flash runs bad on a Mac.
You don't get it that some sites use flash for a reason and still have a mobile version of the same site.
Hal Itosis
macrumors 6502a
And when you find out what HTML5 is about (try that googly thing), then perhaps you'll realize that "Apple versus Adobe" isn't all there is to this issue.
🙄
The reason it matters on iPhones and iPads is primarily battery drain and lack of support for the touch UI.
The iPhone has been around since 2007... and perhaps that provides some indication of how naive and meaningless your questions are at this point. But if truly interested... then why don't you ask all 15 gazillion of the iPhone (and iPod touch) users out there?
[hint: YouTube comes standard on all models.]
And of course, HTML5 will not have support for touch and will cause exactly the same battery drain but somehow it's OK.
mongoos150
macrumors 6502a
cmaier
Suspended
Huh? It doesn't need explicit support for touch. If you're coding for touch you just have to not rely on mouseover events.
Hal Itosis
macrumors 6502a
And you know this how? From what I've seen of H.264, it's far more efficient both in terms of data size and resource management. You're really desperate for flash to survive huh... why? Are you an Adobe shill... or just an Adobe "fanboy". From what I've read, flash is not all that terrific on Widows either... so what's your big motivation to talk it up so much?
Help/Comments/Suggestions
Alright, so I bought an iPad and I love it. I've the dock and I use my wireless keyboard which does a great job of letting me type on it while at my desk while still giving me the portability to wander off and use the touch screen if I want to. All in all I am impressed with the device and see a great potential to utilize it in court and around the office.
Now, the down sides. I have an off-brand (I think it is Best Buy's generic) component video cable hooked up to my TV at home that can play video just fine from my other iPod styled devices. However, when I connect my iPad I get a "This Device Not Supported" message. Same message pops up in my car when I attempt to hook up the iPad to my stereo (not something I would really do very often, but I was curious). I find it frustrating that I have to replace things I already own, that already work with products from the same manufacturer...
The same is true for the Camera kit. I have an old SD Card adapter for my iPod. Won't work on the iPad.
Last but not least, the VGA out cable. I am accustomed to being able to plug a VGA cable into my computer or laptop and it sends whatever is on the monitor to another monitor. I wasn't expecting to be able to "extend" my desktop to the iPad, but I was hoping to be able to hook it up to the court room technology and allow whatever was on the iPad to be seen on the screens/projectors in the courtroom. No such luck. So far, the only time the display will come up is using the video app. This is useless for me if I want to show a photograph in an app that allows me to mark on it. Pages won't work either, which I found especially surprising as it is an Apple App and those usually are able to do more than 3rd party apps. I've messed with the settings and had no luck getting anything else through. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I don't think I am. If anyone has had any luck displaying through the VGA adapter please let me know!
Despite the setback of the VGA thing (which really sucks) I still find the device fits very well into my life as I am constantly walking and out of my office to meet with clients or attorneys. It is great that I can grab this thing and a legal pad and be off, with everything I was just working on in hand. Yes, I could do that with a laptop as well, but the flexibility and portability of this device makes it a little easier. If I could get the image to show up on my TV or through a projector for something other than "video" I'd be 100% satisfied with this generation, as it is I'm still 90% or so content with it, and I'm excited to see where they take the tablet technology next. Obviously a camera is coming (it has to if Apple intends to compete with the host of similar devices out this year with cameras come Christmas time). Beyond that, wireless display of data would be cool, and a dock with a built in card reader/usb port/video out all in one would be pretty sweet... so would native printing support.
In closing, for everyone questioning whether or not this can be a "laptop" or "computer" replacement. It depends entirely on what you use your laptop or computer for. In my case, as most of my computer use consists of reading documents, research on the web, and e-mailing, this device makes a perfectly suitable replacement. That said, I won't be using it that way, rather as a supplement to what I have, but if needed I could get by on just this. If you're doing process intensive stuff like programing or rendering, definitely not a replacement for you. For those concerned by the lack of multitasking, I can say that having used it now for a few days pretty intensely that the speed at which I can open and close apps and move from one to another it hasn't really been as big an issue as I expected. That said, it could be faster, and I imagine this will be addressed in 4.0 this summer. In the mean time I wouldn't let that stand in the way of purchasing one if that was your only hesitation. The biggest reason I can honestly see being cause to wait would be if you envision using the device for video chat (I think my parents would be candidates for that) and the lack of a camera is a compelling reason to wait for the next generation which will almost certainly have one.
Please either quote and respond, or PM me if you have any ideas/solutions about the VGA support for things other than video, or if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them from my experiences with the device so far.
Thanks!
Alright, so I bought an iPad and I love it. I've the dock and I use my wireless keyboard which does a great job of letting me type on it while at my desk while still giving me the portability to wander off and use the touch screen if I want to. All in all I am impressed with the device and see a great potential to utilize it in court and around the office.
Now, the down sides. I have an off-brand (I think it is Best Buy's generic) component video cable hooked up to my TV at home that can play video just fine from my other iPod styled devices. However, when I connect my iPad I get a "This Device Not Supported" message. Same message pops up in my car when I attempt to hook up the iPad to my stereo (not something I would really do very often, but I was curious). I find it frustrating that I have to replace things I already own, that already work with products from the same manufacturer...
The same is true for the Camera kit. I have an old SD Card adapter for my iPod. Won't work on the iPad.
Last but not least, the VGA out cable. I am accustomed to being able to plug a VGA cable into my computer or laptop and it sends whatever is on the monitor to another monitor. I wasn't expecting to be able to "extend" my desktop to the iPad, but I was hoping to be able to hook it up to the court room technology and allow whatever was on the iPad to be seen on the screens/projectors in the courtroom. No such luck. So far, the only time the display will come up is using the video app. This is useless for me if I want to show a photograph in an app that allows me to mark on it. Pages won't work either, which I found especially surprising as it is an Apple App and those usually are able to do more than 3rd party apps. I've messed with the settings and had no luck getting anything else through. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I don't think I am. If anyone has had any luck displaying through the VGA adapter please let me know!
Despite the setback of the VGA thing (which really sucks) I still find the device fits very well into my life as I am constantly walking and out of my office to meet with clients or attorneys. It is great that I can grab this thing and a legal pad and be off, with everything I was just working on in hand. Yes, I could do that with a laptop as well, but the flexibility and portability of this device makes it a little easier. If I could get the image to show up on my TV or through a projector for something other than "video" I'd be 100% satisfied with this generation, as it is I'm still 90% or so content with it, and I'm excited to see where they take the tablet technology next. Obviously a camera is coming (it has to if Apple intends to compete with the host of similar devices out this year with cameras come Christmas time). Beyond that, wireless display of data would be cool, and a dock with a built in card reader/usb port/video out all in one would be pretty sweet... so would native printing support.
In closing, for everyone questioning whether or not this can be a "laptop" or "computer" replacement. It depends entirely on what you use your laptop or computer for. In my case, as most of my computer use consists of reading documents, research on the web, and e-mailing, this device makes a perfectly suitable replacement. That said, I won't be using it that way, rather as a supplement to what I have, but if needed I could get by on just this. If you're doing process intensive stuff like programing or rendering, definitely not a replacement for you. For those concerned by the lack of multitasking, I can say that having used it now for a few days pretty intensely that the speed at which I can open and close apps and move from one to another it hasn't really been as big an issue as I expected. That said, it could be faster, and I imagine this will be addressed in 4.0 this summer. In the mean time I wouldn't let that stand in the way of purchasing one if that was your only hesitation. The biggest reason I can honestly see being cause to wait would be if you envision using the device for video chat (I think my parents would be candidates for that) and the lack of a camera is a compelling reason to wait for the next generation which will almost certainly have one.
Please either quote and respond, or PM me if you have any ideas/solutions about the VGA support for things other than video, or if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them from my experiences with the device so far.
Thanks!
Hal Itosis
macrumors 6502a
You're already off the mark... but the upcoming iOS event may finally put all this technobabble to rest.
Could be worse... It could be a small Dell. 😀
HLdan
macrumors 603
Interesting post coming from someone with a Macbook Pro and an iPod Touch in their sig. 🙄