Here we have a device that doesn't support USB thumbdrives, doesn't support dropbox (at least system-wide, I assume the dropbox iphone app would work), is unable to run ruby or any of my other dev scripts/tools, cannot install firefox or firefox plugins, etc.
I do not want to see computing head this direction.
This is about far more than running your own Ruby scripts. It's about the fact that true innovation cannot exist in such an environment. And the problem is, you will not see what you're missing; people won't bother developing new technologies that have no platform they can legally run on.
Would the Web exist if Microsoft had been able to ban Netscape from running on Windows? What new, groundbreaking technologies are we missing out on because it's not worth the time and effort to create something new if the platform vendor can simply forbid you from publishing it?
I imagine you should be able to see the difference between not targeting a particular audience and doing everything to lock that particular audience out.
EDIT: I'm kind of getting sick of this. Basically all the posts on this thread sum up to this:
Some guy say "Yeah but my grandma can use it !". And gets tremendously upvoted, so ok guys we get the point.
And some other guy says "Yeah ok, but what prevents this slick grandma-friendly platform to be open at the same time", and the guy get less upvoted, like the very point of this Ipad is that it be user friendly, like we hackers don't care at all about openness, denying the very point of this article, wich IS :
"Why can't we have a platform that is BOTH user friendly and slick, and open"
First of all, its cheap compared to a mac laptop or desktop. Secondly, it is great for surfing and checking emails, which is what my parents do 99% of the time on the computer. Any laptop or desktop would be an overkill for their use case. Thirdly, the iPad's zooming functionality is the best in the market now, and would be extremely useful for older folks with bad eyesight. The small screens on netbooks just do not cut it.
I think apple has again come up with a device that will revolutionize the way we use computers, just not the way all of us tech minded geeks wanted it to.
On the other hand, a much larger audience would be the vast unwashed masses in the third world who use cell phones to access the internet. The sales volumes are higher, while the price point is lower... I wonder if Apple would go there, or would they leave that market to others.
I must use a different machine to build applications for this, which means on the gradient of iphone to macbook, it's much closer to the iphone. If the only niche it fills is for grandmothers, secretaries and managers, how will the developers ever really grok it? It seems like they'd only be monetarily driven... and that just sounds like iFart.
Fair enough. But a not-insignificant chunk of that 99% is the friend or relative who asks you to write a small piece of software to do some calculation for them or some quick script or tool to automate some repetitive task. And then you have to sit and explain to them that this thing they bought isn't a real computer in the same way that their desktop was.
Oh, but they can't because those are on YouTube and it doesn't do Flash. Simple doesn't have to mean purposely disabled to make more money.
There will always be two groups of people, one group of those wanting to hack things, and another, much much larger group of those who want just use them. For every one John who wants to chip his car engine there will be five millions Joes who just want to get from the point A to the point B with the least hassle possible. As it happens Apples iProducts are aimed at the second group—deal with it. Just like ITMS and App Store may be the fastest and most hassle-free way to get what you want on your device.
I've spent some time thinking, do I want iPad. The answer is: I do. I like to read when in bed, iPad is perfect for this. I cannot take my iMac to bed, and reading with notebook is not as convenient as it can be with iPad: that damn keyboard gets in a way, event when I barely use it.
iPad is very well suited for what it is intended for: surfing the web, reading the books, some email. Let's not forget it has UI specifically tailored for the device and multitouch use. It should be great for tasks it was meant to do, and not so great for all others.
It is time to stop thinking about anything with CPU inside as the computer.
Apple reminds me of homeland security, but prettier!
Exactly. And that's what made tablet-PC unsuccessful for the most part. Because what you ended up doing was interacting with basically the same OS with a stylus instead of a mouse. The iPad is removing the cursor altogether.
What really makes the iPad any more special, especially considering the price?
Please don't say the UI, as it's not so well loved by everyone...
Cars used to be 'user servicable', you could take them apart and put them back together again, or repair them with simple tools.
The further you integrate something the further away you get from 'user servicable'.
Due to emissions controls cars were equipped with injection systems and motor management, and then car manufacturers discovered 'lock-in', how to make money on obfuscation in stead of openness.
Computing is doing the exact same thing.
Gone are the simple serial and parallel interfaces, and in their place you get undocumented docking connectors and other 'magic'.
The only thing that keeps things open to some extent is the fact that the internet arrived just in time to save us from complete lock in hell. The protocols are standardized enough to let devices talk to each other.
So that's where you're going to find your new 'openness', at the protocol level.
Serverside it will take a long time to go 'closed', but on the client side I would expect to see more and more devices that are closed as much as possible.
Gaming hardware has already gone that way, mobile phones started out closed ('to protect the networks', as if client side security would be good enough for a carrier).
It's not a good development, but it will happen.
Tech savvy people can only push back by releasing their own open devices, the open source variety of hardware.
The fact that the model is now being extended to things like web browsing and e-mail isn't necessarily a bad thing for 90%+ of the population who just want a device that always works (and always works the same way). It's turning functions formerly reserved for a computer proper and moving into the closed-off-but-much-more-straightforward consumer electronics space.
Devices that run other systems will emerge with time. Mainly because this does 100% of what most people want to do with a computer.
I disagree. This sort of device has the very real chance of killing notebook computers.
I don't think that desktops are going away any time soon, for two reasons. First, if you are going to work for hours at a time, a big screen and keyboard re far more comfortable and practical. Second, really significant work requires the horsepower of a full OS (as opposed to apps on this device).
That said, most people don't need a full computer to travel with. They want something light, with an "always on" connection to the cloud. They want to browse the web, check email, play a game, read a book, listen to music. Sure, maybe they can tinker for a bit with a document too.
Will 90% of the world miss the openness and power of a full computer? I doubt it. And god knows that the screen and multi-touch already beats the hell out of most netbooks. I think it's a no-brainer that this thing will be wildly successful, and I do think it could (over time) kill off the laptop market. (Not for developers or hard-core geeks, but for (so-called) normal people.)
If it were open, had a camera, I'd be interested in it as a portable POS.
I don't understand the tendency towards these Patrick Henry-esque statements (of which this is but one example.) The Apple ecosystem functions harmoniously, making my life simpler and more productive. To pull that off, that they necessarily have to erect barriers preventing everyone from coming in and screwing it up. Why is this viewed as such a terrible thing?
The assumption that all forms of freedom are equally important deserves a second look. The freedoms to speak my mind, criticize the government, (not) practice any religion I choose, and pursue happiness, are essential me as a human being. The freedom to install Firefox plugins, not so much. I mean really, who gives a hoot? If it works for you, use it; if not, don't. Either way, spare us the ominous, brooding prognostications...
I used my iphone once to code small scripts and start/stop batch jobs on a work server while on the go.
Java still ships with Mac OS X (though you need to switch to 64bit java to enable the Java 6 version that ships).
The only thing apple have done regarding java is deprecate the Java-Cocoa bridge.
Making use of a closed-system and trying to be the best in a category assumes that you have access to the most brilliant minds in that field, and the most brilliant marketing campaign. What makes Apple great? Well, they can control every aspect of their production because they own all their own tools and can keep out the crap. Also, they have slick industrial design. For now they also have some of the most brilliant minds in the industry, but not all of them. This is why they will never achieve world domination with their products. I suppose I could make use of their own advertising to make an example : "I'm a mac, I'm a PC". You are either an apple person or you're not. Their closed-system allows little flexibility. They would be doomed to what they used to be were it not for them opening their file formats to standards.
Why is this not the best approach? Because of human innovation. People hate being held down, forced into one category, etc. This is what apple is doing, but because their products are so innovative, consumers will go for it.
Google is much smarter; they know what to hold onto and what to open up for the masses. Even though they employ many geniuses, they are always on the search for new innovative ideas. That's why they purchase so many startups, or so I've been told.
That's why I believe in a race between Google and Apple, Apple WILL lose eventually.
Closed-systems should actually drive innovation because they must be circumvented. That's why Apple products are cracked all the time. So I guess the challenge then is, that if you aren't happy with Apple, build a better product and market it as well as they do. All things being equal, the open-system product will win every time. You can't employ all of the brightest people yourself, all of the time. I think Apple will learn this in due time, and then things will change.
A sidenote is that a large part of Apple's appeal is simplicity because of their closed-system. If anyone could create an opem-system as turnkey as theirs, they'd come ahead by far. I think one of the closest systems to being fully open and turnkey I've seen so far is Facebook Connect, but I'm starting to become too long-winded, so I'll leave it at that.
Here's an alternative take on this (with a story). I recently saw Thomas Keller (chef and owner of Per Se here in NYC and French Laundry in CA, among others) talking about a new-ish restaurant of his in CA, Ad Hoc.
Ad Hoc has no menus. They make meals and serve them family style. You take what you want from the dishes provided. You have choice only within that range.
He argued that true luxury was the freedom from choice. Now in a political context, this is Orwellian and terrifying. But in the context of a meal, it made a lot of sense to me. Let a great chef do his or her magic, and I will try any damn thing they put in front of me and thank them for the privilege.
For us as hackers, computer use is more like politics. We want the openness to do what we want, to dig around, to break things and fix them again, to change things. For most people, however, computer use is more like a meal. Give them some great toys to play with and they won't mind the limitations at all.
This is explicitly about locking developers down, and not allowing them to do things that Apple does not approve of. Want to write a competing web browser? Sorry, you can't. Want to write an awesome JIT that optimizes itself for their shiny new chip? No can do.
Imagine if this policy had been in place on their desktop or laptop computers. Half of the technologies that they themselves use and tout as great would not exist. LLVM/clang? WebKit? Heck, the Mach and BSD kernels that this is all built on. None of this would have been created in a closed ecosystem with restrictive policies, and yet Apple is perfectly happy to take advantage of it while not letting anyone else play in their sandbox.
The hypocrisy of their policies makes me sick.
I love turnkey, and so do a lot of people. Who wants to fuss with installing new software, etc.? That's my perspective.
Closed-systems are much easier to make turnkey, but they aren't the only alternative.
Just because something is open, doesn't mean that it can't be simple. It CAN be tinkered with, but it doesn't have to be to make it work.
That response is shorter than I'd like, but I have to run unfortunately.
Very well put.
Sometimes even Apple doesn't get that. There was a great example of this principle in one of the slides the Engadget blogger took during Jobs's presentation (http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/live-from-the-apple-table...), where the 10:57AM slide shows the iBooks application allowing the user to "change the font (to) whatever you want."
Um, thanks but no thanks, Steve. Book publishers hire type designers to come up with appropriate fonts, and they hire other skilled designers to select and use them. Leaving this choice up to the reader is not a feature, but an aesthetic regression at best and a dereliction of duty at worst. It's like bundling fine art with a paint-by-numbers set.
This is exactly how MS Office ends up with 30 different selectable toolbars that nobody knows how to use. It was a splash of cold water to the face to see Apple making the same sort of mistake.
I disagree. Both Apple and Nintendo have shown proof that their closed 'circle of one' system works. Yes both of them have had a lot of big missed opportunities in the past because of this, but what matters more for these companies is profitability and not marketshare. Both Apple's and Nintendo's closed systems have led to large margins, and a healthy supply of cash flow and reserves.
Yes it doesn't really fully cater to us, but we're not their main market.
If you are worried about openness, then look to Android. I'm sure we will see a plethora of Android tablets that will be like a large Droid/Nexus One just like this tablet is a large iPhone.
Likely they read it on some blog that it is shit and just believed it.
With the ubiquity of SD and micro SD and need for more and more storage due to the explosion of digital media, they don't even provide a port. Obviously, they don't provide a port because it would destroy their product line. When you have the cheapest digital electronics providing these ports and high-end hardware like the iPod/Phone/Pad not providing it, that says a lot. It says "we don't care about anything except our product the money in your wallet."
It's ironic that MS gets so much flack from developers in the OSS purist and Apple fanbois camps about their closed products. They've always been the most open from the hardware perspective and they've always been great to developers. Apple is just the opposite.
If we care about an open future in computing, we need to think clearly about which platforms to develop for.
* (terrible name btw, i was sitting with three girls over lunch and looking at the engadget coverage while we ate, when i told them it was called the iPad they cracked up. One said, it must have been a male only committee that picked that name).
Ahem: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/blu-ray-maker-re-boxe...
For surfing the web: iPad > netbooks
For reading books: Kindle > iPad
So what to buy? I currently own a netbook, and while I like the device, for longer ebook reading and surfing, having the keyboard part is impractical. And I don't want Kindle, since I do a lot of reading in the dark room, and don't like the external lamp solution.
Overall, I am finding iPad to be a kind of product I'd like to have, but will probably buy similar alternative with Win7 or Android/Chrome OS.
Both OSX and Windows still give them a lot of trouble.
It's hard to pair both freedom and flexibility with ease of use and simplicity.
Apple is no longer called Apple Computers because they will not sell computers anymore. They will sell closed devices with a closed software ecosystem. They will also sell the best devices money can buy.
The Mac Pro is made for power users and developers, it's made very easy to open and add hardware to.
The iPhone is made for everyone on the planet who can afford it, it is made to be very easy to use for normal use cases and very hard to screw up to the point where someone needs someone else to fix it.
I'm typing this on a Macbook that no longer has its original RAM, hard drive, or keyboard/trackpad. The RAM and hard drive upgrades didn't break any sort of warranty and were rather trivial.
The Mac Pro is certainly not the only apple computer to modify. It is only the easiest to upgrade. Just because an upgrade isn't easy or encouraged doesn't mean you can't do it.
If you don't like the closed platform you can grab a PC, but I think this is just how Steve Jobs does things -- he likes to have as much control as possible so that Apple can deliver a certain type and level of experience to users.
Open up developer ad-hoc provisioning. Keep the App Store closed, heck, make it even stricter, but give that alternative, ad-hoc channel a chance. You don't have to publicize it; all you need to do is to change a single number in a plist somewhere on your activation servers from 100 to unlimited.
Then the hacker community will focus on adding features to your product instead of on compromising its security.
When they make a new thing I don't want, it doesn't make the old stuff I did want any less cool.
And the iPad fits the bill 100%.
$499? Unbeatable!
Same with my iPhone. It wouldn't be half as useful without being jailbroken.
What I think is exciting is that this device breaks new ground. It's only version 1.0. Better devices will come out. Hopefully, from companies other than Apple. There's virtually nothing stopping another company from selling an open platform, one that runs open software, has open hardware, has WIFI, has USB and has higher screen resolution than the 1024x768 that my 8 year old iBook has. And, hopefully someone will deliver a device that uses low power open cores.
Stop complaining. Start dreaming up something better.
However, devices bigger than iPhone - in the netbook/iPad range - need significantly more functionality. I believe Apple missed the boat with the iPad, especially if it really is targeting grandpa and grandma. People are becoming more tech savvy and they will be less and less willing to shell out money for an inflexible device that only serves a rigid set of predefined functions.
The iPad, I'm sure, is constructed extremely well. However, taking it to the bathroom, to bed and around the house in general isn't the same thing as taking it everywhere you go. Apple's success is in building beautiful durable portable hardware. The iPad just isn't portable enough or flexible enough for people to want it.
Google is trying to take the opposite pole: you can do pretty much anything on an Android phone, but that includes buggy software with bad UI design.
There will always be both positions. Both have benefits to different people. To a HackerNews audience, the open system will almost always seem better -- HackerNews types enjoy tinkering and will tend to be advanced users. But not everyone shares the HN love of tinkering.
I'll never use the iPad for work, and in the same way I can't bring myself round to using a Mac Mini as my media centre, I don't want the hassle of a full OS over a purposely built OS for the task(s) in hand. All I'd want to do on the iPad is browse the web, read, watch videos, and perhaps play some games.
Overall as long as this isn't Apples future strategy for the Mac platform (which would be suicide), I think it's a nice product, which by the looks of it, will do the job it's made for brilliantly.
I personally will insist on "not" buying any Apple product unless they develop a strategy to innovate(as they did in the past) instead of trying to monopolize the scene...
(Oh, and if you've got some other laptop and pick up an iPad just how long do you think the average user will last before drooling a little more over the MacBook lineup?)
http://www.ideal-case.com/demon-silicone-series-case-for-iph...
on an iPhone you can easily type with your thumbs, grip it firmly and you can use all sorts of multi-touch gestures.
i cant see that happening with a 10 inch tablet.
you would need to hold it / balance it on one hand and then awkwardly control it with your other hand. Doesnt seem ergonomic.
maybe one of the accesories they should release is an iArm, so we can hold it with two arms and confidently use gestures and such with your iArm
You use the iPad to:
- read a book - surf the web - organize/look at/show off photos - watch videos/movies/tv shows - listen to music - send/receive emails - play games - use maps/calendar and the 140k+ apps available in the app store
Anything else, use a Mac (or Windows/Linux).
