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Apple iPad revealed

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VGChampion said:
I am. I have the most clueless friends when it comes to computers and my facebook lit up with iPad stuff today. I think the $500 price tag for an Apple "computer" really hit home for a lot of my friends. I'm expecting to start seeing these everywhere just like the iPhone.
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Really? You can`t carry it around like you can an iPod or iPhone. I don`t see everyone buying man bags and pulling these out in restaurants or on a bus. I do see it selling well at first to the super Apple fans but it is not going to change the computer world like some were hoping.
 
Marty Chinn said:
No offense, but that just seems silly to have one computer for fun and one computer for work. That seems more like trying to justify it than a real need for it. There's no reason a computer can't be for both fun and work and it seems silly that you would need different ones to accomplish that. In fact I would say even less than optimal.
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Absolutely, but very few computers can manage that balance.

There's no arguing that a touch device is more fun - I think it depends on where your balance lies. For me, as fun as any desktop environment gets at the moment, I still just pull out the iPhone and play with small things like browsing through photos.
 
Heh the funny thing out of all this, as much as I'm down on what Apple did, the price point I don't have much of an issue with. Sure it could be a bit lower, but I don't think they did something that drops my jaw in a negative way.
 
twitter is ruthless.

I can understand a few jokes about the name but how the heck did it end up as a trending topic? :lol

msy5uo.jpg
 
mrkgoo said:
Absolutely, but very few computers can manage that balance.

There's no arguing that a touch device is more fun - I think it depends on where your balance lies. For me, as fun as any desktop environment gets at the moment, I still just pull out the iPhone and play with small things like browsing through photos.
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But if that's the case, there's no reason you can't switch to a fun software mode that changes the interface or something to the effect. Surely there is software out there that accomplishes that. For example, I don't watch media on my laptop by going file to file, I'll just launch XBMC for a better flow and interface. No reason you can't do that on a normal computer. In fact that's what I do sometimes for photos.
 
Well, looks like this thing didn't pan out as Apple expected.

I think the overhype is what killed it. If they just said hey, we are makig iPod Touch XL things would have been different.
 
Gary Whitta said:
The more I study what this device is and what it does the more I like it. It's really a perfect middle ground for me when I travel. I usually have to decide between making do with my iPhone (super portable but fiddly sometimes for email, web posting and useless for any real productivity) or take my MBP (full functionality but I hate lugging it around). This is right what I wanted in the middle, super thin and portable but good enough to actually get real things done on it, especially with the stand/case and keyboard dock.

Will purchase 64gb 3G version Day #1.
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Well not all of us have written multimillion dollar movies.:D
 
Marty Chinn said:
But if that's the case, there's no reason you can't switch to a fun software mode that changes the interface or something to the effect. Surely there is software out there that accomplishes that. For example, I don't watch media on my laptop by going file to file, I'll just launch XBMC for a better flow and interface. No reason you can't do that on a normal computer. In fact that's what I do sometimes for photos.
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And they do - Front row for example.

But for me, I still find that a device built for it as being a bit better. I mean, if Apple made a laptop that goes into touch screen 'basic' mode, that could be cool, but it will sacrifice form factor and weight, for example. Having a 'fun' computer as a separate device is not a bad thing. I guess it's like the argument for PC gaming. Console for games is often a better overall experience (sitting on the couch, pop in and play etc), but no-ones going to seriously browse the web on a console. Both devices have their place, and people often have both.
 
There's a case to be made for both. GAF's been right and wrong before, but I think the overall 'underwhelmed' reaction seems to pervade most of the internet.

I don't think ipad are in the same mass market as the heavily plan subsidized iphones. So arguments appealing to that line's success is not directly relevant.

That said, Apple did make a number of very smart decisions

-By introducing a product with the processing capability of notebook/netbook, but avoiding its anemic in-house Leopard OS, it avoids direct comparisons to the much more value rich Windows netbook/notebooks.

-It avoids being pigeonholed as a gimped personal computer. But rather seamlessly extends the iPhone's massive library of apps into a new sub-desktop appliance, while not appearing to be a 'Computer'

There's reason behind the madness. I'm cautiously optimistic about it's performance, but I suspect iPads will be a slow burn and it may take Gen2, Gen3 versions for Apple to 1) bring down the price of the value version 2) increase memory size of all models 3) have ready killer-apps.

2015 sounds about right for iPad domination.

As I noted in the gaming side, it will be interesting to see the Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo response to this. As revised iPads will pose even greater threats to their games business.
 
Is this the first time there's been such widespread disappointment with an Apple unveiling? I can't think of anything else that has been such a letdown. I've been browsing through my regular sites (NeoGaf included) and the only people who like it are the usual suspects who would preorder anything Apple puts out no questions asked .
 
Steve Youngblood said:
Umm, how do you see that working? The iPhone is subsidized because you're usually paying around $100 a month at the minimum and are locked into a 2 year contract.
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Oh I dunno. The iPad 3G plan is $29.99 a month. If they sold a 3 year contract, that's $1080.

That's not a small chunk of money to come up with a subsidy from.
 
can someone explain in a concise way how this is worth anyone's time?

I don't want to read books on an active display, particularly one with the resolution. Besides the cost and lack of expandiblity, it is also heavier than other ereaders....which if you are holding like a book does become an issue.

I can't carry it my pocket so I will need to have some sort of case/backpack....opening up netbooks, CULV notebooks, etc. From watching movies to surfing the web to playing games to nearly any usable function except reading a book, this is worse that netbook/Culv notebook.

Basically is it really just a closed app delivery system which removes all kinds of the things people use computers for? One that is underpowered, overpriced, not expandable, etc?

Picture the reverse situation...this was out for years, then the iPhone comes out...now that would be impressive. This is one giant leap backward. The next step back will be a desktop computer that only runs iPhone apps and has less than 100GB of storage.

/hater out :)
 
WOW! Some of you guys seem to just want to hate and complain. Yes, the iPad is not for everyone, but stop and think for a minute at what this device can do. It's an iPod Touch on steroids which I think is a good thing. Everybody I know that has an iPhone or iPod Touch loves the thing and uses it all the time. Why, because it does almost everything you need to do in a normal day, it does it fast and with style. With the iPad, you get all that and more on a large screen.

Think about it this way, you come home, grab the iPad, slide to unlock and bam you're on the net in 3 seconds. You are at work and get a call for an appointment, grab iPad hit the calendar icon, type in your appointment info. It does everything you do in a normal day really quick and without having to deal with a traditional OS. Surf the net, listen to music, read books, watch videos, etc all without having to startup an OS or use a mouse. For me, the iPad does everything I do on my notebook, but quicker and easier. I have an iMac that takes care of my other computer needs.
 
Ptaaty said:
can someone explain in a concise way how this is worth anyone's time?

I don't want to read books on an active display, particularly one with the resolution. Besides the cost and lack of expandiblity, it is also heavier than other ereaders....which if you are holding like a book does become an issue.

I can't carry it my pocket so I will need to have some sort of case/backpack....opening up netbooks, CULV notebooks, etc. From watching movies to surfing the web to playing games to nearly any usable function except reading a book, this is worse that netbook/Culv notebook.

Basically is it really just a closed app delivery system which removes all kinds of the things people use computers for? One that is underpowered, overpriced, not expandable, etc?

Picture the reverse situation...this was out for years, then the iPhone comes out...now that would be impressive. This is one giant leap backward. The next step back will be a desktop computer that only runs iPhone apps and has less than 100GB of storage.

/hater out :)
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In the most concise (and obvious) way: It's not for you.
 
giga said:
I feel this is relevant.
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:lol Thanks for posting.

giga said:
Keynote is up
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16 minutes in, Steve seems a little... irked or something?

I really want one but I'll be waiting for Gen 2 for better specs and why it's not true widescreen annoys the shit out of meh. Hopefully Wacom will make a pen for it too. :D
 
Karma said:
Really? You can`t carry it around like you can an iPod or iPhone. I don`t see everyone buying man bags and pulling these out in restaurants or on a bus. I do see it selling well at first to the super Apple fans but it is not going to change the computer world like some were hoping.
Click to expand...

I think it's going to really take off for students. It's not the best note taker but half the time students don't take notes on their computer's at class. They play games like solitaire. Obviously the super Apple fans will pick it up day one. And then I think a healthy population will see them around and with a $500 price tag may be inclined to pick one up.

Obviously no one can accurately predict how it will sell but I don't think most of us here at GAF are a good gauge on how this will end up selling. I remember a lot of flack on the iPhone and while it is a phone, more people had smart phones than they did before. I don't think it will do as well as the iPhone but I do think it will do much much better than the Air and be considered a success.

Marty Chinn said:
No offense, but that just seems silly to have one computer for fun and one computer for work. That seems more like trying to justify it than a real need for it. There's no reason a computer can't be for both fun and work and it seems silly that you would need different ones to accomplish that. In fact I would say even less than optimal.
Click to expand...

Well, for me my work computer is a Mac Pro. I really only use software like Final Cut and Adobe's suite. I don't casually browse around on it. Right now I'm using a Macbook as my casual machine and would rather use an iPad where I can relax a little more. The thing I'm most worried about it is the heat. I don't want another machine that gets hot but at least this one won't be in my lap. I can have this in a dock on my desk, holding it like a book, laying it down, etc... I still haven't decided if I'm going to get a G1 but I can definitely see the appeal.
 
Bitmap Frogs said:
Well, looks like this thing didn't pan out as Apple expected.

I think the overhype is what killed it. If they just said hey, we are makig iPod Touch XL things would have been different.
Click to expand...

Unless you have a time machine, maybe you should wait until it's actually released to proclaim it's death?
 
SnowWolf said:
Is this the first time there's been such widespread disappointment with an Apple unveiling? I can't think of anything else that has been such a letdown. I've been browsing through my regular sites (NeoGaf included) and the only people who like it are the usual suspects who would preorder anything Apple puts out no questions asked .
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Old skool mac users are permanently disappointed because they miss the Apple that pioneered hardware.

But, this kind of letdown? I don't remember one.

@Tobor I'm not pronouncing it dead, just sayin this hasn't generated the kind of "oooh aaaah" as their latest major unveilings, AKA iPhone. The bar is set too high. And I still say the device itself is nice, maybe somewhat niche but definitely useful for what it's meant to be. It's just that it just is a big iPod Touch with a very nice screen.
 
I have to say, watching the keynote presentation and I'm falling into the reality distortion field.... (and I was already positive about the device).
 
Beardz said:
For me, the Ipod touch is crap, If I want to pause/back/forward/volume I need to take out of my pocket, and look at the screen... crap!
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Brother of my heart!

Yeah, I just prefer buttons. Unfortunately buttons on my nano are a bit crap, they don't "just work" when I press them some times. Oh well, it's an Apple. :\
 
SnowWolf said:
Is this the first time there's been such widespread disappointment with an Apple unveiling? I can't think of anything else that has been such a letdown. I've been browsing through my regular sites (NeoGaf included) and the only people who like it are the usual suspects who would preorder anything Apple puts out no questions asked .
Click to expand...

Nope. The iPod comes to mind.
 
SnowWolf said:
Is this the first time there's been such widespread disappointment with an Apple unveiling? I can't think of anything else that has been such a letdown. I've been browsing through my regular sites (NeoGaf included) and the only people who like it are the usual suspects who would preorder anything Apple puts out no questions asked .
Click to expand...
Maybe the Apple TV.
 
Byakuya769 said:
Once you start bringing the dock or wireless keyboard, how is the iPad going to be any better to bring on trips than the macbook or mb pro?
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Because you won't have to bring them if you won't need them.
 
If I didn't have an iPhone AND a laptop, I really think this would appeal to me. Actually, it would appeal to me a lot, since most of what I do with my laptop I could do on the iPad. As it stands, however, I won't be getting one. Perhaps I'll look at them in the future.
 
Honestly, I'm not hating here but I really don't get the appeal of this. It's not powerful (or feature rich) enough to be a macbook and the screen (and price) are not idea for an eBook reader.


Bart: Dad, What's an iPad?

Homer: Well, it's not quite an iMac and not quite an iPod but man *laughs* *pauses*. To answer your question I don't know.
 
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
Flash is a plugin. Stop talking about it like it's a part of the web.
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Yes, because underplaying the prevalence of Flash on the web is helpful to the discussion.

My favorite part of iPhone OS discussion is seeing the same people who trash Apple for using proprietary formats demand that Apple start supporting Flash on their devices.
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You're being pretty obtuse here. While certainly, many people take issue with proprietary formats in general, that isn't the crux of most peoples' argument. The issue is one of prevalence. Using proprietary formats that aren't particularly common (ie. creating new ones) annoys people. Similarly, not supporting a widespread format, even if it's proprietary, is equally annoying.

People want playback of the content they own and routinely utilize online. That really shouldn't be deemed as expecting too much. This sort of mentality is part of the reason AppleTV failed.
 
Tobor said:
Because you won't have to bring them if you won't need them.
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I should have quoted what Gary Whitta said. That was more directed at his comment. Though I would argue that other than bus trips and short transits, this still is outstripped by laptops in terms of usability. Guess the e-reader stuff is a good notch for it. Though I can't wait to mess around with one.
 
Will end up being legit, but just not now. I'm not gonna total player hate like most, but as some have said this thing just screams I'll be awesome once I get a revision or two with all the kinks worked out!
 
The videos showing this thing in action are pretty impressive. Watching it play videos and scrolling through iTunes is awesome. iBooks looks great too. Really impressive stuff.

I can appreciate that this isn't a device for everyone, and people are question what it can do for them, but I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't some great tablet only apps out by launch that really take advantage of it, and resolution independence will make iPhone software run great on it too.

Personally, this thing is going to be a great replacement for the netbook I bought for travel. This is a better option for me, although I'm going to need to add iWork and the camera pack too.
 
So far, it's seems like it could be a good device, particularly for entertainment and multimedia, but it could be so much greater if it had a USB port and perhaps a memory card slot as well. This would've made it easy to turn into an easy home Internet terminal for the casual user, with the ability to connect a Webcam for a video chat, or to get photos from a digital camera and upload to a photo service.

I'm not very familiar with iWork, but how would you get documents off of this thing? I guess that if you're in Wi-Fi range, you could E-mail them or upload them to a central Apple-maintained Web site, but what's the process like to download to a computer? Again, if it had USB or a memory card slot, then someone could take it on the road, make some quick edits to a document, then put the document on a USB flash drive or a memory card to take to work.

It's probably going to be a good "companion" device to a traditional computer, but it would've been awesome if it could've been tweaked to become a potential laptop replacement.

As far as E-book reading goes...it looks like it could be good. I've seen some articles questioning if this threatens Amazon's Kindle or other similar devices. From a hardware perspective, Kindle is focused on E-books first and foremost, and they allow easy wireless connection at no added cost to the user. Kindle currently lacks color, but (the basic model) is also much cheaper, more compact, and has superior battery life (reminiscent of Game Boy vs. Lynx/Game Gear/TurboExpress). For those reasons, I don't see Kindle disappearing anytime soon. Even if the Kindle hardware were to fall by the wayside, I can see Amazon positioning themselves as a content provider. It's entirely feasible that people could buy iPad hardware from Apple, followed by Kindle E-books from Amazon.
 
Steve Jobs propositions that a middle device has to be 'better' at key things than the laptop and smartphone.

He lists them:

Browsing
Email
Viewing and sharing photos
Watching Video
Listening to music
Games
Reading e-books


NOTE - see how things like photoshop, parsing code, or even productivity stuff like iWork isn't on that list? Sure it can do those things, but he doesn't identify them as key things a Tablet-in-the-middle device needs to do to have a place for existing. It's very much a consumer oriented device.


Here's what I see in all that:

Browsing: For me, yes, better than a laptop. Maybe a little more janky when it comes to replying in a forum, but not a big deal. I'm not writing essays in a forum (well, actually, I kind of do, but you know what I mean). The ability to browse on a large multi touch screen makes it the go to device for me to browse. I think for a lot of you out there who use multiple browsers, a billion different extensions, and have dozens of tabs open, you'll probably think differently. And yes, browsing is for sure better than the iPhone.

Email: Hmmm. I think the Laptop is going to have to win on this, even if just for the typing. But given that I also need attachments for links and all sorts of other things, it's even more clear. For short emails and stuff I think the tablet will be 'ok'. The iPhone is pretty sucky for email, and is only tolerable because it's mobile.

Photos: for sharing and viewing, I think the tablet wins again. All the fun of the the iPhone, and the brilliance of a large display that you can pinch to zoom, and hand around. Editing is obviously much better on a laptop, but again, that's not the target purpose of the device.

Watching videos: iPhone is a bad experience, and only good again, for the mobility. It does it well, but it won't be a preferred device. I would say the laptop is better at it than the tablet too, but the tablet will do an admirable job. The laptop simply has an even larger display, more easily accessible options (hulu, more storage, streaming options), better sound and remote options.

Music: I'd say the iPhone wins on this one, at least for me. I like to listen to music with headphones, and move about. The Tablet will be better than the laptop though, if you're just sitting there listening and maybe browsing. I'm not sure how good a laptop really is if you're JUST sitting there listening.

Games: I have to admit, iPhone gaming is fun. I don't play games on my laptop much, and prefer to play them on more handheld devices. Not sure how this will pan out for the tablet.

Ebooks: for sure, it's better than a laptop and a smart phone.


Of course the thresholds and opinions of people will differ on each of these points, but I think the tablet does have its heart in the right place for most of these aspects, so it has a place for me.

Edit:steve makes the distinction of the netback not being 'better' at anything because it's just a laptop (with an inferior display). I guess his point is at best, the netbook mimics what you already have. The iPad at least provides a new experience. It's obvious he;s coming format eh point of view that a netbook as a supplementary device to a computer you already have. If you look at it this way, as in not having a netbook/tablet as an 'only' device, it makes a little more sense.I'm sure he sees that a netback has a place, but that place isn't a new category, which he claims the iPad to be.
 
bigger less portable iphone.

can't see myself getting one. maybe if they'd made a swivel screen macbook air that i could use as a tablet i'd be interested.

but essentially an iphone with way less portability - no for me.
 
sportzhead said:
Think about it this way, you come home, grab the iPad, slide to unlock and bam you're on the net in 3 seconds. You are at work and get a call for an appointment, grab iPad hit the calendar icon, type in your appointment info. It does everything you do in a normal day really quick and without having to deal with a traditional OS. Surf the net, listen to music, read books, watch videos, etc all without having to startup an OS or use a mouse. For me, the iPad does everything I do on my notebook, but quicker and easier. I have an iMac that takes care of my other computer needs.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, I can definitely see some potential, but limited, uses of the iPad, but your examples are horrible. You say it's quicker and easier, but the reverse can be equally true.
 
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