Live data from Hacker News

Poll: Are you getting an iPad?

news.ycombinator.com

111–120 of 152 posts

Re: Poll: Are you getting an iPad?

#116
post #63

No. I've had it with apple. I bought a few of their products. They're beautiful and clever, but eventually I always end up feeling humiliated by how evil they are - treating me as a user like I was a worthless money machine. Also I find it hard to imagine how I would use such a device - too big to put in my pocket, no e-ink, so it can't serve as a book reader and no keyboard, so I can't use it to create things.

Agreed on the lack of e-ink. When I read that Amazon and Sony would have to struggle to provide a touch-screen, full-color interface, I thought that meant Apple had come out with an e-ink tablet. It looks really cool, yes, but frankly I'm disappointed it's not e-ink. That specific feature attracted me to the Kindle in the first place, and I absolutely love that I'm not staring at light.

Why don't people understand what an incredible compromise e-ink is? It does nothing well except emulate words on a printed page. It can't be used for Web surfing, it can't be used for gaming, it can't show photos or videos, and you can't use it to implement any kind of meaningful user interface. It's too slow by two orders of magnitude for any of these tasks.

If you want to try to compete with Apple by building an expensive gadget that only does one thing well... good luck with that.

Re: Poll: Are you getting an iPad?

#117
Ok is there anyone who honestly though it would be more than an over sized Ipod Touch?...

Considering that, and all the restrictions, this is probably the saddest piece of hardware/software that I've seen in a while.

"Hey look! I just bought a 500$ picture frame"

Re: Poll: Are you getting an iPad?

#118
post #106
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on the lack of e-ink. When I read that Amazon and Sony would have to struggle to provide a touch-screen, full-color interface, I thought that meant Apple had come out with an e-ink tablet. It looks really cool, yes, but frankly I'm disappointed it's not e-ink. That specific feature attracted me to the Kindle in the first place, and I absolutely love that I'm not staring at light.

What is the appeal of e-ink? I breathed a sigh of relief that it was not based on e-ink - a technology that isn't up to the task of doing what this device can do.

e-ink's appeal is in the fact that it is beautiful to read off of. I do however agree that its not the right display tech for this device.

Re: Poll: Are you getting an iPad?

#119
Yes, but not for ME. I can see my father using it to show holiday pictures or my girlfriend for surfing the web in the sofa. We're not the target market on the customer side.

However, we ARE the target market on the developer side. The success of this device hinges on the quality of the apps WE are going to build for it. My bet is that there will be a lot of innovative apps for this device.

The SDK is dead easy for the devs who already put out 100K iPhone apps, multi-gesture will allow some interesting gameplay, CoreText may allow you to build gorgeous text-based apps. The device packs some real CPU power.

Sure, the limits (DRM, AppStore, API-limts, Single-App) kinda suck. But with the $$$ luring an established developer-base I expect lots of apps to be available soon. And it's the quality of these entertainment/fun apps that is going to drive the success of this device.

So maybe we should rephrase the poll: Who is going to develop for the iPad? (How do I create a poll?)

Re: Poll: Are you getting an iPad?

#120

No No flash video No SD slot No USB (come on apple) No writing input (newton 2?) Weird itouch/iphone OS, means apps/everything controlled by apple, expensive No eink display

There are USB and SD card reader dongles for the dock connector, but no word on what kind of access third-party apps are going to have to them.
Post reply on HN