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iPad: Or, why you have to look at the advertising

rinich.com

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Re: iPad: Or, why you have to look at the advertising

#71

Post by niels_olson »

pyre wrote: post #57
csmeder wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your essay is great. It makes me feel less alone in this world. I didn't find it full of vehemence. ` It is okay to speak with force. At times force is needed to cut through layers of of mental resistance. New ideas that we don't understand scare us. We fear what we don't understand. The points you are trying to make are over the head of most people. 99.9999999% don't get "it". If they did we would have more companie…

> The iPad is not a solution to the question of: whats a better computer or whats a better phone. Just as the iPhone wasn't a better Razor. The iPad is a consumer device in the truest sense of the word. It's a device that was built to make it as easy as possible for the user to consume media whether it's the Web, movies, music, photos, etc. Plain and simple. Oh, and comparing the iPhone to the Razr is a bit of a stra…

> The iPhone was an evolutionary leap instead of a revolutionary leap.

The evolutionary theory term of art is "punctuated equilibrium": stable stable stable WOW stable stable

Re: iPad: Or, why you have to look at the advertising

#72

Post by zhyder »

telemachos wrote: post #69
zhyder wrote: post #68

I'm underwhelmed not because the geek in me finds the technical specs lacking, but because I don't see anything innovative . The hardware and software are absolutely predictable (except for lacking a few features like a webcam and a USB port): no brilliant UI solution to the problem of typing while holding the tablet, no special screen tech to work well in reflective mode, no new business model for news or books, not…

I'm sorry, but did you actually read the post you're commenting on? You may not agree with all his arguments, but the post addresses the "no innovation" claim head on (scan for Sgt. Pepper’s, if you can't find it).

I read it, and found the 'Yes, but it’s never been done all at once' assertion weak. The OP's general point is that the iPad is 'magic', which I correlate with 'innovation'; I think many of us are bummed because we see neither. (If it matters, I was giddy when the iPhone was announced; there was a lot of innovation in that device.)

Re: iPad: Or, why you have to look at the advertising

#73

Post by rinich »

telemachos wrote: post #70
rinich wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(That actually gets me thinking — do we know anything about the iPad's printer compatibility? Did I miss some announcement about that?)

I work at a school considering a laptop program. This was our first question, and we couldn't find anything in specs that explicitly talked about this. I have to assume that you will be able to print wirelessly, but there's that tiny fear that somehow you can't as a protective feature for the ebooks. Silly question, but can you print from a Kindle or a Nook?

I've never seen a way to do so from a Kindle. I'd imagine it would be risky for them to offer that service: What's there to stop you from printing your own book?

Re: iPad: Or, why you have to look at the advertising

#74

Post by rinich »

zhyder wrote: post #72
telemachos wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but did you actually read the post you're commenting on? You may not agree with all his arguments, but the post addresses the "no innovation" claim head on (scan for Sgt. Pepper’s, if you can't find it).

I read it, and found the 'Yes, but it’s never been done all at once' assertion weak. The OP's general point is that the iPad is 'magic', which I correlate with 'innovation'; I think many of us are bummed because we see neither. (If it matters, I was giddy when the iPhone was announced; there was a lot of innovation in that device.)

Yeah, I get what you mean. At first this was a real let-down event for me. I was hoping, stupid and irrational as it would be, for Apple to unveil a completely new OS, completely new functionality and technology, and instead all they did was take their already-successful technology and reemploy it.

What excited me after I saw the keynote: Speed and apps. The fact that this thing is blisteringly fast is exciting in and of itself. No load times for anything? Pretty neat. And then they did some of the demo apps, the NY Times one in particular, and basically showed off then and there how the newspaper industry could save itself, and I was struck by the fact that given a screen of this size and a processor of this speed (whatever that actual speed is), you're capable of making a lot of very powerful things.

iPhone apps right now are some of the best programs ever made. In terms of build and ease-of-use and aesthetic quality, there're some things there that blow away and Windows/Mac app I've ever used. The fact that now developers have even more room to make their content means to me that we're going to see some applications that are cool to a degree that we've never seen before. If hearing birdcalls on your phone is magical already, I want to see what those same creative minds are capable of given ten inches of real estate.

So, not exciting on the surface, but the implications make me really giddy. I'm sure when we get closer to launch date Apple will reveal ads that say all that but more smoothly. I'm actually excited to see what the ads will be like.

Re: iPad: Or, why you have to look at the advertising

#75

Post by rinich »

jrockway wrote: post #61
rinich wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep! We've gotten into a lot of these discussions before. (I hope you took my comment lightheartedly, and not as a personal insult — it's more my way of saying we'll agree to disagree here.) Usually I'm not a fan of the slew of Apple articles. This time I thought it warranted some, but even so it's very over-the-top. For whatever reason we've all decided to hate the shiny thing with the terrible name. I thought it mi…

(I hope you took my comment lightheartedly, and not as a personal insult — it's more my way of saying we'll agree to disagree here.) Indeed I did :) Does Apple sell music with DRM anymore? As far as I know, many songs are non-DRM'd, but not all of them. But really, DRM didn't work out for the music industry, and it is gradually going away. It's videos/software/books that I am worried about now. For example, I would l…

As far as I know, many songs are non-DRM'd, but not all of them.

Hm. I thought that their big announcement last year was that they'd converted the entire store to DRM-free, but I could be mistaken.

It's videos/software/books that I am worried about now.

Yeah, I agree about this one. Right now, I try and treat each thing on a case-by-case basis. I never buy digital video, but I'll buy my games off Steam and I buy the occasional Kindle book because Valve and Amazon have done such a job of winning my trust. (Even when Amazon messes up, like with the 1984 thing, they're very good at realizing they were dumb and sounding convincing in their apology.) I also feel like books and games are so easily pirated that if something bad happens, I can get myself a copy anyway.

Now, video rental is something different. I'm completely fine with the idea of paying for temporary access if I'm watching a TV show or a movie. DRM doesn't matter if it'll be gone a few hours from now anyway.

Re: iPad: Or, why you have to look at the advertising

#76

Post by rinich »

zppx wrote: post #66

> 'I will give you this magical thing that can do anything' Well, it will not open to applications at the same time.

No, it can't, but it really doesn't matter that it can't. Most applications save your place in them, so the only cost of switching is that you have to wait a second for it to relaunch. If you've got a powerful enough processor, then relaunching applications is simply like switching. And because we've got a single-process tablet, there's no slowdown over time, no gucking up as things run dry.

I'd like Apple to figure out a policy that lets Pandora stream in the background, or Last.FM. Those are the only two I care about. Using push notifications for IM works perfectly for me: I see the messages as they happen, which is all I care about.

Re: iPad: Or, why you have to look at the advertising

#77

Post by rinich »

z8000 wrote: post #62

Hyperbole is the best thing ever! This made me laugh: "and so the only thing you need to make a beautiful program is a beautiful graphic designer"

In every field of art, you see the biggest innovations when the technical barriers to doing things are taken away. Make film equipment cheaper and a lot of brilliant people without much money hit the scene. Make synthesizers cheaper and you have the 80s.

Something very similar is happening here. If I have an idea for a great hardware product, now I have the option of using this existing hardware, which is beautiful and has a beautiful method of interacting. Certain of the UI specs have already been handled for me. So there's less of a gap between my having an idea and my launching it than there was, say, five years ago.

I'm hoping for further similar breakthroughs. It would be nice if making a program was simply a matter of sketching out the user interface and seeing it realized.

Re: iPad: Or, why you have to look at the advertising

#78

Post by tel »

pyre wrote: post #57
csmeder wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your essay is great. It makes me feel less alone in this world. I didn't find it full of vehemence. ` It is okay to speak with force. At times force is needed to cut through layers of of mental resistance. New ideas that we don't understand scare us. We fear what we don't understand. The points you are trying to make are over the head of most people. 99.9999999% don't get "it". If they did we would have more companie…

> The iPad is not a solution to the question of: whats a better computer or whats a better phone. Just as the iPhone wasn't a better Razor. The iPad is a consumer device in the truest sense of the word. It's a device that was built to make it as easy as possible for the user to consume media whether it's the Web, movies, music, photos, etc. Plain and simple. Oh, and comparing the iPhone to the Razr is a bit of a stra…

Oh, and comparing the iPhone to the Razr is a bit of a strawman.

The Razr, first time around, captured people's imaginations because it suddenly offered the deep, unheard of cultural need to have the world in your pocket and have it be so small and sleek that you forget what that means. The iPhone is very comparable, except when Apple did it they redefined world.

I'd say that 98% of people don't even know that Apple had a keynote today.

But when the commercials come out, 75% of people will drool.

If you look at it from a cultural perspective, Apple is once again selling us the future. It was already here, sure, but now it'll be at your doorstep, charged, as soon as you like.

Re: iPad: Or, why you have to look at the advertising

#80

Post by KWD »

rinich wrote: post #19
philk wrote: post #18

I think you're going a bit over the top by saying they've killed every photo frame company on the planet. People aren't going to buy five iPads and put them up around their house.

I was referring to the digital frames. Maybe I'm missing something (entirely possible!) but I don't know what any other "display photos in a digital box" hardware has to offer that this doesn't. Upvoted, among other things, for making me imagine a waterfall of iPads displaying upon them photographs of waterfalls. Unrelated imagery. Thanks!

Price - would you rather spend $50 bucks for a digital frame or $500 for an iPad to sit on a desk?
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