Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

rinich.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 104 posts

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

#91

Post by pyre »

tel wrote: post #78
pyre wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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

Maybe I missed those adverts, but the Razr was just a sleek design. Its claim to fame was how small it was. It was still just a phone though. It didn't offer 'the world in your pocket' unless you define 'the world' to mean 'a phone line and my contacts book.'

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

#92

Post by pyre »

baxident wrote: post #67
adw wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can hook up a printer, this does everything my sister (she's a social worker) needs to do with a computer, cheaper and more reliably.

I can print wirelessly on my MacBook, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to on an iPad.

Except that the iPad runs iPhone OS not Mac OS. Well, I guess you could be running the iPhone OS on your MacBook...

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

#93

Post by davidmathers »

cabalamat wrote: post #84

Is it me, or is computing not boring anymore? I'll explain what I mean. From about 1995 to about 2007, the copmuter industry was predictable. Microsoft dominated the desktop and the laptop. A user interface in 1995 (e.g. Windows 95) looked and worked much the same as one in 2007 (e.g. Ubuntu 7.10). Sure, Microsoft had competitors, but Linux and Mac OS were niche systems that seemed likely to continue to be so. But no…

Yes, I think it's safe to say that the middle ages/dark ages of personal computing are over.

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

#94

Post by stcredzero »

It's one thing to make great technology. It's another thing to market and sell it. Apple can do both. Apple really gets it. But what is it exactly that they get? Here it is, they can do 5 things very well:

    - Hardware
    - Software
    - Human Interface Design
    - Marketing
    - User/Developer Ecosystem
If they weren't able to do all 5 of these very well, it wouldn't matter how great the devices are. Other companies do the hardware & the software. Some are even pretty good at the marketing. Very few companies do all 5 of these things as well as Apple does and make that a seamless whole.

Of these 5, the last two are often the missing secret sauce. Of these 5, the last one is the most powerful. They realize this. Why do you think they do everything that they do with the stores?

Open Source shows that you can have nothing but software and ecosystem.

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

#95

Post by dozba »

cabalamat wrote: post #87
xcombinator wrote: post #64

I agree with the article, but I understand the reaction here. HN is a group of very smart people, and logical genius, that despise the power of emotions. Human beings are not machines, and one of the most important things is how they feel. Apple knows that,that is what marketing is all about and this means for me that Ipad is going to be a success because: 1)When you rotate the screen, it feels responsible instantly.…

> 1)When you rotate the screen, it feels responsible instantly. Not to nitpick, but ITYM responsive.

> Not to nitpick

That's exactly nitpicking.

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

#96

Post by swernli »

pyre wrote: post #91
tel wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 Maybe I missed those adverts, but the Razr was just a sleek design. Its claim to fame was how small it was. It was still just a phone though. It didn't offer 'the world in your pocket' unless you define 'the world' to mean 'a phone line and my contacts book.'

For what it's worth, check out the wikipedia page on the RAZR, specifically the section on Cultural Impact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razr. Key quote: "The RAZR has been said to the 'iPod' of mobile phones. Being the slimmest phone during its release in 2004, it easily stood out amongst other phone models. IT has also been one of the most popular mobile phone models since its first release, until being surpassed by the iPhone 3G in November 2008..."

However, it notes this popularity was never matched outside the USA.

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

#97

Post by Psyonic »

rinich wrote: post #49
pyre wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you can call up your photos in a slideshow at any time on a machine that makes doing so feel intuitive, you might not like the programmable frame. I thought that point of photo frames (digital or not) was to display your photos, not to have an iPad sitting on the coffee table that has all of your photos on it ready to sift through. This is like saying that putting a photo album on your coffee table makes photo…

The problem is that I never really got picture frames. I think it's weird having photos of people just randomly hanging around. Especially if it's a small screen giving me a crappy cycling photo. I'd rather have a device upon which all my family memories are stored. But I'm the odd man out, I guess. I'd always thought digital photo frames were dead anyway; from the opposition that line got here, I guess I'm wrong! Ap…

So basically you just wrote an article about how us nerds don't get "normal people," and in the process committed the same sin by not getting what a digital picture frame is for "normal people?" Funny

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

#98

Post by chrischen »

rinich wrote: post #42
chrischen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how this would increase movie sales. Most people already have TVs, and TVs have much bigger screens than the iPad. So unless the iPad makes it much easier to deliver those HD movies on to your TV, I doubt it will do much. But even if it does do that, it'd be encroaching on the Apple TV's space.

Most people don't buy movies on their computer. It's more logical to buy a DVD set, which plays on both TV and computers, than it is to buy a digital movie that can't be moved back easily. Computers don't offer much of a movie-watching advantage, so the computer-movie market is floundering. The iPhone lets me buy movies on the fly, which gives me a great convenience. But it's small. The iPad, on the other hand, lets…

Why would it be more convenient to pull out an iPad vs a Macbook Pro when you're on a plane? By that logic, you'd get an even bigger screen with your macbook pro, and it's practically just as easy to pull that out. So that should have increased sales already. Not to mention with your computer you can play non-DRM movies if you have those. If anything the iPad might decrease pre-flight movie sales, because the TSA would think it's witchcraft--i mean, a bomb.

I see the iPad as more of a home-mobile device, rather than a mobile device. That is, it's a device mainly for home use which allows you to be mobile around the house with your information, instead of a device you take outside. A laptop is a device you take outside, because it can do so much more if you need it--like work stuff. If you're going out you'd want to know you have a more capable device on hand just in case.

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

#99

Post by tel »

pyre wrote: post #91
tel wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 Maybe I missed those adverts, but the Razr was just a sleek design. Its claim to fame was how small it was. It was still just a phone though. It didn't offer 'the world in your pocket' unless you define 'the world' to mean 'a phone line and my contacts book.'

swernli nailed it. Prior to the Razr you could definitely own a cell phone, but it was the first one to dare that putting a phone line in your pocket could be easy, sleek, attractive. It took the extant technology and made it into a piece of future-stuff.

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

#100

Post by chrischen »

Psyonic wrote: post #97
rinich wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that I never really got picture frames. I think it's weird having photos of people just randomly hanging around. Especially if it's a small screen giving me a crappy cycling photo. I'd rather have a device upon which all my family memories are stored. But I'm the odd man out, I guess. I'd always thought digital photo frames were dead anyway; from the opposition that line got here, I guess I'm wrong! Ap…

So basically you just wrote an article about how us nerds don't get "normal people," and in the process committed the same sin by not getting what a digital picture frame is for "normal people?" Funny

I think he doesn't get photo frames in general, not just the digital ones.

> I'd rather have a device upon which all my family memories are stored.

This has been possible with computers for what, at least 15 years now? Whether or not it's more intuitive on an iPad is subjective. But as far as having it all stored digitally, a computer can already do that.

The thing the iPad revolutionizes about photos is that it allows you to walk around with it around the house.

Post reply on HN