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Why the iPad isn't for me

macworld.com

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Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#71

Post by swannodette »

akadien wrote: post #6

Neither is it for me. I'm sending mine back. Things I don't like: (a) Eye strain, (b)It doesn't provide enough utility for me to justify another device in my life, and I don't want another media consumption device. In short, it's another toy. (c) An awkward device angle when touch-typing and trying to read what I'm typing.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1263033

If you are creative person (musician, visual artist, designer, writer), the iPad might very well be the first usable digital sketchpad for your medium. I tire of people saying the iPad is primarily for consumption; it's simply not true. It may not appeal to the computer hacker, but it certain appeals to many other kinds of hackers.

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#72

Post by troystribling »

blhack wrote: post #66
troystribling wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That the iPad is consistently classified as a media consumption device seems an attempt to trivialize its significance by people who consider themselves power users. I agree that currently the use cases of most applications fall into this category, that it is expensive and I doubt you will ever do application development on a device of its form factor, but it is clearly not just a media consumption device. A few exam…

Who wants to spend $500 on something that kindof browses the web, and then needs a bunch of addon cruft in order to do anything useful? Didn't apple learn their lesson with the MBA? Get the air...and a USB hub...and an external DVD burner...and an ethernet dongle...and an external hard drive! Look at how portable it is! (especially when thin notebooks have all of these things built in).

It is expensive with the current feature set and will likely have to drop below $300 to become common place but for music control surface applications it's 25% the cost of a Lemur and is more functional since it is programmable http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/442113-REG/Jazz_Mutant...

For most uses I doubt you will need any attachments, with the exception of the case.

My irritation with the opinion expressed in the article and the general content consumption opinion is that the judgments are based on currently available software and hardware configuration and trying to use it like a laptop or phone. It is neither and will likely have new uses and assume some uses of these devices. Dismissing it after only a little more than a week seems unthoughtful and short sighted.

If you are interested in investigating applications for the new form factor the iPad will likely be the only game in town for a year or so and I would buy one. If you are looking to use it for something other than a toy I doubt I would buy it. It could be another few years before similar devices actually catch on with then obvious uses or it could fail and your money and time are wasted.

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#73

Post by zzzmarcus »

necubi wrote: post #69
mortenjorck wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand why Apple ever decided to play up the iPad's web browsing experience. I've written on this at length before, but even apart from Flash, the desktop web is simply not compatible as-is with a tablet interface. The iPad will make a fantastic browser for the tablet web, if and when that web is built, but today it's a poor substitute for a mouse and keyboard when websites expect those.

I don't think you've actually used the iPad to browse the web. Personally, I block flash on my desktop and rarely find reason to unblock it, so the lack of flash doesn't bother me. Meanwhile, surfing on the iPad is in general so nice that I've been doing it even when near my computer.

I have an iPad and I don't really miss Flash too much, but I do find other aspects of web browsing much less efficient.

Tabs are much more cumbersome. Instead of just clicking a tab, you've got to zoom out, pick your window and zoom back in. It's a lot more motion.

Scrolling, typing, copying and pasting are also not as simple. Touch scrolling is nice, but it's a lot more movement. Typing and copy/paste are just slower. I still type slower on the large iPad keyboard than on the much smaller iPhone keyboard.

Another problem I have with it is that if I'm filling out a form, for example a message on Facebook, and I need to switch to email to copy something and come back to Safari and paste it in, there is no guarantee that the Facebook message I started typing will still be there. It's a little frustrating.

I'm sure all these kinks will eventually be worked out, but as it is, I still find myself grabbing my Macbook Pro when I'm going to be any "serious" browsing or my iPhone when I'm just looking something up really quickly.

I really like the iPad for some things, but in my experience, browsing hasn't been all it was cracked up to be.

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#74

Post by mrkurt »

swannodette wrote: post #71
akadien wrote: post #6

Neither is it for me. I'm sending mine back. Things I don't like: (a) Eye strain, (b)It doesn't provide enough utility for me to justify another device in my life, and I don't want another media consumption device. In short, it's another toy. (c) An awkward device angle when touch-typing and trying to read what I'm typing.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1263033 If you are creative person (musician, visual artist, designer, writer), the iPad might very well be the first usable digital sketchpad for your medium. I tire of people saying the iPad is primarily for consumption; it's simply not true. It may not appeal to the computer hacker, but it certain appeals to many other kinds of hackers.

I think it probably is primarily for consumption, as evidenced by the apps that it ships with.

I have no doubt that visual artists can create pretty good work with one, but I think they'll generally prefer pen based interfaces. Especially if they have giant sausage fingers. :)

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#75

Post by qeorge »

blhack wrote: post #18
ubernostrum wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a slideshow on smugmug.com, some pictures of their granddaughter I have a feeling that if the iPad sells well, the "why do it in HTML when we could do it in Flash" style of site will die out. It's no consolation right now, of course, but I wouldn't complain if that ends up happening (and, really? Flash just to show some pictures one after another?).

Ehh...I'd say that, if anything, web developers don't want apple dictating how they design their websites. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of people aren't HN readers and really don't care that adobe has changed their CS5 pre-order app to flash. They like going to smugmug and having it just work.

Definitely true. We've all been barking up the "don't use Flash unless you need it" tree for years, but it hasn't really made a difference.

Bottom line seems to be that people love the way Flash sites look. If we can achieve that differently, bully for us, but most people probably won't notice.

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#76

Post by kenjackson »

necubi wrote: post #69
mortenjorck wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand why Apple ever decided to play up the iPad's web browsing experience. I've written on this at length before, but even apart from Flash, the desktop web is simply not compatible as-is with a tablet interface. The iPad will make a fantastic browser for the tablet web, if and when that web is built, but today it's a poor substitute for a mouse and keyboard when websites expect those.

I don't think you've actually used the iPad to browse the web. Personally, I block flash on my desktop and rarely find reason to unblock it, so the lack of flash doesn't bother me. Meanwhile, surfing on the iPad is in general so nice that I've been doing it even when near my computer.

It's a great experience for browsing a web page. But here's something I had to do when I had my iPad, which sucked with it, but is great on desktop:

We have a wiki and I needed to move a bunch of comments to work items in our bug database. So on my desktop I would have just have two instances of the browser open and would literally read from the wiki and create new work items in the bug database.

On the iPad this was painful. There's no side by side view (that I could get to work at least), and it seemed to reload the bug database every time I'd toggle back to that page!!! I don't want a reload, just show me the page I was looking at 10 seconds ago!

Not a good experience.

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#78

Post by Psyonic »

pohl wrote: post #45
Psyonic wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As is, $500 for a 3-year old's toy seems a little crazy. By her a leap-frog instead? But cheaper, more durable options would make a lot of sense.

Isn't it more likely that the pad would belong to the parents and a $1.99 app would be the child's toy?

You'd think so, but this is the 3rd review I've read where the adult was relatively disappointed in the iPad, but OH BOY does his child love it. It's starting to make me think its for kids.

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#79

Post by Psyonic »

briancooley wrote: post #56
Psyonic wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As is, $500 for a 3-year old's toy seems a little crazy. By her a leap-frog instead? But cheaper, more durable options would make a lot of sense.

My kid has a leapfrog, but that doesn't curb her curiosity about other devices. I don't know how it is with others, but my kid is fascinated with all my computers. My netbook, my MBP, my Droid, my Touch, and now my iPad. I don't discourage her curiosity. We had a VIC-20 when I was a kid and later a Commodore 64, and that's probably the reason I love programming to this day. What she wants most of all is for her paren…

I don't have kids, but I'd feel exactly the same about letting her explore and try out things.

What I was saying was that if it was a disappointment for you, but your 3 year old loved it, it's probably not worth keeping. Child curiosity can be appeased for less than $500.

Now if you loved it as well, it's a different story.

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#80

Post by swannodette »

mrkurt wrote: post #74
swannodette wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1263033 If you are creative person (musician, visual artist, designer, writer), the iPad might very well be the first usable digital sketchpad for your medium. I tire of people saying the iPad is primarily for consumption; it's simply not true. It may not appeal to the computer hacker, but it certain appeals to many other kinds of hackers.

I think it probably is primarily for consumption, as evidenced by the apps that it ships with. I have no doubt that visual artists can create pretty good work with one, but I think they'll generally prefer pen based interfaces. Especially if they have giant sausage fingers. :)

I don't think it's primarily for anything. Apple doesn't ship any creative tools with OS X either. The iPad is what you think it is. I find it telling that geeks think it's primarily for consumption because they can't code in it- it's called tunnel-vision.
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