Why the iPad isn't for me • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#121

Post by pyre » Wed, Apr 14, 2010, 5:01 AM UTC

roc wrote: post #115

pyre wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> its net effect has been positive for entire classes of software that are as-of-yet implausible via the internet. I'm curious as to what you're referring to here.

Games. Art creation tools. Sound mixing. Musical creation tools. There are plenty of media-rich applications written by independents and minor players, enjoying far more success on the app store than they could via shrink-wrap channels or home consoles.

But that's due to a captive audience and a single channel of sales. You could make the same arguments for many things.

Disney can turn a higher profit selling soda in their parks because they are the only ones selling soda in their parks and a 20oz bottle costs $2.00+. That doesn't mean this is a net win for anyone but Disney.

If WalMart were the only retail store on the face of the planet, people that were able to sign deals with WalMart would also enjoy great success...

The reason they wouldn't do as well in shrink-wrap channels is that they would have to have a larger marketing budget, and market to a wider audience at smaller returns. The audience of iPhone users is an audience with low barriers to impulsing purchases, and an audience of relevance (i.e. iPhone users going to the AppStore are all potential customers, random people in a B&M store may or may not be potential customers).

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#122

Post by greyhat » Wed, Apr 14, 2010, 6:35 AM UTC

pilif wrote: post #5

The audio file linked in the article is brilliant. If you have 10 minutes, I'd suggest listening to it instead of reading the article.

Seconded. Extremely entertaining, I was not expecting that.

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#123

Post by sesqu » Wed, Apr 14, 2010, 7:09 AM UTC

blhack wrote: post #35

MWinther wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But apparently, having Adobe dictating the very same thing is fine, then?

Assume adobe released a hardware platform and it didn't support javascript. If somebody were to suggest that the entire web development community was going to abandon javascript in order to allow adobe's platform to reach the saturation required to make it the "standard", then your argument might make sense. As it stands, the iPad exists in a state that makes it almost unusable for the overwhelming majority of web us…

Graceful degradation. People would absolutely suggest that, and charge dearly for implementing it. Companies would pay for some of it, and in 5 years, it would either die out or there would be some sort of "cgi on rails"-framework that automates some minimal version of that, that looks horrendous and sorta-kinda works. Probably ASP.net. Then we'd have hobbyists and ux professionals hand-crafting everything on a lamp-like stack, and everyone else would get along with upgrading backends.

ECMAScript may be google's horse in the race, but it's still just an add-on.

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#124

Post by philwelch » Wed, Apr 14, 2010, 7:46 AM UTC

VBprogrammer wrote: post #89

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…

I would caution against using the music creation applications as good examples of iPad applications. Firstly, musicians rarely skim on their gear, if an iPad and a $10 App will do the same job as a bit of hardware costing twice the price more than half of them will buy the hardware. I've not used a synth very much but I doubt a touch screen provides an adequate replacement for the musical keyboard, nevermind the more…

Jordan Rudess, the keyboardist for Dream Theater, has an iPhone (loaded up with various synthesizer apps) as one of his (many, often expensive) instruments.

EDIT: Here he is playing the iPhone in the middle of his keyboard solo, live: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONGpprZBkrs

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#125

Post by philwelch » Wed, Apr 14, 2010, 8:04 AM UTC

conanite wrote: post #81

roc wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Clearly it should inform your purchase decision, but why should it be scary ? No one device is for all people to do all things. So why should a particular weakness inherent in this form-factor be scary ?

It doesn't scare me as a user - it scares me that yet another device encouraging passive consumerism may become immensely popular. It's sad to become used to hearing "I can't cook/sing/draw/dance/code/whatever" - I would rather live in a world where everyone is a producer of some sort, in a way that content and culture are not monopolised by Big Industry. Maybe 'scary' was a bit strong - I'm not exactly trembling und…

Personally, I kind of want an iPad just so all my consumption starts getting off-loaded from my laptop--that way I can reserve it for creative work.

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#126

Post by mahipal » Wed, Apr 14, 2010, 10:34 AM UTC

illumin8 wrote: post #98

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.

Sell it on eBay. They seem to be going for around $575+ for the 16GB model. It's not really a bad profit: getting paid $75 to play with a new toy for a week.

Careful! If he paid $500 + tax, then after eBay fees + PayPal fees + shipping costs, he's quite likely to take a loss selling it on eBay.

It may still be less of a loss than Apple's restocking fee, though.

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#127

Post by roc » Wed, Apr 14, 2010, 2:16 PM UTC

pyre wrote: post #121

roc wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Games. Art creation tools. Sound mixing. Musical creation tools. There are plenty of media-rich applications written by independents and minor players, enjoying far more success on the app store than they could via shrink-wrap channels or home consoles.

But that's due to a captive audience and a single channel of sales. You could make the same arguments for many things. Disney can turn a higher profit selling soda in their parks because they are the only ones selling soda in their parks and a 20oz bottle costs $2.00+. That doesn't mean this is a net win for anyone but Disney. If WalMart were the only retail store on the face of the planet, people that were able to s…

If Apple only allowed in EA, Activision, Ubisoft, etc - you'd have a point with your captive audience analogy. The PS3, PSP, PSN, etc fit in great with your argument.

But the App Store is different than that. More than just the big names are allowed in and are making money. And that's the net win.

Apple delivered a massively lower barrier of entry (even if it's arguably higher than necessary and certainly higher than we might like) and they've gone out of their way to provide services that massively level the playing field: hosting, equal placement[1], cc processing, international support, etc.

Even though it's still a closed platform, more creators are making a living by creating and that's a net win in my book.

[1](Try getting a shrink wrap game on a shelf at Best Buy next to The Sims. Increased marketing/packaging/distribution costs aside: it simply does not happen unless you sign on with a publisher.)

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#128

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 14, 2010, 2:29 PM UTC

swannodette wrote: post #80

mrkurt wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#129

Post by mrkurt » Wed, Apr 14, 2010, 2:29 PM UTC

swannodette wrote: post #80

mrkurt wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Everything Apple sells has a primary purpose. If their products didn't, they wouldn't be very good would they?

Re: Why the iPad isn't for me

#130

Post by pyre » Wed, Apr 14, 2010, 6:14 PM UTC

roc wrote: post #127

pyre wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's due to a captive audience and a single channel of sales. You could make the same arguments for many things. Disney can turn a higher profit selling soda in their parks because they are the only ones selling soda in their parks and a 20oz bottle costs $2.00+. That doesn't mean this is a net win for anyone but Disney. If WalMart were the only retail store on the face of the planet, people that were able to s…

If Apple only allowed in EA, Activision, Ubisoft, etc - you'd have a point with your captive audience analogy. The PS3, PSP, PSN, etc fit in great with your argument. But the App Store is different than that. More than just the big names are allowed in and are making money. And that's the net win. Apple delivered a massively lower barrier of entry (even if it's arguably higher than necessary and certainly higher than…

> If Apple only allowed in EA, Activision, Ubisoft, etc - you'd have a point with your captive audience analogy. The PS3, PSP, PSN, etc fit in great with your argument.

But the App Store is different than that. More than just the big names are allowed in and are making money. And that's the net win.

I don't entirely agree with that. The AppStore only allows in people that Apple 'likes.' Granted, this is a larger group than say the vendors at Disney's theme parks or Walmart's retail contracts, and maybe that is a net win. But it's still a captive audience. Apple could achieve the same effect with the AppStore + random apps installed from the internet.

The AppStore would still be the same integrated purchasing experience, and I'm willing to bet that most people would still sign up to be part of the AppStore. But this also leaves the avenue open for people that Apple "doesn't like" to create apps that target the platform.

What would you think if Ford Motor Co decided to make all their cars only accept tires make in a proprietary fashion that tire makers had to license from Ford Motor Co? They could make the same arguments as Apple. They could claim that they are only doing this to 'ensure the quality of the tires used on their cars.' It would be their right to do so, just as it's Apple's right to restrict their platform. But I think there would be a ton of people upset about the move.

> Even though it's still a closed platform, more creators are making a living by creating and that's a net win in my book.

I agree that it's a net win because it's 'better than what we had before.' The issue is that it could be even better but Apple is purposefully holding us back from that because we should 'just be happy' that things are 'better now than they were before.'

Though it's a flawed analogy, it's sort of like rescuing us from slavery to make us indentured servants instead of going the full monty and setting us free. Sure being an indentured servant is a hell of a lot better than being a slave, but we could have been set free at the same time. [ I realize that in reality indentured servants were little better than slaves of a different name. I'm going off the flawed picture that most children's history books paint for us to build this analogy. ]