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

Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

jwz.livejournal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 65 posts

Re: Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

#41

Post by jwr »

yanowitz wrote: post #2

Dammit. I keep resisting the lure of the iPad, but when jwz weighs in... Must. Wait. For. Next. Version. You know, the smaller one with the front facing camera. So my kids can do FaceTime with their grandparents. Or the one with a (dare I hope) retina display. I guess that's probably a few versions out.

No user that owns an iPad complains about the lack of a front-facing camera. Also, no user that has used an iPad for a week or so considers it to be equivalent to an iPhone.

Those aren't things you can explain — you have to experience using the iPad for several days to understand. It really is a different device from everything we are used to.

Re: Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

#42

Post by cletus »

saurik wrote: post #37
cletus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of a front facing camera is a common complaint but honestly (owning an iPad that I love and use all the time) I don't think the use case is as cut and dried as that. Video calls are most often made with a desktop computer or laptop. Laptops have a camera at the top of the screen. Most Webcams are attached to the top of monitors. So you are typically eye level with a desktop webcam or just above with a laptop…

I'd love to know what you actually do with yours. Every single use case I could come up with for the iPad was totally destroyed by the iPhone 4, which has 80% the resolution but fits in my pocket. If a new iPad came out with a reasonable screen I could totally see it being an awesome device, but at 1024x768 people really just need to learn to hold their iPhone 4 closer to their face.

Email, Web browsing, reading technical books, games, photo storage, photo editing, slideshows, watching TV, Twitter, Facebook (even though theres no native iPad app annoyingly), reading (particular technical books where the extra screen real estate really shines), reading my RSS feeds, etc.

I have n iPhone 4 too and will certainly pull that out of my pocket and use it but at home I just prefer the larger screen.

Re: Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

#43

Post by masklinn »

lancer383 wrote: post #13
yanowitz wrote: post #2

Dammit. I keep resisting the lure of the iPad, but when jwz weighs in... Must. Wait. For. Next. Version. You know, the smaller one with the front facing camera. So my kids can do FaceTime with their grandparents. Or the one with a (dare I hope) retina display. I guess that's probably a few versions out.

I would love to see Retina Display picture quality on iPad, but can you imagine the resolution of that screen? Today the screen is 132 ppi - taking that up to 326 ppi would make it somewhere in the vicinity of 2528x1896. Would Safari then be blowing up web sites so ~960px width sites don't look tiny on that resolution?

> Today the screen is 132 ppi - taking that up to 326 ppi would make it somewhere in the vicinity of 2528x1896.

They wouldn't actually do that. They'd "just" double the resolution so the applications can easily be scaled up losslessly, as with the iPhone 4. So you'd get a 2048x1536 screen at 264dpi (one thing to consider is that you'd probably hold your iPad further from your eyes than your iPhone, so the you can have slightly bigger pixels).

Modern hardware absolutely isn't able to provide such pixel densities on such a small surface at an affordable price, and even less able to drive those things using mobile CPUs and GPUs (we're talking about the resolution of your average 30" screen, which still kicks modern GPUs in the teeth)

Re: Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

#44

Post by wazoox »

xal wrote: post #14
statictype wrote: post #3

It's an instant-on appliance with a real web browser and real mail reader on a real screen. I guess that's the selling point right there. It's not a computer that requires booting and starting up system services and logging in. It's an appliance you can immediately turn on and start using.

That being said, the ipad needs user profiles so badly it's not even funny.

Apple sells it as a personal device, so you have to buy one for each and every family member. Do you have user profiles on your phone? Of course you don't.

Re: Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

#45

Post by ido »

gamble wrote: post #18
ergo98 wrote: post #12

Everyone always leads in with the "I thought it was useless" bit. Did they really? Haven't they used a digital picture frame and though "Gosh, wouldn't it be cool if this could show the weather...and had a web browser...and let me play movies from my server..." I find it difficult to believe that so many intelligent people (of which jwz is definitely one) purportedly couldn't see the obvious appeal. I've been using s…

It is a $500+ device. At that point most people are looking for some guarantee that it's going to be useful. The iPad is an unusual product, because doesn't address an obvious need. Laptops were just portable desktops. mp3 players were digital Walkmans. Smartphones are a combination of PDA, mp3 player, and phones. Most new classes of electronics are just an extension of an existing product in an obvious but technical…

    The iPad is more like the original PC - 
    superficially similar to its predecessors, 
    but used quite differently.
A bit OT, but how was using the original PC categorically different than using an apple2/atari 800/trs-80/etc?

Re: Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

#46

Post by ido »

ergo98 wrote: post #12

Everyone always leads in with the "I thought it was useless" bit. Did they really? Haven't they used a digital picture frame and though "Gosh, wouldn't it be cool if this could show the weather...and had a web browser...and let me play movies from my server..." I find it difficult to believe that so many intelligent people (of which jwz is definitely one) purportedly couldn't see the obvious appeal. I've been using s…

    Haven't they used a digital picture frame and though
    "Gosh, wouldn't it be cool if this could show the
    weather...and had a web browser...and let me play 
    movies from my server..."
I never saw a digital picture frame, let alone used one - and my initial reaction was to think those would be pretty useless :)

Re: Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

#47

Post by arethuza »

ido wrote: post #45
gamble wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a $500+ device. At that point most people are looking for some guarantee that it's going to be useful. The iPad is an unusual product, because doesn't address an obvious need. Laptops were just portable desktops. mp3 players were digital Walkmans. Smartphones are a combination of PDA, mp3 player, and phones. Most new classes of electronics are just an extension of an existing product in an obvious but technical…

The iPad is more like the original PC - superficially similar to its predecessors, but used quite differently. A bit OT, but how was using the original PC categorically different than using an apple2/atari 800/trs-80/etc?

I think IBM branding had a lot to do with it - as it was made by IBM it was a serious business tool whereas other devices were merely "toys".

Of course this had nothing to do with the capabilities of the technologies but everything to do with positioning.

Re: Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

#48

Post by d0m »

Herring wrote: post #38
d0m wrote: post #24

This matrix style hurts my eyes.

http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

I already used it. But it just make no sens to me. It's like if I create a blog with light yellow written over light green where nobody can read a thing and then tell them to use another application to be able to read it.

But to be fair, 6 years ago, my terminals were like that. So I guess this hacker/matrix mode goes away with time.

Re: Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

#49

Post by listic »

ido wrote: post #45
gamble wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a $500+ device. At that point most people are looking for some guarantee that it's going to be useful. The iPad is an unusual product, because doesn't address an obvious need. Laptops were just portable desktops. mp3 players were digital Walkmans. Smartphones are a combination of PDA, mp3 player, and phones. Most new classes of electronics are just an extension of an existing product in an obvious but technical…

The iPad is more like the original PC - superficially similar to its predecessors, but used quite differently. A bit OT, but how was using the original PC categorically different than using an apple2/atari 800/trs-80/etc?

I think he meant to say that PC is superficially similar, but different from the computers of previous era: terminals connected to mainframes.

Re: Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

#50

Post by qwzybug »

cletus wrote: post #42
saurik wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to know what you actually do with yours. Every single use case I could come up with for the iPad was totally destroyed by the iPhone 4, which has 80% the resolution but fits in my pocket. If a new iPad came out with a reasonable screen I could totally see it being an awesome device, but at 1024x768 people really just need to learn to hold their iPhone 4 closer to their face.

Email, Web browsing, reading technical books, games, photo storage, photo editing, slideshows, watching TV, Twitter, Facebook (even though theres no native iPad app annoyingly), reading (particular technical books where the extra screen real estate really shines), reading my RSS feeds, etc. I have n iPhone 4 too and will certainly pull that out of my pocket and use it but at home I just prefer the larger screen.

Composing presentations, preparing invoices, sketching, Monkey Island, writing.

The retina display makes a huge difference for reading, so I tend to use the iPhone for feeds and things, but for anything creative the iPad is the clear winner.

Post reply on HN