Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey • Hacker News Board

Re: Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

#61

Post by joezydeco » Fri, Sep 03, 2010, 2:57 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #9

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 particular point doesn't seem like a huge win to me, as someone who never shuts down his laptop. I just open the lid and it's on, then close the lid and it's "off". The form factor/weight seems like the bigger win, at least for me. Although if you're going to carry around a Bluetooth keyboard to use it, like jwz apparently does, that seems like it eats away at the advantages there a bit?

Just curious: when you close the lid on your laptop, are you hibernating/sleeping, or is the CPU always running?

When I do the closelid/openlid thing on my Debian laptop, it takes a good 10-20 seconds for my wifi to reacquire...and that's after I log in. Then I need to tickle Chrome or my mail client to sync up. I'd say maybe 30 seconds before I can see new email or load a web page.

In playing with the iPad, I've found it just comes up right away and I can see mail in 10 seconds. I can also scoop the iPad off the counter with a drink and some other items and plop on the couch. Not as easy to do with my laptop.

Re: Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

#62

Post by loewenskind » Fri, Sep 03, 2010, 2:59 PM UTC

arebop wrote: post #59

loewenskind wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything you would pay a realistic price for? You seem to vastly undervalue what things are worth. Of course you'll probably say "that's what it's worth to me", but is that correct? Is the time saving and convenience really only bringing $5 worth of value to your life? That would mean it saves you about an hour of time across the entire lifetime of the product (assuming a very low value for what your time is…

Yes, I do buy other things. As for time savings and convenience, even having used the iPad for a few minutes one day, I don't think it would save me any time at all compared to using my laptop. iPad is less convenient for carrying around than my Android phone, and its software keyboard makes it less convenient for programming than my MacBook Pro. Yes I know I could add an external keyboard, but then I would have to h…

You should try out the keyboard in landscape mode. It's probably not as bad as you expect. I make a lot of errors but the software corrects them so well that I usually just ignore them and touch type at nearly normal typing speed. There are also shortcuts, like double space terminates the current sentence and starts the next, turning dont into don't, etc.

Re: Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

#63

Post by access_denied » Fri, Sep 03, 2010, 3:56 PM UTC

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.

I agree. And this makes it perfect for planning, thinking, note-taking. Hanging around in the garden, the thoughts are coming, hit Omni-Focus or something and develop your vision. Put the device on the side and jump into the pool. It's features are more 'indirect', keyword practicability.

Re: Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

#64

Post by _delirium » Fri, Sep 03, 2010, 5:38 PM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #61

_delirium wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That particular point doesn't seem like a huge win to me, as someone who never shuts down his laptop. I just open the lid and it's on, then close the lid and it's "off". The form factor/weight seems like the bigger win, at least for me. Although if you're going to carry around a Bluetooth keyboard to use it, like jwz apparently does, that seems like it eats away at the advantages there a bit?

Just curious: when you close the lid on your laptop, are you hibernating/sleeping, or is the CPU always running? When I do the closelid/openlid thing on my Debian laptop, it takes a good 10-20 seconds for my wifi to reacquire...and that's after I log in. Then I need to tickle Chrome or my mail client to sync up. I'd say maybe 30 seconds before I can see new email or load a web page. In playing with the iPad, I've fou…

It hibernates/sleeps, and does so basically instantly as far as I can tell. It's an OSX laptop. Due to driver issues, I believe Debian's hibernation isn't quite as smooth, though I've heard it's getting better (I only run Debian on my desktop, so have no first-hand knowledge).

Re: Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey

#65

Post by jacobolus » Fri, Sep 03, 2010, 7:06 PM UTC

d0m wrote: post #48

Herring wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One nice thing about the web (as opposed to say a book or magazine) is, if you own your blog, you can make its defaults look like whatever you want, and your readers can override that to make it look like whatever they want.