The Next Six Months • Hacker News Board

Re: The Next Six Months

#181

Post by dagw » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 9:43 AM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #178

fierarul wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are few times when you need to connect to iTunes: * after the purchase (to "activate" it) -- which the store will do for you * if you want to update the OS * if you want to back it up * if you want to copy music/photos/videos/app data from your computer to the iPad. So, if you don't update the OS and you activated it at the store you'll just use it forever with the existing OS without ever touching a computer.…

And when it randomly crashes hard, leaving you looking at the dreaded "Connect to iTunes" screen. It somehow knows to do this at the moment you're furthest from being able to find a computer with iTunes. My iPod Touch did it when I was on the Pacific coast of Colombia for a month (note the complete absence of roads and towns along said coast). Getting to a place where I could listen to music again involved an overnig…

I imagine that if Apple is seriously planning a future where the iPad is the only computer that 'normal' people need then the iTunes requirement will disappear soon. I imagine that some sort of iTunes in the cloud is currently in the works, where all your music and videos are stored by Apple (for a modest fee) and you can either stream directly or sync a subset of it for offline use.

Re: The Next Six Months

#182

Post by bruceboughton » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 9:52 AM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #178

fierarul wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are few times when you need to connect to iTunes: * after the purchase (to "activate" it) -- which the store will do for you * if you want to update the OS * if you want to back it up * if you want to copy music/photos/videos/app data from your computer to the iPad. So, if you don't update the OS and you activated it at the store you'll just use it forever with the existing OS without ever touching a computer.…

And when it randomly crashes hard, leaving you looking at the dreaded "Connect to iTunes" screen. It somehow knows to do this at the moment you're furthest from being able to find a computer with iTunes. My iPod Touch did it when I was on the Pacific coast of Colombia for a month (note the complete absence of roads and towns along said coast). Getting to a place where I could listen to music again involved an overnig…

You take it into the Apple store. You know, the stores with great tech support that don't exist for PCs (yet).

Re: The Next Six Months

#183

Post by arethuza » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 10:02 AM UTC

arohner wrote: post #142

sofuture wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to -4 on this, but: it absolutely still remains to be seen whether or not tablets are worth a damn . Seriously, people play shitty games on them, and I guess read ebooks (though I see vastly more Kindles on the subway, than iPads). I do not, at all see a compelling product yet, I see a trendy gadget that early adopters and trend followers have purchased. Sure there's great lip service to how revolutionary t…

I use my iPad nearly every day. It's a better experience than my laptop (which I do use literally every day) in several areas: * reading in bed * reading long PDFs. This is my primary "work purpose". I read a lot of machine learning books and journal articles in PDF form. * quick checking of email, when you don't want to sit down for a while * looking up recipes while cooking * social media sharing: when friends are…

That list is pretty close to my list with the addition that I find the iPad to be an excellent device for video content (mostly BBC iPlayer but also stuff through iTunes).

If I want to watch with more than one person I use our 50" plasma - but if its just me I'm more likely to just sit on a comfy chair and get comfortable with the iPad. Watching extended videos (i.e. more than short YouTube clips) on a laptop or desktop just feels wrong to me.

Re: The Next Six Months

#184

Post by jasonkester » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 10:10 AM UTC

bruceboughton wrote: post #182

jasonkester wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when it randomly crashes hard, leaving you looking at the dreaded "Connect to iTunes" screen. It somehow knows to do this at the moment you're furthest from being able to find a computer with iTunes. My iPod Touch did it when I was on the Pacific coast of Colombia for a month (note the complete absence of roads and towns along said coast). Getting to a place where I could listen to music again involved an overnig…

You take it into the Apple store. You know, the stores with great tech support that don't exist for PCs (yet).

Did you actually read the comment you're replying to?

In this particular anecdote, the nearest Apple store would have been in San Diego, 3200 miles away. The nearest internet connected computer capable of downloading iTunes was a mere 150 miles away in Buenaventura, a 2 hour motor launch, followed by a (weekly) night boat from the village I was in.

It was meant to illustrate that sometimes you take your mobile devices away from civilization. Suggesting that the solution is to bring them back to civilization sort of misses that point.

Re: The Next Six Months

#185

Post by haraball » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 10:20 AM UTC

thomas11 wrote: post #176

gamble wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure e-ink is an asset in a PDF reader. I use my iPad for a lot of technical papers and books. It's much faster than an e-ink display would be, and the page turning lag is still annoying. E-ink would be insufferable.

My Kindle 3 turns PDF pages about as fast as I could turn a page in a book or a stapled article printout. Not lightning fast, but good enough for me.

Still you have to wait for the page to render. When you are turning a page in a book or a printout you are doing something that requires some kind of activity from your part, but when you have clicked the button you are just waiting for things to happen.

I don't mean to say that this is a big problem, and I haven't been using E-ink readers that much. But when it comes to digital reading, I appreciate the snappiness of scrolling fast through pages and also the "jump to" functions, whether it's via links or "go to page" actions.

Re: The Next Six Months

#186

Post by masklinn » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 10:37 AM UTC

cletus wrote: post #132

I mostly agree with Gruber but disagree on a couple of major points: 1. Releasing the iPad in September makes no sense simply because it was such a massive hit in the holiday season. Generally speaking, you want to spread out your demand as much as possible. It took 2 months to get the previous iPad from the US to the first round of international markets and another 3-4 months to do the full round. You can only produ…

> It took 2 months to get the previous iPad from the US to the first round of international markets and another 3-4 months to do the full round.

It took about 5 months for the initial iPhone to get out of the US. By the 3G's release, iPhone was in 6 countries (USA, France, Germany, UK, Ireland and Austria).

The iPhone 3G was released simultaneously in 22 countries (though the 3GS backed out a bit, release day for only 8 countries and the rest staggered over 2 months)

Re: The Next Six Months

#187

Post by fierarul » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 10:39 AM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #178

fierarul wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are few times when you need to connect to iTunes: * after the purchase (to "activate" it) -- which the store will do for you * if you want to update the OS * if you want to back it up * if you want to copy music/photos/videos/app data from your computer to the iPad. So, if you don't update the OS and you activated it at the store you'll just use it forever with the existing OS without ever touching a computer.…

And when it randomly crashes hard, leaving you looking at the dreaded "Connect to iTunes" screen. It somehow knows to do this at the moment you're furthest from being able to find a computer with iTunes. My iPod Touch did it when I was on the Pacific coast of Colombia for a month (note the complete absence of roads and towns along said coast). Getting to a place where I could listen to music again involved an overnig…

>But I suspect that was an edge case that Apple didn't have in mind when they designed that feature.

Indeed, if you read the great-great parent comment, we are not talking about a device for Bear Grylls to be used in the wilderness.

Activation is an annoying concept, but except crashes like yours, a device will work just fine without a machine with iTunes nearby.

Re: The Next Six Months

#188

Post by yesbabyyes » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 10:53 AM UTC

joeyo wrote: post #164

zzleeper wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you prefer reading the articles in paper or in the ipad? (I'm considering switching from paper to ipad) Thanks!

I'm watching this space very, very closely (i.e. tablets specifically for reading PDFs of articles). There are a lot of options but none are quite perfect: * iPad Pros: - Color screen - Can zoom to exact size desired - Multi-touch - Papers.app (easy sync/organization for PDFs) Cons: - Not e-ink - Battery life - Not as light/thin as Kindle * Kindle 3 Pros: - E-ink - Amazing battery life Cons: - Zoom is limited to a co…

Check Adam from Notion Ink. Next pre-order round starts soon, next week I think (note: I haven't received mine yet, from the first pre-order. Others have, though).

Re: The Next Six Months

#189

Post by ghshephard » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 10:55 AM UTC

thomas11 wrote: post #176

gamble wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure e-ink is an asset in a PDF reader. I use my iPad for a lot of technical papers and books. It's much faster than an e-ink display would be, and the page turning lag is still annoying. E-ink would be insufferable.

My Kindle 3 turns PDF pages about as fast as I could turn a page in a book or a stapled article printout. Not lightning fast, but good enough for me.

I have a k1, k2, k3 and iPad. In fact, I brought the k2 and k3 and iPad on a vacation with me to Kauai. Don't try and read complex PDFs on a kindle. I have several dozen downloaded onto my iPad (dropbox+goodreader make this trivial) - the kindle is not the right tool for flipping through PDFs. I have logged about 40 hours reading on the kindles in five days - (mostly on the beach, a little at coffeeshops) - but linear text reading (novels) is really their strong suit. I don't think I've ever run into anybody that tried to use them for technical/reference/diagrams and was happy with the results. Too slow, no easy way to hop around in the doc.

The iPad, on the other hand, is almost perfect for this. The screen needs to be higher resolution, easier to read in sun (though a matte screen protector helps a lot) and I'll be perfectly content.

As it is, I have not printed a single 8 1/2x11" printout in six+ months - the iPad has let me go almost 100% paperless. (11x17 printouts of network diagrams still useful in meetings)

Re: The Next Six Months

#190

Post by ZeroGravitas » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 11:10 AM UTC

Bud wrote: post #90

megablast wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will undoubtably have a camera, so now start making all those camera apps use the bigger screen. Same with skype, etc... I will add the ability for users of my iPad apps to use photos, take photos, etc... This was limited to the iPhone version. More memory means will be able to do more things, load up bigger files into mem.

I need a poor-quality, low-sensitivity camera attached to the back of a foot-long iPad about as much as I need cameras built into my jeans, belt buckle, toothbrush, and turkey baster. Just because you can build a camera (or two cameras) into everything doesn't mean you should. Cameras are a certain size and shape for a reason. I see no reason to build a rear-facing cam into the iPad. Ever tried to hold a slippery, 7.…

Cameras aren't cameras anymore, they're just another sensor input. Do you want to scan a barcode or QR code? Do you want to scan a document? And then translate it? Do you want Augmented Reality games that let you fly a little spaceship around the room and shoot your friends? The plunging cost of camera chips means they'll be increasingly ubiquitous. I wouldn't rule out one on your toothbrush.