Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Warning: pedranty follows. That is making my inner pedant twitch uncontrollably. :) (successfully resisted. back to vi.)
Actually, he said predrantry . Three R's.
You people are funny.
IPad 2 Official Specs
151–159 of 159 posts
Re: IPad 2 Official Specs
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I started working for Apple (about 5 years ago now) it was my dream job (I had serious fanboitis). The new hires got a security orientation which was your basic "We spend lots of money protecting things; don't do anything lame." But the reality of working makes the magic unicorn dust wear off. I saw a bunch of prototypes and I knew a bunch of information that nobody else 'knew' but lots of outsiders suspected. I…
Surely if you were encouraged to 'eat your own dog food', that would mean people inside apple would be testing stuff themselves, so would mean eventual public releases would be better?
You might think so. It would be hard to test this empirically since I would need an alternate universe where people inside apple did not test unreleased software on themselves before releasing. But seeing the process that goes into deciding what fixes go in and what fixes don't has educated me to NOT update unless I have a real need to. I saw lots of examples where a fix for something broke something else that was seemingly unrelated. Or that a feature that I liked depended on a bug that was going to be fixed. That's why I wait on Software Updates. And if I don't need the Update, I don't install it.
The problem with 'eating your own dog food' is that it is dog food, so it's really hard to eat. To comply with this edict, I would set up a separate machine and install the latest build and play around with it for about 15 minutes and spend a half hour (or more) filing bugs. Thus, I wasn't really eating my own dog food...
Installing new builds turned out to be a big time-sink. It took time for the build to install and then you had to go through the paces of setting the machine up. You also had to do a clean install because of incompatibilities with previous releases.
After all of this, you started testing. Then you started finding bugs, and since I was in engineering, I tried to make sure the bug was reproducible and even tried to track down which component was responsible (which is a mess if you're dealing with overlapping stacks of software). THEN, you had to crawl through the maze of reported bugs to see if there was something already reported that was close... Hopefully they've made the bug reporting system better since I was there (but I doubt it… the system I used had been in place for a long time).
On top of that, I needed to get actual work done. There was no way that I was truly going to use a ever changing system of dubious quality to do work. I tried, and it was too difficult (although I knew of some folks that were faithful and did so).
'Eating your own dog-food' is an ok idea. It's not clear to me that it was the best idea for this particular situation. As a general practice, it seems that if your particular product scope is small enough, this would be a good idea. If it's larger, hiring a set of dedicated test engineers would be awesome. (The ironic thing is that Apple had those too!)
Re: IPad 2 Official Specs
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's pretty curious. Why would they keep that capability quiet for so long?
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC953ZM/A#overview The iPad2 is the only device which supports video mirroring. For all other devices, restricted video out remains, even with the Digital AV Adapter. It will only send video when the application supports it.
Yeah, I read that bit. I guess I wasn't clear: it means the iPad, iPhone4 and iPod Touch 4g have had the ability to output HDMI all along. It's pretty weird they'd keep that quiet IMO.
Re: IPad 2 Official Specs
#154HDMI video mirroring is going to be big. My sister-in-law is a high school teacher and has been wishing she could hook her iPad up to the projector since the day she got it. Think of all the possibilities...makes so much more sense for a school to spend $500 on an ultralight, ultraportable iPad than spend more on bulky desktops you have to cart around just to play a video or show a web article (citation: my old high…
It's amazing how Apple can repackage technology that has been widely available in laptops for years and convince everyone that it's "going to be big." And I'm sure it will be... Just makes me feel like I'm going crazy though (as I type this on a laptop connected to a 24" HD monitor via HDMI).
Well the reason they convince everyone that it's going to be big is because of how they repackage it. That has been the case from the iPod on and again here with HDMI. As others have mentioned, I don't need anything more than just my iPad for HDMI presentations now.
Re: IPad 2 Official Specs
#155Re: IPad 2 Official Specs
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
These iPads ain't for you. Apple doesn't want two important kinds of customers: power-users and penny-pinchers. Simple as that.
What tablet would a "power user" use then? And what practical tablet is cheaper?
What tablet would a "power user" use then?
A laptop.
Re: IPad 2 Official Specs
#157predictions: - iPhone 5G will use this dual-core A5 chip - there'll be a smaller, low-cost iPhone model (nano iPhone?) - the next nano will play video (maybe combined with the above?) - iPad 3G will play 1080p, and have 1GB RAM These devices have enough power for a full OS. But I predict Apple will hold off combining them (OSX on iPad; A5 in laptop/desktop) for as long as possible: 1. it doesn't help the customers of…
EDIT
- iPhone 5G will have HDMI out and keyboard in.
You might think Apple would be hesitant to do this, because it will cannibalize their own laptops and desktops. I think they will do it as soon as they can, because: they have a history of racing down the tech curve as fast as possible; if they don't do it and it's possible to do, someone else will, and the strategic losses from not being first are enormous; it will only start to cannibalize their other products (because a smartphone really isn't as good yet; people are familiar with the old way; power users are a long way off being disrupted).
I've been waiting for this. Ye Mark my Words, the End is Nigh for the PC: July 2011
Re: IPad 2 Official Specs
#158Replaced the MVA matrix with IPS. Same bad cameras as 4G iPod Touch - 1MP in the back, even worse in the front. Suitable for video calls only IMHO. Too bad the models with cell connection don't support audio calls. Could've completely replaced a phone with a wired or bluetooth handsfree.
Replaced the MVA matrix with IPS. Not sure what you mean - all iPads have been IPS.
Right, my bad.
Re: IPad 2 Official Specs
#159Anybody know if the 3G models are carrier locked, or is it simply that the 'AT&T' model is GSM/UMTS and the 'Verizon' is CDMA?
Sadly it now seems clear that the iPad 2 will be locked to specific providers (at least in some regions) - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/06/apple_forced_to_make...