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

8 Things That Suck About iPad

i.gizmodo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–15 of 15 posts

Re: 8 Things That Suck About iPad

#11

Post by jacquesm »

ytinas wrote: post #9
jacquesm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multitasking doesn't need to add complexity and stability issues, if ubuntu can do it then so can apple. It does add more power consumption. Multitasking is useful because humans are multitasking. For instance, a navigator that guides someone to their destination could run in parallel to lots of other applications and be very useful that way. Single tasking computers are pretty much done for, multi tasking is the nor…

>Multitasking doesn't need to add complexity and stability issues, if ubuntu can do it then so can apple. That it can be done doesn't mean it isn't complex. It is. And by "stability" I didn't mean the phone/tablet constantly crashing, I meant having inconsistent performance. Once you get into multitasking, everyone and their brother is going to have some really "good" reason they need a service. Some of these will al…

> Humans are incredibly awful at multitasking.

On the contrary, we excel at it by pushing things 'down' when we have mastered them.

For instance, driving and talking to a passenger, walking and thinking about something and so on.

We are so good at it that most of the time we don't even notice any more how many things we are doing at the same time.

The only time we are not multitasking is when we are really concentrating on something difficult, usually problem solving or learning a new skill.

Re: 8 Things That Suck About iPad

#12

Post by ytinas »

jacquesm wrote: post #11
ytinas wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Multitasking doesn't need to add complexity and stability issues, if ubuntu can do it then so can apple. That it can be done doesn't mean it isn't complex. It is. And by "stability" I didn't mean the phone/tablet constantly crashing, I meant having inconsistent performance. Once you get into multitasking, everyone and their brother is going to have some really "good" reason they need a service. Some of these will al…

> Humans are incredibly awful at multitasking. On the contrary, we excel at it by pushing things 'down' when we have mastered them. For instance, driving and talking to a passenger, walking and thinking about something and so on. We are so good at it that most of the time we don't even notice any more how many things we are doing at the same time. The only time we are not multitasking is when we are really concentrat…

Fair point. But I would point out that the only things this works with are things we have thoroughly mastered (e.g. walking). People have issues talking and driving (e.g. in parts of Europe it's illegal to talk on a cell while driving because of all the accidents it causes).

In my experience it depends on the amount of processing required. If I'm driving a straight away with traffic going mostly the same speed I can hold complex conversations. As soon as something happens on the road I drop the conversation until my attention isn't needed on the road anymore.

Re: 8 Things That Suck About iPad

#13

Post by jacquesm »

ytinas wrote: post #12
jacquesm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Humans are incredibly awful at multitasking. On the contrary, we excel at it by pushing things 'down' when we have mastered them. For instance, driving and talking to a passenger, walking and thinking about something and so on. We are so good at it that most of the time we don't even notice any more how many things we are doing at the same time. The only time we are not multitasking is when we are really concentrat…

Fair point. But I would point out that the only things this works with are things we have thoroughly mastered (e.g. walking). People have issues talking and driving (e.g. in parts of Europe it's illegal to talk on a cell while driving because of all the accidents it causes). In my experience it depends on the amount of processing required. If I'm driving a straight away with traffic going mostly the same speed I can…

Yes, that's exactly how it works. It seems as though the lower level tasks have the ability to push themselves in to the foreground when something happens that they don't know how to handle.

It's an amazing mechanism. Animals can do it too, birds can sing 'on the wing', there are lots of other examples.

Fascinating stuff.

Re: 8 Things That Suck About iPad

#14

Post by AndrewDucker »

ytinas wrote: post #10
AndrewDucker wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They told you what they needed multitasking for. At the moment, on my Symbian phone, I can listen to Spotify while surfing the web. You cannot do that on an iPhone or iPad.

I don't think you need full multitasking for this. If the OS handles that situation (e.g. one app is allowed to access the screen, one the speaker) then that's enough and it avoids the complexity of having full threading.

The iPhone doesn't allow this - so I doubt the iPad will either...

Re: 8 Things That Suck About iPad

#15

Post by elblanco »

ytinas wrote: post #3
sree_nair wrote: post #2

Out of 8, I feel the following 2 as let downs. No Multitasking No Cameras These two would have been nice to have. No HDMI Out No UsB Port the other 4, No problem.

The [non-existance of the] Camera is a let down to be sure, but multitasking? What do you need multitasking for? Doing some action at a specific time and doing async operations right? If the OS provides this then I don't think multitasking is needed (and it adds a huge amount of complexity/stability issues).

You never listen to mp3s while surfing the internet?
Post reply on HN