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

If iPads are “post-pc devices” why must I sync with iTunes before I can use one?

thestartupfoundry.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 227 posts

Re: If iPads are “post-pc devices” why must I sync with iTunes before I can use one?

#161

Post by siglesias »

mckoss wrote: post #112
jsz0 wrote: post #84

We're in a transitional period. The vast majority of people who have iPads do have a PC of some kind also. For now it's the most practical way of doing backups, updates, and syncing large amounts of content. I do think Apple will move in the direction of not requiring a PC for these things but it's non-trival. How do you sync 16-64GB of data over 3G? Do you push 300MB+ updates to someone with a 150MB/month data cap?…

I'll have to disagree with most of what you say here. I would attribute Apple's decision not to divorce the iPad from a PC to their desire to assert some presence onto the PC ecosystem. They don't want to be be JUST your tablet OS, they want to be on the desktop, by forcing installation of iTunes onto Windows machines as well. This way, both products reenforce each other, and they can get increased market share on de…

It doesn't have to be either or. Both are probably true.

Re: If iPads are “post-pc devices” why must I sync with iTunes before I can use one?

#162

Post by rbarooah »

trotsky wrote: post #137
rbarooah wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you can't sync your music with a Linux machine. That's it, really?

Watch 90% of the streaming video out there? Use your choice of fully functional browsers? Download and listen to Amazon MP3 store purchases? Run arbitrary software, even if it's competitive to the platform provider? Mount a usb flash drive? I'm not sure that was the list that you were looking for, but there it is. How post-PC is it really if every time you have to do something Steve Jobs might not approve of you need…

The 90% of streaming video claim is utterly false - it's at least 54% and climbing very fast. If we're going to do this, let's at least not just make stuff up.

(http://www.loopinsight.com/2010/10/27/54-of-web-video-is-now...)

The closed platform argument is perfectly valid, but has nothing to do with whether we're moving into the world of Post PC devices or not.

It's pretty obvious that we're never going to get away from the PC era if we have to drag along all of the legacy.

Why not list things like "run windows apps" and "run gnome" for good measure?

Re: If iPads are “post-pc devices” why must I sync with iTunes before I can use one?

#163

Post by thailandstartup »

Apple is using the popularity of its mobile devices to turn its consumer electronic customers into media distribution customers.

It makes good sense for Apple - an iPad owner is a customer for maybe 3 years, but get the same user locked into iTunes, and that's a multi-decade revenue stream. Media distribution is the real game for Apple.

Re: If iPads are “post-pc devices” why must I sync with iTunes before I can use one?

#164

Post by recoiledsnake »

ryannielsen wrote: post #153
noonespecial wrote: post #138

My iPad won't even charge right without my macBook. My brother works for Apple and gave me the party line about how "some motherboards are not capable of supplying enough power to their usb ports." I started Parallels on my macBook, plugged in the iPad and let it connect to the virtual XP that was running: "Not Charging". Shut down Parallels without even unplugging the iPad, well, boy howdy, its charging now. No OSX/…

It's not 'purposefully broken', and your brother wasn't giving you the 'party line' – he was relaying a fact. To charge over USB, Apple had break the USB spec without compromising compatibility or destroying existing USB peripherals. To do that, the hardware was modified to vend more amps over the bus but only when handshaking has occurred between the attached device and the OS drivers. If you'd installed Apple's dri…

>It's not 'purposefully broken', and your brother wasn't giving you the 'party line' – he was relaying a fact.

The fact is that 'some motherboards cannot supply the voltage' or is it 'it needs its own driver to charge' ?

>To charge over USB, Apple had break the USB spec without compromising compatibility or destroying existing USB peripherals

>If you'd installed Apple's drivers in your XP instance, things would have worked fine.

So they purposefully broke the spec (looks like compatibility WAS compromised, wasn't it) by having a USB connector but not allowing all USB ports to charge it.

What about the USB ports at airports, in car adaptors, heck, even the otherwise useless one on my Comcast DVR?

So they couldn't make the iPad detect insufficient voltage and show 'Insufficient voltage detected. You need to install iTunes to charge me!'

Or maybe charge at a slower pace and show a message to that effect?

It's not as if it's an edge case seen by few, probably ~50% of iPad users might be connecting it to Windows PCs.

Re: If iPads are “post-pc devices” why must I sync with iTunes before I can use one?

#165

Post by slyn »

l0nwlf wrote: post #135
jamroom wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Command-C / Command-V for cut and paste in OS X (if that's what you're looking for) - TotalFinder is a nice Finder replacement: http://totalfinder.binaryage.com/ - includes tabs and some other nifty features. Hope that helps a bit...

Command-C / Command-V is copy-paste. Also I do use TotalFinder as a finder replacement. :)

Command+x is cut, same as ctrl+x on windows. Might be application specific as I only tried in Chrome and Textedit but I'm fairly certain it is OS wide.

Re: If iPads are “post-pc devices” why must I sync with iTunes before I can use one?

#166

Post by drivebyacct2 »

jsz0 wrote: post #84

We're in a transitional period. The vast majority of people who have iPads do have a PC of some kind also. For now it's the most practical way of doing backups, updates, and syncing large amounts of content. I do think Apple will move in the direction of not requiring a PC for these things but it's non-trival. How do you sync 16-64GB of data over 3G? Do you push 300MB+ updates to someone with a 150MB/month data cap?…

I will cry the day that a closed ecosystem device becomes peoples' primary computing device.

Re: If iPads are “post-pc devices” why must I sync with iTunes before I can use one?

#167

Post by WalterBright »

gvb wrote: post #152
WalterBright wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do I have to upload the file to dropbox.com in order to see it on my ipod?

Yes. You install dropbox software on all the computers you want to share the files on and dropbox synchronizes the dropbox folders on all the computers. When you copy a file to the dropbox folder on one computer, dropbox copies the file to the dropbox server (in the background) and then down to all the other computers you installed dropbox on. Dropbox says they encrypt the files, but they hold the key so the encrypti…

That doesn't work for me, as I wish to transfer files to my ipod that are hundreds of megabytes.

I can copy files off of the ipod via the USB, but not on.

Re: If iPads are “post-pc devices” why must I sync with iTunes before I can use one?

#168

Post by noonespecial »

seabee wrote: post #142
noonespecial wrote: post #138

My iPad won't even charge right without my macBook. My brother works for Apple and gave me the party line about how "some motherboards are not capable of supplying enough power to their usb ports." I started Parallels on my macBook, plugged in the iPad and let it connect to the virtual XP that was running: "Not Charging". Shut down Parallels without even unplugging the iPad, well, boy howdy, its charging now. No OSX/…

Windows (may even be the USB specification itself) will not deliver more than X mA to a device unless a driver is installed to request > X mA OS X obviously is aware of iDevices so it charges without you knowing any wiser. Windows needs the driver.

As this unfolded (the comments) I realized I very well might be talking out of my ass, and I hate when people do that to me so I grabbed my gear to divine the electronic truth. Here are some facts I learned:

My MacBook pro gladly puts out more than 1100ma @5v no matter whats connected and no matter what "handshaking" occurred (or didn't). Its a little scary really.

My iPad does charge albeit very slowly even when it says "not charging". When it does so, it consumes about 750ma (thus, breaking the spec anyway in a strict sense). It stops charging if you turn it on and just runs from usb power. So its kind of telling the truth, when it says "not charging" on the screen, it actually isn't.

The ipad increases charge to around 950ma when it gets the OK from an Apple Approved device. (my MacBook, only when in OSX mode)

When connected to my palm pre's "dumb charger" the ipad does the "not charging" thing @750, even though the pre's charger can deliver 1500ma.

The official Apple wall charger seems to deliver about 5.5v and nearly 1000ma to the pad.

It seems the choice is actually left to the iPad itself whether to sip or slurp and it does this by detecting what its connected to. (or rather, what it isn't connected to)

In conclusion, this operational profile is frustrating. "Purposely broken" may have been too strong but they didn't go through any extra effort to make my user experience stellar if I elected not to go the full monty on apple gear.

But what does it really mean to me? I can't charge my 'pad on the damn plane on that freakishly long SF to Sydney and watch all the back episodes of "Mad Men", using that nifty USB jack on Qantas' new A380. Bummer.

Re: If iPads are “post-pc devices” why must I sync with iTunes before I can use one?

#169

Post by rglullis »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #166
jsz0 wrote: post #84

We're in a transitional period. The vast majority of people who have iPads do have a PC of some kind also. For now it's the most practical way of doing backups, updates, and syncing large amounts of content. I do think Apple will move in the direction of not requiring a PC for these things but it's non-trival. How do you sync 16-64GB of data over 3G? Do you push 300MB+ updates to someone with a 150MB/month data cap?…

I will cry the day that a closed ecosystem device becomes peoples' primary computing device.

Compared to the current situation, with 90%+ of the population using Windows or Mac?

Re: If iPads are “post-pc devices” why must I sync with iTunes before I can use one?

#170

Post by dman »

ugh wrote: post #155
dman wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah that explains it, i grew up around plenty of people who couldnt afford a computer ten years ago :)

If my memory is not failing me completely I would say that lower middle class to maybe even down to slightly above the poverty level could afford some computer ten years ago. A majority could buy a computer.

I grew up in India where slightly above poverty level means an altogether different thing.
Post reply on HN