A Thread For Happy People

[zarusoba]

Ever since I got my Ipod touch, I wanted a large screen version of it. iPad is exactly what I am looking for! Right now I can't think of any tablet that has the features that I want that's close to the iPad.

However, I think Apple is leaving the door open for Google and HTC to come in and take the cake with some of the features that were left out!

I can relate to that, except I only got my iPod touch in December. I didn't quite believe that an Apple tablet was going to be released...

For someone like me who uses the touch as a portable easel/sketchbook, the iPad is pretty exciting, despite the lack of pressure sensitivity and a stylus with a sharp tip. The IPS display is a major unexpected bonus because it can display accurate colour. I trust that Spyder will make a calibrator for the iPad sooner or later.

The thing about the Netizens is that they built up their own expectations! Apple never even said that they were going to release a tablet until today.

Unconsciously, the true geeks are hoping for nothing else than an iGirl: yes, a piece of Apple technology that will negate the need for an actual girlfriend. Well, that will happen eventually. You can't hurry love.

 

[zarusoba]

One more thing: hardly anyone has actually used this thing yet! And those who have say that holding it in your hands makes all the difference.

 

[DoFoT9]

Data is typically very expencive here in Norway, too... but we have gotten a few breaks since the introduction of the iPhone.

Example: My carrier, Netcom, now has tree data plans (technically they have a few more, but these are the interesting ones):

- 100 MB per month: NOK 49,- (~USD 8).
- Free use between 17-08 (5PM-8AM) on weekdays and all day Saturday and Sunday: NOK 129,- (~USD 22).
- Free use: NOK 249,- (~USD 42).

I already have the 100MB plan for my iPhone, so I figured I'd get another of those for the iPad. But then last night I found out that the carriers here offer something called a twin SIM, so for NOK 30 per month I can get a second SIM card which only works for data and uses the same data plan as the main SIM.

It's almost too good to be true...

Wow those plans are very decent!

I currently do not do mobile 'plans'. I am on a $50 plan that includes 500mb of data. Its on a nobody company named tpg. The mainstream companies give 100mb a month at most on plans similar to mine.

You can go into the business plans for unlimited access (which I don't think is unlimited anyway, due to caps etc)

anyway, the fact that the Ipad 3g doesnt make calls is probably the main reason why I won't get it. for $10 I can get 200mb of credit from optus on a prepaid plan, which I have a spare sim card.. But I still receive messages on it so yea.. Annoying.

Hopefully the plans here in australia come down because of the competition.

Will you get a 3g. Model? I'm skeptical until actual australian prices come out.

 

[jetworkr]

I think it's really purr-tee--and I became entranced by the video on apple.com in the same fashion as the video for my macbook.

I'm going to go now and plan for my later purchase of two iPhones.

See you all later...

 

[194567]

Can't wait until they start shipping.
I'll wait a few months, play with it for a while, watch reviews.
After some good photo editing software is released I will buy it
together with the camera connection kit and dock.

This thing is going to be a god sent when I'm on the road.

 

[SimonMW]

I was one of the negative people when I first heard about such a device. But now I really want one. I do a lot of general surfing and email on my Touch, even though I have a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro. I'd much prefer a convenient device like the iPad.

For non tech savie people the iPad will be great. They can do their emails, quick word processing etc without having to worry about file systems and windows. People forget that there are a lot of people out there, even in the younger generation, who can't get to grips properly with a windows based system such as OS X. Files get put all over the place, they try to run apps from the download package file, hundreds of windows get opened because they don't understand how to minimise or close them.

Something like the iPad allows people like that to just get on with doing things easily and without fuss.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Will you get a 3g. Model?

Probably.

I don't think I'll really need it and I do have an iPhone which I could use whenever I'm not at home or at work (both places well covered with wifi).

But then there's that nagging feeling that if I take the none-3G version, then one day, be sure of it, I'll be somewhere without wifi and really, really need it for something on the iPad...and there and then I'll regret not getting the 3G version.

Now, of course, if the wifi version will be available in Norway about the same time as the rest of the world, while we have to wait for ages for the 3G version, then I might just say "eff this" and get the "regular" one, even though I know there will be some time, down the line where I'll be very annoyed I didn't wait.

 

[Ubbens]

I have to say, when I was following the liveblogs on the iPad keynote, I was disappointed. Steve Jobs just showed a bunch of apps which were also present on the iPhone, whilst I was waiting for more.

However, knowing now that it has iWork, and that you can connect the iPad to a projector for Keynote presentations, and knowing that the price is way below what I was expecting, I've become pretty excited about it. I have an iMac at home, which I can use for the things that require more power, but I've always wanted to have a Macbook for just casual internet / email use, and for iWork. With a Macbook Pro being about 1200 euro, and the iPad costing maybe just a third of that in the Netherlands, I am definitely going to buy an iPad when it comes out. It may do a little bit less than I expected it to do, but to be honest, it does exactly the things I would need in a normal laptop as well (while looking pretty cool too), and with upcoming software updates and new apps, it can only get better from here on!

 

[WytRaven]

Sign me up on the happy train. This thing is everything I want in a tablet plus a few things extra. Will be selling my ST5112 and grabbing a 64GB/3G/WiFi at earliest convenience.

 

[awesomedeluxe]

I like it. I probably won't buy it first revision, but I know I will buy it eventually. The main sticking point for me is no eInk; I really wanted to buy this instead of kindle and now I'm a little unsure.

People with iPhones see a lot of overlap. But to be honest, I'm not a huge iPhone fan, and I'd much rather have something like this along with an iPod nano.

 

[Dylan in Dublin]

I don't understand why people are complaining that the iPad is more or less exactly what they had predicted, given the feverish enthusiasm they had on when they were doing the predicting.

I think it's stunning, and stunningly useful, like all great Apple products.

As far as I can see, the biggest and most revolutionary aspect of it is not its lovely touchy feeliness, or its size, but the fact that at long long long last someone has put a SIM card in a laptop. That makes this an absolute breakthrough for anyone who moves around, as in everyone alive, basically.

The biggest positive surprise for me was the availability of iWork – from my point of view that shifts this out of the "just a big iPhone" category, and into the "what a spectacular little laptop" category.

All of this said, this is the first piece of Apple kit in a long time that I am not going to buy in its first generation, for two reasons. One: 64GB, max? My old iPod holds 160GB, what's this about? Given that it's being pitched as a revolutionary content interface, why not make it big enough to hold all of an average Apple user's content?

Second, no webcam. It can't be pitched as the best web experience ever, and ignore Skype.

Hopefully the second generation will double the memory and stick in a webcam, at which point I am going to be the happiest little Apple lover on earth.

 

[mrgreen4242]

Overall, happy with the device, and want one. I'm trying swing getting it "free" as I have (somewhat significant/milestone) birthday coming up and I also just (finally) graduated, so I've got a little card to play with a few family members. Either way, I think I will pick one up sooner or later; if not now then the next revision.

The major complaints, for me are:
(Hardware)
1. Pricing. The $130 surcharge for 3G option is a little steep. Also, $100 for 16gb more hardly makes sense with 32gb upgrade being just $100 again. I can see $100 for a 32gb bump, but the $100 for just 16gb is out of line. I would have liked to see the 16gb base model priced where it is, and then offered the 32gb with 3G for $100 more, and the 64gb with 3G for another $100. Not a deal breaker, but a little disappointed.

I'm also not one of the people shocked by the cost. $500 is about what I expected, and I was hoping for 32gb at that price, and was hoping to be shocked by a $399 16gb model.

2. The screen being 4:3 is weird. I'm actually confused my the display. It doesn't LOOK 4:3, and the device, including bezel is 5:4. The 3:2 ratio of the iPhone was pretty good for a handheld imo. Not a deal breaker, at all, but just a little confusing.

3. Camera. At first I didn't care about it, but for what this thing is, a tiny little front facing VGA cam (like the one in the nano) would be a pretty cool feature. It wouldn't have been very large or expensive (look at the nano) so it seems like a pretty obvious omission.

(Software)
4. Native printing - offering an office suite with no system wide printing is really dumb. I think we'll see network printing as a system wide setting very quickly. Not a huge deal, but just an obvious flaw in my opinion.

5. Multitasking. This is a pretty common/old complaint, but this thing should really have multitasking. I think this will be addressed quickly in the OS4.0 update, though. I am very curious how it will dealt with, but I have a suspicion it will not satisfy everyone. I wonder if we will see a "dashboard" application that will host applets which runs along side one "regular" app all the time. Most of the multitasking people want to see is stuff that an applet would satisfy. A twitter app, Pandora, email notifier, calculator, RSS readers, a control panel widget (I want to adjust brightness without quitting my app!), etc etc. I would be really pleased if they just let you run OSX widgets. That would satisfy me in terms of multitasking.

I think the software problems will be dealt with pretty quickly (I predict OS4.0 pretty shortly after the 3G model is released) and they will address some/all of these concerns.

None of the hardware problems are huge, for me, so all in all pretty satisfied, and do want!

 

[Nebrie]

1. Pricing. The $130 surcharge for 3G option is a little steep. Also, $100 for 16gb more hardly makes sense with 32gb upgrade being just $100 again. I can see $100 for a 32gb bump, but the $100 for just 16gb is out of line. I would have liked to see the 16gb base model priced where it is, and then offered the 32gb with 3G for $100 more, and the 64gb with 3G for another $100. Not a deal breaker, but a little disappointed.

$1 chip, $129 Nokia patent fees.

I'm also not one of the people shocked by the cost. $500 is about what I expected, and I was hoping for 32gb at that price, and was hoping to be shocked by a $399 16gb model.

For the price, this is very competitive. People keep demanding a full blown OS X tablet like the HP tablet. They forget the fact that the HP tablet is supposed to come in just under $1500 and is at least double the size.

If I were Apple, I would just force the iPad to connect to a Mac with a shared printer and let the Mac worry about it. No need to load it up with 16GB of print drivers. No front facing camera is the only disappointing thing I saw.

 

[kurzz]

I've been waiting for this since Star Trek TNG. Now we can all walk around shuffling pads like paper.

 

[iWoz]

Im Happy : D

 

[atlert]

I'm happy with this tablet... at first I was disappointed because no multitasking but then if they do have multitasking capability, i would be running 5-10 apps at the same time and might cause it to crash lol...

anyway i will wait until they are available in the store to test it out.

 

[3N16MA]

I like almost everything about the iPad. However no multitasking on a device that can cost up to $800+ is disapointing. My Mac mini acts as my main machine and my media centre, my iPhone is my mobile device but I find the screen too small at times. I really did not want to buy a MB/MBP to fill that need in the middle. I returned a MBP because the price was to great to fill that spot. An iPad at $500 perfectly fits that price and middle device I was looking for. I really hope multitasking comes with an update.

 

[anjinha]

I'm still not sure if I'm going to buy it (wanna play with it first) but I'm definitely very interested. iWork will be very useful to work on some school projects on the go, since it's not always convenient to carry my laptop with me. The iPad will be like carrying a book (which I usually do most of the time) except that it does all this stuff.

I'm still iffy because of the multitasking thing but I'm hopeful that it will come out with 4.0.

 

[mrgreen4242]

I like almost everything about the iPad. However no multitasking on a device that can cost up to $800+ is disapointing. My Mac mini acts as my main machine and my media centre, my iPhone is my mobile device but I find the screen too small at times. I really did not want to buy a MB/MBP to fill that need in the middle. I returned a MBP because the price was to great to fill that spot. An iPad at $500 perfectly fits that price and middle device I was looking for. I really hope multitasking comes with an update.

I think just about everyone agrees that the lack of multitasking is the biggest flaw in the iPad. I also think that we will see movement in that regard very soon. I suspect that Apple announced the device now, and when they start taking wifi-only iPad preorders in 4 or 5 weeks they might announce iPhone OS 4.0 and some sort of multitasking for both the iPad and iPhone. Maybe release it with the 3G iPad in April or then next iPhone in June.

My thinking is, first it probably just isn't quite done yet. But second, and more importantly, that the announcement of the iPad was big news. Just the hype of the thing was huge news. When it gets closer to the release they can keep that hype going with a big "this thing was great-magical even-when we first showed it to you, but we've added all this great stuff" announcement. Apple is very, very good at marketing.

 

[jb1280]

I'm surprisingly happy and that is primarily based on the price.

I see this being popular with 3 groups of people.

1. Those who travel a lot. You don't necessarily want to take two notebooks if you have one issued through work or you don't want to take a notebook, and just care about browsing, email, media, calendar, etc.

2. Those who really like the iPhone but don't use the phone part a whole lot. The iPod Touch is great for those who don't talk on the phone a whole lot and don't want an expensive phone contract with data. The problem is that its wifi only. If you don't use the phone a lot, but use the data parts, I can see people ditching the phone and going dumb phone with cheap plan and the iPad with 3G.

3. Those that consume, ie. Mom. My mother has an old iBook G4 that needs replacing. She has 4GB of music and uses her computer for email, browsing, looking at photos she receives, playing games like solitaire, and instant messaging. She's not on any real budget, but why should she spend twice the money for a processor she won't use, disc space she won't use, etc.

I really believe it will be huge with this 3rd group. There is a lot in OSX that people just don't use and if the basic functions of iPad are as usable as they are described, people will start to reconsider what they need.

 

[object88]

3. Those that consume, ie. Mom. My mother has an old iBook G4 that needs replacing. She has 4GB of music and uses her computer for email, browsing, looking at photos she receives, playing games like solitaire, and instant messaging. She's not on any real budget, but why should she spend twice the money for a processor she won't use, disc space she won't use, etc.

We have a winner!!! I like to call it "casual computing".

 

[JohnnyQuest]

I think this is a great device. Netbooks are really pointless when you think about it, especially if you already have a latptop. Why would I want the same thing on a smaller screen, with a smaller keyboard, and less power? The iPad takes the portability of a netbook, fun-to-use interface of an iPhone, adds kindle-esque funciontality, and iWork. It's a great alternative to my 15" MBP for taking to classes, Starbucks, trips, etc. I will definitely be buying one

 

[IzzyReal]

anyway, the fact that the Ipad 3g doesnt make calls is probably the main reason why I won't get it. for $10 I can get 200mb of credit from optus on a prepaid plan, which I have a spare sim card.. But I still receive messages on it so yea.. Annoying.

The iPad may be able to make phone calls after all!

iCall announced today that Apple had made changes to iPhone SDK that makes Voice over IP (VOIP) over cellular networks possible.

The change comes with the launch of the Apple iPad which suggests that these same applications could be used to make voice calls on the new device. The 3G enabled iPad notably does not include any voice service with its $30/month unlimited data plan, but it does include a microphone and speaker. We're not sure if these iPad data plans will be somehow excluded from the VOIP apps, but it would otherwise offer an inexpensive contract-free way to make mobile phone calls.

 

[anthonymoody]

I'm going iPad whole hog. I'm going to park my 3.5 year old MBP in a drawer for those increasingly rare times I need to do something that the iPad can't do (or at least approximate) and use the iPad as my primary machine. And I expect zillions of people to do the same in the coming years.

It's amazing how short sighted (and memoried) people seem to be when considering this thing. People have remarked on the early hate the iPhone got, in particular b/t announcement and launch (i.e. when we all got them in our hands).

But what won the world over - beside a price drop - wasn't *just* the overall package and user experience, it was that the thing got materially better and better over time. And I'm not thinking primarily of the hardware changes (though they were most welcomed...)

I'm talking about the software - both the OS *and* the apps. Who could've predicted how amazingly useful and indispensable the iPhone would become? It was the first device to put the internet in our pockets.

And now Steve wants to put the internet in our hands. I do a TON of surfing on my iPhone, but have also often thought how nice it'd be to have a larger screen. And no, I don't want to carry my MBP all over the house just to have that added screen real estate. It weighs 5.5 pounds, has so-so battery life, the hinged screen that sort of flaps around, etc. etc. etc. The MBP is portable in that I can bring it on a trip, but no way do I carry it around all day. The iPad? Totally could do so. Weigh a hard cover book if you don't believe me.

Will I wish for a front facing camera for Skype? Yup. More storage? Yup. And I will happily trade up to those models a year or two from now.

But EVERYTHING ELSE that I want the iPad to do - which was "missing" from what was announced - I am 1000000% confident *will* be doable via software eventually.

Multitasking? Check.
A screenwriting program? Check.
And so on and so on and so on.

Think off all the productivity apps that devs did *not* make for the iPhone precisely because the screen was too small! Now remove that limitation and viola! When Apple predicts another dev goldrush, I completely agree.

I think on the whole the haters can't get out of their own way. The preposterous expectations, the rumors, the anticipation...all impossible to satisfy.

I'm in, 100%. 64GB + 3G here I come.

-TM

PS - I'm also firmly of the belief that a notebook lineup refresh is imminent, if for no other reason than soon Apple will be pretty much forced to swap into new chip lines by Intel (thanks Intel!) My guess is that they wanted NOTHING to draw focus from the iPad. Wait, oh...two weeks, and we'll get a "minor" announcement of a lineup refresh.

 

[wolfpackfan]

Thanks for starting this thread. I am so sick and tired of the iPad bashing. I am very excited about the iPad and will be getting a 32GB non-3G on day 1. I will probably order it from apple.com because I imagine our local Apple Store will be a zoo on that day. Plus folks will probably camp out the night before (if our mall lets them). The iPad is exactly what I was hoping it would be. I love my iPhone and had thought all along that if I had a device that does what my iPhone does (except for the phone part) but in a larger form factor, it would meet my needs exactly. The iPad does this plus a lot more. I would probably prefer the 3G version because the rates quoted for the 3G data plans sound very reasonable, but I don't want to have to wait the extra month to get it. I've needed a portable device like this for a long time. I don't have a laptop and had been thinking about a netbook or cheap Windows laptop but kept holding off for the iPad. My wait was not in vain. Good work Apple.