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Silvereel

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 19, 2010
349
1
I recently got an Apple IIgs, and it got me thinking about what it might be like. If someone bought an iPad some ways into the future. The current device will have of course long been obsolete, and will serve no practical use, but be it out of nostalgia of an old user or a curious person not even born when the original product was released (as was the case if the Apple II and I) would it serve any use it all, beyond a paperweight? Not only is there the question of how durable it will ultimately prove to be, but also will it be possible at all to do anything with it beyond the preinstalled apps? The current app store will either be long gone or all of the programs we use now will be wiped from it, so will there be any means to get apps? Perhaps jail breaking will still be alive and maybe even required?
 
This thing will be so obsolete by then

Of course it will be, just like the Apple II is completely obsolete now. But some people like to use old stuff, as a hobby or just to get a kick out of it. What worries me is if this will even be possible at all with the iPad, if I will be able to look back on it without some kind of emulator for my iMacPad that just isn't the same.
 
Naw. In 20 years we'll still have iPads, only they'll be called PADDs and they will be standard issue to every crewman on every warp capable spaceship. :)
 
I suppose it'll depend on what the user wants to do.

I've heard of WfW 3.11 users getting online semi-easily enough (depends on the website being downloaded these days lol)
 
In 20 years we'll look at the iPad and wonder how we ever lived with only external technology, since most of us will have had brain implants for a while, allowing us to surf and answer email anytime, even when sleeping.

Resistance is Futile.

Rob
 
Good topic. It seems to me that it should still be a useful tool for entertainment assuming you can install apps of today. How can a handheld racing game be obsolete? Why wouldnt you be able to listen to music?
 
I thought the world ended in 2012........lol jk

The iPad will probably be long gone!

A new touch technology will probably exist like 3D Holograms in Star Wars:)
 
I thought the world ended in 2012........lol jk

The iPad will probably be long gone!

A new touch technology will probably exist like 3D Holograms in Star Wars:)

You know it's funny, technology could go either way. 20 years from now we might be using projected monitors ( like hologram) and computer hardware so tiny and wireless that they would be kept in our wallets with the visa card.

OR we maybe no where near it because historically, we thought ( since star wars in the 80's) that hologram technology was supposed to be all the rave in 2010 and that we would have flying cars, but alas, we can barely get GM to get a prototye chevy volt that doesn't fly out in time for 2011.
 
I think in 20 years time the iPad will incorporate excellent voice recognition and being more sophisticated will take the place of laptops. Also, I think that there will have been an integration of the desktop computer with TV. Voice demands will be the way to command with the option of hand/finger gestures.
 
I think wearable computing and the contact lens displays that Vernor Vinge wrote about (Rainbow's End) are likely.

Greg
 
I recently dusted off an old Commodore 64 I got off eBay for nostalgia's sake. It was one of my first computers. I was never a Mac guy back then, but I also bought a Mac SE30 and put 128MB of memory on it. It takes like 10 minutes just to count the memory when booting... :eek:

It has a copy of Netscape Navigator 2. something, and through a lot of patching and buying pieces and parts I was able to connect it to my home network and got to Google.com. From there it was impossible to go anywhere else. It locked up every time I tried some other sites.

I did it for fun. I expect the next generation may find it fun to play with an iPad and wonder how we ever managed to do with such crappy hardware (compared to what they will likely have). If they can figure how to swap out the non-user replaceable battery... :rolleyes:
 
I was using an Apple tablet device back in the mid-1990s...so the iPad is nothing new. Hell, it doesn't even do handwriting recognition like my good ol' Newton MessagePad 120 did with NewtOS 2.0.

It's too bad the Newton clock gets all messed up after Dec 31, 2009...but at least I was able to put in fresh AA batteries. By contrast, in 20 years, the iPad will be a brick. The battery will have leaked and it will be impossible to charge.
 
I think an Ipad will be an interesting nostalgia item in 20 years. Kind of like an 8 track player is now or a "mac portable". :)

However, unlike old time technology in the past the iPad doesn't have a removable battery. I'm thinking that in that amount of time the battery will either completely die or leak or something. There may be very few working iPads in 20 years.

If it is working I'm sure the games will still be fun. Pacman is a very old video game at this point and its still around--and is in fact one of the first available iPad apps.
 
The battery in a current iPad will of course be dead in 20 years, but a 2030 iPad will run on the kinetic energy of simple existence. It will be a flexible plane of some magic material made by Corning Glass. Both sides will be capable of independent imaging, or it can go transparent when off. Make the backside a simple color or pattern to customize it to your daily "style". The built-in scan-cam can take a scan of your wardrobe and create a custom "skin" for the iPad if you like.

I know. It sounds far-fetched, That's what the minions were using when I visited 2030 though. :D
 
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If you could somehow keep it powered, the ipad won't be nearly as obsolete in 20 years as a IIgs is now. At the very least it will be able to display some nice color photos. How you'd get them on or off the device is another story.
 
I actually owned a IIGS back in the late 80's (well, my family did). That was a machine that suffered from internal fighting within apple... it really should have been a mac / II hybrid, but it ended up neither. For its time, the graphics were excellent, but the OS was left to wither and die... it was basically a glorified II when all was said and done.

We eventually traded it in on a mac SE... never looked back.
 
For anyone who remembers the movie Singles, Bridget Fonda's character so aptly puts it (and I'm paraphrasing), something to end that she was 20 something and 15 to 20 years ago when she was like 5 or 7 in 15 or 20 years everyone would be driving flying cars or what not and living on the moon, yet 15 to 20 years later not that much had changed.

Things move glacially. Even though we have seen "leaps and bounds" in touch computing with the iPhone, iPad, and even HP products over the last few years, and things like Core Duo and Quad Core, it takes a long time for things to move along. We'll be lucky to have nationwide free wireless access in 20 years since some people actually still use dialup and stuff like NetZero.
 
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