SD and USB
Didnt they show off some little attachment thing that means you can plug SD and USB in??
Didnt they show off some little attachment thing that means you can plug SD and USB in??
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I've come to terms with each of my objections with the iPad but one.
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I agree with you. You CAN read on a laptop screen, iPhone screen, etc. However, it's not the BEST option for long periods of reading, now is it?
What I think is going to happen is that either ultra-low power sipping OLED displays will actually make this thing usable (and hurt your eyes less in the process), or Pixel Qi's technology (or something similar to it) will make the iPad what it really should be in an ideal world.
I'm waiting. I know it's what n00bs say, but that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to wait for the market to settle on a technology that will go forward for the next few years. Right now, the only thing companies are sticking with are LED LCDs. Something will take over, and when one is decided, I'll buy. Until then, I'm staring at a market full of compromises. There are no good answers, just compromises.
I hear what you are saying, maybe even agree a tad -- but not to the point of not buying one b/c the iPad is more than a dedicated eReader.
However, I think, given SJ's reputation for demanding Apple products are accessible, we have to give the iPad the benefit of the doubt on in this aspect and wait until we see it in action. I agree I can't do meaningful long-term reading, or even short term proof reading on a screen. I need to print it out.
Three things in that regard though may prove the iPad will be fine for reading:
1) The iPad, to put it in SJ's terms, is more "intimate" we can hold it in ways you can't hold a laptop monitor. Really, the biggest problem I have reading on my iPhone is that the screen is too small, making reading awkward. I don't really get eye strain b/c I can hold the iPhone at whatever distance/angle is comfortable.
2) We don't know if Apple tweaked the iBook app to make the monitor look differently than it work on a regular monitor. It could be the iPad's screen will not be a harsh light, but a soft glow. It's the harsh light that hurts eye strain.
Here's another objection...
WHERE'S THE FRAKKIN' LOCK?
You know, the little indentation that you can use to lock up a laptop or other high end portable electronics?
I work in a courthouse, and would love to have access to statutes, email, etc., while stuck in a courtroom. This could also work well for a paperless office...scan everything from a client's paper file onto a folder in a hard drive, and copy the folders of the people you're going to court on for that day onto the ipad. If another case pops up unexpectedly, you could have a legal assistant transfer the file onto mobile me and access it that way.
But it would basically mean that I'd be tethered to the stupid thing and couldn't let it out of my hands the entire time. It's too big to fit in your pocket, and certainly too valuable to leave lying on a table. Would it be too much to be able to tether it to furniture with a lock?
A single usb port would work well in that regard as well. Pull up a document you're needing a hard copy of, and either hook up a usb printer or a flash drive to it to deliver to someone else.
Honestly, instead of a cool toy or gadget for home consumers, they could have come up with a necessary tool for every professional on the planet by just changing one or two small details. Stick those two features in before you release the ipad, alright?
WHERE'S THE FRAKKIN' LOCK?
You know, the little indentation that you can use to lock up a laptop or other high end portable electronics? I work in a courthouse, and would love to have access to statutes, email, etc., while stuck in a courtroom. This could also work well for a paperless office...scan everything from a client's paper file onto a folder in a hard drive, and copy the folders of the people you're going to court on for that day onto the ipad. If another case pops up unexpectedly, you could have a legal assistant transfer the file onto mobile me and access it that way.
But it would basically mean that I'd be tethered to the stupid thing and couldn't let it out of my hands the entire time. It's too big to fit in your pocket, and certainly too valuable to leave lying on a table. Would it be too much to be able to tether it to furniture with a lock?
A single usb port would work well in that regard as well. Pull up a document you're needing a hard copy of, and either hook up a usb printer or a flash drive to it to deliver to someone else.
Honestly, instead of a cool toy or gadget for home consumers, they could have come up with a necessary tool for every professional on the planet by just changing one or two small details. Stick those two features in before you release the ipad, alright?
Needs to have a higher-resolution screen.
Needs more internal storage.
Needs USB inputs/outputs for printers, hard drives, etc.
Needs multitasking.
Needs a fold-out keyboard of some kind.
Hmmm.... I wonder what kind of a product Apple could come up with to satisfy all these requests. I bet Apple's genius engineers and designers could come up with something very sleek.
Oh, yeah, I know... It's called a MacBook!
And to the guy who (in another thread) said the iPad was too large, I hear Apple is going to release the iPad nano. It'll have a 3.5" multitouch screen and run an OS with a subset of all the iPad functionality. I wonder how it will sell...?
[sarcasm tag for those who can't otherwise figure it out]
Needs more internal storage.
Needs USB inputs/outputs for printers, hard drives, etc.
Needs multitasking.
Needs a fold-out keyboard of some kind.
Hmmm.... I wonder what kind of a product Apple could come up with to satisfy all these requests. I bet Apple's genius engineers and designers could come up with something very sleek.
Oh, yeah, I know... It's called a MacBook!
And to the guy who (in another thread) said the iPad was too large, I hear Apple is going to release the iPad nano. It'll have a 3.5" multitouch screen and run an OS with a subset of all the iPad functionality. I wonder how it will sell...?
[sarcasm tag for those who can't otherwise figure it out]
I agree with everything you said. For me personally at the end of the day, I just loveeeeeeeeeeeee Apple stuff. Period. I have incurable obsession on gadgets.
About reading ebooks on iPad, I have a dedicated ebook reader. Before, I was reading on my iPhone and it was OK. Well, it was a little small but it was OK. I used to read on my mobile since forever anyways and the fact that iPhone made it way easier with Stanza, made me read more.
Anyway, it was OK UNTIL my glasses power increased (double in 12 months. It took me like 6-7 years to get double previously) and my astigmatism rendered me almost blind (ok, I'm exaggerating but really). I can't use normal contact lenses anymore and I need that special contact lenses for astigmatism. So much for it was OK. But my day job also requires me to be in front of the screen for at least 8 hours a day.
Now that I have a dedicated ebook reader, I realized how much my eyes had been suffering haha. It was very comfortable to read I sometimes forget that it was not a real book. SO YES, the ibook function is super, for none lengthy period of time or you kinda forget your ebook reader... or maybe the ebook was on discount at ibook store. But to use iPad as a dedicated ebook reader? At least I know I won't.
But then again, my eyes are 32 years old. It's about time I take it easy.
wait what?!! Aren't you guys on message boards day in and day out? Are you reading news on engadget, gizmodo or macrumors.
I don't know about you, but I read 10x more on my computer than I ever have on a book.
I don't know about you, but I read 10x more on my computer than I ever have on a book.
Same Here.
I almost never pick up a book, but I'm reading engadget, joystiq, and gizmodo like all day every day.
I have used the device and it's applications - Steve Jobs told us that if we own an iPhone, we know how to use the iPad.
I don't mind not being able to multitask on my iPhone. I understand why that choice was made for that platform, and I'm happier with the experience. However, this tablet would be carried around in lieu of a netbook or laptop. I'm all for simplifying my electronic life in terms of what I carry around, but if it comes at the cost of being able to get the most basic things done, it does me no good. I grant that perhaps I'm just not the audience for this product, and that's fine. However, I'll point out again that Steve Jobs took that stage and made a point to crap on netbooks (rightfully so, they're dreadful) and offer that what he was going to show us was better than a netbook. I can do two things at once on my crappy $150 Dell netbook, and it runs fine.
There is no good reason this device should have all the limitations of a smartphone. As I've said previously, I really wish Apple had gone in the direction of a stripped down Macbook with the iPhone UI as opposed to a pumped up iPhone. I think the former would have really blown the world away.
I'm not sure there is a difference between the two. The iPhone OS *is* OSX with a multi-touch UI. An iPhone is, in many ways, a stripped down MacBook. It's just a matter of degree -- wait a few generations, and I bet we would see more and more convergence between the two platforms.
By stripped down Macbook, I mean a somewhat normal "computing experience" with that awesome UI as opposed to a limited smartphone experience. Basically, as I've said, just give me the ability to do two things at once. Please please please don't make me use PUSH in order to get alerts and that kind of thing.
Really, that's all I want. Give me that, and I'll gladly hand my money over to Apple again.
I spend hours a day looking at a computer monitor with no issues, doing it on my reader is no different (and no worse). I personally have issues with the contrast of e-ink, and on a dimly lit plane, I would prefer the uniformly back-lit screen of the iPad to a Kindle with a snap on light, or the reflections off the screen from the in-seat overhead light. Plus, I like the idea of color in magazines and other periodicals. Much more engaging (IMO).
Since when does wanting to freaking listen to Pandora in the background = being upset it's not a Panini maker??? Or Spotify or Sirius XM or Rhapsody or MLB audio? It may well be less important to you than me, but that's NOT an advanced skill to want. Is anyone seriously going to deny that?
Ok I have a question for you. Do you have all 1-2TB of your photos imported into iPhoto? If so, does it crash on you? I'm not worried about carrying photos around on my iPad because photos I want to show will probably already be uploaded to flickr (or MobileMe or whatever). I am worried that if I wanted to use faces on my iPad, I couldn't expect it to work with any pics I've taken since fall of 2008 because I stopped importing things and stopped using iPhoto very often at all when it started acting up. So my question is a bit off topic for this thread, but I'm curious how iPhoto handles large libraries of photos. Most of my photos are jpg and are 5+ MP. The problem files seem to be movies in mov and avi format that got imported into iPhoto along with my photos. I really should purge the movies out of my photo folder and move them to a movies folder and re-import everything. Still I am curious, do you use iPhoto, how does iPhoto behave for you, do you copy files when you import, and how big is your "iPhoto Library" file? These answers won't impact my decision to buy an iPad, but they might affect my expectations regarding how I would view Photos on my iPad.
Apple hasn't yet got into streaming music. Go figure
If all you want to do with multitasking is use Pandora, then if you have an iPhone you're sorted.
Multitasking is an advanced skill to do well.