A good piece by Steven Frank, via Gruber. I think this captures the essence of the iPad.
small excerpt:
small excerpt:
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Old World vs. New World Computing
- Thread starter gibbz
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It's just an excerpt of a long piece. He is just saying that the iPad will be a new breed of device that poeple don't know they need.
Thanks for the specific answer Dawg.
It will be interesting if Apple succeeds at creating or redefining this class of product.
It will be interesting if Apple succeeds at creating or redefining this class of product.
The Nomad thing is a specific reference to the infamous Slashdot editorial response to the initial announcement of the iPod, which was, in its entirety "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
The entire article is spot on.
The entire article is spot on.
Read the article... he clearly has a point. Back in the day everything was the computer this or that, now it's the Kindle this, the iPod this, the laptop this, the Server station this....
We've gone to a device specific computing... I like it.
I beg to differ
I just read the article this morning while commuting to work.
The writer has a point, but to say apple is giving us something that we dont know we need yet is IMO far fetched.
We are talking about a media consumption device, a device geared towards consumers and not content providers. And since its target market are the consumers, a closed platform is fine by all means, and is nothing new. No one complains about the ipod or the iphone not having usb ports and a file management system because it is not necessary in its context, and it is still so for the ipad, it is not necessary for what it is made to do.
But to claim that the ipad is going to be the first move in changing the face of computing is unfounded. Apple can control more by giving you less, but they cannot give you more by controlling more. App makers dont make apps on ipads or iphones, they make it on conventional all-do-able computers. No coder is going to code on an ipad, and no music maker makes music (studio wise) on an ipod.
Thats why i would draw the distinction between content creators and content consumers. Content creators cannot be closed platformed like the Iphone OS. It needs to allow the creator freedom to create. The windows platform is a poor example, but the mac OS is a good example. The ipad is meant for content consumption, and therefore a restricted platform is fine if it allows it to do what it's created to do better.
Yes we have the touch capable iwork suite (content creation), and that is a good move on apple's part, which also leads to my next point: the iTablet that we were hoping for? the actual tablet computer? well it has not arrived yet. Iwork should be on a computer, not a media consumption device. When it does, it will have a fully featured os, The Mac OS.
Selling you task specific devices? that sounds like a great idea for the company, but a horrible idea for consumers. I believe that apple already has future revisions of the ipad and iphone and macbook pros already in their labs. They just dont want to release it. Why should they when they can churn more money out of their customer base still with the current state of the industry? The Iphone os 3.2 is indicative of it already. apple is more than capable already of releasing a front and back camera, multitasking capable iPad. They just want to make more money before that.
Apple also needs to receive criticism for the way it does things if it wants to improve. We cant just keep worshiping the company like souless mindless consumers or this is what we will get: a company that truly holds back the best from its consumers. Lots of companies are limited by their potential. Apple is not one of them. I do hold them in high regard. If there is one company that i would bank on revolutionizing the tablet, it will be apple. But we wont get the former apple back if we continue to buy into the crap that they give us and call it the revolution that we dont know about yet.
Yet their design philosophy has to be flawed (or beginning to be flawed) if they are oversimplifying things by sacrificing function. Form over function as people call it. The adapters required to plug in a usb camera? an external keyboard specifically made by slapping on a dock like thing at the back? ridiculous.
Take the article with your own thoughts but I would seriously refrain from calling it an advent change in computing. Even calling it computing is a little far fetched. Its a media consumption device, just like the ipod touch, just like the iphone, just like the kindle etc. They just made it look better and work better.
I just read the article this morning while commuting to work.
The writer has a point, but to say apple is giving us something that we dont know we need yet is IMO far fetched.
We are talking about a media consumption device, a device geared towards consumers and not content providers. And since its target market are the consumers, a closed platform is fine by all means, and is nothing new. No one complains about the ipod or the iphone not having usb ports and a file management system because it is not necessary in its context, and it is still so for the ipad, it is not necessary for what it is made to do.
But to claim that the ipad is going to be the first move in changing the face of computing is unfounded. Apple can control more by giving you less, but they cannot give you more by controlling more. App makers dont make apps on ipads or iphones, they make it on conventional all-do-able computers. No coder is going to code on an ipad, and no music maker makes music (studio wise) on an ipod.
Thats why i would draw the distinction between content creators and content consumers. Content creators cannot be closed platformed like the Iphone OS. It needs to allow the creator freedom to create. The windows platform is a poor example, but the mac OS is a good example. The ipad is meant for content consumption, and therefore a restricted platform is fine if it allows it to do what it's created to do better.
Yes we have the touch capable iwork suite (content creation), and that is a good move on apple's part, which also leads to my next point: the iTablet that we were hoping for? the actual tablet computer? well it has not arrived yet. Iwork should be on a computer, not a media consumption device. When it does, it will have a fully featured os, The Mac OS.
Selling you task specific devices? that sounds like a great idea for the company, but a horrible idea for consumers. I believe that apple already has future revisions of the ipad and iphone and macbook pros already in their labs. They just dont want to release it. Why should they when they can churn more money out of their customer base still with the current state of the industry? The Iphone os 3.2 is indicative of it already. apple is more than capable already of releasing a front and back camera, multitasking capable iPad. They just want to make more money before that.
Apple also needs to receive criticism for the way it does things if it wants to improve. We cant just keep worshiping the company like souless mindless consumers or this is what we will get: a company that truly holds back the best from its consumers. Lots of companies are limited by their potential. Apple is not one of them. I do hold them in high regard. If there is one company that i would bank on revolutionizing the tablet, it will be apple. But we wont get the former apple back if we continue to buy into the crap that they give us and call it the revolution that we dont know about yet.
Yet their design philosophy has to be flawed (or beginning to be flawed) if they are oversimplifying things by sacrificing function. Form over function as people call it. The adapters required to plug in a usb camera? an external keyboard specifically made by slapping on a dock like thing at the back? ridiculous.
Take the article with your own thoughts but I would seriously refrain from calling it an advent change in computing. Even calling it computing is a little far fetched. Its a media consumption device, just like the ipod touch, just like the iphone, just like the kindle etc. They just made it look better and work better.