iPad, multiple accounts - Page 2

Actually, the iPod was a redundant device when it came out as there were other mp3 players on the market. However, mp3 players gained much greater popularity once the iPod hit the market. That was because Apple took an existing idea and executed it in a way that people came to really enjoy using it. It's still non-essential. That was the criteria you were using before, one that really doesn't matter. I'm good with you sticking to what is in your opinion "essential items", I'm just pointing out that other people do not.

I will buy an iPad because it appears that it is going to perform a number of functions, not just one role, in a form factor and execution that appears very enjoyable. I suspect that is also why others will buy iPads. I suspect that a broader range of apps will be available for the iPad that would not work at all well on the iPhone.


Interestingly enough, "better" falls into the category of different. However, "better" will be in eye of the user. I take your opinion that it is not better for you, but I'm also quite sure that others will find it a better way to do those same things it does.


I would say that is for them to decide, not you or me. It's highly likely that don't care much whether or not you or I think their purchases were justified. But you rightfully recognize that people often buy "redundant non-essential" devices. Thank you for that.


Okay, your opinion is noted. Soon, others will be able to decide for themselves if that is the case.


I can't think of a single person that I know who has an iPod who has ever asked me that. so where does that get us? Oh yea, it gets us back to the point that some people care about certain features and others do not. So is it safe to assume that all the people who asked you this question promptly got rid of their iPods in exchange for another mp3 which could function in that manner? Or did they keep their iPods anyway?


Sure you can. You can say it about a multitude of things in the market that are not even made by Apple. That doesn't invalidate what you quoted, it merely points out that that market is not guaranteed, which wasn't something I claimed, so I'm not sure what your point is. I'm familiar with the lackluster interest in Apple TV if that is your point. I'm thinking the interested is considerably different for the iPad, but again, time will tell.


Okay, we have another point of disagreement then.


This is a true statement only when qualified as such; "SOME people...." Just so you know, some people buy netbooks in addition to their desktops, and even in some cases, in addition to their laptops. I think there is enough of those some people that and iPad would be a preferable alternative to a netbook.

At any rate, I'm going to wait and see the outcome, with my iPad of course (when I can get it). You haven't provided a single argument so far that convinces me (admittedly not knowing if that is even one of your goals) that the iPad is going to be a failure. What many of your statements has suggested to me that you don't see the marketplace the same way I do, a way that recognizes that not all people buy or don't buy things according to my personal criteria.

I assume you mean according to your personal criteria? Or in other words, your opinion?

What I'm noticing is that Apple's bottom line is looking pretty good and based on surveys conducted by Fortune Magazine, Apple has come up as the top most admired company three years running.

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article...icleid/3921134

Not that I'm arguing from consensus, but it appears many people out there would disagree with your view of success. But then again, I think if Apple keeps recording profits, keeps being admired by it's peers and consumers, and keeps selling products to people who apparently keep buying them, I'm thinking your criteria for success won't matter much to them.

And every single person I know (who has actually talked about it!) has talked (or shown me) about their content. I think that our different experiences are rather telling.


Thanks for the reply. Even with your, "master device" qualification don't you think that 15 million a year... is on the high side? Netbooks have been flavour of the month for ... around 18 months. They run on the most 'popular' OS and can cost as little as $299.00. If all the OEMs combined sell 33 million in a year, I think you are possibly setting the bar a little high for the iPad.


Yes but Marvin, you have previously suggested that the potential market for the iPad is small, and you didn't think it would sell very well. Those are numbers. Plain and simple. You know very well that as soon as Apple starts releasing sales figures ... and Gartner etc, chime in with some kind of market definition.... that the whole tech web is going to go apoplectic as it attempts to parse the numbers. Just think how much fun it will be on our own little forum.


That's a little cheeky! So you will be right. The iPad will still be a failure... even if it's a success.

I meant as far as the individual is concerned. Few people have multiple MP3 players.


Forstall seems to think so anyway. He said that making the screen bigger increases what you can do by an order of magnitude. 3rd party apps haven't filled me with much confidence so far though.


I gave them 3rd party software to do it but if I hadn't, they would have kept the devices and remained disappointed they couldn't do that task.


Certainly, I could see the 13" Macbook Pro + iPad combination taking the role of the Macbook Air for some.


It's not my goal to convince people that a product that hasn't arrived yet will be a failure. I think it has enough limitations to prevent it being a runaway success and some are hailing it as a new computing paradigm and that Apple has done it again and redefined the way we use computers. I think those people are looking backwards to Apple's previous successes instead of the product presented.


I'm sure it at least used to be the opinion of some at Apple too. Probably before the big bucks started rolling in.

Success shouldn't be defined by profit. That's the mistake Microsoft makes.

Comic Sans is a widely used font and some would define that as successful. The designer has however made a public apology for inflicting it on the world as he recognizes that there's more to success than number of users, apps, downloads and profits.

You're right, it depends on your personal criteria. To a lot of people the acquisition of wealth, power, fame and so on are their measures of success.


You mean photos? If so, photos of what, family, holidays? And is this a regular occurrence?


The netbook market has shown a lot of things. People want value for money, they only need a computer fast enough to do key tasks but a large variety of tasks, they value portability over features like an optical drive, they like good battery life. This class of people is huge BUT only for the people who use it as their main base of operations.

Think of the members of your family who could have a device like a TV and no traditional computer at all and still get emails, a browser, video clips and so on. The bottom line is you cannot own this device unless you have a computer and since you have one already, why do you need another one? You don't. As I said earlier, people do have redundant devices but by simply making it a device that fits the space of being that device people rely on for everything, the market is so much bigger.

It has enough to fulfill the role, Apple just need to cut the cord.


That will be determined by the usage of the final product. The definitions cross over somewhat. If it sells in small numbers but delivers a great experience then it can be considered a success but the failure was in the chosen target market (Cube status essentially) - this is the most likely failing of the iPad IMO. If it sells in large numbers and delivers a great experience then it's an all round success. If it sells in large numbers but people are just shoving it in a drawer and developers don't make many sales then it's a failure because it's a product that has no reason to be.

I can't predict what will happen and perhaps the market for a large ipod-type slave accessory is larger than I expect. Perhaps Apple's iphone OS 4 will change things considerably. I don't wish failure on it, Apple have done a lot to earn success in whatever they do. The iPad just seems a lazy attempt. You can tell from the marketing material. They are trying much harder to sell the iPad than the iPhone and the initial impressions are worse. The iphone had limitations too like the ridiculous price but you could see right away that it had been designed perfectly for its role. With the iPad, rather than designing something for the role, Apple has seen the gap and pulled one of the extremes into it.

Apple went for the ipod, others have gone for the netbooks. Apple's decision shows better responsiveness but just one picture of the iPad hooked up to the HP Slate like a dog on a leash and it looks weak. You can't say that about the iphone because it fulfills its role perfectly.

I figured that was what you meant, but my statement is still valid. There isn't only one way in which a product can be redundant in a manner that may affect it's market viability.


For me, some have and some have not, much like any type of product. An example of one that apparently many people are very satisfied with AND has made significant profit is Plants vs. Zombies. For a 3 dollar app, within the first 9 days they sold a million dollars worth of copies. At over 6000 reviews, it still holds a 5 out of 5 star average review. Yes, one example doesn't make the case, but my point is that for other people, 3rd party apps have been very useful and/or fun (or they have confidence in them to use your words). But again, this is your personal evaluation, not everyone else's evaluation (necessarily). If you are telling me why you won't buy an iPad, then your statement is entirely valid.


Would they, or have they, gone on to buy other iPods later on down the line knowing what they know now? Or, did they later pick a different mp3 player if they did get another one? It seems to me that that is quite a common limitation among most mp3 players. In fact, I think it is a legal requirement that mp3 devices can not pass on further generations of the music they contain so you can't really hold that against Apple or the iPod.


I disagree, success is contingent upon what one's goals are and profit CAN BE a viable measurement. Success is only measurable when one has goals in place by which to provide the benchmark. For virtually every business, LONG TERM financial viability typically is or should be the goal. Businesses do not stay in business if they do not make money (unless the government bails them out /facepalm). Now, one of the major components of maintaining long term financial viability is by providing the bulk of your target consumers with products or services they desire, at a level of quality that keeps them happy, and at a price they are willing to pay. It is far to say that in most cases, a company that maintains their long term financial viability is doing so primarily because they are doing that very thing. Certainly other influences can affect that measurement as well, but by and large that is the core method for maintaining profitability. If you can't make stuff people want and are happy with, you won't stay in business. That doesn't make that you goal, because one could easily do that at a massive loss, but then they won't stay in business long that way either. The goal is to make money, the method is to make viable products and services, the measure is sustained profit.

Now, if you want to talk charities or something other than businesses, then perhaps the goals and measurements should be different. Apple is a business though.


I'm sorry, I don't agree that that makes your case. It demonstrates someone else can have a different goal and measurement of success, but it doesn't illustrate everyone else should.


Exactly. On that we agree.

Sure but the point is it's not a limitation on say the HP Slate. That particular example is not the most important one anyway. One that has arisen just recently is no tethering the iphone to the iPad to share the data connection so you essentially have to pay twice for data. If it did tether, some people would be ok owning both but without it there are people deciding between the two devices. As I say, people do opt for multiple redundant devices but the majority tend to cut down on this.

I currently use my computer for email, browsing, various productivity tasks, casual gaming and managing my media.
I currently use my iphone for music, a few apps, maps, calling & SMS mainly, light browsing, the occasional email, reading, I was going to use it for photos but the quality isn't good enough and calendars/events notifications.

Between the two, I'm covered almost completely but there is space where I'm missing a device. When I travel around, I want to have something light (not a Macbook for example) that I can do web browsing, manage pictures, import pictures on location and sort them out (including compression and uploading) as well as my music, I want a network connection (and I'm not prepared to pay for data on top of my iphone) and I want the changes I make on the device to sync back to my main computer. I also want to protect the data with encryption in case it gets stolen. I want to be able to share data with someone else easily by using something like a USB stick and copying content over (wifi sharing might cover this but I don't think it will due to the app-centric nature of it).

The iPad is light, it has an amazing IPS screen so perfect for photos, the portrait rotation is great and the browser is good. But then that's it. I can't do half the things I need to justify filling this gap and it's not a lot of things I need to do. Now, it could be that Apple are deliberately leaving this lacking so that developers get something to make in the same way they ship poor FTP solutions and H264 compressors with OS X but some things are better done by them.


Exactly the point but of course it's only a problem if people aren't satisfied with the iPad. The iPad has shown clearly Apple's resources are as limited as any other company. The iphone just blew people away but the iPad looks just like other slate devices, the interface is old and it has mostly the same limitations. Then you get to the presentation of it and they are steamrolling down the road of cheesy, pretentious and just false-looking advertising. When you watch the promo video, it's like you're watching a QVC ad. Whenever they show zooming up iphone apps, it just looks like a gigantic fail:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h3sRoa5W2M

Like when they were pushing web 2.0 on the original iphone. Developers were like 'ok but when's the SDK coming out?'. Right now, it's more like 'you've built something that has the potential to be a really cool lite computer experience so when are the limitations going to be removed?'.

The final words are interesting but to me a little worrying:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7TsDjwvvMI

It's good they declare it as a precursor rather than the goal state but I hope it's not going to be something that severely affects OS X in a bad way.

You don't have to give me any more reasons why you don't want an iPad. I understand that you don't want an iPad from the reasons you've already given me. If this discussion was about what you wanted (or didn't), we would have been finished long ago.


But as you indicate, that's not really an important point.


I don't disagree that this point may affect sales. How much is another question. However, I would like to use this as an example of where this issue may be more important to the technically-inclined than anyone else. A substantial portion of people, and I suspect even users of the iPhone, probably couldn't even tell you what tethering is let alone are they going to base their purchase on it. For some it may be ignorance, but for others it is simply, I don't care. It's simply, "when I turn this thing on I want to get to the internet. Tethering? Wtf is that?"

I would be a little surprised if Apple had done some research into "what do most people do most with their devices?" So even though it works out to much the same as what they do with the iPhone, I think they iPad does those things well, and it does so in a form factor that will be much more pleasant than the iPad-mini (iPhone). I've said it before, but I think it's a mistake to underestimate the (consumer) value of the size of the iPad just by summing it up as a large Touch. Even if for the sake of argument I agreed that it was "just" a large Touch, it may well be that there is a viable market for a large Touch. It is not unfathomable that people holding a Touch or an iPhone may have thought to themselves, "Man, imagine this only bigger."

Many people I know don't want to know how stuff works, they don't want to figure out how to make something work, they just want it to work, they want it to be easy and they want it to be fast. These are the consumers that the technically-inclined just can't seem to visualize. These are the people who aren't following forums, are not spending inordinate amounts of time talking about using their devices (they are just using them), and are not reading article after article following all the latest Apple or iPad developments (perhaps like many of us are).


I would appreciate it it you would expand on why you think this is based on their iPad implementation. I can think of reasons other than limited resources, but I'd like to hear why you think this is probably the case.


Clearly not everyone. There are still people today who declare it a piece of crap, which nicely dovetails my original point. I have little doubt that these people brought up many of the same objections you have about the iPad and yet the iPhone is moving along quite nicely.


You mean, when you watch it you got that impression. I watched it already and came away with a different take. I've talked to other people who also watched it and were impressed with what they saw. I've also talked to other people who were not impressed. No one I've talked to you yet described it the way you did though. Just like the iPod, the iPhone, Macs, and every other Apple product, some people like the idea of the iPad and some people do not.

I'd like to express some of my original sentiment again, perhaps in a different way. For the sake of argument, let's assume the iPad is graced with massive sales over the next year or two. There are still going to be ubergeeks and the like telling everyone how the iPad is a crappy and unoriginal device, just like people still do with the iPhone, the iPod, Macs, etc., etc. They will be doing this primarily because it isn't what they want or would use and they cannot see past that to the fact that not everyone wants what they want and not everyone uses things in the same way they do.

For the sake of clarity, I would like to point out that when I use the term 'ubergeeks" or some such similar terminology, I don't mean that in a derogatory way, nor do I mean to imply that my statements targeting that term applies to all who would consider themselves such. I consider myself to be somewhat technically inclined in geekology, having been an early adopter of home computing devices dating back to the TRS-80 Model 1, Level 1 computer. I've never had a Mac, yet, but I have had several iterations of the iPod and now the iPhone.

Whew... sorry for the long-windedness of my posting.

I doubt I'm the only person with those opinions, that's why we share them.


That doesn't make the whole point of the device's limitations irrelevant. There are still all the other limitations.


They'll care when they have to pay over $100 more for the 3G model and $15/month at least for the data and run out pretty quick playing Youtube videos (you'd get about 5 videos per month on the $15 plan) and end up paying $30/month, which is like paying for the iPad all over again within a year.


That's what she said. Jeff Han who showed some of the most impressive demos on multi-touch said he preferred a big screen. I fully agree that a large screen has a lot of advantages but the main one being that you can actually do complex tasks. If they just blow up an iphone interface to fisher-price scale buttons and you can still only do one thing at a time then where's the advantage? This again is down to developers making improved apps but they are having to fight against mobile hardware limits - you aren't going to see an app like Pixelmator if the device only has 256MB RAM as you don't have any virtual memory. I expect 512MB RAM but it's still not a lot to work with. The A4 CPU is 1/10th the performance of a Macbook.

It depends on how you look at it. If you compare it to a Kindle, it blows it away. If you compare it to a netbook or HP Slate then it's quite a basic device and one where most of the features don't require a big interface.


They are subject to their manufacturers' capabilities and try to minimize costs by sharing common inventory. The iPad internals match the iphone and ipod so they will reduce costs through the lineup. They clearly don't have the resources to develop and maintain yet another incarnation of their OS so they just added some APIs to the iphone OS. It's the idea of selling old stuff as new. NVidia do it all the time.

Start with an iphone and follow the steps to make an iPad:
1. bigger screen
2. add popups and split-screen to the OS
3. there is no step 3, you've got an iPad

(I didn't count removal of items like the camera and 3G by default)


I haven't see that happening. When the iphone first came out, there were criticisms of the software because they were pushing Web 2.0. The 'ubergeeks' who wanted a proper SDK with GPU access were not impressed and the same arguments came along about nobody caring about a proper SDK and Web 2.0 was capable of doing loads of things. Look who was right in the end. How many Web 2.0 apps (or webapps) do you actually see for the iphone? Apple lists under 4,500 vs over 140,000 non-web apps and who has webapps on their phone?

Nobody complains about reduced functionality out of some puristic legacy agenda, reduced functionality means that you can't just doooo as Forstall puts it. People need functionality as it adds value to the purchase and increases the target audience. Larger audience, larger market share, more developer interest, better content.

What I will say is that the iPad in its current state is not finished and it had to start somewhere. I would rather have seen an x86 device running x86 OS X with a custom UI and running iphone apps via a translator as widget-type apps but capable of running normal OS X apps. However, the iphone hardware and OS make a lot of sense and if anything, it will help push the iphone developments forward. I'm comfortable with the choices made. I do think however that what we've seen is an example of working on the hardware first and trying to get it right and then leaving the software functionality until later (maybe WWDC).

As I think of my reasoning as well, but I tend to distinguish when I'm talking about myself and when I'm talking about what other people may do. When you say "I", I assume you are speaking for yourself, an entirely reasonable assumption.



Or not. Some may, some may not. If they have that concern they may elect the Wi-fi version.


The advantage of the larger screen is not limited to whether not it can multi-task.

(Pixelmator)... I doubt you could run Photoshop on it either... but then, I don't think that was what they were going for when they had the average user in mind. You probably can't run any heavy duty Music Sequencing software, or any number of other more specialized processor intense applications either. But then, I dont think that was who they were aiming at. Do you think Pixelmator is something that the average user uses heavily every day? I think we each see the average user differently. Of course, what matters in this case is whether or not Apple has pegged the average user based on the iPad functionality.


Or, if one compares it to what one wants to do, and how it does those things.... that answer becomes quite individualistic. I'm fully excited to see how well the Slate does against the iPad, as well as seeing how the Kindle market is impacted as well.



You just provided a list of things they did and came to a conclusion. Listing what they did does not provide the evidence of why they did what they did. Other reasons may apply and nothing you have said demonstrates why it is necessarily what you said.


Interesting how our experiences differ so much. It's like the web (and the world) are really big places. We must not visit the same forums or read the same articles.


How many people actually care or would know the difference? These are the kinds of statements (as well as the one about Pixelmator) that lead me to believe that your vision of the average user versus Apple's (and perhaps mine) differ greatly. But hey, I could be wrong. I just think that many of the reasons you mentioned are still not going to stop Joe Blow from going in the Apple store, seeing an iPad and thinking, "Wow, this thing is cool, I've got to have one!"


That's pretty much true of any first iteration of a product. That's pretty much true of products that have existed for almost a century now...say... the car.


While I could follow that, do you know how many people you would have lost about 5 words in? The people among others who are going to be future iPad owners.

I'm sure we can go back and forth like this until the iPad actually comes out. While I enjoy the conversation, I think may be going in circles at this point.

I'll be interested to see which of us is closer to right when the sales actually start and further down the road when a better measure can be made.

At this time, I can obtain apps from the app store through an iPhone (or Touch) application. The App Store uses my iTunes account to sell me apps. Here's my question, I wonder whether the iBook Store will use the iTunes account to sell ibooks or whether you will have to set up a separate account.

I also wonder whether the iBook Store will, as does the iTunes store, sell gift cards?

For the sake of following up on this old discussion, I'm going to put it out there that by preliminary appearances, Apple has found a viable volume of the market as I expected. Now we get to see how successful the second wave will be when the 3G version comes out.

Of course if the 3G comes out with more installed RAM I might not be able to resist. As it is I'm avoiding the Apple store as I can't afford a short term buy.

Dave

If you don't mind her being able to read your mail (and vice versa) I've heard good things about the Mailroom app. Given I only really use one email addy I never bought it.

Also, I think it's an iphone app and not an iPad one.

I assume you mean more than 64gb of RAM? There is no reason to think it will any time soon - I've seen nothing advertised other than 16, 32, and 64. As it is, I'm waiting for the 64 gb 3G which I pre-ordered long ago.

Definitely not going to allow this. Multiple accounts would make it easier for account hacking/jacking from spammers.

RAM = Random Access Memory
Flash is a form of electrically eraseable read only memory.

RAM is where your processors stores programs and data while the software is active. Flash is considered secondary storage and in these implementations act similarly to a disk drive.

The detail is that iPad only comes with 256MB of RAM. Note carefully that is Mega Bytes, that may be fine for a phone but is un acceptable for a tablet device. This is especially the case when there is less than 150MB available to user programs. That is far to little for a tablet the size of iPad.

In any event I will try to avoid trying to explain why that is important. It is fairly useless until you understand hardware a bit better.


Dave

It is also fairly useless to discuss unless you have used an iPad and can state based on actual experience whether it performs well, despite the allegedly insufficent technical specs.

My thoughts exactly. Despite his claim that is it unacceptable, apparently the iPad doesn't know that because it seems to work just fine.

It is pretty simple in my case as the expectation would be heavy use of the iPad for web browsing over 3G. That means a slower connection than I would like at times. In the case of IPad that would also mean constant reloading of tabs or views as the machine simply doesn't have enough RAM to keep much in memory. So You end up constantly having to reload web sites over a slow connection.

Further this is not a figment of my imagination as it is being consistently reported all over the web. The current iPad is actually worst in this respect than the iPhones or Touchs currently shipping. Now this is not likely to be as noticeable on a WiFi iPad simply because of the dramatically faster transfer rates. This doesn't even get into the effect the 3G hardware might have on free RAM.

As to the insufficient technical spec; it isn't alleged, Apple has printed nothing indicating installed RAM in these devices. Certainly not the last time I looked. If you can supply a URL to an Apple spec sheet please do. i can accept that the spec isn't important to you but it is very important to many of us as it directly indicates value. Especially long term value where we might see a quick upgrade to far more RAM and along with that a new generation of software to run on it.

Considering that confusion seen in the comment that I originally responded to, I'm not sure many on this forum really understand the difference between RAM and Flash Memory. That is a sad comment on the state of technical knowledge in the good Old USofA. In any event I think it is important that people look at the purchase and its long term viability. If the tech changes as fast as iPhone tech changed it won't be much more than a year and the iPad will double its performance and like iPhones of that past they will quickly become hindered by new software running on old hardware. This is something to consider considering that iPhone OS 4.0 is coming.


Dave

Except that it's not true. This is another one of those shabby "who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" arguments. I have been using an iPad heavily for nearly three weeks now and have never experienced any performance issues browsing the web or doing anything else, including intensive activities, such as streaming movies. I know the geeks are having a hard time wrapping their heads around the entire concept of the iPad, but to insist that it must have performance issues because they say it must, despite all of the evidence to the contrary supplied by actual users, suggests that something else is going on here. In a word, denial. The simple truth is, you don't know what's going on inside the iPad and how Apple made it as responsive as it is, but that no good reason to insist that it can't possibly be happening.

This is exactly what is being reported by actual users. It is as valid as your position to me. More so because it is consitant with what I see on my iPhone.

I can stream movies on my iPhone if I really want to. You need to focus on what I'm talkng about not the things iPad obviously does well. It is important to understand that I don't dismiss the things it does well, I'm just concerned about what it doesn't do well. Especially if I'm going to be using one with 3G.

The only person having a problem here is you. You take as evidence your usage which frankly means nothing in this context because you are on WiFI. There is likely to be a major difference in performance over 3G simply because the time to reload a page becomes very significant. It is really pretty damn simple to understand, 3G page reloads = slow!

Have you totally lost what I've been trying to say here? I'm not talking about responsiveness. I'm talking about performance issues related to the lack of memory. Especially in the context of a person using the tablet over 3G. To a lesser extent the more involved apps like iWorks are also showing signs of being constrained by the lack of memory.

The more you sit here and present non arguements the more people will shut you out. Everybody already knows what the iPad does well, it is the limitations that are being swept under the rug because everybody is bug eyed over the responsiveness of the unit.



Dave

I know exactly what you are saying. The iPad doesn't have enough gigglehurts, so it can't possibly work well. The fact that it does is mystifying and therefore cannot be happening.

Agreed! I haven't had any performance issues, and I don't anticipate any when my 3G arrives either. 256 MBs of ram? I wouldn't care if it had 2 MBs, as long as it performs - and it does, very well I might add.

Warning: works only on jailbroken iPads.

My thoughts exactly. I think Apple is just setting the stage for a more powerful iPad in the future.

Wow, this thread has gotten off topic If you're willing to Jailbreak, there is an app coming out very soon to do exactly what you want.

It supports multiple users/accounts on iPad, with all features (mail/web/applications/settings/etc): http://nowsci.com/userprofiles

Thanks,
B.

I know you're resurrecting a year old thread to push your app but it does look pretty good. What app store rules does it violate that it can't be done for the app store?

Not "quite" a year yet I figured people who subscribed to the thread might be interested now that a solution is coming.

As for app store rules, to the letter, I don't believe it violates any. However, Apple is very strict on anything that "changes the way the OS operates". That being said, I've yet to figure out a way to duplicate the required system elements without root access, too. A Jailbreak gives that ability to apps.

Thanks,
B.