In all fairness, when the iPhone was debuted in January 2007 to even after it was selling well it was stated that Apple was too late to be entering into the ?well entrenched? smartphone market. While I would say that Mr. Ma?s hyperbole about it not starting yet shouldn?t be taken at face value I do agree that there is opportunity, especially if they plan to use Android as no vendor has used Android before. By that I mean is tweaking and optimizing Android to the HW like RiM, Apple and others have been doing with their own OS. There is no reason for LG and others to do what Apple did with BSD as a foundation for Mac OS X. I don?t think they have to disclose or share any code they?ve changed above the OS, so at the very least I think they have an opportunity to be the leaders of Android-based devices. Will they is another story, but the opportunity certainly seems present.
You'd agree that 3 years is a decade in the wireless industry.
With heavy weights that are proven like Apple and Google, LG should stick to what it does well and not bet the farm on this vision.
You'd agree that 3 years is a decade in the wireless industry.
With heavy weights that are proven like Apple and Google, LG should stick to what it does well and not bet the farm on this vision.
I?d agree that the last three years have seen sweeping changes to the wireless industry.
I don?t agree that LG doesn?t have a chance to be profitable as a smartphone or tablet vendor or be the most profitable of the vendors using Android or other free or licensed OSe for said device categories.
I think the speed in which this market changes (as you?ve noted) and the swift kick to the arse Apple has put to the entire industry of both smartphones and tablets (as I noted) is proof that a company with the right idea, with deep pockets and engineering know-how can make a hefty profit in this business.
I?m not sure how much Moto is benefiting from Android at this point but it?s clear that the iPhone saved their ass by clearing a path for them to follow from both Google?s redesign of Android and their focus on higher-end devices.
I wouldn?t count anyone just yet, and that includes MS who I think have a real shot at eating away at RiM?s corporate marketshare. Nor would I discount RiM who have shown quarter-after-quarter that they know how to manage a company.
Remember, a decade ago Apple and Google were not heavyweights and 3.5 years years ago neither had any smartphone-related product on the market.
PS: We really don?t have to look at 3 years to see Apple?s success in the smartphone market. Apple reportedly became the most profitable handset vendor in the world in just over 2 years on the market. All phones from all vendors from all countries in 2 years. Innovation is the Jell-o of technology driven markets, there is always room for it no matter how full we think it is.
You are wrong yet again. The procedure is the same except you hit copy. I would select all 5 pictures, hit copy, and paste all 5 pics at once, not one at a time as you claim, into the replied to email. Good luck on your travels. Next time grab your tin foil hat to go along with your Air.
You're being a little too smug.
Let's get two things out of the way: I love my iPad, and Eye Forget is exaggerating a bit.
But let me recount an experience when not having the print option while traveling was a real problem. When the iPhone 4 started to get shipped, I was one of the early ones. But I was traveling with my family, and I had decided to try out a week of travels with just my iPad. There was no way for me to be able to print out, sign, and Fedex the 'pre-sign for delivery' document to a colleague at work who could, on his way home, to stick it on my door. (My assistant was on vacation, and my neighbors were traveling as well. I would have been perfectly happy for them to print out on my behalf and fake my signature.)
It was really quite frustrating. I finally did use the computer in the business center of the hotel and all was fine. But it was a mighty frustrating experience during the first couple of weeks of ownership of my iPad.
I can give you other examples. There is simply no doubt that it would have been a far more powerful and far more functional device if Apple had allowed for something as simple and obvious as USB transfer and/or enabling wireless print and/or enabling disk mode (that remains a big mystery to me with iOS, considering they've had that since the first iPod) and/or having a Dropbox-like solution and/or bring to the 21st century Apple's absolutely primitive and poorly-implemented iDisk and me.com services.
The bottom line is, now I travel with the iPad, the iPhone and my MBP, just to be on the safe side.
Everyone needs to remember that this is version 1 of the iPad. Version 1 of the iPhone had limitations as well. All I can say is, just wait.
I have no doubt that subsequent versions will address many of the issues I raised above.
But it would be nice if we as consumers didn't stop demanding that Apple go beyond the equivalent of reinventing the wheel with every one of its major new-product intros.
Surely, one would expect that after the iPod, the iPod Touch, and the iPhone (not to mention MacBook Air), they've learnt a few obvious things by now?
Let's get two things out of the way: I love my iPad, and Eye Forget is exaggerating a bit.
But let me recount an experience when not having the print option while traveling was a real problem. When the iPhone 4 started to get shipped, I was one of the early ones. But I was traveling with my family, and I had decided to try out a week of travels with just my iPad. There was no way for me to be able to print out, sign, and Fedex the 'pre-sign for delivery' document to a colleague at work who could, on his way home, to stick it on my door. (My assistant was on vacation, and my neighbors were traveling as well. I would have been perfectly happy for them to print out on my behalf and fake my signature.)
It was really quite frustrating. I finally did use the computer in the business center of the hotel and all was fine. But it was a mighty frustrating experience during the first couple of weeks of ownership of my iPad.
I can give you other examples. There is simply no doubt that it would have been a far more powerful and far more functional device if Apple had allowed for something as simple and obvious as USB transfer and/or enabling wireless print and/or enabling disk mode (that remains a big mystery to me with iOS, considering they've had that since the first iPod) and/or having a Dropbox-like solution and/or bring to the 21st century Apple's absolutely primitive and poorly-implemented iDisk and me.com services.
The bottom line is, now I travel with the iPad, the iPhone and my MBP, just to be on the safe side.
Never mind the fact that you can sign for your device to be dropped at your doorstep electronically via the online store... I agree, the ability to print would be much appreciated.
I've had MobileMe since it was dotmac and absolutely love it - I love adding pics to iPhoto on the go and have them automatically sync to my Mac back at home. I traveled through Mexico for two weeks in May - I would simply take photos of various places, upload them to MobileMe - Then my parents back home would open them up in Places on their computer to see where all I had been. Primitive??? Maybe, but they sure thought it was cool.
I've had MobileMe since it was dotmac and absolutely love it - I love adding pics to iPhoto on the go and have them automatically sync to my Mac back at home. I traveled through Mexico for two weeks in May - I would simply take photos of various places, upload them to MobileMe - Then my parents back home would open them up in Places on their computer to see where all I had been. Primitive??? Maybe, but they sure thought it was cool.
The original dotmac was far superior in a lot of ways and for its time. (I've had it since the beginning. Sheer inertia, and the fact that it is not terribly expensive, is all that keeps me there.
Upload photos to MobileMe so that others can look at it?! Isn't that a very basic feature that dozens of sites- e.g., Picasa - offer?
One great thing is the iPad's PDF capabilities. Instead of carrying around all those huge, large-format blueprints, they can load it all on their iPad, and see it in an 8x11 size! With all the details!
Not sure how someone can see a print in 8x11 size when the screen is only about half that size. Hopefully apps like this will show up soon.
Quote:
Or they could zoom in, and see little parts of their prints by scanning and panning across it! If there is any problem, they can simply take a picture of of the jobsite, and superimpose it onto the blueprints to show the difference!
Talk about excessive exclaimation points.
Anyway, superimposing photos to blueprints is anything but easy, even if the photographer took photos from the best feasible angle.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Postulant
Third, you don't have to copy and paste pictures to add to an email. You simply check them and hit the email button. As you can see, I have 5 pictures selected for this email. Not one at a time like you claim:
I don't blame him though, it's easy to miss that feature. I think I only discovered it a couple months ago.
Quote:
Originally Posted by anantksundaram
I can give you other examples. There is simply no doubt that it would have been a far more powerful and far more functional device if Apple had allowed for something as simple and obvious as USB transfer and/or enabling wireless print and/or enabling disk mode (that remains a big mystery to me with iOS, considering they've had that since the first iPod) and/or having a Dropbox-like solution and/or bring to the 21st century Apple's absolutely primitive and poorly-implemented iDisk and me.com services.
I hope they do make printing work. Very few printers I run across are wireless though. Even on a desktop OS, setting up a printer can be pretty irritating. Making it simple enough for iPad might not be an easy task.
I know Americans are not that good at geography but, Norway, not Denmark. Close.
So what does this have to do with poor geography skills? Seems it would be more along the line of reading comprehension/remembering what country was mentioned in an article.
At least not with what I'm seeing in the Adroid world right now. LG would have to fork it and then find a creative soul with a vision to manage the port. Easier said than done.
Honestly, things will have to change in the Android world for it to see any long term success. However Android isn't the only alternative, there are enough Linux based ideas out there that something different could easily end up on the tablet.
In any event who really cares if any COMING device blows iPad away? Lets face it iPad is very much a rev one device in Apples finest tradition and will likely have been on the market for a year before serious competition arrives. By that time Apple will have blown away iPad themselves. By that I mean a SMP based Cortex A9 based machine with lots of RAM. That processor will likely be a SoC highly optimized for use in tablets not cell phones. So yeah the can blow away the current iPad, but so will Apple. There is more to the game than that.
Dave
This is prescient! The "lots of RAM" thing!
I have been doing some experimenting-- with our AT&T bill-- We have a family plan with an iP4, 3GS, and 3 kiddie phones (ages 10, 11, 14). We have unlimited texting-- the 14-year-old is a girl and the 11-year-old has a girlfriend... 'Nuff said!
I wanted to analyze the texting activity to see tf they need to cut back as school starts Monday. Last month there were over 6,000 texts.
On the Mac:
-- Displayed the entire bill in Safari
-- Selected and Copied the 14-year-old's 2,400 texts
-- Pasted to Numbers & did various analyses
On the iPad:
-- tried to open the entire bill in Safari
Safari crashed (repeatedly)-- I assume that:
1) There was not enough RAM to contain the entire file
2) There is no swap file on the SDD to page out/in portions of large files or apps
In other words, there is no "true virtual memory" on the iPad (or any SSD only device).
Wondering why, I searched around and found that SSD is not very good for swap files (in HDD words):
1) say a page size is 4K Bytes
2) say a sector size is 128K Bytes
If you want to swap out 1 page on a HDD it takes a single write.
On a SSD, you can only write if the target block is empty
Otherwise, you must:
1) read and cache the entire sector
2) erase the sector
3) rewrite the cached blocks and the new block.
This is an over-simplification as there are some techniques to [somewhat] mitigate the problem.
But, suffice it to say-- it is not practical to have a large app/file that cannot be entirely contained in RAM on a SSD.
The easy answer is to give the iPad lots of [volatile] RAM-- enough to support the typical app/file size.
A more difficult solution (but probably better, long term) is to replace the SSD storage with something that can be realistically used for swapping app and file pages.
From what I read, it will take several billions of dollars to set up a production line to manufacture MRAM to perform (size, speed, power) as well, or better, than current RAM.
It is worth noting that MRAM is seen as a non-volitle replacement for all current RAM as well as SSD.
Mmmm.... who has several billions of dollars to invest to make MRAM a reality?
Wow, this thread seems to be an overblown semantic argument, or at least an argument over poorly defined terms.
I’d say Apple has designed the iPad’s first iteration to be a satellite computing device. Not designed to be your only or main computing device (even though it’s possible to use it that way once you’ve activated it via iTunes, which can be done in an Apple Store).
I’d also say that Apple expects the current iPad to be mostly a consumption device for the majority of users, even though it can easily be used to create as there are apps and specialized uses that focus on creation over consumption. Pedantically speaking it does have a virtual keyboard and can connect to physical keyboard which in itself is used for “creation”.
I don’t think any reasonable poster who has stated that it’s a consumption device is actually denying that it can be used for (or even primarily used by some) for creation. I think they are saying that the main focus from Apple and the most likely use is consumption. I watched a show on HGTV that used a sponge to create textured walls, but I doubt anyone would argue that is its main use.
Can we not agree that it’s designed to complement your main PC and be optimized for tasks that would tend to benefit a highly mobile , handheld device with a large* screen screen?
* large screen for a mobile, handheld device.
Ahh... The old Consumptionism vs Creationism argument!
That said, I don't think it's realistic to expect the iPad to perform on a par with a decent laptop but the idea of it being designed so that one would be comfortable with using it for basic handling of media while on the road has a lot of merit.
I think the target, though, would be typical vacationers, someone abroad for a few weeks, shooting HD video (most of us do now), wanting to show off pics to family and friends while on the go, etc.
Future versions will address concerns and the hardware will no doubt just keep on getting more powerful. These are early days. For now, though, if I was taking a trip, the iPad would not be the device I'd choose if I could only bring one.
Yes! But, don't you think that the Steve Jobs's, Tim Cook's, Phil Schiller's, etc. shoot HD video on their vacations and have similar needs and frustrations with the iPad?
Of course, one of the huge problems that Apple, Dell, MS, etc. face is that a lot of their components are sourced from their competitors. A lot of their manufacturing are done by their competitors. And all this is done in China, which has very little legal IP protection, and if anything, encourages the theft of IP in practice.
I am no American protectionist (in fact, I am not even American) but the Apples and Dells of the world really need to bring their manufacturing back to the US. Their long term interests are really at threat because they've almost reached a situation (although Apple, it seems, has avoided it so far) where their contractors know more about their products than they do themselves.
Along the same vein, one of the things the Android fanbois don't realize that Android is nothing but a Google sponsored transfer of IP from the US to China. Android is essentially giving the Samsungs and LGs a way to compete for free. And all of it is subsidized by advertising. The whole ad sponsored IP giveaway bubble that we are seeing is going to cause much larger problems down the road.
The only way the US can compete in high-tech manufacturing is if the governments and regulatory bodies will recognize the need (as you have summarized, so well). High-tech manufacturing is, largely, Green!
If we can give Daimler Benz, Toyota and other foreign companies: Tax; Regulation; Union; incentives to manufacture in the US-- Why can't we make it profitable for Applied Materials help setup a MRAM production facility in California? Why can't Apple profitably manufacture Macs, etc in Fremont... they used to?
Sorry! I am being stupid! California is at full-employment (except for furloughed State employees and the hundreds of thousands on welfare).
When will people get it. Tablets aren't designed for productivity. They are designed for leisurely use. Anybody who is serious about getting work done will pick up a laptop. Not a netbook, or a smartphone, or a tablet--a full featured and powerful laptop.
I completely disagree. I am more productive on my iPhone than I am on my desktop because I am more mobile with a phone than I am with a laptop.
Your idea of productivity isn't necessarily the same as someone else's and I can guarantee you that given an iPad I would be even more productive than on my iPhone because I would have access to Pages and Numbers as well as the one app I use all the time which is Bento. Throw in iBooks so that I can carry around manuals and you've got productivity out the wazoo.
The problem is that people like you also don't get what a tablet is for and relegating the device to a "leisure device" completely misses the point of the iPad entirely.
You completely miss ALL the jobs that an iPad will benefit greatly such as field engineers (that's what I am), doctors/nurses, warehouses, taxis, couriers, etc.
If you question the device you don't need the device. If you relegate it to "leisure device" you don't need the device. I can assure you that I for one will be far more productive on an iPad and an iPhone 4 when I get them than I will be with a laptop and an iPhone.
iPhone 4 shows the way. The next Rev of iPad should follow, with an explosion in software afterward.
Quote:
I have been doing some experimenting-- with our AT&T bill-- We have a family plan with an iP4, 3GS, and 3 kiddie phones (ages 10, 11, 14). We have unlimited texting-- the 14-year-old is a girl and the 11-year-old has a girlfriend... 'Nuff said!
I wanted to analyze the texting activity to see tf they need to cut back as school starts Monday. Last month there were over 6,000 texts.
On the Mac:
-- Displayed the entire bill in Safari
-- Selected and Copied the 14-year-old's 2,400 texts
-- Pasted to Numbers & did various analyses
On the iPad:
-- tried to open the entire bill in Safari
Safari crashed (repeatedly)-- I assume that:
1) There was not enough RAM to contain the entire file
2) There is no swap file on the SDD to page out/in portions of large files or apps
In other words, there is no "true virtual memory" on the iPad (or any SSD only device).
This isn't totally true, you can run backing store on a SSD, but as you pointed out there are issues.
True SSDs are getting incredibly small. Search for info on SanDisk iSSD, an SSD the size of a postage stamp. Performance is respectable too.
Also with the iDevices I'm not sure if SSD technology has even been implemented. Here I'm talking about wear leveling in the like. It would be nice if somebody from Apple could chime in on this subject. The kack of wear leveling would make the addition of virtual memory for data impossible.
Quote:
Wondering why, I searched around and found that SSD is not very good for swap files (in HDD words):
1) say a page size is 4K Bytes
2) say a sector size is 128K Bytes
If you want to swap out 1 page on a HDD it takes a single write.
On a SSD, you can only write if the target block is empty
True but it doesn't mean the use of SSD for backing store is impossible, just that there is significant overhead.
Quote:
Otherwise, you must:
1) read and cache the entire sector
2) erase the sector
3) rewrite the cached blocks and the new block.
This is an over-simplification as there are some techniques to [somewhat] mitigate the problem.
But, suffice it to say-- it is not practical to have a large app/file that cannot be entirely contained in RAM on a SSD.
I don't believe that is true. A true SSD can act as backing store, but i don't believe the iDevice implement the technologies built into SSDs. Besides what you loose at one end you make up for with faster access and reads.
The thing here is that you can very literially wear out an SSD by making heavy use of a backing store on an SSD. In otherwords there are a number of factors at play here, that may have caused Apple to skip the use of swap files.
Whatever the fact remains iPad needs more RAM.
Quote:
The easy answer is to give the iPad lots of [volatile] RAM-- enough to support the typical app/file size.
Yes exactly!!! Even a short jump to 512 MB would give apps a lot more room.
Quote:
A more difficult solution (but probably better, long term) is to replace the SSD storage with something that can be realistically used for swapping app and file pages.
This isn't impossible with flash memory. In a couple of years though the tech will be there to replace flash totally.
That is one possibility but my money is on one of the phase change techniques. Either that or IBMs magnetic approach with micro wires (forgot what they called it).
The good thing is everyone of these is a better solution than flash.
Quote:
From what I read, it will take several billions of dollars to set up a production line to manufacture MRAM to perform (size, speed, power) as well, or better, than current RAM.
It is worth noting that MRAM is seen as a non-volitle replacement for all current RAM as well as SSD.
Mmmm.... who has several billions of dollars to invest to make MRAM a reality?
.
No one it would seem. The big money is going elsewhere.
This isn't impossible with flash memory. In a couple of years though the tech will be there to replace flash totally.
That is one possibility but my money is on one of the phase change techniques. Either that or IBMs magnetic approach with micro wires (forgot what they called it).
The good thing is everyone of these is a better solution than flash.
Looking around, I've only found phase change as being anywhere close, being available in sampling quantities from two companies. Assuming it's reliable and fast enough, then it's a matter of scaling. It takes a lot to replace flash production. I don't expect two companies to displace flash in just a few years, even being as well-backed as they are.
All the other supposed alternatives don't appear to be anywhere near production.
I completely disagree. I am more productive on my iPhone than I am on my desktop because I am more mobile with a phone than I am with a laptop.
I won't go that far but i will say an iPhone serves me better than many (any?) portable device that I've used. Being always on and always in my pocket makes for great utility. Admittedly it takes awhile to adjust but if you let your iPhone be a tool it will be very beneficial to own.
Quote:
Your idea of productivity isn't necessarily the same as someone else's and I can guarantee you that given an iPad I would be even more productive than on my iPhone because I would have access to Pages and Numbers as well as the one app I use all the time which is Bento. Throw in iBooks so that I can carry around manuals and you've got productivity out the wazoo.
People laugh when i say one of the great things about iPhone is the ability to carry documents and notes around with with you at all times. If your work involves knowledge that is a great asset to have.
I also think that this is why people recoil at the idea of a smaller 5-7 inch iPad. They just have trouble grasping how other people work. More so they can't grasp the idea that size is important especially when you are carrying a lot of other stuff around. Electronics may have gotten smaller but when you add everything up it can be a lot of mass.
Quote:
The problem is that people like you also don't get what a tablet is for and relegating the device to a "leisure device" completely misses the point of the iPad entirely.
It certainly can be a leisure device but it is a sign of poor imagination if one can't see the benefit for other activity.
Quote:
You completely miss ALL the jobs that an iPad will benefit greatly such as field engineers (that's what I am), doctors/nurses, warehouses, taxis, couriers, etc.
The list could go on for ages.
Quote:
If you question the device you don't need the device. If you relegate it to "leisure device" you don't need the device. I can assure you that I for one will be far more productive on an iPad and an iPhone 4 when I get them than I will be with a laptop and an iPhone.
Well I'd say if you question the device you aren't being open minded. Without even trying i see new ways to use iPad almost every day.
As to iPhone 4 i also gaze at it with lust. Mainly because a lot of software kinda sucks on iPhone 3G already. Even at that iPhone 3G has to be more capable than half the computers I've ever owned. In many ways I'm amayzed that i can carry as much computing power as i can in my pocket.
In any event the thing with iPad is that it is effectively at the Mac Plus level of development. The potential for the device is simply huge.
Comments
In all fairness, when the iPhone was debuted in January 2007 to even after it was selling well it was stated that Apple was too late to be entering into the ?well entrenched? smartphone market. While I would say that Mr. Ma?s hyperbole about it not starting yet shouldn?t be taken at face value I do agree that there is opportunity, especially if they plan to use Android as no vendor has used Android before. By that I mean is tweaking and optimizing Android to the HW like RiM, Apple and others have been doing with their own OS. There is no reason for LG and others to do what Apple did with BSD as a foundation for Mac OS X. I don?t think they have to disclose or share any code they?ve changed above the OS, so at the very least I think they have an opportunity to be the leaders of Android-based devices. Will they is another story, but the opportunity certainly seems present.
You'd agree that 3 years is a decade in the wireless industry.
With heavy weights that are proven like Apple and Google, LG should stick to what it does well and not bet the farm on this vision.
Bring it.
Remember when Lucky Goldstar made cheap microwaves and third-rate tape recorders? Aw, now look at Goldstar! They think they're Apple! How cute!
I wonder what the Lucky Goldstar Office suite will be like?
You'd agree that 3 years is a decade in the wireless industry.
With heavy weights that are proven like Apple and Google, LG should stick to what it does well and not bet the farm on this vision.
I?d agree that the last three years have seen sweeping changes to the wireless industry.
I don?t agree that LG doesn?t have a chance to be profitable as a smartphone or tablet vendor or be the most profitable of the vendors using Android or other free or licensed OSe for said device categories.
I think the speed in which this market changes (as you?ve noted) and the swift kick to the arse Apple has put to the entire industry of both smartphones and tablets (as I noted) is proof that a company with the right idea, with deep pockets and engineering know-how can make a hefty profit in this business.
I?m not sure how much Moto is benefiting from Android at this point but it?s clear that the iPhone saved their ass by clearing a path for them to follow from both Google?s redesign of Android and their focus on higher-end devices.
I wouldn?t count anyone just yet, and that includes MS who I think have a real shot at eating away at RiM?s corporate marketshare. Nor would I discount RiM who have shown quarter-after-quarter that they know how to manage a company.
Remember, a decade ago Apple and Google were not heavyweights and 3.5 years years ago neither had any smartphone-related product on the market.
PS: We really don?t have to look at 3 years to see Apple?s success in the smartphone market. Apple reportedly became the most profitable handset vendor in the world in just over 2 years on the market. All phones from all vendors from all countries in 2 years. Innovation is the Jell-o of technology driven markets, there is always room for it no matter how full we think it is.
You are wrong yet again. The procedure is the same except you hit copy. I would select all 5 pictures, hit copy, and paste all 5 pics at once, not one at a time as you claim, into the replied to email. Good luck on your travels. Next time grab your tin foil hat to go along with your Air.
You're being a little too smug.
Let's get two things out of the way: I love my iPad, and Eye Forget is exaggerating a bit.
But let me recount an experience when not having the print option while traveling was a real problem. When the iPhone 4 started to get shipped, I was one of the early ones. But I was traveling with my family, and I had decided to try out a week of travels with just my iPad. There was no way for me to be able to print out, sign, and Fedex the 'pre-sign for delivery' document to a colleague at work who could, on his way home, to stick it on my door. (My assistant was on vacation, and my neighbors were traveling as well. I would have been perfectly happy for them to print out on my behalf and fake my signature.)
It was really quite frustrating. I finally did use the computer in the business center of the hotel and all was fine. But it was a mighty frustrating experience during the first couple of weeks of ownership of my iPad.
I can give you other examples. There is simply no doubt that it would have been a far more powerful and far more functional device if Apple had allowed for something as simple and obvious as USB transfer and/or enabling wireless print and/or enabling disk mode (that remains a big mystery to me with iOS, considering they've had that since the first iPod) and/or having a Dropbox-like solution and/or bring to the 21st century Apple's absolutely primitive and poorly-implemented iDisk and me.com services.
The bottom line is, now I travel with the iPad, the iPhone and my MBP, just to be on the safe side.
Everyone needs to remember that this is version 1 of the iPad. Version 1 of the iPhone had limitations as well. All I can say is, just wait.
I have no doubt that subsequent versions will address many of the issues I raised above.
But it would be nice if we as consumers didn't stop demanding that Apple go beyond the equivalent of reinventing the wheel with every one of its major new-product intros.
Surely, one would expect that after the iPod, the iPod Touch, and the iPhone (not to mention MacBook Air), they've learnt a few obvious things by now?
You're being a little too smug.
Let's get two things out of the way: I love my iPad, and Eye Forget is exaggerating a bit.
But let me recount an experience when not having the print option while traveling was a real problem. When the iPhone 4 started to get shipped, I was one of the early ones. But I was traveling with my family, and I had decided to try out a week of travels with just my iPad. There was no way for me to be able to print out, sign, and Fedex the 'pre-sign for delivery' document to a colleague at work who could, on his way home, to stick it on my door. (My assistant was on vacation, and my neighbors were traveling as well. I would have been perfectly happy for them to print out on my behalf and fake my signature.)
It was really quite frustrating. I finally did use the computer in the business center of the hotel and all was fine. But it was a mighty frustrating experience during the first couple of weeks of ownership of my iPad.
I can give you other examples. There is simply no doubt that it would have been a far more powerful and far more functional device if Apple had allowed for something as simple and obvious as USB transfer and/or enabling wireless print and/or enabling disk mode (that remains a big mystery to me with iOS, considering they've had that since the first iPod) and/or having a Dropbox-like solution and/or bring to the 21st century Apple's absolutely primitive and poorly-implemented iDisk and me.com services.
The bottom line is, now I travel with the iPad, the iPhone and my MBP, just to be on the safe side.
Never mind the fact that you can sign for your device to be dropped at your doorstep electronically via the online store... I agree, the ability to print would be much appreciated.
I've had MobileMe since it was dotmac and absolutely love it - I love adding pics to iPhoto on the go and have them automatically sync to my Mac back at home. I traveled through Mexico for two weeks in May - I would simply take photos of various places, upload them to MobileMe - Then my parents back home would open them up in Places on their computer to see where all I had been. Primitive??? Maybe, but they sure thought it was cool.
Never mind the fact that you can sign for your device to be dropped at your doorstep electronically via the online store...
Tell me more? I must have (genuinely) missed that.
I've had MobileMe since it was dotmac and absolutely love it - I love adding pics to iPhoto on the go and have them automatically sync to my Mac back at home. I traveled through Mexico for two weeks in May - I would simply take photos of various places, upload them to MobileMe - Then my parents back home would open them up in Places on their computer to see where all I had been. Primitive??? Maybe, but they sure thought it was cool.
The original dotmac was far superior in a lot of ways and for its time. (I've had it since the beginning. Sheer inertia, and the fact that it is not terribly expensive, is all that keeps me there.
Upload photos to MobileMe so that others can look at it?! Isn't that a very basic feature that dozens of sites- e.g., Picasa - offer?
One great thing is the iPad's PDF capabilities. Instead of carrying around all those huge, large-format blueprints, they can load it all on their iPad, and see it in an 8x11 size! With all the details!
Not sure how someone can see a print in 8x11 size when the screen is only about half that size. Hopefully apps like this will show up soon.
Or they could zoom in, and see little parts of their prints by scanning and panning across it! If there is any problem, they can simply take a picture of of the jobsite, and superimpose it onto the blueprints to show the difference!
Talk about excessive exclaimation points.
Anyway, superimposing photos to blueprints is anything but easy, even if the photographer took photos from the best feasible angle.
Third, you don't have to copy and paste pictures to add to an email. You simply check them and hit the email button. As you can see, I have 5 pictures selected for this email. Not one at a time like you claim:
I don't blame him though, it's easy to miss that feature. I think I only discovered it a couple months ago.
I can give you other examples. There is simply no doubt that it would have been a far more powerful and far more functional device if Apple had allowed for something as simple and obvious as USB transfer and/or enabling wireless print and/or enabling disk mode (that remains a big mystery to me with iOS, considering they've had that since the first iPod) and/or having a Dropbox-like solution and/or bring to the 21st century Apple's absolutely primitive and poorly-implemented iDisk and me.com services.
I hope they do make printing work. Very few printers I run across are wireless though. Even on a desktop OS, setting up a printer can be pretty irritating. Making it simple enough for iPad might not be an easy task.
I know Americans are not that good at geography but, Norway, not Denmark. Close.
So what does this have to do with poor geography skills? Seems it would be more along the line of reading comprehension/remembering what country was mentioned in an article.
At least not with what I'm seeing in the Adroid world right now. LG would have to fork it and then find a creative soul with a vision to manage the port. Easier said than done.
Honestly, things will have to change in the Android world for it to see any long term success. However Android isn't the only alternative, there are enough Linux based ideas out there that something different could easily end up on the tablet.
In any event who really cares if any COMING device blows iPad away? Lets face it iPad is very much a rev one device in Apples finest tradition and will likely have been on the market for a year before serious competition arrives. By that time Apple will have blown away iPad themselves. By that I mean a SMP based Cortex A9 based machine with lots of RAM. That processor will likely be a SoC highly optimized for use in tablets not cell phones. So yeah the can blow away the current iPad, but so will Apple. There is more to the game than that.
Dave
This is prescient! The "lots of RAM" thing!
I have been doing some experimenting-- with our AT&T bill-- We have a family plan with an iP4, 3GS, and 3 kiddie phones (ages 10, 11, 14). We have unlimited texting-- the 14-year-old is a girl and the 11-year-old has a girlfriend... 'Nuff said!
I wanted to analyze the texting activity to see tf they need to cut back as school starts Monday. Last month there were over 6,000 texts.
On the Mac:
-- Displayed the entire bill in Safari
-- Selected and Copied the 14-year-old's 2,400 texts
-- Pasted to Numbers & did various analyses
On the iPad:
-- tried to open the entire bill in Safari
Safari crashed (repeatedly)-- I assume that:
1) There was not enough RAM to contain the entire file
2) There is no swap file on the SDD to page out/in portions of large files or apps
In other words, there is no "true virtual memory" on the iPad (or any SSD only device).
Wondering why, I searched around and found that SSD is not very good for swap files (in HDD words):
1) say a page size is 4K Bytes
2) say a sector size is 128K Bytes
If you want to swap out 1 page on a HDD it takes a single write.
On a SSD, you can only write if the target block is empty
Otherwise, you must:
1) read and cache the entire sector
2) erase the sector
3) rewrite the cached blocks and the new block.
This is an over-simplification as there are some techniques to [somewhat] mitigate the problem.
But, suffice it to say-- it is not practical to have a large app/file that cannot be entirely contained in RAM on a SSD.
The easy answer is to give the iPad lots of [volatile] RAM-- enough to support the typical app/file size.
A more difficult solution (but probably better, long term) is to replace the SSD storage with something that can be realistically used for swapping app and file pages.
That answer appears to be MRAM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto..._access_memory
From what I read, it will take several billions of dollars to set up a production line to manufacture MRAM to perform (size, speed, power) as well, or better, than current RAM.
It is worth noting that MRAM is seen as a non-volitle replacement for all current RAM as well as SSD.
Mmmm.... who has several billions of dollars to invest to make MRAM a reality?
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Wow, this thread seems to be an overblown semantic argument, or at least an argument over poorly defined terms.
I’d say Apple has designed the iPad’s first iteration to be a satellite computing device. Not designed to be your only or main computing device (even though it’s possible to use it that way once you’ve activated it via iTunes, which can be done in an Apple Store).
I’d also say that Apple expects the current iPad to be mostly a consumption device for the majority of users, even though it can easily be used to create as there are apps and specialized uses that focus on creation over consumption. Pedantically speaking it does have a virtual keyboard and can connect to physical keyboard which in itself is used for “creation”.
I don’t think any reasonable poster who has stated that it’s a consumption device is actually denying that it can be used for (or even primarily used by some) for creation. I think they are saying that the main focus from Apple and the most likely use is consumption. I watched a show on HGTV that used a sponge to create textured walls, but I doubt anyone would argue that is its main use.
Can we not agree that it’s designed to complement your main PC and be optimized for tasks that would tend to benefit a highly mobile , handheld device with a large* screen screen?
* large screen for a mobile, handheld device.
Ahh... The old Consumptionism vs Creationism argument!
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That said, I don't think it's realistic to expect the iPad to perform on a par with a decent laptop but the idea of it being designed so that one would be comfortable with using it for basic handling of media while on the road has a lot of merit.
I think the target, though, would be typical vacationers, someone abroad for a few weeks, shooting HD video (most of us do now), wanting to show off pics to family and friends while on the go, etc.
Future versions will address concerns and the hardware will no doubt just keep on getting more powerful. These are early days. For now, though, if I was taking a trip, the iPad would not be the device I'd choose if I could only bring one.
Yes! But, don't you think that the Steve Jobs's, Tim Cook's, Phil Schiller's, etc. shoot HD video on their vacations and have similar needs and frustrations with the iPad?
That, might just provide some motivation!
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Great post in general.
Of course, one of the huge problems that Apple, Dell, MS, etc. face is that a lot of their components are sourced from their competitors. A lot of their manufacturing are done by their competitors. And all this is done in China, which has very little legal IP protection, and if anything, encourages the theft of IP in practice.
I am no American protectionist (in fact, I am not even American) but the Apples and Dells of the world really need to bring their manufacturing back to the US. Their long term interests are really at threat because they've almost reached a situation (although Apple, it seems, has avoided it so far) where their contractors know more about their products than they do themselves.
Along the same vein, one of the things the Android fanbois don't realize that Android is nothing but a Google sponsored transfer of IP from the US to China. Android is essentially giving the Samsungs and LGs a way to compete for free. And all of it is subsidized by advertising. The whole ad sponsored IP giveaway bubble that we are seeing is going to cause much larger problems down the road.
The only way the US can compete in high-tech manufacturing is if the governments and regulatory bodies will recognize the need (as you have summarized, so well). High-tech manufacturing is, largely, Green!
If we can give Daimler Benz, Toyota and other foreign companies: Tax; Regulation; Union; incentives to manufacture in the US-- Why can't we make it profitable for Applied Materials help setup a MRAM production facility in California? Why can't Apple profitably manufacture Macs, etc in Fremont... they used to?
Sorry! I am being stupid! California is at full-employment (except for furloughed State employees and the hundreds of thousands on welfare).
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My Auntie Millie answers my emails using her iPad. THAT IS CONTENT CREATION.
Anybody who says that the iPad is not the best way to create content needs to send an email to my Auntie Millie, and she will prove them wrong.
I did! Aunt Millie says it's time you were in bed!
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Those of us cursed with long memories will recall the original Macintosh was dismissed in the same offhanded manner.
The iPad is well on its way to redefining how work "gets done".
+++ QFT
Great, succinct, post!
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*sigh*
When will people get it. Tablets aren't designed for productivity. They are designed for leisurely use. Anybody who is serious about getting work done will pick up a laptop. Not a netbook, or a smartphone, or a tablet--a full featured and powerful laptop.
I completely disagree. I am more productive on my iPhone than I am on my desktop because I am more mobile with a phone than I am with a laptop.
Your idea of productivity isn't necessarily the same as someone else's and I can guarantee you that given an iPad I would be even more productive than on my iPhone because I would have access to Pages and Numbers as well as the one app I use all the time which is Bento. Throw in iBooks so that I can carry around manuals and you've got productivity out the wazoo.
The problem is that people like you also don't get what a tablet is for and relegating the device to a "leisure device" completely misses the point of the iPad entirely.
You completely miss ALL the jobs that an iPad will benefit greatly such as field engineers (that's what I am), doctors/nurses, warehouses, taxis, couriers, etc.
If you question the device you don't need the device. If you relegate it to "leisure device" you don't need the device. I can assure you that I for one will be far more productive on an iPad and an iPhone 4 when I get them than I will be with a laptop and an iPhone.
This is prescient! The "lots of RAM" thing!
iPhone 4 shows the way. The next Rev of iPad should follow, with an explosion in software afterward.
I have been doing some experimenting-- with our AT&T bill-- We have a family plan with an iP4, 3GS, and 3 kiddie phones (ages 10, 11, 14). We have unlimited texting-- the 14-year-old is a girl and the 11-year-old has a girlfriend... 'Nuff said!
I wanted to analyze the texting activity to see tf they need to cut back as school starts Monday. Last month there were over 6,000 texts.
On the Mac:
-- Displayed the entire bill in Safari
-- Selected and Copied the 14-year-old's 2,400 texts
-- Pasted to Numbers & did various analyses
On the iPad:
-- tried to open the entire bill in Safari
Safari crashed (repeatedly)-- I assume that:
1) There was not enough RAM to contain the entire file
2) There is no swap file on the SDD to page out/in portions of large files or apps
In other words, there is no "true virtual memory" on the iPad (or any SSD only device).
This isn't totally true, you can run backing store on a SSD, but as you pointed out there are issues.
True SSDs are getting incredibly small. Search for info on SanDisk iSSD, an SSD the size of a postage stamp. Performance is respectable too.
Also with the iDevices I'm not sure if SSD technology has even been implemented. Here I'm talking about wear leveling in the like. It would be nice if somebody from Apple could chime in on this subject. The kack of wear leveling would make the addition of virtual memory for data impossible.
Wondering why, I searched around and found that SSD is not very good for swap files (in HDD words):
1) say a page size is 4K Bytes
2) say a sector size is 128K Bytes
If you want to swap out 1 page on a HDD it takes a single write.
On a SSD, you can only write if the target block is empty
True but it doesn't mean the use of SSD for backing store is impossible, just that there is significant overhead.
Otherwise, you must:
1) read and cache the entire sector
2) erase the sector
3) rewrite the cached blocks and the new block.
This is an over-simplification as there are some techniques to [somewhat] mitigate the problem.
But, suffice it to say-- it is not practical to have a large app/file that cannot be entirely contained in RAM on a SSD.
I don't believe that is true. A true SSD can act as backing store, but i don't believe the iDevice implement the technologies built into SSDs. Besides what you loose at one end you make up for with faster access and reads.
The thing here is that you can very literially wear out an SSD by making heavy use of a backing store on an SSD. In otherwords there are a number of factors at play here, that may have caused Apple to skip the use of swap files.
Whatever the fact remains iPad needs more RAM.
The easy answer is to give the iPad lots of [volatile] RAM-- enough to support the typical app/file size.
Yes exactly!!! Even a short jump to 512 MB would give apps a lot more room.
A more difficult solution (but probably better, long term) is to replace the SSD storage with something that can be realistically used for swapping app and file pages.
This isn't impossible with flash memory. In a couple of years though the tech will be there to replace flash totally.
That answer appears to be MRAM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto..._access_memory
That is one possibility but my money is on one of the phase change techniques. Either that or IBMs magnetic approach with micro wires (forgot what they called it).
The good thing is everyone of these is a better solution than flash.
From what I read, it will take several billions of dollars to set up a production line to manufacture MRAM to perform (size, speed, power) as well, or better, than current RAM.
It is worth noting that MRAM is seen as a non-volitle replacement for all current RAM as well as SSD.
Mmmm.... who has several billions of dollars to invest to make MRAM a reality?
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No one it would seem. The big money is going elsewhere.
Dave
This isn't impossible with flash memory. In a couple of years though the tech will be there to replace flash totally.
That is one possibility but my money is on one of the phase change techniques. Either that or IBMs magnetic approach with micro wires (forgot what they called it).
The good thing is everyone of these is a better solution than flash.
Looking around, I've only found phase change as being anywhere close, being available in sampling quantities from two companies. Assuming it's reliable and fast enough, then it's a matter of scaling. It takes a lot to replace flash production. I don't expect two companies to displace flash in just a few years, even being as well-backed as they are.
All the other supposed alternatives don't appear to be anywhere near production.
I completely disagree. I am more productive on my iPhone than I am on my desktop because I am more mobile with a phone than I am with a laptop.
I won't go that far but i will say an iPhone serves me better than many (any?) portable device that I've used. Being always on and always in my pocket makes for great utility. Admittedly it takes awhile to adjust but if you let your iPhone be a tool it will be very beneficial to own.
Your idea of productivity isn't necessarily the same as someone else's and I can guarantee you that given an iPad I would be even more productive than on my iPhone because I would have access to Pages and Numbers as well as the one app I use all the time which is Bento. Throw in iBooks so that I can carry around manuals and you've got productivity out the wazoo.
People laugh when i say one of the great things about iPhone is the ability to carry documents and notes around with with you at all times. If your work involves knowledge that is a great asset to have.
I also think that this is why people recoil at the idea of a smaller 5-7 inch iPad. They just have trouble grasping how other people work. More so they can't grasp the idea that size is important especially when you are carrying a lot of other stuff around. Electronics may have gotten smaller but when you add everything up it can be a lot of mass.
The problem is that people like you also don't get what a tablet is for and relegating the device to a "leisure device" completely misses the point of the iPad entirely.
It certainly can be a leisure device but it is a sign of poor imagination if one can't see the benefit for other activity.
You completely miss ALL the jobs that an iPad will benefit greatly such as field engineers (that's what I am), doctors/nurses, warehouses, taxis, couriers, etc.
The list could go on for ages.
If you question the device you don't need the device. If you relegate it to "leisure device" you don't need the device. I can assure you that I for one will be far more productive on an iPad and an iPhone 4 when I get them than I will be with a laptop and an iPhone.
Well I'd say if you question the device you aren't being open minded. Without even trying i see new ways to use iPad almost every day.
As to iPhone 4 i also gaze at it with lust. Mainly because a lot of software kinda sucks on iPhone 3G already. Even at that iPhone 3G has to be more capable than half the computers I've ever owned. In many ways I'm amayzed that i can carry as much computing power as i can in my pocket.
In any event the thing with iPad is that it is effectively at the Mac Plus level of development. The potential for the device is simply huge.
Dave